(( Kiergan: Manda
Rossandol: Sephiros Immortalis ))
Dammit ... Kiergan made a pained little sound as she tried (again) to get up to her feet. Or rather, all four feet. Three of them were fine ... it was just... the left hind leg that was the problem. She'd been hunting a day or two ago ... she wasn't sure at this point... when the boar that she had been after had spun around unexpectedly. It had gotten one of its horns caught near her paw and then -yanked- its head up... leaving a long gash through fur and muscle. And to top it all off, the damn thing had gotten away. Now, she'd been trying to make her way back -home- for ... a while ... and not getting very far. Even before the boar, she hadn't caught anything substantial in a few days. So aside from being hurt, she was starving ... and stuck out here. At least with the nightly rains, she wasn't going to go thirsty.
'Ros, for his own part, didn't even know that he was trespassing upon the territory of another pride...honestly, he didn't have any notion of where he was, and only knew that it was night or day by the drop in temperature that came with nightfall, preferring to keep his eyes shut rather than deal with the dark haze of blurry shapes that only gave him a headache as he attempted to figure them out. And that was with only one eye, mind. His last arguement with Morifaer had resulted in claws being lanced across his face, striking at those sensitive orbs. Honestly he was terrified, unknowing as to whether or not he'd ever regain his vision...or the sort of people who might take advantage of his position. Carefully feeling his way along, trying to use his other senses as a sort of crutch, all he knew was that he was attempting to get as far away from the Aikanaro'hini as possible. Everything else seemed friendly in comparison to the demons.
Ears pricking up a bit, Kiergan could hear someone else out here... but whoever it was had no real idea how to move through a jungle. She could tell -that- much. Even injured, she was quieter than they were. Golden eyes narrowed slightly at that, and she wondered. Could she catch herself a meal this way? Standing up slowly, carefully ... she wobbled a bit on three legs but managed to creep forward slowly. Who .... or what ... was out there?
Well it wasn't that he wasn't attempting to be quiet, it was just decidedly hard when he'd no idea what lay before him. Making a soft, frustrated sound, he froze when he caught an almost coppery sort of scent...faint, but definitely there. That was one he knew all too well...and as of late it had caused him to be more than a little paranoid. Ears flattening back against his skull, he slowly continued his way forward, trying to listen for anything that might be coming his way...unluckily for him, Kiergan was being rather silent.
Kiergan knew that the other could likely smell her, or her blood - but she had already circled around. Most of what he would be smelling would be where she'd been lying for the better part of the day with her leg slowly bleeding into the dirt. With some luck, it would confuse the other and she could surprise him from another direction.
Finally, she got to a spot where she could -see-, and blinked, eyes narrowing a bit. What in the world happened to -him-? Hmmn. With his coloring and the direction he was coming from, it was likely he was a demon. But why was he -here-? Had he been driven out? Hmph. Well, for whatever reason, he was -hers- now. She moved just a bit more, and then sprang out of the bushes at the male's back. If she could just get him onto the ground... and if he was weak from his own injuries... she might have a chance here.
And he did, but it felt moreso as though it were coming from two places, and that just left him even more baffled and confused than he'd been to begin with. Growling softly, he heard just for a moment, the displacement of air, just in time to turn slightly into her attack. Ah hell...now he was grappling with the lioness, at least he thought she was female...and all he knew how to do was roll, try to pin her with his own weight, snarling his objection to the entire affair. He would not be bested this way...even blind...and if that was her blood, then there was a potential that she was weakened.
Kiergan yowled in surprise and pain as the larger male -did- manage to pin her - getting a paw on her bad leg in the bargain. She squirmed under him, trying to get away, and snapped at whatever she could reach. "Let go!"
Shifting just enough weight onto her so that he would pin her, but not crush her, he sighed heavily. "Why on earth would I do that? You did try to attack me...I have done you no harm, so I can only assume you were attempting to take advantage of my obvious weakness. It is merely the fact that I'm larger than you are that you did not take into account..." Shaking his head again, he poked her slightly with his nose. "So tell me then, why should I let go?"
Kiergan struggled for a few more moments and then went limp, panting. Gods... she was too weak to do much of -anything- about this situation, and she hated it. She snarled softly. "Hell if I know. But if you won't let go, you might as well kill me now."
Well...that thought actually hadn't occurred to him. "I've no need to kill you, I'm simply attempting to preserve my own pathetic existence." And very slowly at that, he began to shift off of her. He didn't truly wish to harm her, and he could but hope that she wasn't foolish enough to try that attack a second time...after all, this time he'd be expecting it.
Kiergan blinked slightly at that, but shifted once he was -off- her to sit up, wincing when she moved that leg. She hissed softly at the pain and twisted around to lick at her own blood for a moment. Not that it -helped- at all, but the taste took ... just a bit of the edge off her hunger. "Thanks," she muttered, sarcastically, looking up at him again. She almost wished he had killed her instead.
"You don't sound particularly happy..." He rumbled softly, "Were you...trying to die?" Suicidal the inclination had been to attack a much larger male after all, even so impaired. And...after all, he somewhat understood those kind of inclinations...considering the things he'd done under Morifaer's influence...heh, it was a wonder he wasn't dead already. He quite deserved it.
"No!" she huffed, annoyed now. "Are you?" she asked then, bluntly. "These lands aren't exactly safe, though I suspect you know that already." She had noticed by this point... how he kept his eyes shut all the time. Was he blind? Was that why he'd been blundering about? Geez. Idiot.
