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 Posted: Tue Jul 02, 2013 10:13 am
To Meshindi this lioness was a faceless, voiceless spirit whose only proof of existence was that her son lived and breathed. She was born of mild manners and meek disposition, loyal to the Stormborn in the way an antelope surrounded by cackling hyenas would yield allegiance. If there came a day he knew just how kindred their natures, it wouldn't be this one.
This was the third sunrise of their expedition. The first had been marching, marching, marching and come nightfall some of the reavers groused at his father until fights broke out amongst them. They didn't argue how he and Gepeto did, with gruff tones and harmless words. Here they unsheathed their claws and tore asunder the flesh of their own comrades. Meshindi wondered if this was typical of the pride or if his father had intentionally brought the most belligerent lions he could find.
If so, the second day proved this a wise decision. Because on the second day they encountered an assemblaged of rogue males with foul mouths and worse tempers. They had nothing of value, no trinkets or females. Nothing except their pelts. Reavers sliced them off the deceased and squabbled over the most intricately-marked. One of the captives they skinned alive; by time they were done, the fur was such a bloodied mess there was no trace of the sky blue color it had once been.
Neither side was without losses: Meshindi looked down at a felled reaver he'd been speaking with when last the sun had set. Rain struck the lifeless eyes but the corpse never blinked. Meshindi turned to gaze at body of his companion's killer, slaughtered in an act of revenge by his own paw. His heart was sickened, his blood proud, and his mind assuring him this was what it meant to be a Stormborn. To confront your enemies in the torrential rain and watch their blood pool into florid puddles was everything he'd expected.
Come morning light on the third day, reality woke him before the warmth of the sun did. The horrific scream was unlike anything he'd ever heard. He didn't think to check if Gepeto was still lounging beside him before he ran toward it. Someone was in trouble and there was no time to waste. Meshindi's wits were not about him until he reached the chaos and it dawned on him not all cruel acts were comitted against well-deserving brutes in the rain.
A group of rogues had been taking advantage of the benign weather and were making their way across the barren land, damned to cross paths with the vikings. Their numbers included males and females. The males were mauled and the females... Meshindi shuddered to think what happened to the female he'd heard scream, but he need not wonder long: he bared witness to all aspects of pilaging with his own eyes as he drifted through the bedlam in search of his father.
He found Gepeto first.
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Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 7:57 pm
Day one was a struggle. Day two a realization. Day three... the change. Just as the dark silhouette of his brother surfaced over a mound, the two golden eyes met. He was drenched in blood, wreaked of it, and from where he stood before Meshindi, head hunkered between broad shoulders, face stoic despite the chaos that went on behind him; he seemed to vibrate. At his heels was an undistinguishable corpse, it too soaked in crimson and quaking-- although clearly not by its own will. He knew none of this would surprise Meshindi. The band of warriors had made their way across the free lands in two full days of violence and death; their needs never quite fulfilled. And in truth, Meshindi, his brother, the only comrade he had amongst the mongrels, had managed to do more in the way of surprising Gepeto then the other way around. He saw the change occur early on for the ebon feline, and watched as son became father, as Meshindi turned from the goofy, lanky rogue of his past and into one of them. A harbinger of vengeance. Just what it was his father had wanted, Gepeto was almost positive of. He knew that the limp, organic form at his own unsheathed claws would barely gain a courtesy glance, not with all of the trophies they had beneath their belts. The head that dangled between his teeth, however... just might. Gepeto, for all of his indifference with the pride, seemed to have at last listened to the drums of war and chosen to march the way of the Vikings. The freedom he felt amongst Kondo's savages was unmatched by any he had ever encountered before-- even when compared to the freedom he had once indulged in as a lone male. To fight as one pleased, to unleash a level of brutality onto others that surpassed anything he had ever faced before was a path he could not easily deny himself. It was the sort of violence that he, a firekin born, was not accustomed to-- and yet he willingly lost what shred of innocence he had left just to feel the crush of bone between his teeth. He fought with them for himself, but he fought with them nonetheless. If there were slivers of doubt in him, if he even questioned himself once... it did not show. From Gepeto's teeth the head dropped and rolled some ways away from him. The lack of a knotted mane on its scalp made clear its gender, yet the face, like the body it had once been attached to, was mangled beyond recognition. To his brother, at a short distance away and through the ambiance of screams and the snarls of their raid, the large brown male called out. " Good morning sunshine." What looked like a grin forming on his dark lips. Yet, also from his lips blood splattered, and now it was unclear whether or not it belonged to the corpses or if it was his own. Still, Gepeto did not look the part of a beaten lion, and shifted his weight to step forward. "Come!" His tail swatted to and fro, his eyes growing wide. Meshindi might not have been looking for him initially, but now that he had found him... " It has begun!"
