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 Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 5:09 am
Aushi moved through the golden grass with a slightly defeated look on her face. It had been several days since she had left the safety of the swamplands and she had no clue how to figure out her adult calling. Mti'a'Aushi. Tree of Life. What did that even mean to her?
Perhaps she should learn what her child name meant before she should start figuring out her adult name... yes, that sounded very sensible! A slow, small smile creeping onto her face, she looked up and around at her surroundings.
Where was she? Endless fields and... ah, a huge rock. An odd rock... she wondered how it had stayed so huge. She felt like her skin was crawling with all of this open space around her!
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Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:04 pm
Now, where had that daughter of his gotten too? He was heading back out of the Pridelands, glad that he'd soon be leaving it behind. However, that did mean he now had to spend the rest of the day tracking down his daughter. It wasn't that he didn't trust her. She was a smart girl, with a good head on her shoulders but he was overprotective of her as he was with all his loved ones. In fact he was more protective of her because she had stayed by his side.
Unlike certain other females...
Hakan'mawasii, known as Hakan to most, stalked across the pridelands, seeming not to care that he was a rogue trespassing. He had been here enough times to know where to go. Heaven forbid, he had fallen for a pridelander once.
But that was so long ago he hardly recalled.
Now, however, he had distanced himself enough from others so that he wouldn't get attached so carelessly again. Or so he liked to believe. But Hakan was lonely and there was a hole in his heart that his mother or daughter could not fill. A hole that had been filled by Kizuka and briefly, by Mbaya.
But he had no time to think about himself, not when he had a daughter to find. He parted his maw and gave a low grunt. A call to his offspring. He doubted she would answer but it was worth a shot and for all he knew, he was very much alone.
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Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:02 pm
She blinked and suddenly heard a noise of another and for an instant her brain went into a panic. A bear! Or or... a wolf! Something... wait.. what kind of animals lived here? Wait... that was just another lion, wasn't it?
Oh there was no where to hide! She moaned slightly in dismay, seeing how she usually hid right when others were around. But now she couldn't and she could tell the other lion was close.. what was she to do?
She took a few deep breaths. He could tell her where this was maybe.. and maybe he even had information about names!
Hesitantly she moved forward, head swinging side to side. Her eyes landed on the dark male and she froze. Maybe not. She was even more shy of males than of females... She had to do this! "H....h-hello?" She called over, standing in place when she found she couldn't move her paws any farther.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:11 am
...And his mother...he should probably find his mother and make sure she was okay. It was strange. As a youngster he had spent every spare moment at his mother's side protecting her. He had joined Mrost so that he'd have the strength to protect her from anything. Now, however, he spared only a fleeting moment. He felt awful about it but just seeing her old and so...weary.
It made him sick with worry.
He knew that she had to have been old, probably older than most, but to him she had always seemed immortal...the thought of...the thought of...
His head snapped up as the voice interrupted his thoughts. His daughter? No, that was silly, it definately hadn't sounded like anyone he knew. The great hulk of lion came to a halt and raised his head. He was large for a male, which wasn't surprising since he'd been in training since a cub.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he set them on a female he did not know. A pridelander no doubt. He curled up a lip to growl but no sound came forth. She wasn't attacking him. In fact she wasn't even coming any closer. Maybe he could just walk straight by without acknowledging her. He snorted, snapped his eyes to the side and made a wide, slow curve to walk around her.
He didn't have time for this!
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:42 am
Oh! She watched as he started to move around her with out a second glance and already she could feel her face start to quiver, her eyes start to fill with tears. She was easy to upset, if not alone. "W-w.." Her voice trailed off though, why tell him to wait? She had become invisible it seemed... but that had always been what she wanted in the swamps, was it not?
"Please... I don't know where I am.." She called finally, surprised at herself because she started to trail after him. "I don't know where anything is... I'd just like some assistance.." What inner strength she had! Even though she was terrified of the strong, large male and even though she'd rather just turn tail and flee back to the swamps she stepped forth and tried to get information she did not want, but probably needed.
She did not know outsiders were such jerks..
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:05 pm
Sadly, Hakan was probably the jerkiest male she could come across.
As she spoke in her soft voice, something reached out to him, perhaps a kindness that had always lurked deep down. He forced it away with a growl and turned his head slowly back to glance at her. His icy eyes hardened and suddenly he was turning fully to face her, planting all four paws on the ground as if bracing himself for impact.
Atleast she wasn't a pridelander if she was lost.
Holding on to that optimistic thought, Hakan cleared his throat of the growl and raised his head. "You're lucky you caught me in a good mood." Apparently grouchy was as good as it got nowadays.
"You're in the Pridelands, the home of the babbling, fat, lazy, pathetic lions who do nothing but sun themselves all day." He growled. His hatred for Pridelanders had never dulled, spurned from the fights he had gotten into from his early days as a juvenile. "And before you get any funny ideas, no, I am not a Pridelander. I'm a rogue. Always will be." Though that thought wasn't as wonderful as it had been.
A life of a rogue offered only loneliness.
"So, instead of bothering a rogue who could kill you if he wished, go bother one of the golden lay-abouts. Maybe you could join them, feed up, hunt the herds, find yourself a nice little mate and get fat with cubs." He bristled.
