[Self RP]Shadows on the Sand

[laefe]

Darkness seemed to pool over the sands as Chau lay resting in the sunlight. She'd never seen the sun just suddenly dissapear behind darkness unless clouds were involved. It felt odd to think but maybe there was something blocking the sun?

Both of her pale green eyes lifted to the sky just in time to stare at a large white lion with... with WINGS!

"A god you moron. Get it right." Hang's voice cut through the fog of Chau's thoughts of immense shock.

The pale lioness looked up at her friend in a scathed way, trying to tell her without words that she hadn't needed the 'moron' part added to that last statment. Just because Hang was older than her gave her no reason to treat Chau that way.  

[laefe]

White wings carried him over the sand lazily, not really looking for anything in particular. It was strange for him to do so, but it felt all the more odd for him to be up there in general. Athrun, the god of Loneliness, wasn't often found flying around the air above the sands that reminded him of his family long gone. Most of the time he was laid out on boulders asleep or watching the pride around him move.

It was a more laid back way to spend his time, but the feeling of the wind rushing over his wings made him feel more alive than he had in a long time. The swelling in his chest all but took away the hollow half of his heart that seemed to grow with each day since the day his mate and cubs had been taken.

Not helping the fact was what had happened to his current family. Akiiki had left and gotten cursed just as he, possessed with a demon that wanted to prove itself to others and Dumu had pulled away not long after.

It was just hard.

Slowly he floated down towards the sand, suddenly tired of flying. Halfway down in his descent did he notice the white lioness below that stared at him with ghostly pale green eyes.  

[laefe]

Her eyes watched him come to a slow landing, wider than they'd ever been. What was it about him that made her heart turn to ice? What was it about him that made her want to stand up and go over to bow and ask him why he looked so sad?

Something the same had happened when she'd met Kigao, but her instinctive shakiness around males was gone before this god just as it had dissipated before Kigao. Was there something in common with them or maybe it was just that she knew it was a god and couldn't hurt her.

Was it a male? Or was it a female?

The idea touched her mind when she saw the small puff of blood colored hair on top of it's head. Only when she looked at the strong shoulder muscles and broad looking back did Chau see that he was in fact a male.

No way Chau was going to go and meet him though. Nooooo sir. He was going to come to her if he wanted to speak.  

[laefe]

Lucky for her he felt in a talking mood, wanting to see what it was that made her lay in the middle of the sandy ocean of the Dawn Walkers. Sure they were adept at living in the desert but he saw no reason for her to be laying there like that. Was she sick?

"Pardon if I come at a bad time during the day's retreat..." Athrun said, his voice holding none of it's god-like resonance as it usually did. It was bad enough that he'd seen her too late to hide his wings, but to use that on her felt like a boon. "Why is it that you lay in the sand so far from the pride when you could be in the shade of an oasis?"

He felt it was a warranted question, one filled with respect for her well being. Whether or not she took it the way he meant it was entirely up to her though. In his recent experiences Athrun had found that not all females felt the same ways about people pointing out their positions and where they were as much as others liked it.  

[laefe]

Luckily for her he seemed to speak in both her head and out loud, for Chau wouldn't have heard a word that he said unless she'd begged Hang to repeat it. The god had placed himself in the sunlight that made the pale lioness squint and all but glare at him.

Of course it couldn't be his fault, he didn't seem to realize that he'd done her an injustice in the manner he had. If he'd known she couldn't hear with her ears then she was sure the kind looking lion would have moved from the sunlight.

"I wanted to get used to the heat, so my mate took me out here to get used to it. But he got thirsty halfway and when we got her he went to the watering hole in order to get a drink. I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"Sure as a twig is that they'll grow into a beautiful flower." Hang scoffed, only to be ignored by the deaf lioness beside her.  

[laefe]

Nothing in him felt as if he should let this lioness out here to fry under the sun. Athrun wasn't a fool. Sand had been his mother, loneliness his father and the sand of his mother had taught him that it was unlikely that he should survive if he layed out all day under the burning sun. Not only would a light colored lion or lioness like the two of them be burned by the sun until their fur turned a pink tinge for the blood red of the skin beneath it, but they could also become sick from laying out there.

"So he just LEFT you when he knew that you didnt know where you were?" Disgust crept into Athrun's voice as he strode forward and used his large white wing as a shield. "I'm taking you to the nearest Oasis, if he has any sense he'll be able to find you there."

