Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was abnormally hot. Stiflingly so, in fact. The sun hung big, bright and beautiful in the otherwise empty sky and seemed to beat down upon the occupants of the Kusini lands with unprecedented malice. Jini rested in the shade of a particularly large tree near the watering hole with her head on her paws and a lazy grin on her sleeping face.

Every now and then, a slightly ferocious and very warm breeze would ruffle the fur on her back and the fluff of dark red hair on her head. The snoozing adolescent remained, for the most part, completely oblivious to the angry weather that surrounded her. The heat, combined with the power of the wind, were tell-tale signs of the rainstorm that was soon to come.

Dozens of frightened birds let out loud cries of alarm as they flew every which way, in search of their loved ones and the shelter of the trees.

Jini's ears twitched in response to the genet's cheerful greeting, and she slowly started to fall out of sleep. It was a pity. She'd been having such a wonderful dream, of which the details were already begining to fade, but the important thing was that she remembered that happiness had been a very prominent theme.

The young lioness yawned and popped one eye open to study the body that the belonged to the energetic voice. She stared at the black and white genet with obvious confusion and stood up slowly, stretching the drowsiness out of every muscle as she moved.

"Hello?" Jini asked experimentally. She'd never seen a creature like the one in front of her before.

The speed of the much smaller, unfamiliar creature surprised Jini so much that she, partially out of alarm and partially out of a sudden need to feel big, sat up as quickly as her front legs would push her.

"I am who I am," she responded mystically, a playful hint of amusement evident in her voice. Jini, though still only an adolescent and a female, was all muscle and teeth. The genet's courage was admirable. Jini knew that if she were that small, there'd be no way she'd approach something as large as a lion.

"Who are you?"

The concept of 'who asked who first' was completely lost to Jini. If she hadn't wanted to, the young lioness had never given anybody any information for any reason. It wasn't an issue of trust. She was sure that the Genet meant her no harm and, when it came down to it, Jini reasoned that she actually quite liked the small, spunky ball of fluff. It was hard not to.

"You smell funny," she informed it in an obvious, tickled tone. It wasn't totally true. An unfamiliar scent surrounded the little creature, but it wasn't an entirely unpleasant one. Just different. Jini was simply too stubborn to give up her name first.