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 Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:11 pm
She'd been wandering around for longer than she could remember and nothing had come of it. She hadn't found her mother or father or anyone else either. She was lucky that she'd been able to dig her way to beetles and had caught a few lizards or she was afraid she would have starved. The idea didn't please her but she was so tired.
She just wanted everything to stop being so hard. It wasn't fair somehow. She didn't even know what had happened but she'd been left like this. All alone and stuck trying to keep herself alive.
Whimpering she flopped down in a pile of grass and covered her nose with her paws. She didn't know what to do!
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:28 pm
“Mama? Where are you?” there was a plaintive whining tone to the voice, the voice of a cub who had never been far from his mother in his entire short life. Well, at least not that far away from her. Kefilwe whined softly, lifting one paw up as he listened for an answer. So far, he had been calling a lot and hadn’t got an answer. This worried him. He had even tried calling for his siblings and hadn’t gotten any answers. This worried him more, since some of his siblings were far louder and more raucous than he was. If he couldn’t hear them, then they were a long way off.
Kef’s heart started to sink into his stomach. His hungry stomach. It had been a while since the cub had eaten. He couldn’t say exactly how long it had been since he had last eaten, but he knew it had been much longer than ever before. He lifted up his head at the soft crackle of grass and looked towards the direction of the noise. It was too soft to be Mama, but maybe it was one of his siblings. It sounded about the right weight. Or maybe it was a rat! He had nearly caught a rat the other day, but it had bitten him on the nose at the last second. Stupid thing…
The brown cub poked his head through the grass and peered at the other cub. “You’re not… umm… who I thought you were…” he finished lamely. For a moment, he considered hiding back in the grasses once more; he didn’t know her. But then he took a closer look at her, examining the way that she was hiding her face. She seemed just as scared as he was! Cautiously, he attempted to stalk out of the shadows and barely managed an awkward sort of crawl. “Umm… hi.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:34 pm
She squeaked and jumped to her feet at the sound of a voice. Not just a voice but a voice near her! She scrambled back a few steps before she realized that it was someone not much bigger than her. It was someone after all this time!
".... You're not imaginary are you?" She'd thought she'd run into others a few times before but it had just been her eyes playing ticks on her.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:39 pm
Imaginary? Kef blinked his wide yellow eyes at the question as he mentally considered it. “Uh… I don’t think I am. If I am imaginary, then I’m so real that I’ve managed to imagine myself. I mean, I’ve heard the theory that we’re all just dreams of a… a sort of god, really, maybe even Mkodi herself…” he trailed off a little, realizing he was babbling.
“I really hope I’m not imaginary,” he said in a wrenching sort of voice. His forehead crinkled a little in worried thought as he considered this hitherto unconsidered possibility. “If I am imaginary, then someone’s got a very cruel imagination. My name is Kef. What’s your name?”
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:45 pm
She had no idea what Gods were or who Mkodi was but she didn't think that would be a productive way to start off a conversation with something that didn't seem to be fake this time.
"Name? ... Um ... i think i got called Rangi?" She could only just remember her mother calling her that to get her attention. She didn't know if that was her name but it seemed to fit.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:50 pm
“I’ll call you Rangi then,” Kef said with a bright smile. This was going well in his mind. She was one of the first cubs he had ever met---besides his own siblings, of course---and she wasn’t attacking him. In his mind, this was a good sign. “Umm…” he hesitated a moment before going on. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my mother? She’s really big and soft and brown. She would have had my siblings with her…”
Little electric bolts went across Kef’s brain as he started really thinking about Rangi’s appearance. Not just how she looked, but how everything else looked. Specifically, he noticed the distinct lack of adults. That wasn’t right. Cubs had parents. He wasn’t clear on what one might call the mechanics, but he felt vaguely that cubs somehow came from parents. It was odd for a cub to wander around without a parent. “Umm… where’s your mother?” he asked eventually. Maybe she could help him find his mother!
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:55 pm
Her backside flopped back into the grass as she sat down and her brighter expression fell slightly. "I haven't seen any one s-since..... since ...."
She sniffled slightly. She hadn't seen anyone since she'd lost her parents to whatever had taken them. She still didn't know what had happened only that she was told to hide and that no one had been there when she'd come out hungry a few days later.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 9:05 pm
Even with his somewhat stunted social growth, Kef could still tell that he had said something bad that had hurt Rangi’s feelings. “I’m sorry,” he said automatically, honestly feeling the words. No one should lose track of their parents, and it hardly took a genius to figure out that Rangi had lost her parents too. He sat dejectedly for a moment, thinking things over. Well, some things. Mostly, he was just thinking of ways to make Rangi feel better. He came closer slowly and sat down again, this time right next to her.
