Alida Antics

** IC DATE if applicable
Bluefire Hold

Encircled within two sandy prominences, a deep harbor of clear aqua waters shimmers under a tropical sun. Sailing and fishing boats ply the waters, but the main shipping appears to be flat barges with pressurized metal cylinders from the gas fields bound for the Western Islands.
The waterfront consists primarily of large docks build to accommodate the barges exporting natural gas tanks but there is a marina off to one side that suffices for smaller private vessels. Quieter public beaches are located in smaller lagoons along the shores while this harbor remains busy with the industry of loading and unloading gas tanks and the fish needed to sustain the people of this hold.
A crushed shell road leaves the area, passing beyond thick green growth - palms, broad-leafed greenery and gorgeous flowering vines, heading north before it splits into a Y, the east branch leading to a bluff overlooking the harbor where the hold perches, the west branch moves deeper inland where the gas fields lie.
LOCATION_DESCRIPTION_2//


It's mid-afternoon, and, as usual, Blue Flame Hold's port and docks are busy-busy, since quite a few places have need and desire for the natural gas they produce in large quantity. People move around everywhere, seeing to their tasks, from fitting ship riggings to replacing dock floats. Somewhere 'in between,' a taller, very short-haired woman with pale locks and keen green eyes stands, her form steady, legs slightly parted to provide good balance, her gaze sweeping across things near and far (mostly nearer, though) as big men near her carry large canisters of natural gas up gangplanks and onto ships.

Sleek shapes move in the shadows of the docks, a wetsuited figure wearing the emblem of the dolphin craft sits perched on the edge of the water near the boats. "And I'm telling you if you take that boat out in the shape it's in, you are just asking to be fished out of the bay, I checked the hole myself just to be sure it wasn't one of their pranks. Something caught the planks.." A dour-faced dockworker just grunts at her and starts back in the direction or the hold, presumably to report the leak. "Everybody's a critic." Is replied to with a squeal and splash before sea green eyes are lifting from the water to survey the area and the blonde with a lift of both brows.

The wetsuited figure is taken in by those seemingly merciless, clear tsavorite eyes of Alida's when the small racket begins, the pale-skinned and pale-haired woman checking out the interplay between dockworker and dolphineer, then looking up something in a notepad whe produces from a pants pocket. Mm…seems to jive that such things would be found here. It's that squeal and squee that have her gaze lifting back up and out toward the seated female, then down towards those sleek shapes in the water. For a few long seconds, she stares at the dolphin — if it's viewable above the water's surface, of course — a look of curiosity and faint wonderment entering her gaze for a few moments before she returns to keeping a weather eye out on what takes place around her.

SOMEONES LOOKING AT MOI? The dolphin in question is smaller, one of the youngsters of the pod, but he seems to take note of being noticed and chirps and squeaks and trills start anew between the three- no four sleek shapes. Seconds later a shape bursts from the water flopping down to create the largest possible splash and leaving one dolphineer shouting. "Damnit Flora, don't go terrorizing the -"

Squeaks and chirps and trills are finally getting to be sounds that the landlubber Alida expects here in the semi-tropics and by the ocean, her experience with the sea a rather newer one, indeed. But when one of the dolphineers starts shouting about Flora terrorizing something or other… Well, the ex-guard cannot help but react with alacrity, Alida dropping the pad of paper to the wooden dock, spinning around like greased lightning, and grasping at the pig-sticker of a knife at her left hip. Spu-LASH!!! And then the deluge hits, Flora the dolphin 'kid's' big splash in life inundating those at the edge of the docks, from men carrying empty and full cannisters of gas to other dock workers to… Alida. In an instant, the hardened woman is soaked from head to booted toes in sea water, her hand slowly letting go of her knife's pommel, and chilly green eyes opening to pin a LOOK upon that one dolphin, then the female human sitting on the pier. Glare…drip-drip-drip.

