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 Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:17 pm
Sanuye was at it again.
His mother was out hunting again and his father was nowhere to be found, leaving him to create an adventure on his own. No doubt his mother was probably running out of 'quests' to send him on, seeing as he had been asking for them since he was a cub. There were only so many ways she could send him to fetch an item and then bring it to his father for proper 'judgement.' The quests had become less and less frequent though, as Sanuye had to focus on other things like his pride life, but every now and again he had time to dream again. Today was one such day.
"Time passes quickly, and the sidekick has grown large and strong," he narrated aloud, as he stared up at the clouds. Lying on his back wasn't an ideal position, but it was a good one for dreaming. Besides, it was doubtful he'd get attacked by anybody here. These were pride lands. "He has yet to find his hero but he knows that he's out there somewhere. Perhaps he will find him fighting in the heat of battle against… " Hrm, what was a good villain? "Against… a rabid hyena!"
Despite having grown out of some of her more childish tendencies (like throwing hissy fits), Rahu still found the time to entertain herself with endless amounts of daring tales and adventures conjured up from her imagination. Her siblings used to play with her quite frequently, at least Odjit, though their differences in how the tales ended up often led them to flat out brawls and fights. However, she found that they were around less and less, entertaining themselves with their own lives, doing who knew what. Which meant that she was all alone in her make believe world. Had she been a less optimistic soul, she might have found her lonliness depressing, but, since she wasn't, it only became fuel to feed the fire of her stories.
"And so the great heroine stalked through the grasses, the sounds of the monster escalating the closer she got to his foul lair," she was hunched low in the grass, her mostly-tan coat blending well into the tall blades with the exception of a few glimpses of blue here and there. She could hear talking, and that unlucky creature from whose mouth the speech flew had just become the antagonist in today's epic. "The terrible.. gappermonger will not escape her this time," she said beneath her breath, hunching low as her bright red eyes peered out from the grasses. She'd probably just made that word up, but it sounded terrifyingly foul to her ears.
Pausing, she counted in her mind, then took a leap with a playful growl. She landed close to him, though as soon as she did, a frown spread across her maw. "Why, you're not a gappermonger at all." A look of complete disappointment crossed her maw, even if she didn't really know what a gappermonger was in the first place.
"Rabid hyenas are dangerous predators," the young lion continued. "Unlike their scavenger cousins they seek out prey and they hate lions. Hate them with a burning passion! They're big and stroke and they can eat a whole wilderbeast in a single bite!" He clicked his teeth together to emphasize his point. Sanuye had never really met a hyena - there were too many lions in this pride for any hyenas to dare set foot - but that was all the more reason to use them in his stories. It was always better to use something you had never seen so you could use your imagination.
Before he could continue his story, something leapt at him out of the bushes. "Rabid hyena!" With a startled yelp he rolled backwards, limbs flailing in a rather ungraceful attempt to get them under him so he could stand. In the end, he ended up lying with both his front paws tucked and his legs sprawled underneath him. It was a very dignified pose, not to mention not a very good one if he was going to fight off a rabid hyena. Only, it turned out his foe wasn't a rabid hyena or even just a plain old hyena. It was a young lioness.
"Gappermonger?" He repeated, blinking at her. "Is that the same as a rabid hyena?"
A soft laugh escaped her mug as she saw him leap and then end up in a rather ungraceful tumbled heap. If that was the result she got for leaping at unsuspecting lions out of bushes, she should probably do it more often. The sight alone was worth the disruption of her story and the disappointing realization that there was no evil gappermonger lurking on the other side. She supposed even heroines needed a good break from their stories.
"No, it's nothing like a rabid hyena at all," she said with a disapproving frown, as if this were common knowledge and how dare he not know, instead of something she had actually just made up on the spot. "A gappermonger is a foul, evil creature of myth and lore that devours cubs for dinner. It has the body of a lion, but six scaly legs and two great filmy wings like a fly. It also has a mouth full of pointy teeth and smells foul, like something rotting." The good thing about such a vivid imagination was the ability to make things up on the spot - she was quite convincing even when she was flying by the seat of her figurative pants.
"Why, have you seen a rabid hyena?" she asked, quirking a brow as she flopped down onto her rump in front of him.
