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This is an on-going series of loose stories.", "count": "24", "submission_left_submission_id": "427472", "submission_left_file_name": "551423_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_the_survivor__part_3.doc", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/551/551423_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_the_survivor__part_3.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/551/551423_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_the_survivor__part_3.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/551/551423_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_the_survivor__part_3.jpg", "submission_left_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_huge_y": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_y": "200", "submission_left_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "120", "submission_right_submission_id": "427506", "submission_right_file_name": "551458_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_viola_town.doc", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/551/551458_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_viola_town.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/551/551458_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_viola_town.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/551/551458_Fritti_exploring_nezinoma_salis_-_viola_town.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "120" } ], "description": "Here's another one I wrote for that writing exercise, where this time the word was \"silver\". This story became quite long, and it actually became a bit longer than I had intended because near the end I suddenly got an additional idea to do something extra nice for poor Lucinia >~_^<\n\nI also marked it Mature again, just to be on the safe side, and mostly because of Skyfire's remark about her nipples :P\n\n© to me are:\n\nSkyfire\nSunfire\nFleetfire\nLucinia\nall other Mry", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Here's another one I wrote for that writing exercise, where this time the word was "silver". This story became quite long, and it actually became a bit longer than I had intended because near the end I suddenly got an additional idea to do something extra nice for poor Lucinia >~_^<

I also marked it Mature again, just to be on the safe side, and mostly because of Skyfire's remark about her nipples :P

© to me are:

Skyfire
Sunfire
Fleetfire
Lucinia
all other Mry", "writing": "The morning sun had climbed into the sky to illuminate a warm, pleasant day. The gentle rays mixed with a soft breeze that rustled through the foliage of the trees, carrying the chirping and singing of Jorbles, interspersed with the languid cooing of a couple of Rukus. In the warm light, Skyfire and Sunfire were laying in the soft grass of their garden, content after a good breakfast. Sunfire was softly singing to herself while she tended to a vegetable patch, pulling weeds and checking on the growth of several different vegetables and herbs that grew prosperously in the rich Nezinoma Salis soil. Skyfire was sowing a short dress of purple satin for Lucinia, as the young Kattin had no clothes to wear. Not that that was a problem now that spring was well underway, but for the colder days, and for when they would mingle with others, Lucinia would need some clothing that would cover not just her torso, but her lower half as well.\n\nEvery now and then, both adult Mry looked up with a smile. Lucinia and Fleetfire were playing together, inventing entire adventures for their velvet toy lionesses that had them in peals of giggles time and again. Lucinia's voice was improving by the day, and even her speech got better the more she talked and listened to the others, picking up on their language more and more. She still pronounced their names as two separate words, and her grammar was still broken, but there was definite progress. The kitten was gaining weight, too; thanks to the potion from doctor Healsong, Skyfire's lactation had set in, and the rich milk coupled with the hearty cooking of the Mry were having a visible positive effect on the small and somewhat scrawny Kattin.\n\nAt a pause in their game, Skyfire called Lucinia over to her to fit the dress. It was a bit wide around the shoulders, chest and waist; Skyfire had made it for the kitten to grow into, but with one of Fleetfire's leather belts it was still a good fit. It billowed smoothly around her body, flattering her lanky form, reaching down to just above her knees and with a narrow split in the back to accommodate her sleek, thin tail. Lucinia was very happy.\n \"Is very beautiful! I not have dress this pretty before!\" the kitten purred, giving Skyfire a big hug. \"I thank you, Sky Fire!\"\n \"You're very welcome, sweetie,\" Skyfire smiled, sliding the dress off Lucinia's body again. \"Now, let me just hem it, and it'll be all done, okay? Then at least you'll have something nice to wear while I work on some more clothes for you.\"\n\nLucinia nodded happily, sitting down in the grass near Skyfire to look at the storm-grey Mry put the finishing touches to the dress. Skyfire smiled at her again while she hemmed the dress with neat little stitches, in the process applying a nice embroidered pattern along the hem with the white thread. Fleetfire also lay down near the two of them, playfully tickling Lucinia's side.\n \"You've been real lucky that ship you were on crashed and you were found by my sisters, aren't you, Lucie?\"\n \"Yes!\" Lucinia nodded. \"I real happy I here now! You all so sweet for me!\"\n \"Don't mention it, sweetie,\" Skyfire smiled. She looked up from her stitching for a moment. \"That reminds me, though, I've been wondering; do you know why that ship that took you came around the west side of this land? It's very dangerous there, and I thought that was general knowledge. Why would they have taken the risk to sail around the west side?\"\n \"I know,\" Lucinia said. \"I hear men on boat talk. They talk of little boat they want take before. Boat has silver, in blocks.\" She held her paws about ten inches apart to indicate what she meant. \"They chase boat, want steal silver. Worth much. But boat break and sink. Men say, at... shark tooth? I not understand. But they come around west way again, want look for sunken boat to take silver, but then storm, and boat break too.\"\n \"I heard that story,\" Sunfire said, looking up from the vegetable patch. \"Breezecatcher said she had seen a small ship being chased by a larger ship some time ago, until it crashed onto the Shark's Tooth reef. They had to give up lest they would crash themselves.\"\n \"I think I heard something about that too,\" Skyfire nodded.\n \"Yeah, miss Windsong told us about it, in a lesson about why the ocean at the west side is so dangerous, with all the reefs and rocks and stuff,\" Fleetfire said, making a face. \"She said the crew of that small ship got onto a lifeboat when they crashed, but those pirates picked them up and killed them all anyway! Mean buggers!\"\n \"Pirates aren't exactly known to be very compassionate, Fleety,\" Skyfire said with a very soft chuckle. Done with hemming the dress, she bit off the tread and slid the dress back over Lucinia's body, adjusting it a bit here and there while humming thoughtfully. \"Mmm...\"\n \"Uh oh,\" Sunfire chuckled, shaking her head. \"I know that look on your face, sis. Don't tell me you're thinking of undertaking another adventure again? You're not considering going out to the Shark's Tooth reef to see if we can find that sunken ship, are you?\"\n \"Actually, that was indeed what I was thinking about,\" Skyfire giggled.\n \"You are [i]such[/i] a weirdo, sis,\" Sunfire said with a cheery grunt. \"How do you even figure to do it? In case you had missed the point, but it's [i]dangerous[/i] out near the Shark's Tooth reef. You can't even sail close to it unless you're in a flatbottom boat, and even then you have to be mighty careful.\"\n \"So?\" Skyfire shrugged. \"Come on, sis, we [i]know[/i] our way around Shark's Tooth, we used to go diving for pearls there all the time.\"\nSunfire rolled her eyes.\n \"Yeah, when we were eighty-four seasons old, weirdo! That's ages ago!\"\n \"So?\" Skyfire said again. \"We only stopped doing it because you thought it would be easier to just scrounge the Sand Shores after storms instead.\"\n \"As I recall, that also was one of your ideas, sis,\" Sunfire smirked. \"And as for this idea; forget it. I'm not going along in it.\"\n \"And why not?\" Skyfire said. \"We're still good divers. We can borrow a flatbottom boat from Wavewatcher. And it's a lovely day today, we don't have anything to do; it'll be nice to go for a swim, and even nicer when we return from that swim with a couple of cases of silver.\"\n \"You've got it all figured out already, huh?\" Sunfire said. \"Do you even have a plan for this?\"\n \"Sure. It's simple, when you think about it.\"\n \"Oh, of course. It's simple. Everything is simple if we can believe you. But sometimes I wish [i]you[/i] would actually think about those wacko expeditions you have us undertake.\" Sunfire rubbed her whiskers with a huff. \"So how simple is [i]this[/i] plan of yours, miss weirdo?\"\n \"Easy as pie,\" Skyfire said, unperturbed. She started ticking off on her fingers. \"We go to Wavewatcher's wharf in Oceanside with the autocart. We borrow a flatbottom boat from her. You and Fleetfire bring the boat around to Black Rock Point at the west Sand Shores, while me and Lucinia take the autocart there and meet you there. Then we go out to Shark's Tooth, find the sunken ship, dive to it and bring up the silver, which we will then bring back to the autocart. When we're all done, Lucinia and me will take the autocart back to Wavewatcher's wharf while you and Fleetfire take the boat there, we'll pay her with one of the silver bars, go home, and presto! One day well-spent, with good earnings in the end.\"\n \"Yeah!\" Fleetfire chimed in with enthusiasm. \"Come on, Sunfire, it'll be fun! And I haven't been to the ocean in like forever! Please can we go? Pleeease?\"\n\nShe turned her face in Sunfire's direction and batted her eyelashes, bringing an as begging as she could manage expression to her face. The honey-colored Mry huffed and rubbed her whiskers again, smirking.\n \"I can't believe I'm letting myself be talked into one of these Hoppy-brained adventures again.\"\n \"So that's a yes?\" Skyfire chuckled.\n \"Yeah yeah yeah,\" Sunfire grunted. \"It's alright already, let's do it. I know you two wouldn't give me a moment's rest anymore otherwise.\"\n \"Yay! Wheee!\" Fleetfire cheered, flinging her arms around Sunfire's neck. \"You're like the best big sister ever, Sunny!\"\n \"Yeah yeah yeah,\" Sunfire grunted again, though a smile did crack on her muzzle.\n\nSkyfire giggled softly as she stood up and led the way into their house. Fleetfire followed happily; Lucinia followed with surprise stamped on her face, and Sunfire brought up the rear, shaking her head. In a matter of moments, all preparations were made; a big basket of food to bring with them, large saddle bags, several thick coils of rope, and their old diving gear, which consisted of thick belts with large, closeable pouches and several metal weights hanging from them were collected and carried out to the small open building on the side of the house where their car was stored. Lucinia looked at the large, dark terra-colored vehicle with large, surprised eyes.\n \"What that?\"\n \"This is our autocart, sweetie,\" Skyfire smiled as she set the basket of food and coils of rope in the trunk. \"Do you know what a cart is?\" Lucinia nodded silently. \"Right. Well, this is the next step, you could say; it has a roof and windows so you're shielded from the weather, and it doesn't need horses or oxes or whatever to pull it, there's a thing in it called a motor, which makes this thing go by itself, or automatically; that's why we call it an autocart.\"\n \"Oh,\" Lucinia said, nibbling a fingertip while she stared at the vehicle. \"You make this?\"\nSkyfire laughed softly.\n \"Goddess, no! I couldn't possibly make one of these! In fact, no Mry could at first, but when we came to this land, we found these old villages and cities, you know, and there were all kinds of things there which we had never heard of. Like that prickly invisible stuff from electric eels; there were machines that could harness it and catch it from running water and so, and we can make lamps burn with it. Or windows and bottles and such from glass; did you know that was made from sand? Well, and in the big city we call Mountain City, there was a great big building where these autocarts apparently were made; the first Mry coming here found them, and from everything they found in that building, they learned how to make them.\"\n \"Oh,\" Lucinia said again. \"How it work?\"\n \"We'll show you,\" Skyfire smiled. \"Hop on in.\"\n\nFleetfire was already in the autocart, sitting up on her briskets behind Sunfire who was behind the wheel. Skyfire helped Lucinia get in before climbing in herself and closing the door. The little Kattin looked around her inside the car with surprise, suddenly wincing when Sunfire turned the key and pressed the starter button to start the engine. At reassurance from Skyfire and Fleetfire, and after seeing nothing bad happened despite the noise, she calmed down again however, looking very surprised and impressed when Sunfire drove the car out of the small building and down the road.\n\nShe began to quite enjoy herself after a while, pressing her nose against the window to look at everything they passed by as Sunfire drove them past the village and out of Viola Valley. The lush, green landscape with its forests and meadows was certainly very different from what Lucinia was used to in her home land which was mostly desert.\n\nAfter a long but calm drive, Sunfire steered the car into a small town nestled against the cliffs at the south-eastern shore of the continent. Again Lucinia gazed around in wonder at everything she saw; the buildings, the many Mry of all kinds of different colors and patterns milling about in their daily routines, and indeed more of the same cars, mostly in tints of blue or yellow, riding around or standing by the houses. Skyfire answered all of the small Kattin's questions with a soft giggle, and even Sunfire chuckled softly to herself over the kitten's enthusiasm while she carefully drove through the streets towards the beach.\n\nThere was a small harbor right below the cliffs. It was quite busy; several boats with colorful sails were coming in or going out, male Mry were shouting at each other as they unloaded nets full of fish from their boats with screaming seagulls wheeling overhead to catch any spills, here and there were stands where fish or other wares were sold. Sunfire parked the car by a small wharf with a weather wood sign reading \"Wavewatcher's Boats\" over the entrance, leaving the motor running while she opened the left door and looked at Skyfire.\n \"Alright, here we are then. I'll go talk to Wavewatcher and borrow a boat from her. We'll meet you at Black Rock Point, like you said. Be careful as you drive to there, okay?\"\n \"Always,\" Skyfire said with a wink. \"You know me.\"\n \"Yes indeed, that's why I worry,\" Sunfire smirked, getting out of the car. \"Coming, Fleetfire?\"\n \"Yeah!\" the young Mry giggled, giving Lucinia a hug. \"See you in a little while, Lucie!\"\n\nShe climbed out of the car after Sunfire and took her big sister by a paw. Skyfire scooted over to the spot behind the wheel and closed the door, looking after her two sisters for a moment as they walked onto the wharf and started talking to a leopard-spotted female Mry wearing a blue and white striped top. Then she smiled at Lucinia again and turned the car around, driving away from the wharf and out of the small seaside town.\n\nIt was another quite lengthy drive to the west shore, but as Lucinia was firing question after question at Skyfire, asking about everything she saw on the way, they had covered the distance before they knew it. Skyfire giggled softly as she parked the car in the shelter of a couple of trees and walked down to the beach with Lucinia, seeing still some empty crates and chests laying scattered around, and even the two barrels containing some sort of alcohol which she had put against the side of a dune a few days earlier, that fateful day when they had found Lucinia on that very beach.\n\nJust as they walked up to the enormous stretch of huge black basalt rocks reaching into the ocean, they saw a low, flatbottomed ship with a single sail coming from the southeast. Skyfire waved at it as it headed towards the strip of basalt blocks, lowering her feral lower body down onto the sand and smiling at Lucinia.\n \"There they are already, see? Come sweetie, you can sit on my back and hold yourself around my waist. I won't let you fall, promise.\"\n \"I trust you, Sky Fire,\" Lucinia said with a small smile.\n\nShe was a bit wary, but did indeed trust the large storm-grey Mry's promise that nothing would happen to her. Seated securely on Skyfire's back, she wrapped her arms around the Mry's waist and nuzzled her cheek against Skyfire's upper back, giggling softly to herself as she found riding on the back of one of these large feline taurs was rather amusing. Skyfire smiled and softly patted Lucinia's leg as she carefully climbed onto the huge black basalt rocks and picked her way towards the end of the strip, where Sunfire had meanwhile moored the flat boat.\n\nGetting aboard, Skyfire sat down and let Lucinia slide off her feral lower back. Almost right away, the small Kattin was taken into a hug by Fleetfire, who offered her a roasted fish.\n \"Here Lucie, you gotta try this! They're yummy! And still a bit warm!\"\n \"I thank you,\" Lucinia smiled softly.\n\nShe nibbled on the fish, cuddling up against Fleetfire's side, both out of affection for her new step-sister as for comfort, still looking around a little warily when Sunfire loosened the boat and sailed away from the strip of basalt rocks. It was smooth sailing, however; there was just enough wind for the boat to sail at a calm but decent pace, but not enough to create too high waves, so the small feline settled down quickly. Besides, her attention was continually drawn by Fleetfire's enthused chattering.\n\nBefore too long, Sunfire lowered the sail and brought out a pair of oars as they approached a number of large, jagged and spiky rocks sticking up from the surface of the water. The water foamed and swirled between them in the current, small waves breaking against the rocks, sometimes drawing them from view. Seen from the side, the cluster of rocks looked like a row of sharp, large teeth sticking up from the lower jaw of a shark; this was the dreaded Shark's Tooth reef. Reaching one of the rocks which stood a bit apart from the rest, Sunfire took a rope and fastened it to the rock to keep the boat in place.\n \"Right, this is as close as I'm gonna get us here,\" she said.\n \"It's close enough,\" Skyfire smiled.\n\nShe rose up on her four feet, standing high on her hind feet while she planted her front feet on the rock, looking out left and right across the ocean and the row of rocks with a paw over her eyes, pointing with her other paw and making a wide sweeping motion.\n \"Let's see. With the prevalent wind, and the current around here, ships passing around this side have to come from there and sail by in that direction in a wide arc to skirt the reefs. That means that small ship has come from there and passed by this way as it was chased by the pirate ship. Seeing as how the crew escaped in a lifeboat when the ship crashed and were picked up by the pirates, that means they can't have come too far into the range of Shark's Tooth, otherwise the pirate ship would have crashed or gotten stuck as well because of how shallow it is around here.\" She ran her paw over her whiskers. \"Mmm. They'll have crashed near that small group of rocks over there to the side.\" Getting her entire lower body back into the boat, Skyfire sat down and took off her vest, belted on one of the thick belts with pouches and weights and tied her hair into a pony-tail. \"I'm going to take a look. When I find the ship, I'll tell you the best way to get close to it.\"\n \"You mean, [i]if[/i] you find the ship,\" Sunfire remarked dryly.\nSkyfire stuck out her tongue.\n \"I mean, [i]when[/i] I find the ship. Just have a little patience.\"\n\nShe climbed out of the boat and onto the rock again, and from there she lowered herself into the water. Pushing off from the rock, she swam off around the jagged rocks towards the small cluster she had indicated just now. Lucinia looked at it with surprise; the large Mry was surprisingly agile in the water, despite the strange shape of her body.\n \"Sky Fire swim good,\" she said, sounding impressed.\n \"Yes, we got a lot of practice,\" Sunfire nodded. \"Back when we were younger, we used to go swimming and diving a lot around here, collecting pearls and such.\"\n \"Pearls is nice,\" Lucinia nodded. She looked at Sunfire. \"What we do now?\"\n \"Now we wait,\" was Sunfire's answer.\n \"No, now we fish!\" Fleetfire giggled. \"Look, we brought fishing poles! Have you fished before, Lucie?\"\nLucinia shook her head.\n \"No. In my land, is no big water.\"\n \"Ohh, then you really gotta try it! It's fun!\" Fleetfire smiled. \"It's quite simple, too. Here, look, this is a fishing pole, see?\" She took one of the fishing rods laying on the bottom of the boat and showed it to the Kattin. \"There's a line on it with a hook on the end. Now, you take a little piece of bread and squeeze it into a ball, and you put that on the hook. Careful, it's like real sharp! And then you simply toss the line and the hook into the water. When a fish eats the bread, you feel it pulling on the line, and when that happens, you give a quick pull up, like [i]so[/i], and then you pull in the line, and you'll have caught a fish!