Tani can't help it, laughter bursts forth in fits as she eyes the dripping… well Tanit isn't quite sure what the blonde is other than soaked. "You'll have to forgive them, but Merc thought you could use a little fun." Is dripping wet fun? Dolphin rational would seem to indicate such. The lanky brunette pulls to her feet closing the distance and offering a hand in greeting. "Tanit, apprentice Dolphineer, the smaller one is Merc, the female is Flora and the big guy over there is Artie. "

Tani can't help it, laughter bursts forth in fits as she eyes the dripping… well Tanit isn't quite sure what the blonde is other than soaked. "You'll have to forgive them, but Merc thought you could use a little fun." Is dripping wet fun? Dolphin rational would seem to indicate such. The lanky brunette pulls to her feet closing the distance and offering a hand in greeting. "Tanit, apprentice Dolphineer, the smaller one is Merc, the female is Flora and the big guy over there is Artie. "

Grrr….Siiiiiiigh. Alida might be a hard-ass, but when she soon learns from Tanit that two are kids who were just looking to play, the head of security draws a deep, evening breath, expells it deeply and slowly, closes her eyes for a moment, then nods at the apprentice. "Understood…" comes her light alto, and though it still doesn't sound terribly charmed, at least it isn't angry. All about them, various dock workers are grousing, grumbling, squeezing out their clothes, or even chuckling a little. It's then that Alida's gaze zips all around for some moments, making sure things are still secure before she levels it back upon Tanit once more. "Leeta; head of Gas security." That hand before her is examined for a long moment, as if it might conceal a firecracker or dagger or something…and then finally taken up, given a quick, slightly hard squeeze, dropped. The triad of named dolphins nearer them are eyed for some moments, then slightly smirked at. To them the merc calls: "Thanks for the 'fun,' but work is the order of the day, right now. No more of that, thanks." Eyeroll. To Tanit: "They yours?"

"While I may qualify as an aquatic mammal, I certainly did not birth them, and any dolphin will laugh their ass off at the idea of a human owning them." Tanit grins, accepting the grip for what it is and returning it. "I just work with them, they are part of the pod stationed between Half Moon Bay and Black Moon Bay, and Artie is teaching these two how to check ships. While it's fun fishing them out of the water, it is much easier keeping the humans in the boat."

"Dolphin-ass…" Alida smirkingly notes to Tanit for a moment, the woman then returning to her neutral appearance, eyes scanning the horizons for some moments while the dolphineer speaks, then returning to her. "Does their pod have an official name?" is then inquired, the security woman once again serious as she bend to pick up her notepad…and finds it partially waterlogged. SIGH. One mostly still-dry page or two is located, and a pen slipped from one of her breast pockets, uncapped, set to said paper. Blink, smirk. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna turn anyone in. I just would like to have a note of who the locals are. This harbor's been…compromised before, or so I've been told." And *that* won't happen again under *her* watch. "Useful ta' have eyes under the water." And how.

"Most pods are just referred to by their territories. The hall assigns them numbers. I remember hearing about the explosion, that was… before the hurricane right?" Someone's grasp of time isn't the best. "I'd like to see someone try to turn one of them in, it doesn't really do much good they don't have much concept of discipline. Everything gets treated like a game. If a dolphin is being completely serious, that's when you really know you are in trouble." Tanit admits rubbing the back of her neck with a shrug. "Seems like a boring job if you don't mind me saying Leeda."

"I see. So…Half Moon Pod, then?" Alida notes with vague curiosity, looking to Tanit to say 'yea' or 'nay' and correct her if she's wrong, the woman then nodding a couple of times to word of the hurricane. "I wasn't here then, but I think that's right." Word of an innate lack of 'dolphin discipline' makes one of 'Leeta's' pale eyebrows loft a little, the woman then grunting softly and nodding when the apprentice speaks of the animals knowing how and when to be utterly serious. As for her own job being boring, "There's more to it than meets the eye…but it does take a certain kind of…discipline over one's self to perform it well." Is *she* boring, then?

"Black Moon more properly." To Which Merc pops his head out of the water with a series of squeals and clicks, giving the dolphineer cause to roll her eyes. "Well, Merc is originally from the Hall. Few more years he'll be old enough to partner up if he wants. " The young dolphin continues eyeing from the water, clearly up to something but what is left for debate.

"*Black* Moon Pod…" Alida corrects succinctley, nodding as she crosses out her written 'Half' and writes the proper adjective in place over it. "Thank you…" is murmured, Merc's squeals and clicks earning him a smirk before clear green eyes turn to Tanit once again. "Are they like human ages for maturing, and such?" Curiosity sparks again in the palest-blonde woman, her gaze shifting back to young Merc. Noted with a hint of darkly humored drawl: "I c'n see he's up t' something." Really?