Sanuye's ears perked despite her frown. If a gappermonger was not like a rabid hyena, then it was quite possible that this young lioness had met a new kind of villain. It might even be a type of evil creature that was the next level up from rabid hyenas! The thought was very exciting. He listened intently as she described the gappermonger in great detail, nodding enthusiastically. That sounded like a super villain right there. "Is it smart?" He asked, not aware that she was creating something off the top of her head. "Smarter than a lion?" If it was, it had to be the boss of rabid hyenas, and use them as minions. An evil villain always had henchmen of some kind.
Her question surprised him. "Me? I never met one face to face, but I've heard about them! They're big and they eat whole wilderbeasts whenever they get hungry! And they hate lions. I don't know if they hate lion cubs, but they hate adults for sure. That's why they hunt them. It takes a real hero to defeat a rabid hyena! They might be dumb, but they're really strong. Have you ever met one?" This lioness seemed knowledgeable. Perhaps she was the daughter of a hero.
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:21 pm
"Well," she considered, tilting her head as if she were racking her brain for her knowledge of the creature. In fact, she was just simply trying to decide. "It's not really that smart, though I wouldn't call it dumb either. It knows how to get what it wants, kind of in a primal way. That's the only way I can explain it." Adding a bit of mystical, unsure qualities to something always made it seem more dangerous. "It's definitely not smarter than a lion, but it's faster and more savage. Probably stronger too. It makes up for being less intelligent for sure." She added a knowing nod to the end of this, a grimace on her maw as if she were afraid to remember.
"That sounds terrible," she said with a tilt of her head, "though I don't think they would come anywhere near here. There are enough lions here to put any hyena in its place, rabid or not." She listened intently as he spoke, filing away this new creature into her bank of memories. It would be great for her stories! "Met one? Oh, no. I've met a regular hyena, though, and I suppose they'd be rather similar wouldn't they? This one was a bit crazy, but certainly not rabid."
His ears flicked backwards as she started to describe the intelligence of the mythical gappermonger. It sounded very frightening, to say the least. He was glad he hadn't learned about these creatures when he was a cub. Even if he was a sidekick, there was no way he would have been able to stand up to one and survive. He would have been as easy to catch as a wounded gazelle. "Is that why some cubs disappear? They get eaten by a gappermonger who comes into a pride? And do they live together?" One gappermonger seemed like a fierce foe, and two seemed practically deadly. A hero would really struggle with one of these.
"You've never a crazy hyena? Hmm… they would be close to rabid, but not exactly. Sometimes crazy creatures can be helpful, but usually they don't do a lot of harm. You just have to be careful around them." Sanuye gave a sage nod. In one of the stories his mother had told him, a hero hadn't been careful enough around a crazy animal and had nearly got his ear bitten off. Seeing as Sanuye liked both of his ears, he had been cautious around potentially crazy animals ever since. "You know lots of stuff about evil creatures though. Is your dad a hero?"
"That's probably why, yes, but they're so sneaky that they don't get caught very often," she sighed at the thought, shaking her head as if it were a great tragedy. To think, all those poor cubs that get stolen and eaten! "Oh, no, they don't live together very often. Only two or three, if they do at all. They're very greedy, always want all the cubs to themselves, you see. It makes it hard to hunt together." That was a good thing though - if they lived in big packs, why, they could whipe an entire pride of it's cubs!
"I think this one wasn't very harmful at all, just a bit giddy. It was amusing," she laughed softly at the thought, for this was an actual story she had lived. The hyena had been a silly thing, spouting random stories for her that she had somehow been convinced were very true despite the unlikliness of them. "He didn't stay long, though, said he had to go home because his mother was calling. I never heard a thing." She shrugged at that, but she supposed strange creatures had strange ways.
"My..dad?" She faltered here, shifting uneasily as the the one topic she was never very confident on was brought up. It was a bit of taboo in the pride, to be honest, but she didn't want to shy away from it. "I'm not sure, I suppose he might be, but I wouldn't know." She lifted her chin, bright red eyes gleaming defiantly, "mom says he's a rogue." She knew that rogues were viewed badly in the lands, feared almost, even though there had been a couple that had joined recently. "But I know all this because I'm a hero," she said with a frown at him, as if she was disappoined at his implication that heroes had to be male, "or a heroine, to be more precise."
He sighed in relief when his companion said that they did not live in groups. "The better for us then." Thank goodness! He would have had to tell anyone who was guarding the border about these gappermongers if they had lived in groups. One of them sounded bad, but not bad enough that someone like his father or one of the warriors could take it. Besides, pride warriors could work together, which was something that gappermongers didn't seem to be able to do. "I wouldn't want to fight a bunch of gappermongers. That wouldn't end very well even for a hero."
