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 Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 12:42 am
When they were done, Roka could put all that agressive anger into something productive. Uuni gave it a week, at best.
For now, getting the girl was on the backburner.
Uuni watched her snap, growl, and descend to her doom. That didn't look like a good idea. She waited, patiently, for her 'supposedly patient' companion to drag herself down the tree. It didn't last long.
"Welcome back," she commented sardonically.
From there, Uuni was pulling in deep, even breaths. Her eyes closed, and she began to think things over. And she had a really bad idea. Like all really bad ideas, it was destined to fail.
"Just get her talking."
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 1:07 am
Easier said than done. Up in the air if Ohahira was willing or capable of speaking up these days. Roka hadn't seen her talk to anyone or anything so far. Her ramblings were under her breath and half the time incoherent sounds as much as words.
Then there was that pesky matter of not wanting to help Uuni. What was a mortal to do? Speaking was her only weapon that stood a chance against those bigger and badder. Ohahira crossly tread around the trunk of the tree and didn't leave her much choice...
"I'm not trying to hurt you," Roka said, first and foremost. Uuni was another matter. "I think I'm your granddaughter." She waited for some kind of recognition. Not that she expected some warm reunion, but she anticipated something other than absolutely nothing.
Ohahira just kept pacing, at one point striking the trunk of the tree and roaring. Loudly.
Roka did prove herself right on the matter of patience. "My name is Roka --"
"And which one of those little bastards did you gush out of?"
Needless to say, Roka was stunned. Not only did Ohahira speak, she stopped, looked right up at them. "Wait," Roka barked at Uuni urgently. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. "Tanana's my mother."
Ohahira didn't know which one Tanana was. Had she bothered to name all of them? How many had there been? One boy, she remembered that. And a small one she'd probably beaten the most because that one was the loudest.
She lunged at the tree and tried her luck, but it was no good.
"Tanana," Roka said again. She had never thought to assume someone's own children couldn't be identified by their names.
Ohahira flicked her tail and trotted around and around.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 1:38 am
Uuni was more than willing to let Roka talk, and talk, and talk forever. There was a slight bob of her head as she was told to wait - she didn't have much choice, did she? - and Uuni continued to listen.
They were slowly tallying up the points that would get them killed. Ohahira appeared to have a rabid dislike of all things family. And of course Roka wasn't trying to hurt her. If she was, she wouldn't have climbed up a tree like a scared rat.
No.
Hm. An inkling worked its way up her spine. In a sick sort of way, perhaps she could relate to the angry, enraged lioness.
"You've been cursed." With bad breath and matted fur, no doubt, but it didn't matter. It was a lie. It was a lie with entirely tied ends, and it didn't matter. It was a far-fetched lie she could bleed out until it died.
It was called down, loud, calm, as if in passive conversation. As if Uuni was suddenly struck by the realization of it herself. In truth, she would not be surprised if there was no answer at all. You couldn't coax the insane with fantasies of higher purpose, with visions of safety, or power. But maybe, you could convince them they were absolutely right.
"I wasn't sure, but I am now. Someone's cursed you."
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 1:31 pm
Uuni didn't know how right she was about Ohahira wanting to be right too. Nothing had stalled her in her tracks with the same full-stop trepidation since the moment she'd known Tara was gone. Really gone. Abandoned them, the b***h. And the other time, the more utterly panicked incident, where she saw Uzulu and knew. Or when Nyumbani had refused to help her. Things her mother had told her. The birth of her children and their conception. Dead end after dead end leading to Tara.
So much. Oh, there was so much.
Cursed? Cursed?
Ohahira laughed through her hysteria. She had no choice. The mind of a lioness -- or anyone else-- was not meant to filter this much unmitigated rage. She moved quicker, started jolting when she turned.
"I know that," she spat. "I know that. I was cursed over and over and again when he took me just to gush out those squealing things. Over and over." Six. She remembered now. There had been six. One after another, over and over. It had made her sick her "master" had not only gotten his way but been given so much to work with. "That's where you're from, huh? One of those?"
Roka swallowed and kept quiet. Maybe she wasn't as ready for this as she'd thought. And below her, Ohahira was still going.
"I just want my sister," she wailed angrily. She was righteous in her intentions. Why was she punished for them? Because she was cursed, yes. Bad luck. But she couldn't stop until she righted things. Tara didn't deserve what she had, not now and not then. If the Gods wouldn't keep things fair, she would.
All she wanted was her sister.
"All I want is my sister," Ohahira snarled. She struck the tree hard enough her paw bled in the aftermath, and then she dropped to the ground and breathed in harshly.
When Tara had left, her first thought hadn't been Why did she leave my mother?, nor Why did she leave us? Why did she leave me? was the question. Once upon a time all Ohahira wanted was to not miss her sister.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:50 pm
Mortals were so nice.
