Fish Out of Water (Open)

[Sati Beshara]

Sati had been taking a mid-early-morning walk on a non-touristy part of South Beach that wasn't crowded much at all at this hour. Not deserted, certainly, good grief it was South Beach, but you could go for at least five minutes without a jogger or dog-walker or beach-comber going by. Ahead of her, she could see a large dark shape on the sand that she took to be a big piece of driftwood. As she got closer, she could see it was moving. And closer still, she could see it was a beached shark.

Well.

Sati continued walking in that direction, until she was standing about a few yards from the animal, where she stopped. It was alive, five feet long, and thrashing about in the sand. Sati knew nothing about sharks, and had no idea what kind this one was. It was in fact a lemon shark, a Miami native. Thought they looked quite fearsome there had in fact only been twenty-two reported attacks since 1520, none of which had been fatal. This one was young, hence why it had been in shallow water and was not yet the typical size of eight to ten feet that a grown lemon shark would be. It would never get to be that size either, if it did not get back in to the water, which looked like a hopeless case. It would be dead far before the tide came back to pull it in.

Sati looked at the shark. The shark did not look at Sati.

Then she walked up right next to, bent down, and attempted to get a grip on it. The fish was not smooth as it appeared, but rough, like sandpaper, and it grazed and chafed against her palms and everywhere else on her that it hit as it tossed itself violently to and fro, trying now not just to escape the doom of dry land but from its attempted savior as well. She then began to try to drag it by the tail back to the water, and it responded by trying to twist itself back around far enough to bite her. Meanwhile, the setae stubs that were growing back from her last shave but weren't yet long enough to shave against were going nuts with all kinds of WEIRDNESS every time the shark got even close to them. Made her head spin, damn.

[Edgar Christopher]

Edgar had been doing much of the same, really. Working on the evening news freed up one's morning schedule, perfect if you were a runner. Especially if you were a runner in a place with a nightlife like Miami's. It just wasn't worth risking if you enjoyed peace and quiet. ... Well, Miami's version of peace and quiet. It was actually pretty peaceful if you were up early enough.

It was a bit lucky that he'd decided to trek to South Beach on a whim. It was luckier still that he hadn't developed his usual sense of 'tunnel vision' while running past the actual beach. He'd never seen a shark up close before, and the girl nearby was making an attempt to move it back into the water, so he'd approach. Carefully, as he usually approached everyone. He knew that the other sixty percent of the population couldn't quite tell he was a giant lizard underneath everything, but he kept himself on a firm leash anyway. He wasn't aware of Sati's species as he moved a bit closer, since his senses weren't all-too developed beyond 'could be food' and 'is not food'.

"Hey, um. Need a hand? I could probably grab the front."

It wasn't wise to hold a shark by the pointy end, but one person on each side could be enough to lift it into the water easier. If he was careful, he wouldn't get bitten. He wouldn't have to worry about how rough sharkskin could be either. It took a lot more than that to get under his own skin.

[Sati Beshara]

Moths may not have a great nose (did they have a nose at all?) but the sense receptors that covered their body were able to detect food and mates from many miles away. Females of some moth species can even the ancestry, age and possibly reproductive fitness of a male just from his scent. So Sati's setae were, no pun intended, nothing to sniff at, and they detected, as did her hair (which she smelled with she never got over that it was so WEIRD), a fellow shifter even through the sea-stench of the shark. What sort, he'd have to be closer and the shark gone from her scent-range for her to tell. Whatever he might be, though, she supposed she'd rather another shifter help her with the shark than a baseline human if she had the choice; he might have better strength or reflexes to avoid the snapping jaws, or a high-level healing factor to fix things swiftly if he didn't.

"Yes! Please! Thank you!", she called out in bursts, unable to take her attention off the shark for even a split-second, since she knew doing so would likely cost her a good chunk of calve-meat, and thus conversation wasn't going to be so eloquent with her at the moment. She stopped her backwards track in the sand so that the man could come over and get a hold of the shark's front end.

"Watch the teeth! He's a live one.", she advised the obvious. He was quite 'live' indeed, but his spasms were lessening in strength compared to just a bit earlier. They should probably get a move on getting some water in to those gills...

[Edgar Christopher]

"Got it!"

With that, he'd toss his jacket onto the sand and carefully dive straight for the shark's jaws. See, Edgar figured sharks were a bit like his own species. Great jaw strength, but they couldn't quite open them if something or someone held them shut.

It was safe to say that he didn't know much about sharks.

