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 Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 7:28 am
 Muscardini swallowed the last bite of young gazelle, relishing the taste of its flesh and blood. Its body had long since gone cold, but he didn't mind that much. It was the first meat he or his sister had eaten in two days, and by that token alone it was delicious. He licked his lips, as it were, and his tongue reached to his nose. He didn't want to miss even the slightest bit of tangy blood.
He'd eaten the lion's share of the kill, but he and Gliri had long ago worked out that was the best arrangement. Gliri's life was not as active as his was, and she needed less nourishment to go about her daily activities than he did. Besides which, her nervous nature made it difficult for her to eat much on a day when she'd been startled or when she was worrying, which described most of the days Muscar went hunting. He hated leaving her behind when he hunted, but they'd experimented before with bringing her along, and the experiments hadn't gone well.
"Gliri," he said, putting a hint of entreaty into his tone. "Will you tell me a story?"
Muscar didn't remember when he had discovered his penchant for stories. Maybe their mother had told them stories when they were cubs, but he doubted it. The only voice he heard in his head telling stories was his sister's. He loved his sister's voice, and everything else about her. He was so glad that she was his sister. But as for the stories, maybe that had just been something they'd stumbled across. A way to make the time pass when their mother wasn't there.
"Please?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 11:01 am
 Gliri, too, was enjoying her meal. She rarely complained of hunger, and she hadn't been in any danger of starvation when Muscar brought back this kill, but she'd been glad to see it. Two days between meals was not an impossibly long wait, but she was definitely hungry by the time Muscar returned with his kill. She had eaten as much as she could and was now in the process of cleaning her bloodied paws while watching Muscar finish off the young gazelle.
She paused in her task to sigh contentedly. This was the first time she'd felt safe and content since they fled their last den. This den wasn't a cave like their last one had been, which made Gliri feel incredibly nervous and exposed, but it was secure enough. When her brother was with her she felt safe, anyway, and when he wasn't with her she had scouted out several nearby places she might go to ground if things became too much for her at the den. These places weren't suitable for long-term occupation, but they worked well enough for hiding.
"A story?" she asked, giving up for the time being on the cleanliness of her paws. They were clean enough. The grooming was more something to reassure herself, and she didn't need that kind of reassurance. She had Muscar, and that was all the reassurance she needed.
"I would be happy to tell you a story, Muscar. After all, you are my favorite brother and you did bring home dinner. I suppose it's the very least I can do." Her ears twitched with amusement as she teased him just a little. "But are you sure you wouldn't rather tell me a story? Perhaps regale me with the glorious tale of your epic hunt?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:06 am
Muscar rolled onto his side feeling full and replete. He felt very secure in this place. He knew they wouldn't be staying long because he could see how stressful it was for Gliri not to have a proper cave or den for shelter, but he was content for now. Or as content as he could be, given Gliri's unspoken discomfort with the place. He couldn't be truly content until she was too. That was a given. Besides, Gliri had a very good sense for when a place was safe and habitable. If she had doubts about this place, it was probably best they move on. Maybe tomorrow morning, after they'd gotten a full night's sleep.
He could only see Gliri with one eye from the position he held, but he did note that her tone was teasing and that her ears were twitching. She was thinking something devious. Well. Devious probably wasn't the correct term, since it implied some sort of sinister motivation and Muscar was certain his sister couldn't pull of sinister if her life depended on it. She didn't even like hunting and killing things, really, and would probably eat nothing but plants and beetles if he didn't hunt for her. Foolish, wonderful girl. Thank the gods they had each other.
"I'm your only brother," he reminded her. "At least, as far as we know."
It was conceivable that they might have more siblings now. Their mother had taken a new mate, after all, and joined a pride. That was why she'd left them finally. Not that she'd ever been much of a presence in their lives. She hadn't been around to protect their brother when he was killed by hyenas and through her neglect their sister had wandered off. They'd never seen any sign of her and assumed that she had died. A female juvenile on her own in the rogue lands wouldn't last long. Even the pair of them had a difficult time of it.
He made a derisive chuffing sound at her suggestion that he regale her with the glorious tale of his epic hunt. He knew she wasn't serious in her suggestion. She often claimed she didn't like watching him hunt because she couldn't stand to see him in any sort of danger, and he sincerely doubted that she would enjoy hearing about potential dangers, either. Not that there'd been any danger involved in this hunt, but the lack of it meant it would make for a very dull telling. Gliri's stories would be better. They always were.
