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 Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:24 pm
Except, of course, for a play mate. The pride was small. Everybody knew everybody. He was related to several of them, including the only cubs of his age. He enjoyed playing with his siblings, of course, but it was nice to have someone else every once and a while. His uncle was fun, and so was his dad, but... it wasn't the same as meeting a lion you've never met before. Such excitement was few and far between in the Mteo lands. Of course, Umlindi hadn't met /every/ member of the pride, but he knew the looks of most of them, and new quite a few by name. Where could he possibly find a new critter?
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:37 pm
But he wasn't spending this free moment in time improving himself. He was lazing about in the tall yellow grass, watching a soft -but not cooling- breeze push them around. His gold eyes peeked at them lazily through slitted lids and his tail fanned carelessly. His eyes dilated at the sound of a squeak but he made no move to investigate. It sounded like a lesser creature ...like a hare perhaps. And he had no need to eat one. He would be content, right here ...until someone wanted him.
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 2:50 pm
Being a mere cub, Umlindi's tracking skills weren't nearly as good as he pretended they were. It took quite a while for him to even notice a strange scent on the breeze, and even then, he had trouble placing it. Staring about, he imagined up a large, hairy monster, hiding just in the grass. Another gentle breeze and he at least had the direction of the strange scent, even if he couldn't figure out it was a lion. The only lions he had ever smelt were those of the small pride, and so anything that didn't smell like them or like something in his beloved home was filed away as strange. Anything that was filed away as strange was automatically subjected to his little Shujaa games, either as an intruding monster or an object to gaurd. This time around, the innocent bystander was marked as a 'threat' and needed to be elminated.
Crocuhing low in the yellow grass, Um slowly crawled forward. His imagination blocked out all of the sounds his untrained body made as he crept towards the scent. One thing was for certain: he wasn't the stealthy huntress his mother was. In time, he may learn how to quiet his creeping, but he'd never acheive the ability to disappear that the accomplished lionesses of the pride had already done and did every day. After several moments of noisily moving around the grass, the cub lost the scent. He was within eye sight of the adult lion, but the tan and white coat camoflauged him somewhat. Plus, Um was facing the opposite direction. He huffed, annoyed that he had lost a new plaything. Well, that was useless.
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Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:02 pm
The noise was easily forgotten as he turned his focus to, well, thinking about nothing. It was his cool-off time, time to clear his head and stop worrying so much. He sighed and flapped his tail again, placing his head in the breeze, trying to pretend the breeze was cooling. It wasn't working. And then he heard the rustle of the grass. It was slowly and steady, the camouflaged sound of a careless hunter. Only... were they hunting him? No, no, no. That just wasn't right. He certainly was not a meal. Yes, a leopardess had once almost made him into one but he most certainly was not one right now.
The rustling stopped and Mo raised himself up onto his feet lightly. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the horizon. Either someone was trying to be sneaking or it was just his imagination. And he didn't find it funny. His secret fear had been acting up, making him all worked up. That was not enjoyable. Then his eyes fell over the back of a cub. A blue cub. He had only seen one other lion that shade before but she had been much larger than that. And this one had a large tuff of pink. He had no clue this was Barazahi's child. He had not felt it his place to enter into the hot spot of the pride, feeling much like an outsider and not helping his situation much. After all, he was afraid they wouldn't accept him.
Mo noticed the cub's huff. What? What did he have to be disappointed about? "Hey," he said with slight concern. "What are you doing out here?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:36 pm
The cub whipped around at the sound of a strange voice, only to find the source or the strange scent. Strange voice plus strange scent could only mean one thing: a stranger! The reality hit Umlindi like a ton of rocks and he physically flinched as if the facts were literally being pelted at him. He'd never seen this tan male before, never. He'd never smelled that smell, never heard that voice... Surely he would've at least heard of a tan and white male from his parents if this lion were a member of the pride? Did that mean... AN INTRUDER?! Umlindi, filled with a false sense of strength, puffed out his chest and squared his stance. He took a few ungracefully stiff steps towards the adult, looking him directly in the eye. Suuure, this stranger was easily as large as Angusho, but he certainly wasn't as strong. Umlindi had genes on his side. In his mind, he could beat the other lion with ease and run home to tell his parents, uncle, aunts and grandparents of his amazing victory.
