Macree and Wharac (2)

I looked at Wharac and argued with myself about getting my cousin to consider her notions. Finally, I took the leap, “If you’re planning on being Top Mother, you’ll have to have a pile of babies over many long seasons, Barnacle. Do you really want to spend most of your fun years pregnant just so you can boss the big bullies around later in your life?” I pulled up melon-to-melon with her. She was visibly surprised with the idea of sharing a serious talk with me and the subject of mating and calves was not something we’d ever discussed before with any sort of sober tone. She’d seen enough of the process and often enough to have a pretty good idea of the price pod mothers paid, even if the mothers hadn’t lectured her about it yet.

I harbor special concerns about Wharac, she’s my favorite cousin, so even if I’m not really qualified to fill her in on facts of life stuff, I care enough about her to want her to start asking the right questions at least. Besides, I wouldn’t get into any details; that would be inappropriate for a bull cousin to broach. Watching Lillic for years gave me some clear notions on the truth about being a pod’s Top Mother. Wharac wasn’t too young to have her attention directed toward watching, examining the mothers’ lives a little more thoughtfully. “How important to you are calves?”

“I don’t know.” She grew quiet and drifted back toward Carcar. Maybe she thought I was flirting in some lame way. I hope not. I realized I’d overstepped, made a mistake and wondered how much trouble it might eventually cause. I’d also hoped to bring up the subject of her bad dreams, dream sharing being yet another hobby of mine. Having repelled her with my clumsy social skills I’d squandered that opportunity for now. I put the subject aside for the time being.

Aunt Carcar drew alongside, “I’m surprised at you, scaring Wharac with mating talk already! What were you trying to prove Macree? At her age you just upset her.” It was Carcar who’d instructed me through my first mating period, so I was extra embarrassed that she’d picked up the wrong message also.

“She was bragging about how she was going to be Top Mother someday. I wanted to try to get her to consider the consequences connected to that position and the sacrifices needed to get there. I think maybe coming from me that was a bad idea. Do you think I made a mess of our friendship sister-mother?” The special bond Wharac and I shared was no secret in the Family.

Carcar let out a snort which I would later decide was derisive and a bubble of air expanded from her nostril, blooming at the surface sheen like an exploding jellyfish. Before she could smack my rostrum however, we were both startled by a spume of dolphins suddenly smashing through our guard space as if the fabled Megalodon was right on their tails. They hadn’t been sonar beaming ahead of themselves and if they’d been breaching for speed they’d been so carefully quiet about it none of the Family had noticed them.

The pod woke with a flash of confused activity. I won’t say any of us were frightened, not even the little ones. There isn’t much that can scare us anymore with the giant supersharks of olden times fading to legend and even the huge bull sperm whales being more the stuff of grandma’s tales then any real threat. Everyone, including me and Carcar, were startled, however. The little dolphins were moving about as fast as I’d ever seen the White-Sided kind ever move and their unusual and eerie silence left us all a little… shaken. The variable gray shades of their flanks flashed out of the thick blue distance northward into our soft blue chamber of light rays and then right back into the opaque beyond, disappearing southward. They were gone before we could even consider chasing some of them down for a roughing up.

I popped my head through the shimmer for a gulp of air as Lillic and Horrim approached. Neither of them appeared nonchalant or relaxed. I wished I’d tried harder to nap as it seemed my day was steadily moving from squall to hurricane conditions. I couldn’t seem to get anything right!

Horrim seemed angriest. “What were you doing Mac? How did you manage to not notice that wall of flesh blaring through the Mother’s womb?”

Carcar jumped in before I could stammer out my pathetic defense. “I was distracting Macree with dirty talk Horrim. He’d been keeping a careful ear out before I came along.” In order to keep the old and very much bigger bull off of my back Carcar was pushing the edges of proper decorum. Technically, I suppose she was telling a sort of truth, but her notes and tone made it sound like she’d been trying to initiate some body play with me.

Horrim the ancient prude was put off his guard by mating talk and seemed to back down a little. “Well, yes… hrrmm,” he shot his powerful beam outward in the direction in which the dolphins had faded into the gloom. Nothing of dolphiness bounced back; at the speed they were moving they were long gone. “What in the Eternal Mother do you suppose made those little squirts act that way? I’ve never seen them move so fast and quiet as they did.”

I didn’t answer. He couldn’t possibly expect anything useful from an unseasoned young pup like me and I automatically assumed he was asking Carcar, who was after all almost as senior a mother as Lillic.

It was Lillic who answered him. “I’ve seen the White-Siders behave like that only once before. It’s unsettling, isn’t it? Shakes you up even if you’re not half asleep.”

“What were they doing that time?” asked Carcar.

They had three very hungry and very big White Sharks chasing them full out. Odd enough behavior for the sharks but it was their pupping season. If you ever consider the White-Siders stupid think harder. The crafty little buggers had pinged us and they led the sharks right into our security zone! We were hungry too.” She grinned her ‘dinner’s served’ leer at the memory of the feast of shark’s liver. “Come to think of it I don’t think Wharac and the littler ones have had White shark liver yet, have they Mac?”

Why the mothers were covering for my bumbling stupidity while on watch duty I don’t know but I was truly grateful. I let out the two bubbles and pointed my flippers downward to say, “I don’t think so,” as respectfully as I could manage. Horrim completely forgot his anger with me. Blessed be the mothers!

This story continues with "Macree and Wharac" (3)

https://vocal.media/fiction/macree-nad-wharac-3