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 Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:44 am
Between her pregnancy-swollen stomach making her look like a melon about to burst and her raging fever, Gliri was certain she was going to be the first case of leonine spontaneous combustion. She tossed on her bed of grasses, trying without success to find a comfortable position. To make matters worse, she thought she might be going into labor, but she'd been pain- and fever-ridden for a while now and she could no longer tell the difference between different kinds of stomach pain. It was possible she was only hungry, too, for that matter. Hunger, she vaguely remembered, caused similar shooting pains. She'd been hungry before, and sick, but never at the same time, and never while pregnant.
"Mmm..." she moaned very softly, trying to call to her brother.
She wasn't thinking particularly rationally at the moment. In fact, to say she was thinking at all might be a bit generous. Even so, Gliri knew in her subconscious with a certainty born of a lifetime of proof that her brother would always be there for her and he would make everything better. He always did.
Gods, she was thirsty, too. She tossed her head, straining her usually finely-tuned senses for the sound of running water. If she didn't get something to drink soon, she was positive that she would burst into pulsing, painful flames. Muscar would forgive her for leaving the den to get water. He couldn't bring her water, after all.
With a painful effort Gliri lurched to her feet and staggered a few steps toward the exit to the den before collapsing with a whimper.
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 5:07 am
Muscardini felt horrible for it, but when he heard his sister tossing in her sleep he did his very best to close his ears to the sound of her discomfort. Even her moan. He knew she meant to call him. If she was simply moaning in discomfort it would have been more of an "nnngh" sound. The nasal bilabial sound which began his name could only mean that she wanted him. More specifically, she wanted him to do something for her.
He closed his eyes and let his ears lie flat against his skull in a pointless effort not to hear her. He was bone-tired. Never in his life had he gone for so long without sleep. He tried to be there for his sister as much as he possibly could, but in order to keep both of them alive he had to leave her to go hunting. Not that she had really eaten much since she fell ill, but he'd been doing his best to force her. He knew instinctively that it wasn't good for a pregnant lion to go for too long without food and water.
It was impossible to ignore the sound of her getting to her feet. She may not have been aware of it, but she sobbed and wept when she tried to do these things. It was a pitiful sound that Muscar couldn't stand to hear and couldn't bring himself to ignore. And so, blinking back exhaustion, the young lion pulled himself to a standing position and stumbled gracelessly toward his sister, thinking hateful thoughts toward the lion who had done this to her.
"Where're you going?" he mumbled, not really expecting an answer. In letting her lean on him he was more than able to feel that she was burning up with fever again, which meant she was going for water.
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:32 am
Gliri had dragged herself back onto her feet by the time Muscar came over to her and she was weaving her way toward the den's entrance. The path she took looked like it had been laid out by a drunkard, her steps shambling and unsteady, going in a decidedly less than straight line. Were it not for Muscar's support, she probably would have overbalanced and toppled over.
"Nngh," she said in response to having heard Muscar's voice.
It didn't register with her on a conscious level, and she was only responding at all so that he would know she'd heard him say something. What, exactly, he'd said escaped her. For a brief moment her mind spun, trying to make some sort of sense out of the sounds she'd heard, understanding that vocal sounds were a form of communication, but she couldn't order them sensibly in her head.
She moved awkwardly forward, her tongue lolling from her mouth over her sharp lower canine teeth. Her breath was hot and dry, but as unpleasant as any carnivore's. Possibly more unpleasant, as there was a sickly scent to her which had come with the fever. The panting didn't help to cool her significantly, but she didn't have too many other options. Her body was carrying her toward water, but her mind had become disengaged.
"Ach," she coughed. She did not have any form of pulmonary illness. Her body was trying to generate saliva and not doing a very good job of it. "Ach!"
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:49 am
Muscar struggled for a while to find a position from which he could simultaneously prop his sister up and help propel her forward. Although his temptation was to take her back to the den, he knew that she would need to drink and if she was doing this poorly the need was pressing. He could not bring water back to her, and so he must bring her to water. That meant helping her get there.