In as deep a voice as he could muster - which really wasn't all that deep since he was just a cub - Umlindi flipped the question around in what he thought to be a display of wit. "The question is what are you doing out here. Either you're an intruder or you're a very lazy Shujaa." The latter of the two possibilities was said with more distaste than the former. Umlindi certainly hoped this male was a stranger to the Mteo lands. If he was a gaurdian and warrior, the cub would be extremely disappointed. The Shujaa weren't supposed to be lounging about the grass. They were supposed to be protecting. It was their duty. It was EVERY male's duty in this pride, even! He simply couldn't imagine a member just shrugging off their responsabilities like this.
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Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:24 pm
If Mo had known the cub's train of thought on his (Mo's) actions and his beliefs in what male members of the pride should have been doing (pretty much the belief of the pride, eh?), he would have been mortally shamed, shamed enough to be tempted to never show his face. Not that a Shujaa was required to do their job 24/7 or the cub would never really have known his father. Lucky for Mo's self-confidence, although perhaps unlucky for other aspects, it was a sugared version of those thoughts. However, he had dealt with enough young lions to slide around the question. Its effectiveness was in question but hey, it wouldn't be the first time he had made a stupid mistake. Only about #930 plus or minus two. "Well you look like a very effective Shujaa if you ask me, spotting me like this when I was trying to hide." Not that the cub had actually found him...
Eh, ok. Maybe he should answer the question least he end up in a tumble. "But I'm certainly not an intruder. Shujaa means hero and I'm certainly no hero either. Does that help any?" Sometimes is was best to pretend to be great, to help yourself out in situations. Sadly, he had spent so long in line to get "a shread of moral decency" that he almost missed out on "brains" and "good-looks".
He looked down on the cub and realized just how small the cub was. It was a cub after all but he hadn't exactly seen one both ...unless seeing his reflection when he was little counted any. He thought, almost with a pang, back to the juvenile who had claimed him as her own. That, of course, was before she disappeared. Ah, gosh he was hopeless. And the young pride-member represented everything he had been fearing moments before. Why was it that life always got the best of him?
((sorry for the rant. he's a very "ranty" lion xD;; I had half the urge to mention he fought a leopardess. Too bad his personality only allows that when he's kind of excited/feeling like being a mystery))
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:35 pm
Umlindi had no idea of the advanced thought process that was unfolding in the tan and white male's mind. He was extremely pleased to hear that he was an effective Shujaa, and completely believed that he had come across this stranger all on his own. Even if all of two seconds before the compliment had been given he thought the adult had gotten the best of him, he now was certain that it was the other way around. The little boy's mind had quite the imagination, that was for certain. "I'm gunna be just like my dad some day." He puffed out his chest proudly at the thought, wanting nothing more than to be a carbon copy of Angu when he was an adult. What he didn't fully realize was that Angu had life beyond duty, which was a foreign idea to Umlindi. It would easily come back to bite him some day, but for now it was only a harmless day dream.
"Wait... are you part of the pride?" A look of complete shock was now on the blue cub's face as he stared blankly at the adult. There was just no way. Surely he would've at least heard of him before. And what kind of lion was a Mteo and NOT a Shujaa? Sure, his grandma Embamba wasn't an accomplished huntress, but she had an ailment! She was weak and couldn't do anything. A slight pang of guilt hit him when he connected it to his brother Genge. He shook it off as best he could and continued to stare. "Are you... sickly?" It was almost a whisper when he said it, not wanting to advertise this weakness to any possible spies that might be hiding in the tall grass. It had to be asked though, since that was the only reason he could come up with why a male wouldn't follow the path of the Shujaa.
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:51 pm
Mo had no clue who this boy's dad was. He wasn't fitting the pieces together and would probably feel stupid about it when he found out about it later. However, due to his recent success with flattering the cub, he pretended to give the cub a good lookover. "I do believe you're going to be bigger than your daddy," he said with an all-knowing nod.
Eh? He should be freaked out about the question but then he thought about Chuguu and what it would mean ...and the hopeless romantic in him was carried away. "Oh I hope to be," he said, the fact that he was thinking romantic thoughts written across his face. Then, sadly for Mo - but maybe not for the young Umlindi - he was jerked out of those thoughts. "Sickly? No!" he said before he realized how inconsiderate he sounded. But Mo was bored. And he was dangerously silly when he was bored. It didn't help that he had met way too many lionesses who had encouraged him to play around. "No," he repeated. "Your mother sent me to watch you. Your parents are going on a top-secret mission to-" he clamped a paw over his maw and widened his eyes as if he had just giving away the secret to life. "Oh no, I've told you too much already!" But then he let a sly look over his face as if they were doing something so awesome that he had really wanted to share it ...of course, he wasn't supposed to. Mo was proud of himself for being able to capture it all in one look.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 5:57 am
The young cub's eyes widened. "Bigger than Dad?" His voice was almost a whisper, and could'v been taken away if a slight breeze had rolled by at that moment. Luckily, no such thing happened, and so his shock was easily relayed. Angu was the biggest lion Umlindi had ever seen. Sure, he was already alittle larger than his siblings, but he hadn't even expected to be on his father's level when he was an adult. Now, however, he could imagine it with ease. The pair of them, fighting off whatever dangers might come, with his brothers, uncle and grandfather nearby. He never expected the mighty Ndege to become too old to carry out his Shujaa duties, so in all of these fantasies, the source of the cub's darkened ears was as alive and energetic as ever. For some reason, his brother Genge was also always muscle packed and at the ready; even if he a bit on the weak side at this stage in life.
