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 Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:55 am
His heart wasn't breaking over the fact, too be honest. Somewhere deep in his heart, he knew eventually it would lead to this. He had expected that it wouldn't be to hunt down his sister, though. And he would be lying if he said he was always planning to take Vaako along for the ride. He cared for his brother in his own way, but the idea of being stuck with him forever was... Well. Irksome.
He didn't enjoy watching Vaako's every step, and he wouldn't enjoy it while they hunted down Jak.
His ears swiveled towards the den when he heard the set of paws that belonged to his brother and his mother coming closer to the mouth of the den, and he rose, turning to face his mother. He glanced at Vaako briefly, watching his brother slip off. No doubt to find Svanhild and Kofie.
So help him if the girls tried to follow them. He'd shove Vaako facefirst in a pile of elephant dung.
"Mom." He greeted evenly, stepping towards her. This was not a time for heartfelt goodbyes. Even if it were, Riddiq wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy thoughts kind of lion. This was a journey, his way out, and he'd treat it as such.
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:03 am
 Tare blinked as she stepped into the brightness of daylight. She'd been outside earlier, but when the sun got hotter she'd retired. Having a dark coat didn't lend itself particularly well to bearing afternoon heat with ease, and she actually had a den to retire to, which was still something of a novelty. In her life pre-motherhood she had only rarely had such a place. Permanent dens weren't typically part of her nomadic existence unless it was raining, and even then she usually just got wet.
Her eyes adjusted to the sunlight quickly, her pupils narrowing to slits and making her eyes more amber than anything else. She turned them to her eldest cub, who was growing up so fast. He didn't look like a cub anymore. He was already beginning to show signs of angular, long-limbed adolescence. It made his oddly self-contained and mature nature easier to accept. No doubt he would prove quite the heartbreaker if he chose to take that route. The thought made her proud. She'd produced some handsome sons and beautiful daughters.
"Vaako tells me the two of you mean to go hunting," Tare said, not bothering to return his greeting. Usually Riddiq was very much to the point when he spoke, and she tried to return the favor.
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:13 am
Riddiq nodded shortly, appreciative of his mother's way of getting to the point. He'd prefer to be gone as soon as possible, but given that Vaako had slipped off to give their sisters the benefit of a goodbye, he had time to spare. It annoyed him, but he would make use of it. "Jak has gone missing." He said with utmost certainty. While she would likely hide from Vaako until nightfall, he didn't think she would do so with himself. Most times when Riddiq called, it was for a reason, and he liked to think that Jak wouldn't ignore him when he went to find her.
"There were cheetah tracks. If we leave soon, we can follow them as far as they go before it gets dark." He said, glancing towards where the tracks were. "We're going to find Jakyra." He didn't kid himself by saying they would bring her back. The odds of them returning to find Gintare waiting for them was slim to none, and Riddiq was sort of fine with that. The moving around that they had done as he grew up was the only time he was given the capacity to wander. He was looking forward to being able to explore on his own after they found the wayward sister.
"I'd leave Vaako, but..." It wasn't that he wanted him to come. It wasn't even that he needed him. If anything, Vaako would probably get in the way at least once. But the moral code that made Riddiq the way he was demanded that Vaako help find the sister that he had carelessly lost. Otherwise he would have left when he first saw the cheetah tracks, without having come home to tell Gintare in the first place. "I'm sure you can handle Kofie and Svanhild until they're bigger." He spoke with relative ease, his tone light and calm in spite of the inner chaos that was raging in his head, demanding that he find the cheetah and rip him to shreds for laying a paw on his Jak.
It was not the time for baser instincts.
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:24 am
"So I've heard," Tare said softly.
She was still struggling internally to make it somehow not her fault that one of her cubs - her youngest daughter - had been taken by a cheetah. From the moment they looked even remotely capable of not dying without her presence Tare had been wandering away from her cubs for increasingly long periods of time. They'd learned very young not to ask where she was going or when she'd be back. She had always come back, and in the mean time the cubs had learned some valuable lessons about taking care of themselves.
At least that's what she'd thought was going on. Oh, there were certainly selfish motives in her disappearances. She wasn't fond of groups in general, and she wasn't particularly maternal in nature, but mostly she just hated to be tied down. Disappearing for a while was her means of coping. So far she had been gratified to see that nothing untoward had happened to her offspring in her absence. No, instead she'd managed to lose one of them during one of those times when she was actually with her cubs. What kind of a mother did that?
"I've already wished Vaako good luck, and I'll do the same for you. You know your chances of finding her are slim, right?" It wasn't easy to say that, either, but it was the truth. "And even if you find her, she may be dead or injured, or perhaps she may not want to be found."
She ignored his remark about leaving Vaako. Whether he stayed or went he would be insufferable. She didn't doubt that remorse and self-blame would eat at him. It was better for him to go with Riddiq and attempt to find Jak, or at least attempt it until it proved impossible and then get on with his life. It would also mean she wouldn't have to deal with him being extra-protective of his remaining family. That sort of thing would grate on her nerves like nothing else.
