[PRP] Ghost Hunting (Coeur, Skogund, Klona)

[Puhterodactyl]

"Don't you dare move from this spot. I'll be back before you know it."
Submissive nods met Coeur's orders. It had taken many seasons to find her daughter Chayah, but with it came the added bonus of grandaughter Kifuani.

Not that she'd ever given Chayah permission to have cubs.

She had ESPECIALLY made it VERY clear that Chayah was never to leave her.

So when the black lioness got away, it was only natural that Coeur went looking for what was rightfully hers. And that same quest for her cubs brought the trio to the lands of the Stormborn. Not that Coeur could give a crap about whose lands she was traipsing on. Pur'Coeur was nearby. It had taken quite the bit of 'investigating' and 'asking around' (to put it gently) to discover Coeur's black-chested daughter. Not that any of it did any good. Instead, the answer came from much closer to home.

Though she considered her children were a curse inflicted by a hulking (albeit handsome) god, at least the perk of their visions came with it. Chayah had led them right to her littermate. Pur was always a little bit more... tender-headed... than Chayah, and a hell of a lot more annoying as a cub, always seeking Coeur's affection and all, so the mother could only assume that Pur hadn't escaped or run off like Chayah and their brother had. No. Of course not. Pur would never have. Instead, Coeur assumed the little dolt had gotten lost. And, well, since she didn't care for the cubs she hadn't really tried that hard to find her... Ok, she hadn't looked at all... Until now.

Coeur stalked through the forests at the edge of the pride. Chayah had said they were very close, that she could almost feel Pur somewhere nearby. The lioness cursed her children and the god again. If only he'd skipped the kids and granted her the powers. That'd made everything a hell of a lot simpler.  

[bipolar bee]

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"But it is not fair, Skogund. It is not fair, and Skogund has said he will catch a bird for Klona but he has not. All that Skogund does is hide high in the trees where Klona cannot catch him - but where Skogund can catch a bird should he try so very hard to, except he does not, and so now Klona is so very sad and also angry at her brother because he does nothing to find her a bird even when he said he would."

The tirade ended abruptly, only to be followed by a bright and horrific scream of indignation, and then:

"Stop throwing eggs at Klona's head, Skogund!!"

Another scream sounded immediately afterwards, this one much less indignant and much more furious. There was another noise, one that sounded suspiciously of claws on thick tree bark.

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Skogund burst out laughing as his sister tried (desperately, but to no avail) to climb the tree he lazed in. He'd found a birds nest, and in all honesty he'd had every intention of catching his sister a bird, but then she'd started harping on him, and so instead of lying in wait, Skogund started pelting his sister with small eggs that rested a few branches down from where he lazed.

It was pissing her off, which amused Skogund - more so, considering the fact that she was incapable of clambering up the tree after him.

If he'd been paying attention, he might have caught the odd scent of a stranger. He might have been alerted to the fact that they were no longer alone.

 

[Puhterodactyl]

Screams sent the slinking Coeur off running like a shot. The white lioness raced in leaps and bounds to the source, her colorless eyes wide in concentration and scanning ahead. It seemed like it only took an instant until she saw a very familiar figure. The lioness was stretched up a tree, looking and screaming at something, hardly paying attention to the blur headed straight towards her.

Coeur hurled herself at Pur, slamming into the lioness and tumbling over her. This would only be the beginning of Pur's punishment for getting lost. "PUR'COEUR HOW DARE YOU." The wrath exploded from Coeur.

Wait.

Hold on a second.

Coeur, panting heavily, examined the lioness she was pinning. She looked at her orange chest. She looked at her own red one.

Wait.

Chayah was the girl cub with the red chest, right? And Lajos had no chest marking. Gods, what color was Pur's chest? Coeur knitted her brows. Orange just didn't seem right. But it had been a while, and Coeur wasn't exactly mother of the year as far as knowing about her children. It was almost surprising that she even remembered there'd been one boy and two girls.

