Nyamana was bored. Yet again. She'd been searching for so long - so, so long. She so badly wanted to find another canine to recruit. She'd run into a few dogs now, a couple of hyenas and a wild dog. None of them were interested in joining the pack, though. The Amani'Kikundi was somewhere she'd thought all canines would dream of, and always want to go to. But no, apparently not. The wild dog hadn't been interested, one hyena was happy with his family and the other...well, she'd been too disgusted with him. She didn't want him in her pack. Ugh - disgusting beast.
Padding across the savannah at a steady pace, she stopped as she suddenly came to a grass patch, ears perked. Grass - did that mean there was water nearby? Her nose twitched as she quickly glanced around, gasping lightly as she was greeted with the sight of a lake. A beautiful, glistening, clean lake. She was by it in a second, eagerly lapping up the water rather greedily. But one couldn't blame her - it'd been a couple of days since she'd last had a proper drink. There'd been a few stolen mouthfuls of rain water, but nothing substantial. This though...this tasted like heaven at the moment.
Hataki thought, at first, that it had been the heat getting to him. To be honest, now that the weather was cooling down in preparation for winter, it wasn't often hot enough outside to compete with the high temperatures of the summer. However. There were those days when the weather decided to play a trick on them (through the gods' powers, of course). And this was one of those days.
So, at first, he thought the heat was getting to him, for he saw a very familiar form just a few feet away at the same lake he had been relaxing at. She was white with yellow areas, bright eyes gleaming in the reflective sun. He knew her.
"...Nyamana?" he ventured, a cool gaze upon his face just in case it was not her.
"Hmm?"
She reluctantly lifted her head from the cool, crystalline water, although felt not so reluctant to do so when her amber eyes settled on the familiar male before her. Her eyes widened momentairily, drinking in his appearance in disbelief. Those markings...the fur. Surely it couldn't be... "Hataki?" came the disbelieving, questioning tone as Nyamana took a step forwards, a wide grin stretching across her maw as her tail began wagging in a quick rhythm, her legs quivering as she began to jump on the spot in excitement. Her brother! It was her brother!
"I haven't seen you in ages!" she squeaked, suddenly feeling like a pup again as she bounced forwards, dancing around him before diving in to nuzzle him fondly.
Hataki wagged his tail in compliance to his sister's display of surprised affection, but he wasn't about to nuzzle her back. For one, he wasn't a very happy wild dog and two, because of his lack of happiness, he wasn't about to show affection like that. It just wasn't his style.
"I know," he said somewhat drily. Did he not want to see everyone in their family for ages? Perhaps. But that was left up in the air. "How have you been?"
Nyamana ignored his party-pooping attitude, licking his nose before backing off a little, cocking her head with a smile still on her face. Her tail wagged merrily, pleased tht his own tail was wagging, despite his unhappy attitude. Hataki had always been one to spoil the mood, but right now Nya dind't mind too much. She was just happy to see one of her siblings again. "I've been alright, thanks. I've found a pack - it's amazing there, Hataki, you should see it. How're you, hmm?"
He resisted the urge to wash off his muzzle, now that she had licked him. Or at least make a disgusted face. Oh well. He couldn't help the small wrinkling of his nose after she backed away a bit.
"A pack?" he blinked. "Is it near here? I'm okay. Just taking one day at a time, so I can't really complain too much."
She noticed the wrinkling of his nose, but merely rolled her eyes, in too good a mood to comment. She was seeing one of her brothers, whom she hadn't seen for ages. She didn't care if it was Hataki the party-pooper or any of the others. It was a sibling, which was enough to cause the female to smile.
"Not really - I'm travelling at the moment, trying to recruit new members. Don't suppose you'd be interested?" she asked, raising an eyebrow with a warm smile, nodding to show she understood his words, "I know the feeling, this recruiting lark is pretty dull. Have you seen mother, lately?"
Ah. "I was going to ask why you were so far away, then, but as usual you're one step ahead." And now his sarcastic side was emerging. Fantastic. "No, I think I'm good, thanks. But tell me about it anyway. When did you find it? What're they like?" Just for conversation's sake, he supposed. Better than nothing.
"No, I haven't." He frowned slightly at the subject. Hataki hadn't been terribly close to either of his parents, so it wasn't a surprise that he hadn't seen either recently. But if she had gone off to the pack at an early age, would she have seen Mother either?
Another roll of her eyes. Why was Hataki always so negative and sarcastic? She sighed lightly, raising n eyebrow, almost as if she were telling him to be a bit nicer. She didn't actually say it, though, so the expression could've been fairly ambiguous. "Fair enough. I found it a while ago - when we all separated, I found this boy. Jua. He took me there." Her eyes noticeably glazed over a little as she spoke of Jua. Her mate was a little sweetie, really. "They're really nice. Just a friendly place for canines to live, really."
