[PRP] Presence of Mind (Apanthi/Elvis)

[Meepfur]

Apanthi lay on a sturdy, mossy log, both her front and hind legs on her left side hanging off and resting on the moist ground. Her head was resting on her other foreleg, and her gold eyes were closed, but she wasn't sleeping; rather, she was brooding, which was what she seemed to spend most of her time doing these days. Her naming quest, in her own estimation, had been a disaster - not a complete and utter failure in the sense of naming quests, since she had ended up with a new name, but not in a way she'd ever imagined. She hadn't found some secret strength, accomplished a meaningful task, nothing. What she'd done was find everything else she had ever wanted, and subsequently lost it all.

A new name would never be worth that kind of price, but it was all she had to show for what had happened. Even then, she wasn't sure that she deserved her new name at all, but she'd wanted to come home, come back to the only thing she had left.

Once again thoroughly depressed by all these things she kept revisiting, Apanthi sighed heavily.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Elvis was not a young lion to brood, despite having features that seem well-suited to the act. Even the way his growing mane fell forward over his eyes to shade them gave him the appearance of brooding. However, as previously stated, he wasn't inclined to such.

In fact, he was at present sashaying through the swamps chasing after the pair of snakes he had won some time ago in games to amuse and entertain the pride's leader. He had come away with the prizes and a severely swollen ego that no one had really succeeded in deflating.

Grown-up ahead, Memfis warned. The blue snake was faster than the pink, and by the time Grayslan came back bearing the same news Elvis was already plotting with Memfis whether he wanted to encounter the grown-up.

You should at least be polite enough to meet her, Grayslan said. She was more of a conscience to Elvis than Memfis, who tended to act as an enabler.

"Oh, all right," Elvis said, having already resolved to do so. "But what's she doing out here anyway?"

Don't know, Memfis said. Grayslan advised, Ask.

And so when the trio drew near enough, Elvis did: "What're you doing?"  

[Meepfur]

Apanthi heard the sounds of someone approaching - someone young, they were still light - but at first did nothing but flick one dark ear in the direction of the noise. She half-hoped that whatever youth it happened to be ignored her in favor of something more interesting than a possibly-drowsing adult, but that hope turned out to be in vain. Hnn. When he approached and asked what she was doing, she opened her eyes and raised her head to get a better look at him.

Once she'd taken him in, though, her gaze didn't linger; thinking overmuch about cubs sent painful twisting through her heart. "Sleeping," she lied quietly, before turning the question back on him, "What're you doing?"  

[Princess_Feylin]

Memfis and Grayslan twined around Elvis's paws, whispering advice to him. Memfis advised trouble while Grayslan tried to shush him and urge Elvis to be well-behaved and polite. As usual, Elvis did whatever he was going to do.

"You can't've been sleeping!" Elvis protested. "You seem much too awake to have only just woken up."

He was happy to have the subject turned back to himself. He liked to talk about himself. After all, he knew himself to be a most clever and brave young lion, but sometimes others had a difficult time appreciating how wonderful he was, so he'd have to tell them.

"Me'n my snakes were just going for a walk. Except they're slithering." He rolled his eyes. "They were given to me because I won some competitions when I was younger. I ran faster than all the other cubs, and I caught more frogs than them, too."

He had conveniently forgotten that he had actually tied with another cub in the frog catching competition. In his memory, he was the sole and undisputed winner of all the events he'd entered. If she let him, Elvis would probably tell her a much-embroidered tale of his prowess.  

[Meepfur]

"I'd only just fallen asleep," she explained smoothly, while inwardly she laughed at herself. How pathetic, that she was lying to a cub about what she'd been doing, but what else would she tell him? She doubted he'd understand if she told him, and besides...she wouldn't have been any more inclined to be honest with an adult. She turned her gaze to the youth's slithering companions and acknowledged them with a nod. "That is certainly something to be proud of. Would you introduce us?"  

[Princess_Feylin]

Elvis accepted the huntress's explanation, having no reason not to. He had never caught an adult in a lie, and so while he was sure cubs didn't have a monopoly on lying he didn't know what a lying adult looked like. The fact that Apanthi was so smooth about it meant that he probably wouldn't have noticed anyway, even if he had known what sort of signs, tells, and giveaways to look for.

"Sure!" It wasn't quite as good as telling the story of how he got them, but he was still happy to introduce his snakes. There weren't a whole lot of lions in the pride who had companion animals, as far as he knew, and he had two. That made him doubly special.

"The pink one is Grayslan; she's really smart. The blue one is Memfis; he's a lot of fun."

When they were introduced each snake slithered forward and made a curling shape out of their body which might have been a serpentine bow or might have simply been the shape they ended up in.

"Um. I don't know your name."  

[Meepfur]

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Grayslan and Memfis," she said with a solemn nod. The snakes were something akin to allies of the pride now, as she understood it, and though she'd had next to no interactions with any of the scaled creatures, they were as sentient as any lion and not to be ignored. "And...I don't know your name, either."

"It seems we missed that part." The red lioness gave the tiniest of smiles to the youth. "I am Apanthi."

This was...easier, the less she thought about it. She could handle this, at least for a little while.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"Oh, I'm Elvis," he said and tried to mimic the shape he'd seen his snakes making. Of course, he couldn't bend his body that way, so he had to make it more of a pattern he traced while moving. Maybe it didn't mean anything, but he thought it was a neat way to do things. If nothing else he could work it into this singing somehow.

"At least for now. I don't know what my name's going to be when I'm older." He'd been wondering about that a bit lately. And about whether he'd be allowed to take his snakes with him. The alliance between snakes and the Swampies was still too new to know what was and wasn't acceptable.

"Nice to meet you Apanthi. I'm sorry I bothered you."

The snakes were beginning to lose interest in the exchange and had slithered a short distance away to wait for Elvis to do the same. They knew that the young lion did not have a very long attention span and that it would only be a matter of time before he said something rude to Apanthi or just went with them because he'd run out of things to say.  

[Meepfur]

It was cute, the way he tried to imitate his snakes, but even as she smiled fondly at him, she felt her heart constrict. Apanthi looked away for a moment, her gaze following his snakes, and watched them until she brought her emotions back under control.

"If you knew what your name would be, there wouldn't be any need to leave...although if you didn't leave, then you wouldn't have earned it." If that made any sense at all. Spirits, maybe not thinking too much was less of a good idea than she had thought.

"It's nice to meet you, too, Elvis." Hard, though, so hard. "It's okay, you didn't- didn't bother me."  

[Princess_Feylin]

Elvis was utterly oblivious to whatever internal anguish Apanthi might be experiencing. He was a male and he was young and either one of those things alone might have caused him to be thoughtless and self-centered, but the condition was made so much worse by the fact that he was thoughtless and self-centered by nature, too. It was a wonder his snakes could stand to be around him all the time.

"Uh...yeah," Elvis agreed with a really big grin that he hoped would conceal the fact he had no idea what she'd just said. There were too many ifs and thens in that statement and he didn't know what to make of them. He did know that it was fastest just to agree with grown-ups when they were being weird though. Otherwise there were explanations which were even more complicated and senseless than what they'd said in the first place.

"Glad I didn't bother you!" he chirped. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

And now it was time to leave, he decided, sashaying away to find where his snakes had gone.