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 Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:31 pm
Nadifa was nervous. This was more or less the ground-state of her existence, to be honest. Every minute of every day brought something new to be nervous, anxious, antsy, and even worried about. Her current mood, however, went beyond that and into the realm of agitation. There was even some fretting involved. Currently, she was pacing around the little den, simply waiting for Kolo to return. The gray cheetah had gone out to search for a better den, one large enough to accommodate the five growing cheetah cubs and their parents. Already, the current den was too small to fit the babies and an adult. All Nadifa had to do was watch over the babies until he came back. That was getting more and more difficult the longer he took, however. Nadifa had an annoyingly active imagination at the least appropriate times…
The brown cheetah shook her head, trying to dislodge the unpleasant thoughts and busied herself by scrawling little designs in the dirt. Nothing really important, just a sort of displacement activity. A little flower here, a badly-drawn cheetah over here, a gazelle or two… She had just gotten around to drawing a few clouds in the sky when her attention was drawn back to her mewling cubs. A few moments were spent feeding and calming the little babies down; oddly enough, this helped calm her down too. There was just something… amazing about knowing that there were five tiny lives dependent on her. By all rights, this was precisely the sort of thing to send her into a strange and hitherto unknown form of neurotic apoplectic fit, but it didn’t. Probably some sort of hormonal thing.
Either way, by the time she re-emerged from the den, lightly shaking herself to get rid of the clinging dust, she felt calmer than she had been in hours. Calm enough to make a few corrections to her drawing, anyway. Honestly, cheetahs did not have legs like that… they were more majestic, the most majestic creatures on the savannah. Far more majestic than the so-called ‘Kings’, the lions. Lousy creatures who would sooner steal the meal from a hard-working cheetah than catch something themselves. Bullies who traveled in groups to get whatever they wanted.
Soon. Soon, she and Kolo would find that coalition.
She should have been more worried, though. If she had been her normal neurotic self, she would have noticed her worst nightmare walking her way.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:52 pm
The irony was that Thilivhali had absolutely no interest in terrorizing anything at all. If the smaller-than-average lion had any desires at all in life, they could be summarized as followed: avoid causing distress as much as possible because, inevitably, it’ll come back and bite your tail off at the worst possible time. Like now, for instance. He was lost, confused, and simply wanted to go back to a place that at least looked like it rained occasionally. If this place was any drier, it would have been pure rock. Vhali sniffed the ground for a moment and got a nostril full of dirt for his trouble. He sneezed almost violently, and shook his head in an attempt to clear his nose.
Well, at least he had learned something. There were others around. The traces were faint, but he knew enough to recognize the smell of a cheetah. Well, that was fine. He had always gotten along with cheetahs. Or nearly always. There were probably one or two out there that he wouldn’t like, but he had yet to find them. Cheetahs were like any other cat: there were good ones and bad ones. Couldn’t let a few bad ones taint the entire species though.
As he approached the den, however, he became slightly more nervous. From the smells, there were other cheetahs. A family, even. Aww… how cute! Little baby cheetahs were always so adorable, with their little neck scruffs, and their little puffy tails… it was difficult to imagine a cuter animal than a cheetah cub. If there was such a thing, then Thilivhali didn’t want to see it. It would probably send the entire world into a diabetic coma from the pure saccharine sweetness of its appearance. And that would be a horribly boring fate for the world. Comas, as far as Thilivhali knew, were horribly dull.
“Hello?” he asked warily, once the brown cheetah was in view. “I th…” the black lion got no further than that, however. Even the meekest of creatures turned into a banshee when she needed to be.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:03 pm
Nadifa shot straight up, as if she had suddenly been doused in ice-cold water mixed in with a couple of frogs. There were few things that she hated more than frogs (if you’re curious, this particular fear was caused by a bad childhood incident involving someone daring a younger and more adventurous Nadifa to try eating a frog). One of the things she hated more than slimy amphibians, however, were lions and ohmygod, ohmygod, one was right there! Right there nearby and it was coming closer!!
Her neurons attempted to make a strategic retreat. Unfortunately, the strategy seemed to be, ‘Ahh! Run away! Run away!! Run away while flailing all of your axons, because the lion might go away if you look bigger than you are!!’. Unfortunately, this didn’t do much for one’s thinking process. She tried to form some sort of threatening sentence, but all that came out were sort of blurbling noises as she arched her back. Well, at least she could try to look threatening.
