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 Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:19 pm
Restless and edgy now that she was home again, Kiuma had taken on extra shifts as a scout, trying to settle her restless paws by pacing the edge of the lands she'd claimed for herself and her little pride. She spent what time she needed to with her new litter of cubs, enjoying having all the small, soft little bodies against her own, but she was never truly at peace, even here. It was like she was made different than her long-absent siblings with this strange urge she found so hard to resist. Still... she had duty and responsibility now, a home she needed to defend and daughters to protect.
Pacing the borders like this was probably the only relief she got from the ache in her paws and she took full advantage of it. The hardened red body had lost little of the firm muscle she'd gained in her wanderings, her fur rippling as she moved smoothly through her lands. Kiuma wasn't really expecting any changes since her last rounds, but one never knew.
Well this would have been embarassing if he was the type to acknowledge such a thing, but weather he'd face facts or not, Kouga was lost. The gruff lion growled increasingly as he paced as well, short spurts, then he'd march angrily in one given direction and stop to pace briefly again and sniff the air. Where had that idiot gotten off to? Useless.
Well he couldn't be bothered now. He snarled softly and turned to head straight, eyes spotting a red coat in the near distance. Great. Some restless female, just what he needed to run into today of all days. Well, if she had seen his lost pride mates then maybe it was worth the hassle, but if he didn't find them soon he'd just be moving on without them, leave them to find him instead. The young leader was in no mood to go hunting down his underlings right now.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:20 pm
It was pleasing to know that she wasn't completely out of practice. When the soft sounds nearby reached her, Kiuma responded with satisfying quickness. Spinning on her cream-tipped paws, she whirled to fix intent red eyes on the source of the noise. And wouldn't you know it? The first male she knew of to have entered her little bit of land, and she was the one to see him. She nearly could have grinned... if anything could settle her restlessness, whipping the snot out of some luckless male would be it.
Drawing herself up, the red lioness snarled at the strange male. "Who are you, and what do you want?" She demanded imperiously, putting all her nobility into her voice as she straightened to look every inch the queen she had made herself. Or so she hoped.
Kouga was not impressed by the display. If anything, he didn't look phased by it at all, and kept right on coming until he felt satisfied to stop, tail lashing behind him. "Kouga, prince of the Northern Tribe." He introduced with little interest. He clearly didn't care much about excersising rank on outsiders, and vice versa, so he got right to the point. "I'm looking for two boneheads. I just want to know if you've seen them." He frowned, a regular look for him if one was to judge by his mannerisms. "Scrawny, big time complainers, pale fur, paler manes? Wearing pelts like these. Sound familiar?"
Pale eyes observed in relative silence while he waited for an answer, unaware that the female was itching to whip out some punishment, or perhaps just ignoring any signs in his arrogance. Kouga was no pushover in a fight, though, having hardly kept his title as prince and leader for no reason. Constantly on the road and getting lost, he was almost always getting into a scuffle or a fight along the way, yet he didn't sport many visible scars to show for it yet. And oh, there was a good and sound, logical reason for that, too, but far be it for him to care. As mentioned before, currently he wasn't picking up on any fight hungry vibes from the red female just yet, only finding distaste in her fur color because it reminded him of that damn half breed...
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:22 pm
Feeling the old sadistic tendencies rising, her form smoothed itself, a little shift to make her suddenly supple and graceful, utterly feminine and as dangerous as a viper. Sure, he was a big male and confident too, a prince even... but Kiuma had a pride to protect and a need to hurt something, especially a male. Oh, this would be sweet, even if she came off with more scars to add to the few that marked her blood-red pelt.
"You are the only male that have entered these lands in its history... aren't you a lucky boy, hmm? You get to be the first to find out what happens when a male enters Antianeira lands..." Silly male, for getting so close to her... it took her only a few sliding steps to be nearly touching him, her red eyes flashing with a savage sort of mirth. "You can be sure though, if your... friends are found in my lands, they'll end up in the same state as you...."