Once again, however, it would seem that Merc is the distraction as Flora zooms up and out of the water to flop back down again. The dolphineer, either so used to this that it doesn't merit a reaction or else determined not to feed into the playful cry for attention merely wipes away the water as if nothing has happened. Continue on. Nothing to see here. "No, They never really mature in the terms you would think of for humans. It's like having a bunch of kids around. They are very intelligent but they retain that childlike nature throughout their lives."

She's on guard, this round, and those incredibly acute eyes of 'Leeta's' manage to spy Flora leaping up in the air, the woman turning her back, shoving her pad of half-soggy paper in her bosom, and crouching down into a ball as the next wall of water hits her and some other dock workers. "Shit…" is all that grumblingly issues from the head of security's lips as she's again inundated, her clothing now thoroughly soaked, the 'new' workers on this route from ship to docks cussing out more creatively as they get first-hand experience with the antics of bored dolphins. Once Leeta gets done standing up, wringing all the excess water she can from her shirt — fuck the pants, at this point — then turning back around, she notes flatly to Flora and Merc just beyond them, "I'd give you a day in a holding cell for *that* one…" Puff, eye-roll. If she could. Good luck. Listening to Tanit speak of her 'charges' earns the other female a low groan, and a muttered, "So, I should be expecting this kind of crap from them every time they're near?" Oh, Faranth's non-existant titties… NO.

Tanit just laughs. And the 'teenagers offer a tail walk and chatter as if to say yeah right. "Just when they really bored. It's easier to give them something to focus on or a job to do, so long as you paint it as a game." Raking a hand through wet locks. After all, Tanit's in a wetsuit, "Well, bored or if they think it's amusing to mess with you." Cue Merc popping his nose out of the water and squealing pointedly. "He says you owe him chin scratches for the free show." And no, she doesn't manage to keep an entirely straight face through the comment.

SHe's not seen a tail-walk yet, and the sight of the motions bring a sudden, cautious little grin to Alida's features, the woman quickly flipping the 'kids' the 'bird.' Looking a little more soSHe's not seen a tail-walk yet, and the sight of the motions bring a sudden, cautious little grin to Alida's features, the woman quickly flipping the 'kids' the 'bird.' Looking a little more sober as she turns back to Tanit, "Punk-ass kids." Snort. There's more scribbling down of something in her protected notebook once it comes out — the security head's back given to the dolphins to protect it — the things then secreted away again as she turns back to face everyone. Another scan of the piers and harbor finally sees the woman nodding to Tanit's words of 'games,' her brown once again arching for owing a dolphin scritches. Smirk. "What's he think he is; a dragon?" Cue her lightly rough laugh.ber as she turns back to Tanit, "Punk-ass kids." Snort. There's more scribbling down of something in her protected notebook once it comes out — the security head's back given to the dolphins to protect it — the things then secreted away again as she turns back to face everyone. Another scan of the piers and harbor finally sees the woman nodding to Tanit's words of 'games,' her brow once again arching for owing a dolphin scritches. Smirk. "What's he think he is; a dragon?" Cue her lightly rough laugh.

"Sweet Faranth no, Dragons are way bigger for one." Tanit notes almost solemn, though the spark in those sea-green eyes might hint at additional mischief. "Chin scratches or water gun, your choice." Tanit cautions, "And they are a lot harder to deal with, to be frank. Try washing an Anti-social bronze who thinks he's Faranth's gift to dragons sometimes, but alas. we need to get going. See you around?"

"I never noticed…" Alida notes with dry flatness to the 'dragons equals big' comment, her features bland, though those clear green eyes spark with some humor. "Water gun, eh? Maybe another time." Smirk. Blink. "Well, I guess dragon *do* grow up, mentally. I might've thought otherwise." Dolphins being tougher to deal with. They certainly have aggravated her way more than any dragon, so far…not that Leeta has been super close to any dragon, ever. At Tanit's words of taking off, the landlubber nods her soggy head, calls to the apprentice, "You owe *me* a drink sometime for all this…" Cue a wring of her sopping pants. Her hand is lifted, fingers wriggled in what might stand in for a farewell.


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