\"\n\nShe showed Lucinia how to bait the hook and cast the line. The small feline followed the instructions with interest, quite impressed at how Fleetfire managed it all without seeing a thing. With Sunfire's help, she tried it herself as well, and soon enough the two kittens were sitting side by side at the back end of the boat, chatting and giggling while holding their fishing rods. After some time, Lucinia suddenly squeaked.\n \"I feel pull!\"\n \"Pull up!\" Fleetfire said. \"Short and sharp! Like that, yes.\" She could feel Lucinia's motion next to her. \"Now pull in your line, slowly and carefully.\"\nLucinia did as Fleetfire told her, leaning back ever more as she pulled in her line. A few moments later, she pulled a small sea bass into the boat, looking at it flopping about.\n \"I caught fish!\"\nFleetfire reached down and touched the bass, smiling.\n \"You did! Your first fish! Congratulations, Lucie! I'm so proud of you!\"\n \"I thank you, Fleet Fire!\" Lucinia beamed. She looked at the flopping fish. \"How I get it off?\"\n \"Let Sunfire do that,\" Fleetfire smiled. \"It's a bit tricky, and you wouldn't want to get that hook caught in your fingers or something. That hurts!\"\nLucinia nodded and looked at Sunfire, who smiled and softly stroked the Kattin's hair before reaching down and taking the fish off the hook.\n \"You did well, kiddo.\"\n \"I thank you,\" Lucinia smiled, looking at her fishing rod. \"And now?\"\n \"Now you put another ball of bread on the hook and do it again!\" Fleetfire giggled. \"Let's see how many... whoop! I got one too!\"\nShe gave a short tug on her rod, then jerked it up energetically, pulling a fish out of the water and into the boat in a high parabola. Lucinia giggled cheerfully as the fish landed on the bottom of the boat with a wet splat, where Sunfire picked it up and took it off the hook.\n \"This funny! I like!\"\n \"Yes, it's real nice, isn't it?\" Fleetfire smiled. \"Come on, let's see how many you can catch!\"\n\nThey cast their lines again, giggling and talking happily. Sunfire looked out over the water for Skyfire, every now and then helping the two kittens as they caught several more fish. Just as Lucinia was about to cast her line again, she looked up with her ears perked when a cheery shout rang out from a little way furtheron.\n \"Oohoo!\" It was Skyfire, holding herself up by one of the rocks and waving at them. \"Guess what?\"\n \"You found a catfish that told you a joke about two starfish making love and getting themselves tied into a knot?\" Sunfire called back with a grin.\n \"Very funny, sis!\" Skyfire called out. \"But as a matter of fact, I also found that ship! It's right here below me, wedged between this rock and that one!\"\n \"Well, congratulations,\" Sunfire said. \"And now what?\"\n \"Now I need you to bring the boat over here!\" Skyfire called. \"I checked out the ship; it's ripped open along the entire side, and I can easily get to the cargo hold! There's five chests in there, holding the silver! I can pull them out and tie a rope around them, and then you can haul them up into the boat! I need your help for that, sis, because they're too heavy for me to push up to the surface by myself!\"\n \"Oh, right, right. Well, I'll see what I can do for you, sis,\" was Sunfire's dry answer.\n \"Make it snappy, will you?\" Skyfire chuckled. \"The water's chilly out here! My nipples are about as hard as this rock!\"\n \"I'd better hurry, then, before you use those things to poke holes in me,\" Sunfire grinned. She winked at Lucinia and Fleetfire. \"Sorry kiddos, but you have to stop fishing for a while.\"\n \"No problem!\" Fleetfire giggled. \"Do you want me to help you row?\"\n \"You could do that,\" Sunfire nodded with a smile.\n\nShe untied the boat and took one of the oars, while Fleetfire happily took the other one. With the young yellow and orange tabby Mry calmly rowing, Sunfire used her oar mostly to steer the boat around the jagged rocks, every now and then sticking it down into the water to feel for rocks under the surface. They reached the rock Skyfire was holding onto without any accidents.\n \"Is that ship very deep down, sis?\" Sunfire asked as she tied the boat to the rock.\n \"No, it's laying right on the mussel bank,\" Skyfire said. \"If the mast hadn't snapped, you could see it sticking up out of the water.\" She took the end of a rope Sunfire handed her. \"I haven't looked at how much silver blocks are in each chest, but they're in there, alright! You shouldn't have much trouble hoisting them aboard, they're quite narrow chests.\"\n \"Right,\" Sunfire nodded. \"Well, I'll just wait for your signal, then.\"\n\nSkyfire nodded, pulling in a few deep breaths and holding the last one as she dived down into the water. Her form remained visible for a while until it disappeared in the shadow of the rocks, trailing the rope along which Sunfire calmed eased off, until she felt it going slack. Waiting calmly, the honey-colored Mry held on to the rope loosely, looking down into the water. Only a few moments later, there were two short tugs on the rope. Bracing herself with her front feet against the low side of the boat, Sunfire began to haul in the rope, eventually pulling up a narrow wood box with a flat lid which was being pushed up from below by Skyfire, who broke the surface the next moment, breathing deeply and shaking the water off her head.\n\nIt was indeed an unusual shape for a chest; a little over a yard long and only a foot wide, and two feet high. On the four corners were metal rings, through which Skyfire had looped the rope. Sunfire untied it and gave it back to her sister, who once more dived down underwater with it. Meanwhile, Fleetfire and Lucinia started examining the box, opening the lid to look inside. There were two rows of silver bars along the length of the box, five behind each other and two next to each other, stacked five high. Each bar was about eight inches long and four inches wide, and two inches thick, weighing almost two pounds each.\n \"Much silver!\" Lucinia exclaimed, impressed.\n \"Yeah, look at this, Sunfire,\" Fleetfire said enthusiastically. \"There must be a hundred pounds in this box!\"\n \"In a moment, kiddo,\" Sunfire said between deep, controlled breaths as she hauled in the second box. \"Let's first get'em all up here.\"\n\nThree more times Skyfire dived down below their boat with the rope, three more times she had Sunfire hauling up one of the narrow boxes. After the fifth one was aboard, Skyfire climbed into the boat herself as well, wringing out her hair and shaking herself a bit.\n \"That's all of them,\" she said, gasping lightly. \"I checked the rest of the hull of that ship, but there wasn't anything useful down there. They were hauling barrels of something as well, but those were right along the side that got sliced open by the rocks, so they were all smashed.\"\n \"Well, I would say this is more than enough already,\" Sunfire said, rolling up the rope.\n \"Yes, not a bad result for a Hoppy-brained adventure, is it?\" Skyfire teased.\n\nSunfire didn't bite. Instead, she continued to calmly roll the rope onto a coil and lay it down on the bottom of the boat, taking one of the oars again to row the boat away from the jagged rocks. With a cheerful giggle, Skyfire took the other oar and helped, until they were far enough from the reef to hoist the sail again and sail towards the strip of basalt blocks. This time, Sunfire ran the boat towards the beach until it scraped across the sand, hopping overboard to pull the boat further towards the shore so it wouldn't drift off again.\n \"I'd say we deserve a good meal now,\" she commented. \"We didn't bring all that food for nothing, after all. And we can even fry some of the fish the kiddos caught.\"\n \"Yes!\" Lucinia said happily. \"Look, Sky Fire! I caught fish!\"\nShe pointed at the number of fish laying in a small heap near the stern, looking up at the dark grey Mry for approval with a happy smile. Skyfire smiled, softly stroking the small feline's curly hair.\n \"That's very good, sweetie,\" she said. \"Have you fished before?\"\n \"No,\" Lucinia shook her head. \"First time! No big water in my land.\"\n \"Then that's extra good, for your first time,\" Skyfire smiled. \"I'm proud of you, sweetie.\"\n\nLucinia beamed and purred happily. She took some of the fish and carried them to the beach, carefully laying them down on the sand. Fleetfire brought the rest of the fish, and the saddle bags and diving belts which she carried draped over her feral lower back. Together, the kittens looked at Skyfire and Sunfire carrying the basket of food and the five boxes full of silver bars out of the boat. They made quite handy seats for the four felines to rest upon while they ate, now diving into the basket full of food instead of into the ocean. Sunfire dug a small hole in the sand and built a circle of stones around it, filling the hole with dry flotsam and dry helm grass, making a small fire over which they roasted some of the fish as well.\n\nWhen all the food was gone, the four felines sat together for a little while more, listening to the surf and the cries of the occasional seagull.\n \"So,\" Skyfire said after a while. \"Shall we go home?\"\n \"Sounds like a plan,\" Sunfire agreed.\n \"Do we do it the same way? You and Fleetfire take the boat back to the wharf, me and Lucinia take the autocart to meet you there?\"\n \"I had another idea, actually,\" Sunfire said, picking her teeth with a fishbone. \"Look, there's still a bunch of rather good stuff laying around here, right? And over there...\" She nodded towards one of the dunes, \"...are those two barrels you spoke of the last time we were here. Why don't we, now that we're here anyway, have a good look around and see if there's any more items that are useful? Then afterwards, you, Lucinia and Fleetfire can take the boat back to the wharf, and I'll take the autocart. You're better at sailing against the wind than I am anyway, and if I ride in the autocart by myself, there's plenty of room left for those two barrels and any other stuff we might find.\"\n \"You know, sometimes you have good ideas, sis,\" Skyfire chuckled. \"You do realize, though, that once we're at the wharf, we [i]will[/i] need to get all four of us into the autocart again to get home? How would we do that if it's filled with you and those barrels and other stuff?\"\nSunfire grinned and poked her sister's bare chest with a finger.\n \"Unlike you, I do think my plans through, sis. For one, at the wharf there's plenty of strong paws available to help us get those barrels onto the roof of the autocart. For another, we could sell or trade those barrels at the wharf or in Oceanside itself. And for a third, I can very easily first drive home, unload the barrels and everything else, and [i]then[/i] drive to the wharf to pick up you and the kiddos.\"\n \"Okay, okay, you're right,\" Skyfire giggled. \"That last option sounds like the best one, actually. There's some kind of strong alcohol in those barrels. I don't think we'd drink it, but it might be of interest to doctor Healsong so we could quite likely get a lot of extra lessons for Fleetfire and Lucinia if we offer it to her, and we could even try to see if the autocart runs on it. You know alcohol burns the same way like the lamp oil and the petro-oil we use in the autocart does. And if you stop by our house first, that would give the girls and me some extra time to look around in Oceanside. That would be nice for Lucinia, too.\"\n \"That's how we'll do it, then,\" Sunfire decided, nodding. She rose up and extinguished the fire, smiling at the two kittens. \"Alright kiddos, go on and have a good look around, see if you can find anything useful or anything you'd like.\"\n\nFleetfire and Lucinia cheered and jumped up, running off across the beach with happy giggles to browse between the scattered items that were still left in the sand. The two adults smiled at it for a moment before taking the boxes of silver bars and carrying them to the car. Both barrels were also rolled to the car and stowed inside. As they walked back onto the beach for the third time, Skyfire looked up at an outcry from Fleetfire.\n \"Ohh! Lucie! Come here, you gotta see this!\"\nLucinia, who had been poking around between the shards and pieces of pottery in a tipped-over wood box full of vases and urns, hopped up and ran over to where Fleetfire was sitting.\n \"What you have, Fleet Fire? Oof!\"\n\nAll of a sudden, the small Kattin got caught on something and fell over, landing face-down in the damp sand with a thud. Immediately, Skyfire and Sunfire broke into a run, dashing over to Lucinia who was slowly scrambling up, sneezing and spitting out sand.\n \"Goddess, are you alright, sweetie?\" Skyfire said, kneeling down on her forepaws. \"Did you hurt yourself? What happened?\"\n \"I fall,\" Lucinia coughed, wiping her sand-stained muzzle with both paws vividly. \"Foot stuck.\"\nSunfire tilted her head a bit.\n \"Looks like you tripped over something, kiddo.\" She started to run one forepaw along Lucinia's leg towards her foot. \"Hey, what's this?\"\n\nThe young Kattin's dainty, slender foot had snagged in a large, heavy metal ring, causing her fall. Sunfire gently disentangled Lucinia's foot, shoveling the sand around the ring aside with her forepaws. Slowly, a corner of a wood chest became visible, buried under the sand.\n \"Looks like you also found a prize, kiddo,\" Sunfire said with a soft chuckle.\nShe rose up on her four feet, digging more energetically into the sand with her forepaws, gradually bringing up a fairly large wood chest with a half-round lid and heavy ironwork, and a big padlock on the front.\n \"Check that, looks like you found a [i]big[/i] prize,\" Sunfire grinned.\n\nDigging around the chest, she freed it up so she could grab the ring that had caught Lucinia's foot with both paws and pull the chest out of the sand. From one of the pouches on her belt, she took a small, thin knife, using it to pick the lock, after which she opened the lid, letting out a chuckle.\n \"I don't [i]believe[/i] it!\"\nThe chest was filled to the brim with silver coins with a number 10 on one side and a picture of a canine-looking animal's head on the other side.\n \"Well!\" Skyfire laughed. \"It seems this day certainly has a very thick silver lining!\"\nFleetfire, who had gotten tired of waiting by whatever it was she had found and had called Lucinia over for, trotted up to them with her ears curiously perked.\n \"What have you found?\"\n \"Is coins!\" Lucinia said, looking into the chest quite stunned. \"I fall over box, Sun Fire dig up box and open it, is much coins inside!\" She took one of the coins, looking at it. \"I not know picture. Is not from my land. In my land, is only gold coins.\"\n \"Wow!\" Fleetfire said, dipping her paws into the chest and letting the coins slide through her fingers with numerous tinkles. \"There must be hundreds and hundreds of them in here!\"\n \"I reckon that's soldier's wages or something,\" Sunfire mused, running a paw over her whiskers. \"Most likely looted by pirates.\"\nFleetfire hugged Lucinia.\n \"Wow, that's an awesome find, Lucie! You really seem to have good luck in everything, don't you? First you escape the slavers and are found by my sisters, then you catch more fish than me on your first time of fishing, and now look at what you found!\"\n \"I not find box, I fall over box,\" Lucinia said, rubbing her foot.\n \"Same thing,\" Skyfire giggled. \"The best and most precious things are often found through sheer dumb luck because you trip over them.\"\n \"And fair's fair, kiddo,\" Sunfire grinned, softly stroking Lucinia's head. \"We always use the stuff we find on the Sand Shores for ourselves or trade them for other goods we can use, so we always share them with one another, but not our own first valuable finds. This is your first find of value, so it's all yours.\"\nHer mouth sinking open, Lucinia looked up with wide eyes, letting out a squeak.\n \"Wha?\"\n \"That's right, sweetie,\" Skyfire giggled. \"We always share everything we find for common use, but when Sunfire and me first started combing the Sand Shores for useful or valuable items, we made an agreement; the very first valuable thing each of us would find, we could keep for ourselves.\" She gave Lucinia a soft hug. \"Well, you just lucked out again that your first find of value turns out to be a big chest full of silver coins. Congratulations, sweetie.\"\n \"Yeah, congratulations!\" Fleetfire giggled. \"Think of all the awesome stuff you can buy with all of this!\"\n\nLucinia gasped in bewilderment, unable to let out any other sounds but squeaks as she looked from one Mry to the other. Sunfire grinned softly and leaned over, scooping a pawful of coins from the chest and filling one of the pouches on Lucinia's belt with it before closing the lid of the chest and softly stroking the Kattin's head again.\n \"When you and Skyfire and Fleetfire wait for me in Oceanside, get yourself some nice things, kiddo.\" She looked at her storm-grey sister. \"You might want to have them valued, Skyfire. These coins are larger and thicker than our silvers, and what with that number ten on one side, I think it's a fair guess they might be worth ten coppers instead of the five coppers that ours are worth.\"\n \"You're probably right,\" Skyfire nodded. She helped Lucinia to her feet with a giggle. \"Come, sweetie. I think we found more than enough for now. Sunfire will bring everything home, and you, me and Fleetfire will take the boat back to the wharf, and then we'll go shop in Oceanside a bit, alright?\" She giggled again. \"With these coins, you can even buy yourself some nice clothes.\"\n\nLucinia nodded mutely, still quite dazed over the news that the entire chest full of coins was hers to keep. While Sunfire brought the chest and the rest of their finds to the car and drove off, Skyfire brought Lucinia and Fleetfire to the boat and calmly sailed it around the west side of the continent back to the wharf at the small town on the south-east side where they arrived just as the sun began to sink down towards the horizon. It had certainly been a very, very rewarding day. Like Skyfire had said; it had a very thick silver lining.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The morning sun had climbed into the sky to illuminate a warm, pleasant day. The gentle rays mixed with a soft breeze that rustled through the foliage of the trees, carrying the chirping and singing of Jorbles, interspersed with the languid cooing of a couple of Rukus. In the warm light, Skyfire and Sunfire were laying in the soft grass of their garden, content after a good breakfast. Sunfire was softly singing to herself while she tended to a vegetable patch, pulling weeds and checking on the growth of several different vegetables and herbs that grew prosperously in the rich Nezinoma Salis soil. Skyfire was sowing a short dress of purple satin for Lucinia, as the young Kattin had no clothes to wear. Not that that was a problem now that spring was well underway, but for the colder days, and for when they would mingle with others, Lucinia would need some clothing that would cover not just her torso, but her lower half as well.

