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 Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:45 pm
Brilliant turquoise, several shades of green, and the richest, deepest blues he'd ever seen, spread out below him like a wind-tossed grassland, moving organically in ripples. He continued to stare in absolute delight. This was singularly the most amazing thing he'd ever witnessed! Well, that he could remember anyway, he mentally amended. Perhaps he'd even seen the ocean before his concussion, but he'd never discover that. No sense in dwelling on it!
It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if anyone lived here, nearby this most wonderful feature of landscape. He peered down at the narrow beach below, then to either side of him up on the cliff. Wait, was that movement there? "Hellooooo," he called brightly. "Is this anyone's home?" Hopefully if it was, they didn't mind him taking in the view!
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:52 pm
 "Oh!" The cry was involuntarily startled out of Sarcire's mouth as she heard the unexpected and unfamiliar voice sounding out across the beach. The grey and blue lioness had been crouched down, digging with one paw at the shell line for anyhting particularly interesting or useful. She straightened, to get a better look at whoever was doing the calling. It was definitely a stranger. The lioness rather thought she'd remember colors and markings like that as she got a good look at the male. Her first instinct, particularly this past year, was to run and hide from this stranger she didn't know. But...she was trying to overcome that. And it helped that he sounded friendly...right? "H-hello!" she called back, before her nerve deserted her utterly.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:00 pm
Perched atop the cliff, he was quite a ways from her, but most definitely wanted to get a chance to talk. Talk rather than yell, anyway. "Ah... is there some safe way down?" he asked, stepping closer to the edge of the sandy and rocky cliff. Of course, that was when the rocks, made slippery by the tiny grains of sand, betrayed him. First one forepaw slipped out, waving wildly in the empty air, then one one of his hind legs slipped, shooting underneath him suddenly. Momentum and gravity now working against him, he pinwheeled every limb he had to try and not tumble off the cliff. It wasn't terribly high, of course, but still... no-one chose to slide clumsily down a rock-studded slope.
In the end he had no choice, of course. He slid, bumped, and scrambled down the cliff slipe, face first, though he managed not to tumble at all. He landed with a solid -whump- into the sand at the bottom. He took a mildly agonized breath, then shook his head, scattering bits of leaves and sand from his dark mane. "Well, that was an adventure!" he exclaimed finally, gingerly picking up his paws to examine the pads closely. Nope, nothing serious, just a few scrapes. Satisfied, he finally looked up at the lioness brightly. "Hello again! Sorry to... drop... in." He cracked a huge smile at his pun. "My name's Kejeli," he introduced himself amiably, despite his awkward arrival. "I was wondering if this lovely bit of land was home to anyone." He paused, leaning forward slightly with eagerness. "Is it?" Not that it mattered whether it was or not. Just the idea of living in such a place fired his imagination.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:07 pm
Sarcire was summoning up the courage to reply to the black lion when all of a sudden he slipped and began to bounce, rattle, tumble and roll down the cliffside to the beach. The lioness could only watch, speechless, as he fell. Miraculously, he picked himself up at the end of the ride and continued talking to her as if the intervening minutes hadn't happened.
"Oh my...are you okay? Are you sure you're not hurt?" the female asked as she rushed over, still more concerned about the awfully long fall he'd just had. How on earth could he still be smiling after all that? It made no sense whatsoever to her.
Then she realized he'd asked her a question. The grey lioness' cheeks darkened as she flushed in embarrasment at her oversight.
"I'm sorry, the Bahari'mtoto pride lives here. Well, not right here, but this is still part of our territory..." she trailed off, aware that she was bungling this in every way possible. Except for tripping over her own feet yet. She hadn't done that yet. Today.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:18 pm
He beamed at her as she worried over his well-being. "No reason to be sorry! It's nice to have someone be concerned about me!" Heavens knew he was alone in the world... as far as he knew. Certainly there wasn't a soul who had come hunting for him, nor had he been accompanied when he'd awoken. No, her flurry to ensure he was alright was quite pleasant! He held up one forepaw, then the other, trying to reassure her before moving on to her answer. "See? Just a scrape here and there. Nothing serious!" He smiled reassuringly and looked back up the cliff, then paused to blink in astonishment. Well, from down here, it certainly did look a lot farther than it had from up there! No wonder she was so flustered!
Well, regardless, he was alright. He did make a mental note that when sand was around, to stand well clear of the edge of any sort of drop off. He returned his attention to the lioness and gave her a merry smile, cliff and danger forgotten already. "Ah, a pride! I can well imagine why one would settle here. Just look at it!" He sat up to gesture with both forepaws to the wide expanse of ocean, the beach, and the surrounding cliffs. "This is gorgeous! I've never seen anything like it!" He rose to pad towards the gently surging surf. "What is it like to live here?" he inquired avidly, neck stretched out to watch the bubbles hiss up on the damp sand, then soak in as it pulled back out to join the waves once more, taking pains not to get his toes wet... yet.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:31 pm
Sarcire blushed again. Was it wrong to be concerned about a stranger's well-being? It didn't seem so, but oh, ever since the cubnappings and how scared it had made her, the lioness felt as if she couldn't trust her own emotions. It was a terrible feeling, and she wasn't certain what she could do about it. At least the lion - Kejeli, she suddenly remembered he'd introduced himself - was humoring her and proving that he'd taken minimal damage on the way down. Which did help slow her racing heartbeat.
