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 Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:32 am
The creature in the dark continued to race forward in a flurry of motion. Grasses shook in zigzag patterns, but whatever it was kept itself remarkably well hidden. Unfortunately for it- the sight of Dez'i and An behind it kept most of its attention. By the time it realized Juba was pouncing, the creature gave a horrified shriek at the realization it had been boxed in. As the white lioness charged towards it, the creature finally gave out, staggering to a stop and collapsing in a heap in the tall grass.
Noticing that the grass had stopped moving, An raced over to close the gap between the four. There was a flurry of excitement- finally, she'd get to see what had been making all of the noise! The blonde lioness slid to a stop, her bright blue eyes wide in the night air.
But what she saw was not what she had been expecting. A disheveled looking cheetah staggered around in the grass, snarling and hissing as the lions surrounded her. She seemed wounded- perhaps mortally so, her pink fur ragged and her claws stretched ready. Her chest was heaving from the run, mouth foaming as she struggled to get her breath. A few times she seemed to be trying to get back to her feet, only to fall back onto the slippery grass.
An's ears flattened. She recognized the type of creature it was- which was to say, it wasn't a lion. "- are you alright?" She started.
The cheetah flailed and swung her paw forward, nearly catching An on the nose. "Stay back!" The creature hoarsely sputtered. She staggered back into the grass. "More lions! You came back for me! What did you do with her?!"
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 3:55 pm
Juba stared at the creature with a rather bemused expression on her face.
Though she'd been a rogue for the majority of her life - all of it, really, since her mother's pride had never really been considered a true pride - she had not had much dealings with cheetahs or anything not of lion kind. She didn't really have anything against them...she just...hadn't seen much point in them, either. They were competitors, both going after the same game. More rival than friend.
Jemadari drew up alongside her, sticking out his neck to scent the poor, wretched looking beast. However at all the snarling and hissing, he drew his muzzle back in rather sharpish. He didn't fancy losing an eye.
"Wounded." Juba informed - rather pointlessly. "By other lions. But why? What would a lion do with a cheetah? Not for food, surely?" She curled a lip in distaste. "The cheetah must have angered a lion to be worth the time to chase and hurt. A little cub thief? A food stealer? A herd scarer? Something is not right about--"
"--Calm down." Jemadari interrupted. "We're not going to hurt you. You seem to be the victim, here, not the perpetrator." He eyed Juba disapprovingly and then cast a more pleading look across at An and Dez'i. "I don't think she's the villain in this."
"Quick to jump to conclusions." Juba added. "Too trusting. Could take advantage. A weakness, not a strength."
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 3:46 pm
Dez'i too wasn't that sure of what to think of the situation. The only time that he had been part of a pride was when he too was much younger. On the other hand though he had ran into other species of creatures while helping his mother look for meals to bring home. He was not to terribly surprised all though he did feel a little bad for chasing down the creature. But she did seem in pain and wounded. He approached quietly looking down at it before shaking his head and speaking. "We really have no right to judge if she started something or not." He commented as he sided between the other male and An. "We do not know her story yet."
He paused for a moment as he looked down, she seemed scared, not exactly angry, he didn't understand how she could have started something in this state. If she did he didn't understand why she would be so scared. However there was one thing for sure and that was that she was hurt and they needed to found out what was going on. "What happened to you?" He asked curiously, not very sure of what to think of the situation. She really did not seem as though she was in the best shape ever that was certain and he noted how scared she appeared. There had to be something going on and he was hoping the other lions could get an answer. Also see if they could help what ever was going on. And if the cheetah was the start to the problems what were they going to do? they couldn't hurt her when she already looked like this, could they? Or for that matter could they help her if she started what ever was going on?
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Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 9:15 pm
The cheetah seethed as the white lioness spoke. She didn't like her tone. She didn't like her tone at all! "I said be gone!" The frail creature lashed out again, before losing strength and falling against the grass. Her paw made a pathetic attempt to jerk outwards, before falling. "I didn't anger anyone, or steal their cubs! They stole my daughter! Your friends!"
An blinked. "That's impossible, I don't have any friends!" An completely missed the unfortunate implications of that statement. Flew right over her head.
The ravaged creature gave a low croak. "Lions are all the same. Your...stupid, foolish-" She made another attempt at rising but staggered back to the ground. Her eyes fluttered about in a frenzied manner, as if suddenly realizing something. "... how should I know what lions want? You think we have no spirits. That's what he said, him and the-"
An leaned forward, her bright blue eyes fluttering. "Wait, you said someone took your daughter?"