Every now and then, both adult Mry looked up with a smile. Lucinia and Fleetfire were playing together, inventing entire adventures for their velvet toy lionesses that had them in peals of giggles time and again. Lucinia's voice was improving by the day, and even her speech got better the more she talked and listened to the others, picking up on their language more and more. She still pronounced their names as two separate words, and her grammar was still broken, but there was definite progress. The kitten was gaining weight, too; thanks to the potion from doctor Healsong, Skyfire's lactation had set in, and the rich milk coupled with the hearty cooking of the Mry were having a visible positive effect on the small and somewhat scrawny Kattin.

At a pause in their game, Skyfire called Lucinia over to her to fit the dress. It was a bit wide around the shoulders, chest and waist; Skyfire had made it for the kitten to grow into, but with one of Fleetfire's leather belts it was still a good fit. It billowed smoothly around her body, flattering her lanky form, reaching down to just above her knees and with a narrow split in the back to accommodate her sleek, thin tail. Lucinia was very happy.
     "Is very beautiful! I not have dress this pretty before!" the kitten purred, giving Skyfire a big hug. "I thank you, Sky Fire!"
     "You're very welcome, sweetie," Skyfire smiled, sliding the dress off Lucinia's body again. "Now, let me just hem it, and it'll be all done, okay? Then at least you'll have something nice to wear while I work on some more clothes for you."

