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 Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:14 pm
They gravitas of her cousins made them polite company, but hard to relate to. Every conversation gave the impression they were under surveillance. By Gods, probably. Hundreds of them. All roads led to their sacred beliefs and traditions that never faltered in the face of their ransacked pride.
Scavengers and rogues had taken refuge here amongst the ruins. They left behind feces, carcasses, and debris from carelessly climbing or jumping on things. One pillar had been scratched in such a way to suggest a passerby used it to file down their nails, much to the brothers' dismay.
Given one extreme or the other, Roka would taken the cold. She slept in the sunlight and roamed through the night. This time her destination would be to the top of the tallest structure.
Roka approached the sand-covered stairs and started her ascent.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:45 pm
Not even the worship from the ever-present mistake had been enough to keep up with the magic she'd used. So, Uuni had done what made made sense: Given Up. She'd moved on to something she could control. Mwokoti, she was sure, would beg to differ with her.
A newer question came to mind: Why had they come back? What unnecessary urge possessed mortals to continue to visit a place that had abandoned them. That could give them nothing more.
As all things did that reminded Uuni of mortality, the landscape spooked her. White pillars stuck out as the rib-cages of a once blooming pride. A temple worshipped nothing.
... well, not nothing.
A dark shape was creeping its way up steps. Uuni narrowed her eyes and made her way towards it.
It was just so, then, that she'd reached the base of the structure when Roka had already charged through a solid amount of its height. A fall from such a height would kill a god, let alone a mortal.
"How's the weather up there?" She hollered, feeling the simultaneous need to be bitter, in a good mood, and somewhat friendly. She did, in some sense of the word, abandon Roka to her awkward god-worshipping cousins.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:56 pm
The stairs were winding, cold, and climbing them was exhausting. Vertical movement was more a bird or leopard thing, not one Roka had much experience in. She had plenty of time to stop and catch her breath if she got winded, so there was that. Her third — fourth? — intermission brought with it a guest and her big mouth.
"Did you find her?" Roka hollered back, peering down at the Goddess who, for once, was dwarfed courteous of distance. Perhaps a rhetorical question for the both of them for different reasons. She assumed it sensible that her aunt had been sent off to wake her cousins rather than tag along with Uuni.
No one would say they were going to find someone, be gone for days and days, and come back empty-pawed, right?
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:04 pm
Right.
The goddess felt the need to shiver. The wind gave her an easy excuse. In truth, the shivering was covering the fact that she'd swallowed. That she'd opened her mouth to say something and then let her teeth clack together once again.
"You just worry about climbing that mountain of worship."
Only, unless Roka had the ears like eagle's possessed eyes, she would not have heard the statement. It had died in Uuni's throat as quickly as she'd thought of it.
So, the goddess just watched, remembering to blink now and then. She was too tired to teleport up to see Roka, anyway.
It was as clear as the crisp, star-ridden sky: No.
Maybe Roka would start a conversation. Or, perhaps they were destined to be as awkward and boring as Roka's last few weeks.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:10 pm
Roka could take a hint. She wouldn't accept only that, however. If Uuni had failed her cousins as their pride — no, their lives — had done, the least she could do was admit it. This was exactly the kind of thing that made her mother seem justified in her fear and anger toward these deities. All that in mind, Roka did not start a conversation. Did not permit silence. Instead, she called down... uh... graciously.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:21 pm
Hm.
There was a word for this. What was it? It started with a--
Oh yeah. b***h.
The goddess' mouth formed a thin line. Somehow, cute as she thought she was, looking at Roka was not helping the situation.
It really would have been a lot easier to just meet her up there and talk.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU. WHY DON'T YOU COME DOWN."
If she wanted to know that badly.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:29 pm
Roka hoped she wasn't so far away Uuni couldn't see at least the outline of her well-defined scowl. She'd been practicing. "ARE YOU JOKING?" Oh, no, yelling at a Goddess. Hopefully her aunt wasn't as prone to keeling over at any sign of disrespect. Not that it mattered. "CAN'T YOU JUST — APPEAR? UP HERE?"
b***h.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:38 pm
No.
