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 Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 11:50 am
 Word spread fast around the temple lake. There was a visitor amongst them, somewhere. The story varied a little depending on just who he heard it from but what he was able to gather told him she was from a pride by the sea, and looking for stories.
Chen really didn't care. He had his own problems. Somehow hearing about someone being so ridiculously carefree just made him all the more irritated. He'd sequestered himself off from the rest of the pride, somewhere in the temples, lying under a window and catching some of the sun filtering in. The sound of cubs at play, done with their lessons for the day, was distant. It was the ideal place for some brooding followed by a nap, honestly. Maybe he could take his mind off things for a while.
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 1:35 pm
She was busy walking through the temple itself at the moment, her gaze on the walls and the architecture around her. She'd heard a little about the temple but she wanted to know more before she left, if only she could find a lion to tell her more about it.. aha!
"Excuse me," she piped softly, her tangerine toes moving delicately over the floor as she came up to the side of the hulking blue fellow. "I was wondering if you might have some time to spare to indulge a wandering storyteller?" He seemed like he had all the time in the world after all.
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 3:37 pm
Well, speak of the devil.
Chen barely spared the female a passing glance, turning over with a snort. She didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before, except for that red kind of reminded him of that awful lioness, Azula, which made him recall his days as a slave, which of course made him think of his sister. Honestly, if she was going to bug him she could at least NOT be such an eyesore to his memory. As well versed as that stupid escort of hers claimed to be with his "problems", she could have at least warned their visitor to run the other way if she saw him and his foul temper coming.
"You're the one the whole damn pride is in such an uproar about? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I can't."
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 9:59 pm
"The whole pride is in an uproar about me?" she asked pleasantly, looking honestly surprised. She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head a little. "I've been so busy exploring the pride and asking questions that I hardly even noticed. I wouldn't think that a little thing like me would cause an uproar though." Whatever attitude he had seemed to barely affect her.
As he rolled over she just walked around and sat down politely in the direction of his head, leaning forward a little. "Well, that's alright. If you don't know anything about the temple that's not your fault." She smiled apologetically at him and leaned back to a normal sitting position. "Maybe you could just tell me something else? I'm sure there's plenty of things you know that I could take back to my pride."
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Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 10:16 pm
He just couldn't help but shift his head enough to look up, only by that point she had moved, so instead he had to whip his gaze around again to spot her in her new seat. Did she just not get that he was being rude and a bit sarcastic, or was she being sarcastic right back? He frowned, eyeing her, and then when he realized she was being genuine his ears twitched with guilt. It was all he could do not to flatten them with shame. Even his mother wouldn't have been so tactless with a stranger.
"It's just a figure of speech." He grumbled, wondering why on earth she was being so patient. "Fine. What is it you want to know? If it's about the gods you're better off finding a priest or scribe."
He didn't know what she expected him to tell her, but his mood wasn't improving a terrible lot, he was just starting to feel guilty.
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2010 6:47 pm
"Well that's an odd figure of speech," she said with a little quirk of her brows, staring down at his face from where she was sitting.
Her smile returned quickly as he finally acquiesced and asked her what it was she wanted to know. She would have to remember to tell her pride how nice these Dawnwalker lions were, always willing to answer her questions no matter how many she asked!
"Well, for starters, how did this temple get here?" She said the word 'temple' oddly, moving to lay down as she asked it, stretching out comfortably next to him without even the slightest invitation. Kizingo lions had a small problem with this 'personal space' thing.
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Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 8:52 pm
His eyes narrowed a little at the perceived criticism, a growl in his throat, but he pushed it back down after a moment and shut his eyes, especially when she laid down next to him. By the gods, didn't outsiders know a thing about personal space? He would have face-pawed just then if he didn't think she'd just end up asking what he was doing. Bear it, Chen-li, just shut up and bear it.
"You would start with that question." He mumbled, once he surmised what she'd just asked. The spin she put on the pronunciation of the word was odd. He'd never heard it that way before, but he went on, telling her what he'd been taught. All the while his thoughts were surprisingly busy, marveling at the fact that she seemed genuinely unphased by his grumpiness. She wasn't even the slightest bit afraid of him? No, surely she had to be toying with him, just... maybe she had years of practice at this game.
