Weary

The battle had started like any other, only with hopes soaring high as they faced their quarry on grounds of their choosing. It was to be the first of many in the final campaign for the season. Soon the time would not be right for river assaults and thoughts would turn to land defenses. But for now the defenders had work to do.

They began using a different formation than usual, relying highly on the skills of the falcoln and the cheetah to achieve maximum defensive capacity. The greyhound was given a new charge, one that she filled well. But it did little. The new formation was underpracticed and the cheetah was angry, unwilling to listen. She would not fill her post as was necessary for the success of the mission. The addition of the rarely-seen lemur aided in filling the vacancy, but even so the defenders lost ground.

The ocelot had given her all, even launched her own offensive once, but it had been the longest battle of her life--save for when she had been a land defender--and weariness had claimed her in the end. But worse than the lead that filled her limbs was the chastizement from the cheetah. The ocelot was more of a veteran that the cheetah, yet she often bowed to the bigger cat's superior speed and natural skill. Even so, the cheetah did not have the experience that gave one the ability to battle intelligently. The cheetah would often fumble with a maneuver or, as had been the case that day, with a formation. It was quite frequent that the ocelot had to find ways to make up the difference when the cheetah would seemingly give up. However, all this would be bearable if the cheetah could see her own weakness.

Yet she could not. The cheetah was quick to find the fault in others, especially the ocelot and the greyhound. What she failed to realize was that most of the so-called "failures" of the ocelot and the greyhound were really the two animals' failed attempts to do the cheetah's job. Having to listen to the cheetah point out these weaknesses was one of the most unpleasant things she had been forced to do in a long time. The thought often crossed her mind to quarrel with the cheetah, but always, just in time, she would think of the river. It needed them to be unified in their defense. The last thing the defenders needed was dissension in their own ranks. But as soon as this campaign was over, all could rest assured that the ocelot and the greyhound would not hold their tongues for long.

Translation: In the first game of the state tournament for water polo we lost. But I could have handled this, easily. We tried a new defense and it didn't work out so well. There were two people that were supposed to shift side to side with the ball, but they would frequently fail to do so, leaving me and the greyhound to cover two people (seperately, of course, depending on the side that was left unattended). That rarely ended well. This, in turn, led to one of the two girls yelling at us. Yelling in the first place would make me mad, but the fact that she was yelling at us for failing to make up for her shortcomings really rubbed me the wrong way. Beyond this, she often fails to play as a team player, making others (me, the greyhound) swim a lot more that we should, covering people she should be covering. This stems from the fact that it is her first year, while it is our second. She doesn't know how to play smart, and she takes it out on us. It makes me angry, as well as exhausted. Luckily, she is a senior, and after this week, she'll be gone.