Grrr.

Closed roleplay blog for Ursula, NPC affliated with Once Upon a Trial 2. ||ALIVE||

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

This isn’t good. Masato got excited when he noticed that the line had caught it… But when it snapped, he noticed Ursula’s reaction and… He wasn’t sure what to do. Apparently. This was a bad idea from the beginning, and there’s nothing more that can be done about it. The line simply isn’t strong enough to pull out the thing.

But now he had the problem of angry bear lady. The safest option was obviously to try and leave now, but let’s be real here. Masato wouldn’t do that. There was no way he would just leave someone like that after causing so much trouble.

"Ah- Uhm… Bear-san? Are you alright… Maybe we shouldn’t worry about the helmet… Would you- uh… Would you like me to see if I can find someone to repair your fishing rod for you?"

He’s trying. And when you try it can go one of two ways: Either really well, or absolutely horribly. Let’s hope it doesn’t go the latter or else Elijah will probably be really upset… But who are we kidding. Accidents are pretty much a part of Masato’s every day living at this point.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

"You can't. Fix it."

The words come out through gritted teeth, and sound uncannily like a bear's growl. It seems Masato's words are not having the intended effect, as the animal-like energy radiating from Ursula only increased in intensity. She looks at the broken rod. Ruined. Because of this fucking kid and his stupid fucking thing in the moat. Because for some reason he won't take his other hand out of his damn pocket for five seconds.

Ursula's brain goes white.

"IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Masato is suddenly grabbed by the neck and slammed against the gates. Ursula's claws are so sharp there are already cuts opening up where they grip.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Masato sets the rod under his right arm and begins pulling the line back in. Looks like this is going to be impossible for him… But there’s no need to lose hope! There’s gotta be some trick he can use… What if he forgo standard practice. He didn’t know how to cast a line, but he definitely knew how to throw something. If he released the line so that he had enough length to reach it, and then threw it with his good hand, it would probably go farther…

"Uhm… This may sound like a strange question, but couldn’t we get more accurate if there were a bit more weight at the end of the lines? There’d uh… There’d Be less air resistance at least…"

Hopefully his suggestion doesn’t make her angry… He’s just trying to help in whatever way he can.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

"We still need to hook it, or whatever. We can't exactly replace the hooks with rocks."

She pulled her line back in, looking at the sharpened piece of bent metal attached to it with a frown. She didn't say this, but Ursula also wasn't keen on undoing the careful, tiny knot that held the hook and line together. She severely doubted her ability to tie something that delicate. Not that she used these stupid things anymore. Ursula threw the line back in, angrily now, the minute of calm gained a moment ago gone. But by some miracle, she actually managed to catch on the thing.

Success tempering her for a moment, Ursula took a cautious half-step forward and pulled, trying to get whatever-it-was free of the mud it was stuck in. Instead, the line snapped.

Ursula vibrated with rage. Actual rage. Not a normal reaction to the simple frustration of a fishing line breaking. She tightened her grip on the rod and it actually broke.

Oh my.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Masato nods.

"You see it?"

Of course she does, she’s already cast her line. Masato struggles around a bit, with his fishing rod. He figured he should take a shot at it, but he couldn’t necessarily mimic her movements to cast his line. But the way fishing rods work, he should be able to cast it with one hand… It’s not like he’s trying to reel in the big one. And so with a swing of his arm he attempts to cast his line towards the metal thing. His form is probably terrible.

Well, even if it does take a long time, fishing is a game of patience. Their only timer is the sun… Unless someone has night vision, but even then, the reflection wouldn’t be there to guide them. Well, let’s see how long it takes for Masato to roll high enough to even get close.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Ursula got hers reasonably close, but it was a miss nonetheless. Masato clearly needed some practice, as his line barely made it into the water. Not even close.

The bear girl sighed frustratedly and pulled her line in to cast again. Fishing rods were not the tool for this, but she didn't have anything that was long enough to fish the whatever-it-was out safely. Why was she even entertaining this tom foolery? She eyed Masato's limp attempt with a set jaw. There was her answer-- apparently he couldn't do it himself. It would take him a while just to pull his line back in. Gods knew why she had agreed to this. Or didn't just leave now. The hair on her arms started to stand up, prickly.