In the last statement he'd said the god had put every ounce of godly power and force he'd ever put in any sentence in his life. Athrun couldn't walk away from this lioness knowing that she could be hurt, sickened or even worse if her 'mate' didn't return soon. What if he got himself distracted or hurt on the way? No. She was going back to an oasis now so he wouldn't worry about her.  

[laefe]

The snort that came from Hang was audiable enough that Chau was forced to glare over at her in turn, her pale eyes darkening for a mere moment.

"Kigao would never 'just' leave me." Chau snapped, her eyes sparking with anger as she thought of how kind Kigao was, how much he'd shown and given her when he'd taken her into his home. The pride was now her home even if she wasn't a known member. She lived there as surely as she lived in the Oasis of her father and mother before this. If anyone knew how to find an Oasis it was Chau.

the fact remained that she wasn't sure how she would find Kigao if she left the spot she was at currently. There had to be a way to find him naturally, he was just one male. But if he came back looking for her and she wasn't there... wouldn't he panic?

"How can I leave if he'll come back and worry about me?" the female demanded, peering at him through pale eyes.  

[laefe]

"I'm not as incapable of finding others as you appear to think I am. I'll find your mate if that's your wish, however you need to be out of this sun." Athrun scoffed, his eyes were sharp and his tongue for some reason was just as much so.

Why couldn't this lioness see sense, and what was it that had made her glare over in that direction?

With any amount of ill luck she was suffering from heat stroke and was seeing illusions. If that were the case it was fair dangerous to just... well to just leave her. If he did that then she would most likely end up dead.  

[laefe]

The scowl that met Chau's face this time was for the god before her. He seemed so sure of himself, so clearly above her that he wanted to do something for her as if she would accept it. Why would she allow it when she already had a male.

The fact that males scared her was the other deeply riddled part of her that tried to rebel when he offered to help her. Hade he been a female that would have been a different story, of course she was certain that he wouldn't be as annoying as he was now if he were a female.

"Fine.... I'll go with you if you promise me that we can find Kigao or at least you can show me where Kigao lives." Chau was even shocked by her brash remark and her sudden boldness that she'd never had before this moment. "I just... I don't want to worry him."

It was a valid argument and an even more valid worry, why wouldn't this god get it? Didn't they know how mortals felt or something?  

[laefe]

It was a credit to Athrun that he didn't get extremelly frustrated when she argued, her sharp tongue making his frustration that greater. How foolish could one mortal be? One female, one anything!?

If she stayed out in the sun she would get sick and die, yet here she was complaining that her mate 'wouldn't be able to find her' so that was what kept her on the sand. How would her mate feel if suddenly she died on the sand when he came back to find her?

Athrun for one knew that Azraceri would find a way to ressurect his body to remind him of his commitement to him and to kick him into the sand herself. Odds were good his mate would bury him so well in the sand that only his tail tip and the edge of a wing wold show.

Both of his eyes crossed behind his blindfold and the god beckoned to her with a wing, his tail swishing slowly. "Follow me, I can't lift you up to fly. We'll just find them on foot."  

[laefe]

Chau's pink paws followed after the larger god, her toes curling in the sand the way that Kigao had shown her on their first day in the desert. He'd said that if she didn't curl her toes just so that she would force more pressure on her feet and ankles and after a while that would cause lifelong damage. If that were the case then even Chau could change the way she walked.

The god on the other hand...

The white creature seemed to walk as if he were a part of the sand, walking just as Chau had on the flat savannah surface. Apparently nothing much could hurt a god that badly that he would suffer for his mistakes, but Chau knew that she would suffer for her own.

"Could you not walk so fast...?" She asked slowly, her eyes all but pleading despite her knowledge that he wouldn't.  

[laefe]

"I'll walk as fast as I need to cub." Athrun responded, his paws seemed to be part of the sand themselves as he walked. "I told you I'm taking you as far as shade, I'm not taking you any further.

It seemed as if it would be a long walk, long long walk.

Especially if she continued to keep pestering him about her mate and the like. It only succeeded in making him think of Azraceri and wondering how she was doing. She'd been made a guardian, therefor Athrun rarely saw her.

The odds were good that they wouldn't meet for a month or so to come given the present situation with the pride the'd come back to.

Back into a war that Athrun was more than willing to fight. A sigh came from his muzzle and he looked back one more time to make sure the female was right behind him and slowed down for her.

"Welcome to the Dawnwalkers I suppose." he responded as the two dissapeared behind a wall of sand and wind, headed towards the oasis not so far away where a large male named Kigao awaited.