Welcome to Gaia! ::

Vaako's small smile surprised Jak, who only rarely managed to provoke such expressions from this particular brother. He was even offering her options, which was a bit extraordinary. She would have to consider carefully. In her mind, Jak had to perform a translation from Vaako-speak to normal people-speak. Sparring was easy and self-evident, and not high on her list of things she wanted to do. Climbing trees was similarly self-explanatory, but she wasn't quite sure how he intended to turn it into training, and wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Tracking sounds like...a good idea." Not fun. Don't use that word, she reminded herself again. Probably it would come out to being something like hide-and-seek, which was a game she definitely enjoyed, and was even pretty good at. When she wasn't playing against Riddiq. But who was good at anything when they played against him?

Vaako had similar experiences when it came to playing ga… training with his older brother. It was hard to convince Riddiq to do it and even harder not to be thoroughly humiliated by the end of it. So he was pretty happy to spend time with his sisters.
“Good. I’ll leave an easy trail for you to follow.” Vaako said lightly because obviously they were training Jakyra – not that he couldn’t use some training mind you. Maybe afterwards it could be his turn and hopefully he’d do a good enough job that wouldn’t make his sister compare Vaako to… him.

He didn’t really wait for Jak’s reaction as he started walking away at a quick pace and it wasn’t long before the brown lion's body disappeared behind rock and foliage. “Count to… 10. Hum, 3 times! Out loud!”

Jakyra continued counting. She wasn't counting really, really quickly. She'd thought of doing that, just as she'd thought of looking instead of closing her eyes, but that wasn't how the game was played. She wasn't as rule-bound as Vaako, but Jak did like to know what the rules were and play by them most of the time. The rules made the game more challenging, which was fun. She didn't like things to be too easy.

Which was why she continued counting: "Two...Two...Three...Four..."

She couldn't hear Vaako at all. How far away was he? So frustrating! If she counted more quietly, she'd be able to hear better, but then he might accuse her later of not having counted the full amount he told her to count. She kneaded the ground, her claws cutting shallow grooves in the dirt, and continued counting: "Seven...Eight...Nine..."

Mananakbo didn't often recruit for the Kuroi'Nera. Nyoka liked to have him close to her, and so he couldn't go too far afield very often. Not to mention he tended to come back with things that made Nyoka nervous when he went out. Like, for instance, the time when Tesanya came to have her cubs. Oh, spirits, that had been a complete misery in every way.

But he really did feel obligated to help contribute to the pride by bringing people in. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. At least, he hadn't been until he heard the sound of counting. It was a sound he was familiar with because it went with a game he was familiar with. Hide-and-seek. He'd played it as a cub and his own cubs played it now, he heard from Tomkrie. They viewed it as a training exercise, apparently.

He sniffed softly to make sure there were no adult anythings around and when he smelled that there weren't, the fiery cheetah stalked closer. Cubs would be good to bring in. They could keep the myriad cubs in the pride company, and if they were of another species, they could always be servants or guards to them. Slaves, of course, but useful ones.

Vaako was… getting tired. Not just tired of waiting - though, granted, he wasn’t a very patient lion – but he was getting tired of his position. The tense crouch wasn’t particularly comfortable and it wasn’t long until he let his body slide to a much more relaxed pose and not long after that, Vaako was lying down comfortably on the ground. His ears tried to pick up noises but pretty soon the blue gaze was following a tiny bug that dared to move closer to his paws and his sister was delegated to the back of his mind.

The occasional Riddiq grunt or comment echoed inside his head telling him to pay attention, to always be on his guard, to tell him he had to try harder – how horrible would it be if his older brother actually saw him like this during a training exercise?! – but Vaako was convinced he didn’t have to worry about anything until his sister’s movement entered his hearing range. He didn’t give Jakyra enough credit on the stealth department though perhaps he should judging by how quiet things had suddenly become. Unless she started moving the opposite direction or shouting – and that would be pretty funny! – Vaako wasn’t going to become too invested in this gam-… exercise.

After what seemed like forever and a half Jak was finished counting and she opened her eyes. While she'd been counting she'd heard the sound of someone moving away from her, and she hadn't seen or smelled any of her other siblings in the area, so she knew it had to be Vaako. She couldn't believe how cocky he was, waiting until a little after she'd begun to count to go hide. It wasn't as though three-tens was all that long.

"Jerk," she muttered before falling silent again to listen.

Once she was certain of the direction she ought to take she set off at a brisk slink. She didn't just want to find Vaako. She wanted to startle him, maybe even pounce on him. That would be satisfying in the extreme. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face when she landed on him. It was going to be so sweet!

What she found at the end of her tracking, however, was not her brother, but a much larger figure. She had only an impression of someone with long, vibrantly-colored limbs moving much faster than she could ever hope to move before she felt a painful impact at the base of her skull and her vision went black.

He could hear the cub drawing close, and as he listened Mana prepared himself to strike. He didn't think to offer her a choice about coming with him. Who would chose the life of a slave? He wouldn't. He had fled like a coward rather than submit to slavery and maiming, and had no doubt that any other sane creature would do the same. It was for that reason he was not inclined to trust any slave brought into the pride as an adult, and preferred the idea of bringing them in as youths.

When he deemed her close enough to have no chance of seeing him through the tall grasses he stood up slowly and raised one paw in readiness to strike. The base of her skull would be best, for that would require the weakest blow. He could also simply pin her to the ground by her throat until she blacked out, but that ran the risk of actually damaging her voice if he applied too much pressure, not to mention how she would struggle. While Mana couldn't object to the idea of a silent slave, he didn't want to deal with her struggling.

At last she appeared. He saw her eyes widen at the sight of him, but then he struck and felled her with a single stroke. When she collapsed, he bent and grasped the scruff of her neck in his jaws. Lion cubs were heavy, and he was not wholly comfortable handling this one. It reminded him of the Mizimu'Tungiku and its fearsome lions, even though she was dark brown and more like a preybeast than one of them.