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 Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 7:46 pm
 Curled up in the brightly colored flowers that thronged the lower valleys of the edges of the Illud per Altus pack's territories, the similarly brightly colored Wailawa lay blinking at the sunlight of the day, eyes wide and watching as the bees wandered from petal to petal. He always felt at home here in the valley, where he blended in with the grass and flowers perfectly in a way that he wouldn't against any other terrain.
He must have been made for this place, he mused. What luck to have been born right into the spot he was meant to fill in the world. Send him to the desert or the savannah and he'd be an eyesore, useless as a predator and spotted a mile away. But here, the food practically walked into his mouth. He was quickly earning prestige as a hunter for his people, now that he was coming of age, but he barely even know the first thing about making a kill. He just aimed his teeth and the rest seemed to take care of itself.
He didn't know if he wanted to be a hunter, though. He preferred the restful bliss of just laying in the flowers, watching the world go by. He came here often to hide from work, as he was doing right then. Mother wanted him to learn more of the many stories and facts collected by their people. Again. So he hid, because it was just too hard. Any fact put into his head wouldn't stick for long, and would fly away as soon as he was distracted. It didn't bother him, not being as bright a learner as his siblings. But it meant he had to hide from lessons a lot.
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:40 am
Hawera was vaguely aware that the lands near by belonged to some pack. She wasn't sure who had told her - her mother, her brother, some stranger with a rumor? It didn't matter to her either way. The little hyena had been raised rogue, and didn't much care about pack politics. If they got cranky about her being in their lands, they would just have to deal with it. She was doing something important.
The importance of her investigation might not have seemed so very important to an adult, but when Hawera took an interest in something she focused on it with the eyes of a raptor. Right now, she was interested in flowers. Flowers and bees. She crept through the flowers, her bright eyes intently tracking the progress of a bee. What was the bee doing? For that matter, what did any bee do? They just buzzed about, busy and aimless at the same time. No one had ever informed Hawera about the wonders of pollination. The relationship of the bee to the flowers was an enticing mystery.
The presence of another hyena in her path didn't make much of an impression. If he had been violent, Hawera could have been pounced on in an instant. She didn't recognize the danger in stumbling over strange creatures, and ignored him, other than to whisper at him. "You stay still. I'm following this bee."
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:48 pm
A streak of bright pink caught Wailawa's eye, and he watched it placidly, wondering absently what it might be. That it might be some sort of threat never even occurred to him. It was too serene a day for such notions to interfere, the hyena's blissful state of mind held complete dominance. In any case, the colors soon resolved themselves into a small hyena female as she came right up near him.
He'd never seen her before, he didn't think. Well, possibly. There were some newcomers, and he was bad with markings. She was following the bees as if on the hunt, and his eyes now followed her with the same blank attention he'd previously given to the bees himself. He obeyed her command and kept still, laying stretched out in the field. A blade of grass twisted in the wind and touched his nose, and he concentrated on not twitching.
"Are you collecting information on the bees?" he asked, not connecting her command to the idea that she might also want him to be quiet. "I think they've already been collected. I dunno. I tried studying them once, but I can't remember what I learned." He racked his brain for any snippets of news he might know about bees, that might've been shared to him by the other pack members. Nothing came up.
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Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:06 am
It was a good thing that the male wasn't aggressive. Hawera was an inquisitive, often obnoxious little hyena, but she was very inexperienced when it came to the harsh realities of the world. Thankfully, her carelessly wandering paws had led her to a very nice-seeming fellow, although Hawera didn't care. Right now, she cared about bees.
She turned her head, glancing over at the green hyena as he mentioned 'collecting information'. Collecting information ... now that was something that Hawera deeply loved, and for just a second there she had thought this other fellow was interested as well ... but his next words were disappointing. Losing interest, she returned her attention to the bee. Poking around in a flower again. Not eating the flower, just ... doing something with it. Hawera edged a bit closer, trying to get a better look.
"You must not have studied hard enough," Hawera said loftily, sounding superior although she had never formally studied anything in her young life. "I remember everything." Well, perhaps that was a slight exaggeration, but it was mostly true ... at least for interesting subjects.
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Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:37 pm
Wailawa made a suitably impressed facial expression. "Wow, everything. That's a lot to remember. You'll probably be a great Memoria when you grow up." He didn't think that the pup might not be from their pack and might not even know about their historian rank and information collecting traditions. "My sister will probably end up a Memoria too. I'll want to get into the Bellators."
Because if he didn't make the Bellators, the hunters, he'd end up as an Obsequens, a worker drudge, digging caves and other chores. It didn't sound like bad work to him, since he was easy to please, but it was also the lowest rank. He didn't want to disappoint his mother.
His thoughts returned to bees. "You're not going to try to eat it, are you? Because they don't taste that good. I remember that much. They have a sort of... fuzzy texture." He grimaced at the memory. The things a pup will do if his sister dares him to.
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:34 am
Blah, blah, blah. This strange green hyena loved to chatter, didn't he? It was too bad he didn't have anything interesting to say. Hawera had no idea what he was babbling about. Memorias and Bellators? She was almost entirely certain that when she grew up she would be a hyena, and not a Memoria. Obviously the poor fellow wasn't very bright.
"Of course I'm not going to eat it," Hawera said, shooting him an annoyed glance. How dumb did he think she was? She was willing to be forgiving with this simple-minded dope, but she didn't want him to think she was just as dumb as he was. "You'd have to be real dumb to eat a bee." The little hyena wasn't mean, but she could be a bit snappish. She had been planning to ignore his earlier blathering about Memorias, but now she felt the need to correct him a bit. "And I'm not gonna be a Memoria when I grow up, I'm gonna be a hyena." Although she was keeping an eye on the bee, she was now thoroughly distracted. "What's your name, anyways? I'm Hawera."
