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 Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:04 am
Blind eyes stared straight ahead, but they weren't what was telling him where to go. The extensive fur on his body told him what was near him, the strength of his nose told him who was where and when. When it rained none of that was able to happen, none of that was even capable of helping him.
For the moment he could truely feel how blind he was. Truely feel nothing at all for the first time in his life. Well... maybe not the first time but it certainly had been a long time since he'd been awake and moving around in the rain. One of the last times had been when he'd left his pride to find his sister.
That had panned out well hadn't it? He'd lost his nephew and his brother somewhere on the savannah. Sure he'd met two others that had taken him to the pridelands, but once he'd gotten there he'd been alone for the longest time. It seemed like nothing lived here despite the claims of the two large Firekin that it was home to the largest group of lions the Savannah had ever seen.
Where were they all? Where was his sister?
Maybe he was all alone again, but it wasn't a nice feeling.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:21 am
Of course.
And she thought that this day might be the one that Paki would go and find her. Or try to find her. Ever since she had left her family to make a life of her own with Kiwi and their children, she and Paki had not seen each other once. They had promised each other that they would see one another again, soon. But it had been quite some time since then, and she was worried.
It would be just like Paki to wander around on his own, blind to those both good and evil, and his surroundings, trying to find his big sister.
She was worried out of her mind.
Her paws slipped and slid across mud and wet leaves, almost falling many times. The fact that Paki absolutely despised water didn't help her conscious any. Moyo decided to devote her 'personal' time in search of her little brother, if by some chance (or probability) that he was out in the wilderness somewhere.
Alone.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:31 am
Slugging along through the rain, it didn't take Paki long to realize that he was more lost than normal. He could feel his own body giving out on him every time he stepped, nearly slipping and falling from something he'd once heard called Mudd. If that's what it was called, he was certainly a living Mudd then, because he could feel it slicked all through his long fur despite the heavy rain that washed everything else away.
Naturally.
As if it weren't hard enough for him to do anything. He'd mastered himself already, if it were bright and sunny out then he would be able to walk like he could see perfectly fine. His fur could guide him, his nose could warn him, his ears could guard him. With everything working the way it was supposed to he could walk through a dense forest without once walking into a tree, though there were close calls that his whiskers would save him from.
Now though.... now if someone walked across him they would find a pathetic lion, soaked to the bone and looking like a drowned rat with all his fur hanging off of him in stringy groups, trailing rivers of water to the ground once more. There was a part down Paki's spine and his fur hung to the sides and off his belly, showing how thin he was from traveling.
His emaciated form was generally hidden by his extremely fluffy fur that made him look almost like a normal sized male. If one were brave enough to reach through his fur they'd find his ribs and his spine sticking out against his tight skin. The rain showed this off more than normal.
Paki hated it.
"Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day." Paki's deep voice whispered out through the dense downpour.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:22 pm
Moyo picked her way down a small slope. Albeit unknowingly, she was in the same predicament as her little brother: she had to deal with mud. It was everywhere. There was no way she could possibly try to find a place or a small path that would take her around the mud puddles. The paths were the mud puddles.
As she made her way down, slowly, one of her paws slipped and she tumbled down into the mud with a small cry. She landed in a ditch, mud completely covering her back, her legs, and half-covering her chest and face. She groaned and made a face, trying desperately to fling excess mud off her paw.
Gross.
"Gross!" she whined aloud, her voice echoing in the empty, rainy forest.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:33 pm
It wasn't that Paki wasn't coordinated enough to navigate anything, but when he fell down what felt like a... CLIFF... he stayed there. Only moving his head enough to breath, the large cream colored lion stayed where he'd fallen without complaint.
Without complaint, that is, until a voice groaned out not so very far from him. The noise startled the large lion enough to break his stupor and get him to lift his head sightlessly off the ground as if in the hope that he would find whoever it was that had spoken with his useless eyes.
