Comm: CE | Cold and Clear

Zephyros stretched on the rocky shore of northern Tokotna and eyed the competition participants around him. He followed his handler through the motions of stretch and warm up but he couldn’t help the excited thrum of energy in his muscles.

The arctic ice was thick year round, particularly in winter, but going into spring made the process of breaking through it easier. The TCA organizers had cut a long and wide swatch of the surface ice away near the shore for the competition and Zephyros peered into it as he was escorted to the starting line. His handler affixed goggles to his face, tightening the straps and rewarding him with a treat for standing still. Then, she left him at the starting line and joined the others whose Tokotas were participating. There, the handlers accepted baskets meant to contain whatever their furry teammates brought to the surface.

Even from here on the surface Zephyros could see though the water almost to the bottom. No fish swam in the crystal clear water beneath them. Only light from the open sections of ice moved in the depths. There were many circular areas cut from the ice further out from the shore that would allow the dominant tokotas to come up for air as they searched the bottom of the bay for treasure.

A preparation whistle blew and the crowd quieted as the tokotas stood at attention. Zephyros held his head low, ears pricked for the gunshot that would signal the start of the diving competition.

Zephyros twitched one ear back, catching the encouraging words from his handler. Snow crunched and creaked under the weight of so many boots. Lower level tokotas observed among the crowd of watchers.

BANG!

Zephyros did not think twice and leapt forward, powered by the sudden kick of adrenaline from his peers, and dove into the frigid water.

Life down in the cold blue was stagnant and mostly absent of sound. The cold did not bother Zephyros much through the insulation of his thick coat. It would have been peaceful, refreshing even, if not for the competition setting.

The bobtail tokota churned his legs, aiming towards the bottom of the bay. He held his breath and focused his energy into each paw stroke, not bothering to check if another dominant Tokota was ahead of him. As it was, it would not matter who made it to the bottom first. The placing would come down to the value of the items they scrounged along the bottom.

There! He was at the bottom. He alternated his back legs to keep himself submerged and used his front paws to dig through the dirt at the bottom. This may be his first time diving but he knew enough to track the time it took him to descend and understood that by the time his claws snagged on a ring of metal that he needed to ascend for a fresh breath.

When he broke through one of the breathing holes he paddled and took great gulps of oxygen until his handler ran forward to grab the item he had retrieved and deposit it into their basket. Another two inhales, and he was down again under the surface of the frozen sea.

Visibility was crystal clear for yards around them. The current was weak here and Zephyros was still glad for the goggles that protected his eyes from the salinity of the frigid seawater.

At the bottom again he dug around in the mix of rock and dirt. He shoved aside debris and went for a small, natural stone statue of something humanoid. Securing it between his jaws, Zephyros pushed off the bay bottom, paddling again for the surface.

On the way he ran into another Tokota descending which knocked the statue loose. Zephyros’s instinct was to nip the other Tokota and then dive again for the statue but he did not have enough air to do both! He turned from the other Tokota, who flinched as she had been expecting a reprimand, and reached for the statue with his mouth. Zephyros managed to catch up to it moments before it met the bottom and this time his toes splayed out with the force of his second kick off the bottom.

This time Zephyros popped back up in the long rectangle of an opening where all the tokotas initially dove in. He grasped the ice around the edge with his forepaws and dropped the statue, mouth wide as he recovered his breath. His handler placed the statue in the basket then helped hold him up as he caught his breath. He relaxed under her hands and peered over his shoulder into the water where the other Tokota moved under the crystal, cold blue water.

Rude, he thought.

Finally, ready, Zephyros pulled back. His handler released him and he tuned from the frozen shoreline and submerged into the clear, frigid seawater.

On the way down, the same tokota that ran into him before cut a close ascent, this time clearly on purpose. Zephyros was ready for it. He nipped the female dominant on the edge of the ear, the shoulder, and one hind leg. She flinched away from him, dropping the object in her mouth. Zephyros caught it and turned to the surface. She tried to recover the item but Zephyros bared his teeth in warning. She backed off, seeking another breathing hole.

At the surface his handler gave him an approving pat before taking the item but Zephyros did not spare the breath for an excited yip. The third dive down Zephyros came up empty mouthed, as well as the fourth and fifth. On his sixth surface visit he paused to look around at the other handlers.

Some moved frantically across the surface of the frozen sea in special ice boots, gathering items from their tokotas. Others squatted by one hole, the only effort required by them to reach out and retrieve what their dominant brought. Zephyros did take some relieve in that the other baskets were not much more full than his own.

On the seventh dive he had a little difficulty seeing the bottom; the water was beginning to get cloudy near the underside of the bay from all the Tokotas rifling around. Zephyros pawed loose a leather sack and something shiny spilled from it onto the sand. A coin! Zephyros was careful to take hold of the top of the sack before he pushed off towards the surface. The delivery of the sack caused his handler to cry out with excitement and this time Zephyros yipped in response before diving back down.

Soon Zephyros began to feel the wear on his muscles and his lungs. His pauses at the surface gradually became longer as it did for the rest of the dominants. The bottom of the bay was so cloudy that the Tokotas still digging there had to rely on the feel of items against their paws to know they had found anything. Zephyros was one of the first to swim a bit away from the others to an area that had not yet been churned up by so many paws. He rooted around, nosing under some fallen branches and pawing through the rock and dirt.

The whistle signaling the conclusion of the competition pierced even the depths of the blue sea. Zephyros snatched one last item before rising to the surface where the daylight was fading into dusk.

People rushed forward, helping haul the exhausted Tokotas from the water. It took several tries for a few as the beasts were weighed down by their waterlogged state. Cries and laughter filled the air as the Tokotas shook, throwing freezing water everywhere. Towels were brought forward in a rush, a mountain of soft fabric, to dry the participants and guard against the dropping temperature.

Zephyros leaned into his handler, ears twitching as she crooned compliments to him. He watched an official flag their bag with their team number and take it to the judge’s table. He leaned forward, eager to know how well they had done.

- FIN -