"No, thank you. You'd only be bored by my story."
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Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:03 am
Gliri smiled to herself. She had known Muscar would demur. He thought - and rightly so - that she didn't like to hear of him taking risks with his person. She knew they were necessary risks and as minimal as possible, but she still didn't care for them. However, she really wouldn't have minded hearing about them after the fact. It would have made it much easier to make up her stories if she had more information on how hunts went and how fights went. Somehow she didn't mind coming up with and telling stories that included violence and death, even though hers was a gentle nature.
"All right, but since you're the one who's forcing me to perform this strenuous, exhausting task, you get no say in what kind of story I tell."
It would not be a violent story. The memory of Muscar's fight and their subsequent flight was still too raw in her mind. She had nightmares about it still. She felt guilty about those nightmares, since they always woke Muscar up and he needed his sleep so that he could go out hunting. She tried to look out for him, even though she knew that she wasn't very brave or strong or smart. She had tended her brother's wounds during their days-long flight and for the first time in a long time felt that she was truly helping him. Maybe she would tell him a story about a healer.
"In a time long before ours but long after Mkodi's creation there was a pride of lions who devoted themselves to healing others. Theirs was a strange pride in that its members were rarely all together at once. Indeed, the only people who regularly inhabited the pride's lands were pride members too old to travel, nursing mothers, and cubs who were training to be healers. All the pride's other members were out in the world, doing good and exchanging knowledge with other healers."
Here Gliri paused and wished their den was nearer to a water source. She was thirsty, but there was no way she was leaving the den alone at full night just to get a drink. Not to mention how disruptive it would be to her story for her to just go off. She swallowed a few times, trying to produce enough saliva to at least moisten her dry mouth so she could continue with her telling.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 10:32 am
Muscar rolled his eyes. He knew Gliri didn't really feel she was being imposed upon by being asked to tell stories for him. He sometimes suspected that she spent her days doing nothing but thinking up stories to tell him, which he found flattering. Sure, they were the only family each other had, really, but that didn't mean that she was obligated to focus so much on him. That she chose to do so gave him a pleasant feeling. It was obviously a labor of love. For a lion who hated to be alone, feeling loved was very important. Still, he played the game with his sister.
"Oh, all right," he said, feigning disappointment. "I'm probably going to get stuck with some silly, girly story about true love, though."
He didn't mind romantic stories. Actually, he quite liked them. He'd never experienced romance in all his young life, and tended to content himself on that count by living vicariously through the characters which populated his sister's stories. He wondered if Gliri did the same thing with her characters. It wasn't as though she created characters who very obviously resembled either of them, but he got the feeling that she managed to include both of them in every story she created. More often than not he was cast in a heroic role and she was cast in a minor supporting role. It probably said something about her perceptions of herself and her brother, but he'd never thought to analyze it.
When Gliri began to speak he listened quietly, happily entranced by her words and eager to suspend disbelief and reality to fully enter her world. He wished he could tell stories like she did, stories that captivated and enthralled. Whenever he tried to tell stories they always sounded more like reports, entirely comprised of declarative sentences and rarely employing adjectives or adverbs or anything which lent color to the telling. Or he went overboard with the descriptions to the point where the narration was lost. He'd given up before finding the correct balance of action and description.
When she stopped talking and swallowed he looked over at her, wondering if maybe she had heard or seen something outside of their den. No. She didn't seem nervous. Thirsty. Judging by the fact she was licking her lips, she was probably thirsty. He was half tempted to pretend he hadn't noticed, knowing she would continue the story in a moment if he didn't say anything, but he couldn't do that in good conscience.
"I'm thirsty," he lied. "Would you mind continuing when I come back from the stream? Unless you want to come with me?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 8:56 am
Gliri wasn't stupid, and she knew her brother wasn't either. She also knew he probably wasn't thirsty, so the only other explanation was that he had observed that she was thirsty and taken steps to allow her to sate her thirst in such a way that she wouldn't feel she was disappointing him by interrupting the story. His consideration brought a ghosting smile to her face which she quickly hid. It was a game they played with rules that went unspoken: neither one mentioned when they were making allowances for the other and the other went along with it as though they didn't realize what was going on.
