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 Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:23 pm
 (too lazy to find cert so you get an image of his grumpy face instead, lolol)
If the corporal had been listening he would have heard Shaak (an almost constant member of their team) telling his son that he just needed time. That he'd be ok. Losing a friend was hard but one day the pain would lessen and things would start to be as they once were. Her words, wise as they sounded, however, had not comforted Heti. The son knew his father and Azar had never been one who dealt with emotions well.
With his dad every emotion seemed to end up in anger. But this... this wasn't that.
And so, Azar, acting totally un-Azar-like, had found a place that morning near the oasis, his body slumped against the bank, his head dangled over the edge so that the water lapped against his chin and occasionally getting up his nostrils, leaving him sputtering for long moments after.
Usually at this time of the morning some were already coming down for their first drink before heading to their duties. But today, people seemed to be avoiding the pool and heading further afield to avoid any interaction (or confrontation) with the corporal, who's reputation certainly seemed to precede him.
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 12:52 pm
She tried to confide in Kerra, but it didn't help. Her parents were out of the question; by now, Shula knew their opinion of Azar'bijan wasn't a very esteemed one, and best to avoid situations where she need take sides.
Time had a way of healing wounds, an adult had told her. Azar will be fine, they said. Her distress was as obvious as his and mere sweet comforts weren't enough. Words were words. Niu was Niu. One didn't compensate for the absence of the other.
Time did wrong as much as it did right. Adults forgot what it was like to be young when so many years passed. They underestimated her, acted as though she didn't know what was going on. Like she was deaf.
Some lions were saying they were glad Moto'Seide had gotten a well-earned lecture for her kin.
Some were saying Niu was wrong for what she'd done.
All of them who talked, they talked about Azar.
I can hear you, Shula thought, but they never cared to ask for her to tell them so.
She sneaked away and to the oasis, standing on a rock jutting over the water, at an angle where she could see Azar from the left. Her ears went down, low and flat, and she waited for one of those thousand things she'd planned to say.
Words were words. Niu was Niu.
"Maybe she's just lost," Shula tried, so very softly.
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 1:02 pm
A muscle in Azar's jaw twitched at the sound of the voice but for a long moment that was the only sign he showed that he had heard her speak. Perhaps he thought if he just ignored her, she'd go away. Heck, maybe that would work with some, but the male knew that it would not be a success in this case. Shula was... well, Shula, after all. The mouthy brat who'd somehow talked herself into becoming his apprentice.
He gave a loud snort and raised his face up out of the water, drips hanging off of his chin before making their swift escape to the oasis below. His red eyes narrowed in annoyance, an emotion he could settle into with surprising ease, though... perhaps not so surprising for him.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" he grumbled, "or out running laps like I taught you? Best get it done before the sun gets too high." She could at least do that part of her training alone without his aid. Running was just running. She'd manage that well enough.
Was he avoiding the topic she was trying to bring up? Most definitely.
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 1:16 pm
Shula had put some thought into what Azar might do, the depth of it limited by her youth. She figured he'd get mad, hoped she was right. A blustering Azar was the one she knew, and losing him too... They said he'd get better, "get over it," but he wasn't. He'd be like this forever if no one did anything. When she fell off her rock fortress and got hurt, they hadn't just left her alone to get over it.
Azar was hurt, uh, in his feelings. But still, he was hurt.
"I did run them." Shula had only lied to him a few times before this. A good, behaved student "I think I ran more than the hunter apprentices already." She was heading back to the ground by then and had to raise her voice near the end to be heard.
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 1:27 pm
Oh for the love of--
Azar ground his teeth to bite back his curse and shoved himself angrily upright onto his hindquarters, setting his claws firmly into the soft bank beneath him to keep from slipping forward.
"Then go and bother someone else and leave me to my--" to his what? His falter was obvious. His normal excuse wouldn't work here. It was clear to anyone that he was hardly 'working' right now. Unless sitting by the oasis counted as work (which it didn't). "Just go and bother someone else." That's right. He didn't have to explain himself to a kid. He didn't have to explain himself to anyone.
He hesitated for only a second more before he lurched onto his feet and started to head away from the water--and from the cub.
