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 Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:16 pm
 Skadi took a couple of deep breaths, trying to strengthen herself for what she had to do. She had already said farewell to her aunt, the little ones and their little group, and left a half-hearted promise to follow them, eventually. Half-hearted because she wasn't too sure she would ever leave. If she stayed here much longer, she would probably taste the rage of the spirits, too, and fall sick just like the others. And die, just like the others. So why was she still here? Not because she thought there was still some sort of way to salvage the Mizimu, no. Everything had been tried, and everything had failed. Even before her aunt had confronted her about the inevitable end, Skadi had felt it in her bones. She'd fought against it, but... a quick glance in the direction of the caves, where the latest victims laid wheezing and coughing, made her shudder. There was no denying it, not anymore. Not for her, anyway. But she had stayed. And waited. Because as surely as she knew that to stay would be certain death, she also knew that there was something she had to finish. A debt that had to be repaid. And he - the lion she felt that she owed - had also stayed. Almost as if he was meant to, so long as she kept avoiding her duty to him. As if the spirits meant to teach her a lesson. She set her jaw and continued walking. She knew where he was, and he was probably just being the same old stupid-stubborn self that he had always been. Well, this was it, she had to give it her best shot, and if that somehow failed... well, she'd just have to take it from there, didn't she? She passed the rocky outcropping and... there he was. A bright flare of orange and red against the brown and grey rock. Suddenly, her stomach knotted up in a tight, black ball, and it took some effort to actually call out to him. But she did. "Hey..."
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:13 am
 Blota had tried to be a good follower ever since he came back from his kidnapping and extended journey. It had been good to be home, but only for a while. It appeared that the spirits were far from done with the Mizimu'Tungika. There were moments when he wondered if someone was out to get him, but then he scolded himself for thinking he was that important. This was much bigger than any of the mistakes he had made in life. So it wasn't Blota's fault, probably, but he still didn't know what he ought to do about it.
The haruspexes and scryers weren't available for spiritual guidance, and to be quite honest they too seemed lost and confused. Those that weren't already dead or dying at least. Blota tried to keep doing what he was told, and helping out as best he could, but his home had turned into a very frightening place. Despite trying to tend to the sick lions he hadn't started feeling unwell yet. Perhaps it was just a matter of time.
He wondered if he'd be able to do any good on the other side if he died from the plague, or if the sickness affected the spirits as well as the bodies of its victims. It was frightening, and no once could give him more than educated guesses as to what was going on.
The voice of another startled him and he spun around. Skadi wasn't really interrupting anything, because these thoughts seemed to chase each other around his brain all day no matter what he did.
"Err... hi," he said, "How are you?"
A very serious question to ask in these hard times, but it had just slipped out.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 7:44 am
Skadi's muzzle managed a tense smile at Blota's question, and she shrugged.
"I'm... Okay. Or, you know... I'm not sick. Yet, anyway." She took a deep breath and looked him up and down. She knew he had been doing some work to help the sick and dying - now that he wasn't a sacrifice anymore, he had duties just like her, after all - but she couldn't see any signs of illness on him.
Well, unless you counted being tired and underfed an illness. But in that case every one of them would be sick by now.
"How are you?"
She would get to her real point, she was working up to it, she just... Needed a little longer to judge his mood, so she would know what to say, and how to say it. She took a few steps closer to him, then stopped again, trying not to swallow though her mouth felt positively parched.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:30 am
"Same here," he said, "I feel awful, but I don't think I'm sick. it's just..."
He tilted his head to indicate... well... everything. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach wasn't the plague because he had lived with it pretty much since everything started. And for each day the pride seemed to fall apart more. Most of the higher ranking members were absent now. Evacuated, quarantined or dead he supposed. He still worked with the last orders given, and stubbornly ignored the fact that the number of lions capable of giving orders dwindled each day. Some grew too sick to be of any use, some died, some of the dying ones left in hope of a more honourable death elsewhere. In the beginning the haruspexes had assisted some of those wanting to end it, but he hadn't seen any Sacrifices carried out in a while now. And a sick lion made a poor sacrifice... He had heard of a haruspex that had helped sick lions by offering them to the spirits without making a full sacrifice out of it, but she was sick or dead now too apparently.