"I think I'll come with you," Gliri said, standing up in a graceful, self-contained movement. Most of what she did was self-contained, but it always pleased her when she could also get it to come across as graceful.
"After all, I so rarely get to see you since you've been spending so much time hunting. I miss you. And besides, I don't want to be left alone here with the carcass of our dinner. Shouldn't we drag that somewhere else while we're out?"
There wasn't much left to their meal, but it was important not to leave it lying around. For one thing, the smell of putrefaction was unpleasant, but more importantly it would also attract scavengers. With Muscar away hunting much of the time, Gliri would be forced to deal with the scavengers and that wouldn't go over well at all. Hyenas might even consider taking her on as an extra snack, given her non-combative and meek nature.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:20 am
"I'll be happy to have your company. I miss you, too, you know."
Muscar rolled to his feet and nudged his sister with his shoulder. He knew she thought she held him back and was a burden to him, being so totally dependent on him, but Muscar liked that she needed him. It assuaged his worries that he would end up alone. He needed Gliri just as badly as she needed him, but for different reasons. She got by just fine on her own, emotionally, but he couldn't do that. He hated to be alone, and it was only because he refused to put Gliri at risk that he didn't take her hunting with him. That, and the fact that she hated to see him taking risks.
"I'll take it," he said, referring to their leftovers. There wasn't much left, but he would have disposed of it on the morrow anyway. The thought of leaving Gliri alone with a carcass that might attract predators or scavengers was enough to make him shudder.
He grasped what remained of their supper in his jaws and began dragging it out of the den, walking beside Gliri. He couldn't converse very well with his mouth occupied like that. He could use body language, of course, but even that was limited by the fact that he was walking and dragging a corpse. Much as he would have liked for Gliri to continue the telling while they walked, he didn't mention it. The only thing he said, actually, wasn't even something he spoke aloud. He just nudge his sister's shoulder once again and jerked his head to let her know when he was going to leave to dispose of their dinner.
Soon he their paths diverged as he had to take the remains some distance from both their den and their water source. It meant he would have to leave Gliri on her own, but the walk to the stream wasn't all that long and he wouldn't go too far. Just far enough that there wouldn't be anything prowling around their den while they slept. In the morning he would take it farther away. For tonight, he would protect Gliri. The thought of playing protector to her drew a grin from him that was hidden by his full mouth.
He completed his task quickly and hastened back to Gliri, who waited for him by the stream. With a grin he asked, "Did you miss me?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:39 am
Gliri continued on her own after Muscar left her. She wasn't concerned about any ills befalling her between her present location and the stream. The walk was short anyway, and though all of her sense were tuned to high alert, just in case, she wasn't surprised when no threat presented itself and she reached the stream unmolested.
At the stream Gliri lowered her head and dipped her tongue into the cool water. It was wonderful to drink, and she did so at length, lapping at the water tirelessly, not minding that her chin was getting wet in the process. She had been very thirsty, and she knew that she would have to slake her thirst completely on this trip, for it would just be unfair of her to interrupt her storytelling again so that she could wet her palate.
Maybe once Muscar was asleep she would venture out again, but it was unlikely. The stream was far enough away that if anything happened Muscar wouldn't be able to reach her in time. Thinking about that made her tail twitch nervously. Her imagination was good, and considering the potential dangers the world held was more than sufficient provocation for it to begin to imagine them lurking nearby, watching her.
She looked up from the water and carefully surveyed her surroundings, sniffing at the air. She neither saw nor smelled anything amiss, but it was never a bad thing to be cautious. However, the only other scent she picked up on was Muscardini's. Her ears flicked as she heard the sounds of his approach. By the time he reached her she was sitting, watching the spot where he would break through the foliage. She greeted him with an amused smirk.
"I did, of course," she answered him. "Are you actually going to drink?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:55 am
Muscar actually was thirsty after dragging the carcass away, and so he passed Gliri and made his way to the water, which he drank deeply of. The stream was not as close to their den as he would have liked, but he did like how cool and clear its water was. He remembered other places they had stayed where the water had been more of a trickle and tended toward dustiness. This was definitely nice.
Maybe when they moved on they would simply travel upstream. the problem with that was, of course, that others would like living near streams, too, and that would mean contact between the siblings and others. Sometimes that wasn't a bad thing, but often it left both he and Gliri wistful for company. A pride wasn't in their future. Neither of them were suited to that life, he was certain, but that didn't mean they couldn't long for certain aspects of it. He longed for the constant companionship and Gliri for the security. But he didn't like a lot of the other restrictions that came with being part of a pride, and neither did Gliri.
