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 Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:01 pm
Roho'eupeanga had decided to wander outside of his homelands for a time. While he loved them more than he could explain, there were times when he wanted to just...see what was going on just outside of their borders, in lands that weren't always so humid and wet. It reminded him of his naming quest, and let his mind wandered to what he had to go through to return to his home as an adult. In an aspect, he respected the outside world, even if he would never fully explore it again.
With his eyes averted away from where he was going, he could tell that it was evening, with the way that the sun's glow seemed to grow a more golden tone. It was pretty, something hard to see through the trees that grew through much of the swamp. He took the time to sit where he was and enjoy it. A pity that Isha didn't come with him, because he could then share it with her. But a piece of him was worried that if she left, she might really want to leave the lands and no go back in there. Yeah, there were still a lot of doubts in their relationship.
He sighed. "Growing up is hard," he complained to the foliage around him, and no one in particular.
Xinavane wandered around, glancing around every now and then to make sure that no one was following her. Mainly her family at the moment. She wasn't in the mood for their drama at the moment... though she was bound to get plenty when she got back. She just needed to get away. It was easy to get sick of home... whatever that could be classified as, as they seemed to be essentially on the run.
She sighed, and kept making her way along, "Growing up sucks..." Even though she wasn't even a month old yet.
Roho's ear twitched. What was that? He instinctively looked up, even if the voice her heard wasn't very loud. Not seeing anything at first, he held doubts if he had actually heard anything. Another scan with his olive eyes, though, made him see that there was a young little cub nearby. Something he certainly didn't expect to see.
It didn't seem to be in distress, but still, alone? Weeeird. He took a couple steps towards it, keeping his head low to the ground. "Aren't you a little young to say that?" he replied back. Not that he knew what position the cub was in, but still. At least he was an adult, right? That was what he thought, anyway.
Xinavane jumped backwards so quickly that it was actually suprising, even to her. She had never met another lion outside her family before though, so this was quite a shock. She hadn't expected to find anyone out there... and what if he was someone from her parent's old pride? What if he- ... but when she thought about it, before she thought about running, she realized that anyone from that pride wouldn't know what she looked like. They had never seen her... though she did look almost exactly like her mother... Still, he wasn't attacking her, so she took that (in her cub innocence) as a good sign.
"Me...? No I just..." Xinavane wasn't entirely sure how to answer, so she rounded on him with another question, "Should you be out here alone mister? It can be dangorus when you don't have your family around!" Though, he might very well want to be alone, just like she did.
Roho couldn't help but blink at the cub. Again! He seemed to have quite the talent of startling others, and it was certainly a talent that he didn't want. But it just must be something that he was stuck with. He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm....sorry if I scared you," she said quietly. "I seem to be good at doing that."
Another pause, another stare. He couldn't help but laugh at the sitaution, and what she said, though. "Me? Well, maybe, but what about you? No offence but....you do look kind of little to be out on your own as well." Hopefully her family was still around, and not freaking out if they realized she was gone. The last thing he needed right now was th be accused of cubnapping!
Xinavane's nose twitched a little. He was a bit of a funny lion... and he kept countering her questions with more questions... which was both amusing and a little wierd. Plus, she was Xinavane! She wasn't afraid of anything. "You didn't scare me mister! I don't get sacred at all."
She smiled a little bit, "My family will get over it... they're good at that. I wanted to come out here and have a little freedom! Who cares if they miss me?" Though she was worried about that... she would never admit it, but she was worried. If her parents got upset because she was gone... she would only feel more guilty... but she had to at least pretend that she needed more independance from them and their crazy life.
Roho was surprised. He was never a largely independent cub, and so to sit here and see one right in front of him was a bit of a shock. Not a bit, a lot! "Well, you're certainly a brave cub," he said with a grin, memories of his own sibilings flooding into his mind.
"Well....as long as they don't worry, and blame it on me if they see us together, I guess it's ok." He really didn't want to get into trouble; always worried was Roho's definition lately.
"But...why do you say growing up sucks? Shouldn't you say that in a few months or so?" Was her family life really that bad? Roho would admit that he was pretty spoiled with his family, even if only one of his sibilings returned from their quest. Hopefully the rest were still alive, even if Mother already did the funeral rites....
Xinavane sighed and inclined her head a little, "Don't worry... they won't find me, I hid my trail. Besides, if they did, I would tell them what happened. They can be annoying, but I'm sure they'll actually listen." Though she loved her parents and siblings, and she did... it wasn't something she was about to say out loud. Just like she wasn't going to let herself feel guilty. Not right now. She could get so carried away with that sometimes...
"Growing up sucks because..." She trailed off, "Well, because all of a sudden everyone expects you to start doing stuff. I just want to live, carefree and happy... but as soon as you get older, you never get the chance."
