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 Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 9:12 pm
No home. To Sagua, she could have said 'I just killed a litter of newborn cubs' or 'I just cannibalized my own mother' and the sickening feeling in his stomach would have only been a trace greater. That was how unnerving, how unfathomable the concept of being homeless was. He couldn't allow himself to imagine a world with no home. But what had he expected? That all the rogues were just out hunting?
"I don't have anyone like that. Maybe I should." Sagua considered what he was about to say very, very carefully before he did so. And, when he did, he was sure to keep his tone as gentle as a hare (which were, in his opinion, the most gentle of creatures.) "I think you should."
He never did answer her question.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 9:24 pm
This young lion wore his emotions on his face all too plainly. Räven was starting to feel a bit bewildered by him. What did they do back in his boring pride? Walk around weeping all day, talking about their feelings? Räven had flitted in and out of prides at times, and while they had tied her down and bored her with their routine and necessary politeness, they hadn't been that bad.
For a split second the lioness thought that Sagua was making a proposition to her. Then, she realized that he was trying to counsel her. She stared at him for a moment, her sly expression replaced by a startled one.
Then, she burst into laughter.
Recovering herself, the Räv smiled at the lion again, the slyness returning to her grin. He was boring, and hopelessly naive, but there was something almost charming in his simple-mindedness. "Boy," she said, something approaching tenderness in her smooth voice. "Come with me. I can show you the wild ways." She grinned, her tailtip twitching from side to side, like a cub ready to play a game.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 9:40 pm
Sagua thought too highly of himself, though he didn't know it. Never once did he stop to consider his behavior was nothing if not average. He didn't think it was normal to think bad things he thought sometimes; he didn't know it was typical for someone suppressing a large part of themselves to be drawn to one form of danger or another. Freedom was often found in the face of danger, wasn't it?
He was taken off guard by her tone, and turned to stare at her in a way that he would have never allowed himself to look. Had he just been informed his face was so... intrigued, he'd have put a stop to it. An immediate stop.
The lion chuckled and felt his eyes returning to that sky he seemed to like so much. "Where?" It wasn't a promise; he didn't agree to anything by asking.
But why he bothered asking... he wasn't sure. Just the polite thing to do, he supposed, to humor her like this.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 9:56 pm
Räven could see that look, and knew it well. Intrigued, yes. Tempted? Probably. He was altogether one of the wimpiest bleeding-heart lions she'd ever had the misfortune to encounter, but he was male, and Räven lovely. She knew this with no conceit or feeling of superiority; it was just the way things were. Water was wet, sky was blue, Räven was appealing to males.
The way Sagua gazed up at the sky like some kind of idiot was irritating, but Räven chose to ignore it this time. She almost had him. She was sure of it.
"Wherever we want," she purred. Her eyes were bright with mischief. "I know a forest, not far from here. That is where the spirits are." She smiled. "That is where we can be." She took a step backwards, inviting him to follow.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:10 pm
"I know a forest, not far from here. That is where the spirits are. That is where we can be."
Räven couldn't have known she was speaking to a Swamplands lion, but in a way, she was about to find out.
Sagua laughed, so soft and so knowing. He had always been one to find humor in situations like these, and he wondered if she were serious or just truly so misguided she wouldn't know. "Vijini are in the forest, I'm sure, but they're everywhere. Didn't you know?"
His chest rose and fell in a breath that was slow, comforted. The reminder of his beliefs and his people grounded him again. It had saved him from his own temptation.
"They're in the forest, in the air..." He smiled at her with one that could have melted ice and set fire to stone. Not enlightened, not soothing; not telling her something that he felt she should have known all along. It was all of that and more. And there was love there, in an obvious and simple form. "They're in your eyes, even if you can't see them."
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:30 pm
Räven wasn't sure what she had intended to do with the young black lion, but it would be something amusing. Perhaps she would lure him into a bog or pool and run away, laughing and laughing. It wouldn't be the fun she had hoped for earlier, but it would teach the fool a lesson, and it would amuse her.
Now, she felt totally at a loss. It was an unusual feeling for Räv. She gazed at Sagua blankly for a moment, trying to digest his latest blather.
The lioness believed in no gods, but she did believe in spirits. She and her sisters were from the forests, and she thought she knew the spirits there. Good, bad, sly and laughing spirits. She had never heard anyone speak of them like this before, though. She shook her head. Perhaps there was something similar in their natures, if they both knew spirits, but the sappy heat in his voice was dreadful to hear.
"Do you love spirits?" Räven said at last, curious at last about Sagua. "I do not think spirits love us - or if they love us, they would kill us with equal joy." She smiled, baring her teeth.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:39 pm
His smile didn't waver. She'd insulted the entire foundation of his beliefs - his entire life - and still he smiled. There was a reason for this: she was misguided. To be pitied, not scolded. To be taught.