Wow...was he being grumpy...Normally he had more patience than this but just being on the Pridelands set him on edge. Besides, there was his daughter to think about too and the hyenas had increased in population somewhat lately. He worried for her.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:23 pm
"Bu-" She started to cut in but he just kept going. "You mea.." Nope, still not the right time to ask questions. But by the end of his tirade her eyes were larger than ever and her chest was rising and falling at an alarming rate, her breaths audible. She might have been having a panic attack. Kill her? What in the gods name was a 'rogue'? Her mouth was slightly open as she tried to say something, anything, in response but she just kept staring at him... perhaps through him with that panic stricken look.
"I-i-i-i-..." She swallowed. She couldn't talk at all. "Thank you." She squeaked out, not knowing how else to respond but he had given her information, however horribly he'd done it. She slipped past him rather quickly, not remembering which way she'd wanted to head. She needed to get away. Where was Soo? Her momma? Her pridelands... oh she wanted to go home!
She stumbled slightly and suddenly sat herself down, back to the male as she tried to get her heart rate regular. She felt sick.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:13 am
What was wrong with this one? Useless!
He'd never met a female so panicky and scared as this one. In fact the only females he knew were so full of confidence that they put him to shame. This was terrible, he couldn't even have fun! A nice argument, a bit of a scuffle. No, all he had gotten was a panicked little face.
Wonderful...
He flinched his whiskers, a pained motion and turned slowly to watch her move. Where was she going now? The wrong way if she wanted the Pridelands, that was for sure.
"You're going the wrong--" He was cut off as he realised that the poor thing was scared out of her mind. He sighed, slung his head and shifted his body around to face her back fully.
"You're going to end up getting yourself killed, kid." It was clear she wasn't rogue-born. "Are you trying to find your way back to your pride?" Maybe he could point her in a direction that could be useful. That way he wouldn't feel so bad and he'd get rid of her at the same time.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:34 am
She was taking deeper, slower breaths now but they were very much controlled. Her eyes were shut tight, she was concentrating very hard on calming herself down. Soo had taught her this! Oh how she missed her sister...
What was this? What the hell! Nice. Mean. Nice. Mean. Which one was he going to end up staying? Her tail twitched and her eyes opened. Trying to find her way back to her pride? Why yes! That was exactly it! She glanced over her shoulder, eyes narrowed suspiciously. But how would he know that?
Oh. He meant... was she lost. For real. "N-not... exactly." She said sheepishly. She wondered is she was doing the right thing, continuing to speak to him. "I'm not allowed back until I find my name." She said slowly with a confused look. "Don't all lions take this journey?" Oh what she had to learn of the world!
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:46 am
Just seeing her in such a state twisted his gut. He should have been ashamed in himself. Okay, okay, so he was trying to cut himself off from the world but still...she hadn't meant any harm. She was too innocent, too cub-like to be mad at. Besides, it wasn't her fault she was lost. He didn't know what it was to be lost. He'd had a home as a cub, but he had never strayed far, and now he wandered the lands without a place to call his own. Strictly speaking, he could never be truly lost.
"Find...your name?" He gave her a blank look. "Do you not have one?" To not have a name at her age...what would that be like? "Did your mum not give you a name as a cub?"
He couldn't seem to understand what she was trying to say.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:10 am
She blinked and stared at him. Didn't they have a difference of child names and adult names? Perhaps not. "No... no, I have a name, it's Mti'a'aushi." She said smoothly, still looking confused.
"But that is my child name. To be accepted as an adult of my pride I must find my true name." She wondered if she was allowed to be telling an 'outsider' about any of this... especially since he didn't know about any of this and didn't have simular practices.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:17 am
Child names and adult names? He tilted his head. Curious. This wasn't something that he was aware of, but he knew enough but prides to know they each had their indidivual quotes. Actually he quite liked the idea of showing maturity with a new name.
"Mti'a'aushi." He twitched an ear. "So, how do you discover your adult name? You just wander the lands until it comes to you in your sleep? What if you never find it? Will you never be able to go back?"
It sounded like a harsh rule too. "It seems simpler to live like a rogue." He grunted. "I'm...Hakan'mawasii, by the way and I will be until I die." Should he have apologised about earlier? No. He didn't feel like it. Besides he had a right to be grouchy and there was no telling if she might get irritating again. He wanted to keep that wall between himself and her for the time being.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:25 am
She blinked and frowned. "I don't quite know. I suppose different members find it in different ways." She shrugged. "And... if you do not return within a certain time period well... then you are dead to my pride." She said slowly, and not hatefully. It was just their way.
"Hakan'mawasii... what does it mean?" She didn't comment about the rogue nonsense, she still wasn't exactly sure what a rogue was. Someone with no home?
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:44 am
"Pride lions." Hakan growled. They seemed nice and kindly on the outside, but Hakan knew the truth. He knew what the Pridelanders were like and he had been to the Firekin lands. They were all suffocating lands intent on breakign a lion's spirit.
Huh, he'd never let that happen to him. "Maybe you'd be better off not going back." He grunted.
"My name." He raised his head proudly. "Means Fire Guardian." His name meant a lot to him. It had spelt out a destiny that deep down his mother had always known, even when he had been a tiny, helpless cub. He would grow to be strong and he would protect those he loved.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 2:41 pm
"Not go back?" She whimpered this out, though she didn't mean to. "No, no. I like those lands most... these lands are too.." Her eyes floated around. "Bare." She hated it out here!
"Fire Guardian.." Her tone was full of wonder and admiration. "That is a very strong name, a powerful name." She eyes him. And fired to her meant someone with a temper, which he had. She giggled at her thought, then tried to cover it up with a cough, she didn't want him to know she was laughing at him!
"My name means tree of life.." Her face fell. "But I don't really know what that says about me." She admitted.
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