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Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:35 pm
Either way, her loss left him disconsolate. For the first time since he was a gangling adolescent trying to fit his paws in the prints left by his father, self-doubt shook him to the core. What was a brute like him to do but find his footing and assert his authority over the fates that had taken the one thing he'd needed? He was no coward, no fool, and he would not be bested like this.
So Kondo started barking orders with a voice that was deeper, angrier, and hadn't stopped since. He planted his paws in the dirt not atop his father's, but beside them; he stomped across the road less traveled; he tread over sacred ground and went out of his way to piss on any idols there.
He had no 'destiny', no 'fate' to speak of. His path in life was decided by him and him alone.
-- Until the one loose thread he couldn't bring himself to sever was pulled and it all came falling down just like it had back then. He couldn't remember what he'd named his son, if he'd named him at all. Meshindi, they called him. Meshindi whose face was his own and whose eyes were those of a ghost. Kondo's stomach turned at the sight of him and for a moment he believed this was punishment from Gods he defied or the restless spirit of his wife for mounting her harridan sister.
That moment passed and Kondo assured himself there was nothing surreal about these circumstances. His son had luck on his side and perhaps the captain had underestimated the competence of the rogues he'd tossed him to. But they hadn't reared a warrior, not a real one; Meshindi's mannerisms were too different from a true viking. His companion was another story. In Gepeto's movements, he saw himself. In his words, he heard his voice.
Kondo was narcissistic enough to like him, but far too smart to trust him.
On the first day, Meshindi and Gepeto marched. They struggled. They watched the reavers bicker. On the second day, Kondo heard them call each other as kin did. After blood had been shed and no one on the enemy lines was left to attack them, Meshindi marched through the valley of corpses and asked so nonchalantly where his brother was.
On the third day, Kondo and his reavers found a band of rogues and without any planning or pause, they attacked. He had his duties as captain to attend to and couldn't squander all his time dwelling on Meshindi and his brother. He would find them when only vikings and thralls had beating hearts.Shia bean Still have Meshindi's post to finish, obviously. XD
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Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2013 12:47 pm
Meshindi looked and felt sick.
He felt like he'd be sick. He felt like he was sick, not only of body, but of mind. The blood of the old, the young, the innocent flowed all around him. There was no crime he could fathom this lioness being guilty of that would warrant such a gruesome, heartless death. Prey was treated with more dignity, more respect, and given more purpose than being slaughtered just to die. Though devout, he had never known closeness to the Gods like this. To those of Life, Peace, Saviors, he prayed. To Mercy, he begged.
Have mercy on them, Meshindi thought. On all of them.
He was never afraid of Gepeto. Still every step toward him made Meshindi's paws feel heavier. No, never afraid of his brother... But was this lion truly his brother? Had he changed so much in such a short time? Meshindi wanted to believe it were true when the alternative was worse: he'd traveled side-by-side with a depraved murderer all along.
His own claws were not clean, he reminded himself. Or someone else had. A voice in his head that sounded more like his father's than his own.
--No. No, it was his father's. Meshindi hadn't realized Kondo had at last approached them. The wails of victims and the maniacal laughter, everything, all just a cruel white noise fading into the background. He had two -- one more step. Just one more step until he was in front of Gepeto.
Crunch.
There was a rule that fledgling birds were taught when learning to fly: don't look down.
Meshindi's legs failed him and he dropped on his hind end, staring at the cub he'd instinctively tried, but failed, to step over. A mere few months of life had ended like this. He prayed his death had been less brutal and that his mother had not died before his eyes. He hoped with what was left of his heart Gepeto had not been responsible for this too.
Have mercy on us all.
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Posted: Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:56 pm
Crunch.
Gepeto's attention snapped from Meshindi to the source, letting it linger there for a moment. Words were not necessary. He knew, soundlessly, that questions whirled about his brothers head. He might even go so far as to say he knew just what troubled the other male. As much as Meshindi's stricken appearance seemed to surprise him, he felt he knew, almost without a shadow of doubt; and it greatly displeased him.
This was what you wanted.
