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 Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:26 pm
Revitalized by her chat with Azula, Kaanga set about wrecking some hell. Or about as much as the awkward lioness could manage. But rather then face Uzulu, she decided she would take it up with their slaves. Truthfully, as angry as she was, she didn’t have the heart to let on to Uzulu that she was unhappy.
Just yet, anyways.
The strange white female crossed into the catacombs, mindful of her foot falls. As a child she had been wary and sheepish over her place in the pride. Her brother, the chosen heir. Her sisters brilliant and strong. But now Kidondo was gone, at least for the time. Koka was long gone- and her other sisters on recently returned to the lands. Her elder brother- a mystery to her. For some reason, this whole occurance was making a small change in Kaanga. She was realizing that she had power- or at least, enough to take command of a simple family issue.
The female leapt clumsily onto the rock, her yellowed eyes floating about the darkened rocks to find the now familiar form of Mpaji, their head slave. “Fishes beware.” She mumbled quietly. “I am no serpent. No dove.”
“Mpaji!” She called- her voice wavering as if uncertain for a moment in between her mumbling. “Mpaji! Kaanga is here. She must speak!”
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:54 pm
It was true, Mpaji was never where he was supposed to be, which, to be truthful, was never quite known. He was Kaanga's 'personal' slave, which meant Uzulu didn't dare touch him. The day he had taken a swipe the yellow had escaped out of dumb luck. Which was probably lucky for Uzulu, for even if Kaanga wouldn't beat him, she was the King's daughter. News spread quickly in the Firekin lands.
To mention, he'd heard of another group of slaves being born. It inflamed what little rage there was underneath his golden soul. He'd seen the test of time on his own and it was not something he wanted repeated. He'd keep his children far away from these other slaves, they lived a hard enough life as it was, let alone suffering through friendships.
When the voice of Kaanga rose, he looked up, just being able to make her out of the waves of red and intertwining gold. It took him far too long to find that white figure. It was not a skill he wanted to lose now, he needed it.
"Yes Lady Kaanga?" he asked upon approach, his eyes scanning for Uzulu warily. Maybe one of the other slaves beaten and battered beyond recognition, their own mother refusing to care for them. Neither came to his sights, but Kaanga's voice did not speak well. "What's wrong?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:00 am
Kaanga wavered, her mind pulsing. He doesn’t know, she thought. They know. Does Kaanga know?
She moved forwards, happy to have found him. “Mpaji,” she smiled, perhaps too affectionately for a firekin lady. “I don’t like the angry face.” She explained somewhat haphazardly. It was hard to keep herself from adding in strange things- but she had to be sure she was understood. So before she could even greet the other lion, she began to speak her mind. “But I am not happy. Uzulu was wrong to ask you to make more slave babies. Kaanga’s children now don’t do any work with slave babies to take care of them. Uzulu gets to play brute.” She shifted, trying to work out an expression. She copied the look she had seen on Azula’s face- solid, firm.
“I want to tell Mpaji.” She added, finally moving the distance between them. “From now on, Kaanga is head of family. Uzulu says women are- now I am. Kaanga orders slaves, slaves follow Kaanga. No more Uzulu plots.” She frowned, shaking her head. “You must tell me if he tells you to do something like that again. And you tell him- I am lady Kaanga’s.” She shifted her jaw, and sat. “Or I will tell my father.” It was maybe as close as she could come to a threat.
Her head lowered, and her ears perked slightly. “I am sorry though…Kaanga has not been a good mistress. I did not know he asked such things until it already happened. Head not good...sometimes...” Her eyes danced around. "Tells me things..not the right things."
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:44 pm
Angry face? Mpaji was not sure what this meant, but he wondered if somehow his face looked angry? He adjusted it to attempt and look more perplexed and worried. Or was she talking of Uzulu? He always had an angry face.
"He plays it well," Mpaji answered with a sigh and winced, thinking of Tanana's scars, he supposed he should feel sorry of Ohahira, too, but with the way she went about, they probably aided her more than ailed her in the end.
"I am Lady Kaanga's," he repeated, and he was, indeed. Saved by Kaanga all the time. Then, would that not make his offspring half hers as well? Uzulu only owned half the cubs. "Lady Kaanga, you should ask to care for half the cubs," he told her carefully, not wanting to sound out of place. "Ohahira is Uzulu's, but not Mpaji," he said with a slight smile. It was the best he could do to ease her ails. Maybe under Kaanga's control they would not have such a hard life.
He had a bitter feeling for Uzulu, very bitter indeed. "Kaanga is fine," he hushed her, squirming with the uncomfort of having someone apologize. "Uzulu is just a grumpy prince and that can mess up anyones head."
