Blue Lakes and Clear Skies. (Closed, Nex)

The autumn winds made the season seem on the way to death. Animals began to hibernate, making the populated land seem empty. Trees lost their leaves and the grasses became dry, bringing forth a sense of decay, whilst ripe fruits and plump vegetables dropped from their parent plants, famine ahead on its way. The winter was a difficult time for Zora, the waters bringing less fish and the land bringing less trade. Nex has survived many winters on his own, but now he had to ensure a population survived in great percentage. He would be a fool to think that winter brought no deaths and people stayed cozy in their homes with one another. Far from it. It was difficult.

The Zora sat on the a floating log in the middle of the lake, fishing line cast far from his person while the lure bobbed in the chilly waters. Cold was not difficult for Zora. Icy rivers and frozen winters living beneath sheets of solid waters was second nature. Ice fishing was a sport and diving only became a thrill when one had to avoid the dangers of sheet ice. Flitting around him, beneath his log, was a small pod of newborn Biri. Normally the small jellyfish stayed with their hordes when they hatched, using the adult as protection until they developed more effecient stingers.

To the Biri he grew up around… he was just another adult floating in the water.

The distant splash did not go unnoticed, especially by the jelly squibs beneath him. They began to spark, panic and gather nearer the heavily tattooed Zora. He winced a bit at the nipping stings before looking up. He sneered as his catch was scared away. He looked to be a random hoodlum, by his markings. The tattoos branded him every which way, so it was difficult to tell what he was. The mass of tats made him seem a hooligan rather than the king he claimed to be.

Well he never claimed to be king. Not many knew that the old king had been replaced. Just… whispers.

The Zora's Biri stuck clsoe to his log, though it just looked as if they were swarming him the way they flittered beneath the surface, poking him with their tiny baby tentacles. They male hardly felt the pain of the stings. He was used to it, growing up with them. He's been inoculated with the poison in his youth. While it did not make him completely immune, it also meant that he wasn't easy to go down when against poison tipped arrows or blades. He head raised up, right eye pinched closed as he focused on the movement in the water. He honed in on the direction from which this voice had carried from, the words slowly processing in his head. His pack was slung down in the water, the strap hooked over the edge of the log. It floated nicely. The flap was pulled back revealing containers of rations and bait. A few Biri had crawled in and were bobbing about, seemingly playing in the leather pack. His webbed hands gripped the fishing rod, which seemed homemade from a sturdy branch and some wire.

He looked down to his flippers which were settled in the water, at least one was as his other leg was perched over his knee. "They are wet." He stated, glowering a bit at the female.

Who were this rowdy pair? The male found himself annoyed, but as he often did with noisy plod. His fins tightened against his skull as if to block out the sound. The Biri seemed to scurry beneath him when the other Zora came too close, though it could be easily assumed that it was the largest coverage to be had in the open lake like this. Weren't Biri usually in deeper waters? Were their eggs hatched in shallows? All these questions aside the Zora did still seem to insist on fishing. He wasn't like the other Zora. While fast in the chilly river waters, his ability to hunt without tools was rather -- non-existent. His jaws were too weak to grab fish and hold onto them, though he was also completely blind in his right eye as well.

Nex was not the most social creature. He was difficult to understand, despite being blunt and straight forward. He had no emotions of his own to express, having long locked them away. Though in the past couple of years some of the fetid ooze of his past began to leak out, forming guilt in unnecessary places. Death was a simple fact of life. Whereas, once, the death or murder of another inflicted him no pain: he soon found there were certain individuals he was less inclined to harm. The reason was beyond him. He had settled on the idea that it was just a simple covetous desire. Damaging that which you owned was counterproductive. This was how he justified the guilt.

His scaled, tattooed brows, knitted when the female swam too close. He tensed up at the invasion of space, but only for a moment. Like a puppetmaster he did anything but lead the show. His lip curled up, pinching his right eye closed, the tattoo marring those scales looking rather unprofessional done. Her words carved irritation into his skin and beckoned a concealment of his disability. Though the, for the Zora, the slow death of vision in that eye had been adapted to. With combat training he was a bit less unbalanced on the sightless side.

His grin offered a polite smile, but the tiny, newborn Biri, were disenchanted by the possible predator and would spark, bluff charging before darting back to the safety of Nex's floating knapsack or beneath his log. "What are you talking about, if I may ask?" When he spoke his voice was rich with a distant born accent, his vocalizations raspy and harsh. It was as it he hadn't a breathe to stand on, like he half-expelled water from his gills.

Her apology and polite approach gave him pause in his more unscrupulous, shadowy thoughts. Curiosity had risen, but the female was a stranger. Her offer to heal him was unquestionably auspect. Even still Nex gave off no flags of concern. His posture was slightly hunched over the water and his rod. He had shifted uncomfortably when she arrived, but who was quick to hug a stranger you just swam up to? His words were dismissive, but polite and held no audible tone of disgust, even if Nex could verily choke from her indiscret concern.

He turned back to his fishing line, even if she had already scared the fish off with her floundering. "There is nothing I have that you can magic away." Though it seemed a pessimistic response: it was truly the case.

His would were long since the point of healing. Had she asked him years prior… perhaps there stood chance to save his eye, his sanity. Whilst his reality long since snapped but his sanity had crumbled upon witnessing that Death -- was ni means to an end. Why did she care anyway? A selfish lot, these Hylian Zora, who lived in waters named after a goddess nine had never seen. What was her significance anyway? Was it a Hylian thing? Or was Hylia and Nayru one in the same?

Ever so… "What brings you to ask an old, battered merchant as myself? I've no rupee to spare." Surely there was always a price.