Then there were those that had just left. But he had promised himself that he was back home for good this time. It was just a pity "home" had turned into a horror house.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:56 am
Skadi nodded, Blota didn't have to finish his sentence. "Yeah," she agreed with a quick look down at her paws.
She had no idea how to begin, but something inside her did it anyway.
"Blota, I..." She cleared her throat, looked up at him and began again. "I don't think we're going to pull through this. I mean, the Mizimu. I don't know if it's the spirits' punishment for some wrong we have done, or if the spirits are losing a war against hostile spirits or whatever it is that is happening. All I know is.. There's just too little left of us." She shook her head, searching his eyes for his reaction to these words. "I don't think the pride can survive this, anymore."
There. That wasn't everything that she should say to him, but it was a start.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:04 am
Blota felt as if someone had dunked him in freezing water. Skadi was putting words on his own fears, and he wanted to be mad at her for making it all real. The spark of anger soon died down, and was replaced with resignation. Yes. They were doomed, they were dying. He knew it, she knew it, and it was pointless to deny it.
"This is not the honourable way to go," he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else, "I can't see why they're punishing us like this."
He wasn't even seeing Skadi anymore, he was seeing his home fall apart, and life as he knew it ending.
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2011 9:47 am
She saw the spark of anger and watched as it quickly faded into resignation, and then something that loomed dangerously close to despair. As she had figured, he had been diligently avoiding to understand the truth until now. She walked a little closer to him and cleared her throat again, her ears subconciously lowering with her rising anexity.
"I wouldn't know. I never did manage to get into the Heart. But on the other paw, the Heart didn't seem to know, either. Think about it, Blota. They tried everything, absolutely everything, and nothing worked. Maybe... Maybe there was never anything to do. Maybe there's nothing that can be done." She paused a moment, considered her words and what she ought to say next.
"My aunt, Skuld, and her apprentice and her cubs have already left. Like many others. I'm thinking they made the right choice." She took a deep breath, straightened up and looked him right in the face. "I want to leave, too. But I want you to come with me."
It took all the self-control that she had to keep straight, and keep looking right at him, and it may have shown in her stubborn, almost aggressive expression, but her ears betrayed her, remaining low and pointing out sideways. Her fur suddenly felt really uncomfortably warm.
He was bound to ask questions now, and she steeled herself as best she could in anticipation of them.
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Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 12:40 pm
Blota hadn't allowed himself to think about leaving. Others did, but he had tried to look the other way and keep it out of sight - out of mind. It was disheartening to listen to Skadi talk about those who had left, and when she said she wanted to leave he felt a brief pang of disappointment. And then she dropped the bomb. Together? Blota didn't even want to leave.
His first impulse was to just say no, but for some reason he didn't. Part of it was the sudden dryness in his mouth, preventing him from getting any words out. When he found his voice again that impulse had passed.
"Why?" he asked instead. It summed it up quite nicely. Why leave? Why now? Why him? Why is this happening anyway?
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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 6:35 am
For a moment she just looked at him, then she heaved a little sigh and sat down, her ears still anxiously lowered. She looked away, her brow furrowing deeper.
Man, her fur felt hot. Like it was only getting warmer and warmer. Damn inconvenient right now.