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:01 pm
Kaanga snorted and her eyes fluttered about as her mind pulsed like wild fire. Ideas, thoughts. Memories that weren’t hers, only for a second. Fish- where from? The sky maybe, but she wasn’t sure. They smelled terribly. “Kaanga owns Mpaji and slave babies.” She affirmed sharply, but in her tone, she was repeating the words Mpaji had already stated. Her ears perked. What about Uzulu’s slave? If it was his, she couldn’t take her away. Her eyes lowered, and the end of her tail shifted in thought. “Kaanga will think of something for slave babies mother. She will- but not as easy. I fear. Can't speak to father to own her- troubled too much by slaves. He fears what happened with Kidondo. Will need another way...”
She would watch. She wished she could use her mind to good use, but even as she tried to focus things wandered into her mind that weren’t allowed. “Kaanga is the mother, but children are growing. I do not know if they will be brutes. I don’t want them to be.” But she knew that at least two of them had been given to her sons- and she did not know what that meant for her, legally anyways. In whatever legality firekin have.
“I think on that too. But no more brutes. I am princess. No slaves looking sad and beat up. I will not have it!” She fumed. “Uzulu…I do not know how to speak to.” She hesitated, shifting her jaw. “Hard to keep angry face around him. He speaks well- speaks better then Kaanga. Hard to focus for her. I don’t want to forget.” She hopped from the rocks. “Things…” She breathed.
“I will speak to him.” She affirmed again. “Kaanga will not make compromises. Princesses do not make compromises.”
But when he continued, she hesitated, looking almost as uncomfortable as he did when she apologized. "Kaanga isn't fine. Everyone knows Kaanga isn't fine." She mumbled. "But Uzulu...why does he make hurt... it's not right. Not right for my family. Teaching my sons bad things."
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:16 pm
It was odd to see Kaanga so angry, if indeed that's what it was. She appeared to be in heavy concentration and worry all at the same time. Though, if he looked closely he could make out a spark. Men should fear that spark, he decided in the end. Brute strength or not determination was what won battles in the end.
"Ohahira would sooner not be helped," he said with the shake of his head. No, she was completely mad, angry. "She'd beat her own children." In fact, she was almost the brute Uzulu was, had she been born Firekin they would have made the perfect couple.
"Then everyone is wrong," Mpaji grouched. "Nobodies perfect." He wasn't. He should have come to her first, before the cubs, but his brain too had been gone from Uzulu's request.
The last part, though. "I don't know Kaanga, maybe that's all he knows. . . ?" And now his sons will be the same. All his life Mpaji had grown up in the Firekin lands not knowing, and he hadn't seen what true slavery was until he'd come here to Uzulu and knew, really knew.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:25 pm
Kaanga’s face melted into a kind of sadness upon hearing that. “I didn’t know…” she frowned. Kaanga should know, she thought. “Maybe then they are better for serving each other. But Kaanga still looks after her. Uzulu will not be happy. …I don’t want him not to be happy.” Her eyes glanced towards Mpaji. Keeping Uzulu happy meant she would have to continue pretending that nothing was wrong with her family. She had a hard enough time pretending it with her own father and siblings- she couldn’t do it with another. Mpaji’s children. Mpaji was her slave, and she’d let this happen. It wouldn’t happen again.
She nodded weakly, and looked to him. “Don’t like when everyone is wrong. Feels like losing.”
“Uzulu was never mean to me…” She hesitated, her jaw shifting. Deception had not entered her mind, even after all of this. “When Kaanga first met him, the sun fell out of the sky. Used to speak to me all the time- then cubs… now, different person. Quieter to Kaanga. Harsh with others. I don’t know how someone can be two persons. It’s confusing for my head- never settles… hard enough thinking straight sometimes.”
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:00 pm
Mpaji didn't know what to say to that. To him, Uzulu never seemed happy. In fact, ever since Kaanga had bore him two sons Uzulu seemed to hate the world in which they lived. He was always gone only home when it was necessary it seemed - necessary meaning to keep order in the society.
Mpaji new he shouldn't, but he couldn't take it. She just looked so distraught! He had to do something! Scanning once for Uzulu, he bumped Kaanga under the chin lightly. He didn't know what else too do. He'd never known a kind Uzulu, he simply could not fathom it.
There was a hint of joy the day he'd showed up - met Kaanga for the first time, but other than that the yellow lion could find nothing in the large red with a white mane. What Uzulu did to the slaves was his raising, but what he did to Kaanga was cruelty.
"Maybe Uzulu can't make the sun fall out of the sky anymore, but I can." He smiled gently and hopped up to the rock beside her. "A walk will clear your mind." It felt odd being on the same level as Kaanga for the first time. Very, very odd, but he hoped she wouldn't mind and that maybe he could find a way to cheer her up?