"I don't know if they love or not," he answered honestly, "but I know they don't hate. Not unless it's out of their control."
In those instances, they couldn't be blamed for their ignorance. The same was true for Räven.
Sagua had been looking at her a while, but his gaze pierced through a layer of defense he'd had firmly planted between them before. One could not lead the blind unless they allowed their hand to be held, after all. "Why don't you come with me instead? I can show you the truth."
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 10:59 pm
Sagua was beaming like one brain-dead. Perhaps his spirits really had come to him, and taken some vital part of him away. His common sense, most likely. Räven narrowed her eyes slightly.
"I did not say they hate, Sagua-for-now," she said, somewhat disdainful. Räven had never heard of cults, but if she had, she would have immediately thought of one. Sagua looked positively loopy, and thrilled at the idea of taking her to some place where they would doubtless rock back and forth and sing nonsense songs and talk about togetherness.
Earlier she would have been delighted at his plea for her company, but now she knew that it was because of some crazy mission of his rather than something fun, like lust. Räven countered his offer with one of her own. "Come with me instead. I will show you my truth." There was a savage look in her eyes again, as there had been when she leapt at him, attacking without provocation.
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 11:12 pm
She hadn't said that, so why was it the first place his mind went to? Because to kill, you had to hate? That couldn't have been the case for someone raised in a pride where sacrifices were not only culturally acceptable, but encouraged.
So why?
Show him her truth, she said. Her truth felt so cold already, and when he thought of that, reasons came flooding through his senses and to his mind.
"I'm sure they don't hate you," he repeated. Oh, he hoped dearly his heart wasn't going to explode beating this hard and this fast. He didn't have a spare. "But I'm wondering if it's you who hates yourself. Is it?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 11:19 pm
The lion that had been so pathetically easy to read before was inscrutable now. Not because of a lack of emotion, but because of some kind of emotional overload. Räven couldn't tell what the dark lion was feeling at all now. He was clearly worked up, but over what, she did not know.
Perhaps her words frustrated him as much as his frustrated her.
"Why would a spirit hate me?" She asked, frowning at the dark lion. "I have not said anything about hate, Sagua-for-now. I do not hate." She had simply never bothered to form enough of an emotional connection to anyone beyond her sisters to hate. Love, hate, anger - these were all fleeting emotions to her, feelings to be savored for their intensity and then released. As for hating herself - what a perplexing and utterly stupid concept. It was an annoying question to be asked, though, so she threw it back at him. "Do you hate yourself, Sagua? There is more to you than that sweet, confused, stupid self - I saw your temptation, earlier."
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Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2010 11:29 pm
Sagua's subconscious chose to file her truthful observations under a mere accusation to spare him the torment of having to accept he could behave so improperly - and be so easily led astray, no less. Yet the feelings were getting harder to ignore as they got stronger. He didn't have names for them.
The rapid beating of his heart felt like it had screeched to a stop.
Temptation. He hated that word.
Sagua breathed his answer more than he spoke it: "Maybe I do." But he didn't leave it at just that. The very same lion who had fled her personal space to preserve his own was now just as close to her as she had been to him before, asking dangerous questions that could have dangerous answers.
First, he insisted, "I'm not someone like that, Räven." And then he asked, "What would you do if I let you and loved you because of that? What if I loved you more than my sister? My mother? What would you do?"
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Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:30 am
She had gotten to him. She couldn't be sure which of her words had hit home, but she could tell that something had affected him. Her own heart began to beat faster. Glee. The thrill of the chase. This war of words was not one of her usual pastimes, but it had grown as exciting as more physical entertainments, in a more subtle way.
Sagua said he was not like that, but she smiled as he went on to contradict himself in his next words. There was passion and intensity in this lion, as strange as it was. He spoke of love, and Räv knew of love, knew it very well.
"Do you love me?" She asked, challengingly, ignoring his question for the moment. Räv took a step towards Sagua, closing more of the distance between them. "If you love me, then I will love you, Sagua - but no one can catch me for long." She smiled at him, a smile both fierce and greedy.
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Posted: Sat Nov 20, 2010 10:47 pm
"Do you love me?"
Sagua couldn't think to produce an answer, nor he could he speak to provide one. His back paws inched away, barely nudging the dirt beneath them, but aside from that he stayed motionless; didn't blink, didn't breathe.
"If you love me, then I will love you, Sagua - but no one can catch me for long."
Saying things like that to her... He must have gone crazy. Or was it just she was making him crazy? Was blaming her wrong? Was asking himself questions going to help anything when he had no answers to any of them?
"That's... not..." Oh where oh where had his oxygen gone? He took a deep breath and continued, "That's not love. You don't know what it is if you talk about it that way."
Sagua made a quick get away after that, but from the moment he turned from her, he spent nights wondering when she'd come to haunt him again.
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