Keerie stood motionless upon the outcrop, keen eyes exploring the shallow wave topped water below her. A wooden spear rested on her shoulder, held lightly by one of her dark slender hands. In the early morning light she spotted a slow moving shape among the smaller flashes, her prey cruising unaware of her presence. Her body began a well rehearsed tensioning, almost imperceptible to the eye, that would soon deliver the spear to its' mortal destination.
The fish paused, almost as though lost in thought, and its head turned away from her. Keerie uncoiled ferociously and the spear hurtled truely, and lunch was caught. She jumped feet first into the water and clutched the thrashing stick, and after a few retreating stokes swung it up onto the outcrop. A healthy fish, that with the shellfish she collected earlier would see the family through today.
She returned to the beach with her morning catch safely stowed in her woven sashbag, and began the long journey back to the village. On a whim she had decided to fish the distant southern beaches; she recalled the long walk through the dense forest and the ruberries that had sustained her as she negotiated the long spurs and gullies. Rarely did her people come this way and the sense of adventure had raised her spirits, and she had disregarded the scrapes, bruises and pressing heat. Now though the prospect of enduring the arduous path a second time weighed on her more heavily tan the sashbag on her shoulder. She approached the spot where she had exited the forest on to the beach and sighed audibly, and planted her hands on her hips.
"Not you again," she said to the small shrub closest to the beach, its knurled trunk bent at right angles towards the forest having withstood years of onshore winds.
She looked down the beach and pondered the considerably longer, but unexplored, coastal return to her waiting home. She pursed her lips, a mannerism her mother often mocked, and jammed her spear into the dry sand. She estimated that she could be home by midday, which would be early enough to not raise her parents worry. Her mind slowly began to grip the idea and then embraced it, relegating the forest return to absurdity. Resolved, she struck out towards the distant headland.