"Hello?" Paki called out in a louder voice than he'd ever had as a young cub, deeper and louder than it had originally been. Maybe with some luck he would meet a person that would be able to guide him out of the forest he seemed to be in.
He'd banged his head on enough trees to know he was in a forest or a jungle. A forest at the least.
Maybe the unknown stranger even knew the wherabouts of his older sister Moyo. That would make his day right there.
"Is anyone out there?" He called again.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:50 pm
Her ears twitched towards the first noise, her head rising above her shoulders to try and find the source. After the second calling, she struggled to pull herself from the sticky gobs of mud.
"I'm over here! The mud has me stuck!" she called back in reply, searching through the dark rain for a glimmer of a face.
One of her paws came free; a second later, her other one became unstuck as well. She levered herself on the solid ground nearby and pulled. Hard.
It took a few tries, but she was about halfway out of the mud hole before she tried calling out again.
"I'm still stuck. Are you okay?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:56 pm
Her words gave him some encouragement, as well as some unsettelment. She was stuck, which was bad. could he be stuck as well?
Slowly he puffed his chest and belly out, flexing the muscles in his legs so that the mud moved around him and when it seemed as if he could hold his breath no longer, Paki exhaled and leapt from where he'd been with a relative ease. Most of the mud had clung to his slick, hanging fur. That had been what had made it easiest to use such a tactic.
Now came the truely difficult part, finding the lioness he'd just been talking to. Lifting his head, Paki sniffed past the long mane that was hanging before his eyes and now down over his nose and flicked his chocolate colored ears. She had come from his right side so he slowly made his way over towards her, using his nearly useless sense of smell and hearing to finally end up in front of her.
"I'm okay, but you still need help." His voice boomed over the loud rain and he leaned over her, using his whiskers to find her neck so he could at least haul her from the mud. Giving a tug with velvet soft teeth, Paki wrenched the other lion from the muck almost awkwardly. He had no footing.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:17 pm
Moyo blinked once, then again. The second time she opened her eyes there was suddenly a shape before her. It didn't really register in her mind that this was the same lion she had just been yelling at through the heavy rain.
One minute later, there was a gentle tug at her neck and a messy pull before they both tumbled onto the ground she had just tried to pull herself onto.
"Ah, thank you so much," she yelled out again. "I thought I wasn't going to get out of there any time soon."
She tried to give him a smile through the rain, but she sincerely doubted that he could see the friendly gesture in all this rain.
"Here, why don't we go find somewhere kind of dry, okay? I know of a little place nearby. Follow me."
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:21 pm
In a heap upon the ground, Paki managed to writh his way out from around her, afraid that she would think something from the gesture of him pulling her literally ONTO his body. Most females took hints, maybe he would be lucky and this one would be as kind as she sounded.
The yelling back and forth was all that kept him from the memory of his sister's voice, Moyo had never yelled when they'd been younger, at least not at him. So her voice didn't register over the rain and the shouting and how miserable he was.
Plastering an odd smile onto his face that was mostly covered by his profuse and now stragly mane, Paki pricked his ears to hear her walking away. His tail swished the water and some mud off of his hind legs and slowly he walked after her, afraid that he would take another spill.
Yet not slow enough to lose her.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:41 pm
Moyo walked slowly as well. One, so she wouldn't slip and fall again. And two so he could easily follow her and not get lost in the darkness. She was surprised that she could find her way around, actually. But she knew this tree. She and Kiwi had long ago scratched a path into a good number of trees for their cubs to explore by.
Soon enough, in only a few moments, they approached a small shelter of trees. The ground wasn't as wet and as muddy as the outside, and the trees offered decent coverage from the rain and cold.
"Here we are," she announced loudly. She quickly shuffled inside, trying to bursh off as much dirt and mud as she could before sitting down in a corner, hoping to leave enough room for her new friend.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:48 pm
There was a sudden lapse in rain, or maybe they'd walked under something, but either way Paki knew instantly that he was finally free of the rain. At least for the moment.
Shaking his large body a tiny bit to loosen some of the ever clinging water, Paki sat down quietly and sniffed at his suroundings uncertainly.