"That was refreshing," Muscar said with a grin. They both knew they were really there so that she could get a drink, but this was part of the game, the joking and dancing around the truth. "Let's go back. I want to hear more about this healer pride."
He took off at a trot, but slowed after a few paces so that Gliri could catch up to him. She actually ran faster than he did over short distances, but he didn't want to race. That would undo the good of having gotten a drink at all and further delay the telling of her story. He'd been trying, in the back of his mind, to guess where she was going with the story, but she simply hadn't said enough to give him much of an idea. He did like the idea of the pride, though. A pride that let most of its members wander as they saw fit but also provided a sort of home base might suit him and Gliri well. It was a pity such a pride didn't really exist, to his knowledge.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:31 am
Back at their den, Gliri settled into her corner. It couldn't be said to be her favorite because that implied a sort of long-term familiarity that just wasn't there. She waited for Muscar to make himself comfortable before resuming where she'd left off. She already knew how this story went, having thought of it some time ago, and so it didn't take much concentration on her part to recall where she had paused in her narration, and Muscar apparently remembered, too, which didn't surprise her. His attentiveness to her stories flattered her.
"One of these healers, a lion born into the pride but of no great rank, was named Lacu. His youth was part of the main reason he had not yet achieved a high rank, for he had an instinct for healing that was quite remarkable. He wasn't afraid to take risks, though he didn't always inform his patients of the risks, which frequently got him in trouble, even when his experiments proved successful."
She looked over at Muscardini to see how he was taking this, if he was growing impatient with her background information. He rarely did, but there were some evenings where he just wanted a story without lots of requisite information before the action took place. The thing was, this wasn't a story with a great deal of action anyway. It was mostly about Lacu developing, or rather not developing as a character while changing the lives he touched. She'd come up with several stories about Lacu, but since this was the first she'd told, she needed to establish the setting. In the future she could just refer to Lacu and Muscar would know what she meant with minimal reminding on her part.
"Lacu mostly traveled outside the pride, rather than within it, mostly because his personality was abrasive and he didn't get along particularly well with his teachers and he hadn't the patience to teach younger healers, who tended to be so limited in their thinking that they were even more frustrating to him than the instructors who had made them that way. It was while he was traveling outside the pride that he met a young leopard, still in adolescence who was alone and pregnant. Her name was Genia, and she had been abandoned by a lion who had promised her he would stay by her, but when his pride raised objections to their relationship, he left her.
"Because Genia was close to term, Lacu remained with her. He hunted for her because she could not do that for herself in her present condition and when she fell ill he treated her, though with little success. Throughout this period, Genia began to fall for Lacu, misinterpreting his competent care for caring. Lacu was not in love with her, and thought he was only adhering to his vow as a healer to help those in need. He did not realize her feelings until she went into labor and in a pain-induced delirium she confessed her love and expressed her confusion at his indifference.
"'I am indifferent,' he told her. 'I do not love you, and I am only performing the same duties any of my pride would had they been the ones to find you.'"
She stopped once more and glanced over at Muscardini, trying to gauge whether she should tell the entirety of this tale or just leave it as exposition for another tale to be told later. She would soon finish if she chose the latter course, which she would do if Muscar looked too tired.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 3:58 pm
Muscar tried to stifle a yawn when he noticed his sister's regard. If she thought he looked too tired, she would stop telling her story and suggest that they leave it for another night. He was listening attentively, even though his motions had stilled almost completely and his body sagged with weariness. It had been a long day for him and he wanted nothing more than to go to sleep curled up around his sister. Except to hear the end of her story.
"I'm listening," he assured her. "Please go on."
He could see several ways for the story to proceed. He didn't think that Gliri intended Lacu to end up with Genia, which meant there was definitely more to the story. And she'd mentioned that Lacu had little success treating Genia's illness, so she was still ill at the moment. Did his sister mean to kill her off and leave Lacu to care for the cubs? He didn't think the healer would be much of a parental figure.
When Gliri didn't immediately continue Muscar lifted his head from his forepaws and made an effort to look more energetic than he felt as he urged her to continue. "At least finish this story, and then we can go to sleep. Unless you're tired?"
