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 Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:06 am
 With a little sigh, Izdihar heaved herself up and walked along the rocky cliffs looking at the sandy ground. She'd been here for a while now, running errands for others and such. She really didn't mind the lifestyle of the big family here, as Ataji had put it, but she was indeed a little lonely, missing her family which was situated so far from this place.
Sighing again, she lifted her head slightly, looking around as she spotted a rather large dark lion not too far away.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:53 am
 Aesir wasn't sure. It seemed like he spent a lot of his time as Warlord being not sure. In recent days, the duties of a Warlord had been coming pretty easily to him, requiring less thought and deliberation than they had done earlier in his rule, but now he had this other new role to deal with.
Fatherhood wasn't what he had expected it to be, and he couldn't bring himself to ask for advice from the people he knew who were fathers, since each of them handled fatherhood differently and he was the Warlord. He wasn't supposed to need help with these things. Thank goodness for Morrigan, who seemed to handle everything relating to being a parent with ease and confidence. He tended to take his cues from her.
Except with the matters of hunting and fighting. Those things were definitely a father's duty to teach to his cubs, and Aesir wanted to get started on those as soon as possible. So what he needed, he had decided, was some sort of prey that they could use to practice on. And he'd prefer that it was wild. Which meant leaving the stronghold to hunt, and he really didn't have time to do that.
Fortunately there were Thralls for that, and he thought he could make out in the distance the shape of a Thrall one of the Captains had brought back. He didn't know her name, but he could recognize her pelt, and called out to her, "You over there. Come here."
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:09 pm
Izdihar practically jumped out of her skin when he had called out to her. She certainly didn't expect him to notice her, much less talk to her. The lioness recognized he was the 'head' of this 'family', so she had to act respectful to him. "M-me...?" she stammered, a slightly blushing, making sure he was actually talking to her, though there was no one around.
Izdihar padded closer to Aesir, "A-ah...is there something you need...?" she knew that if she was called over, it was most likely he needed something from her. She couldn't help but look over him, wondering what kind of animal the pelt had been hung around his shoulders was, and wondering if the different colored braids in his mane were actually his hairs.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:16 pm
Aesir sighed with impatience as he looked around, making a show of seeing if there was anyone else in the area to whom he could possibly have been speaking. As they were alone, his gaze naturally fell on no one. Once he had finished his display he turned back to her and said, "Yes. You."
Fortunately he didn't need to reiterate his request for her to come closer. He had a roar which could carry over the fracas of battle, but that was unnecessary here. She was close enough, now, that he could speak in his normal tones, and he preferred it that way. Just the same, he wasn't used to being questioned by Thralls. It was irritating. Frustrating. It shouldn't happen.
"I want a small preybeast, stunned but not wounded."
He didn't offer her any more information than that, because it was all the information she would need to fulfill her role in this exchange. She didn't need to know anything about what he would be using the animal for, though she might guess if she thought about it. Either way, he didn't care. It was simply more convenient for him to have her do it than to fetch the thing for himself.
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:33 am
Oh. Oh no. She would've ran to the ends of the earth and back with buckets of water on her back, but a hunting request. Oh no. The one thing she was unable to do was this. "U-um." Izdihar started meekly, a shy smile on her lips, "I-I'm not a great hunter you see. I-I wouldn't mind doing anything else, just hunting...its not something I am good at..." she shifted uncomfortably from one paw to another, feeling quite stupid. A lion that didn't know how to hunt. Well that was her of course.
"I-I know someone who could probably catch one for you..." she said, suddenly realizing that was a pretty good solution to the problem, "She's really nice, but she's deaf so she can't talk but I'm sure she could do it." Izdihar smiled at Aesir, her tail swishing from side to side much like a cub.
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 7:49 am
Aesir had actually been ready to walk away, having made his demand of the Thrall. After all, what more needed to be said between them? He had made his wishes known and it was her job as a Thrall to facilitate their coming to fruition. There was absolutely no need for further discussion, as far as he was concerned. He had been quite clear in his request, and there shouldn't have been anything she needed clarified.
So the fact that she lingered and began to make excuses was something of a surprise to him. And not a pleasant surprise, like finding out at the end of a hard day that you had some mint stashed that you'd forgotten about and which had dried to perfection. No. It wasn't that kind of surprise at all, and he was less than amused to hear her continuing to babble about her...unwillingness to hunt?
"So, is it that you're unwilling to do this, or incapable of doing it? It's not as if I'm asking for something truly difficult."
