Account Bound -- Career: Fishing Ain't Reel Easy

"Nico! Nico!" The rhakos might as well have been saying, this way, this way, but the only words that he'd learned to repeat were those of his own name. Either that, or they'd named him after his only words. Juniper gave a quiet giggle, thinking it was funny enough to follow after the excitable avian. His orange feet tapped wildly across the ground in an almost dance-like motion as he lead her through the thick maze of trees, skipping between them as though they were posts and he were in an agility competition. The centaur found it a bit tricker to wedge her body through, but only had to eye the distances between the trunks to recognize her best path through. Her white back legs followed, the tan cloven hooves quietly pressing into the soft grass.

"What are we doing again?" She asked, knowing that Nico was certainly excited about something by the way he held his head high and shook his feathers, but she couldn't remember what their plans had been. Then again, they hardly could've discussed it at all. But the message quickly became more clear as the two rounded the top of a hill to an incline down below that lead all the way to a sandy beach in the middle of the woods. There, a pond of water--large enough to see across, but not swim across--appeared to be fed by a waterfall careening down a few stair-steps of a rock-face. Nico made no haste in skipping down the mossy terrain so swiftly that he nearly face-plummeted. "Look out!" Juniper warned as the rhakos flared open his arms to catch his balance.

"A pond, right..?" The sand could've been nice because it was softer than the dirt, but the centaur hoped that it wouldn't get stuck in her fur or hooves. It might've even posed a bigger difficulty to the intricate trappings of feathers, except that... Nico didn't seem to care. He eagerly rushed into the shallows of the water, kicking around frantically as he bobbed for little minnows and tadpoles. He swirled in the water, his long tail coming around with a splash and making wide-reaching ripples. "Oh, come back!" Juniper cupped her hands around her lips and called out, "You'll scare away all the fish that way! No, that won't work at all. We'll have to find a better way." He glanced at the water, gave it one final, almost rebellious kick, and then acquiesced, finally jumping out and giving his feathers a shake.

"Nico!" He complained loudly, crossing his arms. How will we get the fish then? Was Juniper's imagined translation. He could've easily just been complaining about anything though, from the cold touch of the water to the beautiful weather. "This is what we'll use," she decided, breaking a small forked branch off of a nearby tree and quickly affixing a string line to it. Nico sat down with his orange feet splayed in front of him as he watched the centaur assemble a fishing rod. By the end, the only thing it was missing was a hook or a bobber, something for the fish to attach to. "May I have one of your feathers?" She asked, realizing that the bright salmon shade should easily attract fish. Nico rummaged through his wings and tail before finding a loose one. He gave an excited whoop and handed it over, and after a quick knot, the fishing rod was complete.

"This seems like a suitable place to fish," Juniper smiled. She and Nico had wandered around the edge of the pond until they'd found this--a large, flat-topped rock that jutted out a bit overhead of the pond itself. It was part of the same boulder formation that formed one of the steps of the waterfall too, which gave it a picturesque quality on top of the ideal location. Nico bolted across to the rounded end so quickly to look over it that his feet scuffled against the rock and he fell forwards. His beak landed precariously off the side, though his arms held tight to the stone. "Be careful!" Juniper warned, "If we're going to fish, you'll have to learn to be patient."

That didn't seem to be the rhakos's strong suit by any means. The centaur casted her line out and the avian sat blank-faced near her side. Every few minutes he seemed to grow twitchy and irritated, or at least his eyes wandered off after a bug or a falling leaf. But the longer they persisted, the quieter and calmer he became until he'd managed to fall asleep into a fluffy pile of orange feathers. Juniper felt a nudge on the line, and then a tight tug. "Nico, we got one!" She called, but when she turned she realized that the avian had already passed out asleep.