[PRP] Live in the Present (Adin & Teet)

[mouselet]

Even though lions weren't skilled climbers, especially when compared to leopards, Teet had found that she preferred scaling heights when she wanted to sit and think. Luckily, such places were abundant in the Aka'mleli and the Scout had found many of them in the past two years.

"Has it really been two years?" the lioness asked aloud, staring down at the peaceful valley below.

"Yep! Hard to believe we haven' lived here forever, huh?" the bird replied cheerfully. Sure, he knew what his partner was really asking, but he refused to let her mope herself into thinking this was a mistake. She'd made a friend, Lomasi, but Tzarach knew Teet still felt isolated. Part of that was her natural reticence, but some of it was a fear of getting close to someone. He knew how lucky he was to have gotten past her defenses.

Better find a way to distract her - the sooner the better. The green bird scanned the surrounding area and his eye fell on a brown male not too far off.

"Look, isn't that another Scout?" he asked, waving a wing in the male's general direction. "Hey Afua!" he called out, greeting the black and white raven.  

[Bronze Coffee]

Afua led the way as Adin looked around the pride's higher spots. He didn't particularly like climbing, but it seemed to be a good way to build stamina and leg strength. Both were needed when you were a scout in this particular pride. Molten yellow eyes just watched his companion, his best friend circle him a few times before flying off. Afua liked to make sure he wasn't going to slip or anything (he'd done it in the past, slip and hit his head on a rock. It not something either of them wanted to happen again).

Then, out of no where, someone called out to Afua and the raven's head snapped towards a familiar looking bird. "Tzarach!" Afua looked down to Adin before grinning when the brown male changed his path towards the green lioness and fellow companion. "It's been a while!"  

[mouselet]

Teet sighed as Tzarach deliberately misinterpreted her words. She'd been opening her mouth to say as much when the damned avian darted to the edge of her perch and called out to someone below. Sighing resignedly, the lioness pushed herself to her feet and padded out so that she too could see.

It was a common failing in the pride to only know the name of the partner of your species in other pairings, so as Tzarach had recognized Afua, Teet now recognized Adin.

The rusty brown lion was, as she recalled, roughly her age, though he clearly hadn't lived as rough as she, given how he was panting on this easy climb.

"Keep going Adin," she called out. "You're nearly here."

The bird had taken flight and circled lower to join Afua as the black bird's partner continued to climb. It was always fun to chat with the other birds, and none of the lions ever seemed to mind in this place, such a perk!

"Yes it has! How are you? Anything new going on? Tell me everything!" the green bird yammered excitedly. He hoped that some of his positivity would rub off on his quiet partner.  

[Bronze Coffee]

"Found a half dead lioness earlier in the year!" Afua chirped out, lowering himself to fly level with Tzarach and just watched Adin struggle to climb. Poor boy. Afua just shook his head as he recalled. "She flipped when she saw Adin. He helped her though, gave her water, hunted a rabbit, that kind of thing."

Adin's head snapped up at the lionesses encouragement and squinted at her a bit more. Teet. Of course. She was a natural climber. He swore up and down she had leopard somewhere in her blood line. He, however, was obviously all lion. When he finally reached her perch, he panted and just flopped over on his side, limp and tired. Well that was the hard part. Climbing down wouldn't be bad.

"Teet," he said breathlessly, not even trying to lift his head. "Fancy meeting you here. Come to lord down upon all of us soft paws?"  

[mouselet]

"Did you really?" Tzarach crowed as Afua passed on the news. Seeing that Adin had nearly made it, he circled back to be closer to his partner. "Sharing company, are they?" the green bird asked with a mischevious glint in his eye as he winked in Adin's direction.

Now, he was just an ignorant male, but sometimes he thought that a nice lion was what his partner needed. Not that Teet would ever listen to him on the subject of course.

The lioness snorted at Adin's show of weariness and his remark. Just because she enjoyed heights more than most didn't mean she was even remotely thinking of making others feel inferior. But, the green female supposed that it helped some to feel better about their own inability to look at it that way.

"I think better up here," was all she answered, one eye on the other Scout, the other on the circling birds. "There's fewer distractions."  

[Bronze Coffee]

"Oh, no. Nothing of the sort! He just tried to help her because she was freaking out about something or other. Nothing serious. Adin has no suitors." The raven landed on his partner's ribs, uncaring about the dirty look that got him. Afua just got as comfortable as he could on the other's person and hopped around a little until he got snapped at. He squawked and huffed once he was on the rock and just fluffed up, offended. "See what I have to deal with? No woman would want this jerk."

Adin just let out a growl and tried to snap at his bird again before shifting to his stomach. Stupid bird, always making him look bad. He did that well enough on his own, thank you very much. His tail flicked a bit more, irritate, and just looked at the lioness before taking a calming breath. "...Oh, so we interrupted. Sorry to hear that. When my legs don't feel like water, I'll make my way down. Building stamina and muscle, you know."  

[mouselet]

Tzarach shook his head with exaggerated sadness. "No suitors for a lion like that? What's the world coming to?" he replied to Afua in kind. Then he looked around furtively before coming closer to the male lion.

"You know, maybe you should go find this lioness, and see how she's doing. Just a bit of friendly concern," the green avian advised with a wink. The gods all knew it had worked for him with Bento!

Teet managed to not roll her eyes at Adin's failure to understand. He was like most of the Aka'mleli in that respect - only Lomasi had acquired Tzarach's ability to see beyond what she said into what she meant. Yes, she'd come up her to think. But she wasn't going to chase Adin away just because of that. It would be rude and self-centered of her to do so.

Not to mention that even before he'd come up, Tzarach had been determined not to let her be.

"You should be running up here," she replied, not rising to his bait. "The air is more difficult to breathe the higher you are, and it'll do more for young lungs to run around up here than just to climb."  

[Bronze Coffee]

"I was actually planning on doing that soon. But someone doesn't even remember if she joined the pride or where she went." He looked pointedly at Adin before snorting a little. Stupid lion. He was charming, but so, so very dense. Looking at Teet, Afua's eyes narrowed a bit and he hopped towards her, giving her a 'well isn't he cute' look. So both birds seemed to be trying to play match maker.

Adin stared at her like she was crazy for a moment before trying to squish Afua under his paw to shut the stupid bird up. "Running you say. I could try that. I do like running.." He took a breath and figured out how right she was. It was thinner, cooler here, but it wasn't like he was struggling for breath. At least now that he was resting he wasn't. "Though I struggle with just climbing." Normally Adin was on the ground scouting, not the mountains, and it was obvious by this climb.

"So... What were you thinking about, if you don't mind sharing?"  

[mouselet]

"Tsk tsk! You know they need our help for things like that!" Tzarach chided Afua now. It was true - at least in his case. Teet generally didn't care enough to keep track of silly little things like who had joined the pride and who was partnered with whom. Sure, she'd remember them if, like Adin, she worked with them as part of her regular duties, but that hardly applied to most of the pride.

For the rest, she really did rely on Tzarach to know what was going on, with who, and when. So if Afua wasn't helping Adin the same way, well, it seemed their relationship needed a bit of strengthening. Why enter a partnership if you weren't going to make up for each other's shortfalls?

Once again, Teet didn't deign to respond to Adin's statements about his lack of physical fitness. She'd offered her advice, and what he did with it was up to him. If he was serious, he'd do as she advised. If he wasn't, well, who knew how he'd choose to waste his time.

"Time," she answered simply to his second question. The time she'd spent here, the time she'd spent elsewhere, all of those things. But Teet was a fairly private lioness, who tended not to share her inmost thoughts. Not even with Tzarach, though the avian could usually guess them.