He wasn't sure why he was making the effort to curb his temper, since this was only a Thrall, and not someone's personal Thrall as far as he knew, but one of the many who served the Freeborn of the pride and would take orders from anyone. Perhaps it was her stuttering awkwardness, which made her seem like too much of a victim to even be much fun to bully.
"If it's something you're not good at, you could probably use the practice anyway, and I'm not really interested in taking the time to find and explain myself to a deaf lioness." He hadn't even realized there was a deaf lioness in the pride.
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:50 am
"U-um." Izdihar practically recoiled into herself, her ears flattening against her head as her idea suddenly seemed extremely stupid. She back away slowly, "I-I'm sorry." she said meekly, not knowing what else she could really say, "I'm not unwilling...i-it would just take a while and I wasn't sure if you'd want to wait..." the lioness trailed off, feeling as if she merely making up excuses to get herself out of doing this errand. Izdihar just stood there, frozen in place as she kept her eyes glued to the ground, realizing just how big and grainy the sand was, and noticing the different yellows and brown speckles.
"Please don't hate me..." she whispered more to herself, but loud enough for the other lion to hear. Izdihar had never met anyone so rough before, not knowing what to do in a situation like this.
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:00 pm
Aesir regarded Izdihar with a flat stare that he knew was intimidating to people who were inclined to being intimidated. On most Freeborn who had entered adolescence, it wasn't enough to make them quail, but on cubs, juveniles, and flower-blooded adults it seemed to be effective. He could actually use it humorously among most Stormborn. But this Thrall, probably, would not see much humor in it, particularly since he didn't intend there to be any.
"I asked you to do something simple, and as you're not unwilling to do it, I'm not sure why we're still talking about this. I don't really care how you take care of the matter, as long as it's done."
Her whispered plea caught him a little off-guard. When he was out viking people sometimes pleaded with him, but only rarely were the words they spoke asking him not to hate them. As for this Thrall, Aesir didn't hate her. Even if she was incompetent, he didn't hate her. He didn't care one way or the other about her. She was a Thrall, and a very sensitive one at that. He hoped to the gods that she didn't have any cubs in the near future. They couldn't possibly turn out as proper Stormborn.
"I don't hate you," he told her, opting to leave off the part about being indifferent to her.
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 4:57 pm
((Sorry about the wait, I wasn't sure how to respond to this. n__n;;))
Izdihar could feel Aesir boring holes into her even though she was looking at the ground. "I'm sorry." she said again, "I really am. I-I'll go and try..." the lioness said softly, still looking at the ground, "I'm sorry, sir. I really am." she didn't know how many times she had said it so far, but that was the only thing she could think of saying to the male. She'd never met anyone like him before, and didn't know if she had actually done something wrong, or if he was just usually like this. She merely stood there, like a cub that had been scolded by her parent.
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Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:25 am
All Aesir needed to hear was the Thrall saying she would go and try. The apologies didn't signify for him, and so he mostly tuned them out. He had understood several minutes ago that she was quite filled with remorse over her own lack of hunting abilities.
The thing was, he didn't much care. If she wanted to, she was welcome to find her deaf friend and get her to help. Just so long as he got what he wanted. And now that she had confirmed that she would make an effort to see him satisfied, Aesir had no further personal investment either in her or in the conversation.
And, no, he did not feel much in the way of empathy for the fact she was a Thrall. He had been a Thrall, too, and he had never questioned the orders he was given, even when he knew them to be dangerous or disgusting. And some lions had been very fond of ordering him to do such things. He had borne it and he had plotted, and in the end he had triumphed. That someone else might attempt a similar rise to power actually didn't occur to him. At least not with this lioness.
"All right," he said to the Thrall and returned to what he had been doing before, considering the matter concluded and dismissing her from his thoughts.
Don't worry about it. Shall we call this finished?
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Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:08 am
((Yeah~ I finish it up then :3))
Izdihar slowly back away, her ears flattened against her skull. Never in her life had she been so put down! The lioness wasn't indignant that he was so blunt with her, but she felt more useless and unloved more than anything. She walked slowly away from him, to the edge of the pridelands where she would somehow, have to do her job.
Once she had discerned she was a far enough distance from Aesir, she plopped down in the middle of the path as she let out a shuddering sigh. Resting her head on her paws Izdihar's eyes were still kept on the ground.She wondered if her life here would even be bearable, now that she had seen what kind of lions dwelled here. She let out another sigh, covering her eyes with her paws as she wept.
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