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 Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:58 pm
It had been a number of days since Noti had left her remaining siblings and mother behind as she went off on an excursion of her own making. She was growing restless remaining by the same stupid tree every stupid day for her entire life. Her paws were ready to move on to the wide, open world and see what she could see of their great homeland. She wanted to meet who she could meet and venture wherever the wind took her, broaden her horizons and generally lead a more interesting and enjoyable life. Surely her mother could understand her desire to move on, to grow up? Certainly Noti was not quite an adult yet, but she was old enough to know what she wanted in life, and to pursue those desires on her own with the determination that she had been born with.
But she felt as if she needed her mother's permission, and simply running away without obtaining it felt as if she were cheating herself out on one thing or another: like a goodbye. And so, quietly as her thoughts wandered, her paws carried her home again.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:03 pm
Tuli was worried. Of course she was worried, she was always worried ever since she had become a mother all that time ago. Ever since that scoundrel Kimanda had left her with six little girls to raise all on her own when she was not much more than a little girl herself. Tuli had hardly been fit for children when the full litter had been born. She had always been such a thin cat, and it had been difficult to continue hunting for herself after her traveling companion, and the father of her cubs, had left her. So she had been worried then, before the birth, and she had worried as she raised them. Would they grow up to be good, respectable cheetahs? Could she keep their little bellies full so that they grew up at all? Could she protect them from a world that was so very dangerous to such small felines? And now she worried because her daughters were nearly completely grown, and she knew that they would be wanting to start lives of her own and she wasn't ready to let them go.
Her pink cub, her Noti, had been gone for a few days now and with each passing hour her worry grew and her nerves were nearly shot. Was the adolescent gone for good?
But now, as the sun was setting and she lifted her pretty gray head to look over the horizon, she saw a familiar pink figure making it's way towards home and she sat to wait the cheetah's arrival with controlled mixture of emotions like a hurricane hurling through her.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:10 pm
Noti knew that saying goodbye would be difficult for the two cheetahs for entirely different reasons. For her it would be because as much as she would miss seeing her sisters and her mother every day, she was distractingly eager to go out into the world and make a new life for herself. For her mother, it would be because she would not be able to let go of one of her children so easily. It was strange, considering how many there were of them, that their mother had become so equally attached to each of them, but attached she was. Even from this distance, Noti could hardly breathe through the thick worry that seemed to have enveloped her home in her absence. She could see her mother now, pausing in her pacing to sit and await her daughter's arrival. Noti felt absolutely sick with her own breed of concern, not looking foward to the inevitable discussion to which she was heading towards. Sighing, she let her head fall a few millimeters towards the ground as she picked up the pace, knowing it would not do well to make her mother wait needlessly.
As she neared, she thought she might implode with the overbearing worry that clouded the air. Couldn't her mother see that she was alright? She frowned deeper and sat infront of the slightly larger gray cheetah, raising her blue eyes to meet her mother's own, "Hello, mother."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:15 pm
The cheetah was right that this was not going to be easy. Mvuatuliva had every intention of putting up a fight during the discussion that she knew was coming. So long an absence from a growing cheetah could only mean one thing: Noti was ready to leave. The fear that the adolescent might have gotten into some sort of trouble while she was gone, such as the impregnated-resulting-in-grandcubs kind of trouble, definitely crossed the young mother's mind and she shifted her weight from one paw to the other as she watched the pink cub - or grown child, whichever - draw closer. Her gaze subtly grazed Noti's form, attempting to discern whether or not she looked even the slightest bit chubbier. Content that she didn't, and that perhaps she wasn't bringing home news that she was pregnant or that the possibilty didn't even exist, Tuli sighed fretfully and felt the frustration begin to well in her chest. Now that she was assured that Noti was safe and unharmed, she was starting to feel the anger bubble and threaten to burst forth. It was fueled by fear, but how could she help such things?