Until this moment it hadn't occured to him to be the least bit afraid of the lioness that he'd pulled up from the mudd, but surely there were some lions and lionesses in the world that could be considered wicked and evil.
Up until his adolescence Paki had claimed to be unable to smell them, until he'd met up with a lioness that had nearly killed him with the large gash on his belly. It was hidden by a profusion of fur, but the scar was still there as a reminder of pain he could avoid if he were wary enough. Wary enough to question and suspect.
Still... he had a reason for being in these lands and Paki was known for being a little blunt and overbearing at times.
"You wouldn't by any chance be able to tell me if you've met a lioness by the name of Moyo in any travels you might have had could you? I'm sorry to ask so bluntly but... I've been looking for her for a long, long time. Maybe you could help me?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:09 pm
He was looking for...her?
Moyo couldn't help but blink in surprise and peer closely at the lion that sat before her. A thought came into her head and with an inward groan, she quickly moved her head from side to side, watching his eyes that glimmered in the dark.
They didn't move, and neither did his head.
He was blind.
And she thought his voice had sounded so familiar, except for deeper and more mature...
She groaned audibly, and shook her head at her little brother.
"Paki, what did I tell you about wandering off alone?" she said in her normal voice, a hint of a smile in it because she could never truly be mad at her brother.
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:17 pm
Maybe it was a testament to road weariness, maybe it was how overjoyed he was that it was truely her, or maybe it was just that Paki was tired of being scolded. Whatever it was, when she said his name without his having told her in that scolding yet ALMOST playful way, his broad shoulders slumped.
It was her, it was Moyo. His sister was alive and well. He'd found her in the rain just as he'd left to find her.
"I'm sorry." His voice cracked as his face screwed up in a form of sadness, happiness and anger at himself. Anger that it had taken so long, sadness that his sister didn't seem as happy to see him as he was to see her, and happiness for the obvious reason that his older sister was sitting before him happy and well.
Heat pooled into his belly only to be swallowed by cold sadness that it had taken so long. Slowly his head slumped down between his shoulders, his rain soaked mane making him looked more like a drowned and feeble, emaciated and hungry, rat that he felt like.
The younger lion didn't bother remarking that he'd left with two others and found the pridelands with the help of a pair of kind Firekin souls. He didn't even bother to tell his sister that he'd found someone he liked, though all of it welled up in his throat at once to speak of as quickly as possible. Through the wetness of his fur it was impossible to even see the tears he was shedding silently... almost.
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:28 pm
"Paki, I'm not mad."
She could see the outline of his body slump, trying to curl into the ball that he rarely ever tried to imitate. He only did this when he was sad, and she hated to see her always-cheerful brother so down in the dumps.
"I'm just surprised. And wet. I hate being wet. I can only imagine what you feel like, little brother. Did you have the chance to avoid all the big puddles and streams and such in here?
Hoping to reassure him that was truly happy to see him (not disappointed, or bothered, or anything else like that), she moved closer and planted her forehead directly on top of his, like they used to do back at home. Before she left.
"I missed you," she whispered.
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:47 pm
His head stayed where it was even after she pressed their foreheads together. Paki was so tired, he'd wasted so much energy trying to keep his heart up in the hopes that his sister would be well off.
A swirling pain finally took over his body, having been staved off by hope for nearly two years. Paki hadn't seen anyone in his family for nearly two years, he'd made few friends and gotten himself one enemy and a nasty scar to prove it. He was tired and he was worn out and all he wanted to do was hug his sister and tell her he'd missed her so, but he was afraid to for the first time in his life.
What if she'd changed in two years? He certainly had changed a bit from the belligerant and often runamuck cub he'd once been. Surely she'd changed as well.
"I missed you too." His voice was broken for the first time in his life as tears ran down his cheeks harder. He'd done it, after so long Paki had finally found his older sister, the only one that had ever treated him kindly. Now he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now that his quest was fulfilled.
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