Naeemah | Pre-search
The first day of Naeemah's exile turned out to be one of the most carefree days of her life. She awoke later than she had ever been allowed two since she was eleven and enjoyed a long bath in the pool she dug out of a small stream flowing through her "forest". Fish and tubers provided a generous breakfast, both naturally seasoned with salt from the water.
Naeemah had already begun to think of the island as "her" island. Afterall, she was living on it, and no one else was. That naturally made it hers. And no one cared enough about what an exiled woman thought to come out and tell her otherwise. So it became her island. She even took to taking care of her island: watering plants, killing tunnel snakes. It was stupid, she told herself, but she had nothing better to do with her time.
The most valuable thing on her island, however, she found almost two sevendays after her arrival. It was an old dolphin bell. How it had gotten there, she could only guess. But if there were any dolphins anywhere in the area they would hear it and she could have some company in her exile.
The bell was in horrible condidtion, rusty and encrusted in everything imaginable. But it was a bell nonetheless and Naeemah took an entire day to clean it and rehang it.
When she was finished, she gave it an experimental ring, using the report in immediatly sequence. It had a nice, brassy tone. "Not bad, for having lain her for Faranth knows how long," Naeemah announced happily.
Out of the corner of her eye, Naeemah thought she saw a splash in the water. She squinted and, to her suprise, saw another. Then another. The splashes were getting closer, and she could see five or six dolphins leaping towards her and another three or four skimming along just beneath the surface. They were close enough now for Naeemah to hear what they were saying: "Youee riing be-al, we hee-ar! We coumee!
It was horrible speech, at the level of young calves, for trained dolphins, but these dolphins were wild. It was a wonder that they could speak at all. Willing to speak with even wild dolphins, Naeemah lugged a large, flat peice of wood into the water and paddled out to meet them.
"Hooman! Hooman back! Hooman back!" they squealed as they saw her coming. "We hee-ar! We hee-ar!"
"Calm down would you!" Naeemah bellowed, hanging onto her peice of wood, which was rocking dangerously with all the dolphin bodies jostling it. "You're going to drown me!"
"Dolpheens dount drawn hoomans!" one of the larger dolphins, a big male, insisted with a snort. "Youee riing be-al! We hee-ar! We coumee!"
"Of course you don't, but I can't swim like you can, and my raft is about to tip over!" Naeemah told them.
"Co-urse, hoomans dount sweem liake dolpheens!" the big male replied. "Hoomans leaft dolpheens! Now hoomans coumee back!"
"What's your name?" Naeemah asked the big one who was speaking. He looked fairly young and she wondered why he was speaking for his pod.
"Kejo," the dolphin replied. "Whaet's you-awr naim?"
Well, even if they couldn't speak like trained dolphins, they were as smart as them, and, from the way Kejo talked, their ancestors had once been trained dolphins. "Naeemah," she replied.
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