|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:09 pm
The sound of rushing water swept past her ears, which she perked up happily, fully intent on having an enjoyable time. Her paws were already pretty dusty from the path. It had taken quite a walk to find this secret alcove last time, and although she knew the way by heart, it was still quite an exercise. One she enjoyed, though, because it gave her time to think and time to daydream: one of her favorite past times.
Daydreaming...about what, she didn't really know most of the time, but many of them had a reserved spot for a strong, masculine, caring lion that would come and save her somehow. The situation and circumstances never mattered, because he would always be there, dashing in like a white kni--er, lion, to save her and the day from evil clutches once again.
Foolish, perhaps. Naive: definitely.
But she wouldn't trade it for a thing.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:04 pm
Angry at the tar slathered to his right side, Akiiki had long since given up all hope of becoming clean and had simply started walking. The tears that had stung his shining silver eyes had died down with time and the pain in his large barrel-like chest had slowly quelled with the songs he forced himself to sing.
The songs that he'd once loved to sing every second of the day. Now they were songs forced through the mind of an unwilling recipient of torture. How many times had he screamed 'it isn't fair!' in his poor head, he'd lost track. It didn't change the truth though, he had no peace, he had no hope.
Lifting his hanging head, the white demi-god took as deep a breath as he could suck into his large lungs and tripped over a rock, landing on the ground with a puff of dust that rose into the sky. A dry sob came and slowly he adjusted himself to his large paws again, the tears long since gone but the pain slowly reviving.
The words seared through his mind, unbidden and unwelcomed.
"One day... I'll find a way to get rid of you." His voice was sing-song and bell-like even as he spoke, making every word seem like the words to a song that had never been sung. A bard was easy to distinguish, but to extinguish one was an entirely different, and altogether painful case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 8:02 pm
Auri's ears perked at a loud thud, but she brushed it off as a rock rolling down the hill. It was pretty common, so she didn't worry about it.
Ah, the water! It looked beautiful this morning: the sun shone on the surface and the ripples made the light dance. The perfect morning, if there ever was one, for a swim and a day to sunbathe on a rock. Speaking of rocks, that flat one over there looks eligible for a good sunbathing...
Her pace increased, rising up over a small hill overlooking the deepest part of the shallow area. The diving, jumping, and hollering "YAHOO" part. Oh yeah: this was gonna be good. She took a breath and pushed off, letting out a reflexive squeal as she hit the cold water.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 8:13 pm
The grumbling still streaked through the air as Akiiki walked, his eyes slowly glazing over from the pain that had appeared once more in his chest. It was crushing him and causing him to limp. Okoth was trying his hardest to kill him inside of his own body once more, he knew WHY it was happening, he knew WHO was doing it. But that didn't change that it hurt.
Splashing and a distant scream of joy caught both of his black and dusty ears, causing him to lean his dirty head to one side, limp bangs falling before his eyes and over his scarred muzzle. At least he could recognize that it was happiness and not fear or pain. Yet it wasn't the scream that caught his attention, it was the promise of water and of maybe returning to the once white sheen that he had possessed all over himself.
Turning his body in that direction, Akiiki limped as fast as he could, his body fighting him as if he were stalking off to his death. Of course he knew why Okoth was fighting, water was the one thing Akiiki had found other than Akamichi's teeth that worked to rid him of the other's possession, the only thing to loosen his death grip on him and to kick him back to the rear seat once more.
By the time the large adolescent had managed to limp his way over to the lake, he could barely stand for the pain and he flopped onto his side, dust raising into the air again. This time however, he didn't rise, simply laid with his head a mere foot from the water and stared at it as if it would come over towards him when he so sorely needed it.
Pain lanced through his whole body once more and he convulsed, a vision of blood and gore flying spread before his wide unseeing eyes. Throats gouged, wings torn, bodies broken. The vision only lasted a moment or so but when it was over the large male was stretched out on his tarred side, blood dribbling from his muzzle from the force, his paw stretched out towards the water desperately but his eyes unfocused.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 4:50 pm
Auri heard another, similar thud to the one that echoed through earlier: only this time, it was significantly closer. Her ears twirled half way around, finding the source, and her head followed, only to find a paw covering her muzzle in a what-would-be-comical expression of a suppressed gasp at the sight her eyes met.