"I think I'll manage the other two well enough," she said dryly. "They aren't quite the same sort of worrisome people you and Jak and Vaako could be.
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:38 pm
Riddiq nodded evenly, watching her with oddly blank golden eyes. Blame was not hidden there for anyone. Jak had been taken. As much as he'd like to blame Vaako for losing her, in the end, Riddiq wasn't certain that he could have stopped a cheetah from taking Jak if he were there. It frustrated him to no end, but he wasn't stupid and he didn't have a death wish. If a threat loomed, he would have tried to get Jak away, but if the threat had already had her...
He would have only done one thing different. He would have gone after her immediately. That was Riddiq's job, after all, protecting them. He was stirred from his thoughts as Gintare spoke the words that he had been thinking since Vaako's announcement. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, a low growl rising in the back of his throat not at Gintare but at the nameless feline who had had the gall to take his sister in the first place.
"If I don't find her, I'll find the cheetah who took her, and I'll rip him apart." He said tonelessly, rolling his shoulders back and lifting his head a little. Failure was not an option in his eyes. This was his sister they were talking about. He would not have been so foolstrong in the case of Svanhild or Kofie, or even Vaako. But Jakyra was of an entirely different breed. He would not give up on her until he saw her carcass with his own eyes.
"I just want to find Jak. If she wants to stay gone..." He smirked a little wryly. "Can you blame her?" He asked bluntly. "We all feel the tug." He knew Gintare felt it as strongly as he did. She had the luck of being able to wander off and not worry. If she did worry, Riddiq certainly wasn't aware of it. But Riddiq always came back out of a sense of duty to his siblings.
Now he wouldn't have to worry about that duty.
He grinned a little, snorting quietly. "Give 'em time." He muttered. "It's gotta be in there somewhere, right?" He said in a quiet rumble.
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Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:55 am
Tare's lips peeled back from her sharp teeth in a fierce grin of approval at Riddiq's plan for the cheetah who stole her daughter, his sister. She wouldn't be above a little maiming and mauling for the b*****d, if she ever found him. And she did plan to look, but at the same time she had other cubs to keep an eye on, and couldn't really go haring off for as long as it might take her to find Jak.
If any of her cubs besides Riddiq had said they were going off on a quest like this, she probably would have laughed at them and told them not to be stupid. But Riddiq could take care of himself, and probably Vaako, too. After Riddiq, she would have said Vaako was best-suited to autonomy anyway. So the two of them stood a better chance than not. Like Riddiq, however, she hoped Kofie and Svan didn't decide they wanted to go. While she would have enjoyed the freedom, she honestly didn't think a band of four siblings wandering around would fare particularly well.
"Do that," she said, speaking with bared teeth. "And waste him."
Riddiq would probably know what she meant when she said to waste the cheetah. Don't eat his flesh, don't wear his pelt, don't save his claws or teeth. Bury him so that his corpse would serve no purpose and he would be completely removed from any sort of redemption or usefulness. It was spiteful, but it was a pretty good revenge. At least she thought it was.
"You know I wouldn't hold it against any of you if you decided to leave, though I might tell your sisters it would be kind of stupid for them to do so at this age. They'd be asking for trouble. Maybe I should have taken more time to teach you all how to get by..."
She smirked at her son's humor. "Given their parents, I'd say so."
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Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:49 pm
"I will." The grim promise was practically growled out. Part of Riddiq looked greatly forward to ripping apart the feline who took his sister. It was like dangling a piece of meat in front of him; he needed it. Riddiq knew precisely what Gintare meant; whoever this a** was, he would have no place in Riddiq's body or Vaako's. He would drag his body back and forth, a final insult, before burying it so nothing could get at it.
If there were a more thorough way of total annihilation, Riddiq did not know it. Briefly his thoughts flickered to Vaako He didn't consider his brother an agile hunter, a good tracker, or a passable fighter. He wasn't sure how Vaako would handle killing anything that wasn't meant for food, let alone a cheetah who was at this point bigger than they were. If nothing else, he would force him to stay back and hope that Vaako followed orders in the heat of the moment half as good as Jakyra would.
Riddiq smirked a little. "There's still time for the girls." He said bluntly, shrugging his shoulders. "What little there is left, anyway. Never hurts to teach a little." In hindsight, Riddiq wished he had made more of an effort for the girls to teach them how to be independent. It would have made it easier on his conscience, though admittedly, Svanhild and Kofie were merely blips in an otherwise void mind. All that he was focusing on was finding the sister who'd been stolen. He trusted Gintare to not lose Svanhild and Kofie until they were ready. She couldn't possibly lose two more girls. And they were nearly big enough to be on their own.
Riddiq's lips curled back in a wry grin, and he shrugged. "They're getting big." He rumbled, glancing towards the cave. "It won't be long now." He said evenly, looking at Gintare. "Any plans after they go?" What he was really asking, and didn't have the words to express, was if she'd be anywhere he could find her in the future.
