SEALS
Chapter 7: As Quick as Scales
Fins lit by the sun on the water flicked out of her hands. Taking the small metal hook from the fish's mouth had been a chore, and she'd expressed sorrow over making it bleed, even though it was a small wound it was likely to recover from.
"Grow large, little fish," she chimed as it disappeared into the depths of the lake. Although it would probably keep to the shallows near the shoreline, ducking beneath a rock, it still would reach places the human who'd caught it would never go.
"We've been out here all morning," Wander complained, "And I've yet to even see an eel for grilling or a nice big catfish suitable for the frying-oil. Perhaps we should change our strategy if we want something that would make a substantial meal."
"Don't you dare go for a swim!" Mono demanded. "You'll soak your clothes and it's far too cool out. You'll chill yourself. And you might get your hand bit off this time!"
"How many times have I hand-fished and came out fine?" Wander replied.
Mono looked out at the line she had out in the water. She and Wander were using simple poles, lines and a variety of hooks – metal, carved bone – and various baits. The young woman's love of animals didn't extend entirely to fish. She was kind to the small catches she'd set loose, but she didn't mind being around while Wander dispatched fish of edible-size, though she did tend to look away. No matter how nicely one went about it, it seemed that fish never died easily. Nerves twitched independently, like the writhing body of a headless snake.
"I wanted to catch something big," she said.
"Well, I caught something big," Wander whispered as he held onto the inexplicable fur of the leviathan arching and snaking in and out of the waters of the forgotten lake.
Twitching and in pain from the doses of electricity he had taken from the eel-Colossus' fins, he plunged his crude holy knife down into the creature's skull and felt it part like slick fish-bone.
The memory of a little fish in a girl's gentle hands flicked away as quick as scales.