But as she searched the lioness' eyes... No. These were wrong. Chayah was the only one with colored eyes, and hers were red. There was no yellow. No orange. She muttered under her breath and shook her head. "...Pur'coeur, how dare you..."

And that is how Coeur met another granddaughter.  

[bipolar bee]

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An unholy shriek ripped through the air as Klona unceremoniously landed on her back, pinned beneath a lioness that looked strikingly like her mama, but who was not quite her mama. Where a black marking should have resided there was a deep, bloodied red, but Klona was too terrified to realize what was going on.

"Skogund," was all she could wail before she burst into great, heaving sobs, her voice quivering with terror. The lioness above her was blotting out the sun, and Klona had never been in such a situation. It was awful, and terrible, and suddenly she had a strong desire to be near her papa. Her papa would save her, would protect her.

The cries continued, muffled and wrenching.

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Skogund, on the other hand, was moving with a sleek quickness that spoke multitudes of the power that fueled his muscles. He did not stop until he was very close to the pale lioness that looked so much like his mother and his sister. Teeth bared, paw lifted in a quite threat that he would undoubtedly deliver should the lioness pose any further a threat than she already had.

Skogund did not take kindly to a stranger attacking his precious sister. Klona was very near and dear to Skogund's heart, and it caused him great unease to see this almost-twin of his mother pinning his sister to the ground.

"Get off of her," his voice was a steely hiss, one that grew rougher as Klona began to sob.

"Now."

 

[Puhterodactyl]

Coeur slowly turned her head. Oh. They had company. Unblinking and eyes fixed on the male, she silently stepped away from her sobbing granddaughter. "She's my granddaughter. So who does that make you?"

She stared through her mop of a mane, tail flicking quickly in agitation. Well, this male had red and black, perhaps from Coeur and that god respectively. But that was certainly not firm ground to base the assumption of relation off of. "Skogund, how do you know my granddaughter?" The white lioness wanted to assert her relation to the sobbing thing, claim some sort of right to her actions (even though it'd been a huge mix up, oops).  

[bipolar bee]

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The instant that the white lioness moved off of her, Klona was on her feet and moving to stand behind Sko. If he hadn't been there, Klona had no idea what she'd have done. Probably screamed, as loud as she could have, and maybe she'd have bitten the other lioness. Maybe she'd have scratched her eyes. That would have been nice. Klona had never clawed anyone's eyes before. She had to wonder if they made a noise when they popped, or did they even pop? What were eyes filled with, anyway?

Klona opened her mouth to ask that particular question, stopping when she noticed Sko's thunderous expression.

Well, maybe she'd ask Orvar later.

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"She is my sister."

This was their grandmother? Skogund watched the stranger carefully, black eyes narrowed. He didn't relax much when Klona moved behind him; instead, he enlarged himself as much as he could, his mane puffing out while the hair along the ridge of his back stood at attention.

"How do you know our mother?"

It was a stupid question, and he regretted it the instant he spoke it. He'd meant to ask how she knew that Klona was her granddaughter, but that wasn't what had come out.

 

[Puhterodactyl]

Coeur's eyes tracked her granddaughter as she moved behind the male, and let them rest on his dark face. She then purred at his answer.

"Well it's certainly a pleasure to meet you, grandson. I'm rather sad it's taken this long for us to make acquaintance." She didn't fret any when he puffed himself up, it was just a display. He wouldn't hurt his grammy, would he?

She sat on her haunches and began to groom herself. Her white paws had become muddied in her mad dash.

"I've known your mother since her conception. We're very close. It was when she was still young that she and her brother became separated from me and her sister." Coeur shook her head sadly.

"Yes, it's taken many seasons for us to find her again. Her sister, Chayah, has the same visions that your mother is afflicted with. It was her Sight that led us to this place, to reunite our family as a whole. I even brought along one of your cousins, Chayah's daughter, Kifuani." Coeur smiled at her kin.