“So… we’re both alone then,” he said, frowning a little and feeling very sorry for himself. He was getting quite good at that, both frowning and feeling sorry for himself. If there was ever a contest for feeling sorry for oneself, then Kef would come fir… last. Well, maybe they could find another adult! No… wait. That wouldn’t work. Rangi had said she hadn’t seen ‘anybody’. That meant ‘anybody’, up to and including adults. “… What’re you going to do?”
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:11 am
She scrunched her nose after a bit and shook her head. It wouldn't do any good to be thinking about her parents. They were gone and she didn't know if she could even get them back. Maybe they'd left her here alone for a reason?
When the other cub sat down beside her and spoke she thought about it a bit. "I ... don't know. I guess i've been doing okay by myself. There's plenty of bugs and mice around, and there's a pond not too far away." Her tail swished behind her for a moment. "It is better with company though, at least company you don't intend to eat"
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:18 pm
Kef was quiet for a while; the only noise he made was a soft swish as his tail moved through the dirt slightly. “I’ve got an idea for the both of us,” he said finally after turning his little plan over and over in his head. “I think we should both stay here. Think about it: our parents must be looking for us, right? They wouldn’t just leave us like this. So… so maybe we haven’t found them because we keep moving. Like they keep searching in areas that we were in earlier and they can’t catch up ‘cause we keep moving away. So, if we stay here, they’ll come here eventually and we’ll be found.” He grinned shyly as the piece of his little plot fell into place.
Food. Water. Company. These were the things that he was certain a cub needed to survive and he had all three right here. Besides, after being alone for as long as he had (which was actually about three days or so, but it seemed much longer in his mind), he liked Rangi’s company.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:31 pm
She tilted her head, ears perked for once finally, and listened to him. Staying here? She'd been staying here mostly but she had done wandering. She knew her parents wouldn't come find her, she just knew it somehow, but his might. At least while he stayed she could have company.
"So long as you don't try to steal my mice. They're not big enough to share and i'll only catch them for you if you ask nicely." She nodded and grinned at him. She wasn't really that good at catching them but it seemed like a good way to make sure he really wanted to stay instead of just trying to make her feel better.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:39 pm
“You can catch mice by yourself?” Kef was honestly surprised. Apparently, Rangi was a great hunter! She had to be, because mice… well, Kef could just about manage to catch bugs. Mice and rats were a bit beyond him, as the bite on his nose had reminded him. “I almost caught a rat,” he said proudly, puffing his chest out a little. “But…” he deflated and smiled sheepishly. “It got away an’ it bit me on the nose. I think it was laughing at me.”
Still, he cheered up soon enough, reminding himself that he and Rangi could practice hunting together. And then they would get that rat for biting him, yes they would! And they would be the best and greatest hunters ever and then Mama would find him again and everything would be alright. “I bet we can catch loads of mice if we work together. Like set traps or something.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 6:50 pm
"Well i can't catch them all the time but i have caught a few." They weren't all that filling though so she ended up having to keep trying or scarf down insects closer to night. She didn't like being out at night but the little winged things made so much noise it was easy to find them. "They've never bit me ... maybe i never gave them the chance." She usually smothered them with her paws before stuffing them in her mouth.
"Traps? Wouldn't they be too small? how would you make traps that tiny?" Maybe traps for rats but she'd never been able to catch a rat. They were just too big for her.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:03 pm
“You must be very good if they never get the chance. When you can, I mean.” Kef considered the idea of traps, trying to wrap his mind around the theory of making a trap small enough for mice. They were pretty tiny, after all. “Maybe… maybe ‘trap’ wasn’t the right word. More like… umm… you know, like if there’s a little pile of mouse food and then, when the mouse comes along, one of us attacks it. What is the word for that? Ambush! That’s the right word!” he beamed widely, proud of himself for coming up with the word that had eluded him for several sentences.
“… Do mice eat bugs? I’m good at catching bugs.” Sort of, anyway. What did mice eat? His nose scrunched up as he considered the various food sources that he knew. Well… there was whatever Mama brought home, her milk, bugs, and mice. Surely mice didn’t eat other mice?
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:26 pm
"I ... don't know." She'd seen them chewing on things but she didn't know what they chewed on. "I wouldn't want to catch a bug to catch a mouse. Why not just eat the bug?" Usually they were around in large enough numbers that they weren't hard to catch anyway.
"The ambush thingy could work though. If we did it so that the mouse couldn't get away? Or maybe even a rat! Those wouldn't be able to get away from both of us." At least it wouldn't' be able to get away after they'd practiced. Practice was how she'd gotten good at catching bugs.
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