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 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:59 am
Lots of things had happened. Not neccessarily to Ukene, but all the same: lots of things had happened. Cool things, or at least they were in her mind - her friend Ally seemed to be extremely ( extremely!) happy, and in the end, wasn't that all that mattered? (Probably not, come to think of it, but sometimes living halfway in your own world came in handy for ignoring pesky tidbits like that.) And now they even had Princes and Princesses! Again. But new ones! Which was totally mega-awesome, even though she hadn't met them yet, but seriously, could they be anything other than fantastic with Alcmene as their mum and, uh, Fafnir as their dad?! Obviously not, and Ukene was just about bursting with joy - but then again, most of the pride was. Or at least the part of the pride that she interacted with; Unyezi's scandal and the slight scepticism of Ally's rule had been overshadowed by the collective joy that was new blood - and especially new royal blood. It was an event not just for the new parents, but for the whole pride to partake in, even if they never got to meet the younglings themselves. And Ukene had decided to celebrate by trying to find the prettiest flowers in the whole of the pride's lands for her (probably completely exhausted) friend, which was why she was currently ambling around on the outskirts. Yet again.
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:52 pm
Like Ukene. He remembered his last meeting with her and he recognized her almost immediately. His eyes went down to his feet, eying the ground he walked about warily. He wasn't out to cause more trouble, least of all for something he didn't really understand.
It wasn't enough to keep him from going to see what she was doing, though. He walked up calmly, sure to stay a polite distance away until she spotted him.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:51 am
Ukene might have been humming and completely lost in her thoughts, but she still managed to notice Badiri fairly soon after he arrived. (Or she thought she did, but since the point of 'not noticing' was not noticing, it might've been hours. She really hoped it wasn't.)
"Badiri!" She beamed, temporarily abandoning her small pile of wildflowers at the sight of a friend. "Oh wait, was that alright? Or were you supposed to be like, all sneaky-like to catch the bad guys and I just totally ruined it?" She looked slightly worried at the thought.
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 11:19 am
When Ukene noticed him, Badiri was moving quite slowly, still working not to startle her. He smiled when she did spot him and called out to him, allowing himself to pick up the pace and come closer. He chuckled at her when she expressed concern at having ruined an ambush, making note that it would be hard to startle her.
"No, I wouldn't have to sneak up on you, you're nobody dangerous," he assured her, "But I was wondering what you're doing all the way out here again."
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 1:41 pm
"I'm getting flowers. For Ally!" Her beam morphed into a frown; "No wait, I'm supposed to call her Queen Alcmene right? So I'm getting flowers. For Queen Alcmene!" As quickly as it'd gone, the smile was back - she'd been practicing a lot lately, trying to get a hang of this 'tact' thing, but it hadn't been going too well.
All the same, the young lioness was determined! Attending the Queen's birth had been an eye-opener for how important it was to be a midwife; actual lives depended on her, and if doing a good job meant being better at talking properly to people, then by golly, she'd learn how to do it!
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 4:42 pm
"Flowers? For the queen?" he repeated, blinking and raising a brow curiously at Ukene, "Why are you doing that? Not- not that a gift is not a nice gesture or anything, but there must be a reason?" Badiri didn't want to seem like he didn't think the queen deserved gifts, but his point wasn't that she didn't deserve it.. he just had to make sure it didn't seem that way.
Either way, he was curious.
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Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:32 am
Why not get her flowers? Ukene blinked at him for a few seconds before swiftly moving on: "Because she's.. awesome? Oh! And she's a mom now, so I reckon she hasn't got a whole lot of time to pick flowers for herself, right? Obviously she didn't have a lot of time before either, whatwith her queenly duties and all, but now she's gotta have even less, so.."
And also because she'd let Ukene witness the birth as her very, very first one in her capacity of apprentice midwife, but she wasn't entirely sure that was appropriate to talk about with outsiders, even if they were as nice and villain-a**-kicking as Badiri was.
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Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 11:57 am
Badiri blinked at Ukene when she responded, realizing there wasn't much he could say to argue with what she said. It was a good gesture from any pride member who appreciated their ruler, though it would make more sense if..
"Are you a friend of hers or an admirer?" he asked curiously, daring to ask near personal questions- it was relevant. He thought about the recent royal birth, his nieces and nephews.. the one they even named after him. It was pretty awesome.
"Anyway, aren't there any nice flowers farther into the lands?" he asked, leading away from the personal questions just in case she didn't want to answer.