Roho was surprised. She...seemed pretty smart. Some parents, to let a smart kid wander off. But maybe they thought it would help her change her perspective? He shook those thoughts from his head. Nooo, he needed to assume they were good! Perhaps she jsut wanted what she said; th be carefree.
Well, I'm not sure that's totally true," he began. He didn't know how tied down he might be once, if, he got a family, but certainly he could still have some fun! Once he got over his doubts with his girlfriend, Isha, anyway. "I mean, I'm not even home myself! It's nice to go out and be by yourself." Maybe she had to do something big like a naming quest as well. That was something that he never wanted to do, but he somehow made through it in one piece. "Plus, no one should tell you what to do. You should only do what you want to," he admitted. He needed to learn to take his own advice.
Xinavane nodded, suddenly liking this lion significantly more after his last few words. He knew what he was talking about! Just the way things should have been, with no one telling you what to do, going where you wanted, with no one else to worry about! That was happiness, the way it should be. Or at least that was what she kept on telling herself. She shouldn't feel guilty about making her parents worry!
"It is nice to get out by yourself! Only yourself to worry about! And making yourself happy, instead of everyone else, every now and then." She nodded, looking quite pleased, "I'm Xinavane, but my brother and sisters call me Vane, what's your name, mister?"
Roho smiled. Well, at least she seemed to cheer up a bit, even if what he said hopefully didn't give her too many radical ideas. He believed in everyone being what they wanted to be, but hopefully she wasn't all crazy deep inside! Roho was just....a bit lazy, really, and he had always been a bit more down to earth and realistic as a cub, unlike his dreamer of a sister, Johari.
"My name's kind of long. It's Roho'eupeanga, but you can just call me Roho." A simple enough exchange. "So you have lots of sibilings, then?" he asked, curious. If she came from a big family, well...he could understand even more the way that she felt. He had four other sibilings, himself! Plus...whatever amount his mother had when he had been gone, he didn't even know! "I've got four my age, and some younger ones. My mom...kind of likes cubs, haha," he explained, embarassed by it.
"Oh... well, I have me, my three sisters, and my brother. but then I have my dad, my mom, and my dad's other mate who is my mom's sister... but they don't have cubs or anything. My sisters and my brother and I are the only ones so far I guess... but hey could have more at any time, I don't know." She admitted with a small shrug.
She was so sick of how many of them they were... even though she loved every one of them to peices. But she couldn't keep them all happy by always being there... she couldn't even keep herself happy half the time.
"....wow." Roho couldn't help it, but this cub had quite a strange family situation. While both of theirs weren't the same, they were both still crazy. "Wow. I have some other sibilings that are younger than me, and then I have some half-sibilings, too. I can get what you mean about that. I guess I just didn't have to deal with it too much since I was out on my naming quest." He shrugged, wondering if she'd ask about it. Some did when he was on his quest, and others just thought he was nuts.
"But I'm sure you love them, right? Even if they drive you up the wall, they should always be there for you if you need help or something." It felt obvious to Roho, but he just knew that they were there, and easy to lean on. It did help that there were so many of them, too! "But man....it sounds like you do have a crazy family." The idea of a male having two mates? Something Roho couldn't comprehend.
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:19 pm
Xinavane tilted her head to the side, getting that he had a large family as well, so he probably understood a great deal of what she was going through... good to know somebody did. But he wasn't being hunted down by some psychoes. Or at least that was what Xinavane had gathered about her brilliant family history.
One thing he said confused her though, "What's a naming quest?"
It was a question he could anser in his sleep. He tried to slim it down a bit, because sometimes his explinations were a little long. "Well....in my Pride, when you're born, you're given a child's name, something small and short. Mine was Juu." He smiled, since he still liked that name. "But when you get old enough, you're sent outside of the pride to explore the world yourself, and find your true name. That's...really it. When you return, you're considered an adult." It seemed odd explaining it, but it was just part of his culture. The rite of passage that every member took if they were born into the pride, or joined very very young.
"It's kind of scary at first, but I liked mine."
Xinavane tilted her head and then looked away, "Yeah well... sounds a lot cooler than any of the rituals in my old pride." In her old pride where, from what she had gathered, there was a 50-50 percent chance that she would have died all because of some stupid old ritual. Who needed them? Still, the whole finding-name thing sounded way more fun than anything like her parents had grown up knowing.
"There are rituals out there a whole lot scarier than that." She muttered, but then smiled, "But whatever, my whole family left our old pride. Who cares what they do now?" Nothing back there would ever make her, or anyone else, happy.
"Oh?" He didn't know if he should really find out the details. If the whole double mate thing didn't turn him away from it, he was sure that there were other things that would make him want to stay far away.