Lucinia nodded happily, sitting down in the grass near Skyfire to look at the storm-grey Mry put the finishing touches to the dress. Skyfire smiled at her again while she hemmed the dress with neat little stitches, in the process applying a nice embroidered pattern along the hem with the white thread. Fleetfire also lay down near the two of them, playfully tickling Lucinia's side.
     "You've been real lucky that ship you were on crashed and you were found by my sisters, aren't you, Lucie?"
     "Yes!" Lucinia nodded. "I real happy I here now! You all so sweet for me!"
     "Don't mention it, sweetie," Skyfire smiled. She looked up from her stitching for a moment. "That reminds me, though, I've been wondering; do you know why that ship that took you came around the west side of this land? It's very dangerous there, and I thought that was general knowledge. Why would they have taken the risk to sail around the west side?"
     "I know," Lucinia said. "I hear men on boat talk. They talk of little boat they want take before. Boat has silver, in blocks." She held her paws about ten inches apart to indicate what she meant. "They chase boat, want steal silver. Worth much. But boat break and sink. Men say, at... shark tooth? I not understand. But they come around west way again, want look for sunken boat to take silver, but then storm, and boat break too."
     "I heard that story," Sunfire said, looking up from the vegetable patch. "Breezecatcher said she had seen a small ship being chased by a larger ship some time ago, until it crashed onto the Shark's Tooth reef. They had to give up lest they would crash themselves."
     "I think I heard something about that too," Skyfire nodded.
     "Yeah, miss Windsong told us about it, in a lesson about why the ocean at the west side is so dangerous, with all the reefs and rocks and stuff," Fleetfire said, making a face. "She said the crew of that small ship got onto a lifeboat when they crashed, but those pirates picked them up and killed them all anyway! Mean buggers!"
     "Pirates aren't exactly known to be very compassionate, Fleety," Skyfire said with a very soft chuckle. Done with hemming the dress, she bit off the tread and slid the dress back over Lucinia's body, adjusting it a bit here and there while humming thoughtfully. "Mmm..."
     "Uh oh," Sunfire chuckled, shaking her head. "I know that look on your face, sis. Don't tell me you're thinking of undertaking another adventure again? You're not considering going out to the Shark's Tooth reef to see if we can find that sunken ship, are you?"
     "Actually, that was indeed what I was thinking about," Skyfire giggled.
     "You are such a weirdo, sis," Sunfire said with a cheery grunt. "How do you even figure to do it? In case you had missed the point, but it's dangerous out near the Shark's Tooth reef. You can't even sail close to it unless you're in a flatbottom boat, and even then you have to be mighty careful."
     "So?" Skyfire shrugged. "Come on, sis, we know our way around Shark's Tooth, we used to go diving for pearls there all the time."
Sunfire rolled her eyes.
     "Yeah, when we were eighty-four seasons old, weirdo! That's ages ago!"
     "So?" Skyfire said again. "We only stopped doing it because you thought it would be easier to just scrounge the Sand Shores after storms instead."
     "As I recall, that also was one of your ideas, sis," Sunfire smirked. "And as for this idea; forget it. I'm not going along in it."
     "And why not?" Skyfire said. "We're still good divers. We can borrow a flatbottom boat from Wavewatcher. And it's a lovely day today, we don't have anything to do; it'll be nice to go for a swim, and even nicer when we return from that swim with a couple of cases of silver."
     "You've got it all figured out already, huh?" Sunfire said. "Do you even have a plan for this?"
     "Sure. It's simple, when you think about it."
     "Oh, of course. It's simple. Everything is simple if we can believe you. But sometimes I wish you would actually think about those wacko expeditions you have us undertake." Sunfire rubbed her whiskers with a huff. "So how simple is this plan of yours, miss weirdo?"
     "Easy as pie," Skyfire said, unperturbed. She started ticking off on her fingers. "We go to Wavewatcher's wharf in Oceanside with the autocart. We borrow a flatbottom boat from her. You and Fleetfire bring the boat around to Black Rock Point at the west Sand Shores, while me and Lucinia take the autocart there and meet you there. Then we go out to Shark's Tooth, find the sunken ship, dive to it and bring up the silver, which we will then bring back to the autocart. When we're all done, Lucinia and me will take the autocart back to Wavewatcher's wharf while you and Fleetfire take the boat there, we'll pay her with one of the silver bars, go home, and presto! One day well-spent, with good earnings in the end."
     "Yeah!" Fleetfire chimed in with enthusiasm. "Come on, Sunfire, it'll be fun! And I haven't been to the ocean in like forever! Please can we go? Pleeease?"

She turned her face in Sunfire's direction and batted her eyelashes, bringing an as begging as she could manage expression to her face. The honey-colored Mry huffed and rubbed her whiskers again, smirking.
     "I can't believe I'm letting myself be talked into one of these Hoppy-brained adventures again."
     "So that's a yes?" Skyfire chuckled.
     "Yeah yeah yeah," Sunfire grunted. "It's alright already, let's do it. I know you two wouldn't give me a moment's rest anymore otherwise."
     "Yay! Wheee!" Fleetfire cheered, flinging her arms around Sunfire's neck. "You're like the best big sister ever, Sunny!"
     "Yeah yeah yeah," Sunfire grunted again, though a smile did crack on her muzzle.

