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 Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 6:10 pm
Why, why did she always look right past him?! She doted over his siblings, but never, ever had she a kind word for HIM. Only when he played too rough or, or, or, ate more than his share did she ever speak to him, and that was often in sharp and short reprimand. He'd tried being nice and he'd tried being mean, and she never, ever seemed to CARE. Nothing! And when he vanished for the last two days, she never even came looking!
Why did he care?! It's not like it mattered! Yet.... yet it did!
Such were the thoughts that flooded the mind of young Ekundu as he stormed through the jungle, his anger and hatred boiling in his chest. The trees and flowers were just recovering from the drought that had recently drained the area, but the godling took no pity on the new plants and trampled over them with the twisted glee of a child's tantrum. In one last burst of anger he slashed at a tree trunk, leaving gashes not nearly deep enough for his liking. But, his anger spent, his temper subsided and his usual stoic calm began to return. He sat, panting, staring fixedly at his marks in the wood. The rushing sounds of a nearby stream trickled into his consciousness, and he allowed himself to listen.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:38 pm
 It was not a good start, seeing images of your own death, waking from what you thought for a moment may have been a dream, only to realize that it had been real, and you were stuck as a cub all over again. Such was the world Tanaka, god of conflict, had awakened to.
The growled curse against the god of war, the brother that had ended his life, had barely left his lips before it was broken by a furious roar. Green eyes shot open, ears falling back, breath labored through clenched jaws. Fire, lightning strikes through the remnant of his wings, a constant sharp pain as if talons tore through the delicate limbs all over again with every passing moment.
It seemed some gods had a sense of humor, twisted and demented as it was. In rebirth his eyesight had returned, though a touch from his paw would reveal scars remained. The gift of flight denied, wings tattered as they had been in the last life with but a small part regrown. They were mocking him, taunting. It was infuriating, and in his new life, Tanaka felt the rage already burning inside him again.
The roar that rent from his throat, echoing among the trees through which he now trod, spoke of the anger of the god, of the ancient hatred toward the one who had beaten him, of the fate he would bestow, the story that had begun again.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:26 pm
He heard the pawsteps a moment before he heard the roar, but was unprepared for the ferocity with which it rattled the jungle. He'd never heard anything like it, except, perhaps, in nightmares. It did seem to touch something halfway familiar inside him. The shock wore off after a few seconds, but now his heart hammered inside his chest and new adrenaline drenched his blood stream. This did not mix well with his previous bad temper, and he felt his annoyance beginning to return, mixed with a tinge of fear. He half considered hiding, but his glaring red pelt offered him no cover in such drab natural scenery. Another thought was to run home, back to his mother, and it was that thought that sent his anger boiling again. She wouldn't care if he was going to be eaten up by some monster of the forest. She wouldn't save him. He had to save himself.
He stood up and puffed out his chest, ruffled his strong wings, shaking out his long fur that he hoped would make him seem bigger than he was. He was a God after all, and he had heard that gods were stronger than the mortals of these lands. He had nothing to fear. He began to stride confidently towards the sound of the approaching steps...
Although... that roar... seemed... pretty powerful...
He slowed to a walk, still trying to appear large, although his confidence thinned by the second.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:21 pm
Dark ears twitched, eyes narrowed, his head snapping toward the sound of approaching paw steps. A presence, familiar to immortals, though perhaps he would not have recognized it had he not the experience of past lifetimes, there was another near by.
The mere thought made his blood burn, the rage blazing inside him. There was a time he would have attacked, an irresistible rage driving him to sink his talons into whatever hide awaited him. But despite his rage, Tanaka was not foolish. To blindly charge into a fight was a costly mistake he did not care to make again, the memory of the last still fresh in his mind.
Yet this was not all that kept the white cub from charging toward the distant paws. Though his rage burned, though the pain in his wings reminded him of his fall, he did not wish for the fight, there was no reason to attack. For though the presence he felt was clearly immortal, it was not the one that brought his deepest hatred, the one he sought to destroy yet he could not live without.
A silent grow, a snap of his tail, the god strode on, steps carrying him toward the other, his own temper short.
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:42 am
He walked on his tiptoes, looking over a mass of roots. His sharp gold eyes narrowed, he started to make out the form of the approaching creature. It was a cub! A lion cub. For a half second he thought of his light brother or sister, a fleeting hope that they had indeed come to his rescue, but no... this cub was different. He did not know this one. He felt the crush of disappointment but allowed himself to instead be overcome by curiosity.
