[PRP] Opposites (Fatimah x Paricherher)

[Dame NightFury]

Paricherher trotted happily away from where the group she hunted with had finally deposited their find after nabbing a small bit for herself. Pari didn't really require all that much and she didn't feel like going out and hunting for herself. Pari never felt like hunting, actually, for herself or even with the group, but she did it anyway because that was her job and every lion and lioness needed a job. It was too bad that Pari's job couldn't be something worth while in her opinion. Maybe a poet. Or an artist. Or a singer. Or something along those lines - providing beauty and happiness to everyone.

Pari supposed that providing food for the pride was a good second place career. After all it did make people happy. Yep, it was still a good job to have, it just happened to be a distant second place from all the other possible jobs that didn't exist.

Pari sat down, quickly ate her share of the kill before laying down and rolling onto her back, exposing her belly as she looked up at the clouds and their shapes and colors and movements. It was another world up there and only birds could find out what it was really like - if only some of the time. Pari smiled as a small cloud floated into her field of vision. As the shape formed and reformed, Pari named it over and over again in a lovely sing-song voice. "Tree. Giraffe. Claw. Wing. Dragon. Bone. Lion's tail."  

[Painted Moose]

Dame NightFury

It seemed as if as of late Fatimah's living situation had gone from one peek to another. When she had first joined the pride she had stayed with the scout Calypso, then moved out when Caly found a mate, only to move back in when said mate disappeared, and now she was on her own once again.

Not one mate now, but three? Seriously, Caly?! Some days Fatimah worried about the company she kept. What did it say about her, though, that she kept going back to stay with Caly when she needed her? Maybe she had a bigger heart than she thought.

Today's hunt was typical enough to allow the lioness these rambling thoughts. Of course, the true rambler was the lioness she intended to pass on her way back to the thick of the pride. Fatimah raised her brow while the strange female prattled on. What was she-?

"Are you watching the clouds?" The way she said it was almost snobbish. What kind of adult did something so cubbish?  

[Dame NightFury]

Painted Moose

Watching the clouds dance into their different shapes and tell a story for the earth bound creatures below was always so interesting. Perhaps, later, Pari would sting the shapes together to create a poem or story of some kind. Maybe even a catchy song that could be sang by the cubs during their games. "Ant-eater. Bat. Ra-" Pari paused at the lioness trying to pass her and her question. She smiled up at the lioness, wide and happy as always.

"Yes, I am!" Pari responded happily. She hadn't even notice the lioness's tone, but then Pari rarely notice tones that weren't happy or flirty. Her brain didn't process snobbish, irriated, worried, depressed all that well. Not in herself and not in others. "Well, watching and listening are really the same thing with clouds, you know. They change their shape constantly so are telling some kind of story that any watcher could put together on their own. Clouds are quite smart."

Pari scooted over to make room for the lioness. "Would you like to join me? The stories and shapes are different for each individual so have two watchers always makes the story more complicated." Oh! Maybe the story was a drama that NEEDED to people in order for the tale to be seen and retold afterwards in the form of a song. Maybe it would become some tragic comedy or a love comedy leaving the hero exhausted but in love at the end with cubs on the way! That would be a great story to watch unfold from the clouds. "See that one there," Pari asked pointing a digit at a relatively small cloud racing its way across the sky toward the next horizon. "That one looks like a headless cheetah. I wonder what it's part in the story is."  

[Painted Moose]

Dame NightFury

She's just perky, isn't she? This was exactly what Fatimah didn't need; she needed a nap, not an excitable over-grown cub. "Yeah, sure they are. They're almost as smart as we are." She quipped sarcastically. "Giving prophecies and stories...the whole lot of them..."

It was ironic, really. For a lioness who had grown up under the eye of a Swamp Goddess to believe in cloud stories seemed just a difficult task.

Still, what did she really have to go back to? Shrugging her shoulders, the bulky lioness nestled down next to the lighter female. "Why the hell not? Got nothin' better to do." There was little doubt in her mind that she would come to regret this later, but for now she was skeptically invested.

"Headless...? How do you get that? It's a two tailed leopard, see the split? Just there?" She pointed to the clouds.  

