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 Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:50 pm
Nabihi was beginning to think this was a bad idea. See, she'd never really gotten angry enough before to have the experience of acting without thinking, and the longer she followed the wild dog the more evident it became that she was not in her right mind. Maybe the fall had done more than merely hurt her neck a bit. She considered the possibility that she had, perhaps, gone quite insane, but the ability to consider the fact combined with her growing panic convinced her she was still quite herself.
It had less been madness, she decided, than a strange want to please her new friend. Gzifa had been nice to her, which was strange enough in Nabihi's book, and she had listened to her mad little story, which was still completely unbelievable, she thought, and so doing this thing for her didn't seem that awful. And this was a nice place to be, lots of things to eat, it's just that the idea that maybe she would become one of those things was beginning to weigh on her mind.
"So, uhm, are we almost there? We're not going to get in trouble, are we?" she asked Gzifa hesitantly, "Only you see, if it's going to be a problem I'll just believe you and we can go."
That may have been a lie. Actually, considering the fact that she was convinced, now, that a lion was going to eat her it was definitely a lie. There were no nice friendly lions. Gzifa was clearly not thinking straight either, which was very easy to believe, all things considered.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:15 am
There was not an ounce of doubt in Gzifa's body and it showed. She more skipped than walked through the pridelands. It was common practice for her to hum, dance, turn as she walked. She didn't realize to someone else this wouldn't look normal. It was normal for her.
She finished her fifth spin and during the turn looked at Nabihi in wonder. How could she be so paranoid over something so simple? Gzifa was dense, but not that dense. Her tension wasn't falling on useless emotional dectors. "Of course not. This is probably the most open pride of all." She'd been through over a dozen times. No one said a thing. Why would now be different? "Just stop acting so weird and it'll be fine. We've already passed a million lions!"
Meaning two.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:32 am
Nabihi had noticed, at first, that Gzifa walked in an odd way, but, she thought, it might be normal for wild dogs. Walking of any kind was weird for Nabihi, being as she usually had two speeds (run and stop), and besides, it sort of suited her. So she'd stopped really paying attention to it, seeing as how her imminent death had moved to the top of her priority list (again).
"Really? Open to what?"
It seemed like a valid question. Prides were a mystery to her, she was solitary by nature and usually by choice, and the whole group thing wasn't something she understood. She couldn't imagine not being able to get away from someone who was bothering her.
"Millions?" she squeaked. She hadn't noticed, she was now trapped. Running was no longer an option.
Which, she guessed made things easier. If she was already doomed there was nothing she could do about it, so she relaxed.
"Who are we here to meet, anyway?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:39 am
"Open to, you know, being open." Gzifa did have logic. It was just kind of bad logic that told her the way she thought was how everyone did. If something made sense to her surely Nabihi would see it the same way. "There's a lot of prides with lions who enslave strangers who come into where they live, or sometimes just beat or kill them." That. That right there someone smarter probably wouldn't have said to someone already quaking in fear of the big cats. "This pride isn't like that though. You can walk in and out whenever you want, pretty much!"
To meet...?
Here to meet...
Uh...
"The lion I was helping." Right. But where had he gone? "Although I don't see him anywhere. He's uh, a dark brown color, and kind of yellowy. Do you see him?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:45 am
"Oh."
As far as Nabihi knew it was a damn good answer. She figured it wasn't but at the same time she didn't know for certain.
"Oh," she said, this time with shock, "That's awful!"
Nabihi didn't exactly know what slavery entailed, but she figured it couldn't be good when held hand in hand with beating and killing. She knew she'd avoided lions for a reason, what horrible things to do. And yet, here she was, waltzing into a pride's territory. Brilliant.
"Well, that’s good," she said, wondering at the 'pretty much', but already too certain of her demise to fret about that detail.
"The lion you were helping? Helping what? You don't know his name?" she asked, looking around even as she became more worried. She'd assumed Gzifa had known this lion, but she barely even knew what the looked like! Brownish yellow was basically a template for lions!
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:49 am
"Yeah." By time Gzifa agreed she couldn't remember what she was agreeing to. Something about slaves. Probably that it was bad to have them. Birds were awesome. "Hm... Nope. I don't think I ever got his name." That or she'd forgotten. A likely story. "Uh... oh! I know that one though!" The dancing ceased and she jumped up a few times, nodding wildly toward not a brown and yellow, but purple and white lion sleeping his life away. "I'll go get him! Maybe he knows!"
Gzifa saw no problem with bounding over and jumping on So like a child on a bed. "Hey! Hey you!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:54 am
Nabihi bit her tongue, choked on the blood, and died.
The end.
Not really.
But that seemed like a very pleasant option as the wild dog went over and POUNCED on an otherwise sleeping and mostly harmless lion while yelling like a thing gone mad. No sane creature would do that! Everyone she met was mad! At least the other option would have been a quick death.
"Oh oh oh! Don't DO that!" she fretted, pacing quickly back and forth around the little flailing dog with panic on the edge of her voice and brow furrowed.
"Pleasedon'tdothatohgodsGzifa!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:05 am
Seeing her new friend in a panic, Gzifa's interest in her task of waking the slumbering beast up was lost. She left So's company in favor of Nahibi's and was more amused than anything by how frantic she appeared all of the sudden. Silly thing! "Why are you spazzing out so much?"
