Bai Feng:
"Breathe." He barked as he continued to lope forward. The proud, white creature moved effortlessly along his way while the small hyena pup panted and wobbled down at his feet. Of the litter, he took his training the most seriously, so of the litter, it was he that went first in the morning.
Feng was an older cheetah, just a year or two past his prime. His developed muscles rolled under an aging coat of pearly white fur with blotches of crimson here and then. Upon his back and neck sat a man's coursing harness, a device lined in gold and crimson. He'd been the emperor's pride, a good fortune charm and among his top hunters.
Now...he was an aging cheetah, striving to impress his many years of strict training into the future generations of the Chokwe troupe.
Fakhir:
Fakhir snapped his jaws shut, containing his heavy panting behind thick, frusterated growls as his strides lengthened. Dangerous green eyes turned up to observe the cheetah's pace while his body strived to match the fluid movements.
Urdnuru:
Urdnuru had come to terms with her odd looks, her odd personality, odd ways of jumping to be emotional too soon, and it was time to forego what she thought was once real and go into the world to see what might await her. True, her family was her life, she adored her siblings, mother and father, but she also needed to find ehrself, find a way to find her way in this world, and make it work.
Coming to terms with what she could and could not do, was not easy. She was not the fastest on her paws or in her thoughts, but she tried, and would always try. Hunting was not successful on a daily basis, only fish, when she was lucky enough to come across.
Bai Feng:
Feng's eyes remained alert, a courser hunted by sight rather than smell. It didn't take him long to spot the stranger ahead of them and come to a sharp stop. Fakhir hadn't expected it and trotted a few paces ahead before he too clawed the ground to bring himself to a halt.
"...a stranger." His ears rolled back slightly. "Fakhir. Test the air."
Fakhir:
The pup circled around, panting heavily once his body had been thrown out of the pace he'd worked up to. At his master's command he lifted his nose up and drew in a few long, panting breaths.
"Ano...another cheetah..."
Urdnuru:
Urdnuru's stomach rolled as she moved, and she stoped to shake her head, try to push the thoughts of her empty stomach from mind, but the curning and begging for sustinence was gripping her entirety. Ears flicking at a sudden noise, her gaze fell upon a tiny hare a few meters from her. A smile crossed her jaw as she crouched, and propeled herself forward in one movement.
Though she practiced, tried to keep her movements in tune with one another, she bolted after the rabbit, though it darted in a manner as if it could read her mind. Tail arching trying to keep her balance, her stable, it darted into a burrow and she slid to a halt, dust stream settling behind her. With a sigh, she let her head fall, rumbling gripping her, another failed attempt.
Bai Feng:
"Hm..." He frowned a bit. A young cheetah. Perhaps freshly pushed from the nest so to speak....she had potential- she just didn't quite know how to use it. "Stay close." he ordered down to his charge. Fakhir answered with a sharp nod.
"Seek out the burrow first." He instructed as he stepped closer to the female, his head raised to fully expose the golden orient collar clinging to his neck. A pair of golden dragons wove around the outer rim and held within their jaws a ring that bore a red leather strap that ran down under his front paws to another loop sitting in the mouths of two more dragons who dwealt on his harness. "Then you can guage how much time you have to catch the hare, if possible overshoot the hare and put yourself between the prey and its den.
Fakhir:
"Or you can try digging it out..." Fakhir muttered.
Urdnuru:
For a momet she believed the heat and lack of a meal was driving her to hear them, though the voices she realized were real once she turned her head. She was tiny, even for her age, the strange colored and runty looking one from her litter. "B-but," she didn't know how to answer that statement really, she hadn't thought of it before.
Her ears folded back and laid against her skull as she trailed a paw on the ground, her stomach gripped her again and she flopped onto the ground and curled up, partly from hunger, but also from embarrassment that someone had seen her fail. She had tried...she tried...
Bai Feng:
"And do not studder." He flicked the end of his tail sharply and gave the area a very slow, very careful look around. She was alone. "....where are your parents? You seem...under fed."
Fakhir:
Fakhir eyed her, once more snapping his jaws shut and licking his chops to keep himself from panting off his morning work out. She did seem skinny, now that he mentioned it. Even for a wind chaiser.