"I mistook your sister for Pur in my haste, I see the marking she inherited from me comes in orange, not her mother's black, nor my red."

She eyed Sko.

"And I take you get your red from me?" She tilted her head. "Your grandfather was that same black, too. But you've got handsome markings, I bet your father is quite the looker. I'd only expect that for my daughter."  

[bipolar bee]

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Klona started nodding as if everything that Coeur said made perfect sense to her. Really, she'd zoned out shortly after the other lioness had started speaking, as her thoughts had turned back to the direction of eyeballs, and whether or not they were squishy or not. Maybe they were more like eggs and crunched when you broke them, or maybe they were hard.

Klona lifted a paw and pressed at her own eye scientifically, as if by doing so she could determine what, exactly, her eyes were made of.

On the topic of her father, the pale lioness had her attention once more.

"Yes," she chirped agreeably, "papa is the most handsome lion ever on the whole world, and Klona loves her papa very much, he is the best papa and so very handsome."

Would he know about eyes, probably?

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Skogund grunted and glanced at his sister when she began to speak, an ear flicking in annoyance.

"What is your name? And why are you here, in the woods? This is Stormborn territory, and they do not take kindly to trespassers."

He did not really consider himself Stormborn. He was too much like his father in that respect, really. He was faeblood, and he belonged in the forest with the trees.

"The red may come from my grandfather on my father's side," he felt it important to make that known, as though the lioness that stood before him had had little to do with his appearance.

 

[Puhterodactyl]

"So Klona is your name?" Coeur smiled at the lioness genially. "Pur named you well. The both of you." She turned her eyes back to the male.

"Why, I'm Coeur. Has your mother never mentioned me?" She tutted. "Poor thing must have been so distraught from how we were separated." AKA how she and Lajos escaped her. But Coeur wasn't one to split hairs.

"I came here to find my daughter and I was not going to let any pride get in my way. I'll fight every single one of them to be reunited with my Pur." Coeur harped on how much her daughter meant to her. With as big and wary as Sko was, she thought it wisest to talk about how much her family meant to her and blah blah blah. Maybe if she was lucky she could take these two back with her. Though Skogund may believe he didn't take after her, Coeur knew the truth, and knew that she was entitled to him. It was her right to be the matriarch to her own family.  

[bipolar bee]

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"Yes, I am Klona."

A bird gave flight in the branches above Klona, and all was lost. She took a permanent vacation from the conversation, because there was a bird and it looked so pretty against the sky, and why hadn't Skogund caught her a bird yet?

She sent her brother a scathing look, though she didn't say anything. He knew.

Klona had little doubt of that. What a jerk.

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Skogund was skeptical, not that this lioness was related to him. It was just a feeling he had.

"No, she is not distraught. She is with my father, as she always is, and she is happy to be in the forest. It is our home. So now you know where your daughter is, and now you may leave again. You cannot have my mother because she belongs here, with us."

He hoped he sounded a little menacing. That was what he was going for.

Puhterodactyl

 

[Puhterodactyl]

Coeur tutted again, dramatically.

"Yes, she may be happy now, and I'm happy that she is happy, but it must have been the initial shock and trauma of our separation that made her forget about any life before this beautiful one."

She shook her head, her white eyes taking on a much more serious glint and her look hardening.

"I will see my daughter, that is what I traveled hundreds of nights and miles to do. Grandson, sweet grandson, do not stand in the way of a mother and her cub."

Coeur had fought gods and seers and creatures of all sizes. She wasn't afraid to get rough with her grandson, you know, to teach him to respect his elders.

But her ears flickered back and forth, her head shot up and she looked between Klona and Skogund. She heard voices behind her. Back where she'd cached Chayah and Kifuani. Oh, that couldn't be good. Her white eyes narrowed at her grandchildren, and the corners of her mouth twitched, as if to snarl.

She'd have to return and deal with this later.

"Tell your mother I'll be seeing her soon. There's something else I have to take care of now. Tah-tah for now!"

the end