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 11:30 am
Wailawa's shrugged at her comment about eating a bee. She was probably right about that, sis always said the same thing. But the rest just boggled him, and his eyes crossed as he tried to figure it out. A hyena could become... not a hyena? Growing up a particular shape could be a choice, then? His eyes drifted to a bird overhead, and he pondered wistfully what it would take to grow a set of wings of his own.
"Memorias are hyenas," he answered her, eyes still pointed upwards, "or at least the ones I've met are. It's a job, I think, like hunter or digger. Mother says they hunt for knowledge instead of prey, and then they bring it back to the dens and share it with the rest of the pack." Another bee flew down near his nose, and he chased it off with a huff of air. "I'm Wailawa. Our names sound similar, don't they? Are you my cousin?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 11:58 am
Although Hawera's chief enjoyment in life was finding things out, she did not much appreciate finding them out from other hyenas, particularly ones that seemed as dopey as Wailawa. As she grew older she would likely grow out of it, but until this point in her life Hawera had been the cleverest hyena she knew. The idea that other hyenas like this Wailawa knew more than her was ... annoying. Hiding her annoyance, the juvenile shrugged, returning her gaze to the bee. "Well, I'm a Memoria then," she said firmly.
Hawera honestly had no idea if she was Wailawa's cousin or not, but never in her life had the hyena responded to such a question with a simple 'I don't know.' She took a moment to think before replying. "Maybe we're cousins. The only family I know are my mom and brother, and you don't look like either one of them." She rolled her eyes at the green hyena, considering the possibility of being related to him and immediately dismissing it. "They're brown. I think my dad was black like me. You don't have any brown or black or pink or anything on you."
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:20 pm
"My mother's brown," Wailawa offered eagerly, his attention perking up. "And my grandfather, and my brother and sister. Maybe we are cousins. Mother says I get my green from my father. He's not here, though." He'd met the green male who was supposedly his father on a few occasions, when he wandered close to the pack's territory. He was nice, but he never stayed for some reason. Wailawa squinted. "But I don't know anybody who's pink, except for you."
He was extraordinarily pleased at discovering one of his relatives, and completely missed Hawera's less excited reaction. When the bee circled down to bother his nose again, he made up his mind to help her with her studies, and tried to blow it in her direction. The bee firmly refused to be budged this time. Taking gasping breaths, he kept trying, until on one sharp intake he accidentally sucked it in and nearly choked on the bug. Hacking and gasping, he finally managed to dislodge it with a deep cough, sending it flying to land, soggy and crippled, at Hawera's feet. "There's a bee for you," he wheezed.
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:32 pm
Perhaps it was just that she didn't want to be related to this less-than-intelligent male, but Hawera really didn't think they were family. Granted, she didn't know much about her family beyond her mother and brother, but it just didn't seem likely. Surely her mom would have told her if she had a bunch of cousins near by, lying around in the grass and eating bees and so forth.
Hmm. Well, maybe that was why her mother hadn't told her. Maybe she had wanted to spare her the shame of being related to hyenas that ate bees.
And speaking of eating bees ... Hawera could only stare in astonishment as Wailawa struggled valiantly to blow the bee on his nose away and then accidentally swallowed it. What was one supposed to do in this situation? Luckily, Wailawa managed to cough it out on his own. The juvenile couldn't help but laugh as the bedraggled bee landed on her feet. It was a dismayed laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. "Thanks," she said, poking at it with a paw. The poor crippled bee was clearly beyond teaching her anything, but she was touched by Wailawa's effort to help her out. If he was just a little less dumb, he would probably be a tolerable enough fellow. If she was patient with him, maybe she could help him to be less stupid. It wasn't the poor addled fellow's fault. It probably came from being as green as the grass. Grass wasn't noted for its intelligence. "It would help if you didn't swallow the next one," Hawera said, with as much kindness as she could muster. "But thank you."
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 11:43 am
Wailawa grinned toothily at her thanks, pleased with himself. He was helping study bees, and he hadn't even been told how to. Maybe he was smart enough to be a hunter after all. He watched for a moment, to see if the little female did anything interesting to the soggy bee, but she didn't. Maybe she was studying it and he just couldn't see. His sister usually stared at things, and poked them, and sniffed. And talked to people a lot. She said that you could learn a lot from talking. Maybe you had to be good at it, though, because usually Wailawa forgot what he was even saying before he finished.
He noted her comment about not swallowing the bees, and resolved to try again. Standing up, he padded off into the grasses, eyes keen. Soon he spotted what he was looking for. He very carefully angled his neck and gripped the flower stem delicately, pulled, and tore it free of the ground. Then he turned with slow, smooth motions and crept his way back towards the pink pup, focused on keeping his gait even. He dropped his head towards hers, bringing it close enough for her to inspect. On the tip of the flower a fat bee collected pollen, unconcerned that it had been moved. Wailawa held still and didn't dare breathe for fear of dislodging it.
Unfortunately the petals tickled at his nose, and he sneezed mightily. Pollen went everywhere. The bee, disturbed from its collection, angrily attacked what it viewed as its enemy... Wailawa's nose. He yelped at the sting and dashed breakneck in the other direction, instincts sending him rushing home for his mama.
It wasn't until later that evening that he even remembered the other hyena pup, and wondered what had happened to her.
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