No one understood. Hell, even he didn't understand. Niu was just a colleague. Another guard at his side on patrols. They did a dangerous job. Things like this were always going to happen. He was prepared--or he thought he was. He just needed to get his head straight. Needed to throw himself back into work like he always did. Except his patrol had already headed off without him...and with Heti at the helm no less. Urgh, what was wrong with him?
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 2:05 pm
As she'd gotten older, Shula struggled time and again with what had happened. Niu's abruptly backing her future status as captain was awfully coincidental. Knowing Niu had been arguing with Seide — Gods and fire, arguing with Azar was enough to plant the seeds of doubt in Shula's conscience. Had Niu just run away? The corporal missed her but that longing needn't be reciprocal.
Shula wasn't sure which was better, that they'd never know or that they'd one day find her bones picked clean in the sand. Worse, adorned by a savage if one of her own kind had killed her.
"Are you not on duty today?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:59 am
"I could ask you the same question," he snapped back, coming to an abrupt halt beside her. As was obvious by her greeting, Azar struggled to come to terms with the fact that his apprentices did actually 'grow up'. In his eyes they were still his students, still lions and lionesses that needed to be taught and shaped even after their lessons had long ended. Heti could affirm that. The poor lad, even with his own family, suffered lectures on an almost daily basis.
The lectures, in a roundabout way, were how the lion showed he cared, though it was often (and understandably) misinterpreted.
He didn't wait for a response before he continued; "I'm heading out now. You're coming, too. Hopefully those laps won't slow you down." And without pause, he turned and began moving off.
Things had mostly gotten back to normal now. From outside appearances, anyway. It had taken a few days to get himself right again, throwing himself back into his work and slipping back into his regular routine. It was the best way to 'move on' as far as he was concerned. Normality. Schedule. Duty. Just a shame that his duty often meant long periods of silence, left with nothing but his own thoughts roiling over and over again in his mind.
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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 1:16 pm
The answer would have been no. No assigned duty for Shula today, nor the last three times they'd had similar conversations. Far be it for a workaholic to argue with the stubborn; she didn't mind the additional shifts on her otherwise free schedule. Where he led, she followed, as it had always been.
Adulthood offered insight Shula had lacked in her youth. The way she saw Azar was not unlike how most did — as a grouchy, froward lion with an addiction to his job. The key difference was not the judgement, but the judge. Shula felt these aspects of his personality were good things and she held no regrets in her choice of mentor. They, not Azar, were the ones with the problem. They the whiners, the envious, the petty.
Shula said none of this, just stayed by his side.
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Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:07 am
He walked in silence for a time, Azar clearly lost in thought as they made their way out to more treacherous sands that slipped and shifted beneath their paws. The sun was not yet fully up and, with good speed, they would be at the oasis before it reached its zenith, able to rest in the shade before pressing on during cooler temperatures. The desert kept them on their toes as it always had done and even though the period of drought seemed well on its way out, the sun was still hot and one still had to be careful not to miss a checkpoint on the way out to the borders.
Sometime later, tracing the shape of an eagle up impossibly high in the sky, the trees of the oasis came into view, the dunes parting like something out of a dream.
"We made good time," he approved, noting the sun's position against the blue and quickening his pace to make for the shade. "Perhaps you have been keeping up with your laps, after all."
The touch of the tree's shadow on his back was a welcome respite from the growing heat and he took a moment to stretch and drink; a modest couple of laps, before reclining to wait.
Almost out of the blue, he said: "I'm thinking about making an official squad and going for Captain of the Guard."
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:11 pm
Shula inspected the silhouette flying against the sun with squinted eyes and a cursory glance. Out here, there was often nothing to look at but sand. Any change in scenery was a welcomed one, especially as a guard. Days upon days of staring at the dunes and many of them went by without a glimpse of a bird. Vulture, she wagered absentmindedly, and then it was forgotten as she lapped from the shoal.
In her adolescent she had once overheated, gulped down water, and thrown it back up. Small blessing it hadn't been in front of Azar, only Kerra. She'd learned, none the less, to be patient with her consumption no matter how parched she was.
The lackluster compliment Shula had only grunted affirmatively at. His question — and though he didn't enunciate it as such, she knew it to be one — wasn't much a surprise despite the abruptness. She'd been waiting for this day, inevitable to say the least, and she had suspected it might be in her company he first made it official. Azar wasn't always as brave as he was ornery.