Kouga wasn't one prone to panic easily. In a fight he carried himself like a true male lion, or some might say he had a likeness to an alpha wolf. He generally tended to charge in, being on the hot headed side of things. So while she might have been moving with the liquid grace granted to those that stayed true t o their intended nature, it was likely that Kouga wouldn't properly gauge her strengths and weaknesses until the fight began. Right then his hackles rose, his ears rocking to attention. He braced, but didn't move to back away from the female in the least.
"Someone's lookin' for trouble, but I should warn you wench, you should learn to wait to count your eggs until after they've hatched." He glared with a rattling growl, having no qualms with fighting a female, unlike a lot of the soft beasts on this continent.
A hiss rolled from the female's throat as she bared her fangs, sharp ivory spikes in her mouth. With her black paint and scars, the bones around her neck, she knew she must look like a real savage, a barbarian queen. It was a thrilling idea and it only fed her, perhaps, overly reckless feeling.
"I'm not counting eggs..." She growled as she tensed, muscles tight as strung wire. "I'm punishing a male who had the misfortune to enter lands forbidden to all males." There was no holding back then, even if a small part of her mind registered how foolish she was being. She wasn't an adolescent anymore, a brash young female with a chip on her back... she was a mother starting to move beyond her prime, a queen that should think less with her claws and her anger...
The red lioness lept forward, barging her thick chest into Kouga's side as she snapped her paws up, claws unsheathed to reach for offending, tan, male hide.
If she hadn't warned him ahead that she had malicious intentions he might've been taken by surprise enough for that hit to connect, but braced for the deadly tango as he was, he managed to dodge it nimbly instead with a couple of quick side steps, bouncing on his paws to maintain momentum. When he thought he saw his opening he took it, rounding on her somewhat and snapping his jaws at her muzzle with a vicious, roaring growl. His right paw came up to box viciously at her shoulder or for his claws to rake her throat if she happened to dodge backwards. There was only the briefest of pauses in his attack between his attacks and his watching to see if another opening would present itself or if he'd need to dodge. He made use of it, of course.
"You think so, huh? Well you've still got to actually beat me first, stupid woman!"
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:24 pm
A sharp snarl burst from Kiuma as she stumbled forward, not really expecting him to give under her shove. Her head jerked back when she felt his jaws snap against her own, cutting flesh, though she managed to keep him from doing more than draw blood. Her back legs collapsed as she rocked onto her hind end, giving her a base with which to lash out with those dagger tipped paws, her face twisted in a savage snarl as blood dripped down her chin.
"Flea-ridden, good for nothing, lying male!" She screamed back like a battle cry. He was fast and Kiuma felt him score on her hide, though she didn't bother to keep track of the number of times he hit. Only once had she really been in a pitched battle and she did as she had then... launching herself forward in an effort to overwhelm the male with her weight, her ferocity, and the flurry of her lashing claws. Her teeth snapped at what flesh she could reach, trying to gain a hold that would give her some advantage over him... which was hard, since he had the advantage of a thick mane where it mattered most.
Kouga had the calm of mind in this fight, for once. It was generally a rare occurance unless he wasn't properly provoked before a battle began. In this case he hadn't felt so much threatened or angry so much as sort of amused and ready to flex his own battle skills again. Getting into the swing of things now though he began to see holes in her defenses. She charged blind, though she had a fair idea of what she was doing, though she did still score an occasional hit, he couldn't even be sure if it was planned or just luck and rage. Still, maybe it was only his own experience speaking-- or maybe just his usual arrogance. Yeah, definitely just his usual arrogance --but she really seemed to be no good at this.
He growled when a clawed paw managed to scratch between the wolf pelt on his hind quarters and the shoulder "pads", but otherwise he had the added benefit of his battle "armor" to protect him, and it was mostly already dead wolf fur flying about as her claws scored their occasional hits.