[Dame NightFury]

Painted Moose

Beaming up at the fluffy clouds, Pari made some room for her new companion. She loved having company, especially for cloud recording, but really that's what they were doing, debating the story the clouds were telling, and recording it in their memories. "Right! They geniuses and only birds get to interact with them on a personal leave! Though, I think their prophecies would have to focus utterly on weather, wind, and feathered things. Maybe insects."

Pari squinted up at the cloud as it slowly moved across the sky. Nope - well maybe. Pari suddenly jerked to the side, angling her upper body away from her cloud watching companion, while keeping her lower body exactly where it was. "Yeah, I can kind of see it. Definitely the split. But it kind of looks like a snake's tongue coming out of a hippo now." Yep. A snake tongued hippo. "Do you think that means rain? It's always harder to hunt when everything's muddy. Because I can't play in the mud, and I always want to. Getting all muddy would help with masking my scent too. So I always think of it as a win win, but apparently my hunting group doesn't agree." Pari confided.

"Maybe it means a thunderstorm is coming and all ravens are to take the snakes over to the river full of hippos for shelter"  

[Painted Moose]

Dame NightFury

Oh, okay, she's totally off it.

Fatimah quelled the urge to just get up and walk away. She had to remind herself that she was doing this to calm down, fill time, and above all not go back just yet. So she was a little - very - weird? It was alright. She could handle this.

"Snakes tongue out of a hippo...I think I can kind of see that." The statement almost terrified Fatimah. Was this contagious?! How far gone was she that she was beginning to see what this flower cub was seeing? Fatimah did frown this time, and the stout lioness passed a stern look at the other. "Jumping around in the mud is just going to bring attention to yourself. If you do it quietly...well, then getting muddy might actually help."

Ravens take the snakes...? Okay, that tears it. "It might rain, but I doubt the ravens are going to be taking anything anywhere. Nature just doesn't happen like that. Clouds are just clouds, even if they make some weird pictures. It's just the Gods messing with you."  

[Dame NightFury]

Painted Moose

Pari nodded in understanding. That's what the other hunters in her group had said. She understood logically, but it just wasn't as much fun. But Pari was adult enough to not do as she pleased. Especially when she was hunting. Hunting was her pridal duty and responsibility. And unfortunately, it wasn't a time to play. She had fun in other ways, interacting with her fellow hunters and all, but not by playing. She focused on another cloud that came into a view of the sky. It resembled a featherless emu. Odd.

Paricherher smiled. Nature doesn't happen like that. Well, maybe. It was a statement she often heard from others, but it didn't mean much to her. Pari respected that opinion. She believed everyone had a right to have their own believes and opinions and she had absolutely no desire to change them. In fact she loved to hear them. It helped inspire her artistic pursuits and pieces. Her new companion and their cloud watching was a great source of inspiration already. She had every plan to come up with a story about Ravens taking snakes to hippo inhabited rivers to save them from a horrible storm brought on by the gods. It would be so touching. But she didn't vocalize it.

"I'm okay with the Gods messing with me. It makes life more interesting, you know. Besides they are gods. If this is how they choose to play their games with me, it could be so much worse. Like curses. Curses are definitely worse." Pari thought about some of the individuals she had heard about that had been cursed by the gods. She didn't want to find out or trigger a curse, but she also wondered what it was like to live with one. Would it fuel more inspiration and artistic creations?

"Oh! Look! That one looks like paw!"  

[Painted Moose]

Dame NightFury

"Are you sure you're meant for Hunting? Have you ever tried Storytelling?" She was certainly filled with enough crap to spew for a few hours. Some cubs might find her entertaining, which would at least let their parents get back to the real work. There were so many things they could both be doing at that moment. No matter how much Fatimah wanted to rest, it didn't seem like she could even do that. All she wanted right now was to get back to hunting just to avoid talking about clouds.

"....So, you don't think that may, just maybe, they've already cursed you?" Seemed to her like it was a strong possibility. Maybe it was something they had pulled at her birth to punish her parents. Now that was something Fatimah could believe. Looking back to the sky, she grimaced, "A paw with a face...yeah, the Gods are messing with you."