[PRP] A new friend for me?

[Atheare]

Finally, a chance to be out on her own! Since her sudden growth spurt, Zua had finally been able to convince her parents that she could take care of herself, and was allowed out of the den for her very first hunt! Her father had never expected much of her, thinking that she was delicate and fragile, so she didn't bother trying to hunt anything just yet. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the fresh air.

Much to her dismay, however, the air in the graveyard wasn't all that fresh.

So, she headed to the boarders of the graveyard. Out where there was at least a little grass and few bones for her to trip on. Inside her, Zua was yearning for a real friend, someone to share her time with. Nobody in the graveyard was around enough to spend time with her, so her best bet was to look somewhere else.

"Anyone out there?" She called, wagging her tail slightly out of excitement and anticipation.  

[Kaytla]

Ilizi's ears perked as he heard someone call out quite close by him. He'd been playing with his new brother, Ibada, and their game of hide and seek had inevitably led to him hiding so well that Ibada had yet to find him... after about an hour. He'd been debating whether or not to return home when he heard Zua's voice, and that made him stop.

He was still skittish, and he still didn't trust strangers, but living with Ibada and his family had done wonders to help his fear of larger predators. He felt safe with that little family, and that was a monumental achievement for Ilizi.

He lifted his head from the tuft of grass he was hiding in, only his head visible, and looked around for whoever had spoken. He didn't reply to Zua, but he was easy to see, so close to her. His white fur stood out among the grasses that moved toward the Pridelands. He fixed his eyes on the blue female, and he waited to see what she'd do.

[Sorry it's so terrible. x.x I'm ill.. and my head hurts now. Dx]  

[Atheare]

Zua jumped slightly as the sudden appearance of the new hyena, but scampered forward to meet him nonetheless.

"Hey there." She smiled, "Watcha doing?" She looked around, as if expecting to see some predator he could be hiding from, or prey he could have been stalking. Without waiting for an answer, she continued.

"My name is Zua." She said excitedly, flashing him a wide, friendly grin. "What's yours?" Even at the point of adolescence, Zua seemed to have retained her childish, rather hyper attitude.

((It's not terrible ^^ *pets* I hope you feel better D cool )  

[Kaytla]

He couldn't help it; he jumped back in sheer startlement as Zua scampered toward him. He still wasn't used to - or even comfortable with - bigger animals rushing towards him, and it was a miracle he didn't scream like a little girl pup. The fact that she didn't try to bite him probably helped that, though.

He blinked somewhat owlishly as she spoke, still as nervous as he had been made by her abrupt actions and movement. "Um... uh... nothing. Nothing."

He shook his head as though to snap him out of his daze, and the corners of his mouth twitched into a sort of hesitant smile back. "I'm... Ilizi."

[Bleh, me too. x.x I feel terrible. D: At least that was slightly better. Only slightly. >>]  

[Atheare]

Zua turned her head to one side, curious as to why he had jumped back. Was it something she said? Had she offended him? The fact that she could have frightened him never crossed her mind. She had never felt intimidating in her life.

"Well if you're doing nothing, you better start doing something." She said with a laugh, "Cuz if you don't do anything, you get nothing done." She rolled her eyes, as if it was completely obvious.

"Nice to meet ya, Ilizi. Do you live around here?" She asked eagerly, hoping that he didn't live too far away. All of her other friends lived too far from the graveyard for her to meet with regularly, so it was almost like not having any.

((Stop feeling terrible D8 *feeds meds* That's never a good thing... ))  

[Kaytla]

Ilizi just continued to blink at Zua. This female was like no one he'd ever met before. All right, so he hadn't met many individuals, but she was by far the strangest, in his mind. Never had he come across someone who was so... chatty. And active. It left him not knowing how to respond.

"But... I wasn't trying to do anything..." he said feebly, even more confused by this statement. It was all right to do nothing if you were ok with nothing getting done... right? Having never been confronted with this way of thinking, he wasn't sure.

"Uh... yes. Not far from here." Then his ears lowered a bit. Should he really have said that? Was he putting himself in danger by telling someone where his safe space was? "Uh... why?"

[I'm already highly medicated. XD It's just not working as well as it could.]  

[Atheare]

"Aren't you a quiet one..." Zua murmured, shaking her head, "But seriously, why wouldn't you want to get anything done? Or are you just feeling sleepy and decided to take a nap? You know, that's not very safe. You could get eaten if you do that out here in the open." She said matter-of-factly, nodding quickly.

"Well that's great!" She wagged her tail some more, showing obvious excitement. "Well because you're my new friend of course! We can't be very good friends if you live far away, can we? Won't get to see each other very much, right?"

((Blah, I hate it when medication doesn't work as it should xP ))  

[Kaytla]

Ilizi's eyes widened in alarm, and he automatically got to his feet, ready to flee at a second's notice. It revealed he wasn't all that big for his age; he was a little undersized, in fact. "You're not going to, are you?" Eat him, he meant. But he didn't want to say it out loud, in case he gave her ideas. Even though he was bigger than he'd been when Ibada had found him, he still hadn't gotten rid of his old fears that other predators saw him as prey.

