It wasn't as dark outside as Sedona had expected it would be. The moonlit night up high above painted the simple and small village with a white light that revealed much to her new eyes. Having already had good night vision as a human being, it might as well have been early morning to her now. The real downside to wolf eyes was that, while they weren't color blind like dogs, they did loose some of the saturation to colors… though she swore that she could now perceive just a bit into the range of heat now which was a very different experience all together. Apparently it was only now noticeable when it was dark.
It had taken her a few moments to make her way down to the short dock that reached from the path and out a ways into the water of the lake to the south west. There was a young boy, maybe fourteen, sitting on the end trying to fix the line of his fishing pole. He looked to be a cheetah, wearing an orange swimsuit, his tail flicking in agitation as he accidentally wrapped part of the fishing wire tight around his index finger.
The wolf part of Sedona's mind took note of the young predator and kept her movement as silent as she could so as to keep the element of surprise. Why? Why not? she wondered, thinking she needed practice anyway of she ever intended to go off into the woods to actually hunt her a meal. Still, she couldn't help but think the young boy was distracted a great deal as she and lowered herself to the point where her swimsuit was almost brushing along the dock. Her paws out forward and out back, her tail down… she had gotten within five feet of him when she sat up and absently scratched an itch on her face with her hind leg. "Troubles?" she asked and he jumped.
He looked back and at her, his fur a little frizzled. Sedona's black lips curled back into a grin as that looked on the cheetah was just as entertaining on a humanoid cat as it was on a real one. His eyes drifted down her form as she say there on her hind legs, her hands on the ground. Suddenly he realized why her abdomen was as pushed out as it was against her swimsuit, and his eyes jerked back up to meet hers once more. "Yes, mam," he said to her, glancing around to see if maybe she'd brought other wolves with her. "I've tied it all up in a knot," he said.
Sedona gave a brief sigh as her mind drifted back a couple of minutes to another knot which had been tied. Yeah… that whole image is going to be with me for a while, she determined, looking away from it and back at the boy. "I can help," she said. "You come on vacation to fish here? Wouldn't you be happier searching for small vermin or something?" she asked, her right hand out towards him and his fishing pole.
He stuck his tongue out, "Ew. No. This whole thing was ma parent's idear," he said as he handed the pole over to her. "They were all like they wanted fer away from their minnesota parents and like 'lets go somewhere its warm in da winter' and mom was all 'you know, at that Tee-Eff park ya'lls got fur and twould never get yerself cold'" he continued to explain for a few moments while Sedona fiddled with the fishing pole and its wire. What she was able to gather from the boy was that it was a classic case of parents dragging their kid off to a place he'd rather have not gone.
"It's a loss, kiddo," she said simply, holding the pole tight and reaching forward with her teeth to snip the line off just passed the knot, then slowly retying it in such a way that it would still feed properly through the metal rings on the pole. "Let's see if this works," Sedona smiled as she stood up and stepped on over to the edge of the dock and made a test cast out into the lake, noting how the bobber stayed on the surface mostly evenly as she began to wind it back in.
"I was gunna toss it away. It was in the community lot'n ain't mine," he said to her. "Just so hungry. Dad said if I wanted something I should catch it myself… that they aren't made of food," the boy said as Sedona handed the pole back to them. "An I said 'yer both fleshy with meat on yer bones… yer both food' and left'm in the cabin."
She laughed a little at the idea of a little predator arguing with his parents whether they were or were not food. After a moment, she thought about what he said and thought it better to ask now than later: "From the cabins? That's easily six miles north of here," she said to him. "Your parents don't know where you went?" she asked.
"That's real short a'spell for me now," he grinned a kitty grin at her. "If they be worrin' about me, they can just call for a the one that let us in the Park," he said as he turned his head to watch his bobber out in the water, having already let it cast while she was talking. "Right now, they can rot. I'm gunna get me a fish… maybe two. Maybe I'll take it to the restaurant and trade it for a little stake," he said. "Looks like they give ya Credits for food they can store for others," he nodded to himself.
She watched him cast time and again, but he didn't get himself any bites. Perhaps it was the wrong time of night, but she found the quest more interesting than anything else she might be doing at that moment. Her and her dad use to go out into the lake on summer nights and sit in mostly darkness to try and catch some of the fish that liked the cold better. Fond memories of a childhood filled with mostly good memories helped to clear her head.
Still, with only a nibble here and there, the young man really seemed to be getting discouraged after about two hours. Granted, he sat there and casted for far longer than she would have thought he would, but it was a little depressing. Having sat down with her feet in the water some time ago, she leaned over to him and asked, "Mind if I show you a trick, Spots?"
He looked at her, that worn look to his eyes from having been at it for so long. He nodded to her, and she stood up. Standing just behind him, Sedona put her hands over his and moved his arms back and forth a bit with the pole in his hands. She kicked his feet a bit into the position she knew from when she was young and said softly, "If you get yourself a good little spinning motion, then when you let go the line'll go farther out," she said, showing him how to tilt his wrists so that the end of the line was going in a circular motion. "Wont let you curve bullets around corners, but it works for fishing," she smiled, flicking his arms forward and pressing the trigger to release the line.
He watched the bobber sore out almost twice as far as it had been going before then and smiled to her. "Didn't think girls fished much. Thank ya," he said to her with a polite nod, going about very slowly reeling in his line.
"My dad taught me when he thought I might be the only child," he said to Spots. "You've got the toying with the fish part of the reeling in the bobber… I just don't think there's much fish up near the shore. Maybe there've been some bears about whittling them down," Sedona offered.
"Oh, yeah. We saw them down here while back when we went up ta tha cabins," he said. "In the stream too," he said thinking about it. Just then, his bobber flicked stronger than it had up to that point. He pulled just a little bit, and it pulled back. "Amazin'," he said to himself as he reeled, then pulled… being careful not to get the line to taut. Without too much effort he had taking up a strong stance on the dock and brought him up a deep.
"Oh, that's a be-ute Spots," she said as she helped him get it up onto the dock. "Easily eight pounds… think its a trout, but it's been a while," she said, holding it up, and carefully taking the hook out of it's mouth as she held it with her strong hands. Clenching it tightly, she held it out to him. "No starving for you," she smiled.
"Oh, thank you miss… that be a lot more'n I thought I'd get," he said. "I'm so hungry," he smiled and flicked his short cat-muzzle forward towards the fish, bitting down into it hard like any big cat might. She let go as he squinted another thank you to her and turned to hurry back up the dock heading towards the town.
"Hey!" Sedona called out to the kid as he left. He looked back to see her holding the fishing pole up over he head. "Forget this?" she asked, smiling up at him.
"Ee'p it," he said to her back through the fish, trying to resist ripping it open right there and eating it. "For ehh ish," he grinned as he turned and put his front hands down to the dirt, making amazing speed in the direction of the cabins far from there.
Sedona stood on her toes as always, looking at the pole in her hands. "Well… Suppose I'm hungry too," she smirked, turning around and walking to the edge of the dock. Sitting down and putting her feet off into the water, her stomach seemed to make a soft growl in reply. "Quite you… you'll scare them off," she said as she began to make the circular motion with the pole like she'd shown the boy. "Maybe I can catch something small enough to catch something big," she grinned as she let her cast fly.