Sanuye was slightly envious that she had met a real hyena, but he pushed the feelings aside when they changed topics. She seemed unsure about her father, and he tilted his head in confusion. Did she wish to avoid the subject because her father was dead? He certainly didn't expect her to say that she didn't know him because he was a rogue. The young lion gave a small gasp at her confession, amazed that there were lions in the pride who actually had parents from outside the pride. It seemed rather scandalous.
"You're a heroine? Is that like… a female hero?" The very idea made him scrunch his nose and frown in confusion. "I didn't think heroes could be female. Are you sure?"
"Most certainly not," she said with a shake of her head. She might even think gappermongers were real by this point - who knew what really went on in her head. Half the time she seemed to think she lived in her fantasy stories anyway. It was a shame that her number one stars of these stories had abandoned her to go off and do their own things by this point in their quickly paced lives.
At his gasp, she grimaced lightly, turning her gaze away pointedly so that she didn't have to see whatever reaction he had. As a cub, the thought of having a rogue father hadn't really bothered her. This was partly because she didn't know why it was such a problem, though some of it was to do with the fact that she could simply pretend he was some amazing hero of legend. As she grew older, she learned exactly why it was wrong, had heard the whispers about she and her siblings. She'd had to come face to face with it. Her step-grandfather (a rather young lion to be a grandfather by any name, in fact) had been her only comfort.
"What do you mean, am I sure?" she snapped a bit as she turned to look back at him. A frown was on her maw, but it wasn't precisely mean - she was glad for the topic change. "Of course I'm sure, I aught to know what I am, don't you think?" She huffed lightly, shaking her small mane tuft, "we are rare, but we exist."
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:29 pm
Sanuye had been lucky enough to come from a typical Mteo'nyungu family. His mother was a Msaka, his father was a Shujaa, and both of them had been pride members for quite a while. He had only learned about rogue lions during one of his 'quests', at which point his father had deemed it proper to tell him about the way the pride felt about rogues. Seeing as he was training to become a Shujaa himself, he had taken the words to heart. Rogues were starting to be allowed in, that much he had heard from his mother, but it was something that the pride took very seriously. Still, this lioness didn't seem too bad, despite her rogue father. She had been allowed to grow up here, so that must mean she was accepted.
"Well yeah, I guess you should know…" He still sounded rather unsure about this whole 'female hero' thing. It sounded weird, almost like it was against the rules. Especially when she said that being a female hero was rare. How did he know that she wasn't bluffing? Should could be a villain in disguise! "How did you find out that you were a hero, anyways?"
"You don't find out," she said with a shrug, yawning a bit as she relaxed into a laying position on her belly, staring up at the sky now with her head on her paws. Being a hero was tiring sometimes, that was for sure. "You just know it, you know?" She shrugged her shoulders this, as if the world was simply this way and it was common sense. "When you fight villains and monsters, that makes you a hero, not a normal lion." She rolled her eyes over to look at him, maybe to see if he was questioning what she was saying.
She had never really fought real lions, but she had gone on enough of her 'adventures' that she figured she was a heroine. She wouldn't be a warrior, by any means - she'd take the normal rank a lionss was expected to. But not all heroes stood out from the crowd, did they? No, Rahu was convinced that a lot of heroes blended in on prupose to make it so that their enemies would never be able to find them. Surprise attacks and all that. It would give her the edge she needed one day, she was sure.
The young lion rolled into a more comfortable position, looking thoughtful for a moment. What this lioness was saying sounded true. After all, that was how he had known he was a sidekick. He'd been able to defend himself against foes and fight evil, but he hadn't been all that good at it. That was why he was the sidekick and not the hero. He was good for coming up with back-up plans and helping to save the day, but he didn't do too much heroing. It would be too hard on him. Even so, a female hero? His mother had never told him anything about them before, and she was the Great Mother! Perhaps she had been waiting for him to discover it on his own. She did things like that from time to time. Sanuye had never been a fan of lessons that weren't quite as structured as quests, but he did whatever the Great Mother asked of him. She would, no doubt, tell him to use his head if he asked her about female heroes. Seeing as his head said that this female acted like a hero and was knowledgeable like a hero, he concluded she must be one. Even if she was a 'she.'