He hadn't seen mother? Aww, Nya had been hoping to reconcile with her mother on these travels. They'd never seen eye to eye - mother wanted her to be a warrior, whereas Nyamana much preferred the art of healing. She'd hoped to make peace, but it seemed the Gods didn't want it.
Hataki almost took her response as a sign to smirk and continue his tirade. But he didn't. He figured that since it had been a while since they had seen each other, anyway, that it wasn't time to fight.
Though he did raise his eyebrow in response when she mentioned a boy. He was in no place to start making accusations, but he had to admit: he felt a kind of brother pride to remember his sisters. And a very very very small part of him wanted to help protect them in any way. For some reason.
"A boy?" he repeated, not even listening to the rest of her story.
Ah, she should've known. Hataki was her older brother, of course he was going to get protective. She'd thought maybe, since he didn't seem to care much about anything, he wouldn't really care. Obviously she'd thought wrong. Rolling her eyes, a cheeky grin graced her lips as she ran her tongue across her teeth, obviously enjoying being playful for once. "Yep, a boooooy~"
She was teasing him, and enjoying it, "He's called Jua. He's a real sweetie. You'd like 'im."
His eyes narrowed and he huffed, laying back down on the ground in his relaxed state once more. Now she was just baiting him.
"That's debatable. You'd remember, kind sister, that I'm not a fan of hanging around 'sweetie' characters, of any gender or species," he kindly reminded her.
She wrinkled her nose, chuckling playfully as she laid down beside her brother, rolling over onto her back to get the nice warm sun on her belly. It usually took Nya a while to warm up, due to her pale fur. "I do remember, kind brother. But I'm sure you'd like Jua. He's sweet, yeah, but he's quite fiery too. He'd make you like him."
She blinked, craning her head backwards to look at Hataki upside-down, "Besides, you put up with me?"
"You're blood. That's different, because I don't have a choice in the matter," he teased back, snubbing her a bit by turning his head away when she lay beside him. He knew the feeling of taking a while to warm up. His white and light grey fur was about the same paleness as hers.
"I would not like him no matter how hard he tried," Hataki challenged.
Nya giggled again. She knew Hataki was joking, or at least she hoped he was. Or actually...maybe he wasn't. She could imagine he'd be super-irritated with her, if it weren't for the sibling-bonds that tied them together. They were blood, like he said. Sticking together, through thick or thin. She smiled despite this, tail wagging gently as she nuzzled his maw, giving a playful yip.
"Eh, whatever~" she sighed, not in the mood for an arguement as she watched him with wide, eager eyes, "So, you found a pretty lady?"
He barely snapped at her with his mouth, but missed on purpose. Just because they were blood, though not as close as some siblings, didn't give him the excuse to truly snap at her.
"No." His gaze was out, far away, watching an elephant walk around with its little one. Teaching them how to walk and play and jump. No, he hadn't found a 'pretty lady,' as his sister put it. And no, he was not having the yearning to find such a wild dog and start a family. Nope. Not one bit, he told himself as he watched the baby elephant.
She didn't flinch, far too used to such actions not just from Hataki, but in general. Nyamana had conquered fears when she was younger - hanging around dead bodies tended to do that to you. He answer made her chuckle again, although she noticed his attention wasn't on her, instead on the distance. She followed his gaze, a small smile on her face as she too spotted the elephants - a mother and her child, teaching it how to live.
A yawn rose in her throat, and she sighed, "It's getting late."
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Does that mean you'll leave?" he asked, in an excited tone.
When he looked back, the baby elephant and its mother was gone, trundling off into the distance. They must know it was getting late, too, and so did his body. It was telling him that it was time to sleep.
He sighed, then stood. "I guess it was nice seeing you," he joked, finally smiling at Nya.
Excited? She scoffed, reaching out to playfully swat him with a paw, mocking an offended expression a she rolled back onto her front, before standing, sticking her tongue out for a moment before snorting at his 'joke', shaking her head fiercely. "Nu-uh, you ain't getting rid of me that easily! I'm staying the night, whether you like it or not!"
She nodded, grinning toothily once more, "Now, lead the way!"
His face visibly dropped, his jaw slacked before he realized it was down. Then he remembered why it had happened. "What do you mean, you're staying the night?" he frowned in half-confusion, half-disbelief.
Nya grinned, nudging his shoulder roughly as she herself began off in a direction she knew - there was a nice den not too far off, that they could reach before sunset. "I'm staying the night, exactly what I said. Now c'mon, hurry up! I don't wanna be walking when it's dark!" And so, Nyamana lead the way, clearly expecting her brother to follow.