Uuni fell into a quiet, eyes leading after the pacing Ohahira. There was an eerie calm in her own body - one should not be so at ease with the sight of desperation. Had she not known better, she might have thought Ohahira truly was cursed.
In hindsight, Uuni probably should have asked Hari why on earth Ohahira so intensely desired to kill her sister. And was that, really, what she would do should the pair meet? Probably. But maybe not. Too many maybes. Uuni didn't like maybes. It certainly wasn't enough of a 'maybe' to set up a chance meeting.
"I'm not your sister," Uuni pointed out the obvious. As long as she drove that point home, maybe her eyes wouldn't be eaten for supper. "But there's always a way to break a curse."
Deep breaths, Uuni. At least, now, she had left the world of lying and had entered her realm of expertise. She knew how a curse worked.
"If we can find out who did it, or what kind of curse it is." Her claws dug into the branch which supported her weight. "It won't reverse the past, but. . ." If she was lucky, Ohahira would finish the 'but' for her. She couldn't give her this sister she so angrily sought, but people represented emotions. Perhaps they could send this lune on such a wild goose chase that she'd grow distracted; absorbed instead in a desire to destroy an inanimate cause of her anguish. Those teeth, claws, and raw muscle power had to be useful for something.
But Uuni wasn't a damn mind-reader. This was really outside of the realm of her job.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:16 pm
Roka struggled to maintain her bearings. Not ready. Definitely not ready. There had been a sense of excitement, dare she say fun, in playing keep away with lunatic. Ohahira had demonstrated herself capable of coherent speech and thought. Both muddled by tragedy, but none the less, Roka could no longer see her as only some kind of project to feel smug about besting.
Ohahira had collected herself and got back on all four paws. Her back cracked sickeningly. No, she thought. No. If someone took this from her, they took everything. All she had was this mission. Her other sisters and her mother were done with her.
She didn't speak, just started in a direction opposite of them.
Roka hadn't spoke without thinking since she was a cub. Until now. "Is she really cursed?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:40 pm
Ohahira may have looked like she was mentally out of sync again, but Uuni had decided that she could hear everything. Maybe that lionesses' back was bad, but her hearing certainly wasn't.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." If she wanted a full explanation, she could get one later. 'No' was not a word Uuni wanted to use anywhere within audible distance of their fragile, mental friend.
But, everyone with eyes could see it. Ohahira was absorbed. She screeched, she shook, and she spat purpose: her sister. Whatever thoughts entered her mind had become her; she'd cursed her damn self.
"I saw a father with a curse like that, once. As long as this curse stands, it will never allow you to have what you want." Uuni would make sure of it. The goddess stood on her branch. She wobbled, she moved down to a slightly lower one.
"Every time he tried, something else of his was taken away. It's not your fault." Only, it was entirely her fault.
Uuni was sick of being stuck in this tree branch.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:55 pm
Stop or go, nothing would have surprised Roka.
Ohahira opted to stop. Speaking wasn't granted the same opportunities. Never have what she want? Something else taken away? She could have laughed if she had any strength for it left. It wasn't Uuni's right to know any idiot could tell you Ohahira would never get her way. That would mean Tara not getting hers, Gods forbid. And losing things -- losing what? It would be a blessing to have all her "children" fall over dead. She'd only complain it hadn't been before they kept the line going.
If she thought she'd live long enough, Ohahira would consider trying to wipe them all out herself. She had five sisters, Roka's mother had four and a brother, and she'd bet Roka had five of one or the other. There could be going on a hundred direct descendants of just her now.
Ohahira continued on her literal and figurative path of destruction.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:10 pm
Non-answers were not good signs. Ohahira was thinking about something, and Uuni had no idea what. In theory, she really didn't care.
The goddess remained on her lower perch until the menace became a squint and then she slid from the tree with a rather ungraceful thump.
"That was about as productive as fishing." The goddess shook down her coat and raised a hind leg to scratch a spot on her belly that had rubbed to closely against the tree.
"She's not really cursed," Uuni decided to finally answer. Her eyes moved back to where the tiny form of Ohahira had been. "Just crazy."
Maybe they could carve a giant rock that looked like her sister and send her to beat her head against it.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:14 pm
Every family had their thing. Mwokoti's had staring. Ohahira's line must have inherited the drive to leave without a word. Roka's face said it all, really. She scowled at Uuni and clambered down the bark. Her grandmother had gone that way, so Roka went the other.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2012 8:18 pm
"Your face is too pretty to ruin it with a look like that."
Uuni's personal thing was never knowing when to quit. Or rather, knowing and not caring.
The smile she passed to Roka was meant to infuriate the mortal. The sky rumbled, and Uuni winked out of existence, quite literally.
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