Submission (#198) Approved

Ubeu had been keeping to herself more these days. It was now the middle of her third week in Seaworn, and ever since the disastrous events of the talent show she had avoided the company of most of her guildmates. There had been a few cats here and there whom she had spoken to, but her previous zeal and quest for justice had been sapped. She didn’t really know who she was anymore, or how she was supposed to stand up for what she believed in.

So when she heard that the local fisherman Camellia Marlowe needed help with fishing, and he was most certainly not a guildmate, Ubeu decided it would be a good distraction. Besides, she missed fishing. Back home, she had fished as a normal part of her hunting routine. The Lake of Plenty had been home to many fish, some rather large as well, though they had all been isolated in the water with no river to swim to and from. Although most cats fished in the shallows where they could stand, some in her colony had built little rafts to float in the center of the lake and catch the larger fish that schooled there. Some cats even learned to swim to dive for food. It had been a wonderful sight, and Ubeu missed it. She wanted to fish again, hoped it would make her feel a little more at home and less out of sorts.

Nevertheless, when she approached the fishing boat and was given a crash course, none of what she was taught was what she knew to be true. She knew that some catfolk fished with rods and wires, but in her experience she’d always used her claws and teeth. Waiting in the shallows, avoiding casting shadows, a precise and patient technique that utilized the full body. Ubeu didn’t want to fish like this! Where she sat on a boat and held onto a pole and waited and waited for a fish to blunder into a hook. No, that sounded wrong and boring and dull. But unlike her previous self, the self she had been a few weeks ago, Ubeu held her tongue. She wasn’t going to argue with this fisherman, not when she knew all she would get would be confused looks and protests. So the tortoiseshell shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head and clambered onto the small boat she was provided, moving it out to sea.

But Ubeu knew she could still use this boat to her advantage, like the rafts from her homeland. If she wasn’t in the shallows, she could certainly catch some of the larger fish that were needed for Seaworn’s market. And the bait would help her lure those large fish to the surface without her needing to go diving for them. She could swim, but not as well as the divers from her colony. So she came up with a strange little plan, alone on her boat in the middle of the harbor.

Ubeu draped the wire with the bait over the edge of the boat, balancing the fishing rod inside. Letting the bait dangle into the water, she waited inside, peeking out over the rim of her capsule and watching with wide yellow eyes for a fish to appear. She waited a while, tail tip flicking with anticipation, when all of a sudden the wire was pulled firmly downwards and her entire fishing rod splashed into the sea!
With a squeak of protest, Ubeu reached out to grab the rod, but it was pulled sharply downwards underwater and she was left blinking in utter shock at her only tool being taken from her. The tortoiseshell took a moment to process this, before realizing there was only one solution. She dove into the water and desperately searched for the fishing rod. She found it, spiraling through the clear waters as salt stung her eyes. At the end of the rod, pulling the wire, was a giant salmon. There was blood coming from its mouth, the poor thing had bit down hard on the bait and become snagged. Ubeu felt awful, but when she caught up to the pole and held on fast with her teeth, she was dragged along behind!

Through the water she fought with this damn crazy fish who seemed utterly unable to comprehend that maybe dragging her through the water would only hurt its mouth more! Ubeu snarled and hissed in bubbles of protest, yanking and tugging and trying to swim back to the surface. With a horrid pop! the hook was wrenched free, and the bloodied fish disappeared into the depths of the ocean.

Ubeu swam back to the surface, flopped back onto her boat, and lay there with the fishing rod draped beside her. She was soaked to the bone, but the situation had been so ridiculous that she began to laugh. Great, guffawing laughter exploded from her mouth and she shrieked and giggled into the open harbor, unable to contain herself. And it felt so good to laugh. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d been feeling empty beforehand that made the laughter come so easy, and it took a fair amount of time before Ubeu was able to calm herself and take some deep breaths.

She shook herself dry and licked herself clean, then let the warm sun do the rest. Gently, Ubeu reapplied the bait and dangled the wire back over the boat into the water, though this time she promptly sat on the fishing rod. After a long while, she felt a tug, and Ubeu lunged forward to pull up the wire and claw at whatever was on the end of the hook. It was a much smaller fish, but a fish nonetheless, and with a quick bite she killed it.

Over the next few hours, Ubeu enjoyed a relaxing hunt where she baited small fish to the surface and snagged them in her claws. They would look a little bitten and beaten, although it didn’t occur to her that this could be weird for the fisherman when he saw what she had gotten him. But with a lighter heart and a calmer soul, Ubeu returned to shore with several small fish in her boat, ready to present them to the fisherman.