Whether he liked it, or even knew it, Riddiq would find Gintare again after he found Jakyra. Even if it were to be a grim messenger in Jak's case, he would return for a chat.
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Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:12 am
Sometimes when she was speaking with Riddiq Tare experienced moments of disorientation when she remembered that she was speaking with someone who was only a cub. Her cub, specifically. None of her cubs had really taken after her completely, and she supposed that was a good thing, since they probably would have been lost much sooner if they were as inclined to wandering as she, but sometimes she simply didn't understand how she could have produced a cub like Riddiq. He behaved in a manner beyond his years and treated her more like a peer than a parent. The fact that she preferred that was altogether irrelevant. It was just odd and unexpected. She hadn't thought her first litter would turn out like this.
"And I suppose I ought to make use of it," she murmured, though the thought of being bound to one place for that much longer, unable to leave the den and have time to herself, was galling. There were ways to make it less painful for her, though, and she knew that. She could turn finding her and stalking her into a game for Svan and Kofie, and things like that. Her freedom didn't have to be completely curtailed. It hadn't been so far. Though so far she'd also managed to have a daughter kidnapped and lose two sons to look for her all in one day, which was an unimpressive record.
"After they go, I expect you'll be able to find me around the Ukuucha'Wafalme lands. I enjoy myself with the lions in that pride from time to time, and I often return there to amuse myself." She rolled her shoulders in a shrug.
"If I'm not there...what can I say? I wander. I like warm places, though."
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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:02 am
Riddiq straightened up a little as she spoke, smirking a little and nodding. "Probably." He muttered. Riddiq didn't judge Gintare for her faults. He appreciated them, for whatever it was worth. But Gintare wasn't wrong to feel like Riddiq had turned out so odd. Circumstance could certainly be blamed for a portion of it, but in the end, Riddiq had been born this way. Trapped in a awkward, tiny frame with a mind far advanced for its age. He liked that prospect of himself if he could find nothing else to like. He had an appreciation and a mindset unlike any of his siblings or Gintare.
Sometimes he wished it wasn't so, thinking that it might be easier on him in the long run, but he had to play with the hand he was dealt. No point in whining about it. He watched Gintare with an even expression and empty gold-colored eyes, tail flicking behind him in anticipation. His whole body was thrumming to just get on with it, in the back of his mind he knew they were wasting daylight, but this was important.
If it wasn't said now, it wouldn't be said later. Whatever 'it' was.
The Ukuucha'wafalme brought Riddiq's attention back to the matter at hand. Could the cheetah have taken her there? He doubted it, but it was worth following up on. He nodded shortly, smirking a little. "Alright." He rumbled quietly, rolling his shoulders back as he stood. His claws dug at the ground a little as he glanced towards where Vaako had wandered off to.
He'd have to fetch him and say goodbye to the girls, at this rate.
"We'll find her." He said evenly, looking back at Gintare. It wasn't perhaps the best goodbye, but Riddiq couldn't seem to bring himself to say those words to Gintare. A part of him realized that this might be the last time he saw his mother or his sisters. The other part just didn't seem to know how to form the words to say what he felt. That he admired her? That he didn't blame her? That he'd find her again? He couldn't say these things without seeming like...well. One of his sisters.
Besides. He was sure Gintare knew. She had to have some maternal instinct on that sort of thing akin to mindreading, right?
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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:53 pm
"All right," Gintare said, echoing Riddiq without thinking about it.
For her there was a sort of finality to the way she said it. Like Riddiq, she didn't want to say goodbye. It somehow didn't fit the situation. Which was not so much of a surprise. In her wandering ways, Tare rarely found herself uttering the phrase. She had so many other ways of letting people know their time together had come to an end, goodbye just seemed so pedestrian in comparison. And it did carry that connotation of permanence which she really didn't want to apply to her own cub. That would have been cold even by her standards.
She could see that Riddiq was anxious to be gone and hoped Vaako had finished with his goodbyes to the girls, because she guessed Riddiq wouldn't be averse to dragging him away by his tail or simply leaving without him. If he left without him, Vaako would probably follow, but it would not be an auspicious beginning. She should not keep Riddiq any longer. He didn't need her, it seemed, and she wasn't enough of a mother that she felt the need to cling to him and keep him close by.
"Good hunting," she bid him, deciding that it was far more appropriate, given everything.
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Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:37 pm
Riddiq's ears quirked at his mother's remark, and he smirked a little, nodding as he turned towards where Vaako had gone. He had to take him with him; if he didn't, Vaako would likely chase after him, and he'd never hear the end of it. "Stay safe." He rumbled over his shoulder, looking back.
He didn't say anything else, but the look spoke worlds. He'd miss her, he loved her, all of the ridiculous things that would never be caught dead flying out of his lips. Then he turned and trotted off to find his brother so they could go before the sun set and they lost the tracks.
Or he did something stupid. Like hug her.
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