[PRP] Hello Stranger! (Bem and Obi)

[iPao XD]

Dawn.

Another day...another boring, dull, uneventful day. At least that's how Obi saw it. Dark pink eyes opened wide, so early in the morning, and he let out a quiet yawn before standing and giving his rather large body a good stretch. Boring wasn't exactly a word used to describe the life of your everyday rogue. If anything, most would consider a life of total and complete freedom something worth enjoying for most of your life. But....well, Obi just didn't find any sort of contentment with his life.

Ever since he parted ways with his family, which was a decision of his own, his wanderings brought him to all the same places - the savanna. The male had been wandering aimlessly for months now, living off the small game across the vastness of what could be considered his home. He didn't think it was right to hunt anything larger than your average jackal. Something to do with displeasing the gods and tipping the balance between prey beast and predators.

"So where to today Obi?" he asked himself aloud. "To the savanna? Or...to the savanna?"

His voice was drawled, and with another yawn he started walking, droopy eyes blinding him from what would be obvious, should he actually give a damn at this point in the day. It was just a little too early, after all.

 

[Basil Brett]

Finding oneself lost in a vast wilderness usually is a daunting thing to admit to oneself. And yet, as Bem said the words aloud, she felt no fear, anxiety, anger, or even annoyance. If anything, she was slightly amused.

Bem had been lost her whole life. She truly had the navigational skills of a rock. It was by sheer luck or through a lot of help that she found her way to anything. Perhaps this, more than anything led to her life of wandering as a rogue. She felt no desire to wander, and yet no burning desire to find anything. So she was lost, but she wasn't.

Shaking the cryptic thoughts out of her head, Bem stretched and trotted on through the savanna. She hummed a songless tune in her head, her grey eyes flitting from rock to tree to rock to tree. Bored with the view, she closed her eyes. What's the harm? What was she going to run into?

OOMPH.

Apparently something. Bem chuckled inwardly at the irony as she regained her balance and prepared to apologize to whomever or whatever she had collided with.  

[iPao XD]

The collision woke him from his daydream, as did the fact that he went face first into the ground. Yep, it was definitely too early for this. With a growl he sat up and looked around frantically for whoever was responsible for his unpleasant awakening. Soon his eyes landed on a female just beside him, and he couldn't exactly force himself to be unpleasant around a female. That just...wasn't the way he was raised. So with a snort he took a seat, face looking in the other direction.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a bit of a grunt. It wasn't exactly polite...but it wasn't rude either.

Obi kept glancing back and forth between the horizon in the distance, and the female. With a quirked brow, he felt a small smile tug at the corners of his maw. Some things in the savanna were worth wandering its expanse. It wasn't everyday you run into such an exquisite femme, after all.

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem was midly surprised when the object she had run into spoke. Running into a rock or tree, now that was pretty common, at least for her. Running into another figure, that was a different matter. What were the odds.

The question posed to her wasn't said in the kindest of matter, but she had run into someone.

She sat and cleared her throat as she shook her curly hair out of her eyes.
"Er, yes, thank you. I'm really sorry about that, I wasn't much watching where I was going."

She wasn't above admitting she had been at fault, but there was a trace of embarrassment in her voice. She usually didn't run into others so early in the day.

The apology out of the way, she blinked and actually looked at who she had interrupted. It was a wild dog, like her, male, and not unpleasant to gaze upon either.

"Are you alright?"  

[iPao XD]

He snorted a bit at her apology, inclining his head in acceptance of it. "Yeah, no kidding.." he mumbled, almost inaudibly, to himself, before turning at last to face her. Obi sighed and stood up on all fours, shaking the dust off of him, or whatever it was that was giving him goosebumps, then sat back down. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." The male kept himself from saying anything more, as he was afraid he'd go a step too far, especially with his current mood being so glum.

With a quirk of his brow he introduced himself, at least wanting to know what her name was. It wasn't likely he'll forget such a beautiful face anytime soon. "I'm Obi...and you are?"

The words sort of tumbled out, sounding slightly awkward and uncomfortable. He was always fine when he was around females, but every once in a while there was a chance that he'd get a bit embarrassed around them and act strange. This moment, in particular, was the latter, and he shifted uncomfortably where he sat, eyes averting themselves to look at the distant horizon.

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem easily gathered that the male, Obi was annoyed, by his mood, and not his words. She had heard him mutter, but didn't catch the words. He had the right to be less than happy, but she had apologized, so she wasn't going to dwell on it.

After his awkward introduction, Obi kept avoiding her gaze, diverting it to the horizon. She followed his gaze, a small smile on her face. She wanted to say something about it, but she wasn't in any position to tease a stranger. He was being polite, after all. To a degree.

"I'm Bem," she stated simply.

She wasn't going to say much more, but the brown male apparently wasn't in the best of moods this early morning. Ah well, she could continue the conversation.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Obi. Though I do wish our meeting had happened under slightly different circumstances."

Bem smiled lightly, hoping Obi would cheer slightly.  

[lil nom nom]

"Likewise, I'm sure.." he replied to her pleasantries, then returned her smile. It was one thing to be slightly rude early on in a first meeting, but after she seemed sincerely sorry for what had happened, it was hard not to let it all go. And her smile seemed to make his morning better, oddly enough. So now he was smiling, the early morning not getting to him much anymore, even though it usually did no matter who he came across. This was just one of those very rare exceptions.

"So what are you doing out so early in the morning?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

He looked down, now slightly embarrassed at how he'd acted just moments ago. It had been an accident after all. She didn't seem the type to just purposely run into people she didn't know. Friends and family were a different story, but surely not strangers. The thought made him chuckle a little, for some reason, and he looked up at her, a small apologetic smile now gracing his features.