Skyfire giggled softly as she stood up and led the way into their house. Fleetfire followed happily; Lucinia followed with surprise stamped on her face, and Sunfire brought up the rear, shaking her head. In a matter of moments, all preparations were made; a big basket of food to bring with them, large saddle bags, several thick coils of rope, and their old diving gear, which consisted of thick belts with large, closeable pouches and several metal weights hanging from them were collected and carried out to the small open building on the side of the house where their car was stored. Lucinia looked at the large, dark terra-colored vehicle with large, surprised eyes.
     "What that?"
     "This is our autocart, sweetie," Skyfire smiled as she set the basket of food and coils of rope in the trunk. "Do you know what a cart is?" Lucinia nodded silently. "Right. Well, this is the next step, you could say; it has a roof and windows so you're shielded from the weather, and it doesn't need horses or oxes or whatever to pull it, there's a thing in it called a motor, which makes this thing go by itself, or automatically; that's why we call it an autocart."
     "Oh," Lucinia said, nibbling a fingertip while she stared at the vehicle. "You make this?"
Skyfire laughed softly.
     "Goddess, no! I couldn't possibly make one of these! In fact, no Mry could at first, but when we came to this land, we found these old villages and cities, you know, and there were all kinds of things there which we had never heard of. Like that prickly invisible stuff from electric eels; there were machines that could harness it and catch it from running water and so, and we can make lamps burn with it. Or windows and bottles and such from glass; did you know that was made from sand? Well, and in the big city we call Mountain City, there was a great big building where these autocarts apparently were made; the first Mry coming here found them, and from everything they found in that building, they learned how to make them."
     "Oh," Lucinia said again. "How it work?"
     "We'll show you," Skyfire smiled. "Hop on in."

Fleetfire was already in the autocart, sitting up on her briskets behind Sunfire who was behind the wheel. Skyfire helped Lucinia get in before climbing in herself and closing the door. The little Kattin looked around her inside the car with surprise, suddenly wincing when Sunfire turned the key and pressed the starter button to start the engine. At reassurance from Skyfire and Fleetfire, and after seeing nothing bad happened despite the noise, she calmed down again however, looking very surprised and impressed when Sunfire drove the car out of the small building and down the road.

She began to quite enjoy herself after a while, pressing her nose against the window to look at everything they passed by as Sunfire drove them past the village and out of Viola Valley. The lush, green landscape with its forests and meadows was certainly very different from what Lucinia was used to in her home land which was mostly desert.

After a long but calm drive, Sunfire steered the car into a small town nestled against the cliffs at the south-eastern shore of the continent. Again Lucinia gazed around in wonder at everything she saw; the buildings, the many Mry of all kinds of different colors and patterns milling about in their daily routines, and indeed more of the same cars, mostly in tints of blue or yellow, riding around or standing by the houses. Skyfire answered all of the small Kattin's questions with a soft giggle, and even Sunfire chuckled softly to herself over the kitten's enthusiasm while she carefully drove through the streets towards the beach.

There was a small harbor right below the cliffs. It was quite busy; several boats with colorful sails were coming in or going out, male Mry were shouting at each other as they unloaded nets full of fish from their boats with screaming seagulls wheeling overhead to catch any spills, here and there were stands where fish or other wares were sold. Sunfire parked the car by a small wharf with a weather wood sign reading "Wavewatcher's Boats" over the entrance, leaving the motor running while she opened the left door and looked at Skyfire.
     "Alright, here we are then. I'll go talk to Wavewatcher and borrow a boat from her. We'll meet you at Black Rock Point, like you said. Be careful as you drive to there, okay?"
     "Always," Skyfire said with a wink. "You know me."
     "Yes indeed, that's why I worry," Sunfire smirked, getting out of the car. "Coming, Fleetfire?"
     "Yeah!" the young Mry giggled, giving Lucinia a hug. "See you in a little while, Lucie!"

She climbed out of the car after Sunfire and took her big sister by a paw. Skyfire scooted over to the spot behind the wheel and closed the door, looking after her two sisters for a moment as they walked onto the wharf and started talking to a leopard-spotted female Mry wearing a blue and white striped top. Then she smiled at Lucinia again and turned the car around, driving away from the wharf and out of the small seaside town.

It was another quite lengthy drive to the west shore, but as Lucinia was firing question after question at Skyfire, asking about everything she saw on the way, they had covered the distance before they knew it. Skyfire giggled softly as she parked the car in the shelter of a couple of trees and walked down to the beach with Lucinia, seeing still some empty crates and chests laying scattered around, and even the two barrels containing some sort of alcohol which she had put against the side of a dune a few days earlier, that fateful day when they had found Lucinia on that very beach.

Just as they walked up to the enormous stretch of huge black basalt rocks reaching into the ocean, they saw a low, flatbottomed ship with a single sail coming from the southeast. Skyfire waved at it as it headed towards the strip of basalt blocks, lowering her feral lower body down onto the sand and smiling at Lucinia.
     "There they are already, see? Come sweetie, you can sit on my back and hold yourself around my waist. I won't let you fall, promise."
     "I trust you, Sky Fire," Lucinia said with a small smile.

She was a bit wary, but did indeed trust the large storm-grey Mry's promise that nothing would happen to her. Seated securely on Skyfire's back, she wrapped her arms around the Mry's waist and nuzzled her cheek against Skyfire's upper back, giggling softly to herself as she found riding on the back of one of these large feline taurs was rather amusing. Skyfire smiled and softly patted Lucinia's leg as she carefully climbed onto the huge black basalt rocks and picked her way towards the end of the strip, where Sunfire had meanwhile moored the flat boat.

Getting aboard, Skyfire sat down and let Lucinia slide off her feral lower back. Almost right away, the small Kattin was taken into a hug by Fleetfire, who offered her a roasted fish.
     "Here Lucie, you gotta try this! They're yummy! And still a bit warm!"
     "I thank you," Lucinia smiled softly.

She nibbled on the fish, cuddling up against Fleetfire's side, both out of affection for her new step-sister as for comfort, still looking around a little warily when Sunfire loosened the boat and sailed away from the strip of basalt rocks. It was smooth sailing, however; there was just enough wind for the boat to sail at a calm but decent pace, but not enough to create too high waves, so the small feline settled down quickly. Besides, her attention was continually drawn by Fleetfire's enthused chattering.

Before too long, Sunfire lowered the sail and brought out a pair of oars as they approached a number of large, jagged and spiky rocks sticking up from the surface of the water. The water foamed and swirled between them in the current, small waves breaking against the rocks, sometimes drawing them from view. Seen from the side, the cluster of rocks looked like a row of sharp, large teeth sticking up from the lower jaw of a shark; this was the dreaded Shark's Tooth reef. Reaching one of the rocks which stood a bit apart from the rest, Sunfire took a rope and fastened it to the rock to keep the boat in place.
     "Right, this is as close as I'm gonna get us here," she said.
     "It's close enough," Skyfire smiled.

She rose up on her four feet, standing high on her hind feet while she planted her front feet on the rock, looking out left and right across the ocean and the row of rocks with a paw over her eyes, pointing with her other paw and making a wide sweeping motion.
     "Let's see. With the prevalent wind, and the current around here, ships passing around this side have to come from there and sail by in that direction in a wide arc to skirt the reefs. That means that small ship has come from there and passed by this way as it was chased by the pirate ship. Seeing as how the crew escaped in a lifeboat when the ship crashed and were picked up by the pirates, that means they can't have come too far into the range of Shark's Tooth, otherwise the pirate ship would have crashed or gotten stuck as well because of how shallow it is around here." She ran her paw over her whiskers. "Mmm. They'll have crashed near that small group of rocks over there to the side." Getting her entire lower body back into the boat, Skyfire sat down and took off her vest, belted on one of the thick belts with pouches and weights and tied her hair into a pony-tail. "I'm going to take a look. When I find the ship, I'll tell you the best way to get close to it."
     "You mean, if you find the ship," Sunfire remarked dryly.
Skyfire stuck out her tongue.
     "I mean, when I find the ship. Just have a little patience."