Her eyes narrowed slightly as Noti approached and settled into a seated position before her, Tuli's own tail twitching unconsciously before it curled around to lay across her forepaws gently and her back straightened a bit so that she was seated at her full height and didn't look quite so pathetically distraught. Frowning, she retorted, "Where have you been?" That opened the floodgates and she blurted, "I was worried."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:16 pm
The anger and frustration exploded into her heart and her head so fast that Noti didn't even have time to prepare herself and keep her lips pressed in a firm line. In human terms, she had hit the stage of a rebellious teenager, and she would not take her mother's patronizing and manipulative whining lightly. She was determined that she would come out on top of this verbal altercation and she would leave, whether it was on good terms or otherwise. She had wanted to put her mother's heart at ease by coming to say goodbye, but she could already sense that this was going to go very sour, very fast. Her own eyes narrowed at her mother's irritated expression, her own tail twitching violently against the dirt that surrounded their little cave as her blue eyes glanced over at the dark opening. Her sisters must have already turned in for the night, as she didn't see any inquisitive heads peaking out at the pair of them, and neither were attempting to keep their voices down.
Every muscle in her thin form tensed as she tried to restain the anger that threatened to lash out verbally at the mother that she honestly held quite dear. Instead her retort was harsh but not outright offensive. She sought to make her point by the tone of her voice rather than the actual words she used to respond to her mother's outburst. "I was fine, mother. I'm a big girl, I can tuck myself in and the whole deal."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:35 pm
Tuli wasn't completely shocked by the retort from her cub, but nor did she let it slide, either. Her own muscles tensed as she had to concentrate to keep from standing and completely losing her cool too soon as well. She was upset by the whole ordeal, certainly, but she couldn't let her worry over Noti's disappearance cause the cub's return to be further destroyed. Perhaps she could still save their relationship from whatever had torn it asunder, perhaps she could still make things better. Still, the retort did bite and she started slightly before narrowing her eyes even further, having to swallow her anger as she quickly thought of a suitable response that would hopefully not make things explode in her face. This was going to be difficult, as Mvuatuliva had no doubt that she was dealing with a very unpredictable teenager among cheetahs. Noti had always been the stubborn one: quiet and determined to prove herself at everything she did. It would only make sense that she would be quick to leave their home as soon as she felt mature enough.
"I just want to keep you from making the same mistakes that I did." She realized the error in her choice of words too late and she winced - no, grimaced visibly before attempting to add in a rushed grumble, "No, I mean, that's not what I meant to say. You know what I mean, Noti. I just want to protect you."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:40 pm
Noti started as if she had been slapped clean across the face. Even her tail seemed to double in size, utterly surprised and distressed by her mother's unintentional phrasing. They all knew that they had not exactly been a planned birth, and that their arrival as well as their upbringing had took its toll on their mother. The entire litter knew that while their mother loved them very much, that she might have been better off if she had not made such naive mistakes in the first place and that there were much, much better circumstances in which for a litter to be born. It was never said; they didn't often talk about their father because for many of the sisters it made them too angry to carry on a decent conversation anyway, Noti included. She despised her father for leaving her mother alone with so many mouths to feed, even if he had had no idea that she would have so many cubs to begin with. All the same, Noti felt the stung of her mother's words and she snapped, "But I'm not like you, mother."
Her tail violently snapped to one side, resuming its sleek appearance with that simple yet aggressive gesture, her hackles rising even as her tail smoothed out, "I won't make any stupid mistakes to raise. I won't let someone like Dad dupe me."
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:57 pm
Whether or not Tuli had intended on hurting her cub with her phrasing apparently didn't matter considering that Noti had immediately taken an offensive defensive attitude and insulting her mother despite Tuli's apologetic addition. She hadn't meant to phrase her thoughts so poorly, but it seemed that things were taking a drastic turn for the worst despite her best intentions. Noti was distraught and angry, and her words were only serving like a hot poker to stir up Tuli's own rage and frustration. She felt her insides curling over each other as if they couldn't take the heat, her eyes narrowing further at her daugher's insolent behavior and disrespectful remarks. She snapped, "You may not be like me, Noti, but you're just as prone to mistakes."
