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 Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 1:17 pm
 Ears perked at attention, a red earth-attuned female palui stalks her current "prey." The grasshopper just inches from her paws had yet to take note of her presence, and she was just about to get it.. almost, almost.. no! Just as she was ready to pounce, the tricky thing aught sight of the gold on her ears. "I'll get you yet mister bug! Can't jump forever! ...wait, can it?" Shaking her head, Khepri sets back to stalking after the insect, flicking her gold leafy tail behind her in excitement.
It had taken some work to get out of Anuk's sight, even with the slightly new father focusing more on his children than looking after his "sister" he still made it hard to slip away for a solo adventure sometimes. And now that she had it, there was no way some cheeky noise-making bug was going to get the better of her. Another few agonizing moments of stalking and she was ready again to pounce, pricking her ears back this time to keep their shiny glint less noticeable from the front.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 1:30 pm
Gilder was not looking for golden glints, or anything else for that matter. He was wandering alone, and brooding. The coalitions' lands seemed less and less friendly of late. They were not now his father's lands. Times were changing, but the changes were not the ones he had planned to implement when his sire died. That brute was the leader now, all brawn and no brains. He would not last. Gilder planned to see to that. He would add muscle to his frame, and he would fight and he would win and...
A female.
Red, with golden eyes and a golden marking on her brow. She looked familiar, and yet unfamiliar. Trying to overcome the strange feeling of recognition, Gilder came to a halt and studied her more carefully. "Hail, stranger. I am Gilder of the Nahele coalition." Why did she look so familiar? It was the strangest feeling he had ever had. Frowning in bemusement, Gilder looked the earth-attuned female over again and waited for a response.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 1:45 pm
Again! The grasshopper just managed to get out of her paws' reach before she could pounce. But this time, she didn't do it. A new voice startled the bug off. Curiosity pulling her focus now, Khepri forgets all about the bug for the new presence. Meeting other palui around here wasn't very common.
A turn in his direction and the female stares for a few seconds. He had gold leaves too! And eyes! Like hers! "Hi!" A tilt of the head and she perks her ears towards him in more curiosity. A coalition? There was one near this place?
"I'm Khepri. Did you know you look kinda like me? The same gold!" A grin is all she can manage, holding back the childish urge to prance over and look at him closer and compare if the cold was the same color.
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 2:06 pm
Gilder blinked. "I..." Granted they were similar. Not quite the same - her leaves were somewhat brighter - but certainly similar. How strange. "Yes," he went on after a moment, padding slowly around the female to study her better, "we do look similar..." Such a thing could be a coincidence, but it was not just the colour. Something about the form of her face and body was faimilar too... He wore a golden bracelet to remember the gold marking his father had born, and there! She had two markings just like that...
"Khepri," he came to a halt and met the gold eyes that were so hauntingly like what he saw in a clear lake when he went to drink, "where do you hail from?"
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Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:09 pm
Khepri watches him in unmasked curiosity, flicking the tip of her tail a bit as she follows his path. "Yep really similar! I haven't seen anybody with gold before." Well, Anuk and his children didn't count. their gold was just a few markings here and there, and not as bright.
"Hail? Oh! You mean where I come from? Um. I don't know. Anuk, he's my brother, found my bundle and took care of me. He's really nice but he's a dad now so he's busy a lot. He's not attuned either, so i'm bigger than him now!" She smiles at this, finding it pretty funny that she was bigger than her adopted "big" brother.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 9:47 am
Great stars but she talked a lot. Right now his curiosity was outweighing the annoyance of her chattering, but he wasn't sure how long that would continue to be the case. "I see," Gilder said after some moments, frowning to himself. "No memory of parents then." That wasn't a lot of help... It could just be chance. It could be, but somehow he didn't think it was. His father had sometimes left the coalition's lands, for scouting and such naturally... And maybe for finding female company. His sire always had appreciated an attractive female, but Gilder had believed he only looked at pretty things other than his mate. Perhaps that had been a foolish thing to believe.
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Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 11:25 am
Khepri only smiles, nodding. "I only remember rolling out of my bundle and Anuk being there. He said he found it in a clearing with nobody around. I don't mind though." And really, there wasn't a reason to mind. Anything could have happened to whoever her parents were. They could have been really forgetful, or something bad could have happened, or been chased off by those big wild dogs and forgot where the bundle was stashed. So why worry over something so long ago?
Easily changing her train of thought, gold eyes flick to his bracelet and the feather adornment. "Your bracelet matches my bands!"