"Well, if it was really that bad, I doubt your parents would ever want to go back." He was clueless that they would be killed if they ever thought about going back. "Plus, I bet if you're not in a pride, you could still do whatever you want. Sounds good, doesn't it?"
Xinavane smiled a little, nodding, "Yeah, since my parents left, we don't ever have to go back, and I just hope... that no one from there comes after us. I like being alone... but I like my family being away from bad lions better." She nodded again, decicivly, "Yes. I think we're all happy now. I don't want to ever go back."
She stood up and smiled a little, "Are you happy here? In your pride?"
Bad lions? He was curious, but he wasn't going to pressure her for answers. Vane seemed uncomfortable with the situation, and so he would just let his imagination fill in the blanks.
"I'm glad that you're happy. That makes me feel better." He paused. "Oh? Well, yeah, I'm happy. It's the only place I've called home, and it was also nice to bring my best friend back with me from my naming quest." He wouldn't mention that it was a girl he really really liked. " It's just....a big part of who I am, and it's a happy place, so I'll probably stay there. It sounds like the pride your parents came from wasn't good. Which does sort of bother me. Some prides are really nice, and aren't even that hard to find. So hopefully you don't think all prides are bad."
Xinavane smiled a little and then nodded, "I did think that... that they were all bad, but I guess if you're happy here, and you seem nice, then you're probably right. So... I guess that not all prides can be bad then, right?" She mentioned as she thought it out. "So... if you're happy, I think you should be able to do whatever you want."
A best friend though... she wished she had one outside her family. She needed to find one of her own... someone who could make her happy. Sometimes it wasn't enough to be alone, to get away... and sometimes, no matter how much she loved her family, they weren't enough either.
"Mmhmm!" he agreed with an energetic, cubbish nod. It felt like he was at least cheering her up a bit. It helped him, too, because if he had merely been sitting here this evening by himself, he would of grown quite lonely and returned home with nothing really to show for his exploration. He only wandered a bit from home every once in a while.
"You should make yourself happy, first. I'm still sort of learning how to do this myself," he laughed at himself, "but I guess that's part of growing up, too. You gotta figure out exactly what you want in life. It's harder than it seems!" he tacked the last bit on with a while. Roho liked things easy, but some things (like love) certainly weren't.
"Oh, well that part's easy!" Xinavane smiled, when she heard Roho say that he needed to make himself happy, "You just do whatever it is that makes you happy! Doesn't matter what it is, but if you find something that makes you happy, then you should never let go, no matter what happens. I think the trick isn't making yourself happy... it's finding out what it is that makes you happy, and never letting it go."
In her own cubbish way, Xinavane was a little niaeve on the idea of happiness and what it was... but in her own way, she was right. Though happiness could be a complex issue, she tried her best to chop it down and make it simple. That way, she herself knew what she was looking for in life.
And here he was, taking lessons from a cub! He nodded, completely agreeing with her. "You're right, you're right." Sometimes, Roho decided, he might be looking at things a bit too complexly. But he was a bit of a worry-wart when it came to Isha, so perhaps it was a habit that would take time to break. Or Isha would have to help him break it some time as well. Uuuggh, he did wish he had someone other than his mother to speak with on the issue. Maybe his brother? But he did fear on getting teased about it....
"Well, at least it looks like you're feeling a bit better," he admitted. At least she was smiling now, and seemed excited about being happy.
Xinavane nodded a little, "Yeah... It seems funny, but Roho... you're the first lion I've ever talked to from outside my family before. I'm glad you're so nice... sometimes, with the stories I've heard... you would think that all the lions who weren't in our family were freaky and mean." Which wasn't always the case... but from what her parents were running from, Xinavane always felt like she had so much to be afraid of. All she wanted to be was free.
"What are you looking for, to make you happy?" She asked the older lion, not even thinking that it could be a slightly more personal question.
Roho shook it off to try and keep her smiling. "There's lots of nice lions out there. As long as you're a bit careful, you should be safe." He was when he had first really explored areas he knew nothing about, and he managed to come out alright. Just being a little extra cautious never hurt.
"Looking for?" he repeated, pausing for a moment. How...would he explain that? He didnt' know if her parents really actually loved one another, so he didn't want to just assume anything huge. "Well....mainly the answers to questions that no one has but a friend of mine." He was circling around the subject, and he knew it. "But I don't know if she'd actually answer me, or if it would scare her..." It felt a little weird saying something so....that meant so much to a cub.
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:39 pm
She nodded a little. Be careful. Right, probably a good idea... though it still seemed stupid to her, that other lions hurt other lions... how did that help anyone? The whole idea seemed slightly counter-productive. "Right... I'll just be careful then."
Then she listened to his explination thoughtfully. It sounded like something that was more complicated than it needed to be. For her, in all her youth, there was only one way of going about the whole situation, "Well... if she's the only one with the answer... and you'll be happy once you know the answer... then you won't be happy until you know the answer. So that means you have to ask if you can be happy, and if you don't ask, you never will be. So... You should probably ask!" There, now that logic seemed quite sound to her.