"Sorry about uh...acting like that, by the way.." he apologized, wanting to rectify his small mistake. "Not a morning type, that's all.."

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem smiled as Obi seemed to relax. A grin creeped across her face after his aplogy.

"It's alright. I'm sometimes a horror in the morning myself."

She stretched her paws in front of her politely.

"This morning, however, it just seemed to nice to pass up."

Sure enough, the morning was rather pleasant, once one paused to look at it. The sky was clear for the most part, just a few clouds dotting the horizon. A light breeze danced across the savanna, providing relief from the warm sun.

"So I figured I'd start my day early. And how about yourself? Why the early morning stroll?"  

[iPao v2]

A roll of his shoulders seemed to shrug off the unpleasant meeting, and he smiled as she seemed to share a bit about herself as well. It was good to know, though, that femmes could have a bad morning side too. "Good to know I'm not alone. Don't worry though, I'm not always like this in the morning. Just in the early morning." Obi glanced quickly at the horizon, then nodded. "Yeah, I'm not usually awake at this time either," he laughed.

It certainly was a nice morning. The air was nice and brisk, with the sun creeping into the sky and temporarily tinging the usual blue with a light orange and yellow. The slight lack of clouds made it even more pleasant to look at, but he'd only gotten a glimpse just moments ago. The pretty sunrise wasn't the first thing he'd noticed, after all. He noticed, first and foremost, the idea of having to live through another boring day without any sort of company. That was what he noticed first every day, and the last thing he thought about every night before he went to bed..

"I just got up too early. Like I said, I'm not usually up at this time. I wake up around mid-morning on most days, actually."

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem grinned, both pleased and relieved that the male had shaken off his bad mood. Nothing like a sour meeting to start one's day. She chuckled at his words. Obi must not live a busy life to be able to sleep in so late. But that was what living as a rogue was all about, living one one's own time.

"I'm always up at weird hours. Nothing stays consistent with me," she admitted.
"I've had days where I've been up before the sun, and days where I am barely awake at all."

She realized she was rambling slightly and kicked herself mentally.

"So, do you live around here? I actually have pretty much no clue where I am."  

[iPao v2]

He chuckled at her comments about her sleeping habits, nodding a bit to hint that he was very much the same. Consistency was definitely not his strong point either, especially when it came to sleep. In his mind, no rogue could be very consistent with such things. You travel when you feel like it, sleep when you feel like it. Basically, you did everything the way you want, when you want. In other words, there were no rules. That was something he was both happy and....not so happy about.

"Yeah, consistency's no friend of mine," he replied. "And no, I'm just passing through. Sorry I'm not much help."

Obi thought a moment, not knowing much else to say at this point. Idle talk wasn't exactly his forte...but then again, not many things involving company was. He'd been alone for a while now, and socializing was never a guaranteed daily activity.

"Uhh....so where're you coming from?"

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem chuckled. Obi reminded her of a childhood friend of hers.

She sighed slightly in response to his question.

"Heh, no idea, really. That's thing about me. I have no idea where I've been and no idea where I'm going."

I'm stuck in the here and now, she added mentally. That was how she was forced to live. Sure, she had memories, good ones as well as bad, but nothing enough to tie her down to anything. So she just continued on.

"I really have no sense of direction," she elaborated. Ugh. She hated small talk and always ended up admitting that she was as inept at directions as oh, a rock.

She stretched suddenly, and chuckled.
"I guess neither of us are experts at the whole small talk thing."  

[iPao v2]

The male smiled and had to nod in agreement. As a pup he spent most of his days just hunting and messing with his younger brothers and sisters, so he didn't really bother much with honing his skills when it came to directions. Seeing her stretch suddenly brought him back to his previous demeanor of a sleepy grump, thought a lot less grump and much more sleepy. A yawn managed to escape from his maw before he could catch it.

"Sorry," he said with a sheepish smile. "For some reason you stretching just sort of...I dunno...triggered it." It was a sort of mumble, but he really hoped she heard it.

"And yeah. Didn't socialize much with anyone when I was younger. Never really had to.." He paused as a gust of wind passed them by. "I mean...all I had were my parents and younger siblings. Not much conversation, believe it or not."

 

[Basil Brett]

Bem chuckled and nodded.

"No, I can believe that. Things are different with family. Sometimes, you don't want to say anything to any of them, and sometimes you don't need to. Perhaps, when there's a lot of the former, that's when families fall apart. And when there's a lot of the latter, that's how families can get so close."

She said this with a faraway look in her silver-blue eyes. her curly grey hair flickering lightly in the breeze. Suddenly she snapped back to reality, and gave Obi a sheepish grin.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to wax philosophical there."

She chuckled embarrassedly, mentally kicking herself for making such an awkward pause.  

[iPao v2]

Obi shook his head, laughing a bit at her comment. "It wasn't that I had too much or too little to say. Just...none of them were very interesting. Especially since we did most everything together, as brothers and sisters." He sighed and thought back to his family, when he was still with them.

"I knew them all too well...and I think that was the problem."

A pause, then another sigh, and then Obi noticed that he'd gone quiet and very...strange for a minute, then laughed a bit nervously to recover himself. "Oh, haha. Sorry about that. Went off to my own world for a bit." He coughed nervously, embarrassed that he completely forgot that she was there for a bit longer than a minute, then continued.

"Oh, and that's also probably why I was itching to leave them when I got old enough. Anyway, so what do you say we find a meal? I'm getting a little hungry.."