Ursula closed her eyes and took some deep breaths, counting backwards and forwards from ten in a soft, barely audible mumble. Relax. When she opened her eyes again she pulled in the line and cast again.

Not even close. This was going to be an exercise in frustration. Masato might come to regret his choice of an NPC.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Having a fishing rod thrust at him was not something he was expecting. In fact, he almost dropped it immediately due to not having his dominant hand at the ready, but somehow managed to grab hold of it with is nondominant hand and kept it steady. Man, she probably would have been mad if he had dropped it. Or not. It’s difficult to tell.

"It should be… Last time we saw it it was because the light reflected off of it at the bottom, and I was able to get down to it diving in from here…"

Did somebody else manage to get to it before him or was he just not seeing it? Who knows. I for one sure as hell don’t know what happens in other player’s private rps. It had better still be there. Masato doesn’t want to get mauled by an angry bear.

"I think it was around there…"

Masato points in the general area of where he remembered seeing it last.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Ursula squinted at the water, taking a step forward but staying well away from the edge.

"...There's a metal thing, yeah."

Ursula threw out the line, but already she knew they would have to be lucky to grab it. Once you got the hook in the water you couldn't move it without actually going into the water itself.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Oh. Oh she took off the bear suit… Well heck? Is she still a bear then? That’s a dumb question. Of course she’s still a bear. When E changes from cat into human he’s still a cat, and when Tama changes from one Tama into another Tama, Tama is still Tama. Why should changing out of a costume change what someone is? Because. Obviously she’s still the same person and therefore still a bear.

"Thank you very much!"

Masato says with a deep bow. Apparently he’s incredibly grateful.

"And don’t worry, I won’t fall in."

He says as though it’s a matter of fact. Nobody else should have to risk themselves to save him if he falls in anyway. If he were to end up in that moat again he already had an idea of what fate would await him.

One question he didn’t ask though… Was why, if there were no fish in the moat, did she actually have fishing rods? That seemed… Just a bit odd… Unless there /Were/ fish in the moat before…

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Ursula shoved one of the rods into Masato's hands without further comment, other than a bit of an odd look at the bow. She headed to the gates and opened them up, stepping onto the broken drawbridge without looking back or consulting him.

"Was it off here?"

She eyed him, and the treacherously narrow strip of ground that jutted out from under the castle walls, in a way that implied that she would be pretty peeved if it wasn't.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Suddenly. This had turned really awkward… Suddenly. Somewhat. Ok, maybe his straightforwardness had been a bit roundabout… He should have noticed there were no fish in there when he was last there. He kinda did. Maybe he should have just been honest from the get go. Honesty is always the right way to go about these things.

He decided to show her the thing before putting it away again.

"… I’ve already been in the moat once, I found something at the bottom… But I wasn’t able to get to it, and jumping in again isn’t an option… So- I thought that maybe I could uh… fish it out…"

He sounds almost depressed, as if he doesn’t really want to talk about this right now.

"I thought there might actually have been fish in there and I just didn’t see them, so I didn’t lie about wanting to go fishing! I uh, I think it would have been fun! And I actually would have tried to learn but— I’m sorry if I’m just wasting your time, Bear-san."

The last part was much more optimistic in tone, and it was genuine. He probably would have actually tried fishing. He really just felt stupid for not realizing there weren’t actually fish there. It wouldn’t be surprising if Ursula just slammed the door in his face then and there.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

"..."

There was a long, awkward silence where Ursula is, presumably, just staring at Masato. Under the mask it's impossible to read her facial expression. Eventually however, she lets out a long, irritated sigh.

"Hold on a minute then."

She re-enters her house and closes the door firmly behind her. There are the sounds of her moving around inside, and then finally the door reopens and a young woman emerges, carrying two primitive fishing rods.

"If you fall in I'm not pulling you out."

That voice, now finally heard clearly without the interference of a bear suit, is undoubtedly Ursula's.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

[shslninjutsu]

Masato tilted his head at her reaction. He was confused by her confusion. He had thought he was fairly straight forward with what he was asking and wasn’t sure why she was confused. Perhaps he should try again.