Okay, yes. Yes, she could pull together enough resolve to appear. Yes, she could let Roka berate her until they were both out of air in their lungs.
Did she want to? Absolutely the ******** not.
Uuni wavered on the pads of her front feet. "Ugh." The grumble of frustration echoed off the steep side of the pyramid.
When she granted Roka her quaint wish--that Uuni hoped she regretted--the goddess was shaking herself down. Her breaths were coming in heavier, as if she'd at least attempted a few of the stairs at a sprint and then gave up after a few strides.
"I hope you know you're going to die alone."
That made her feel a little better.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:46 pm
"Ugh."
"WHAAAT?"
Roka's posture mirrored that of the Goddess. Strange how often she seemed to do that and not realize it. On the pads of her front paws, she leaned over, carelessly so, and gazed down — No, over. Suddenly, she was over.
"I have a pretty big family, so I don't think I will, as long as I can find. them." Roka make sure the last two words were Very. Curt. But. Emphasized. These temples would be crumbled into dust before she'd admit it was kind of, sort of, in a way, to a degree... nice to see her back.
Psh.
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Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:58 pm
To Roka's credit, she wasn't trying to claw out Uuni's eyes. She wasn't trying to jump her and toss the source of her frustrations off a temple.
One could not say the same for Uuni. She made a ready effort to jerk the emotional temple right from under Roka's leaning toes.
"Where are they, then?"
The goddess' pale eyes jerked over the shadowed landscape stretching out beyond them.
"There's no one here but you." In truth, there were a few scattered souls left. Someone was out there, and if the cousins had been sleeping, their rest would have been interrupted by carrying voices.
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 3:29 pm
Roka was not some heroine who feared nothing and no one. She wasn't sure she'd ever met anyone like that. But she had crossed paths with the stubborn, the quick-witted, and those with the skin of a ratel under their fur. Held her own against them, too.
Uuni would have to be creative to say anything about her family she hadn't said first. The shot at her was not offensive, unless Roka were to dwell on the intentions — and she didn't. It was refreshing to have the words rolling off her tongue contain some flavor again. None of these bland social niceties she'd failed to sway her cousins from.
"I don't know," Roka admitted nonchalantly. An introductory line for the rest of the show. "Maybe dead. Possibly because of your sort. You seem to like sticking your noses into things you know nothing about. Especially family." 
The entry to the structure was to their backs. Long before they were born, the sides had crumbled down to the left and right. The opposite wall still stood, though the stone seemed to lean more and more to one side with each passing day. Sand piled on the top and they were hopeless to do anything to stop it.
They kept just out of reach of the moonlight, in the shadows.
Sema stirred, then he nudged his brother.
"Do you hear that?" he murmured.
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:34 pm
Well. Uuni's weight moved back to all of her feet. Her shoulders rolled into a shrug.
"Likely," Uuni mirrored Roka's nonchalant tone.
So, she had a good point. What of it? If Uuni spent her entire life trying to pick up the pieces, she'd be Mwokoti: Younger than she looked, bitter, and doomed to tracking a family that hated her.
The goddess' eyes moved from the surrounding territory, down to the nicked steps. The temple's base had been worn smooth by lions displaying their bravery, but its height still revealed fresh, crisp edges.
"But, admit it or not, you like being meddled with." You as a literal term. You, not meaning Roka or Roka's immediate family. You like the cousins. Like Hasana.
"The last thing I want to stick my nose in is family."
The land of the Dawnwalkers was colder than he remembered. The chill flooded in as Sema shifted and Abasi followed the heat of his brother's body instinctually.
He would have fallen back asleep had something not nudged him in the side.
Do you hear that?
Abasi froze, suddenly unaware of the chill. His ears shifted on top of his skull, slowly. He swallowed away the thought that being white made him stick out like a sore thumb.
"What?" he whispered back. Pale eyes scanned the darkness in search of movement, shadows. Sema was making him nervous, but Abasi dare not say so and speak again.