Urdnuru:
"I'm sorry," was stuttering bad, or offensive? Urd was now unsure about a lot of things. Perhaps she should go home, but if she did, her family would know she could not make it, and she wanted to be able to do this, to be able to be fast and strong and wise enough to sustain herself, but evidently, by this strangers tongue, she was doing horribly at it.
"I left," she said simply, putting a paw over her eyes, she didn't say anything pertaining to food, she was hungry eough without thinking of it.
Bai Feng:
"Did you even have a plan in mind for yourself? The world is not a game. Every meal is a challange to your strength, your speed, and your tact. Every day is a new fight, every night is a new gamble. To live alone is to dance with death...or is there another reason you left?"
Urdnuru:
A plan? She hadn't thought of a plan, she decided to leave that was her plan, and she had followed it out thus far. "I don't want to be seen as the oddball," though she never really knew if thats how her family saw her. "I look different, and feel different from all of them," it was awkward, and made her feel out of herself.
"I wanted to get away, be better," for she had really always been afraid to ask for advice time and time again. "what else could I do,"
Fakhir:
Fakhir sighed and stepped forward. The pup, while young, had a fire in his eyes that surpased even most adults. "You learn." He growled, "You don't just jump out and get yourself killed. It doesn't prove anything beyond that you're a dummy."
Bai Feng:
"Fakhir." The cheetah scolded sharply. Fakhir's ears flattened. "My pardons... perhaps it is fortune that has guided you here." He tipped his head back, indicating where they'd come from. "I live with the chokwe troupe. We are all....as you say 'odd'. Hyenas and cheetahs, lions, and leopards. All of us different bodies but one heart."
Urdnuru:
Urd glanced up at the pup, she hadn't thought of it before, but it was strange that a hyena, a pup no doubt, would be in the company of a cheetah, and, no less, take orders from him. Her eyes scanned over the white and crimson cheetah before her, regal, proud, strong, and wise. The things she hoped to be one day.
"Chokwe," she said, testing it on her tongue, ears flicked forward, uncertain, "how are you all one, but so different?"
Bai Feng:
"We do not see eachother as different creatures... we each carry the same flame in our hearts, the same ambition. Each of us has been cast aside, each of us strange in our own ways or rejected...some have lost much, others-" He glanced to Fakhir, "Are only just beginning..."
He glanced back to her, "We train ourselves every day. Fakhir here is one of our squires. Every day is a test of our strength, our speed, our tact, and our technique. Every day we grow stronger."
Fakhir:
"And one day..." Fakhir growled, "Our names will be immortal!"
Urdnuru:
"Immortal?" like a god or goddess? She had heard stories, once upon the wind, though those stories she was not sure if they were real either. Flicking her tail, she lapped her lips, wriggled her nose and eyes them both curiously. Chokwe.
She turned to him again, the regal cheetah before her, adn she tilted her head slightly such, "And you...are you their leader?"
Fakhir:
"Gods and Goddesses." He snorted. "I would gamble they bleed just like any of us...and die just like any of us."
Bai Feng:
"Mind yourself." He warned Fakhir. Even if the female was small- if she was loyal to a god or goddess, there was a chance she'd try to defend their honor.
Looking back to her, he shook his head, "No. I am Bai Feng, teacher of the art of speed. Taban is our leader."
Urdnuru:
"I don't know if they do," she said simply, "I've never seen, or met one," only heard stories, that was what happened, only stories. Teacher? Perhaps that's why he held himself in such a manner, seemed regal, intelligent, you would have to be. "Taban, is he like you-er...us?" or was he a hyena? If they were all different, was no one the same? Her head hurt, and her stomach rolled and grumbled again.
Bai Feng:
"He is a windchaiser like myself...and he's claimed to have seen a goddess and a god." He shrugged, "But he is our leader for different reasons. I fell into serving him out of obligation. Others found a family where they had lost theirs..."
Urdnuru:
"I see." Least, she thought so. "What is your name?" she asked curiously, peering to both of them, so unattached, or attached now, she was unsure, mixing emotions and ideas in her mind. "I'm urdnuru," she said with a nod.
Bai Feng:
"I am Bai Feng... my name is.. forgien so the troupe will often call me Xuco instead. This is my student, Fakhir, son of Lucia- one of the elite guards of the troupe." He dipped his head slightly.