As soon as he'd gotten a firm hold (avoiding the gills, he knew that much at least) he'd lift the beast a bit. Hopefully they could get it to the water before it dried out completely. And hopefully it wouldn't open up and bite him in the stomach. Luckily, he found it easier to grab on and stand near it's right side.

"I've never felt a shark's skin before. I had no idea that they were this rough."

Sure, he'd heard the skin of a shark was rough, but he wasn't expecting it to be, well, that rough. Then again, this was the bloke that also didn't know that they needed to get the poor thing into the water as quick as they could. Nor did he realize how close he was to getting his arm sliced open by a very sharp tooth.

[Sati Beshara]

"Oof! Me either," she responded regarding the roughness,

"Bet the teeth are worse though, thanks for keeping that end under control."

Finally, she felt water on the back of her heels as she stepped in to the edge of the sea. Wonderful! There wasn't enough yet to put the shark down in, at least not for it to reach its gills properly, but a few more steps back...and a few more...

"I think we can put it down now," she said,

"At least to let it get a breath before we can get it to a deeper spot. Just hang on tight, alright? On three?"

On three, they did indeed set the shark down so that the water washed over its gills. The shark, which had been getting more and more still as they had carried it out further, suddenly sprang back to life. Too much life, as it happened--it began to struggle and thrash even more than it had before! Sati couldn't hang on, and, with a slight noise of pain as its skin scraped swiftly against her own, she dropped her end of the beast.

[Edgar Christopher]

"Yeah they're a bit worse."

The skin scraping against his wasn't a problem. It wasn't sharp enough to do much damage to his hide. Sure felt weird though. When the shark was set down and the life sprung back into the poor beast, Edgar's arm was directly in the path of it's mouth.

It clamped down. He hissed and clamped his own teeth together. Right. So they almost had it out to an acceptable distance. If they could get it there and then pry it off his arm, that would be nice.

"I think he's going to be okay. At the very least he's certainly back to being... sharky."

It was a bit tough for the toothy fellow to keep a hold on the other toothy fellow, especially since his right arm was in it's mouth, but he tried to keep a bit of a grip on it. Especially since if it thrashed a bit too much, his arm would more than likely be missing a chunk for a while. And he liked that arm, really. It was his favourite arm. His right was his dominant side, how could it not be his favourite?

"It's okay little fella. Just. Don't take my arm back to wherever it is you're from. I know you'd like to keep it, since it's a nice arm and all, but I need it more than you do."

Even when he was in pain he was still chatty. Call it a method of taking his mind off the problem.

[Sati Beshara]

"Very sharky!", she agreed, sounding a lot less nervous about this than she felt.

And then the shark bit the man. She didn't think it had at first, that she was seeing things wrong, due to the whole lack of screaming and flailing and other overt signs of pain and panic from the man that one would naturally expect to occur when bitten on the arm by a junior sea monster and was still continuing to be bitten via clamping without release. If she'd been being told this story rather than experiencing it, she would have perhaps made the guess that he was in shock, but since she was experiencing it, her reaction was much less cerebral: she punched the shark.

It was not very effective. In fact, it was completely ineffective. The fish didn't seem to have even felt it. However, at least the time that it took to make the automatic punch had given her a few seconds for her brain to engage just a little more logically, and form a new plan of action, which was sticking her fingers in to the gills. She had heard that when being attacked by a shark, this was one of the few things that could make them let go. Whenever she heard it (which had been a few times, or read it--it was Miami, you would of course want to know a bit more about this than if you lived in, say, Iowa) she had always wondered just what was the point of getting the shark to release you? It would just bite you again in a few seconds, and if you had already been attacked by it and wounded, the odds of you being able to swim to shore away from it before then were just laughable. And who could even remember to do that when THEY WERE BEING ATTACKED BY A FREAKING SHARK?!

Now, however, she saw the use of this knowledge. It was not for when you were being attacked out in the open ocean by a big shark that wanted to eat you because it was big and could do that. It was for when someone near you in shallow water was being bitten by a small shark that was just scared and freaking out. Proof that this knowledge was for this situation? It worked. The shark released.

Sati's mouth released too, that is, released a stream of apologies to Aggie for having dropped the shark and letting this happen. She continued spilling her sorries as she grabbed hold of it again, adding,

"You should get back to shore, call an ambulance for your arm, I'll just drag him a little more ways out and then I think he can make on his own! Can you get to shore? Should I help you instead?"

Yes, yes, she should probably focus on helping him more than the shark, yes, priorities, calm down and remember priorities, just because this is the first task you were focusing on doesn't make it the most important, people over sharks, priorities, CALM DOWN.