Yeah. Threatening. She looked about as threatening as your average puppy dog. One of those puppy dogs with flat faces, actually, the kind that drooled almost constantly because of the pushed in nose. Oh-so-adorable, but absolutely useless at the same time.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:10 pm
As the cheetah seemed to dissolve into a mess, Thilivhali did indeed take a few startled steps back. While he had met up with all sorts, he had yet to encounter someone who reacted like this. It was like finding a shark in the middle of a desert. Confusing, perplexing and, at the very least, downright weird. Had he said something wrong? How could he go wrong with ‘hello’? It was one word, for crying out loud! Curiosity overcame him, and he walked a little closer, concern plain in his features.
“Uhh… are you ok, miss?” he asked, trying his very best to be polite. That only came naturally to him, to be honest, even if he was talking to what appeared to be a puddle of cheetah. “Did I startle you? I didn’t mean to…” well, not really. Ok, so it was a little funny to see the brown cheetah jump up like that and scramble all over the place, but the amusement ended when it was clear that she really was scared. Of him!
Thulivhali looked down at himself, his eyes roving over his dark fur. On the best of days, maybe he would have looked intimidating. This was not, however, the best of days. This wasn’t even in the top hundreds of days. His fur was dusty and he knew he’d lost weight in his travels. He was no more intimidating than Nadifa was, or so he thought.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:17 pm
At first, when the black lion started moving away, Nadifa allowed her hopes to go up. He was going away! Her cubs were safe! It was a Glorious Victory! (If you had extremely low standards for both ‘glorious’ and ‘victories’, of course). But, then the damned creature had to step forward again. Nadifa laughed, a sour noise that was far from her sweet personality. “Y-yeah, sure… I k-know what you’re p-p-planning! Yo-you were hoping to s-s- creep up on me and m-my family!” she yelled at him, once her brain cells had performed a valiant regroup effort. And, yes, it really was an effort. Just getting out those few sentences exhausted her far more than she would care to admit. She didn’t let it show, however, and spat at the lion, still hoping to make him back down.
“Just g-go away! Far away!” damn, she hoped Kolo would be back soon… now they had to move the cubs. This lion was alone, but lions never stayed alone. They bred like rabbits; where there was one, more were sure to follow. And they always brought destruction to poor innocent cheetahs. Her cubs, she was certain, were this lion’s perfect idea of an afternoon snack. Oh, she was shaking all over and every bit of common sense in her skull told her to run away, but she couldn’t. For one thing, her legs were refusing to move. For another, she could hear the mewls of her cubs. They depended on her. She couldn’t abandon them.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:24 pm
Now Thilivhali felt like he was the shark in the desert. He blinked silver eyes at the brown cheetah, trying to work his way through her stuttered sentences. This didn’t take long, but, since he liked being thorough, he looked over the words several times. Was she really that terrified of him? Why?! He hadn’t even done anything to her! Surely, just his existence wasn’t enough for her to be so utterly terrified of him… right? Honestly, the right thing to do would be to just walk away and leave the poor girl in peace. Thilivhali tried to do the right thing whenever possible, but… well, he had been wandering this place for a while now and had absolutely no idea where he was going. Maybe once he got past this cheetah’s insane accusations, she could tell him something?
“I’m not after you or your family,” he said quickly, taking a few steps back in an attempt to placate the irate female. It had worked before, sort of. At least she didn’t look quite so… fluffy when he was further away. “I was just trying to get some directions…”
But, if there was a theme to this strange meeting, then it was that, no matter what Thilivhali tried to say, the stuttering cheetah would always interrupt him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:29 pm
“Tha-that’s what th-they all say!” Nadifa screeched, her voice hitting octaves unknown to cat-kind. This was the kind of high-pitch that made maggots fall over dead. There weren’t any around to prove this, of course, but I stand by the words anyway. An unpleasant thought wormed its way into her mind and her eyes narrowed dangerously at the lion. Her tail lashed angrily behind her as she thought of the only place she knew of that would require directions. Clearly, the lion was trying to find the cheetah coalition! The same one she and Kolo were trying to find! Now that was just a low move…
And fiendishly clever, really. Send one innocent-looking lion in to a cheetah den to ask for ‘directions’, and hope that the cheetah was stupid enough to give them. Well, they would have to try better than that to trick Nadifa! “W-well, you’re no-not getting any!” Especially since she and Kolo didn’t even know where this coalition was… the most she knew was that it was to the South and she wasn’t even going to offer this much information. Even that little tidbit was too much, she felt.
