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 Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:43 pm
"He did, but not by name," she explained, seeing his smile made her smile a bit now too. Azarax was about as close as she would get to her friend now, and he wasn't half bad either, "I think you were part of why he was so confused and frustrated with tradition. He always did put more value on family than I did."
Lilo couldn't hide her surprise at the mention of Savitri, though it was mingled with some distaste. Her sisters were not entirely to blame for how she felt about her family, the two seers certainly got a lot of resentment- but they all had abandoned her, or let her abandon them without a second thought. She generally preferred to just ignore them. But Azarax knew Savitri.. and she said she was a slave? Something was wrong with that explanation.
"Savitri, a pure white lioness with blue eyes?" she asked, then recalling the odd comment on seeing and color her had made before, "Solid fur from ears to tail and eyes like mine?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:38 am
Azarax listened, his eyes lowering toward the ground as his mind half drifted off. "He sounds a little like me," He said after Umlilo's comment on Wakia's value on family. There was little that Azarax would not do for his family. The family he had grown up with, that is.
Ever since he had realized that Ripuka was his mother, he had felt nothing but endless gratitude to Mpaji for taking him in and raising him. Had the burly lion done nothing, the cub would never have survived in the desert, all on his own.
Someday, he would repay that favor. He knew he would, and he was determined to. But when and how, was not up to him.
"Yes," He said with a nod, surprised at her reaction. She seemed to know Savitri extremely well, though for the life of him, he didn't know why. "Do you know her?"
How did Umlilo know a slave so well? Of course, he knew there were those who befriended slaves. Kidondo himself was an example of how entirely possible that was. But, still, it didn't make much of a difference in his curiosity.
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Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:35 am
Savitri had always been quite a strange lioness, in Lilo's opinion anyway. She was one of the better members of her family, certainly- in fact she was probably the best of the ones who had always been around, but even in Lilo's opinion that didn't necessarily mean much. Her fur was always a point of .. question? Frustration, maybe. That she would pretend to be a slave was laughable on it's own, but that she had done so and gone with the traditionalists made it beyond laughing.
"How ironic," she thought aloud, glancing back over at Azarax and wondering if she should out her sister on the little lie.
"Yes, I know her," she answered finally, and said no more just yet.
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:59 pm
"Ironic?" He echoed, tilting his head curiously. "How so?" The way Umlilo had said it made it seem rather as if she knew Savitri quite well. And the irony that she found in it, that served to tell him she knew something that he didn't. Though what it was, he had little idea.
It was a small world, he mused. That he had run into a lioness who also happened to know Savitri was proof of that. But then again, all his life, he had spent in the desert. Umlilo too, he supposed, and the desert was nothing compared to the world.
But perhaps Umlilo knew where Savitri was. He wondered if she had been one of the ones that had followed the Traditionalists away from the desert. He hadn't seen her for quite some time, and he hadn't managed to catch sight of the white lioness after the rebellion, so he had had to assume she was gone.
It was a shame, that. The tan lion had never been one to open up easily and make friends. Much of his childhood had been spent in solitude, and friends, he had few of.
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:05 pm
She wasn't surprised that Azarax zoned in specifically on the irony comment. Perhaps it wasn't very well thought out, verbalizing that particular thought. For once, though, Lilo tried to considered the feelings of another instead of indifferently spouting information. Her blue eyes stayed on the tan lion as she weighed the pros and cons. On one hand, Savitri's little game and constant worry about her fur was ridiculous. And perhaps a friend of her deserved to know the truth. Savitri, however, had a right to an identity crisis and could choose to identify more with slaves than her family, her pride. But going with them when that was the case made no sense.
"She went with them," she said finally, "Savitri went with the traditionalists."
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:17 pm
"She went with them," He echoed, a hint of disappointment creeping into his voice. He knew that it was her choice, and that nobody else had any right to judge or think she should have done otherwise. He knew that, but what was there to be had with the Traditionalists?
Slaves didn't have to be slaves. They were only slaves because they chose not to act otherwise. Chose to continue following, even when there was no cause to.
"Why?" He muttered, more to himself than anything. It wasn't out of spite, or anger, or anything of the sort. More, it was utter confusion. He did not see in the same way as many others, and he knew that. But much as he tried, he could never quite open his mind enough to see as the others did.
