Day 074: Watch Out For Snakes
Summary: Skaigirls swimming in the lake and warnings about riversnakes.
Date: Day Month Year
Related: None directly
Kai Khesu Madelyn Max Tink Name2 


Western Shore, Lake Arkadia — The Wilderness
Surrounded by breathtaking mountains and rolling foothills, the Lake Arkadia — or known as Lake Audo to the Trikru — is a sprawling, crystalline body of water that joins the Potomac watershed. It is encompassed in low grasses and young alder trees. The forests start to thicken to the west, where the rocky peaks of this small mountain range poke up out of the groves of hemlock and cedar. Following along a newly flattened path is the road to Camp Jaha. The Skaikru city is what remains of the crashed Alpha station. The enormous ring stands vertical some many hundred feet in the air, and it has already begun to be salvaged for materials.
Day 74

<FS3> Tink rolls Survival: Success. (6 3 3 8)

It's a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, the water looks cool and a little breeze is going in the wind. Tink arrives with Madelyn and immediately starts stripping down to her bra and underwear. They're plain and white but Tink doesn't care. She doesn't have a bathing suit so this will have to do. Then she heads on over to the lake and jumps in with a nice cannonball splash!

Max comes walking around the shoreline from somewhere further on down along its length. He has his hands shoved in his pockets and, in typical Max-like fashion, is lost in his own thoughts, not paying particular attention to what's going on around him even though he is aware of it peripherally. He's humming something tuneless under his breath. He's dressed in his usual black boots, jeans, and that nondescript long-sleeved grey shirt that they gave him in the mountain. And then.. there's a cannonball.. and a large splash, and he raises his eyes just in time to see Tink go under.

Being of the small-chested persuasion, Madelyn does not own any bras. She strips to her underwear and wades into the water more carefully than Tink. She's never actually /been/ swimming before, so this is a whole new experience for her, and she is going to go slowly, wading in a step at a time.

Tink breaks the surface and is doggy paddling in the water like it's the most natural thing in the world, "You know what? I didn't even think about whether or not I knew how to swim, but it didn't seem that hard in theory and look!" Yeah, Tink is an engineering and has the general idea on how to swim. And she's not graceful at all but she's also not drowning.

There's been wagons and horses and of course the rovers ferrying stuff from Mount Weather sporadically, and it's on one of these wagons headed for the New Coesbur site that Kai arrives. And likely, she would have skipped going near Camp Jaha entirely bar for the fact that the wagon driver makes some comment about bathing Skai that draws her attention. There's a clasp of the guys shoulder before she elects to drop off the clattering wooden death trap and in her armor and usual Grounder accoutrements she elects to saunter unhurriedly closer.

Max continues to wander along the edge of the water until he comes to a rock at the edge and climbs up onto it, settling himself there cross-legged, perched over the edge with the water below. He seems content, for the moment, to watch the others swim. Noticing someone else approaching, he glances over in Kai's direction and lifts a hand to wave to her in greeting.

Madelyn is focused so entirely on her brand-new aquatic experience that she doesn't seem to notice Max and Kai behind her. She goes wide-eyed at Tink. "How do you do that? I'm… I'm afraid to go past my waist!"

Tink gives a smile to Madelyn, "It's instinct. Your body knows what to do." She starts to get a little better as she finds a rhythm with kicking her feet in the water, "Also I read a book on it." Books help too. She gives a shout out to Kai, "Kai! Come in the water, it's great!" She also gives a smile over to Max, "Hey Max…"

Kai upnods Max's direction as she approaches the water, hearing the girls but not really spotting them until she's close enough to clamber up onto the rock herself with a lopsided smirk,"I've swum in this lake more than a few times already. So far no-one's found any of the large river snakes in it, but get too close the reeds and you might find some of the small ones are bitey." she comments, even as she peels off the bandolier with her machete in it to set on the rock and starts unbuckling her armor.

"Heya Tink," Max says to her in greeting, giving her a nod of his head and then he chuckles a little at Madelyn and says, "Just take it slow and steady. Try to practice floating a little bit first, then a little paddling." He gives this helpful advice from his position perched up on the rock. Smirking over at Kai he says, "Not nearly as bitey as the big one though."

Kai? Max? Madelyn crosses her arms over her breasts and dunks herself down so her shoulders are at the waterline. She turns awkwardly. "Uh… hi."

"Oh I haven't done floating yet," Tink tells Max and then lays back in the water, trying to float and getting water up her nose a few times before she figures it out. She sputters a little but then continues chatting to those on the land, "And that's why I jumped rather than wade through the weeds." She had heard somewhere there might be snakes. But so far it's been good so Tink isn't worried.

Khesu comes on down to the lake from the direction of New Coesbur. At the edge of the water he stops and almost slips off his bow and quiver to do something … but sounds of people and movement draw his one good eye to looking in the direction of those who are bathing or swimming. The bronze skinned Trikru warrior with the black beard and hair turns and starts walking along the lake's edge to see who it may be. He no longer wears a bandage around his head but the bullet wound that struck him at an angle above his left eye is still puffy with some new pink flesh.

