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 Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:11 pm
Sascher-tort's plumy tail swept the dust, making a half-moon pattern on the ground. Her Aurelie-human was in town, shopping for groceries. Such expeditions held no interest for Sasha, and so she declined to accompany her human, though the offer was always open. The market was not a safe place for palui. Humans always planted their feet indiscriminately, without a care for who might be beneath them, and if she tried to walk along the countertops to keep out from underfoot, the stall owners became unhappy. Aurelie had tried to carry her, but Sasha did not like being held for any length of time, and was given to squirming and struggling, which neither she nor Aurelie enjoyed.
She batted at her own tail-tip to still it. As usual, her tail was not obeying her mind. She gave a little huff-sigh and released her tail from beneath her paw. As she sniffed at her paw, she noticed a flicker of motion in the foliage nearby. She dropped do a four-pawed crouch with her belly touching the ground and her blue eyes wide and wild, ready to flee at the least hint of danger. Her fight or flight instinct, usuall leaned more toward flight than fight, after all. Her ears were pricked forward to catch all sounds, and her nose tested the air, sniffing delicately.
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 12:58 pm
Lillu, eyes focused and intense, claws etching lines silently in the dirt, stalked her prey pseudo-skillfully. No, her prey was not the fellow Palui on the defensive only a few yards away- no. As a Palui raised by a human in the harbor town, Lillu was rather unskilled when it came to any hunting or natural survival skills, though she enjoyed pretending that she was.
Before her, on a log near the brush was- yes! A butterfly! Pretty and delicate with its shimmering wings and intricate designs it stood still, unaware of the predator stalking it.
Lillu grinned a sly grin, her bright eyes squinting at the insect before her.
This was it.
Time for the kill.
With a "HYAA-!" Lillu lept at the butterfly, body outstretched, paws before her, only to have the butterfly take flight and flutter away in a panic and to have her little body collide with the log, falling onto her back in failure.
"Hunting shouldn't be this hard," she wheezed.
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 1:34 pm
Sasha seemed to levitate at Lillu's pounce, going straight up in the air, but landing - somehow - many feet in the direction farthest from where Lillu landed. She didn't notice the butterfly take flight. She was much too distracted by the other palui, who may or may not have been attacking her. She guessed that the other palui was not after her, as no self-respecting huntress would complain about her failures to her prey. Besides, palui did not hunt other palui. They were not cannibals, but civilized creatures with their own societal mores and norms, though humankind was ignorant of those rules.
She tried to force her fur to lie flat, rather than fluffing out to double her apparent size, but it was to no avail. Her body was still running on adrenaline, and there was nothing she could do about it. Rather like her tail's incessant twitching. It was hopeless. She sat up straight, actually putting one paw on her lashing tail to cultivate the semblance of calm. If the other palui was blind and not given to notice her fur standing on end, of course.
"No," she agreed, pleased that her voice didn't squeak. "It shouldn't be. I've not once caught one of those monsters, and I've been trying for two years now."
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:42 pm
Lillu leapt upward, a height that seemed like several feet, but of course she couldn't really reach that height with her little legs. Poking her head over the hedge that divided herself and the other Palui, she blinked curiously. What an interesting Palui! A wide smile crossed her face before she lept through the bush and proceeded in shaking the itchy leaves from her shiny white pelt. The Palui's fur seemed to be oddly poofy, but Lillu decided it best to say nothing. In any case, she was overjoyed that she was no the only Palui who had trouble with catching butterflies!
"Really? You do?" Her tail wriggled behind her. "I'm Lillu!"
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:56 pm
Sasha crept forward, her whiskers spread wide and sensitive and her nose pushed forward to sniff the new palui - Lillu. Her fur was settling back into place now, which was a relief, and her tail was still, low to the ground, like her belly. She was still cautious. It was her nature.
"I do," she confirmed. "They cheat, though. If they didn't use their wings, they'd make easier prey. But then they wouldn't be as fun to stalk."
"I'm Sascher-tort, by the way. But my human - Aurelie - calls me a lot of other things, too. Usually Sasha."
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:34 pm
"Oh?"
Lillu was quite surprised that this new Palui, Sasha, had an owner like she did. She noticed as Sasha's fur began to shrink back to its normal position closer to her body- had she frightened the other Palui?