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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:28 pm
"Loyalty?" she suggested, though she wasn't entirely convinced sounding. Lilo could imagine a strange sense of loyalty in a slave, someone who knew nothing but that life and lived to do their job, to please their masters. And at the same time, it was the only reason she could imagine a misfit sticking around with that side of the war. It was a reason she would have given, had she stuck around.
The most convenient thing about that answer, though, was that it did not give away Savitri's lie and at the same time Lilo was not directly lying.
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 2:17 am
"Loyalty," He snorted, feeling his temper beginning to rise. There wasn't much that made Azarax angry. He was generally quite slow to anger, though once his temper rose, it stayed that way and didn't fall for quite some time. There were moments when he thought that perhaps he should take less to heart, bear fewer grudges. But such thoughts were always answered by the realization that the only grudges he bore were the ones that truly mattered.
"Perhaps you're right, but I can never find rhyme nor reason in the loyalty a slave could give to a master." He said with a small shake of his head. True, there were those who were kindly to their slaves. Kidondo was proof of that, and if Savitri was his sister's slave, he could hardly imagine her being ill treated in any way. Still, he couldn't quite manage to wrap his mind around it.
There had been a rebellion for a reason, so that those that deemed themselves superior could realize that they were not everything they thought they were. So that slaves could be freed from their bonds.
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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:04 am
Umlilo watched Azarax quietly after she made her suggestion, noting the quick rise in temper. She wasn't sure if she felt bad for him or not, but she felt less inclined to tell the truth. Savitri was better off for now, and Azarax was probably better off not knowing a friend (as she appeared to be, by his reactions) had deceived him by making light of a situation he himself had been in.
"Perhaps there is no reason," she shrugged, noting that they had both perspectives on this subject where he was a former slave and she was.. kind of a former slave-keeper, "Everyone makes bad decisions, the whole lot of them seem to be consistent in that."
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Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:50 pm
"Or that," He said, feeling his temper beginning to fade. There was no use in getting angry over something that was neither his business nor something that he could control.
Perhaps she was right, perhaps it was just a bad decision. Certainly, he had seen plenty of those before. You couldn't blame someone for taking a wrong turn by accident. Every decision that was made, there was a chance that it would not be the right one, and if it wasn't, it could be corrected. For the most part, and as long as that happened, nothing was quite set in stone.
It was how he viewed the Traditionalists. He had to, otherwise, he knew that he would easily lose hope that he might see his family again. It wasn't set in stone. Things could change, they could. Stranger things had happened before, stranger than a Traditionalist Firekin realizing their mistakes. He knew that there were plenty of them here, in the desert right now. Umlilo, for one.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:12 pm
"Yes," Umlilo agreed with a small, poorly hidden sigh. She actually took a moment to think about her family, and how the rest of her family might react knowing that Savitri had pretended to be a slave. And Savitri must have had the same thoughts, it made her actions all the more confusing. It wouldn't surprise Lilo if her sister was the first to wind up on this side once she put genuine commitment into her self-perception.
"I'm sorry I interrupted you," she said, taking a small step backward after a pause, "I should get going, I'll see you around?" Not a terribly social creature yet and feeling very awkward from the conversation and the omission of rather important details, she figured enough was enough for today.
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:34 pm
Azarax shook his head. "Don't be," He said with a small smile. "It made my day that much more interesting. There wasn't much else I could have done, with the pride still settling in."
He inclined his head politely. "Hopefully you will. Pleasure to meet you, Umlilo," He added. And indeed, it had been. Perhaps the meeting had been a wonderful opportunity for the both of them, to discover more about the lions they both knew. At least, for him. It seemed that Umlilo knew more about both Wakia and Savitri.
Still, she was right, they would probably bump into each other from time to time. There would be more time to find out more, so for today, all was fine.
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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:18 am
For how different Azarax was compared to Wakia in certain obvious ways, Lilo couldn't help but feel there was something similar about them- she figured it probably had something to do with how easily she seemed to get along with them. At least now she felt like she had more than just one friend, or almost more than one now.
She smiled at Azarax, "It was a pleasure to meet you, too." She nodded a farewell, and turned to go back on her way. Perhaps she would go relax a bit in the den.
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