[FIN] Boneheads (Shakira, Hortlak, Aneetz)

[mouselet]

Aneetz was fiddling with his collection of bones. Sorting them, rather, by type, size, shape, whiteness and several other descriptors. This was how he determined which bones he kept for himself, which he offered to the bone setters, the bone readers, or anyone else, for that matter.

Oh and bones for trade in general. Couldn't forget that.

All of which made for a large mess on the ground outside of his den. It was perfectly organized...to his eyes at least. All in all, a lovely relaxing day in the elephant graveyard!  

[Andranis]

As she wandered the boneyard, Hortlak wondered momentarily just where her brother had gone off to now. Maybe he was at his den... She certainly HOPED so, anyway. The pale hyena flicked her tail to and fro as she walked, head down and ears back. Was he playing with...? He was... She felt a growl start to rise in her throat as she got closer. "Aneetz..." As she was prepared to snap at him... The sound of someone else coming made her turn, eye twitching a bit. Who could that POSSIBLY be...? As she saw the other hyena come into sight, though... She realized she wasn't going to get away with jabbing at this one. It was the Head Guard's niece... And Schatz didn't take kindly to others being rude to her family. Or much of anything, come to think of it...

It was a most WONDERFUL skull she'd found! Shakira's tail seemed to be flying from side to side, rather like a dog, as she pranced through the graveyard. Even though geysers were hissing around her, and the odd eerie laugh could be heard, she paid them no mind, instead keeping her mind on her prize. It was the skull of a lion, with deep rends in the bone right over one of the eyes. She planned on presenting it to her great-aunt, something of a trophy for her to display her power. She was stopped, though, by the sight of Aneetz and his collection... And she promptly went over, dropping the skull she'd been happily carrying in her mouth to the ground. "Look at all those BONES!" Her eyes were shining, a joy in them at such a sight. This was clearly a VERY busy hyena!  

[mouselet]

The pale hyena looked up to see someone just as light-furred as he was glaring. Hortlak, his one and only beloved sister. He was opening his mouth to object when their would-be argument was interrupted before it had even begun by someone else intruding on the scene.

Aneetz recognized Shakira (who wouldn't?) and the lovely skull she was carrying with her when she caught sight of his own collection. He grinned back at the newcomer. "I decided it was high time I organized my gleanings," he told both females. "Though that skull you've got there is easily better than any piece I've got laid out here," he told the unrelated hyena with real feeling.

So what if he was kind of ignoring Hortlak? He knew his sister. She'd find a way to be noticed. Hopefully not at the cost of some of his bones though...  

[Andranis]

The female blushed a little. "Oh, this old thing?" She put a paw on it, then smiled broadly. "I found it out in the grasses, I plan on giving it to my aunt!" She puffed up her chest, mane flopping into her face. "Make her look scary and intimidating to the lions!" She pointed to the marks across the brow and eye socket. "I mean, check out these marks! Something big did this, with REALLY sharp claws! And the teeth? They're all there! It must have been quite the battle that this lion got into that it came out with all its teeth still in place!"

Hortlak eyed the skull as she walked up. Okay, that was impressive enough... She then looked at Aneetz, scowling. "WHY are you organizing your bones like that...?" What purpose could it possibly serve, anyway? "You can't possibly be getting ready to EAT them all..." She liked a good bone now and then, but this was ridiculous! She'd never seen a hyena with this many bones... And where had he KEPT them all?! "Your den can't really be that big they all fit in there WITH you..." She stuck her head in, trying to see if she could guess the size of her brother's den. It wasn't nearly as spacious as her own, in her opinion.  

[mouselet]

"Sounds like a great plan!" he agreed with Shakira. The skull would make a fearsome battle mask indeed, not to mention the fact that it would offer an extra bit of protection! Never a bad thing at all. He had a few skulls himself, but none of them were as nice looking as that, and he mostly used them to hold other and smaller bones.

The male looked over to his sister who was, as usual, exasperated with him and his collection. But he gave her a winning smile and attempted (again) to explain himself.

"I'm grading them based on value to myself and to others in the pride," he told both females. "And since we don't share a den anymore, I really don't think you need to know how I store them." He winked at Shakira as he spoke. "It's a trade secret."  

[Andranis]

The brown female sat down, allowing her to cover her mouth with her paws as she giggled. Oh, this other female looked so AGITATED! She reminded her a lot of Aunt Schatz... She wondered for a moment if they were related, but dismissed the idea. Aunt Schatz only ever had three pups, and all had gone missing ages ago. "So, gonna trade any of them...?" She looked at the bones, eyeballing a few that she found particularly interesting. "I have a few... If you are..." She'd found a fascinating one covered in runes a few days before... She was sure it'd come from a baby elephant, given the size of it.