This one was not small, that was for certain. White and black and gold and red. Striking, more like himself than any of his siblings. What... was that at his side? They looked like sad clumps of feathers. How strange. Was it a God? Or a pitiful imitation in child's play? He couldn't tell, having no senses other than those of mortals, and no experience with either gods nor mortals to learn to distinguish them. Instead, he simply judged himself to be just a tiny bit bigger, a little bit older than the white one.
But... what of the roar? His father? Ekundu's black ears swiveled in a search of the sounds of a second creature, and though he heard none, he did not fully trust that there wasn't a parent lurking in a still shadow. Still... There was an experience with which the cub carried itself, a brutal, automatic confidence that Ekundu was wary of, and also envious.
In the moment before the cub would be upon him, he attempted to lessen the arrogance of his posture and adopt one that he hoped was close to that of the stranger. But he emphasized his wings, holding them, though folded, slightly up. He walked like this into a small bare patch of soil, a parting of the ferns and roots.
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:26 pm
Eyes narrowed, senses alert to the flash of red, the touch of black, watching, judging the other as he approached. The god snorted, it was nothing but a child, immortal, but seeming to lack the experience of life past. The cub was large, as he was, though not surprising to run into another that matched his size (a giant among lions, he was certainly not the largest of immortals), yet it was not a common encounter.
He might have rolled his eyes were he inclined to do so, instead a mocking smirk crossed his maw. Tanaka was unimpressed, it would have taken far more than size and puffed up wings to do so. Creatures only tried to make themselves look bigger when they felt a weakness in themselves, something they wished to hide.
"Cheap tricks only work on mortals, runt."
His voice was calm, cold, though not without an irritated edge. He couldn't have cared less about the cub's wings, he had once had his own. If the red cub had accomplished anything, it was only to lower his appearance in the eyes of conflict. 
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:33 pm
His ears folded back for a second, then perked again. He ignored the insult-- for now.
"So you are a God then. What happened to your wings?" Ekundu, blunt and direct, with all the social grace of a blindfolded bull. His voice was not unlike the one that spoke to him: calm, with a slight edge of aggression. His maw held an almost friendly smile, had it not been tainted with the spite in his eyes.
"Where are you going?" he added. As he spoke he folded his wings back down, assuming a more natural posture, watching this new cub with a determined curiosity. He was inexperienced, yes, but he realized it, and he was examining every word and gesture the stranger made. So far, he had learned that he was over thinking too much. There was so much that was different about this other cub, when compared to his dawdling siblings, his only other standard.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:24 am
His tail flicked with an irritated snap, fur ruffling with dark energy for a moment before it vanished again. He was in no mood to answer the questions of a child, nor to he care to explain himself to any creature, mortal or immortal. His mood particularly foul, his patience short, though it was unlikely he would have appreciated such questions at any time.
"Any why are you out here all alone? Shouldn't you be home with your mother, it's dangerous for cubs to wander off alone."
There was mockery in his tone, a smirk on his maw. It had not been a question, but rather a statement meant to rattle, to prey on the insecurities of the cub's mind and ruffle those pretty little feathers. It was where the god excelled, the psychological, how he had missed the mind games that brought him such devilish glee. So like his brother, his other half, and yet so different, for unlike his brother's preference for the physical strike, Tanaka took pride in first destroying the mind.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:41 am
Ekundu's eyes widened at the shock of energy, his smile faded a little. That... was something entirely unexpected. He knew the Gods had powers, but he had never seen them. Was he... in over his head?
But any thoughts of backing down were silenced at the word "mother"... at that, his ears switched back and he curled his lip, tail flicking. Now he was mad.
"I don't need her and I never have!" He yelled, louder than he himself had expected, certainly too loud to have gone unnoticed.
In the back of his mind he realized that the emotion of this phrase was a weakness, and his conviction not to care surfaced in his mind, but he had succumbed to the temptation of rage.
"What about you!? Where's your mom, huh?"
He himself recognized the clumsiness of this retort, but he was too enraged to care. He thought of the sharpness of his claws, but resisted the urge to flex them.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:00 pm
Laughter, horrendous, demonic, mocking laughter. Far from the startled or angry response the cub might have expected, Tanaka found twisted pleasure in the cub's words, that infernal smirk spreading across his maw. It was exactly the reaction he had hoped for, clearly his words had hit their target. Immortals were exotic prey, far more entertaining than mortals.