He laughed again, though it was more of an embarassed laugh. "Well, I wish it was that simple....I guess you could say that I'm scared she'll give me an answer I don't want to hear." Hopefully that would make some sense to her? If not, well, he was just going to grow more embarassed. Why was he so unsure of himself? He knew that he cared about her, but he just couldn't seem to directly tell her. Yet. And that was where the fear laid. Would she accept it, or deny it? She was very scared in some things, and Roho could tell.
"I guess I'm letting fear get in the way of my happiness, huh?" Oooh, man. He let his head sink down, his neck hiding between his shoulder blades.
Xinavane smiled a little bit, getting a pep-talk ready without even realizing it as she marched up to him, stretched out as far as she could, and rested a paw on his shoulder... which she could barely reach, "Well... so you're scared... and if you let that feeling get in the way... then how will you ever be happy instead of be scared? If she gives you the wrong answer... well, then you'll just have to find a new answer. But what happens if you get the right answer? What if she's going to give you the right answer, and then you can be happy... and you never ask her and are always afraid instead?"
The whole idea still seemed very silly to the cub. Why let fear get in the way at all? Well... she was being very hypocritical, but she would never let him know that. She would be happy if she could talk to her parents and tell them she didn't like running away, and wanted to stop, and find a place where they could all be happy... but then her parents might blame themselves for her being unhappy. Then they would be even more unhappy... and in many ways, that seemed so much worse than just her being unhappy.
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 5:10 pm
It was weird, having one so young tell him what he should know. Or well, what he might have known, but it was so mixed in with other thoughts and things that he just wasn't able to draw that out on it's own. Xinavane was helping him pluck it out of the mess, push it all away, and line up his path to what he needed to do.
"So, obviously I just need to ask her, or I'm not going to get anywhere," he said, rewording her intricate description into something short and crude. It was what he needed to do. Now, he just had to get up the nerve to do it, and the perfect time to do it, as well. A good setting would help, or even a situaiton.
"You're smart for a cub," he said truthfully. Really smart.
Xinavane blinked, looking honestly suprised by that. No one had ever called her smart before. Cute, pretty... rash, obnoxious, but never smart. She had just said what she felt... maybe that made her smart? She didn't know... and on the whole thinking about it seemed like way too much work. Find out what you want, and do whatever you can to do it. That seemed like the bes way of going about in life. But... apparently, that made her smart. She could live with that.
"Yeah... If you're going to do something, you need to ask her the question. Until you know the answer, you're just going to wander around in circles." She nodded, knowing that made sense. "And... thanks... for calling me smart. No one else has ever said that before." She had always figured being smart came when you got older. Maybe she was just going to be really smart when she got older!
Roho laughed, though it was a short, lighthearted laugh. "Well, I'll only say the truth. You're saying things that I already know, but obviously forgot about. It's weird to have someone much younger than me give me such good advice, but hey, if it'll help, then I'll definately use it!" In all actuality, he would try to do anything for Isha to be more confident in their close friendship, but he didn't know if she would appreciate that or not. So here would be something that he was going to have to figure out on his own, if he would do too much or too little.
"Well, I do want to thank you for what you did!" he exclaimed blissfully. "And I think I'm so excited that I want to go find her and just talk with her. I think it'll help give me the confidence that I need to...get all of this uncertainty behind me." He...felt a little bit bad that he just wanted to get home, but there was still a young, cub-like streak in there, in his personality.
Xinavane nodded, now rather hyped herself on the idea that she had really given some genuinly good advice, when no one had ever told her that her... blunt/brutal honesty had been the right way to go before. It was nice to know that she might have helped this lion get what he needed. If it ended up making him happy, then she was absolutly certain that this was the way she would have to do things in the future! Tell others to get what they wanted... after all, she had never been very good at doing that part herself...
"I hope you get the answer you wnat from her." She smiled at him, clearly a great deal happier now than she had been when the two of them had run into each other. She stood up as shook herself off, looking quite determined, "And I hope you two are both happy... with whatever you find out. But I should get back... my parents might be worried by now. I think I feel better now."
Parents....yes. They had been standing out here, talking for a bit. It hadn't been hours, but long enough that any good parent would certainly be worried by now. He was very pleased that she was in a better mood, too. It made him feel like he was able to help her a bit in 'payment' for her helping him. It was a good tradeoff.
"Good, I'm glad that you're feeling better. And I'm sure they're concerned about you, parents always are. Take care, then!" He waited another moment with a large smile growing across his face, before he turned to walk off, picking his way through the grasses where they would evenutally grow thick and damp, the waters from the swamps always making the ground soft if not super wet.
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