In the distance, he could hear echoes. A pit formed in his stomach.
Abasi's inherent bravery (stupidity, really) came out only when women were in danger, or when life required an immediate response. Given time to think, he would ramp himself into paranoia.
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:01 pm
The road to Hell was paved with good points. All she had to show for her victories was being alone or being alone still, but with company.
Roka couldn't think of a time she'd been bested by any of her siblings when they'd gone toe-to-toe in a verbal spar. Adolescence and onward, her father was the same way, and liars like him had a lot of stamina and wit.
Then there was her mother. The lioness who couldn't keep up with her own children before they were fully grown because she was so small, because she limped. There was so much damage — the kind you saw every day and the kind you only saw sometimes, on nights when Mom was screaming in her sleep again for her siblings, for herself. When Dad would tell them to go back to bed or play the Cover Your Ears game.
With the birds, the crickets, the wind, so few knew real silence. Roka did. After those abject wails from her mother, all was still.
They liked being meddled with?
Roka curled her lip back enough to see the sallow color of the teeth near the back. Not a threat, just disgust. She knew what Goddesses did to lions who threatened them.
"Then why are you looking for so much of mine?"
Sema hadn't even been brave enough to be born alone. That's why the Gods gave him a twin. A lone rogue heading their way was one thing... Who knew what this was? "Hush."
Methodically, he put his front paws flat and pushed down enough to be certain there were no stones or other potential alarms that standing would sound off. He was not fearless, so he prayed.
Gods protect him.
Gods, let it be his cousin and one of her friends. Sema had every reason to believe it was. Something just didn't feel right. Something greater than him told him it wasn't so.
"I'll look," he whispered. "Stay here."
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:20 pm
They were mirrors tonight. Uuni's own nose began to wrinkle, and the tip of her a canine flashed.
"You're a smart girl." Uuni let the words ooze out slowly, tone dead despite the words. It was as close to an honest compliment (which didn't involve sexual appeal) as Roka had likely heard from the goddess.
"You can figure it out. Think of it like a puzzle."
-
Nothing said brotherly love like refusing to listen.
Abasi tried. His white pelted body hunkered down in the sand. His ears went flat, and he peered over the earth to watch Sema's footpads creep away. When even the faintest risk of Sema being out of sight arose, Abasi pulled to his feet.
He slunk, although glaringly visible to anyone with a view, to Sema's side.
"I can't let you do this alone."
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Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:26 pm
Place.
Sucked.
Dirt. Stone. Snow. Ajia tread through it all. So far, sand was the worst. When it got stuck in your fur, it felt like you never got it out.
A lot of her pride yammered on about spirits, but their swamp burned down without a peep from them. Gods, on the other hand, Ajia had seen for herself. Did the one for the desert get assigned it or create it themselves? They were either the unluckiest deity or the biggest a*****e to make it like this. Too cold. Too hot. Like some lovestruck adolescent who couldn't make up their mind. Not that she'd spent ample amount of time with losers like that.
But if she had, she could at least say Ure was much better company. First impression left a lot to be desired, but get 'er talkin' and you'd never hear a better story. Slaves wasn't a word Ajia understood when she'd first left home, but now she not only grasped the concept, she'd met one. From these parts, no less.
And s**t, she could hunt pretty well. Ajia didn't mind it, but Ure enjoyed it. They'd made some kind of unspoken arrangement over the last week or so: she did most of the talking while Ure did most of the hunting.
They'd never really touched on the matter of threats.
Ajia wouldn't have thought twice about nearby lions except these strangers were the lurking sort. She had glimpsed one trying to sneak around. A white one, like her.
There definitely more. Probably four? Five?
Ajia didn't remember moving in front of Ure. She did remember all the things she'd been taught and something someone had told her once: Don't die running.
"Come out!" she demanded.
Sema shook his head at his brother as they lingered behind the wall. He held his breath.
"A puzz —" Roka looked up and around. The abrupt roar rattled her and the walls around them. After a glance toward Uuni, she took off down the stairs.
"Now come out!" Ajia repeated.
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