"Aya," the cheetah gasped. "They took her away. They said...one of them, said they needed to read her. The pretty one said we had no spirits, so it didn't matter what they did. They took Aya because she's different. She's my daughter and she's..."
Her voice trailed off. Not so much due to lack of focus, but more to fading will. "...I was always mean to her and I never meant to be that way and I-"
An struggled to keep a clear head. "Woah, don't go anywhere yet. Wait, who took Aya?"
"Your friends!" She snapped. "Lions! Lions!"
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:54 pm
Juba gave a small shrug. She seemed rather detached from any sort of sympathy towards the cheetah; not helped by the way that the creature kept addressing them.
"Confused rantings. A symptom of blood loss. Madness? Lie or truth? Not for me to decide. Will follow your decision." She gave a meaningful look to the others. Juba was not a leader. She was a follower. A thinker. A theoriser. Besides, whether she believed the cheetah or not mattered far less than the fact that this could be rather interesting if they did follow it through. "But would be wise to be cautious. Have heard of these groups before. Best to steer well clear of them. Even lions."
Jemadari shook his head, lowering his head to appear less intimidating - a little silly considering he was the smallest of the bunch; his mane yet to fully grow in. "These lions aren't our friends. We just happened to be in the area. That's all. Please. Perhaps we can help? Can you tell us anything else about these lions? When they took your daughter? Where they went, what they looked like? Any detail could help."
"In the dark, tracking will be hard." Juba reminded. "If this happened a while ago, they will be long gone. No chance to catch up."
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:26 pm
Dez'i was so confused at what to think at what to think about the cheetah. However he knew for fact that the female seemed to be harmless. Not only did she seem harmless at the moment but Dez'i felt like what the cheetah was saying was not a lie. He felt like some one wouldn't lie about that. He truly didn't. He looked at the cheetah once again before looking at the others and nodding at them. "I don't think she's lying." He commented simply before flicking his hair out of his eyes once again, he looked around a few times at her and then the other lionesses.
"So they took your daughter." He looked at the other two curiously before speaking to the others. "I think we should try to help her if we can." He commented before flicking his hair out of his eyes once he looked at the cheetah once again and then then paused before looking between the others. He turned toward An and then back toward the cheetah. "What did your daughter look like?" he asked curiously wondering what happened to the cub what made the lions steal the little cub. He couldn't understand it but then again he knew that he was left as a cub in the rogue lands to fend for himself. He could never really judge the cheetah but he was pretty sure it could be possible.
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 8:25 am
An nodded slowly, listening to Juba's warnings. She'd never heard of a group like this- and no doubt she'd want to know more later. It didn't seem like the female was mad... maybe delirious. If An had learned one thing hanging around the medical ward, it was that injured lions were impulsive and dangerous. Perhaps cheetahs were similar. "Hang on there," she said. Her own questions mirroring the two lions. "How long ago was this? Where are they now?"
The cheetah growled, her voice low and clouded with a throaty bubbling. She seemed to be fading fast. "They took her..." the female lamented. "I don't know why. They said so many things so articulately. A male and a female. The female...you'd know her if you saw her... she was very beautiful... and she didn't even care. The other attacked us. He struck me down, and dragged Aya from the tree."
The cheetah sputtered again, and looked up at her would be rescuers. Her eyes narrowed bitterly. "Cheetahs never do things like this. It's a fault in your kind," she muttered. "Aya... Aya was different. That's why they took her. They thought... I don't know what you lions think. They thought she was special, and they needed her for some ritual."
An shook her head. "Special how? Because of her color, or-?"
"She wasn't a cheetah," the female said quietly. "Her father was another kind and I... I don't know what she was. She was my daughter. But her father was not my kind."
The blonde lioness didn't seem satisfied with that answer. "Could her father help? Where is he?"
"Long gone," she said. "He wouldn't know Aya grown...Aya is smart. If she can escape she would but I doubt that she's still..."
The cheetah lowered her eyes, and with a sigh sunk back to the earth. "There's a creature that lives north of here. All the cheetahs talk about him. They say he knows all the bad things that happen here. If I had the strength, I'd ask him about what became of Aya. Versailles. Ask him, if you think she's still alive. I doubt I will be for much longer."
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Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:39 pm
Juba seemed ready to open her mouth to intervene and probably turn down the idea of helping her. Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - Jemadari was quick to intervene, shoving against her in a clear sign that she ought to stay quiet for now.
"Am I speaking for myself when I say we can't just walk away from this?" He ignored Juba, turning his attention across to An and Dez'i. They would be more sympathetic, right? "Okay, so we don't have anything to do with this. It was pure coincidence that brought us together."
"Coincidence? What is coincidence?"
"Shh."