If she was tired, he would wait until she was less so before asking her to finish the story, even if he was curious. This Lacu character seemed like someone he would hear more about in the future, as if he had his own epic saga that Gliri knew about and was beginning to impart to him. He wondered if this story had been chosen deliberately or if it was just the first one she'd come up with about the character. Either way, he was hooked, held in thrall by his sister's voice and words.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:42 pm
"I'm not tired," Gliri said truthfully. "But I worry for you. You do so much, and I do so little in comparison. I don't want to tire you further with my silly stories."
In truth, Gliri loved to tell her stories to her brother. In a different life she might have been a pride's storyteller or in charge of instructing cubs in pridal history and lore. But she wasn't part of any such pride. She and Muscardini were their own pride. He was her leader and her hunter and her warrior. Her role, she supposed, was that of priestess and storyteller, and even cub minder, for sometimes her beloved twin was very childlike and needed to be loved as badly as any cub. Their mother leaving them had forced him to grow up and be strong before his childhood fears could be assuaged.
Thinking these thoughts, Gliri moved out of her corner and made her way a few short steps to her brother and situated herself next to him, just the span of a paw away from him. She leaned over and touched her nose to his ear in a gesture of familial affection and unspoken thanks for everything he had done for her. She didn't think she could ever properly repay him, and so it was fortunate he would never ask her to.
She shook her head to clear it of these melancholy musings and brought her attention back to the story. Truly, what she was telling Muscar was just groundwork for the rest of a far longer tale. Genia would survive, but she would be weakened forever after by Lacu's rejection and she would raise her cubs as if they were his. The cubs would grow up and blame him for their mother's weakened condition, never thinking that they also owed their existence and hers to Lacu. When she died, they would seek out his pride and become members, and then they would devote their lives to finding and killing him. But those tales could be told later.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:06 pm
Muscar glanced at his sister sideways and grinned. "Your stories sustain me, sister-mine. I never tire of hearing them, and when I'm listening to them I feel less tired. All right? Stop worrying and finish the story."
He closed the remaining distance between himself and his sister, doing so effectively by flopping onto his side so that his back was against her side. It was good to be in casual contact with her, reminded that he wasn't alone. If he could manage it, he would fall asleep before she actually stopped talking. It would mean missing the end of her story, but she'd catch him up in the morning, and he'd go to sleep very reassured of her presence.
Gliri's body heat was comforting. Sleeping beside her he hopefully would not dream of being abandoned and left to wander alone until he died. It was a recurring nightmare of his, the loneliness. He and Gliri had discussed it at length, and they thought it was probably a product of their mother abandoning them at such an early age. He'd never told Gliri that in many of his nightmares he was actually trying to find her, and that when she had her flights of terror it was like living his nightmares. He didn't tell her because he would rather face his fears in real life than force her to confront hers.
"Come on, Gliri. Please?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 8:47 am
"All right. But then we'll both go to sleep. There's not much left to tell anyway." She leaned into her brother and began to finish the story.
"Lacu delivered Genia's cubs, four of them. Three were boys and the last, obviously, was female. The birthing process was very hard on Genia, but what came after was even harder, for Lacu stayed only long enough to ensure the small family wouldn't starve while Genia recovered her strength from the birth. He didn't bid them goodbye or leave them any token besides his last catch. He just vanished into the grasses.
"Genia lived until the cubs reached adolescence, but she was always weak and sickly. The cubs grew up thinking that the lion they remembered only dimly was their actual father, a great healer among a pride of healers, his rank aggrandized by Genia's affection. In the last months of her life, Genia passed into a delirium in which she believed Lacu would return to save her as he had once before, but he didn't come.
"The leopardess died, and her cubs' hatred for their absent 'father' calcified. He had left their mother with a litter to care for and raise on her own, and then he hadn't even the decency to return and help her with his healing abilities. The fact that he would not have known of her condition was irrelevant. He should have been there. That's what a father's role was. Following their mother's death the cubs scattered in search of either their father or his pride, seeking recompense for the pain Lacu caused their mother."
Gliri glanced at her brother, whose breathing had grown slow and deep. Asleep, of course. Well, that was more or less all there was to this episode anyway. Anything else would have to wait. Besides, there were other stories of Lacu that she wanted to tell before she continued with the cubs' tale. She rested her chin on her forepaws and closed her eyes. Sleep.
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