She even began to smile as he praised her homeland and the endless beauty of the sea. From here, you couldn't even see the outer islands. He was right, it was gorgeous.
"If you're sure you're okay," she cautioned before looking out at the sea herself. "You might want to swim in the water while your scrapes are still bleeding. The salt will sting a bit, but it will also help you to heal." As she talked about the common sensical things, she considered his question. What was it like to live here?
"It's the only home I've ever known," Sarcire began cautiously. "But I love it more than anything else in the world. The moods of the ocean, the different ways the sand can behave, the endless horizon..." she trailed off, looking back at the stranger. Did he really understand what she was saying? She wasn't sure. He was so...happy. And free. And she...wasn't.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:43 pm
"Does it really?!" he exclaimed. Salt? He cocked his head to the side and eyed the water with both great interest and slight distrust. "So this water isn't the same as the rivers and waterholes?" he asked even as he eased himself forward, letting the incoming wave wash over his paws, his expression of awe, uncertainty, and increasing curiosity very comical. He wasn't really very sure he wanted to actually swim in this water. He'd maybe treaded water once or twice in his remembered life, but this water moved. That didn't seem especially safe to him, but he did slowly inch further out, so that it was covering his forepaws and back paws both. The force of it pushing against him, even in so little water, was another astonishment. Goodness gracious, if it was this strong here at the very edges, what must it be like way out there?!
He turned wide, amazed eyes to the grey and blue female as she answered him about living there. "I have seen firsthand one of the ways the sand can behave. Badly." He cast a grin up at the cliff, then back down to her. "But... the ocean has moods?" He again considered the water, the way it was eating the sand out from under his paws and drawing him deeper. He scrambled backwards, his tail waving in surprise, flinging drops of saltwater about. "That has to be... sobering," he commented thoughtfully, his fascination with the ocean waning to a wary respect. He turned to her to speak, but paused and lifted one paw slowly. He eyed the now completely sand-covered paw with a sigh, then set it down gingerly.
As if disregarding his lack of enthusiasm for having his lower half covered in sand, he continued talking with her. "I can well understand why you'd love it her, and never want to leave," he agreed quite willingly. It rivals many of the other wonders I've seen and experienced," he admitted freely, waving one sandy paw towards the shifting water, flinging dry sand as he did so. "How do you tell the oceans moods?" he added, ever curious and intrigued.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:53 pm
Oh, he'd never encountered saltwater before? That was...well, she'd never even considered that it could be a factor in someone's life. Sarcire rushed to explain.
"No, it's not at all the same. You definitely don't want to drink the saltwater, even though it is, as I said, good for healing the body." A person who drank only seawater would die of it in the end, though she was no Mwani, to know the whys of the body. She did have the sudden realization that because Kejeli was so unfamiliar with the ocean, he might not even know how to swim. The lioness took a couple steps closer to where he stood in the surf, but breathed a sigh of relief as the black lion scrambled out hastily, making more jokes about sand and his fall.
"Yes, it most certainly does have moods," the lioness sighed happily. "You can tell the difference by the color of the water, the height of the waves, the strength of the wind..." she flushed yet again. "But I'm sure you don't want to listen to me ramble about all of that!" the lioness added hastily. Yes he'd asked...but why would this stranger want to listen to her romantic description of the ocean when he could see it for himself?
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:06 pm
He listened raptly to her descriptions of the variations of the sea, tucking the information about not drinking it into a corner of his mind. That would likely be extremely useful to remember later. Right now he was much more fascinated by what she had to say. "No no," he was quick to assure her, "I want to know more! It has to be more than just wind, waves, and color that give it moods, though! My purple markings might seem dark and menacing to some, but my actual demeanor would, hopefully, prove otherwise!" He gave her a broad grin, charming and open. "Surely there must be some sort of feeling it manages to convey!"
He paused to eye the ocean again, this time ruminatively. "Let me see if I can guess its mood now," he said, turning his entire body to face the ever-moving body of water. "Hmm. Beautiful colors, soft breezes, and though I am no judge, I can't imagine these waves are very tall?" He cast her a sideways look for confirmation, then moved on. "But beyond that, there is such a feeling of peace and... well, energy, really! I would guess the ocean is happy today." He turned to grina t her once more. "Am I right?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:14 pm
The lioness' brown eyes practially glowed as Kejeli assured her that he did, in fact, want to hear what she had to say. And she had to admit, she was touched by the way he compared what his appearance might say about him to the contrast of his personality to the ocean itself. It certainly proved that he was the type who would gladly listen to all the flowery descriptions she could come up with.