So was heavy sleeper. There was no one that much of a heavy sleeper. A wild dog pouncing, then jumping on him? Yeah, that'd do it. He had woken up in a daze with his lightning-fast reflexes and sprung into action. Except not. So had woken up quick and stumbled up, fell on his face, then got back up. What in the--Oh.
"...Oh, you're back." He sounded a little shocked. "You're, uh... really, really late."
Shwari had left hours ago.
"Did you bring--"
Nope. She hadn't brought any kill. Just... a cheetah? Huh. "Uh..."
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:11 am
"Wh-wh" Nabihi's voice stuck in her throat. Suddenly the lioness and her goddamn baboon didn't seem nearly as bad, and she desperately wanted to scream again, but this time couldn't even do that.
Her eyes darted back to the lion again, who was... well he wasn't too ferocious yet, but he was still too big and was probably just not awake enough to eviscerate them yet, but with Gzifa's help he no doubt would be very, very shortly.
"Oh god, I am so sorry," Nabihi finally managed to say to the (purple, what was up with that? She'd never seen a purple one before), "Really, really sorry."
She wanted to add 'Gzifa is a little special', 'please don't kill me', and, in a small way, 'eh, what you b*****d?', but mostly she wanted to say nothing and to just run. But a million lions, right? Where would she go, she didn't even really know where she was. She could stumble right into the middle of a whole group of them next.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:18 am
So didn't finish so Gzifa couldn't answer. She'd long forgotten her original goal for the day. Her new one was much more important! She had to go catch a prey beast to help the lion right away! --Wait, no. What was it? Help Nahibi. Right.
"She doesn't like lions," Gzifa explained.
For being in the pridelands his entire life, So had met and dealt with all sorts, entirely thanks to his and Shwari's life of gaming. Since half of them involved bringing in outsiders and willing partcipants didn't tend to be what you'd call stable. But, being afraid of lions? This was new.
"Oh, is that so? You shouldn't be. We're pretty lazy and you could outrun any of us anyway."
Insert pleasent, charming smile.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:31 am
Nabihi thought that perhaps Gzifa was not as simple and sweet as she seemed, but was more evil and conniving and quite possibly a mastermind of insidious plots. Not much else explained, in her mind, telling a lion that she didn't like them.
"It's not so much not like really," she said, nervous again.
She didn't blink. Blinking might be dangerous, instead she listened and then said, "Oh, well, yes, but you're very much bigger and can travel much further. Gzifa was telling me about slavery," she added, and then realized that her brain had shut down and her mouth was running on auto-pilot and none of this was what she wanted the lion to hear at all.
"Hello, nice to meet you though, I am Nabihi. I wouldn't want to bother you any further so I'm sure I'll be going now though," she added, once again babbling.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:39 am
At the end of the day So cared little about anything other than Shwari and his games with Shwari. He'd never admit that first part because it was super gay and he didn't need another reason presented on a silver platter for Shwari to harp him for being a girl. Pssh. A little care for his pride wasn't enough for him to care about some cheetah's opinion of it or it's members.
"I'm So. Don't run off so quickly. I'd like to help you." What he did care about was that Gzifa had come back which met Shwari had lost. Good deal. He'd need her to stay around as proof until Shwari got back from wherever he'd gone. Stalling. For the win. "I wouldn't overestimate our stamina. It's very low. In any case, Nabihi, why so jumpy? Just because of the slave bit?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:45 am
Nabihi didn't go anywhere. She figured she needed to know which way to go first, and if she ran there may be an alarm or something.
Or whatever, she wasn't in trouble yet, and she was almost tired of all of this. She'd had a long day, and if she was just about tired of worrying about it. It was all too strange and she figured she needed to cut her losses and just pretend none of this was happening or ever happened.
"Help me?"
She didn't get what there was to help with. She had a healthy fear of something that could kill her. No one tried to help people get over there fear of say, falling off of cliffs. Cliffs were dangerous. No one tried to stop others from fearing snakes, snakes also could kill you. It was stupid to pretend that these things were harmless.
"Clearly you've never been a cheetah."
She was a little more snarky than usual, but it was true. For all that it was totted that cheetah were so fast, they also wore out quick and had all of two gears. It was a problem when you wanted to get somewhere far away and fast.
"No, that was a nice new thing to learn about lions. Rather more than I needed to, since the whole big deadly killer thing was enough for me."
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:52 am
Well. This phobia didn't seem to have any logic it all. So wasn't the type to be annoyed. The exception was someone ruining his game time--like that bratty little cub who would never see him again if she knew what was good for her. Because he'd... kick dirt in her face. Yeah.
"I haven't been a cheetah, but, I have been a lion. And I can tell you pointless slaughtering another cat is pretty low on our list. Why would we waste time and energy on that if we get tired so easy? Besides, the pridelanders don't have any history of slavery. That's only the barbaric fools like the firekin who do things like that. Don't get me wrong, there are bad lions, too. But there's plenty of cheetah out there who could kill me I'm sure. Size isn't everything, after all. That doesn't make me afraid of you."
Gzifa sat and watched.
This was getting good.
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Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:56 am
"Oh," Nabihi was a little angry now, "And have you ever passed out because you got overheated just trying to catch a meal and not gotten anything out of it? And I've never met a bad cheetah, and I've only ever met crazy lions. Maybe there are a few out there that aren't crazy, but I don't know them," she said finished, haughtily.
And then she realized what she had said.
"Sorry."
She shifted uncomfortably before adding, "And it's not like anything would stop you from eating a cheetah, I doubt we taste bad."
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