There Are Good Days And... (Geith and Hoeh) [PRP]

[Pearlyblue]

The black lioness purposely fell behind her sister a little, and surreptitiously shook her head, hoping her bright twin wouldn't notice. Some part of her already knew that it was high time to let Geith know that another episode was coming on, that it wouldn't just fade away on its own this time, but as her confusion increased, so did the unreasonable desire to handle it herself, without troubling Geith.

And sometimes it did pass on its own. That was when she felt the most accomplished, and strong. But most often, it was like now: The whispers and flickers would increase steadily, until she couldn't separate what was real from what was before her eyes.

That watering hole, for example. Was it really there? She had the feeling that they had been heading towards it for a while, but somehow she also felt that they were trekking through a marsh. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. The air at least smelled like grass and dust, so they were probably still on the savannah.

She should tell Geith. She blinked a couple of times and tried to focus on the image of the watering hole, but the whispers in her ears were really distracting.

"No, it's the savannah," she muttered to the whisperers, flicking her ear in annoyance. "The watering hole is right over there."  

[Annchen]

It took some time for Geith to notice that Hoeh was lagging behind. She was walking at a steady pace that she knew they could hold forever if they had to. Since she walked first at the moment she tried to stay vigilant, keeping her nostrils open to any threatening scent. They weren't going anywhere in particular, but that didn't matter as long as they stayed together. The sisters had been taking care of themselves for almost as long as she remembered. Sure, when they were kids they've had the added protection of a small gathering of rogues, but it had been clear even then that those lions hadn't been family. Not really. Not like her and Hoeh. And none of the lions had been related to them by blood.

Her ear twitched, something didn't sound right, and she turned around to find Hoeh much further away than she should be. There weren't any immediate danger, but she could still feel her fur rise on the back of her neck.

"What are you doing," she called, annoyance seeping into her voice, "Tired already?"  

[Pearlyblue]

Geith's voice scattered the whispers, made the real a bit more real for a moment, and Hoeh looked up, inhaling sharply as if she could hold on to this momentary clarity by sucking it into her lungs along with the warm air. Her own blue eyes focused on Geiths, and reality seemed just a little bit more solid for a moment.

It was no effort at all to give her sister a bright smile, but inwardly she frowned at herself. The whispers were still there, and she could swear they were already growing stronger again.

"Tired?" she replied with a bit more mirth than she actually felt. "Of course not! I can go every bit as far as you can..." She trotted up to her twin and tilted her head to the side in mock concern. "...Or are you perhaps trying to say that you would like to take a break for a while?"

She threw a glance in the direction they had been going, and felt moderately calmer at seeing the watering hole still where it was before. "That watering hole looks like a nice place to rest for a spell, doesn't it?"

Now, if Geith couldn't see the watering hole, that meant that this "episode" was already much worse that she thought, and then she would definitely tell Geith what was going on. If not, then... maybe... she could still fight it off. Perhaps.

She really should tell Geith.

A sudden sensation of her paw sinking into sticky mud made her absentmindedly raise it, giving it a little shake before she put it back down.  

[Annchen]

Geith could tell that something was up, but she wasn't sure exactly what was wrong with her sister. Perhaps she was tired or had strained a muscle without wanting to admit it. Hoeh was every bit as stubborn as she could be, unfortunately. She refused to let herself get baited by the mocking tone and instead followed Hoeh's gaze towards the watering hole. It did look nice, and if her sister was too stubborn to admit she needed a rest it might be good to stop for a while. It would give her time to coax Hoeh to stop being silly and tell her what was wrong.

She nodded in agreement and started to trot towards the small watering hole, completely missing her sisters odd behaviour since she had her back turned.  

[Pearlyblue]

Hoeh exhaled slowly as she followed her sister's dark tail tip. The watering hole was real. Maybe she could still get through this without Geith having to notice anything. She flicked her ears at the whispers and resolutely shook her head, carefully focusing on her breathing.

In... out... in... out... the steady rythm of the flowing air calmed her, and she allowed herself to feel a first hint of victoriousness. It was working! She looked up to see how much further it was to the watering hole, and smiled in relief at seeing that she was already there - when suddenly everything fell apart around her.