She climbed out of the boat and onto the rock again, and from there she lowered herself into the water. Pushing off from the rock, she swam off around the jagged rocks towards the small cluster she had indicated just now. Lucinia looked at it with surprise; the large Mry was surprisingly agile in the water, despite the strange shape of her body.
     "Sky Fire swim good," she said, sounding impressed.
     "Yes, we got a lot of practice," Sunfire nodded. "Back when we were younger, we used to go swimming and diving a lot around here, collecting pearls and such."
     "Pearls is nice," Lucinia nodded. She looked at Sunfire. "What we do now?"
     "Now we wait," was Sunfire's answer.
     "No, now we fish!" Fleetfire giggled. "Look, we brought fishing poles! Have you fished before, Lucie?"
Lucinia shook her head.
     "No. In my land, is no big water."
     "Ohh, then you really gotta try it! It's fun!" Fleetfire smiled. "It's quite simple, too. Here, look, this is a fishing pole, see?" She took one of the fishing rods laying on the bottom of the boat and showed it to the Kattin. "There's a line on it with a hook on the end. Now, you take a little piece of bread and squeeze it into a ball, and you put that on the hook. Careful, it's like real sharp! And then you simply toss the line and the hook into the water. When a fish eats the bread, you feel it pulling on the line, and when that happens, you give a quick pull up, like so, and then you pull in the line, and you'll have caught a fish!"

She showed Lucinia how to bait the hook and cast the line. The small feline followed the instructions with interest, quite impressed at how Fleetfire managed it all without seeing a thing. With Sunfire's help, she tried it herself as well, and soon enough the two kittens were sitting side by side at the back end of the boat, chatting and giggling while holding their fishing rods. After some time, Lucinia suddenly squeaked.
     "I feel pull!"
     "Pull up!" Fleetfire said. "Short and sharp! Like that, yes." She could feel Lucinia's motion next to her. "Now pull in your line, slowly and carefully."
Lucinia did as Fleetfire told her, leaning back ever more as she pulled in her line. A few moments later, she pulled a small sea bass into the boat, looking at it flopping about.
     "I caught fish!"
Fleetfire reached down and touched the bass, smiling.
     "You did! Your first fish! Congratulations, Lucie! I'm so proud of you!"
     "I thank you, Fleet Fire!" Lucinia beamed. She looked at the flopping fish. "How I get it off?"
     "Let Sunfire do that," Fleetfire smiled. "It's a bit tricky, and you wouldn't want to get that hook caught in your fingers or something. That hurts!"
Lucinia nodded and looked at Sunfire, who smiled and softly stroked the Kattin's hair before reaching down and taking the fish off the hook.
     "You did well, kiddo."
     "I thank you," Lucinia smiled, looking at her fishing rod. "And now?"
     "Now you put another ball of bread on the hook and do it again!" Fleetfire giggled. "Let's see how many... whoop! I got one too!"
She gave a short tug on her rod, then jerked it up energetically, pulling a fish out of the water and into the boat in a high parabola. Lucinia giggled cheerfully as the fish landed on the bottom of the boat with a wet splat, where Sunfire picked it up and took it off the hook.
     "This funny! I like!"
     "Yes, it's real nice, isn't it?" Fleetfire smiled. "Come on, let's see how many you can catch!"

They cast their lines again, giggling and talking happily. Sunfire looked out over the water for Skyfire, every now and then helping the two kittens as they caught several more fish. Just as Lucinia was about to cast her line again, she looked up with her ears perked when a cheery shout rang out from a little way furtheron.
     "Oohoo!" It was Skyfire, holding herself up by one of the rocks and waving at them. "Guess what?"
     "You found a catfish that told you a joke about two starfish making love and getting themselves tied into a knot?" Sunfire called back with a grin.
     "Very funny, sis!" Skyfire called out. "But as a matter of fact, I also found that ship! It's right here below me, wedged between this rock and that one!"
     "Well, congratulations," Sunfire said. "And now what?"
     "Now I need you to bring the boat over here!" Skyfire called. "I checked out the ship; it's ripped open along the entire side, and I can easily get to the cargo hold! There's five chests in there, holding the silver! I can pull them out and tie a rope around them, and then you can haul them up into the boat! I need your help for that, sis, because they're too heavy for me to push up to the surface by myself!"
     "Oh, right, right. Well, I'll see what I can do for you, sis," was Sunfire's dry answer.
     "Make it snappy, will you?" Skyfire chuckled. "The water's chilly out here! My nipples are about as hard as this rock!"
     "I'd better hurry, then, before you use those things to poke holes in me," Sunfire grinned. She winked at Lucinia and Fleetfire. "Sorry kiddos, but you have to stop fishing for a while."
     "No problem!" Fleetfire giggled. "Do you want me to help you row?"
     "You could do that," Sunfire nodded with a smile.

She untied the boat and took one of the oars, while Fleetfire happily took the other one. With the young yellow and orange tabby Mry calmly rowing, Sunfire used her oar mostly to steer the boat around the jagged rocks, every now and then sticking it down into the water to feel for rocks under the surface. They reached the rock Skyfire was holding onto without any accidents.
     "Is that ship very deep down, sis?" Sunfire asked as she tied the boat to the rock.
     "No, it's laying right on the mussel bank," Skyfire said. "If the mast hadn't snapped, you could see it sticking up out of the water." She took the end of a rope Sunfire handed her. "I haven't looked at how much silver blocks are in each chest, but they're in there, alright! You shouldn't have much trouble hoisting them aboard, they're quite narrow chests."
     "Right," Sunfire nodded. "Well, I'll just wait for your signal, then."

Skyfire nodded, pulling in a few deep breaths and holding the last one as she dived down into the water. Her form remained visible for a while until it disappeared in the shadow of the rocks, trailing the rope along which Sunfire calmed eased off, until she felt it going slack. Waiting calmly, the honey-colored Mry held on to the rope loosely, looking down into the water. Only a few moments later, there were two short tugs on the rope. Bracing herself with her front feet against the low side of the boat, Sunfire began to haul in the rope, eventually pulling up a narrow wood box with a flat lid which was being pushed up from below by Skyfire, who broke the surface the next moment, breathing deeply and shaking the water off her head.

It was indeed an unusual shape for a chest; a little over a yard long and only a foot wide, and two feet high. On the four corners were metal rings, through which Skyfire had looped the rope. Sunfire untied it and gave it back to her sister, who once more dived down underwater with it. Meanwhile, Fleetfire and Lucinia started examining the box, opening the lid to look inside. There were two rows of silver bars along the length of the box, five behind each other and two next to each other, stacked five high. Each bar was about eight inches long and four inches wide, and two inches thick, weighing almost two pounds each.
     "Much silver!" Lucinia exclaimed, impressed.
     "Yeah, look at this, Sunfire," Fleetfire said enthusiastically. "There must be a hundred pounds in this box!"
     "In a moment, kiddo," Sunfire said between deep, controlled breaths as she hauled in the second box. "Let's first get'em all up here."

Three more times Skyfire dived down below their boat with the rope, three more times she had Sunfire hauling up one of the narrow boxes. After the fifth one was aboard, Skyfire climbed into the boat herself as well, wringing out her hair and shaking herself a bit.
     "That's all of them," she said, gasping lightly. "I checked the rest of the hull of that ship, but there wasn't anything useful down there. They were hauling barrels of something as well, but those were right along the side that got sliced open by the rocks, so they were all smashed."
     "Well, I would say this is more than enough already," Sunfire said, rolling up the rope.
     "Yes, not a bad result for a Hoppy-brained adventure, is it?" Skyfire teased.

Sunfire didn't bite. Instead, she continued to calmly roll the rope onto a coil and lay it down on the bottom of the boat, taking one of the oars again to row the boat away from the jagged rocks. With a cheerful giggle, Skyfire took the other oar and helped, until they were far enough from the reef to hoist the sail again and sail towards the strip of basalt blocks. This time, Sunfire ran the boat towards the beach until it scraped across the sand, hopping overboard to pull the boat further towards the shore so it wouldn't drift off again.
     "I'd say we deserve a good meal now," she commented. "We didn't bring all that food for nothing, after all. And we can even fry some of the fish the kiddos caught."
     "Yes!" Lucinia said happily. "Look, Sky Fire! I caught fish!"
She pointed at the number of fish laying in a small heap near the stern, looking up at the dark grey Mry for approval with a happy smile. Skyfire smiled, softly stroking the small feline's curly hair.
     "That's very good, sweetie," she said. "Have you fished before?"
     "No," Lucinia shook her head. "First time! No big water in my land."
     "Then that's extra good, for your first time," Skyfire smiled. "I'm proud of you, sweetie."