Once he'd finished speaking he gave his eyes just a partial roll, dropping his head onto his paws, tail tuft twitching in restless agitation.
"Next question."
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Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:20 pm
She had started a little at that mumbled grump, as if she might apologize for asking that question. Was there some kind of taboo about asking temple-related questions? Was the knowledge forbidden? A hundred reasons ran through her mind before he bulldozed them all by simply telling her what she wanted to know. The very slightly panicked expression on her features ebbed away and she settled, watching him with her full attention, never wavering even once.
She had a problem with remembering that the no-violence rule didn't apply outside her pride's boundaries. She'd been taken advantage of on numerous occasions unfortunately, and bullied a bit, all because she kept forgetting that people in the rest of the world were allowed to be mean. And yet, here she was, still sitting contentedly next to the grumpiest and most moody looking lion she'd seen in all of the Dawnwalkers.
"That was extremely helpful," she chirped, rolling slightly onto her back to stare at the ceiling, as if the words were going to suddenly spread before her. She let out a soft sigh of contentment, though her attention drew swiftly back to him as he spoke once more. She rolled her eyes up to look at him from where she was laying, making her appearance a rather comical one - staring at him upside down from an on-her-back position.
"Oh, uh," she rolled over quickly, giving her head a little shake to get rid of the bits of sand. "What's all this about vultures? A few lions have said something to me about them, some nasty things they did recently, but I'm afraid I can't make heads or tails of all the bits and pieces I've been given."
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2010 12:13 pm
The moment that Chen caught sight of that look on her face he flinched a bit. He need to have his voice in his ear to know how his father would have reacted if he knew his son was treating a female so cold. A sense of shame washed over him then, and if he were only aware of it he would have marveled that such a lioness could jerk his emotions about like this.
Ugh.
By means of trying to apologize, though she seemed unphased the next moment, he tried to answer her next question with a bit less snark. It helped that he knew how to answer this one.
"The vultures were once like allies to our pride. When the sickness came they began to take over as the Dawnwalkers were forced to leave... Slaves were taken, anyone that stayed behind, I'm sure. Even after the pride tried to take back the lands they tried to drive them back. I heard from vizier Matifu that they killed slaves and left their bodies in the open for them to find to try to scare them off. King Muroki and queen Johari returned to reclaim the land, and you can see they won, but most of the pride seems to have a hard time forgetting their transgressions yet, even though the balance was restored to the way it was."
His explanation wasn't so well said, though, since he seemed awkward about speaking so freely to another, like he hadn't had much practice at it, was clearly straining to keep from either being rude or brooding, or perhaps just to refrain from cursing as he talked. Swear words weren't to be spoken to females, a rule he'd never really heeded to anyone but royals and his mother before, but felt the need to do now. What other etiquette rules were there? He was certain he'd trampled at least ten by now.
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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 3:10 pm
Luckily for Chen, Marijani had little knowledge of the pride's customs. If he'd broken any rules she was as painfully oblivious to it as she was to his general attitude. It was safe to say that she, at least, would not be ratting him out to anyone. In fact, she seemed pretty pleased to continue laying there and listening to anything he had to tell her.
She leaned her head a little forward as he began to tell the tale of Vultures, her eyes widening a little. The idea of war and pride take overs was not so foreign for to her, as she had heard it in plenty of tales. However, she'd never been close to anyone that had experienced it - and this whole pride was living history!
She gasped slightly at recollection of vultures killing slaves and leaving them out for others to find, as if he were the most grand story teller of all time. She seemed amazingly easy to please though. "That's terrible," she said quietly, her surprised face melting into one of contemplation. This was definitely a sad story, a ballad maybe. She sat there like that for a moment, then finally offered him a small, sad smile.
"I've never experienced anything like these things, or other things in my stories. Not where I live, anyway," for the moment she seemed to have forgotten her endless question barrage.
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