Yilan hummed happily and bounced the fishing pole a bit in her hands. The aether was calm today and, while her fishing hadn't caught much of worth, she still had time yet before she had to go back empty handed. The sun was still above the aether sea and its glowing light warmed her in the cooling evening.
She was wrenched from her idle song when something tugged on her magic. A feeling that told her the net hanging from her pole had caught onto something. She instantly sat upright and gave it a few careful tugs to test the surety of the catch before feeding more magic through the thread of power in the pole. Small carvings in the wood lit brighter and the tip of the pole bent forward. The line was drawing back into the wood and using her magic as an anchor to pull itself in. She continued feeding it more power and scrambled quickly to stand. This was taking far more energy than any of her other catches today had. There had to be something a lot heavier caught in her net and heavier was almost always better.
Her hands gripped and her teeth gritted against the pull. Her magic was a bit worn down from the previous catches so trying to pull in something this big was almost too much for her. If she had her mother's talent in fishing, she could've had the net dancing its way back up without effort. But she had only a dozen or so years experience in fishing and had never done anything more than fish off the dock. Still, she gave it her all with one final heave.
The line yanked upward and a shimmering net sailed up out of the misty aether. Caught within the crossed threads was a small wooden crate. It sailed over her head from the force of her pull and landed on the dock with a mighty crash of wood against wood. She cringed and let her magical hold on the pole slip apart. The net immediately vanished along with all the line, leaving her holding only a long, carved wooden rod. She carefully set the larger end of it on the ground and leaned against it to catch her breath.
"Whew! What a haul! Goodness, I wonder what is in it? It was so heavy." She panted. Her musings came up with thoughts of gold coins or magical tools. Maybe even bolts of fine cloth or pretty clothes.
She shook her head, fluffy white hair dancing in her vision before settling back alongside her head. She stepped over to the box with a clack of her hooves and she knelt beside it. Excitement made her fingers almost tremble as she drew a knife from her belt and wedged it beneath the lid of the crate.
The wood parted with a creak and scrape of nails. A fluff of hay was her first sight into the crate's contents. Pulling some of it aside, she found a dozen bottles of crystalline glass filled with amber liquid. She blinked and sheathed her knife. Now that was not something she had been expecting to fish up.
But that was the whole fishing trade. The mysteries of the aether were unknown to all. The only sure thing was that there was no sure thing. Within its swirling depths, dreams of all sizes became reality. Small or large, fleeting or weighed down with lifelong desire. Dreams barely remembered or endlessly obsessed took shape within the aether or faded away without a thought. If they could be fished up, they would become as real as anything else up in the skies they lived in. Many, many things were worthless or complete nonsense. But other times, things like a crate of expensive alcohol could be retrieved.
Yilen pulled the cork on one bottle and sniffed at it, but she couldn't smell anything but liquor. She couldn't tell what kind it was from the smell or the look. She wasn't much of a drinker as she could be a klutz even without any impairment. So she corked the bottle and fixed the lit back on the box. She knew just who she should bring this to!
Getting back on her hooves, she whistled softly as she took a spool of string she wore around her waist and looped it to either end of her fishing pole. It slung across her ample EE cups and freed up her hands to carry the crate.
With a smile and a bit of a bounce, she set off down the dock and back onto land. The dock bobbed slightly as she stepped off it. It was attached to the island with only a few boards and ropes. Chunks of aetheric stone beneath each of the dock's pilings did most of the work to keep it aloft.
Yilen looked up at the rise that overlooked the port and all its floating docks. Upon that rise was Gorgrad, the small fishing community that was her home. It was made up of a few packed dirt roads with five or six dozen structures made of a rather odd mixture of wood and mixed metals built along them. Really, their homes were made of whatever could be fished up by heavy airships to make buildings out of. The only thing they never used for buildings was stone and dirt, as that was the only substance with the unique property of floating on aether.
Like all inhabited places, her home of Gorgrad existed on one of the many floating islands of earth and stone which drifted atop the currents of aether over the entire world of Aeoreus. Though Gorgrad was far from the most glorious or well-renown. Many communities like hers dotted the edges of their island of Uunbild. The people of Gorgrad made their living off selling goods they fished up to traders that traveled around the island, or to those that came in on airship from other islands around the world.
Yilen continued her humming as she shifted the crate into a more comfortable position in her arms. It wasn't so heavy as it was just awkward to carry. As a satyr, she was fairly strong and it showed in her curvy thighs and strong shoulders.
The first street of Gorgrad was bustling with business. A few ships tied in port had a mess of traders and wares for trade. There was no shortage of strangers walking back and forth between shops and stalls in search of the best deal. It took all of Yilen's concentration to weave her way through the busy crowd without running into anyone or dropping the precious crate in her arms.
She almost made it too. But towards the end of market street, she felt her hoof catch something as she was slipping past a cart. She stumbled forward frantically and the crate began to tilt in her arms. She began to flail when a strong arm wrapped in front of the crate and gave her enough of a push to stay upright. Another hand slipped under the crate and steadied it so she wouldn't drop it.
"Whoa there!" A familiar voice called and Yilen looked up.
A tall woman with a thick, golden mane of hair was smiling down at her. She had sharp fangs and the hands holding onto the crate were covered in similar fur and tipped with sharp claws. The claws had scratched the wood in an attempt to catch her.
"Uhh... Umm... Thank you!" Yilen stammered. She steadied herself and the lioness let go.
"You know Yilen, you really should learn to walk on your own one of these days." The woman smirked at her.
Yilen pouted up at the woman. She was at least a head taller than her, and she was more stacked in every way. Her heavy breasts dwarfed Yilen's own, and they were made to look even more exotic with black rings through each of her nipples. The fur loincloth she chose to wear in place of more civilized clothes did the exact opposite of modesty by clinging to the shape of her large cock. Her arms and legs were etched with more muscle than most women sported without losing the femininity of a fuckable body.
"Silga, that isn't funny!" Yilen grumbled, turning her blushing face from the other woman.
Silga reached out and caressed Yilen's cheek, drawing her eyes back as she said, "Oh like anyone would ever complain about having to catch that pretty little body of yours. I think you do it on purpose."