"Oh nah, if you're unlucky you might lose a toe.. or a finger. I heard one of the Seconds got super unlucky and one of them bit a chunk from his ass." Kai cheerfully explains to Max, and while once there was a time that she was 'that girl' like Madelyn, evidently living with the Trikru has made her way less embarrassed about hooking a foot on the back of one of her boots to pry it off, chased by her armor, and then the old ratty shirt with the rifle grease still on it. Bra? No bra. Though movement further up the bank distracts her from stripping down further for a few seconds as she raises a hand to call out,"Hei, Khesu!" in acknowledgment of the bearded Trikru.

Max doesn't seem to think anything of anyone's varied state of undress. After all, he was the one who dove into the swimming hole stark naked after they killed the snake. But for the moment he remains sitting on the rock, smirking just a little and shaking his head at Kai. "I haven't seen any around this side of the shore, anyway. So you should be fine." He glances in the direction Kai is looking and lifts a hand in greeting to the unfamiliar face.

<FS3> Madelyn rolls Survival: Good Success. (7 4 1 8 4)

Madelyn tries swimming and floating around a bit, pushing off of the bottom of the lake and going deeper. "Huh. It… yeah," she says with a grin, feeling a little less self-conscious. Oh, yeah, and then random Treeple start walking over. Crap. Her eyes go wide and she watches Khesu as he approaches.

Tink is friendly to all and gives a big pixie smile to Khesu as he walks up, "Hey there…" Then looks at Kai who's stripping down to join them, "The water is amazing, just what I needed to improve my mood." She goes back to dog paddling, getting a feel of moving around in the water, "What have you been up to Kai?"

Treeple, Skaiple, it's all the same to Kai as she wriggles out of her pants,"Well, there shouldn't be now." she notes,"The delegation was camped on this side of the lake for a couple of weeks, we killed a fair few of them. Max, Madelyn, Tink.. Khesu kom Trikru, Khesu, everyone." she offers by way of introduction before electing to leap over the weeds herself into the water,"Well, after the party, I went to Polis, and then helped with some of the acquisitions, spoke to that.. Doctor Sarah person for a bit.. and just came back."

"<In Trigedasleng> Hei, Kai." Khesu's keep baritone rumbles. He stops at the edge of the water and looks them over carefully with his one good right eye. Mostly people he doesn't know. He stands there with no shirt on, as is typical of him with his kill marks tattooed over the backs of his shoulders, a smattering of recently healed scars over his chest and arms. The ruin of his left eye and brow isn't nearly as nasty looking now. A bow, quiver, and axe are slung over his back by a diagonal bandolier strap. Leather leggings and soft forest boots complete his attire. He thins his mouth and changes to English, "Watch for riversnakes. Best you don't go deep." Though yanno, they like warm slow water like the shallows best, the bigger, dangerous ones like deep.

When Kai mentions Dr. Sarah, there's a mixture of emotions that flicker over Max's features and he goes silent for a few long moments. "I should return her books. I promised that I would." He had, in fact, and he had been keeping them safe with his things. That bit of news seems to distract him from what's going on around him for a little bit, lost in his own thoughts.

"Hey you talked with Dr. K? How's she doing?" Tink asks as overhears Kai talking about Sarah, "I was at the mountain but they kept me so busy on doing stuff, I didn't get a chance to pop in and see how things are going for her."

Madelyn paddles over to Tink, her narrow shoulders just above the water line. "What's going on?" she asks, then turns to the folks on the shore. "You gonna join us or what?"

"She's healthy?" Kai opts for, pushing a hand over her head with an indifferent kind of shrug. Giving a smirk for Khesu's words.

Max looks over at Madelyn and says, "Yeah.. sure." Finally he decides to go ahead and brave the water and the potential for snakes. He slides down off the rock and strips, piling his clothes far enough from the edge so as not to get soaked. He shucks off everything and then wades right into the water up to his shoulders, then ducks beneath, resurfacing a couple of feet further out.

"Are the river snakes poisonous? Or do they just look scary and bite hard?" Tink asks as she swims around in the lake, not concerned yet about getting eaten by a lake snake but there's time. Perhaps she will get weary soon. She lets out a woot when Max strips down and joins them.

Well, his warning about watching out for 'riversnakes' given, Khesu has no particular interest in staying and loitering or bathing. He has work to finish. He does remove his water skin but turns and heads back along the lake shore to get away from the water they are making murky by stirring up the lake sediments. Closer back along the way he came he stops and squats down to fill his water. Once that's done, he caps it and uses his hands to wash his face and around his neck and shoulders to cool off, mindful not to get any in his recently closed head wound.

When he's finished, Khesu stands back up, watches the others for a moment more, then heads back to New Coesbur to return to felling trees and splitting planks.

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