"Lying?" Duck. "Flea-ridden?" Dodge. "Now come on, if you're gonna insult someone--" He dodged one more attack, and then while she was still on her haunches, dove in and took the brunt of her swings in favor of throwing his full weight at her chest to topple her over backwards and made a bold attempt to secure his jaws over her throat, though he refrained from actually trying to bite down "--at least put more thought into it than you do your damned attacks." He growled.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:26 pm
"Go suck... hippo a**..." She sneered, her breath huffing out as he slammed into her and threw her weight back. She might be a match for most males in terms of size, but she wasn't overly muscled or heavy set. Damn her graceful, elegant mother, in times like this. Hitting her back hard, Kiuma had to struggle to keep from having her air slammed out of her, drawing up her hindpaws to claw viciously at his stomach, a hard shove keeping him from pinning her down before she could roll to the side and up onto her paws again. Black-tipped tail lashed the air as she gathered herself and launched at him again, for once feinting to the left before she darted right, dipping to come up under him.
Her body burned with exertion, with the numerous little wounds he inflicted till the ground was dotted with blood. The fight wasn't coming off as well as she had wanted, but at least she seemed to be holding her own... but even Kiuma wasn't stupid enough to think it was going to be easy to finish this.
The male snarled as her back claws scored a hit, barely twisting in time to avoid it being more serious, but no one could ever accuse Kouga of being nice, not without motives. He didn't bother with common courtesy most of the time, and now was not any different. He laughed through the dicomfort and pain at her intended insult, a derisive sound as he just so managed to dodge being gutted by her jaws, even as his own blood dotted the ground a bit and the fresh air stung the wound on his lower chest, upper abdomen.
"Nice. So you're completely without class too. Good. For a while there I thought I was fighting some spoiled princess!"
He would love to claim that the insult was intentional if asked, but he was making a blind stab at the fact she was so lavishly decorated in henna and simplistic jewelry. He moved to try to end the fight then with one move, tiring of wasting time he could be using looking for Kaku and Genta.
He swept his muscled bulk forward, launching out with his hind paws. Swinging a forearm he made a hooking clothesline into a full body tackle, meaning to pin the female for real this time, going for either the scruff of her neck or her throat itself just to get her to yield. He'd rather avoid killing some "weak woman" who was defending some pride he'd never even heard of-- but just barely. He would if she kept pursuing the fight, just to get her out of his way. Or maybe he could just walk away from this one if it came to that. He didn't care. He just didn't.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:49 am
Kiuma danced to the side as their fight wore on, her limbs getting heavy and her joints aching. This was... like nothing she'd ever faced before and the longer it wore on, the more serious she became. She couldn't just back away from this fight... she had her pride, but more importantly, she had her pride to protect.
"Better a spoiled princess than a god-forsaken, brainless, cowardly rogue!" She yelled back, raging inside. No one had ever talked to her like he did, no one had ever seen her as anything, but the fierce lioness she was. When Kouga came at her again, she knew it was nearly over. She could only hold out so long... Her red body twisted, jerking to the side as he cut into her fur, managing to get away with a shallow slash along her side. She darted away and stood panting, her paws braced apart and her head hung low as she panted for air, glaring at him.
Kouga stopped as he lost his target, simply turning to face her again, panting and bleeding and looking worn as she was. Just how much actual fighting experience did she have? Ah, hell, what did it matter?
Straightening, relaxing, Kouga visibly let his guard drop, "Whatever, crazy wench. I don't have time to play your little cub games." He scoffed derisively, turning away. "If you don't know where they are then you're pretty worthless to me. Later." You could all but hear the smirk in his tone as he set off, back the way he had come, and didn't look back once.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:30 pm
The red lioness snarled after him as he went, darting forward a few steps before she forced herself to stop. She bristled with anger at him, but despite her battle rage, she was not a fool. Kiuma had accomplished her goal of driving him off and she'd come away from it with little more than a few more scars and a wounded pride. Well. She didn't much like letting him leave on that note, but logic told her it was best to just let it go.
Turning, she took out the last of her anger and frustration on a downed log, ripping it apart before she shredded it down to splitters. By the time she was done, she was exhausted, but her ire had cooled enough to let her turn back towards her pride. With a little limp and a lot of exhaustion, the red queen headed back to the pride she'd successfully defended, even if only because he had given up the fight and left. It still galled her, but at least she was a little wiser now than she was before... and the fire of her hatred for males was renewed, making her all the more certain that what she was doing here was right.
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