In truth, the boy beneath Meshindi was not one of his victims. In fact, he stumbled upon the body by accident. He thought it was alone in the fields of their raid-- until it wasn't. He couldn't say he knew who had dealt the fatal blow, when nor how... but what he could say was that the boy died long before his mother met her end. This much he had made certain of. Unfortunately, the facts didn't exactly matter. He had a lot to prove, not only for his own sake.
Before he could force words of his own, Kondo appeared, and Gepeto found himself shifting to face him. Whatever he had thought to say to his brother, whatever he thought he might do for Meshindi in that single step taken subconsciously, was now gone.
The only thing left was a name at the tip of his tongue, spoken in a low and threatening manner. "Kondo."
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 2:12 pm
Shia bean Wanted to get Banji's post out of the way! Working on Kondo and Meshindi's right after this. 
She they called Jamila.
Her eyes were like the sky; her fur the darkest coat he had ever looked upon.Yet her voice was light, a gentle beckoning that stirred him in the early morning or late night. Banji didn't deserve her. His only good merits were the deeds he committed to make amends in these, his final years. Because he was unworthy, he knew the inevitable would come, that she would be taken from him.
He never thought it would be like this.
A rock wall to his right. To his left, the corpse of a lion grown big and strong. Not so much as to secure his livelihood against this vicious wave of intruders, but enough Banji took refuge behind him to hide from them. He knew if he revealed himself, he would die. Just as he knew he should. This could be it, his greatest reparation for all the crimes against others -- his mother, his sister, his nieces; Leboya, Nyota, those whose names he couldn't remember anymore, and the cubs they'd raised without him.
Banji trembled and closed his eyes, but it didn't stop. He heard pleas for mercy met with savagery, bawls of young and old. Move, his mind ordered to no avail. Help them.
Help me, he besought any of the Gods his late sister had known.
He heard no wings or saviors, only voices of their reapers.
"Kondo," one said.
And another replied, "That one could have been a thrall."
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 2:52 pm
"Leave the young ones to be captured next time," he instructed. That's all it was to him now: Business as usual. A matter of vocation, and one he wasn't particularly bothered by one way or the other. He informed, not scolded them. Kondo was not so unreasonable as to assume amateurs would know how things should be done. Not that he'd gamble his son had harmed the cub, but Gepeto... If he hadn't killed this one, Kondo still felt he was capable of it.
The stench of blood and bodily waste secured Banji's safety for now. There was no way to determine the scent of the living from the dead, nor where each wafted from. Kondo did a visual sweep of the area and it seemed to him all those granted permission to live were already being corralled by the reavers. Mostly females this time.
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 3:09 pm
Meshindi had no divine knowledge bestowed upon him to know the exact details of what transpired here. He knew only what he saw: blood and carnage and Gepeto. He knew only what he felt: the bones of the young beneath his heavy paws. He didn't want to suspect his brother of something so heinous, but the evidence was right there. All he needed to assume the worst of the worst was right there. He looked to his father, the lion who seemed to ignore Gepeto's aggressive tendencies time and again.
Don't kill cubs, Kondo told them. Let them live so they can be enslaved instead.
This was what he'd wanted, yes, and here he was.
Meshindi wished he'd been born less ambitious. Unfortunately, he was his father's son, and of all the things he could have said --
"Are we reavers now?"
He tried not to choke on the words.
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 4:58 pm
Kondo gave his order and Gepeto took it in stride. His body was coated in the sight and scent of blood, so overbearing that any other smell was lost within it. He did what he thought the others expected of him, of them, and far be it from him to assume victims might be spared. Salvaged for their worth and kept as slaves or otherwise... The sheer brutality of Kondo and his men would have fooled him into thinking that it was too soon, too early in the game, to end it all now. A part of him even felt inclined to suggest it so. How good of their Captain to inform them of otherwise. His attention was snagged by the question Meshindi posed, then, and enticed him enough to straighten in place. A wound to his shoulder stung and reminded him of the fight, but the grimace was fleeting. Yellow eyes bothered not with the youth, the corpse at his own feet, nor the ghastly realm in which they had been the start of-- they focused in on Kondo, and there they waited. Were they finished? Was it over? Hopefolly Oh boy. Banji. wry u get mixed up in all dis s**t.
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Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2013 3:10 pm
Leave the young ones to be captured next time.
All the wicked words after those were incomprehensible to Banji. He drew his legs as close to his body as he could. His head tilted so that the right side rested on both the edge of his paw and the ground. Like this, and with his jaw clenched, eyes shut tight, he wept in silence. Try as he might to secure them, his shoulders shook from the effort of muting what should have been deafening wails.