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 8:58 am
Gilder nodded to the rather obvious statement. "Yes, it does. My father had a marking like yours on his right foreleg, so I wear this to remember him..." She had darker makings on her. Not immediately noticeable given the gold on her that so drew the eye, but now he saw it that too was familiar. His father had been marked like that, faint grey against his white coat.
"I wonder Khepri," Gilder said slowly after some moments of silence, "if we might be... related." It would inconceivable just from their manners, they were about as different there as you could get Te similar markings however, and the markings she had that reminded him so of his sire, were enough to persuade Gilder that perhaps the former leader of the Nahele coalition had not been quite as faithful to his mate as he had made the world believe.
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 11:49 am
Khepri grins a little and looks down at the bands on her forepaws. She hadn't seen, or heard of somebody with a band on the legs like she did. It was neat to discover that! The leaves tipping her ears twitch to reflect her good mood.
At the word "related," Khepri stares back up at him again. She blinks widely, perking her ears forward. "Related? How would we be that?"
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 12:08 pm
Gilder grimaced at the other earth attuned one. If she had been anything else, he might not have noticed but as it was... as it was... Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps all of this familiarity just came of missing his father. He wanted to see him, so he saw him in this strange female. No. No he would not fool himself so. His father had no siblings, that he knew of, so it seemed likely that his hunch was correct. That just left the matter of the mother.
"I think," Gilder said after some moments, "I think that... I think it is possible that we share a father. You have many characteristics about you that remind me of him a great deal." What of the mother? Who was she? Where was she?... Might she have other children? Might she be an ally to him. It was certainly worth trying to find out. If he was ever to be come the leader of the Nahele, he would need to use his brains. Brawn had never been his style, but if he could find and control it... Yes. It was worth finding out more about this girl, making her feel connected to him, and then finding out more about any family she might have, that might assent to be his allies if he promised reward at the end of the path.
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 10:22 pm
Khepri's hyper attitude dwindles just a bit as she starts to think. The leaftips of her eats twitch in time with her tail as she stands there."I don't know what my parents looked like, since they weren't there when I came out. Only Anuk was.. and I don't think he saw them or he would have said. I think."
Perking her ears forward again, she takes the happy grin back quickly. "Does this mean an adventure to find out?"
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 2:13 pm
Gilder sighed internally. Oh great. This was just lovely. She was... not his sort of person. If she was related to him though, if he could find other relatives, they might become allies. He could do with a few allies. Being a leader was not about being the strongest, or should not be at any rate. It should be about brain, about being able to make good decisions about the future of the coalition, not having the biggest horns and a big collection of mushrooms.
"An adventure," he said eventually, "I suppose you could call it that, yes... An expedition. I would like to know if we really are blood kin, and if we have any more out there in the world. My parents had no other children, and no siblings that I know of. I would like to find more family." Would they be like Khepri? If so, they might be more trouble than they were worth. You never knew though. he might get lucky. He might just find someone a bit like himself, a bit like his father had been. He missed him.
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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:48 pm
Seeming to not take note at all of his more serious mood, Khepri only grins and twitches her tail in eagerness. "An adventure! Anuk used to lead me on some when I was a kit before he met his mate. She's blue like him, did I say it?" Hopping lightly from one foot to another she keeps her focus on the white male now.
"You know, you won't have any fun at all if you act so glum. Adventures are supposed to be exiting and fun! If we find somebody that looks like us and you're acting so glum they might not wanna talk to us." She grins, using a near kit-like logic to try and steer the mood uphill.
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Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:44 am
Gilder sighed. Much to his disgust, she was probably right; people did not tend to associate themselves with angry looking palui. He couldn't remember the last time he had been so uninhibitedly happy as Khepri was. "I shall try to relax and enjoy the trip," he said after a moment of thought. "It will be no fun if I am too serious, for either of us or for anyone we meet." He hadn't been planning on having fun, but it might do him good to take some time out from being so serious all the time. He had never been a dizzy, bouncy creature like his companion was, but during his father's life he had been happy. Everything had gone wrong after his sire's death.
"Well then Khepri," Gilder did his best to push his considerable burden of anger, bitterness, resentment and tension aside, "let's go and see about this... Adventure. Do you know where it was your Anuk found you? That might be a good place for us to begin our quest."
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Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:23 am
A grin and energetic tail flick answer first. "See that's the way!" Khepri nearly bounces on her paws as she takes a good look around the trees for a good path to take now.
"Yep I remember it! There's a little stream I could hear outside my bundle, and Anuk didn't take it very far from there after he found it and I always went back to it to play. The flowers around it are also really pretty too, and I think one of them got me attuned too if I think about it."
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