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:18 pm
Kaanga’s yellow eyes settled briefly as he bumped her chin and spoke of the sun. It’d been a long while since her head was quiet- but for a moment, all the fish and all the flies and the rain, and the claws and the earth was quiet. Even if only briefly- it was enough to let her muscles relax and give her a chance to become sure of what it was she needed to do. She was sorry she had not been a good mistress to Mpaji like she should have. “Hard to make the sun fall again.” She spoke softly, almost nothing anything at all. “…a walk would be good for Kaanga. She’s been too quiet.”
She rose to her feet, and the pulses returned. But for the brief moment of quiet she took as a good omen. Mpaji was trustworthy, she decided. Maybe more so then the rest of her family. Even if everyone said Kidondo was wrong, she had seen and felt the cleverness of his slave, No. She faked everything on his command. What had the firekin become if the only ones royals could trust were their servants?
She smiled, and bowed her head. “Mpaji is good, not like the others. Kaanga will remember that. She’s strange, but she doesn’t forget. We'll find a way to fix this, I'm sure.” A few footfalls- and then she stopped, thinking. "Mpaji must help Kaanga do this...so she does not get lost. Easy to lose me with fish talking words they don't know."
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:33 pm
Mpaji chuckled, that it would be. It had been a joke, or as good as he could muster, but it didn't make Kaanga laugh. Oh well, she'd agreed to go on a walk, he must have done something right. Maybe he was good at this comforting stuff afterall.
Tomorrow, he'd have a talk with Ohahira agian, he though.
He nearly ran into her when she stopped, however, wincing and tiptoing to avoid her path. Habits of following die hard, though he wasn't sure why they didn't make him go first. It didn't matter, he was supposed to be concentrating on the now.
Wait help!? Now that prospect was frigtening. For one, he wouldn't know exactly how and two, it was the perfect chance for Uzulu to get pissed and flame up. He wasn't sure he wanted to see the battle of Kaanga and Uzulu, but Kaanga asked him to and he would do it for her. As best he could. He used to talk up to the Firekin all the time, where had his fire gone?
With Moto and Kwana.
"I'll help you Kaanga, but as a friend not a slave." Pushing it? So what, he was not going to hang back anymore. Kaanga offered him an inch and he was going clone it to run a hundred miles.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:47 pm
Kaanga smiled, her tail gently swaying. It had been a long time since anyone had offered Kaanga friendship. In fact- unless you counted Uzulu, the only other time had been in her youth, speaking with Khepri; a cub who had since left the lands and elsewhere. It had meant a lot for her back then; the runt of the litter and the white pelted strangeling daughter. It didn’t take away from the feeling, and slave or not Kaanga accepted it. “Can’t trust slaves.” Kaanga murmured. “Trust friends. Kaanga does not have many. With Mpaji’s help we will stop Uzulu from being a brute.” She affirmed. At least to her slave and his children.
For a brief moment she sensed fear on his part when she had mentioned it. Something had died in him long ago- something like what she felt in herself? Hard to put belief in someone and lose it. But she wasn’t afraid to do it again. “Uzulu is wrong to be cruel to Mpaji. It is bad for him for a slave to be wiser then him.” The seeress spoke.
“Too many dark shadows forming in corners of this pride. Fish lurk in the sand, the air… rocks travel away from here. We must watch for our families. It doesn’t matter if it’s slave or not. I see bad things in the future… I do not like thinking of them…”
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:53 am
Mpaji felt a huge grin coming to his face. He was sure that people trusted him, even Uzulu had to admit with bitter defeat that he'd never noticed the yellow step out of line, but to hear another say it? It brought back feelings of home, of travelling to the Firekin and feeling a part of a family before the world came crashing down.
Upendo'Mpaji nodded, though his throat was dry. Here was his chance to be rid of the fear, and take hold of a true friendship. He would have the guts to push through the sandstorm.
Watch for our families, Kanga said. . . He had a family to devote to, in a sense, but they didn't love him back and he didn't blame them. After all, it was his fault that they were born in such a shadowed world. Perhaps, one day, he'd have a family outside these walls, one that he could love and cherish and that would do the same for him in return.
"Bad things, Kaanga?" he looked alarmed. He did not want to tell her not to think of them, for they were important, but he did not want to see her writhe under this knowledge. "Bad things come and go," he said with a sigh, it was a ritual he lived by and the only condolence he could offer to Kaanga. It had kept him sane all these years. "And when they leave, they bring flowers on the horizon."
He hadn't seen many flowers in this vast desert, but on occasion, after the rain, one would strike up and grow tall. It happened in just a blink of an eye, but when he found one he was happy, for it brought promise.
Still, coming out of his mouth it sounded extremely corny, especially against the dark words that Kaanga had spoken. He'd never seen her quite like this before. "Rocks travel away. . ." it sounded like a metaphor for something. The Kaanga he knew was blunt, and therein this must have been exactly what she was thinking. Why would Kaanga think of fish and rocks?
"We'll stick together, then," Mpaji said finally in an attempt to cover up his speeches of flowers. At last he could offer somebody something worthwhile.
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