Lillu sat back on her haunches, tail still wriggling playfully as she smiled brightly at Sasha.
"That's a nice name!" Her voice was optimistic and that of a young and naive Palui. Lillu nodded in agreement about the butterflies as well, closing her eyes and scowling as if to look wisened.
"So true! But you know, I'm not sure what I would do with one even if I caught it. I don't think I want to eat one.."
Lillu then looked towards the sky thoughtfully, with a brow cocked and a curious look about her.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:50 am
"I like my name a great deal. Your name is very pretty, too."
Sasha considered Lillu's next point about the butterflies. To be honest, she wasn't sure what she would do with a grass moth if she caught one, either. Like all palui, she ate fruits and vegetables, and even the thought of eating a moth was vaguely nauseating. It might be fun, though, to bat the hapless thing around a bit until it was thoroughly dizzy and then watch it fly away in confusion. Mean streak? Certainly.
"I'm not sure what I would do with one, either," she acknowledged. "They're not really our natural prey, I suppose. Maybe that's why we find them so difficult to capture. We're meant to be stalking more sedantary prey, like strawberries."
She smiled at her own cleverness. She was sometimes almost as clever as her Aurelie-human, who she didn't understand completely, but whom she knew to be clever.
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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:56 pm
"Ohh~" Lillu found herself impressed by the other Palui's knowledge of these things. It was true though, when she'd thought about it. But stalking berries was no fun! No matter how tasty they were once you caught them. At least butterflies and other small insects were mobile and elusive, much more fun to stalk.
"So," she inquired timidly. "Do Palui even have hunting instinct?"
At that, her ears tilted back a little and her tail ceased its fervent wriggling, downgrading to a steady sway. Lillu very much enjoyed stalking, hunting and pouncing her so-called 'prey', so to find out that in reality she had no real hunting instinct, could be rather disappointing for the young Palui.
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:10 am
Sasch wasn't certain she was correct about the hunting matter, because there did remain the salient fact the she felt urges to hunt, and that did not come from hunting unmoving prey, but maybe those urges came from her youth, when Aurelie had played hunting games with her. What if palui really didn't have hunting instincts, and only believed they did out of a misguided attempt to please humankind? She dismissed the notion as silly.
"Of course we have a hunting instinct," she said. "We wouldn't stalk grass moths and butterflies and everything else which presents itself as prey, otherwise."
She tried to find another example to support her claim that palui have a hunting instinct. She didn't know much about how palui lived in the wild. Maybe wild palui did hunt, though she couldn't think how they would even acquire a taste for flesh. Certainly palui could fight in defense of themselves or their home and family. She had no firsthand experiene with that, but she knew she would take on anyone who threatened her Aurelie-human.
"Do you ever pretend to be a wild palui? It's one of my favorite games, and in my games wild palui are always hunting. So we must be hunters by nature."
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 1:20 am
Sasch's words immediately filled the impressionable little Palui with hope and joy. So she did have hunting instincts! An untapped power lurking deep inside, just waiting to be released! Lillu's fluffy tail resumed its previous wriggling and her eyes glistened widely.
"Eh, a wild Palui?" Lillu blinked curiously and took the question into consideration. "Well yes! I suppose I do sometimes. And I do love to play hunt!"
With her new found exhilaration, Lillu hopped up onto her feet. "We should go hunting! Or explore!" Her ears gave an excited twitch. "It'd be fun!"
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:36 am
Sasha smiled a palui-smile, slightly exposing the tips of her teeth, which were not particularly well-suited to meat eating. She didn't think about that, though, because, as she had said, she did feel urges to stalk and chase, even if she was never inclined to eat her quarry. She liked the idea of play-hunting with someone else. It would add more to the game.
But she was not interested in exploring. She had no desire to get lost. She'd been doing that too much, of late, and she didn't like how worried her Aurelie-human got. She had also heard Aurelie threaten something to the effect that she wouldn't be allowed Out anymore if she kept wandering off like that. That was definitely not something Sasha wanted to provoke.
"I'll hunt with you, but we have to stay near here. My human will worry if I go much farther afield," she said. If Lillu pushed the issue, she would just have to apologize and go home. She wasn't going to get in trouble for a silly game.
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