Of course, after she said this, she realized that she probably should have just told the lion a complete and utter lie. Anything to get him away from her family. The sooner he was gone, the better. The longer he stayed here, the higher the chances that one of the cubs would peek out, see the lion, and think that lions were fun playmates.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:41 pm
Ok, now Thilivhali was so far beyond being a shark in the desert that he was more like a… a… damn. Now his mind was blanking out again, which was typical enough of him when he was actually confronted like this. He simply wasn’t used to all of this open hostility. It was like thinking you found a nice quiet bunny rabbit and then getting attacked by a rabid hyena. A rabbit-shaped hyena, in fact. “I haven’t even told you where I’m trying to go yet!” he complained, trying to calm the cheetah down at least a little. It seemed to be a losing battle.
Once again, Thilivhali did something incredibly stupid. Actually, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately, beginning with getting lost out here in this land of dirt and dust. He took a step forward and continued to pester Nadifa. “Look, I just want to know how to get back to more fertile lands… And then I’ll leave you alo~!”
By this point, he really shouldn’t have been surprised about being interrupted.
And he wasn’t.
It was the form of interruption that surprised him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:50 pm
There are several things in the world that can, without fail, interrupt someone in the middle of a thought that they were desperately trying to finish. Among those things are:
A hippopotamus spontaneously generating into being and then falling from the sky.
Some innocent cub asking, ‘Ohhh… what happens if I poke it’ when ‘it’ happens to refer to an angry ratel.
And Nadifa launching herself at a lion.
The third one was what happened now, as she launched herself, a furry missile made of panic, rage, and neurosis, at the enemy. It must’ve been like getting mauled by a dead duck, only slightly more effective. Still, her options were limited; clearly, trying to make the lion back down was working, and she couldn’t run away. Without anything else, she had to fight for her cubs. At the very least, she could buy them time while Kolo got back. And hopefully he would be back soon. Cheetah claws were not made for digging into skin, but she did her best as her teeth snapped at the black lion’s flesh. Even now, she tried to warn him off rather than actually injure him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:54 pm
Thilivhali made a noise best described as a ‘squealk’, which is a sort of cross between a squeak and a squeal. It was not the sort of noise that a lion generally made, but he was just surprised enough to make it now as pain suddenly bloomed on his body. Had she just attacked him?! It took him several moments to realize that the cheetah had indeed attacked him and, even now, was attempting to maul him. It was almost adorable, actually, if only because it was so badly done. She was clearly terrified, but still willing to do whatever she could to keep him away from her family. How… peculiar. A few more painful nips made him shake her off and dash away.
Ok… so, plan Confront the Cheetah and Find Out Where to Go had been a failure. A monumental failure. If monuments were erected for failures, there would have been a nice statue right here. Perhaps a lion turning tail and running would be appropriate. Thilivhali didn’t stop until he was certain that the cheetah wasn’t going to come after him, bristling with fury and fear.
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Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:59 pm
When the black lion tried to shake her off, Nadifa clung on even more tightly. If she let him go, she was certain he would simply kill her and then move onto her poor dear cubs. When she could no longer hold on, she flumped to the ground, exhausted from trying to hang onto what was certainly an angry lion. But… the claws of death and doom and despair and other d-words didn’t descend. She opened her eyes and saw only the retreating lion. Victory was hers!
For a moment, she was too amazed to do anything else other than gape at the retreating creature. “Y-yeah, you b-better run! And if I ev-ever see you again!!” she tried to threaten him, but found nothing suitable for him. “F-fear my coming re-retort!” She finished lamely, feeling rightly that it rather lacked a punch. Well… it seemed to do the trick now. Still shaking from the experience, she retreated into her den and cuddled her cubs fiercely, her eyes glittering in the gloom.
This was hers and no one would take it away from her so easily. Not without one helluva fight.
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Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:03 am
Once he was far, far away, Thilivhali stopped and dared to look over his shoulder. He more than halfway expected to see that cheetah barreling after him. True, he knew that most cheetahs stopped chasing their prey after a certain distance, but… well, cheetahs also weren’t supposed to randomly attack innocent lions either. Clearly, this one was a little… insane. More than a little, actually, but Thilivhali liked being charitable. So, now he was bleeding, confused, and still lost.
In fact, he was even more lost now, as he had just run a couple of miles away in what was almost certainly the wrong direction. He had absolutely no proof that it was the wrong direction, but it must be since he was going in it. It said quite a lot about Thilivhali’s current mindset when he based ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ directions on such a thing.
With a sigh, the black lion dejectedly began his journey, hoping to find the right way eventually, even if it meant exhausting all other pathways first.
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