Juba's jaw fixed, her tail flicking from side to side.
"We'll go and find him, this Versailles. If he can help then it seems an obvious choice. But what about you? We can't just leave you here but...are you okay to walk with us?" What if, when they left, someone else came back to harm her? He wouldn't be able to live with that, either.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:13 pm
[[Sorry for taking so long guys! Got a little caught up! D:]]
Dez'i looked at the cheetah doing his best to understand everything that she was saying. He had heard of the half breeds before. They were half of one type of feline and half of another, he really didn't understand this idea but at the same he had never met one. He wasn't going to cast judgment because of that. He paused as he looked toward An for a moment and then back toward the other male quickly. "I don't think that we can just walk away from this..." He paused for a moment as he looked at the lionesses and shrugged. "Well I don't know how you guys feel but I know I can't walk away from something like this. It could have been just him. He knew for a fact that he had a bit of a hero complex. You could say. "I kind of want to say it's a little more then a coincidence."
He paused for a moment. So her daughter Aya was missing, the cheetah looked like she couldn't hang on much longer. They found out that two lions that took her and now they were gone some where else. He took a moment to take all of this in before turning to the cheetah again and quickly blurting out a question. He felt like it needed to be asked, They needed to know it if they wanted to help out. "What does she look like?" He asked, "What did they look like/" He added also wanting to lion what the lions looked like, if they were going to get anywhere those were two things. He paused for a moment before thinking about what the other lion said, it's true it wasn't a good idea to leave her here to get hurt either.
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 11:30 am
An nodded eagerly. What was she, after all? She was a drifter, and her life was completely of her choosing. How could she turn away from this? Sure they didn't have much to go on. Maybe they wouldn't be able to find anything. But she didn't turn her back on the call. That wasn't what a firekin did. "I'm a warrior," she professed. Perhaps as much to herself as the others. "I wouldn't walk away from this. You say there are two lions who took her? Well there are four of us!"
The cheetah took in another gasping breath. "Four lions. Doubt that determination will last long," her claws flexed. But as the moments dripped on, the female knew her own time was running short. She wasn't going to save Aya. The two had never gotten along, but she wasn't about to deprive her daughter at her one chance of survival. "The two lions... I said you would know them. The first was dark and cruel looking. I've never seen a darker creature. The other was beautiful. She was golden, but not like a lion. Like a spirit. The most beautiful creature I've ever seen..."
Her face turned into a snarl, remembering the lioness. "She was the talker. She commanded the other, and he did as she said. They took Aya away. But she was alive when I last saw her."
An leaned forward, sensing the other female's fading strength. "But what about Aya- how will we know who she is? What does she look like? Is she big like us? Is she a child?"
The cheetah began to still. "Aya...is my daughter... I should have said that more..." And then there was nothing.
An flinched when the words no longer came from the cheetah's throat. She gently touched the her shoulder, pressing down as if trying to take her. The cheetah didn't move. It seemed whatever had happened to her and her daughter was now left in four strangers' paws.
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Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 12:26 pm
Jemadari looked up in interest as An declared herself a warrior. At his side, Juba also seemed to take interest - though she was less subtle about it - her eyes widening so that the whites gleamed brightly in the moonlight.
"Our determination will last long enough to see your daughter safe." Jemadari replied - a bold claim, perhaps, but one that he fully intended to see through to the end. Beside him, Juba shifted; though from unease or impatience, he wasn't quite sure. Perhaps a little of both.
But he had no time to dwell on what was going on through his red and white companion's mind. The cheetah was weakening - probably from blood loss - and he didn't like how her voice was starting to trail like that. They probably ought to see to her own safety, first. Unfortunately, he didn't know much about wounds. Perhaps--
No.
His breath hitched, eyes fixed desperately on the silent cheetah's face in the dark. Did she still breath? Was she still...? He swallowed back a sudden horrible nausea and opened his mouth to ask. His voice, however, was lost to him; his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
"Dead." Juba pierced the stillness of the night air with the short declaration. So matter-of-fact was it that she might as well be talking about the weather. "Or dying. No matter. No help for her here. None we can offer. Best leave her and find this daughter--if that is still the plan of course?" She blinked. "Curious now, about these lions." She apparently had dropped the 'cautious' approach.
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:33 pm
If there was one thing that was for sure in Dez'i's mind it was that he wanted to help this cheetah even though she appeared to be dying right in front of them. He had always wanted to encounter something like this. He had always wanted to be able to be able to help some one like he had been helped before. He always wanted to be able to do something brave and he felt like this was something brave and he felt like this was something that he could do. Not only that but he was really excited to have some one else with him to help him. It was nice to have company who was also looking forward to helping some one else. Or at least he was hoping that's what they also wanted to do.