But then Zua called him a friend, and instead of looking wary he just ended up looking dumbfounded. Since they'd only just met, that had been the last thing he expected her to consider him as. He tilted his head, brows furrowing, though he still kept the same distance between them. "I.. suppose that's right. But I didn't realise we were friends..."

[Yeah, so do I. xD Stupid runny nose and sore throat! D:]  

[Atheare]

Zua roared with laughter, her whooping, hyena laughter echoing as she rolled on the ground. "You think I'm going to EAT you?" she laughed, unable to stop her hysterics long enough to stand up, she lay on the ground, giggling uncontrollably for several minutes, before standing again and shaking most of the dirt off of her fur.

"Of course I'm not going to eat you." She chuckled, "Hyenas don't eat each other, silly." She smiled. This was the funniest hyena she had ever met! "You're really funny, do you know that? If you weren't so quiet, you could make the whole world laugh!"

Zua attempted to calm down, nodding quickly, "Yes, you're my new friend Ilizi. Everybody has to have friends, right? How can you enjoy being young if you're on your own?" She asked, though she really wasn't that young. She didn't know that, though.  

[Kaytla]

Ilizi jumped as Zua started laughing, actually moving a step back, and his eyebrows climbed high upon his forehead. He didn't really know how to take this female; she didn't quite make sense to him. He'd never met anyone even remotely like her. Not surprising, since she was the first person he'd come across since being brought into Lamyae's family.

"One tried to eat me!" he countered, trying not to remember the details of that horrible experience, just that it had happened. "And a lion," he added, quieter. "It didn't seem like something to laugh at at the time."

He blinked a few times, mulling over Zua's views on the whole friendship thing. It still seemed to have some flaws in the logic in his opinion - after all, didn't there have to be a certain amount of knowing an individual and deciding you liked them before they became a friend? - but since friends were those who liked each other, and people who liked one another never tried to eat or harm each other, it seemed safe to go along with it. "Ok... We're friends, then. Though... what do friends do?" He asked the question in simple innocent curiosity. He'd never really had a friend; he didn't count Ibada as one, seeing the other juvenile as more of a brother than anything.

 

[Atheare]

"How do you know that he was going to eat you? Did he SAY that he planned to eat you? Maybe you upset him and he was just mad." Zua shrugged, as if it was expected for a lion to try to eat a hyena. "Lions are just like that. They hate us, that's why my pack is trying to get them out of our graveyard." She paused, unsure of what it would be like for her life to be threatened, and if she'd be laughing or not.

Zua's terms of friendship were, of course, a lot more vague than the average person would expect, but she didn't care. Nothing short of being openly hostile would deter her from trying to make a new friend. "Well, friends spend time together, get to know each other, and play together." She blinked, "What, have you never had a friend before?"  

[Kaytla]

"Yes! He did! He said he was going to eat me acause I tried to get a bit of his food." He didn't realise that this incriminated him mildly; to him, it had been justified, because he'd been more than desperate for something to eat. "I don't know... I only ever met that one. He chased me, trying to get me, 'til he saw some gazelle a little way away. I was lucky they were there."

Then his eyes immediately dropped; he was sure she was starting to think less of him because of his ignorance about friendship. Apparently, everything he'd thought about it was wrong, and he felt stupid. "No..." he finally admitted reluctantly. "I was on my own for nearly as long as I can remember."

 

[Atheare]

"Wow, how did you get away? Did you fight him off?" She asked, imagining him in some sort of vicious battle to the death. She barely held back a laugh; Ilizi didn't seem the type to get in a fight if he could avoid it.

"Aw, I'm sorry." Zua's ears drooped slightly. She couldn't even imagine being on her own for such a long time, she needed company constantly. "But it's not your fault, I'll bet you'll make a great friend, you'll see! Someday you'll be the master of friendship!" She giggled, not believing she had just said that. 'Master of friendship'? How corny!  

[Kaytla]

He shook his head quickly, worried she'd got the wrong idea about him, and hurriedly he said, "No, no! Nothin' like that! I just hid in a hole in the bottom of a tree. He tried to get me for ages, but I guess he got bored in the end, 'cause he took off eventually."

Ilizi had to laugh a bit at that. It sounded ridiculous even to him, who didn't even know for sure if there wasn't such a thing as a 'master of friendship'. "Y'know... you're kinda weird." But he was feeling more relaxed around Zua now. It was beocming clearer she didn't want to hurt him, and the more time they spent in each other's company, the less like a stranger she seemed.

 

[Atheare]

"Well, as long as it works." Zua said with a nod. "So long as you get away without being eaten, I don't think it really matters how you managed it."

"Weird? Well of course. Weird is fun. And fun is good. Therefore, I'll take that as a complement." She said with a quick wag of her tail and a wide smile, tossing a bit of her steadily growing mane out of her eyes. "I guess you're kind of weird too. In a quiet, laid back sort of way." She pondered this for a moment, before deciding that it was a good way to describe him. "You're lots of fun to hang around with, even if you're a bit quieter than the others I've met."