So far it seemed she could get there under her own steam, but if she needed more assistance, he could provide that. It would not be the first time he had managed to get her onto his back and dragged her to where she needed to be. She was not a large lioness under ordinary circumstances, but pregnancy had added some weight to her which made her a challenge to carry. That she was in the midst of a fever and occasionally delirious made the task no easier.
"Gliri, it would help if you'd walk in a straight line," he muttered.
He wasn't sure how 'there' she was, mentally, but he couldn't stand to think of his sister as being out of her mind and so when she got like this he always addressed her as though everything were normal. It was inarguable that her weaving path was difficult to follow while still offering her physical support. If she didn't get back on track soon, he would have to see to it she took the most direct route to their pool.
Actually, he decided, there was no reason he couldn't do that now. It couldn't be that difficult to herd her in the correct direction. A few careful shoves, some nudging and prodding. It would be much faster, too.
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 12:05 pm
Gliri stumbled awkwardly at her brother's first push and in an attempt to recover her balance she managed to tangle her paws and trip. As she fell the short distance to the ground her tail flailed wildly and she instinctively twisted so that she would not land on her stomach. There was little danger to her cubs, the logical part of her mind might have told her, but that part of her mind couldn't get through to the rest of her. A wall of fire kept it at bay.
And then the grass in front of her was on fire. She gasped and tried to get to her feet in order to scramble backward and run away from the flames. She couldn't let the swaying things touch her. They would burn her and her babies right up. And Muscar! Finally her mind was forming thoughts, but they weren't truly coherent. She wasn't aware that her brother was beside her, helping her to her feet and then urging her forward.
"Nnn! Nnn!" she protested, trying to resist the pressure to move forward.
What was pushing her? Who wanted her to die? The world was a terrifying, dangerous place. She had always known that. However, she had never before considered that someone in particular might want her dead and even go so far as to set a fire in the grass and then shove her into it. Such a monstrous, cruel thing to do!
With a certain manic grace she whirled around and slashed at her would-be assassin, reluctantly putting her back to the flames to fight in defense of herself and her cubs. She wished Muscar was there. He would have protected her. Where was he? Had her foe already gotten him?
"M'scar? M'scar!" she cried.
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 12:21 pm
Muscar couldn't believe how difficult it was to convince his sister to go the direction she already wanted to go. Straightening out her looping, back-tracking path forced him to be far more alert and active than simply allowing her to lean on him. He had to anticipate her movements and herd her in the correct direction and sometimes he had to shove her when she deviated too much. Even so, t was still easier to herd her than it was to carry her.
His efforts were utterly defeated when she tripped over her own paws and ended up splayed on the ground. And then he stepped forward and began to drag her to her feet once more. Once he'd gotten her paws beneath her, more or less, he began to propel her forward once more, only to meet with mystifying resistance and a sudden scent of abject terror. Whatever could be the matter, he wondered, looking around cluelessly in an attempt to discover what had spooked his sister.
"Gliri, what is it?" he asked, exasperation seeping into his tone. "There's nothing there. Just grass."
His words clearly had no effect on her, as she only began to protest verbally to making any further progress. He sighed and backed up, preparing to push her forward some more. From behind he applied his weight to hers, trying to force his recalcitrant sister to move. It amazed him how well she was resisting him, given her condition. He was further amazed by the sudden violence of her attack and only barely managed to evade her slashing claws.
"Hey, I'm here. You tried to decapitate me," he said, trying to catch Gliri's eye. "Look at me. We're going to the pool for water. Come on, Gliri."
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:46 pm
Gliri snarled weakly at the shadowy figure who had tried to force her into the flames, but her strength was leaving her. The rapid turnabout had tired her more than it should have done. She began panting once more and slumped to a listless seated position, slumped over with exhaustion.