She had to giggle, however, as he tried his own paw at reading the ocean, confirming for him that no, these waves were fairly short. All in all, he didn't do too bad. That didn't mean he was completely right, however.
"Well," she drawled, "we'd probably call this more 'calm' than 'happy', just because it is fairly still out today. Though the wind and waves never do stop," she admitted. "They just...calm down. Relax."
On a day like today, it was hard to remember that the sea was just as deadly today as it had been yesterday and would be again tomorrow.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:20 pm
He stopped to consider her words. This was the ocean relaxed? Calm? He sat down in the sand, oblivious to the white grains that this would plaster on his dark backside, and contemplated the ocean more. He was once more considering the strength with which it had tried to pull him out. "Does it try to take everyone out into it?" he asked, still in a somewhat serious frame of mind. "It tried very hard to pull me in, even down to moving the sand under my paws so that I would go deeper into its water," he told her soberly. "It sure seemed to be thinking about and seeking to get me to go in further." He paused and cleared his throat, giving her a sheepishly embarrassed look. "I can't let it do that, because well... I don't swim much. And it's so very strong."
He turned his gaze back out to the bejeweled expanse. "I can only imagine that it would pull me under, so strong as it is." That was a most unpleasant idea, especially since he'd learned about the salt. "But you said you swim in it?" he turned a look of awe on her, and of great respect and admiration. "Oh, you must be as strong as the ocean itself!" It wasn't empty flattery, not from this lion. He honestly was both admiring and pleased by this accomplishment of hers that he assumed. Perhaps from now on he'd use "strong as the sea" as a metaphor for someone who impressed him with feats of muscle. It certainly would be a compliment!
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:27 pm
It was easy, Sarcire realized, to let Kejeli's easygoing manner and exuberance fool her into thinking he was as foolish as a cub. But his questions and observations made it fairly obvious that he was every bit as intelligent as an adult should be, and she nodded in response.
"Yes. That would be the undertow. And even worse, if it did pull you under, you'd likely get caught in a riptide that'd pull you clear out to sea, beyond sight of land. Not even the strongest swimmers could survive that...sinces it pulls you down and holds you under 'til you drown." The lioness didn't bother cleaning up the dangers to make the ocean sound more attractive. The beauty was already there, and it was good that the lion understand the full dangers that lurked beneath those gorgeous waters. "If you're not a very good swimmer, then we probably shouldn't let you wade in again any time soon," Sarcire supposed aloud. "But we could find some tidal pools that aren't too bad at this time of day."
She wasn't expecting him to turn his observations of the ocean's strength into compliments for her though! The lioness blushed again and turned away.
"Don't say that...I'm not at all one of the strongest swimmers. When I had my rites, I was the one who, well, I sprained my leg and was limping for half a moon afterwards." Embarrassing, but true. She was not that strong at all.
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Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 9:42 pm
He grinned at her, his solemn mood slipping away again like sand from the beach. "Ah, but you forget! You are a better swimmer than I! So that makes you stronger, at least, than I am! He leaned to bump his shoulder against hers companionably. "That surely must be worth something, hmm?" His amusement was clearly self-deprecating, and he just as obviously didn't mind at all poking fun at himself. "I'll be sure to steer clear of that tricky seawater, though," he promised. He would not soon forget the steady tug-tug-tug of the water's grip on his paws!
But she had just mentioned something that he wasn't familiar with. He rewound the conversation in his head until he found the words. "What are tide pools?" he asked her then, ears pricked and his entire demeanor that of an excited discoverer. He wanted to know more! There was so much to get to know about this area, and it was thrilling to have a guide who enjoyed the same sorts of things as he did, and who looked at the world from a similar perspective. "You said they are not too bad... which implies that sometimes they are?" He angled his head inquiringly, his mane falling across his face, which he brushed aside impatiently with a sandy paw, leaving a smear of white sand across his black face.
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Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:54 pm
Sarcire frowned as she considered the lion's words. Well, she had to admit that what he was saying did make a lot of sense. Yes, though she might be physically weaker than Kejeli, she was a stronger swimmer than he was, by virtue of actually knowing how to swim, which he apparently didn't. (Leaving out the point that it was still utterly bizarre to her that any adult would exist without knowing how to swim...)
But she had to smile at his cublike curiosity about the tide pools she'd mentioned, even as she respected his ability to read between her words and decipher that even in the tide pools there was still danger.
"Yes, they can be, but I'll be sure to find you a safe one," she promised. "Follow me!" His enthusiasm was catching and the lioness found herself looking forward to this adventure. Sure, it was all within the pride lands, but she was looking at it through Kejeli's eyes now, where everything was bright and new and unfamiliar.
It wasn't a bad way to go at all.
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