"Because..." she began, cleared her throat, and tried again: "Because... Because there's no honor in dying like this. Because there's no way to survive in this place anymore. Because... as long as we stay alive, there'll still be something that we can do... maybe to... like... atone-" She cleared her throat again. "-Or something. Maybe that's why we've been spared so far. Maybe we haven't died yet because we're not supposed to die, is what I'm saying. But either which way..." She hesitated, her head lowering without her even noticing. Her skin was practically boiling now. It was really starting to piss her off, this feeling. She dared a quick glance up at his face and tossed the words out before she could change her mind:
"I want you to come with me because I don't want you to die, okay?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:07 am
Much of what she said made sense to him. In his mentally exhausted state he wanted to be told what to do, and he wanted it badly. Skadi voiced the thoughts he tried not to think and the hopes that there was something left to do. Something like hope. Blota was beyond feeling hope, but he wasn't ready to just sit down and die.
"What does it matter if I live or die," he said in a very low voice. He didn't really want to die, but he had a hard time figuring out what the point of living was at the moment. But the thought of Skadi leaving and finding something better away from here was oddly uplifting, and he continued in a tired but more normal voice, "You go, there's no point in you dying."
Because he didn't want her to die honourless like this. His entire life was upside down and he felt as if the ground was crumbling under his feet, but he was certain of that. He didn't want Skadi to die like all the others had.
"What if the Dhati was right?" he said to no one in particular. He had heard them talking while he was their captive, and some had tried to recruit him to fight for them instead.
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Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 8:05 am
What does it...? Skadi's first impulse was to swat him right across the snout for being a slow-witted lout, and her paw twitched once, but she repressed it. Hitting him was what had started this whole mess in the first place. It was not likely it would solve anything.
Her tail, however, easily betrayed her mood, swishing back and forth like an agitated cobra while she mastered her impulses and tried to figure out what she should, instead, say (without yelling, if at all possible). Then he brought up the rebels, and her thin thread of composure snapped.
"Oh, come on, you don't believe that!" she snapped, "Please! If they had the spirits on their side, how come they lost the damn war? Damnit, Blota, I..." She finally checked herself and actually had to get up on her feet and turn her back on him for a second before she could turn back and continue the conversation in a more mature manner.
"It doesn't matter, anyway. That is what doesn't matter. What was, was, what is, is, we are where we are and this is what's happening right now. What we should be focusing on is what we can do right now, not what we should or perhaps... Shouldn't have done in the past." She paused for a brief moment, gazing off to the side in a quiet acknowledgement that she was, herself, in a way trying to atone for something in the past - but hey, at least her plan was a constructive one!
"But fine," she continued. "If you really don't care what happens to you, I won't force you to go. I'll just stay here with you. Then I can at least make sure you don't starve to death or something."
By way of underscoring the finality of her decision, she plopped her butt down on the dusty ground and gave the orange lion a very direct look.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 4:43 am
Pearlyblue Boo-ya! Finally. He's such a stubborn boy. I might need divine intervention to get him out of this funk... Either that or antidepressives razz
Yelling didn't work, and a swat would probably not have made him snap out of it either, but Skadi's stubborn glare did. Sort of. The orange lion got to his feet, stil looking half way across to the spirit world.
"I don't want you to die," he mumbled, so quietly the spirits might be the only ones hearing this confession, "Where do we go?"
He looked lost, he looked broken, but he was on his feet and apparently prepared to follow Skadi wherever she led him.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 5:23 am
Skadi released a breath she didn't know she had been holding when the orange lion finally stood and asked where they should go. At that moment, she could have rubbed up against him like a cub against it's mother, but she didn't, because what?She fought back a sudden tightness of the throat, and stood up herself, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling at him. She hadn't heard whatever he had muttered, but it so didn't matter just as long as he'd agree to come with her, to leave this doomed and dying land. Skadi carefully padded over to stand next to Blota. He looked so very lost and... Well... She was reallyreally glad that he had agreed to follow her. As a subtle sign that she was ready to support him, and happy to have him with her, she gently bumped his shoulder with her own and met his blue eyes with her own. "We go where our paws lead us. The spirits will see us to where we should be, I'm sure of it." She cleared her throat and looked off into the horizon, frowning slightly to herself in embarrassment as she continued. "If we stick together, we'll be fine. I'll make sure of it."
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