We'd have three with Niu, Shula realized. She assumed he'd thought of it too. "I'm sure Kerra and his mentor will join if I ask," she said, voice even and casual, head still bowed to drink.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:10 pm
"Hmpf," he replied, "of course they will. There aren't many guards with my kind of skill and experience. They should consider themselves grateful that they are being asked. They had better understand that I expect the best and only the best from them. I won't have any failures holding us back." It was a small thing, but his use of 'us' and not 'me' was perhaps significant.
"Still, you're--what--Kerra's friend? I'll let you ask him and his mentor. What's his name? Mwanyambi? Sure. He's a good guard."
And Heti would join, too. His son still had a lot to learn as far as he was concerned and it was better to keep him close. Well, he'd figure out the details later, out on the borders where there would be nothing to do but patrol for days and look out for any sign of threat.
And perhaps because they were masked by the trees, the eagle that had been up so high, began to circle lower and lower until - after a time - it became clear that it wasn't an eagle at all.
Azar, facing the wrong direction, however, noticed nothing at all.
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:26 pm
Not many guards with his ego either. That was usually the mark of Sentinels and soldiers. Again, she didn't look upon him unkindly for it.
"I'll ask," Shula confirmed. She didn't answer the prying question into her... friendship life? love life? in part because she didn't know how. Her current standing with Kerra was now and had always been an uncertainty to her. The last lion she wanted to discuss it with was him. On the list of things/beings she'd speak to about this, it went (in order):
No one, ever
A rock
The sand
Her parents
Her siblings
Everyone but Azar
Azar
The creature above caught her eye again. Not eagle, not vulture, not avian at all. Her eyes went wide and she sounded, for once, startled.
"Azar?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:10 pm
If Azar had realised what his innocent question had brought about, he probably would have done a double-take. His options had been more in the line of: friend, enemy, rival, sort-of-acquaintance. Still, how the question had been taken was about to matter very little in the grand scheme of things.
"Azar?"
His eyes snapped fully open, coming to attention in an instant. He found his paws, pushed against the sand and pivoted with a surprising agility for a lion of such bulk.
With nothing but open desert between them and the sky, it was not hard to spot what she had seen.
"W-what is that?" His fur bristled, eyes widening as he tried to grasp what it was he was seeing and denying the answer every time it popped into his head. How could that--? Why would it--? It didn't make sense!
But, some distance away, the winged shape touched down against the curve of a dune in a flurry of sand and flapping wings (strangely graceless) and was reaching down to retrieve something from the ground.
"You are seeing this, right?" Azar asked, wondering whether he was hallucinating - the desert heat finally having turned him mad.
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Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 8:04 am
Shula's first instinct was to have Azar stay while she ran to the pride to gather help, because she was faster. Then, she thought instead Azar should go, simply so he wouldn't be the one to stay and get himself into trouble. Or maybe they should both go? Should they run?
In the end — the end being a mere several seconds from Azar's last question — Shula turned to him and asked not for ideas, but for orders. He was her Captain now. "What should I do, sir?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:22 am
An answer did not come instantly, Azar's focus fixed - unwavering - on the winged creature as it lifted a forepaw up; the object it had been lifting curled up its limb with an easy, fluid motion.
A snake.
What was this? Spies? They had always worried about Nergui, but what if they had other creatures in amongst the Firekin instead. Snakes and birds and...strange beasts that could fly. They might go unnoticed, hidden where a lion could not see. And with wings they could go far and wide, quick and silent so long as they stayed out of sight of the guards. How long had this been going on? How long had they been missing this coming and going? If there were spies here then the guards had failed. He had failed. His jaw worked back and forth, his frustration and growing anger clear as day.
"It's not alone," he finally said, spitting out the words as if they offended him.
And then the wings were spreading again and the strange creature was leaping upwards, snake coiled around its throat. Even if they had rushed it from the moment they had spotted it coming in to land, there would have been no opportunity to reach it in time.
His head snapped around, focusing in on Shula. "We need to go back and give a report. This is serious."
The guards out on patrol could wait. This was a priority now.
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