"I believe you," he said finally. "But if you're a hero you must have done all kinds of heroing things. Have you done the quest for the vulture feather?" Sanuye was about to ask her more questions, when he realized he was missing out on a very important one. "Oh and uh… what's your name?"
She smiled pleasantly as she earned his trust, or rather, his belief that she was actually a hero. She believed it, but she understood that in this pride sometimes no one else believed what someone else had to say. She didn't struggle openly, but she had always been a kind of living proof that others did. After all, her father was a rogue, which made her a walking, talking taboo. Why would she be strict about the rules? She just didn't try to bring more attention to herself, which was probably what made her such a longer, always out on her own 'quests'.
"No, I've never done that one," she said with a slight frown, tilting her head as she looked at him. It suddenly occured to her that she had found someone that might easily replace one or both of her siblings. They were busy doing their own thing, but that didn't mean she couldn't make new friends, and if he was already eager to go on adventures, then she didn't have to do any convincing, now did she? "I've always just done my own adventures, since I've never really had anyone to guide me, you know? My mom isn't really the hero type. Maybe my dad was, but he's not here." Again, she shrugged, as if it were just a fact of the world.
She rolled onto her back then, to stare at the clouds passing lazily overhead, a hum on her maw for a few moments before she finally answered him. "My name is Mina'Rahu," she said, rolling her eyes to the side to look at him, "and you?"
Ah, that was a nice smile. It was different from the one his mother gave him, but nice just the same. She seemed to be pleased that he had accepted her declaration as a hero. But what else could a sidekick do? While it was true that he could have waited and waited until a male hero came along, you were supposed to tag team with the first hero you came on. That was how it worked in all the stories. Where was the fun in picking and choosing which hero you wanted?
"It was a good quest. Vultures are kind of scary though," he admitted. "My mama used to send me on quests a lot when I was little, and my dad used to help too. They always came up with good quests together. They told good stories too. It's hard to do lots of quests when you have work to do, but my mama still finds time to give me ones now. They're a little more challenging, but they're still good. We should ask her for a quest one time." Somehow, they were a unit now, whether or not the lioness chose to accept him or not.
"Mina'Rahu," he repeated slowly, to make sure he got the name right. "It sounds like a hero name! I'm Sanuye Atadiusti. I'm not a hero type, so I don't have a hero name, but that's okay. I'm the sidekick, waitin' to find my hero." He grinned at her.
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:35 pm
"I agree, I don't much like vultures myself, even if gappermongers are a hundred times worse. They're creepy old birds," she admitted, shaking her head with a comical frown in place. She had already decided that they seemed like a good pair at this point. At the mention of stories, her frown turned quickly into a smile, her ears perking as she leaned her head up a little from its reclining position on the grass. "I love stories," she said with a little laugh, shutting her eyes as her head flopped back. "I think asking her for a quest some time would be great, I'm running out of things to do. There aren't that many villains here, you know."
"It's nice to meet you Sanuye Atadiusti, but just call me Rahu" she said, her grin still in place as she peeked one eye open to look in his direction. "I think your name is just fine for a sidekick's! I suppose mine could be a hero name, but it's really from an old story." She let her tail lash a bit as she listened to his next words, then popped both eyes open as she rolled onto her stomach. "Well, I'm a hero and you're a sidekick. I think it was meant to be, Sanuye!"
"They have this really creepy look about them too. Their eyes are weird, and so are their noses." He made a face. "And they hop around and speak funny. I think they're bizarre, but mama says they're important in their own way." Sanuye wasn't so sure how important a bird was when compared to a lion, but he never doubted what his mother said about anything. She was the Great Mother, after all. "Yeah, the Shujaa make sure there's no villains here. I wonder if we could find ones that are hiding here? Like secret villains?"
"If I can just call you Rahu then you can just call me Sanuye. Atadiusti is just my last name. It's for formal stuff. My dad has it though, so I have it and my brother and my sisters have it too." He rarely used it though, only for introductions. His mama had always taught him to be polite, after all. "Of course it's meant to be! That's how it happens in all the stories, so it's gotta be. But what story is your name from?" He'd never heard the name Mina'Rahu until just recently.
"Well, I think that vultures eat dead animals, don't they?" she said with a tilt of her head, trying to remember what she had learned about them. "If we didn't have vultures, then there would be stinky dead animals laying around everywhere, don't you think?" She wrinkled her nose a little as if at the very idea of smelly carcasses everywhere, then let out a little laugh. "I bet there are some secret villains somewhere, but we'd only find them if we explored and hunted. Like uhm.. detectives!" She tilted her head at the idea. "Or maybe spies?" She wasn't sure what to call it.
