[PRP] The Prisoners (Bazazi and Merari)

[Kimaria]

"This is a joke." Merari snarled, clearly in a bad temper that day. He was speaking out loud, though it was likely he was just ranting at himself, seeing as he was still scratching angrily at the the wall to loosen a damned gemstone which just would not budge. "Think they can treat us like this. Speak to us like we're dirt. Hah! They wouldn't be so tough if there weren't so many of them."

And with a loud growl he dug his claws into the crumbling stone and wrenched downwards. The gemstone came away from the wall with a chunk of compact earth, snapping one of his claws so short that it started to bleed.

The gemstone clattered to the floor and, in irritation, Merari gave it an angry swipe, sending it skittering across the floor of the tunnel he'd been stationed in. If he couldn't take his frustration out on the guards then he'd damned well take it out on the stones.  

[Kimaria]

Merari looked up and growled hotly. "What do I care? There's more where that came from." Far, far more. Which was perhaps a good thing because what else would they have the prisoners do if not dig for gemstones? Patrol up and down on an endless march? Force them to do battle with one another until they either died or collapsed with exhaustion?

He snorted, shaking his wounded paw as the dull throb of his broken claw began to increase in intensity. "Hey, do I know you?" Merari questioned, narrowing his eyes. "No, I don't think I do. Face is too pretty for one of my friends." He laughed as if at some private joke, thinking of his ragtag band of troublemakers, scruffy and flea-bitten. "What did you do to get thrown in here? You don't look like the sort."

And, with that question asked, he leaned in casually against the wall, clearly not caring about getting caught.  

[Kimaria]

"Ha!" Merari's burst of laughter was perhaps louder than it should have been and earned him a few worried looks from the other workers. Growling back at them dismissively, he continued. "Some bad deals. Too smart for your own good, I guess. Someone else must be cashing in now that you're here. Bet that must hurt."

And whilst Bezazi had not forgotten the gem it was becoming more and more clear that Merari had.

"You want to know why I'm in here?" And without waiting for the answer, he continued anyway. "It's all a bit hush hush but it's not like I care who knows. After all, as far as I'm concerned, I wasn't the one in the wrong. There was this stupid Toka female. She wanted me but I said no, straight to her face. Let's just say she wasn't happy, called lies about me trying to seduce her and BAM. Here I am."

It was a lie. Well, mostly a lie.  

[Kimaria]

Merari's eyes flicked once to the gem and then moved back to the other's face set with those strange, strange eyes. They were too bright in that dark face of his, familiar to the gems in this dark, dingy place. They seemed unnatural.

"Don't you worry about that. I'll be getting out of here sooner or later. I've been here enough to know how this place works. The guards will tire of me soon and send me back out. Then I'll get the chance to spread some rumours of my own." He snarled a little at his idle tone.

This lion might have been a druid now but he hadn't been born one. "How does it feel?" He asked. "To be born on that high and mighty pedestal only to be turned into one of us lowly people?"  

[Kimaria]

"Nothing to complain about, eh?" He snorted. "Well, brother, let's see if your opinion on that changes when you finally get free of this place. Will your family and friends still want to know you now that you've been marked as a druid?"

It riled him how the corrupt were labelled with the title of his people. "You'd best be careful. In here we're all the same; dirty, rotten criminals." Or that's what the Toka would have them believe, anyway. "But out there...out there people will kick you when you're down and no one will stop to pick you up."

His tail whipped angrily behind him as he stood there.

In truth, he probably didn't even dislike Bazazi. They were in the same boat after all and they were druid in name no matter what they had been before. No, what Merari hated were the rules the Toka had impressed and unfortunately for Bazazi, he had gotten mixed up in those rules. "Someday you might depend upon a druid to get you out of a fix. You might find that, where your Toka brethren would be quick to condemn, we would be quicker to accept and support."

His eyes narrowed. "I don't know whether you deserve that."  

[Kimaria]

A low growl started in his throat, quivering up into a rather audible sound. A little voice in the back of his head told him that he should not be so quick to make enemies of this lion. He was a druid, after all, and Morgana might have need of him.

But Merari was a brute, not an intellect, and for a moment it looked like he might even leap at the other lion.

Except that somewhere beyond Bazazi he could hear querying voices of the guards and noticed the wild eyes of some of the other druids. Not wanting to get caught out because of some fallen Toka. He simply snapped his teeth together and turned away, leaving Bazazi with the gem.

Some days in the prison were worse than others...