He glanced at them before down at the cheetah again. He was sad that she wasn't going to be able to see her daughter again, and he was also kind of sad that they really couldn't do anything for her. He wished that she could help her instead of watching her leave this world. He nodded at the cheetah and then back to the others. "We have to find her." He stated simply, he looked toward Juba and nodded. He was hoping that they could find him some time soon. He knew for a fact that it wasn't going to be easy to find some one. It was a cheetah and two lions from the way it sounded. There were a lot of creatures in the horizon and he knew there was. "I wish we could do more for her but I agree, I think our best bet is to start moving and find out who would do this." He looked toward An wondering if she was thinking the same.
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 4:37 pm
An's eyes lowered forlornly at Juba's assessment. The cheetah was dead, and she took with her every last bit of information they'd had. It plucked the adrenaline out of the moment, and left her only with an empty feeling that they'd messed up somehow. But she wasn't sure where. "I..." the blonde lioness started, before taking a moment to full appreciate the situation. "I think it's the only thing we can do. For all we know, we're the only people that will bother to help this Aya."
Her tail slowly pulsed. "If we don't do anything, then there will be no justice done for her." They didn't even know her name. "But finding two lions in the middle of everything isn't going to be easy. She said this Versailles would know of these lions. Does that mean this isn't the first time this has happened?"
It had to, didn't it? "Then, that means this problem is bigger then just one abducted female. And I doubt we have a lot of time."
The lioness moved forward, before turning around to properly face everyone. "Do any of you know who she was talking about? This other cheetah? Do we know someone local who would know?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:28 pm
Juba wrinkled her snout in thought then stepped forward to offer her knowledge to the group. "Must remember that cheetahs are not like us. They are loners by nature. Live alone. No strength in numbers." She nudged the dead cheetah's leg with a paw and pointedly ignored the startled sound strangling in Jemadari's throat. "Observe their weak bones. Fragile and easily breakable. No strength. Not much, anyway. Their advantage lies in speed. Long legs, deep chest, slender hips." She circled a little, coming to stand next to An, her eyes still fixed on the body of the cheetah. "The long tail. Balance, perhaps? Good weight ratio when fleeing. Chasing." She paused, giving a small sniff of thought. "Well designed, but not for battle."
"Sorry, is there a point to this." Jemadari frowned, reaching up to slap away Juba's paw that had been attempting to poke the cheetah again.
"Designed for open space." Juba continued as if she had not even been interrupted. "Not know this Versailles but know places he could be. Open stretch of land. Tall grass."
"That could be anywhere." Jemadari pointed out. "What about the birds?"
"Birds?" Juba arched a brow.
"Some of my kin back in my home had birds to relay messages. I expect, from way up high, they might be able to spot a cheetah."
"Not in the dark." Juba pointed out. "Not in the storm. And why would they want to help? What could we offer? Nothing of much interest to those creatures."
Jemadari gave an exasperated sigh, turning his head to glance at Dez'i. "You are a rogue? Do you have any ideas? Might you have come across him?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 9:03 am
Dez'i looked in the direction of An and then shook his head once again. "Not at all, very difficult to find them actually." He said with a bit of disappointment in his voice. He hated not being able to do something he wanted to do. He wanted to go now and go as quickly as he could to find whoever took this Aya. He looked toward the others and then spoke again. "there could be a good chance that this isn't the first time this has happened." He growled a little shaking his head once again, he didn't understand how some one could do something like this, he wanted to see justice.
He listened the other two lions talk, not really that sure about what to think of Juba was talking aoouot, he didn't get where she was going with this. He then turned his attention to the other lion. "Birds?" He also questioned not that sure of what birds could do with it. He paused and then shook his head. "One or two might have seen something but it's a matter of finding those one or two birds that saw it, we're better off just going to find the lions." He then turned toward Juba once again and nodded. "I agree, I don't think we have to much to offer them."
Then when Jemadari spoke again he was a little surprised by his questions but he shook his head. "Yes I am, but I don't think I've come across them." He paused and thought before speaking again. "there are a lot of things that happen in these rogue lands, some very strange, it's a meeting ground for all of the prides around here and some are much crueler then others." He sighed looking down. "I was turned away from a pride when I was young, sent out as a baby because I couldn't hear correctly." He then looked at the cheetah. "There are many lions, wild dogs, hyenas, and even leopards and cheetahs in these lands and they all think differently of one an other." He paused again and looked at the others once again. "They two could be going anywhere and could be from anywhere. but I think if we move quickly we can find them."
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