There was nothing left of him but grief and survival. Mourn those gone, but do not join them, said his instincts. Banji catered to them when his spirit failed him. He would have tarried there if the fates allowed, likely to rise, search, find a new home. A safer home with another female. To die in his sleep, perhaps in a nightmare.
Then he made a noise.Shia bean Will get to Kondo / Meshindi's soon!
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Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:36 am
A survivor.
Kondo looked down upon him with a grimace presenting not pity, but disgust. The side of his lip curled and his eyes were flat, cold, and dead in a way different from the lost friend at this whimpering rogue's side. He looked away first, walked away soon after, pacing and forcefully puffing out far more breaths than he'd taken in. "Are you reavers now?"
If it were the stupid question, the infuriating sight of something so pathetic, or another factor at fault to blame... Kondo didn't know. He didn't care. He was just angry. Behind the soul survivor, he came to a halt. With a speed all but lightning would envy he dug his claws into Banji's back, dragging him out.
"Get rid of this," Kondo ordered to his son.
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Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:47 am
Meshindi wouldn't be eating anything but his words for days. He swallowed down another helping when that wretched sound brought a gruesome realization: An unlikely survivor had hunkered down behind the body of one of his own. A horror Meshindi could only imagine. He made the mistake of doing just that, leaving his mouth with the taste of bile.
This rogue was too decrepit to be of any harm to them. Gods, he probably couldn't hurt the thralls. Meshindi cringed as he was pulled from his hiding place and out into the open. He would just look away and it would be over.
Just look away.
"Get rid of this."
He could only respond with rasping breaths. Small bits of broken stone at his paws rattled as the shiver up his spine became full body tremors. Get rid of... Kill him? He didn't realize he was shaking his head. Not speaking. Staring at his father. They had harried this land and its settlers -- wasn't that enough?
"I..."
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Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 6:37 pm
He would never admit to it, but as soon as the sound was made, and as soon as the Captain’s attention snapped to the source, his own stomach lurched along with Meshindi’s, his hard swallow audible. He feigned indifference, not a difficult task when covered in the remains of ones own slaughter, but his eyes followed the path in which Kondo walked with an uneasiness that had been present from the day they met. Then they were quick to find Meshindi, the shuddering form of his brother who looked as beaten as the thin striped male they had come to find. Gepeto couldn’t help but feel that pity for which Kondo’s glances had lacked. He wondered what would have been worse, to have died in the fray or to be caught by the murderous ringleader? Which would have been a more suitable death? Or, perhaps, the most preferred? It was unfortunate for the rogue that Kondo found him first, over the bloodhounds or, in truth, Gepeto himself. It would have been a swift downfall had the brown brute been more thorough. Not a muscle on Gepeto moved outside the looks he offered to father and son, until Meshindi managed a sputtering word. He turned his head and flared his nostrils, inhaling a deep breath, and then holding on to it until his heart raced and his head felt light. When he realized nothing more would come from the male, Gepeto expelled his breath and let a low snarl muffle some quick and friendly advice, masked in the impatient tone he carried. “Make it quick.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:37 pm
From afar came the plangent sounds of others. He didn't know whether to assume them cries of wives violated and stolen or the howls of the dying. Silence was more dignified an end than to cadge mercy from your captors to no avail, but what good was dignity to a corpse? Worth less than shame to a beating heart. So he said it: "Please."
Claws bore into his back, dug deep. Banji was helpless to resist the retrograde crawl that brought him closer to these murderers. They unhinged from his skin, those tools of massacre, and for a moment he felt the agony of every creature he'd hunted.
"Get rid of this."
"I..."
"Make it quick."
"No, please," Banji begged. Every sense was attuned to the earth. He could hear it all, see everything around him. Desperately he sought any sign of guilt and found it in the eyes of the black lion. That made one of them. "Please, I don't even know these lions. They — They captured me! Please. I won't tell anyone. I'm just an elder! Please!"
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Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:55 pm
Make it quick?
"By the Gods, Gepeto!" Meshindi should have known better than to go bawling his hasty, wild-eyed dismay with his father in the audience. "It's only — He's only a —" How? How was he so impassible? Females. Cubs. The elderly. What kind of noisome quota was this? Meshindi's outcries weren't shying away from volume. Louder, louder, louder...
"He's just some rogue!" Meshindi bellowed. "Look at him!" Not the old, but the young. Eyes like his mother's flit to the slaughtered youngster and then his mother. "Look at this! Look at what you —"
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