A whimper escaped her as she experienced a flash of rationality. She saw Muscar and recognized him for who he was. She took a halting step toward him, her mouth open to entreat his help. She couldn't form words, though, and ended up only gulping down air like a drowning creature who had just broken the surface of the water.
Her eyes slid to one side, checking for the flames that had been behind her moments ago. They had vanished and the grass had regrown itself. Her rationality was slipping once more, and her breathing was speeding up. Where was Muscar? He would make everything make sense. He would make everything make sense.
It was then that Muscar's gaze caught hers, their identical blue eyes meeting. She stared into his eyes and her own widened. Those were her eyes. Someone had stolen them. No. She wouldn't be able to see if that were the case. Someone else had her eyes. Not her mother. Her eyes were not blue. Someone else. Her brother, her brother.
"Muscar," she said in a confidential tone and sounding nearly lucid, though certainly not reasoning well. "I'm on fire. But there are no flames. You must put the fire out before my cubs are roasted."
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:49 pm
Muscar was taken aback by Gliri's incongruous words. If he thought about it, he could almost understand what she was trying to say. She knew she was fevered, and she knew she needed water. That was the important part, he told himself. The fact that she seemed to believe her words in a literal sense was not so great a matter. Except he knew that it was, because it meant that her grip on reality was tenuous at best.
"All right, Gliri. Let's go. I'm going to help you by putting you on my back, but you must promise not to tear me into ribbons. Do you understand?"
He doubted that she understood, and knew that all he could do was hope that she would decide not to go crazy and attack him. No, not crazy. He shied away from that word. She was sick and feverish, and that was the only reason she was behaving in this manner. She didn't mean or want to be like this, and soon she would be better he told himself.
"Just as soon as you have those cubs."
He knew she was pretty far along in her pregnancy and that she would be having them shortly, but he didn't know when they would come, exactly. He also had very real concerns that her youth and illness would be damaging to the cubs. He was more concerned about what the cubs and birthing them would do to Gliri. He loved her more than life itself and knew there was no way he could ever love her cubs as much, particularly if they killed her.
A coldness went through him as he manipulated his sister's form so that she was slung over his back. These cubs might kill his sister. Even if she survived the birth, their needs might kill her. He knew she deprive herself for them, because she was that sort of person, and they would require so much of her strength, and he honestly didn't know if he could bring in enough prey to feed them all, particularly given his reluctance to leave his sister alone in a weakened condition.
"Oh, Gliri," he whispered, very close to weeping. "I don't know what to do."
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:52 pm
Gliri's reason remained while Muscar arranged her limbs so that she was on top of him. In the back of her mind she was reminded of how unusual this sort of thing was. When mating, she remembered, Al-Hattal had been on top of her, and not the other way around. His weight had been superior to hers and had pressed her to the ground. She could not have thrown him off if she wanted to, but even had she been inclined to try his teeth had seized the back of her neck to prevent any such attempt. And then, in this position of total masculine dominance, he had claimed her. But he had not wanted to keep her, she recalled. He had only wanted to experience her, as she had wanted to experience him. She had not wanted to be kept.
She had not wanted this, though. Cubs, yes, but burning torment, no. No, no. She was not a particularly devout lioness when it came to the idea of gods and spirits, but as her brother half-carried, half-dragged her to the pool from whence came their water she did wonder a little. What had she done for the gods to curse her with this suffering? She moaned softly. What had she done?
Then she remembered something else. She would be a mother. She would have cubs to nurse and care for and love, and her brother would protect and provide for all of them. It would be the perfect family, and they would all be deliriously happy, like in the stories she told her brother to help him fall asleep at night so that he would know he was not alone.
In spite of the raging fever, Gliri began to fall asleep, her sheer exhaustion overwhelming her. Before she knew it, her languid form began to slide from her brother's back. Suddenly she was submerged in water and - for the first time in her admittedly sketchy memory - almost at a comfortable temperature. It was a shame about the drowning though, she thought, and then she began to flail and panic. She couldn't drown! The cubs!