"You are foolish to assume I am a child such as yourself, or that I entered this world as you did."
Unthreatened by the cub's aggressive posture or the anger in those gold eyes, Tanaka remained infuriatingly calm. He settled on his haunches, a wicked grin on his maw, tail twitching behind him like a sleeping serpent. He raised a paw, casually flexing dark talons, as if more interested in the snap of the twig he held in his grasp than the child who stood before him.
How delightful the sadistic games he played.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:27 pm
... What? Another unexpected twist. Yes, he was definitely in over his head.
His tactical side grappled with his anger, and he calmed slightly. The smile returned to his maw, but his tail still swished and his anger still boiled just beneath the surface.
Perhaps if he had grown up with mortals, this would have been an even more drastic shock, but having met none, he didn't realize quite how unusual it seemed. Still, his life had been dominated entirely by his mother and siblings, so to think of a life completely without her... He'd need a lot of time to sort out all his feelings on that question. He'd save it for later.
"Well. Learn something new every day. Where did you come from then?"
What was intended to be sly seemed a little too curt. He acknowledged but didn't look at the twig in the white one's paw, wishing for a moment that it would be struck with some catastrophe. But wishes did nothing to summon power. Instead he remained focused on the stranger's face.
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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:56 pm
"The limit of your knowledge is pathetic, do you even know how to think for yourself? If the creation of immortals were so simple then the world would be full of them and there would be no one left to believe in us."
Certainly there were those immortals born naturally, this cub was proof of that. And yet it was rarely so simple as that. Most immortals were ancient, living, dieing, reincarnated through their domain. The domains of conflict and war were among the most ancient, sharing one form for a time until rebirth had created two, and with it the eternal battle, hatred that consumed, yet terrible emptiness apart.
Tanaka snorted, his patience growing thin. His temper had grown short with rebirth, the hellish fire in his wings fouling his mood far more quickly than losing them had ever done. Eyes narrowed, his tail lashing, the game had lost its appeal, lost in his intolerance of a child who knew nothing of immortals despite being one himself. He had always hated stupid questions.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:09 am
Well of course he knew how to think for himself. Wasn't really anyone else around to do it for him. But this world outside was just so foreign! How could he ever hope to learn enough about it? And it wasn't that he couldn't think, he just didn't know. But he didn't doubt the other god's words-- they fit correctly with the limited education that he had gleaned from his mother. .... AUGH. He wanted so desperately to prove himself against this arrogant stranger.
Ekundu's ears remained back as he eyed the other's aggressive movements. A part of him, the logical part, pleaded that he was not even remotely in the league of this immortal, but to quit now meant to back down, and the red cub had no intention of that. He allowed himself to believe that he was larger and older, despite... well, despite. His fur bristled, tail whipped, lip curled.
"Who are you anyway?!" He yelled, flashing white teeth.
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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:41 pm
A low growl, visible in the flash of fangs, bared in the snarl that parted his maw. Green eyes burned dark, a warning, not a threat. Despite his nature, the god of conflict was not without his own honor, there were lines he would not cross, attacking a cub had always been one of those lines. He would strike the mind, murder a child's parents before its eyes, torment with terror and darkness,s but never would he take the life of the young.
Even as a cub himself, though he was far from a child, despite the anger and hatred that coursed through him, Tanaka was not inclined to break the code he had always followed. But now as his warning proclaimed, he had thought of making an exception this time. It was a warning to the cub, back off now and think about your life before you do anything stupid. He would not strike first, but in his current mood, he would not hesitate to sink his talons into that red hide should he be pushed, or to knock the cub's teeth down his throat.
"I suggest you watch your tone, I will not answer to demands."
His voice was cold, calm, it bore no maliciousness, but the warning clear, chilling as the depths of hell itself.
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Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:20 pm
For a moment, he felt a twinge of... what? Fear? Yes... yes, perhaps a little. But it wouldn't stop him now. His tail thrashed, brow furrowed, nose wrinkled in rage. All his frustration welled up-- yes, he wanted to hurt that white creature, knock him down, make him talk!
He meant to yell something but all that came out was a loud, angry snarl, that, although he was young, still carried a wild ferocity. Teeth bared, he crouched momentarily, then, feinted forward-- A sudden, short jump meant to startle or at least offset the other god's anticipation. Then, without waiting, he charged at the white cub, a flash red and stripe.
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