"Alright, then I'll just call you Sanuye. I've never heard of anyone having a last name before, that's kind of neat." She wondered if he would give his last name to his cubs too whenever he had any. If his dad did, didn't that mean he probably would too? Who knew, that was way beyond her scope of ideas. "Well, it's an old story my grandma told me once. When the sun or the moon go dark, during an eclipse, there was an old legend once that said it was a big dragon that ate them and that's why they were gone." She grinned, wiggling her back a little to motion to the odd markings. "My name means 'blue dragon that eats the sun and the moon'."
Hmm… he supposed if they ate dead animals then they weren't all that bad. They must be like the garbage clean up. Even so, they were still very, very creepy. He definitely didn't want to end up too close to one. Getting a feather from one was the only time he would touch such a creature, and the only reason he'd needed a feather was because of a quest.He would do anything if it was a quest. At the distinction of jobs he paused thoughtfully. "I think we'd be detectives. Spies sounds kind of evil and villain-like but I suppose we could always be good spies. But being a detective sounds more involved!" Sanuye had never been a detective before, but it hardly mattered what he'd done anymore. He had a hero to follow now!
Sanuye listened attentively as Rahu told her story. "A dragon eats the sun and the moon? Wow… I've never seen a dragon before! But I've never seen an eclipse either," he added, as an afterthought. "Do dragons only come out during eclipses?" His mother had only told him a few stories about dragons, but they were never very descriptive. He had never heard of them being big enough to eat the sun or the moon though.
"That's what the story says, but you know, not all stories are true. Some of them are just make believe, because lions like to hear pretty stories," she said with a little shrug, her tail flicking behind her. If the story was true or not, she didn't know, she just knew that it gave a special meaning to her name and made it unique. "I'm not sure if they only come out during eclipses. Maybe the sun or the moon is what draws them out, you know? They could hibernate the rest of the time and come out to eat." She frowned in thought at this, but she had no way of ever really knowing this.
"Well, I suppose that will be our first adventure, being detectives! I feel sorry for any hiding villains in these lands, because we're going to root them out and defeat them." She puffed out her chest a bit and lifted her chin defiantly. She wouldn't have any villains hiding in her home land, that was for sure. "Now we'll just have to decide where and when to start looking first, yea?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:39 pm
Sanuye made a face. "Stories can all be true. You can never say you've been everywhere in the world at the correct time, and thus if you haven't seen it than it's not true. Besides, it's nicer to believe in stuff. The bad stuff is scary, but there's also good stuff you can believe in too. I kinda like the idea of dragons. They're probably really beautiful." He stared up at the clouds for a moment, lost in thought. Dragons that ate the sun and the moon huh? He'd have to think up a good story about dragons. They sounded very cool.
He was brought back to reality by Rahu's declaration, and he nodded eagerly. "Villains will fear the names of Rahu and Sanuye! But only after we discover them and out them, because if we give ourselves away we might be had. The villains can't find out about us too early." Not to mention they were going to be detectives, so that required some stealth. It would do them no good if they were found out. "And where to start looking… um, maybe some of the old dens? To see if they're hiding?"
"I don't think all stories can all be true, because then some would overlap and counter each other wouldn't it?" her brows drew down into a furrow at the thought, but then she simply shrugged it off. It wasn't really much of her concern, and thinking too deeply about that made her head hurt.
Thus, instead, she pushed herself to her feet and set herself in a bold stature. With her chin up, she turned her head to look in the direction of the old dens, then lifted a paw to motion to Sanuye. "Well, come on then. If the old dens are where those scoundrels are hiding, it's to the old dens we'll be going!" She let out an amused laugh, then turned herself in that direction, glancing over her shoulder at him once before she began to trot that way.
"Oh." Sanuye tilted his head to consider her words. "I didn't think of that." Come to think of it, if everything was true some stories would contradict each other. But, then again, people could interpret stories differently and arrive at different truths. He didn't give the idea very much thought, however. He had more important things to focus on.
Like Rahu's body language. A true hero pose. It made him terribly excited. He would have all kinds of adventures with a lioness who had such a perfect hero pose! He grinned broadly at his new friend before trotting eagerly after her. "Lead on brave hero!" And let the adventures begin.
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