"Eh? Fishing… I was planning on going fishing an uh… I was wondering if you wanted to come along… I don’t actually have any experience with it or the equipment so…"

Masato paused to scratch his head…

"Erm… Is that okay? I don’t actually know much about you, but I thought you might be the type to actually know about this kind of thing…"

He seems a bit embarrassed. Hopefully he isn’t bothering the bear too much…

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Yes Masato. It is TOTALLY NORMAL for someone you've talked to once to suddenly turn up at your house and request to go fishing. It's not like this came out of the blue at all.

"...There's no fish in the moat."

Not to mention that whole issue.

[onceuponaglass]

Bears are cool too | Masato | Chapter 5 | [Fishing with Ursula]

It was some point following the trial, probably during the mid-afternoon, Masato had a new mission to accomplish. A mission involving something he had found during the previous investigation that he could not get his hands on, and that he would never get his hands on for that matter— But that sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him from trying. And Masato was creative. You have to be creative to be a ninja. It’s in the ninja hand book. So he had a plan. A plan that followed something like this:

His objective was underwater and swimming was Out. Of. The. Question. The only other alternative to that was fishing! Simple, right? Well, not that simple because where the heck does anybody get a fishing pole in this place? He could probably rig one together, but the dental floss he had probably wasn’t long enough- or strong enough for what he wanted. So he had an idea that went something like this:

What are fishing rods used for? Catching Fish -> Name something that eats fish: Cats -> E does not have a fishing rod; name something else that eats fish: Bears -> Where can bears be found? Groundskeeper’s hut. Therefore it follows that Ursula at the Groundskeeper’s hut has a fishing rod because Ursula is a bear and must eat fish.

Coincidentally, Masato has yet to learn Ursula’s name, so she’s still Bear-san. But here he was nonetheless at the groundskeeper’s hut, knocking on the door to ask Ursula about a fishing rod.

"Excuse me, Bear-san? I was wondering if uh, you would like to go fishing with me?"

Well, he didn’t originally intend on asking her to go fishing but on second thought, Masato actually knows nothing about fishing and Is-Probably-Incapable-Of-Fishing-Alone… So having someone with some experience might come in handy. That and Himself and Ursula definitely had one common ground between them, so it followed that they would get along well. #Masato Logic

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Ursula couldn't deny that whenever she heard a knock at her door, her immediate reaction was a flare of extreme irritation. But she could tramp it down quickly enough and answer the door relatively calmly. As long as her visitors were polite and didn't insist on being idiots everything was fine.

The gasmask kid had been very polite. And he had been quick about returning her ladder. Ursula had filed him under "not terrible", though this was making her rethink that classification.

"What"

She seemed a little confused.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

[ Daisy ] Well. Alright then. Daisy is momentarily stunned, but quickly gets herself together. "Uh, hi. Um, are there any knives in here? And if so, did any go missing?" She's pretty much sure that Yuri used Miss Muffet's knife, but wanted to check.

"No."

Which question was she answering? Who knew.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

[ Daisy ] Well, so much for that theory. Daisy was starting to get frustrated at her inability to find much, and in an irritated bout of curiosity, makes her way over to the groundskeepers hut, banging a bit roughly on the door. There had to be something around here...

"What."

The door opens to reveal a figure in what appears to be a bearsuit. A slightly irritated, muffled female voice speaks from within.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

Masato knocks on the door of the Ursula's hut. "Uh- Um... Excuse me, Bear-san... I brought your ladder back... Is there anywhere you'd like me to put it?"

"Give me it."

She says gruffly, though not hostily so, and extends her hands (paws?) for it.

[onceuponababybear-blog]

"I uh- I was wondering if you might have a uh... Ladder out here I could borrow?"

"Yeah."

She stepped off the porch, closing the door behind her, and moved to the shed next door. Producing a key and a quick flash of a human hand, she unlocked it. Then, fully covered once more, she pulled out a simple wooden ladder and shoved it into Masato's hands.

"Return it."

[onceuponababybear-blog]

"..."