A strange, blood and grime-covered lion had collapsed only a paw-length away from the edge of the water. And from the look of complete despair etched on his face, he was supposed to have fallen into the water itself, not beside it.
She was torn, strangely enough. Her heart told her to help this poor stranger, but her head latched onto the thought with no second-warning: that's exactly what he is, a stranger. What if something happens if she helps him? Will he attack? Will she get hurt?
Well, she didn't know what could happen, or would happen, if she didn't try, first. So Auri cautiously swam closer to the stranger, standing easily on her hind legs at the shallow end thanks to the byouncy of the water. Her paw dipped under the water and splashed a little in his direction, hoping to wake him or get some kind of reaction out of him.
She didn't think she could pull him into the pool; he looked to heavy. But maybe, if he moved or groaned or something, she could help carry his wait to the walk-in end, where it was shallow enough to stand and not be completely in water (it only came to mid-leg, and that would probably be perfect for him).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:23 pm
A cold splash on his face brought the poor lion back to himself, his fur standing on end for a moment in clumps of blackened dust, making him look like some sort of demented shaved housecat. His silver eyes blazed brighter than normal, not angry and not upset, simply shocked and confused. Akiiki couldn't remember where he was or why he'd come here.
Okoth's voice rang out in his head once more and caused the adolescent to flinch visibly.
A low whine came from him as the demi-god realized why he'd been here again. Lifting his silver eyes to look at the rather pretty female before him, Akiiki sank the claws of both his front paws into the ground and began to pull himself towards the water hole. He needed to get into the water, needed to force Okoth into such a frenzy that he simply lost the ability to act in his normal snide way.
Muscles bunched up in his forelegs and suddenly Akiiki was slipping into the water beside the female, his whole body emersed as clouds of dirt and grime rose around him in the water, obscuring him from view as months of travle and constant motion were stripped from his snowy fur.
But he didn't rise again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:08 pm
"Oh no, oh no, oh no..." the mumbled mantra continued to echo through the air as Auri quickly paddled closer, unable to see anything through the murky cloud fogging up the normally clear water. He must have been really dirty with all that grime on his fur: she couldn't blame him for wanting a bath to get rid of it.
But he wasn't moving.
Which worried her, even for a stranger.
She took a deep breath and submerged herself, blinking past the water to squint through the dirtcloud that used to be a lion. Her paws poked and prodded through, as her body angled downward, until she felt another body: fur that was quickly growing cold.
Her need to air pushed Auri back up to the surface and she gulped in a half-breath before diving back under, pushing her body through the pressure and reaching his side. Her head pounded, and her lungs burned, but she shoved him again and again, hoping to move some of his weight off the ground and then take him up.
And then he was off; she darted under him and almost buckled down under the unexpected load: she had never tried to carry anyone else before, and it was a new experience of panic. Auri started to swim towards the shallow walk-in end with frenzy: panic began to spread through her and her movements became more frantic, trying to reach the end where both of them could breathe.
Her lungs felt like they were falling apart inside of her from the lack of air: her head only continued to pound and ache. Not much farther, not much farther...
And then they were there, she dragging herself up the small hill and collapsing on the wet bank, gasping for air. She didn't know if he was breathing, but his head was out of the water and laying right next to her. If he didn't wake up or do something, with the other half of his body still in the water with hers, then she might have to go get help.
And she did not want to deal with the questions she knew would come from her parents.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:09 pm
It wasn't for a long time that Akiiki opened his eyes, but when he finally did, the white male found that he was breathing and laying half in half out of the water. The feeling of the water lapping at his slowly cleaning fur made him blink his silver eyes in confusion. A cough wracked his body and the adolescent pushed himself to his belly by using his shoulder as a lever.
Taking a deep breath, Akiiki peered once more down at his body. He was slowly turning white again, slowly. Being dirty wasn't something that he liked, something that he hated actually.