Tuli knew that Noti had always been sensitive to the fact that the litter had been hard on their mother, and that was why the cub had always been so eager to please and make things easier. Now that didn't seem to matter. Noti was being defiant and hard-headed, there wasn't much Tuli could do at this point except defend herself, "I'm not talking about cubs, Noti, I'm talking about a dozen other bad things that could happen to a cub out there. The dangers, like the lions and the stampedes." She ignored the mention of their father, knowing that that was most definitely not a subject she wanted to breach just then.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:12 pm
This was all too much. The threads that tied her to home were being stretched to their breaking point, and she could, figuratively, feel them starting to fray. The thin lines were being pulled too far by the direction of this conversation, and Noti was starting to get a headache for how hard her eyes were narrowed and her brow was furrowed in a look of pure frustration. It was as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing - and she couldn't! Her mother was digging a deeper and deeper hole for herself and Noti wasn't even sure if she was meaning to or not. Was she trying to get her daughter to stay or go, because it felt as if she were attempting to push her away while keeping her close at the same time and it was confusing the Hell out of the cub. Adolescent! She was not a cub any more, no matter what her mother was choosing to believe. Her blue eyes blazed with anger, "I am not. I'm careful. I learn from other peoples mistakes."
She snarled, nails digging into the ground as she tried to determined whether or not it was even worth it to stick around much longer. At her mother's words, she leapt to her feet suddenly as her tail lashed her sides. She didn't even hear the rest of what Tuli had said as her mind had latched onto the word 'cub'. "I am not a cub anymore! Why can't you get that into your head?!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:27 pm
She could feel her grip on the situation growing slick as it swiftly began to spin out of her control. It didn't seem like anything she could say would make things better now, and she was being egged on by her daughter's behavior al lthe same. That was only making things worse. Before her unplanned pregnancy, Tuli had never had much patience and her temper hadn't exactly ever had to be kept in check. Granted, it wasn't often that she really got angry anyway, but it seemed as if the cubs always knew how to push her buttons. Or maybe she was just constantly in a state of half-angry, half-upset now so that it didn't take much to push her one way or another. It made her feel horomonal, and not in the best sense of the word either. It wasn't due to anything sweet such as impending cubs, but rather simply part of being a mother. She was always stressed, and stressed led to emotional extremes such as anger or depression.
She was obviously headed towards the red just then.
"You are hardly more than a cub, Noti! You've still got alot of growing up to do!" She was desperate to make the girl see that, but it didn't seem to be working.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:41 pm
Tuli was right in some ways, except that the situation had just slipped out of her grasp; it had slipped away from her sometime ago. She had lost her control on Noti's life long before. Perhaps she would have been able to influence it, but now the cheetah's determination was set and she was angry. Noti had always been slow to forgive. She hadn't forgiven her father yet for what he had done, and now she would have to nurse the wounds made by her mother, no matter how superficial they were. She would have to come to forgive her mother, but that was not something that could be done now. No, for now she was far too angry and it was time to go. Seething, she drew herself up to her full height, still barely as large as her mother but showing that she may pass her mother's size in adulthood, and glared at the gray cheetah, "I can take care of myself. I am grown up."
She had set her mind to it. It was time to go, and who knew when she would see Tuli again. She was too angry to even think about going to say goodbye to her sisters. She was absolutely lost to her anger. "Goodbye, mother." And with that, she turned and went on her way, heedless to whatever her mother might say in an attempt to draw her back. She would not wait until morning, she would not wait to say goodbye to her siblings; it was time to go and she was going, that was the end of that.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:47 pm
Despite the desperation pounding through Tuli's adrenaline filled veins, she had no idea what to say to get her cub to turn back towards home. Her blue eyes were wide as the anger fled from her like wildlife before the brushfire or dirt from the rain. She was left staring at her daughter's receding back as the useless words fell from her lips, "But... your sisters... why not..." She knew any argument would be useless now and no matter how much she apologized, Noti would have to deal with her anger on her own. It wouldn't be right to say that Tuli's heart broke, because she still had a caveful of daughters behind her to worry about. Not that that lessened the pain of Noti leaving in the least: one child did not, could not replace another. But Tuli had also known that this time would come for each of them, and she had to cherish what time she had left with the others and pray that someday she got to see her Noti again.
Someday.
She couldn't tell you how long she sat there, watching her daughter disappear over the darkening horizon and staying even longer until at last she pulled herself to her feet and retreated into the cave. She had to hunt in the morning, but for not it was time for mourning sleep.
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