[FIN] New Tales (Ebha & Nagua)

[mouselet]

Life had settled into a pleasant routine. Nagua did his duty as a Scout, spent time with Ebha, and generally lived his life. The Kitwana'antara didn't live on a mountain, and they certainly didn't live in a swamp, but there was the same feel around him as he remembered from his days in the Jini-msemi. Of course, then he'd been a child and now he was an adult, but the similarity was comforting.

Though there was the disease...which, thank the gods, had failed to mark him in any way. It was entirely possible that he was a carrier, not subject to it but able to pass it on, but the thought didn't weigh on him the way it once would have.

Yes, life was good. And even better for the moment, as he was on his way to meet Ebha. What could possibly be better?  

[mouselet]

A smile lit up Nagua's eyes even as it teased his mouth into a happy curve at the sight of the lioness waiting for him. To this day, he still couldn't put a proper name to the color of her pelt - it was too close to purple to be a red, but it wasn't purple either. Definitely not brown...and that exhausted the teal lion's ability to name colors.

Well, whatever her coloration, Ebha's green eyes looked as happy as his yellow ones were. He didn't bother to call out though, he wasn't hiding and if she hadn't seen him by now, she must be lost in thought.

Nagua came right up and sat down next to the Healer, sighing happily.

"If you had told me a year ago that I'd be happy living in a pride of diseased lions, I'd have said you were mad," he observed aloud.  

[mouselet]

He chuckled in return. He always seemed to forget that Ebha had been born a rogue, a lifestyle that wasn't entirely unimaginable to him, but certainly wasn't one he'd choose to retain for himself.

"I always forget that you weren't born in a pride," he returned easily. "I guess it's so foreign to how I was raised, even if I lived as a rogue while I traveled."

He sighed contentedly, watching the daily life of the pride around them as lions and others moved to and fro about their daily business.

"Do you ever get the urge to go somewhere else?" he asked, an odd note in his voice. It would never happen, of course, only those Guards who were immune or who had a clear errand outside the pride were allowed to leave, and the latter only in the company of the former. Still, Nagua remembered being told that rogues were rogues because they didn't live within a pride and often moved around. Some said that there were rogues, and those Jini-msemi who never returned from their name quests, who had "itchy paws" and were simply unable to settle in any one place.  

[mouselet]

Nagua sighed in relief as Ebha signaled that she had no intention of leaving the pride. The sigh turned into a gasp and he choked for a moment on his own breath as the lioness indicated that he was a reason why she stayed.

Once he managed to calm down, he smiled back at her.

"I have no idea what I'd do without you," he admitted. "Certainly not go back to Mom. I guess I'd just...stay here." The thought of life here, without Ebha to brighten his days (in more ways than one, given her coloration), seemed...grey. Desolate. Small.  

[mouselet]

"It is," the teal male replied, nudging the lioness back. "Of course," he continued, a wicked sparkle in his eyes, "sometimes it gets a little too exciting, if you know what I mean. I seem to recall one of those pink and white and black fuzzballs broke a leg and you got to...ah...stand up to our resident Master Warrior."

His tone was teasing as he remembered how flustered Ebha had been after that. She'd probably thought Mittere would rend her limb from limb for "allowing" something to happen to one of her cubs. Not that the magenta lioness had actually had anything to do with the breaking of the leg, at least, not from what he'd been told.  

[mouselet]

Nagua laughed with her. "I think, from what I've heard, that half of that may be that she's a cub, but certainly the other half has to be that she's one of Mittere's!" He didn't doubt that Ebha had heard the same tales he had, of how the pink lioness had been found nearly dead and brought into the pride to be nursed back to health. He found it hard to believe that the infamous Master Warrior could have been brought so low, but she had the scars to prove it.

The teal lion was no Bard, but he didn't doubt that one day, years from now when they were all dead and gone, the pride would still be telling stories of Mittere. Hells, there were some in the pride that thought she must have been touched by some god in order to survive this long.

He wasn't sure what he believed, but he was certain that Sedare's recovery owed as much to bloodlines as it did youth. Ebha, as a Healer, might know better, but then again, she might not.  

[mouselet]

He laughed a bit more with how strongly Ebha clearly still felt about it. Not that he blamed her. His own introduction...well...

Mittere always made an impression. One could always say that.

"Enough about her," Nagua declared. "I don't know why anyone should want to think about any lioness when he's got a perfectly lovely one sitting right next to him." That was...right, right? He'd gotten some advice about lionesses here and there, but putting it into action was much more difficult than it had sounded. But someone had said not to talk about other females, to focus on the one you were talking to.