The paler female rolled her eyes, taking a seat next to her brother. "You're both boneheads, you know that, right...?" Bones, bones, bones... It'd figure her brother WOULD find someone else as bone-obsessed as he was. This one seemed fitting of it, though. She was far too giggly to be a guard, scout, OR huntress. She couldn't imagine she'd make patients happy as a bone setter... "How did I end up around two boneheads? What... GODS... Did I make mad at me?" She lay down, rubbing her face with both paws. Ye gods... Save her now...  

[mouselet]

"Oh certainly!" he replied to the darker female. "I'd be happy to trade most of these, just point out what's peaked your interest," Aneetz told her, gesturing at most of the bones and skillfully swiping a few out of the way of his sister as she settled down next to him. The male smiled at her exasperation.

"It certainly seems that we are!" he agreed cheerfully. Boneheads, huh? Well, everyone had a skull inside their head. In fact, he was of the opinion that some people's skulls were thicker than others, though it wouldn't do to mention that theory to Hortlak. He had to laugh at her remark about gods though.

"Obviously, the God of Bones is mad at you," he teased. After all, what other god would care so much about bits and pieces of skeletons?  

[Andranis]

Shakira's eyes lit up as she looked the bones over. "Oh, those are all so... Wonderful looking..." She carefully picked up and examined each one, before putting it back down. After a few minutes, tail wagging, she stood up. "I'll be right back, I gotta go get some bones to trade you for those ones!" She picked up the marred lion skull and went loping off, leaving small dust clouds in her wake.

Ears flopping back, the pale female groaned. "You're an idiot, Aneetz..." She rubbed her temples. "How did I end up with you as a brother? Is this... Some sort of test from the gods?" She looked at him sourly. "Why couldn't you collect, I don't know, skins? Or maybe even kill tallies?" She pulled on her ears a moment, eyes squeezed shut. "The other hyenas are laughing at me, I just know it..." She feared the day he acted like this around the wrong hyena, and both of their faces were chewed on for it. Oh, how could life do this to her?

Moments later, Shakira returned dragging a carefully-folded skin that seemed to form a sack. It rattled as she moved, and she made somewhat slow progress, but soon stopped in front of Aneetz and let the corners go. As it unfolded, a pile of bones became evident inside it, each a beauty in their own right. "There we go, all the bones I wanna trade!" She fished one out, the baby elephant bone. "This one's particularly interesting, it's got some sort of runes all over it!"

"What have I done to deserve this fate...?" Once again, Hortlak covered her face with her paws.  

[mouselet]

Aneetz watched Shakira go off in search of her own trade goods as Hortlak bemoaned the fates which had made them siblings. She was being overly dramatic, really. But she liked to groan about him, so the male didn't let it affect him too much.

"Considering how many pack members trade bones with me, I seriously doubt they're laughing at you," he told her. "With you, probably. But not at you." After all, the only way to stop a hyena from laughing was to kill it. That was something of a proverb around here.

But he was distracted from his introspection by Shakira's return with some absolutely fascinating bones. The pale hyena leaned over to take a closer look at the bone with runes on it.

"Oh my, that is truly fascinating!" he exclaimed, Hortlak almost forgotten. "I would trade you five - no seven! - of the bones in this pile here for it!" he offered, gesturing at one of the larger groupings around him.  

[Andranis]

Her jaw only dropped, before she got up. "Oh, you're both bone-brained!" She paced for a moment, scowl only deepening. Bones, bones, everywhere... It was starting to drive her mad! Just how did Schatz DEAL with this all the time? Did she even deal with it? She wondered how the one-eyed hyena glared at these pains in the tail... "I'm going somewhere else!" Ears folding back, she went loping off through the bones and long-decayed elephant skins.

Shakira watched curiously as Hortlak left, then turned back to Aneetz. "Oh, those are all so lovely!" She began picking through them, looking the bones over. Each had its own unique form, including different ways they cracked and seemed to try and split. As she went through them, she considered the worth of a bone covered in runes. "I'm not so sure seven would be quite ENOUGH... I mean, a bone with runes isn't something one usually FINDS or can even reproduce!" She picked the bone up, pointing at the runes. "Just look at these, there's some sort of paint IN the bone to make the runes really stand out! Someone put a LOT of work into this bone..."  

[mouselet]

Aneetz just grinned after Hortlak's tail as his sister took herself elsewhere. He did enjoy tweaking her fur just to watch her react and then to laugh at the resulting situation. He loved her of course, but what was love without a bit of fun?

His smile didn't fade as he turned back to his fellow bone collector. So the bargaining was to begin in earnest, eh? That he could deal with.

"How about this...you pick out the bones you think would constitute an adequate trade for that one...and then we get down to business?" He wouldn't let her rip him off, but he wanted to make sure he was driving a sufficiently hard bargain! Let the negotiations begin, for Aneetz had yet to lose a bargaining session!