Twisting his head to gaze at the female that had supposedly saved him, Akiiki blinked into bright green eyes in confusion. He'd seen something with green eyes before, but it had been so long that he couldn't even remember who it was any longer. Either way, those sharp green eyes were extremely intelligent.. and worried.
"Ah... h-hello." Why was he stuttering?
Because you just forced her to save your life you idiot. Akiiki thought to himself from almost nowhere. At first he thought that it was Okoth, but Okoth would have spread obscinities throughout. No this was his inner thoughts. His OWN inner thoughts.
Clearing his throat roughly, Akiiki pulled his light eyebrows together, ignoring the streams of grimy water streaming down from his mane. "I'm sorry about that.... I didn't mean to cause you any trouble."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:41 pm
Auri eyed him warily. For some reason, she doubted his words. He almost looked like the kind of lion that trouble followed along everywhere he went.
"Are you sure you're alright? You took a big fall back there, and it was a pretty shallow area." She frowned, gazing at him with concerned eyes. He wouldn't meet her eyes, which could mean any number of things: he was nervous, whether from the swim he just took or talking to females, and she could faintly tell.
"It's no trouble at all. I try to make it a habit of saving lions who accidentally stumble into the water and don't get up." She shrugged, flicking an ear idly. "I should be a lifeguard, I know, but I'm the youngest of my brothers and they wouldn't let me even if I wanted to. Which I don't."
The white and gold lioness cocked her head at him again, hesitating for a moment longer before speaking again.
"I'm Auri," she blurted with a half-smile, readjusting herself on the bank. "It's nice to meet you, I suppose."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 11:59 pm
After peering at her for a good long time, admiring her green eyes for a bit until he couldn't help himself anymore, he had to look away, Akiiki tried to force his tired brain to formulate some answers to her questions that she'd thrown out. Once upon a time Akiiki had lived to talk, had loved to sing and let lions and cheetahs and wild dogs and every sort of animal alike how he felt. Now was different, it was hard to voice how he felt, even harder to find the right words to put it into sentences that would be recognizable by the ears. All of Okoth's mutterings tended to distract him in ways.
"I'm fine... I always am I suppose. Thank you for saving my life though, I'd be floating belly up now if it weren't for you." These words were said carelessly when they shouldn't have been, easilly when they should have been hard, "My name's Akiiki, it's a pleasure to meet you Auri. So you're a pridelander eh?"
The n** into the water had refreshed Akiiki's mind so that he knew where he was now, or at least acknowledged the general vicinity. He had walked further than he'd realized to have made it from the central lands all the way to the pridelands without realizing it at all. How in the world had he managed to do that?
Lifting his body up off of the ground in one heave of bonewrenching noise, Akiiki was finally standing on his travel weary paws again, grime and dust and black streaming from his snowy fur in rivulets that turned the water around his paws black. While most of it had been washed off, Akiiki's snowy fur still appeared a bland shade of gray from the dust and tar and muck that he'd forced himself through over the past few weeks. He decided that now was high time for a bath, but with Auri nearby it probably wasn't wise.
"I'll be back in one moment. I just need to get the dust off, I'm sick of looking black or gray." Aki explained moments before submerging back under the water and swimming off towards deeper water.
Once there he proceeded to rub the mud from the bottom of the pool all over his white fur, popping his head up to breath from time to time, and cleaned himself with the rocks on the bottom of the pool when the mud was all through his fur. The effect was obvious the minute Akiiki had it all off of himself. When he emerged once more from beneath the water and walked slowly over towards Auri again, his fur seemed to glow in the sunlight, reflecting sun everywhere from how white he was.
"Sorry about that. I haven't been clean since I was with my mother, I figured it was due time."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:47 pm
Although still worried, Auri didn't bother to stop Akiiki from doing what he planned to do. She was glad she could help, though. It wasn't every day that a little lioness like herself could possibly save another, bigger lion like Akiiki from drowning and therefore possible--no, probable death.
She was proud of herself, actually. Her chest puffed out a bit more instinctively.
"Yeah, I'm a Pridelander. My father's one, too. But my mom comes from the Unity Walkers. My grandpa and grandma are over there too. I haven't visited them yet. Where are you from?"
