Fun and Games
Ishvi climbed the rope after the Knaap. He had learned many of the ropes before changing to Visser, but it had been hard to learn the ones toward the top of the masts, and that is what he was doing now.
“…Not that you’ll ever need to know this,” said Sean.
“But we want to be working,” Ishvi said.
“You, Farmers!” Sean said, “You are the hardest workers. Every time we get a group of you on board we always have to invent work for you to do: mending sails, polishing brass; your women are always cleaning their rooms…”
“Well, I’m not a Farmer now!” Ishvi said, staring down at his strange, new body. “But I still want to be useful.”
Sean wrapped his tail around a mast and swung back and forth, grinning at Ishvi. “I suppose I would, too, if I were on a different Schip. I probably couldn’t bear to be a passenger. I like goofing off well enough,” he continued, twisting sideways and grabbing a rope, “but I like being part of the group, whatever it’s doing.”
“So, what can we do, then?” Ishvi asked “Well, nothing with the sails,” Sean replied, “even though you’re in Visser form. It still takes years of learning, or at least weeks of learning to handle the sails properly. You can fish, of course. We ALL do that. And there’s usually a rope or two to haul on deck from time to time.”
“And,” he said, “being so new to your bodies, especially your tails, you’d best do quite a bit of skylarking.”
“Skylarking? What’s that? It sounds like a game.”
“Well, it is! But it’s a game we play to keep us in shape; Or in your case, to get us in shape!”
“Don’t you think,” Ishvi asked, “I’m too old for games?”
Suddenly Sean reached out and slapped him full in the face with his tail. Ishvi started and then stared after Sean, determined to pay him back.
Sean leapt from rope to rope, staying just out of his reach, while Ishvi climbed laboriously after him.
“What are you doing, Ishvi?” Micah asked as the two came past the mast where he was standing.
“That sprite of a Visserknaap, slapped me in the face and I’m going to catch him and pay him back,” Ishvi said, his tail lashing out and just missing Sean, who had stopped to listen.
As Sean darted off with Ishvi in hot pursuit Branagh, the Knaap who had been teaching Micah said, “A lark, is it?!” and darted off after Ishvi.
In minutes the masts were full of a long line of Visserknaapen and transformed young Lords. Sean, who had gotten more and more reckless finally proved himself too slow and Ishvi’s tail caught him on the shoulder.
“I’m the tail,” Sean said and darted back toward the end of the line.
Ishvi starred after him wonderingly, his breath rasping out of his throat, when Branagh’s tail lashed out from behind him, catching him full in the seat of the pants.
“And now you’re the tail,” Branagh said, darting off, Micah in hot pursuit.
“You see,” Sean said to Ishvi, who took his place at the tail of the line, “you see, it is a game! But it’s not as easy as all that.”
Ishvi nodded, unable to speak, trying desperately to catch his breath.
Sean turned to him and laughed at Ishvi’s heaving chest. “Come on! We have to keep up.”
-- Never had Ishvi been so glad to take a break! He walked down the stairs into the bedlam that was the dining room, his eyes searching for Met.
But she saw him first as he stood, chest still straining, arms, legs and TAIL still burning.
“What’s with you?” Met asked him, coming up from behind and slipping one arm around his waist.
“We played this game,” he panted out, “this training game…”
“Yes, I saw,” she said, leading him over to their seats. “It looked like fun!”
“Fun!” he grumbled. “I’ll be sore for days.”
“Too sore for swimming?” she asked.
“No. In fact I can’t imagine that anything would feel better than a swim right now.”
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Von