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Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:36 am
"Both, I suppose." She laughed happily; obviously that'd been the right question to ask. "Her majesty - that's what I'm suppose to call her, right? - was friends with my Mom before she had me, so we played together." Truthfully Ukene thought Ally was the awesomest thing to ever fall off of Planet Awesome. "And I dunno, I just want to do something nice for her, so I thought of flowers, 'cause flowers are fantastic and gorgeous and no-one could ever feel tired when they've got a bouquet of pretty flowers, right? Even if they die really quickly, but at least they made someone happy while they lived, so I suppose that's okay.."
She cut herself off, though perhaps a bit too late. "Uh, sorry about that. What was the other question?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:49 am
"Oh," Badiri nodded thoughtfully. That did make more sense, then. Ukene was a friend of the queen, or she almost considered herself one. Her hesitation to just say they were friends was curious, though. He didn't have many friends but he knew who he definitely was friends with, it was kind of.. unusual. But then he was starting to expect nothing was usual about this lioness.
"What? Oh," he said, coming back into the conversation unexpectedly, not realizing he had been drifting out of focus, "Aren't there flowers nearer the central lands? Not that you can't come out here, but you'd stop getting stopped by guards wanting to know why you're out here."
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Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2009 10:42 am
The young lioness tilted her head to the side and stared at him: "But I like being stopped by guards. They're always so nice, anyway, even though I might be wasting their time." Her brow furrowed in thought, "So I guess maybe I should stop going all the way out here, huh? There's very pretty flowers closer to the central lands anyway, yeah, but someone said that gifts are only worth as much effort as you put into them and getting the closest flowers aren't nearly as much effort as coming all the way out here."
She looked both earnest and a little embarrassed (it'd never occurred to her before now that she might've been wasting some poor sod trying to do their job's time) and feebly tried to direct the attention off of her with a shift in conversation.
"Why are you all the way out here? Patrolling? Oh! Don't tell me there's bad guys around, are there?" Which wasn't entirely subtle, but subtle had never really been Ukene's forte, anyway, and by the time the thought of roaming villains entered her mind the lioness had fully invested herself in the attempt and was looking slightly worried.
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:07 pm
Badiri stared back at her, finding it to be the only good response when listening to this lioness. She was very good at keeping his attention, that was clear. When she described her dilemma, she had a point but also a bit of a problem. He couldn't help but smile a little bit and shake his head.
"But any effort, going out of your way at all to do it means a lot," he commented, explaining his opinion on the subject, "The queen shouldn't be offended if a gift comes from a tree by the royal den let alone if it's from a tree in the lands of the next nearest pride. A gift is a gift, not a necessary offering."
He blinked as the subject shifted to his own reasons for being around here and he quickly shook his head.
"I'm on patrol but there's nobody specific we're watching for," he said, almost completely honestly, "We keep an eye out whether or not we're suspicious of anybody around the borders."
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Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:46 am
Ukene made a look of wide-eyed amazement at her friend: "You.. you're a genius! I didn't even think of it like that, at all." She glanced down at her small pile of wild-flowers again, "You don't think she'll mind these though, right? I can always get more convenient ones next time, but since I've already gotten these.." She shrugged with a sheepish smile, not wanting to waste the poor flowers when they'd been (so needlessly!) killed.
She nodded, mulling over the thought. That did make a lot of sense.. she'd always been slightly worried that there was someone suspicious on the prowl since she managed to attract so many guards on her little trips, but it'd probably just been because they were on patrol then.
"Patrolling.. is it just like, taking a walk then?" Because that looked like what they were doing to Ukene; she just hoped she hadn't offended Badiri with the thought.
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Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:22 pm
Chuckling at her exclamation, Badiri shuffled on his feet and shook his head. Ukene was definitely something else, it was funny but also endearing.
"I'm sure she'll be happy no matter where they came from," he reassured her, his eyes moving to the flowers momentarily before looking back up to her in time for her question about being on patrol, "Pretty much. You have to be paying attention and be OK with approaching strangers, though. There really isn't a whole lot of trouble around here, I'm pretty sure the twice I've run into you is more than how much I've come across anything suspicious."
There really wasn't much to be scared of around the pride's lands, but they still felt it necessary to keep an eye on goings on near and around them. History spoke for itself.
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Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:40 am
That sounded reasonable and the young lioness couldn't help but think that she'd have made a very lousy guard (the 'attention'-part - if there was one thing Ukene was good at, it was approaching strangers. And sometimes make them run away from her as well, but she figured you couldn't win them all), but Badiri seemed to be very good at it.
"I don't think I could that, honestly.. paying attention all the time sounds hard." She grinned sheepishly. "But you're awesome at it! You catch me every time I go too far.
"What else do guards do, anyway?" She'd seen a few around, but she'd never really bothered to ask. Possibly one of her family-members would know, but Ukene rationed with herself that Badiri would probably know better than even them.
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