Before she could get an answer from him, he politely excused himself to go wash his fur really quickly. It was true; no one could stand a dirty coat if it had been dirty for a long, long time. She nodded sympathetically and smiled.
"No problem. I hate being dirty. It's very easy to, with a white coat."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:29 pm
Nodding to her and settling himself down half in the water and half on the land once more, Aki peered down at his scarred feet and gave an inaudiable sigh at himself for letting his body get this bad. Not that he really cared about his physical self too much. As he figured it, he would one day be fine... or dead. Either way he'd be something he wasn't now and that was a good thing in the end.
"Unity Walkers.... That sounds like a nice pride. It sounds like a nice concept as well." Aki said, his voice sounding a little like a deep drum, the last hint of the bard within him dying slowly under the onslaught of the demon that was touching him.
Except that demon hated water. In the very back of his mind there was a howling going on, a keening that seemed as a child throwing a fit for where it had gotten itself. Okoth was complaining as loudly as his lungs would allow him in Aki's head about the water the adolescent was laying half in.
Akiiki didn't care at all.
"Yes, the paler you are the dirtier you can get, especially after weeks of just walking and never stopping." Aki grinned wryly. "Seems you would have that problem in excess as well. All that gold has to be awkward to keep shining."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:47 pm
Auri blushed, looking over her shoulder to see her gold-colored fur.
"Is it really shining? I never noticed it before. But yeah, it is hard to keep clean. My father has a lot of white on 'im, too, but he doesn't worry about getting dirty as much as me. Or you, for that matter, probably."
She nodded. "I've heard the pride is very family-based, which must be nice. I only know my family that lives here. I don't think I've ever traveled to meet my grandparents over there before." She frowned, trying to remember.
Auri remembered her mother talking about her grandparents, describing what they looked like and how they acted. Alas, she had never had the opportunity to travel to meet them in life before. She wondered if she could ask her mother and go to meet them, or something.
That would be fun to do.
"So where are you from, or where are you headed?" she asked out of curiosity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 3:00 pm
His silver eyes watched her for a moment and a lopsided grin crossed his tired face. Lionesses could always look cute when they put on that blush, but then that was to be expected wasn't it?
"Yeah, your gold shines. It's because you're so pale, it stands out like sunlight on water." Aki explained, watching her eyes and chuckling.
Because he had no grandparents the word was almost foreign to him. Surely his father had no parents and from what his mother said her own parents had died long ago. It was only because he'd heard the word from others that he knew that grandparents were parents, parents.
"I'm sure you'll get to meet them someday. You should just leave here and go meet them when you're older. It's a lot of fun to travel if you like it after all, you get to find new things and see new places you'd never have seen before." This was his explination at least. "I was born around the Pridelands a while ago. Kind of wandered off and got lost and then kidnapped and escaped."
He wouldn't explain anything about Okoth to her. Akiiki didn't need her thinking that he was some sort of freak or something, though he was certain she already thought that given what had taken place only moments before. He was odd.
"As for where I'm going... I don't really know. I never stop to think about it before I walk."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:14 pm
She was pale? Well, she would just take that as a compliment, then. With a smile, Auri bowed her head in thanks. It wasn't every day that she met a strange lion that complimented and flattered her on her looks. She wasn't about to turn this one away. It was nice to hear it from someone other than her parents, after all.
"Just leave?" she repeated with a chuckle. "I can't just leave. I'd worry my parents sick, I'm sure. Perhaps when I'm older, yes. And when I can. I'd love to see them and meet them. I'm sure it would be a learning experience for all of us.
"You were kidnapped?" her tone changed from joking and happy to one of concern, and her brow furrowed in worry. "I'm so sorry that happened. My uncle was kidnapped, too. When he was a cub. The Firekin enslaved him. But he got out, and had a family. Has a family." A smile curled up on her muzzle. "And it seems that you got out, too. I'm glad."
She nodded, though, when he said that he didn't really think about where he was going. He just went. Auri was pretty sure she was the same way. She didn't really want to plan out her adventure step-by-step; that wouldn't make it an adventure in the first place.
"Me too. It's much more fun to not know where you're going, and to discover everything as it's meant to be discovered: by surprise."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