The watering hole seemed to swell for a moment, and then suddenly she was in five different places at once. She gasped and swayed, looking for Geith but hardly even understanding that the white form before her eyes was actually her sister. "Ge-Geith!" she gasped, trying to control far too many paws at once. Four of them were carefully stepping through mud and on slippery roots, four other paws were running fast and hard after fleeing prey, four paws were floundering over wet dirt, and eight others were slinking silently through high grass. She saw every scene on top of the other, and her mind started taking in far too much information at once.

Her actual body, however, suddenly stumbled over her own paws, teetered and helplessly begun falling nose-first into the shallow water.  

[Annchen]

Something was definitely off, but Geith hoped that Hoeh should snap out of it when she got a drink of water and some rest. She could get weird sometimes, and Geith didn't like it. She also tended to get upset whenever they bridged that subject so she kept her suspicions to herself and walked briskly towards the water. She only stopped when she had both front feet in the water. It was nice actually, and she turned her head to say so.

"Hey, this wasn't such a..." but whatever she had planned to say next was forgotten as soon as she saw the look on her sister's face. Oh, no. Bad one. This was not good at all.

Geith hissed as her sister started to fall. She was too close to the water and the only plan she could come up with on short notice was to leap forward and try to body tackle Hoeh away from the water. They were both similar in size and this would most likely hurt, but she wasn't sure Hoeh would get up on her own if she managed to take a nosedive into the watering hole. This was better, even if she'd feel it in the morning.  

[Pearlyblue]

Something slammed into her with a force that knocked the air right out of her lungs, and the dark lioness felt herself (one - or was it two? - of herself) being flung through the air and land on something hard and dry - and grassy and soft. It was night and it was day and it was dank and it was dry. She gasped for air - only to cry out in excruciating pain as impossibly strong jaws closed around (one of her) hind legs, all but pulverizing the bone with sheer force.

Her swamp-self was being pulled into the bog by a monstrous crocodile.

"Help!" She wheezed. "Cro.. crocodile! Oh no... somebody help! It'll drown me!"  

[Annchen]

At first she thought she had overdone it and really hurt her sister, but then she heard her croak crocodile. Geith spun around, looking for the invisible enemy Hoeh was tormented by. She couldn't see anything, and she knew from experience that it wouldn't help to try to slap some sense into her. Hoeh was gone for now, and the white sister paced anxiously while plotting her next move. She was torn between the impulse to try to hold down the dark lioness until she snapped out of it, and the impulse to secure the area.

Safety won. With a watchful eye on Hoe she started scanning the area with eyes and nose. Drowning was not a concern anymore, but her cries made her fur stand on end. This would be a poor place to fight if the noise attracted opportunistic predators. She couldn't see any immediate threats, but the heavy scent of fear was almost too much to bear.  

[Pearlyblue]

Hoeh's mind was everywhere any nowhere. She was as good as physically present at at least five different locations at once, but she couldn't influence anything, nor think a single thought of her own.

One of her was dragged under the waters and slain by a big crocodile.

One of her led a pack of huntresses down a different path than usual, and found a beautiful abundance of prey.

One of her was a strong male, who struck out at his oldest son, meaning to slay him, and thinking he had succeeded.

One of her was a proud male, returning home to his family years later, to get his revenge on his tyrannical father.

One of her went through a very difficult birthing, and died along with her cubs because she had been too scared to tell anyone about her pregnancy, and therefore never asked for a midwife's help.

And all of this happened at once. All exactly as intensive as the others. But as they all led up to their respective climax, they suddenly grew softer, fainter, and them popped, like a bubble against the water's surface. Hoeh begun breathing easier, no longer trying to keep five different lions' lungs filled, and gazed through half-closed eyes as the landscape around her solidified into a single one again.

Her own thoughts seeped back into her mind, and it was bliss to just lie there and listen to them. Listen to the lack of any others. She heaved a shaky sigh and inhaled deeply again, stretching her limbs out as though she had just woken up from a nap and so happy to feel all four of them working fine. Her side was a bit sore, though, but compared to what she had lived through recently, it was really just a trifle.  