'People over sharks' was not something that Sati would normally have to remind herself of. She was no great fan of sharks in particular, certainly not to that degree. But because she was freaking out over the fact that Aggie was hurt and it was her fault, her brain was indeed getting a little weird and going with the idea that the FIRST task she'd started MUST be the most important and therefore getting it done would fix things RIGHT? So a little self-reminder that NO IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY was needed, excuse her.

[Edgar Christopher]

"Don't worry, don't worry. I'm not bleeding to death. Let's both move him out a little bit more and get to shore before things take a turn."

Salt water. Bite wound in arm. Every single one of Edgar's nerves were screaming at him to make for high ground. Or scream. Or turn into an even bigger predator and attack the thing that had wounded him.

But nope. He had his priorities twisted around in such a way that he really wanted to see the poor pointy bugger head homeward, instead of taking the obvious choice and tending to himself.

He'd heal. Shapeshifters were good at healing. Sure he might scar, and oh god salt water on open bleeding wound, but he'd get over it. They just needed to get the little fella out a few more feet and then run. He even tried to regain his grip on the creature.

"Is it even safe for you to be out here with blood in the water like this? Do they frenzy or something?"

Curiosity outweighed pride. It took a lot more than a salted wound to break his fascination with things. Heck of a lot more.

At this rate he was probably going to shatter his own teeth, he was gritting them together that hard. Right. Just grin and bear it, like every single day. Piece of cake.

[Sati Beshara]

"Probably? I don't know?"

Probably was safe, or probably wasn't, she wasn't sure which she was saying. Would it 'frenzy' over blood when it had breathing to be concerned about? She'd think that getting away from the two humans harassing it would be its main focus and it would swim away once it had the opportunity, but she also knew that she knew very little about sharks. For all she knew, blood could make them so crazy they didn't even care about things like that anymore. But the guy had said to move the shark out a little more, and she could manage that, risk that, if he could, and it sounded like he would even if she didn't, and leaving him to finish what she had started just wouldn't be fair. Granted, thinking about what was 'fair' was probably not rational in this situation, but if she was being rational she wouldn't be doing this in the first place, now would she? It had been automatic when she'd started the task, and now that she had, it was probably best to continue it that way. Save the freak-out for when it was finished...at which point she wouldn't need to freak out at all because what was done was done. Nice how that worked out, eh?

Or would hopefully work out, anyway.

She wanted to say something to him, but was not sure exactly what, so she instead just clenched her teeth nervously and kept her eyes on the shark. When they had gotten it out further still into the sea, she asked if this was good. When he agreed, she prepared to release it,
"Here goes nothing."

With that, they let it go once more. As before, it thrashed, and it hit both with tail, hard enough that sati stumbled and nearly fell. In a horror movie that would have been terrible, but all that happened her backside got a bit wet. The shark simply swam off, glad to be back where it belonged. She stared for a moment in the direction it had gone, then turned her head back to Aggie and his wounded arm, moving to touch it but then halting herself,

"Are you hurt? I mean, I know you're hurt, but is it hurting?"

He didn't seem to be in pain, but he could be in shock. Was that what "in shock" meant? She didn't actually know.

....good grief, she was finding out today there was a LOT she didn't know, at least about sharks and shock.

[Edgar Christopher]

Edgar let go when she did, taking care to hop back a few steps. He didn't want another bite wound, after all. Lucky for him, the adrenaline wasn't about to wear off. If it had, he'd be on his back by now. He was blinking frantically, as if that would stop him from shifting right then and there.

"I. Uh. Well it kind of hurts, yeah. It's more a dull throbbing right now than anything else, but the rest of me's numb as well. ...Is that normal? I- I mean it could be normal, right? More than likely normal. I think it's shock but I can't really. I can't really tell because I doubt I'd be a reliable source of info if I really was in shock and-"

Blink. Blink. Blink. Okay yeah, this was odd. He was kind of numb all over. And the temperature of the air mixing with the water's temperature was kind of starting to freak him out a little. On top of that he could smell blood and. And well, those things all together weren't really the best situation to be in for him. Edgar couldn't begin to tell why it was a bad situation at the moment, it just felt like one. He shook his head quickly to clear his mind. He only managed to disperse some of the fog, but at least it was better than getting sidetracked.

"I think we should get to shore. M- my mobile's in my jacket, we should probably get an ambulance. And then I'll have to call in sick so they can get a replacement."

As soon as he mentioned going to shore, he started absently heading off in that direction. Right. Right. Don't freak out, Edgar. Stop freaking out. At least the scar will look cool, he thought. That'd be one hell of a story to tell the grandkids. Did he have grandkids? Wait no, no he didn't.

God, he was confused.