Gone Fishin' (Open)

[Roxanne]

A figure sat on the shore of a vast, vast lake, watching the wind ripple its surface. The figure, a girl, ruffled her spiky hair, and sighed, she loved to enjoy nature like this, with only her around. It was peaceful. The girl, named Roxanne, picked up a particularly smooth pebble from the shore, and skimmed it expertly across the lake. It used to be one of her favorite pastimes when she was smaller. Roxanne watched as the stone sunk quite a way out in the lake, and repeated this process of skimming and watching for quite a long while.

Eventually, she grew tired of skimming pebbles, which were getting harder to find around the area in which she was sitting, and got herself up: to investigate one of the little boats left nearby. Roxanne climbed into the one nearest the shore, white with a fading blue stripe, and began to check around for holes. When she found none, she climbed back out, and began to push it into the water, with a little difficulty, since the boat was fairly heavy for just one person. After a short while, the boat was floating in the water, with the spiky haired female aboard, attempting to punt out into the lake with half an oar.

[Spirit]

Spirit walked along the edge of the lake, kicking aimlessly at the shallows with her feet. What was the point of it all? She doubted anyone would notice if she just curled up and died right there. Looking out across the lake, she caught sight of someone splashing about in a boat near the edge of the lake. Spirit was mildly curious to see who this other person was. They were obviously a Blader, since they were alive, but why were they attempting to row across a lake? Spirit hurried around the edge of the lake, pebbles slipping out from under her feet as she ran.

"Hey! Hey!" She yelled at the person in the boat, whom she could clearly see was female. "What're you doing?" Spirit reached the edge of the shore as the person continued to paddle with what Spirit could now see was half an oar. She grabbed one of the whole oars from another boat, and holding it aloft shouted out to the female: "Wouldn't it be easier with this?" Spirit wondered if the person had missed the oars in the other boats, or if, perhaps, they just liked paddling around with half an oar, it wasn't impossible, after all, she certainly had a strange taste in clothing and makeup.

[Roxanne]

Roxanne looked up at the younger girl's shout, but continued to paddle, having no interest real interest in her. At the girl's second shout, Roxanne snapped back: "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm boating!" Whilst it was true she had a short temper, Roxanne wasn't quite as angry as she sounded, and a small part of her regretted snapping. When the white haired girl held a proper oar up, Roxanne pressed a hand to her temple, and sighed. Why hadn't she seen that? She promptly turned in the boat, and began to paddle the other way.

When she made land, Roxanne threw the half oar away vehemently, a satisfied smirk appearing when the sound of splintering wood, and muttered something about oars. Then, she turned to the other girl, and relieved her of the oar. "So, who're you?"she demanded, studying every aspect of this new person carefully.

[Spirit]

In general, Spirit was reasonably patient, however, this particular individual really irritated her, though she was, thankfully, far from being angry, and rolled her eyes at the girl's reply "I can see that! I meant: what were you doing with half an oar?" Spirit shook a small amount, holding in her inappropriate laughter, and attempted to watch as the boating female rowed back to land with her half oar. Spirit could see that she was going to take a long time, and so, she took a penknife from one of her many pockets, and began to aimlessly etch a doodle on the oar.

Spirit continued like this, until, eventually the other girl came and snatched the oar away, whilst demanding to know who Spirit was. "I'm Spirit, why?" she replied, stowing her penknife away in its pocket, and then chose to shove her hands into her two outside pockets of her coat, in a relaxed sort of manner.

[Roxanne]

Roxanne, who was, at that moment, leaning upon the oar she had taken from Spirit, replied, whilst studying Spirit's doodle, in a more friendly manner, "Roxanne...". She chose to ignore Spirit's why, and instead stated: "I'm going to go out on the lake, want to come with?", and, without waiting for a reply, she climbed back into the boat, and, after giving Spirit a couple of seconds to decide, pushed off, finding it immeasurably easier with a full oar. Soon, she fell into a steady rhythm, and was out in the middle of the vast, blueish lake.

Roxanne pulled in the oar, and, since she had previously been standing, not unlike someone punting a gondola, sat down, and pulled the oar in across her lap, looking out across the tranquil lake, as a duck - a fairly rare sight nowadays, paddled its way across the body of water, perhaps to a family. Roxanne sighed, partly wishing she could be that duck, though, in hindsight, when she caught sight of the bird of prey overhead, perhaps she wouldn't want to be that particular duck at this precise moment of time. She couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for that duck.

[Spirit]

Spirit laughed, "What do you mean do I want to? Of course I do!", and with that, she performed a running jump, landing acrobatically into the dinghy. She sat herself down, and watched as Roxanne rowed them out into the lake - she was quite good at rowing, Spirit noticed. She wondered if Roxanne had rowed before. Spirit stared out at the lake, and watched as a Duck, unawares of the hawk above it, paddled about in the water. "Aww, a duck..." Spirit muttered - She rather liked ducks, they were one of her favorite animals. Spirit continued watching the duck, as Roxanne stopped rowing, apparently also looking at the duck.

The hawk dived, and Spirit winced unconsciously. Her expectations were shattered however, when the duck dived underwater, and escaped from the hawk, causing Spirit to let out a sharp laugh. She turned back to the spiky haired rower. "So, do you row often Roxanne?"

[Roxanne]

Roxanne watched her companion, reflecting on the slightly crazy running jump she had performed to get into the boat. It would have been funny if she had missed, and landed in the lake. So funny in fact, she nearly let out a snort of laughter, though she quickly turned it into a cough. She looked up, past spirit, and saw the duck pop up, and swim hurriedly into some reeds. Roxanne didn't blame it - the poor thing must have been scared out of its wits. She turned her attention back to Spirit however, when she began to ask a question.

"Do I row often?" Roxanne repeated, thinking about the question carefully, as if the wrong answer could somehow bring about a disaster. "Never done it before..." She finally decided to reply, after a while of deliberating. Then, she slipped the oar back into the water, and began to paddle back to shore.

[Spirit]

Spirit made a small noise of disbelief, but said nothing. She didn't really believe Roxanne when she said that she had never rowed before - No way should she be this good at it if she had never rowed before. Spirit pushed the issue to the back of her mind however, it was really none of her business, and it wasn't as if her past could be pretty - no one's was, what with the disaster and the dying and such, and some (Such as Spirit herself) had no history at all, or at least, not that they could remember.

Spirit looked out across the lake, towards the mountains that could be seen from across the watery expanse. She wondered vaguely what they were like.Were they all snowy and cold, as they looked, or were they some haven for life somehow? Spirit almost laughed out loud. It would have been nice, but she doubted it, anything this close to the crash site should have no life at all.