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Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 6:15 pm
"Dammit!" Muscar swore when Gliri slipped from his back.
He lunged forward with jaws open wide to seize whatever part of his sister he could catch. With any luck he wouldn't break skin, but she didn't seem to be in much of a state to prevent herself from drowning, even though all it required of her in her present location would be to stand up properly. Getting past her flailing limbs was a challenge he would have been happy not to have ever experienced, but such was not his luck.
He was lucky, however, in that he found a grip on the back of her neck, where he would do no damage to her. He used this hold to drag her most of the way out of the water. When her front half was on solid ground he released her. He hoped that the accidental submersion would cool her fever somewhat. He didn't know what else to do for her. He was no healer and he possessed no skill with herbs and had no pull with the gods or spirits.
At least the little mishap with gravity had distracted him from the despair which came when he thought of their future. Crouching beside Gliri, he lapped at the water in the pool, creating small ripples with his tongue as he drank. He would have to get Gliri to drink, too. Simply getting her wet would not be enough. She could not be sustained that way, after all.
He sighed, thinking of the task ahead of him. He had to get Gliri out of the water, turn her around, and convince her to drink. The thought was daunting, and he was exhausted even contemplating it. But it had to be done. He took another deep drink of water before getting up to begin it.
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Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:36 am
The shock of sudden immersion had frightened Gliri, but once her forequarters were out of it she calmed quickly. There was no danger of drowning now and both she and the cubs could cool down. She let her chin drop to her paws and her eyelids began to slide shut. This was good.
She was still hot, and so the tip of her tongue still protruded from her mouth, but when it encountered the damp fur on her upper lip she was startled. Thirsty. She was very thirsty, and she seemed to be in a position to do something about it. She opened her eyes and noticed another lion beside her drinking. She should do that, too, as long as the lion didn't mind.
Sometimes they did, and then she and her brother had to run away. But this lion wouldn't mind. He was her brother. How had she not noticed that before? She giggled at her own silliness and waddled backward, going deeper into the pool of water rather than emerging from it. When she was far enough in that she could drink and also most of her lower half was still underwater, she lowered her head and began to lap at the water.
Her mind was blank as she drank. Sometimes she lapped delicately at the water and other times she gulped it down, but it seemed she had been there, drinking, for ever. Like some kind of goddess whose domain was the repetition of actions. Maybe she could make up a story about a goddess like that and tell it to Muscar some time. He might like that.
"Muscar," she said, barely raising her mouth from the water, "would you like to hear a story about the goddess of repetition? I just learned it."
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Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:48 am
Muscar watched his sister with trepidation as she lay very still for a time. For the first time that night she actually looked peaceful and he was loath to disturb her. On the other hand, she was still panting slightly, and if she didn't at least drink he knew she would die. Eating was important, too, but drinking was more so. As he watched, Gliri seemed to discover that important fact for herself, her tongue tasting the droplets of water which hung from the short fur by her mouth.
He was filled with concern, however, when she began to back herself into the water. The pool was not particularly deep, but it was deep enough to drown in if her legs gave out beneath her or if she strayed to the very center and didn't bother to swim. But she wasn't doing that, he saw with relief. She was just keeping herself in the cooling water while she drank. He couldn't disapprove of that.
Gliri's question about the story startled him with its clarity and general normality. He smiled at her and shook his head. "Not tonight, Gliri. I'm too tired to stay awake for more than just her name. Why don't you wait and tell me when you tell the cubs? I'm sure they'll want to hear your stories, too."
It looked like her fever might have broken for the night. He didn't know what the next day would bring with its heat, but Gliri would survive this night at least. He would worry about the next day with the dawn. Which was still hours away. A small blessing. They could sleep beside the pool for the rest of the night.
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