The answers to his questions only perplexed him further. If he hoped to be a pride member and he wasn't sickly... what pray tell was he doing lazing about like this? While he tried to work out the logic in this, Mo went on about the secret mission. Um's wild imagination sucked him in like a whirlpool, and his mind filled in any gaps that might've come up and ruined the whole thing. Of course! His parents were so incredible that they were entrusted with secret spy type missions from the leaders of the pride. What an honor to be their son! His pink eyes glazed over as he pictured the giant white male and the graceful blue female fighting hoards of bad guys without even breaking a sweat. It was quite clear that the cub idolized his parents to an almost unhealthy extreme. Oh well; little boys need things to look up to, don't they? "Wooooooow." He stared at Mo, a renewed sparkle in his eyes. "So you're like... a body gaurd? Wooooow. I've never thought about doing that sort of stuff as a Shujaa." He paused, staring at the golden eyes in front of him with admiration. "Wooooow." He was slightly offended that his parents thought he needed someone to watch over him, but his various other emotions over shadowed that one for the moment. After all, he was sure in the end it was for the good of the pride that someone watched over him, right? What good could he possibly be if there had been an accident.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 7:15 am
Hmm? Guard? Oh yea, sure, he thought to himself and nodded in response with a smile. "But now you know what I meant when I said I'm no hero," he said playing of off the child's imagination. "I mean especially compared to them. It's got to take a lot of guts to do what they're doing." He nodded, looking up as if he himself was picturing, or remembering, what sort of things the cub's parents did. But rather, he was trying not to look guilty as his conscience began to make itself known, shouting about how crushed the cub would be when he found out that what Mo said about his parents wasn't true. It made him feel the need to do something to redeem himself.
He walked over to the cub so that he was sitting beside him, facing the same direction. "Now," he said, remembering his training with Chuguu. "How many scents do you smell?" He looked expectantly at the cub as if this was the whole reason Mo had been lounging in the grass.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 8:09 am
Umlindi nodded solemnly, agreeing that the life his father lead was more heroic than that of a bodyaurd. Although... now that he really thought about it, if he was ever employed to gaurd a member of the royal family when he was a Shujaa, he'd probably consider it an honor. Little did he know that his own father had played that roll of sorts, having gone with his mother's family as a sort of protector during the plague. Really, Um knew little of his family's past. All he knew was that Raza was a huntress and Angu was a Shujaa and that one day he would join the line of great warriors like his father before him. In all honesty, Mo had little to worry about when it came to letting the cub down. Even when he did find out that everything was a lie, he'd shrug it off as part of his imaginative world. Nothing could mar the image of his parents in his mind, nor could anything mar the pride and its traditions. Mo really needn't worry.
Abandoning the fantasy of his parents bringing glory to their blood line in an instant, Umlindi sat at attention. The sudden change in mood had gone from admiration to learning in less than a second, but Umlindi didn't care. He lived for training sessions, and even though Mo wasn't a Shujaa, he for some reason thought he was about to get some vital insight on the field. His heart almost sank a little at the question, however. His sniffer certainly wasn't the best one ever, and the thing that he really had difficulty with was picking apart strange scents and identifying them. It was something that could be corrected with lots of work, of course, but he was just a cub and had really learned very little. Still, he wiggled his nose, trying to count. Let's see... there was the ever present smell of Mteo and Mo. The pride's smell was really several scents wrapped into one, but Umlindi's untrained snout didn't know that. "Uhh... Two." He nodded his head confidently.