Lucinia beamed and purred happily. She took some of the fish and carried them to the beach, carefully laying them down on the sand. Fleetfire brought the rest of the fish, and the saddle bags and diving belts which she carried draped over her feral lower back. Together, the kittens looked at Skyfire and Sunfire carrying the basket of food and the five boxes full of silver bars out of the boat. They made quite handy seats for the four felines to rest upon while they ate, now diving into the basket full of food instead of into the ocean. Sunfire dug a small hole in the sand and built a circle of stones around it, filling the hole with dry flotsam and dry helm grass, making a small fire over which they roasted some of the fish as well.

When all the food was gone, the four felines sat together for a little while more, listening to the surf and the cries of the occasional seagull.
     "So," Skyfire said after a while. "Shall we go home?"
     "Sounds like a plan," Sunfire agreed.
     "Do we do it the same way? You and Fleetfire take the boat back to the wharf, me and Lucinia take the autocart to meet you there?"
     "I had another idea, actually," Sunfire said, picking her teeth with a fishbone. "Look, there's still a bunch of rather good stuff laying around here, right? And over there..." She nodded towards one of the dunes, "...are those two barrels you spoke of the last time we were here. Why don't we, now that we're here anyway, have a good look around and see if there's any more items that are useful? Then afterwards, you, Lucinia and Fleetfire can take the boat back to the wharf, and I'll take the autocart. You're better at sailing against the wind than I am anyway, and if I ride in the autocart by myself, there's plenty of room left for those two barrels and any other stuff we might find."
     "You know, sometimes you have good ideas, sis," Skyfire chuckled. "You do realize, though, that once we're at the wharf, we will need to get all four of us into the autocart again to get home? How would we do that if it's filled with you and those barrels and other stuff?"
Sunfire grinned and poked her sister's bare chest with a finger.
     "Unlike you, I do think my plans through, sis. For one, at the wharf there's plenty of strong paws available to help us get those barrels onto the roof of the autocart. For another, we could sell or trade those barrels at the wharf or in Oceanside itself. And for a third, I can very easily first drive home, unload the barrels and everything else, and then drive to the wharf to pick up you and the kiddos."
     "Okay, okay, you're right," Skyfire giggled. "That last option sounds like the best one, actually. There's some kind of strong alcohol in those barrels. I don't think we'd drink it, but it might be of interest to doctor Healsong so we could quite likely get a lot of extra lessons for Fleetfire and Lucinia if we offer it to her, and we could even try to see if the autocart runs on it. You know alcohol burns the same way like the lamp oil and the petro-oil we use in the autocart does. And if you stop by our house first, that would give the girls and me some extra time to look around in Oceanside. That would be nice for Lucinia, too."
     "That's how we'll do it, then," Sunfire decided, nodding. She rose up and extinguished the fire, smiling at the two kittens. "Alright kiddos, go on and have a good look around, see if you can find anything useful or anything you'd like."

Fleetfire and Lucinia cheered and jumped up, running off across the beach with happy giggles to browse between the scattered items that were still left in the sand. The two adults smiled at it for a moment before taking the boxes of silver bars and carrying them to the car. Both barrels were also rolled to the car and stowed inside. As they walked back onto the beach for the third time, Skyfire looked up at an outcry from Fleetfire.
     "Ohh! Lucie! Come here, you gotta see this!"
Lucinia, who had been poking around between the shards and pieces of pottery in a tipped-over wood box full of vases and urns, hopped up and ran over to where Fleetfire was sitting.
     "What you have, Fleet Fire? Oof!"

All of a sudden, the small Kattin got caught on something and fell over, landing face-down in the damp sand with a thud. Immediately, Skyfire and Sunfire broke into a run, dashing over to Lucinia who was slowly scrambling up, sneezing and spitting out sand.
     "Goddess, are you alright, sweetie?" Skyfire said, kneeling down on her forepaws. "Did you hurt yourself? What happened?"
     "I fall," Lucinia coughed, wiping her sand-stained muzzle with both paws vividly. "Foot stuck."
Sunfire tilted her head a bit.
     "Looks like you tripped over something, kiddo." She started to run one forepaw along Lucinia's leg towards her foot. "Hey, what's this?"

The young Kattin's dainty, slender foot had snagged in a large, heavy metal ring, causing her fall. Sunfire gently disentangled Lucinia's foot, shoveling the sand around the ring aside with her forepaws. Slowly, a corner of a wood chest became visible, buried under the sand.
     "Looks like you also found a prize, kiddo," Sunfire said with a soft chuckle.
She rose up on her four feet, digging more energetically into the sand with her forepaws, gradually bringing up a fairly large wood chest with a half-round lid and heavy ironwork, and a big padlock on the front.
     "Check that, looks like you found a big prize," Sunfire grinned.

Digging around the chest, she freed it up so she could grab the ring that had caught Lucinia's foot with both paws and pull the chest out of the sand. From one of the pouches on her belt, she took a small, thin knife, using it to pick the lock, after which she opened the lid, letting out a chuckle.
     "I don't believe it!"
The chest was filled to the brim with silver coins with a number 10 on one side and a picture of a canine-looking animal's head on the other side.
     "Well!" Skyfire laughed. "It seems this day certainly has a very thick silver lining!"
Fleetfire, who had gotten tired of waiting by whatever it was she had found and had called Lucinia over for, trotted up to them with her ears curiously perked.
     "What have you found?"
     "Is coins!" Lucinia said, looking into the chest quite stunned. "I fall over box, Sun Fire dig up box and open it, is much coins inside!" She took one of the coins, looking at it. "I not know picture. Is not from my land. In my land, is only gold coins."
     "Wow!" Fleetfire said, dipping her paws into the chest and letting the coins slide through her fingers with numerous tinkles. "There must be hundreds and hundreds of them in here!"
     "I reckon that's soldier's wages or something," Sunfire mused, running a paw over her whiskers. "Most likely looted by pirates."
Fleetfire hugged Lucinia.
     "Wow, that's an awesome find, Lucie! You really seem to have good luck in everything, don't you? First you escape the slavers and are found by my sisters, then you catch more fish than me on your first time of fishing, and now look at what you found!"
     "I not find box, I fall over box," Lucinia said, rubbing her foot.
     "Same thing," Skyfire giggled. "The best and most precious things are often found through sheer dumb luck because you trip over them."
     "And fair's fair, kiddo," Sunfire grinned, softly stroking Lucinia's head. "We always use the stuff we find on the Sand Shores for ourselves or trade them for other goods we can use, so we always share them with one another, but not our own first valuable finds. This is your first find of value, so it's all yours."
Her mouth sinking open, Lucinia looked up with wide eyes, letting out a squeak.
     "Wha?"
     "That's right, sweetie," Skyfire giggled. "We always share everything we find for common use, but when Sunfire and me first started combing the Sand Shores for useful or valuable items, we made an agreement; the very first valuable thing each of us would find, we could keep for ourselves." She gave Lucinia a soft hug. "Well, you just lucked out again that your first find of value turns out to be a big chest full of silver coins. Congratulations, sweetie."
     "Yeah, congratulations!" Fleetfire giggled. "Think of all the awesome stuff you can buy with all of this!"

Lucinia gasped in bewilderment, unable to let out any other sounds but squeaks as she looked from one Mry to the other. Sunfire grinned softly and leaned over, scooping a pawful of coins from the chest and filling one of the pouches on Lucinia's belt with it before closing the lid of the chest and softly stroking the Kattin's head again.
     "When you and Skyfire and Fleetfire wait for me in Oceanside, get yourself some nice things, kiddo." She looked at her storm-grey sister. "You might want to have them valued, Skyfire. These coins are larger and thicker than our silvers, and what with that number ten on one side, I think it's a fair guess they might be worth ten coppers instead of the five coppers that ours are worth."
     "You're probably right," Skyfire nodded. She helped Lucinia to her feet with a giggle. "Come, sweetie. I think we found more than enough for now. Sunfire will bring everything home, and you, me and Fleetfire will take the boat back to the wharf, and then we'll go shop in Oceanside a bit, alright?" She giggled again. "With these coins, you can even buy yourself some nice clothes."

Lucinia nodded mutely, still quite dazed over the news that the entire chest full of coins was hers to keep. While Sunfire brought the chest and the rest of their finds to the car and drove off, Skyfire brought Lucinia and Fleetfire to the boat and calmly sailed it around the west side of the continent back to the wharf at the small town on the south-east side where they arrived just as the sun began to sink down towards the horizon. It had certainly been a very, very rewarding day. Like Skyfire had said; it had a very thick silver lining.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Exploring Nezinoma Salis - Silver", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "1", "rating_name": "Mature", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "2", "name": "Nudity", "description": "Nonsexual nudity exposing breasts or genitals (must not show arousal)", "rating_id": "1" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "15" }