[Annchen]

Geith would never be able to begin to understand what happened to her sister during her fits. It was strange and frightening and sometimes put the two of them in dangerous situations. All she could do was try to cope, and try to find the early warning signs before it happened. She had failed this time, but luckily it wasn't one of the really bad ones. Oh, it was nasty all right, but it could have been worse. When one of those hit she wanted them to be somewhere safe where she could protect the two of them better.

She took out her frustration, fear and anger on a vulture that had the bad taste of landing nearby. The birds were notoriously hard to catch, but she was aiming more at scaring or possibly maiming. She roared as the ugly bird flew off and stalked back to her sister.

"Bad one, huh?" she asked softly, remembering that loud noises was a bad idea. Too late to do anything about that roar, however.  

[Pearlyblue]

A fierce roar pierced the silence and for the briefest moment Hoeh feared that it wasn't actually ovet yet, but as soon as she realised that she was still alone in her body, she wanted to curl up in shame and hide in a hole somewhere. Geith... She had every reason to be upset.

The shame of not having prepared her sister for the episode blurred into a memory that wasn't her own, and when she heard her sister's gentle, soft voice she was almost pathetically moved. Holding back a sudden lump in her throat, she lifted her head and looked somewhat blearily at the bright figure next to her.

"Yeah," she replied, surprised and not surprised at how hoarse her voice was. "I'm sorry, Geith, I should have told you. Of all people, I should have told you. I... I just didn't know what to do. The father was a rogue and I never meant for it to happen..." No, wait. That wasn't right, was it? Hoeh hesitated and frowned, her eyes going blank with introspection as she tried to sort herself out.

"I should have... Told you... I... Uh..."  

[Annchen]

For a short while it sounded as if Hoeh was coming around, and Geith was just about to tell her that, yes - she should have said something. But then her sister dropped yet another bomb and Geith froze with her mouth open, trying to process what her sister had just said. Had she just implied that she was carrying cubs? What the ********?! How the hell did that happen?!! It was all just too much, and Geith could feel a throbbing headache setting in. Or it could be the feeling of her brain breaking, who knew?

"What?" she spluttered, jaw working as she tried to come up with something to say that wasn't just yelling. This was shaping up to be one of the incidents that were bad enough to give her a headache too. A really painful one at that.

"When did that happen?" she said, with a voice that was slightly louder than normal, but not loud enough to be called yelling. It wouldn't get better than that at the moment. "We're almost always together. Why would you risk it?"  

[Pearlyblue]

Hoeh instinctively sleeked her ears back at her sister's indignant outburst, and closed her eyes as if to stop any further impressions from muddling her mind up even more. While scouring her scrambled brain for the actual truth, she stalled for time.

"Uhmmmm... There was this... That is to say..." She remembered it so clearly! The pain, the worry, the anguish she had been carrying for weeks finally culminating and how she had snuck away from the rest of the pride and... "No, no, no, that's not right... I..." Her claws kneaded the ground, a gesture of comfort-seeking as well as deep concentration from Hoeh. Then she opened her eyes again and looked up at Geith with a somewhat shameful, apologetic smile.

It couldn't have happened for real, because the real mother of those cubs was dead.

"...I was dreaming again. I thought I had died while giving birth, for a second, there..." She tried to smooth the whole thing over with a laugh, but it faltered and died half way. Hoeh lowered her eyes and felt her pelt grow warm with shame. "...I'm sorry. About that, too."

She hated this. Hated, hated, hated when it got like this and no matter what she tried to do, she became a burden to Geith, one way or the other. Why couldn't she have a normal, stable reality like everyone else?  

[Annchen]

Geith shook her head in a futile attempt to get rid of all this confusion. Hoeh and her dreams... They were crazy enough to drive her batty too. But it wasn't her sister's fault. Geith hoped that they'd be able to find some kind of healer that could get rid of the horrible dreams for good. She wasn't even sure such healers existed, and she hadn't mentioned it to Hoeh since she didn't want to make her feel bad about it. It was just a silly fantasy really, one that helped her cope.

"Come on," she said and nudged the other lioness, "It's not your fault. Let's get you to the shade over there."

She walked slowly beside Hoeh, allowing the dark lioness to lean against her if she needed to. They both needed rest now. She hoped this would be the last of it, but she knew that there could be aftershocks. They would both need their strength if that should be the case.