"I...actually don't know where I am..." He murmured, "And I want to live, but...I don't truly see a purpose any longer...I guess I'm searching for that, if naught else." The fading wounds across his eyes were healing faster than his eyesight, at any rate, which was actually something that he found particularly annoying. "So...I suppose I should ask where I am...?"
She snorted softly. "Right now... you've managed to wander into the lands of the vampires," she informed him, growling softly. He didn't seem such a bad fellow, but her mood -really- wasn't the greatest at the moment. "And you've run into one ... very hungry vampire..."
Vampires...right...he'd heard about them before, but the idea had always seemed a touch preposterous. Well, apparently he was wrong. "Do you all truly subsist off of blood? I mean, if you don't mind me asking..." But had he really been the only thing she could catch? "And why attack me...?" It seemed a very rash and unwise decision on her part, to tell true. Gods, the fates were not with him today...or even in the past few years.
"Mostly," she answered promptly, with a little smirk that he couldn't see. They did eat the flesh of prey-beasts, but they also shared blood between themselves ... and always drank the blood of prey before eating flesh. As for the other... she growled softly. "You are the first thing stupid enough to come this way in the past week."
"Can you not hunt for yourself? Or is prey simply that scarce?" He couldn't imagine it so, after all even he had managed to forage a few hapless mice...so that he wouldn't starve. Hunting was a real trouble, being unable to see, so he'd had to lean far more heavily on his other senses...wishing they were stronger now that he was missing one of them. Gods...but he deserved to starve to death, after all he'd done.
She rolled her eyes at that. "It's kind of hard when one cannot walk more than five or ten minutes at a time," she muttered then, glaring back and downwards at her leg. "I'm sure you've already smelled my blood, so don't be an idiot."
"Oh. That's yours." He sighed softly, ears flicking up and then back down again. "How was I to understand how severe your injuries were, Miss....?" Come to think of it, with their unconventional method of meeting, they hadn't exchanged any sort of pleasantries, and thus, he hadn't the faintest idea what her name was.
The vampiress sighed softly. "Kiergan," she replied. "But please for the love of the gods don't call me 'miss'." She snorted softly. "And yes, that's mine. There was a boar ... a little while back ... damn thing slashed open my back leg."
"Kiergan." It didn't seem a very feminine name, but perhaps that was why she insisted with some derision that he did not call her 'miss'. Hnn. A real firebrand this one, not that he could object, he'd been an asshat in his day. "I'm Rossandol, but 'Ros is easier, if you feel so inclined..." Honestly, the male had no idea where this conversation was going any longer. "Ah, well...at least a god didn't take your eyes...divine fate as penance for my crimes, I would suppose, though I'd barely call my once-master divine even by the standards of most deities..." Oh, yes, he was not being a good gentleman in any shape, form, or fashion. "But if...you're so hungry...I mean...I..." As long as she didn't kill him, he didn't see any point in not offering her a little something, it wasn't as though 'Ros was going to live long in this condition regardless. For a blind lion without friends, family, or pride...the world was unmerciful.
Kiergan blinked at that. Was he... actually -offering- his blood to her here? How very strange. "What do you mean, a god took your eyes...?" she asked, curious despite herself. But then she shook her head a bit. "Nevermind, it doesn't really matter. If you really do want to help me... I've got no problem with it."
"The demon god decided to be rid of me...this..." He gestured with a paw to his face, "Was a parting gift, I suppose renderig me useless to all else." A slow way to kill him, though a fairly sure one, as all 'Ros had ever made in the past years of servitude had been enemies. "And I will help you but...if I do...might I accompany you?" It seemed the only ray of hope that he had in his constant darkness.
Accompany her..? Well, he didn't seem like too bad of a guy, even though it was true that he -was- kind of useless now. She hadn't really ever known a blind lion before, though. And perhaps his eyes would heal. "All right..." she agreed slowly, eyeing him. Aside from the scars, he wasn't bad to look at after all .... hmmn. "If you're going to let me drink from, then hold still," she instructed then, all business. "Or you might want to lie down first so you don't fall over." And cue another little smirk he would never see. It would be interesting to have a companion of sorts, she decided.
He snorted softly, and heeded her advice, slowly lowering himself down to rest on the jungle's floor. "If you say so..."Though he'd survived through quite a lot standing up, which was more than could be said about some of Morifaer's demons. It was a funny world, where he could run from the demons and right on into the paws of the vampires. Hardly seemed just...but then again, were he to consider karma, mayhap it was.
Kiergan also lowered herself to the ground, her injured leg sticking out at something of an awkward angle, since bending it -hurt-. Curving her head about, she bit into the thickest part of male's shoulder. Honestly, she would have preferred his neck, but she was too tired and in too much of a hurry to dig through his mane right now.
He made a soft sound as her teeth dug in, but other than a wince, he didn't really respond to the pain that inflicted. Eyes lidding, he allowed her her sustenance. The draw of blood an alien but not wholly unpleasant sensation. What a strange custom these vampires harbored, though no less peculiar than some of the demonic practices.
Kiergan's own eyes lidded as she lapped at the blood that welled up, feeling strength slowly seep back into her muscles. After a few moments, though, she drew back, licking at her muzzle. "Thank you," she half-murmured, feeling like she might have a chance to stay alive out here for the first time in days. To really get her strength back she would have to hunt, but that just might be possible with some help.