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Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 8:25 am
Mo felt the cub's pain, whether it was in the words he said or in his body language. It wasn't that intense but he sensed it nonetheless and a bit of it was his own. Perhaps what had made Mo such a bad hunter is that he could smell everything so vividly. So it didn't help that the strongest scent was the pollen of the grass, blowing into his nostrils. And then the dirt underfoot. It took time to forget about these scents and work on others. But he was sure that these weren't the scents the cub was talking about anyway. It didn't matter in Mo's mind that the cub had identified the pride as one smell, if he knew that, of course. What was important was that he knew that familiar smell of lion. Each had its own little hint, differentiation so that they could be told apart, but most strongly was the smell of lion. It was necessary when hunting to know the different smells.
Then Mo remembered Shujaa didn't hunt. Hmmm... Well, that changes the situation a little bit. Well, there were the day old tracks of a herd of antelope running through here. They were the scent that originally brought him here. Sure, why not. He'd make use of it anyway. Surely that was just as important to know what's an enemy and what's not. "Can you tell me what creature was here?" he asked pointing at the area they had ran through. He didn't expect the cub to know what but as long as he could tell it wasn't a lion, then he had done his job, right?
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 2:22 pm
Umlindi stared at the area Mo had pointed to with a sort of crestfallen look that would normally have been on the face of a child who got coal for Christmas. Instead, though, he was equally as sad as that poor naughty child about not having a good sense of smell. Perhaps his priorities were a little out of line for such a youngster, but then again, we're talking about the little boy who /wants/ training sessions to become a Shujaa. So really, it was quite fitting as long as you knew the lad. As opposed to admitting his lack of expertise in this field, however, the blue cub screwed up his eyes and mouth a little, stuck his tongue out to the side and said, "Hmmm," as if in great concentration. He stood up and walked over to the area, circling it several times and sniffing rather dramatically. It's safe to say he was over-acting, and the show wasn't over yet. After a few more loud sniffs, he took a few steps back and examined the scene, letting out several hmmm's and ah-hah's as he did so, as if he were really on to something. In reality, he hadn't a clue what had been through the area. All the scents jumbled together into one: savannah.
As he stared helplessly yet dramatically at the small patch in front of him, something popped out. It was so obvious, Umlindi wasn't at all certain why he hadn't noticed it before. He must've been too busy attempting to impress Mo with the silly antics that he had completely over looked the prints. What Um lacked in the scenting field, he completely made up for with his sight. The dark pink eyes had incredible accuracy, and he could spot things from great distances that shouldn't belong there. It was certain that this skill could only get better with age, and could aid him in his time as a Shujaa. Due to this gift, which he only assumed came from the gods, he had spent some of his time in his little fantasy world learning various prints. So far, he had lion, antelope and bird down. The only reason he even had antelope in his brain bank was because it was what mama brought home for dinner and there were always the hooves to examine. He couldn't smell it, but there was definately an antelope track in front of him. "Antelope." He turned his head towards the adult with a triumphant sparkle in his eyes.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 2:36 pm
There was a slight twinkle in his eye as the cub inspected the area. Perhaps it was because he didn't feel quite so bad any more. That he wasn't the only one who had difficulties. He was even rather surprised that the cub said the right answer. He wanted to say something encouraging like, "now you know what antelope smell like", but the clues he had been giving told him that would have been a lie. But the cub was only that: a cub. And his dad would teach him properly. Mo didn't feel that he was getting anyway and he didn't feel equipped to push any harder.
"You're correct," he said honestly. "Most usually don't get it at your age." He didn't have any facts but sure why not, he'd go with that. He pawed at the ground slightly, bored-like. Mo had no clue what he should be doing now.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 3:12 pm
Umlindi puffed out his chest proudly. Even if he hadn't figured out the smell of an antelope, and still couldn't find it in the mess of scents, he was proud of himself. In his mind, antelope smelled like blood, since that was always what the den smelled like when a kill was brought home. The over powering urge to eat always blocked out specifics from his mind whenever it was dinner time, and unless he ever happened upon an alive antelope, he'd probably never know their true unique scent. Unless, of course, his mother took him out one day and taught him how to hunt. He was sure, as a Shujaa, it would be useful to know how to take down at least small game, though he was also sure it was a lioness's responsibility to hunt. Possibly a bit of a sexist thought there, but he didn't mean harm by it. It was simply the way he figured things should be in the world. Lions are warriors, lionesses are hunters. Simple enough.
The cub looked expectantly at Mo now, as if he wanted more training. He stared at him with his little dark pink eyes, almost pleading for more tidbits on life. After a few seconds, he nudged the large white paw in front of him. "And?" There was a pathetic look on his face. "More?" He cou've easily gone out for acting in a school play if he were a human boy. Too bad lions didn't put on shows.
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