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 Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:57 pm
Xinavane wandered aimelessly. She had no concept of where she was headed anymore, moving at random from one spot to another. For the most part she avoided large prides whenever she could. She didn't feel a great deal of trust towards them... How could she with her history? But still... she wished she had somewhere to go. At all.
Still... there was something about wandering that she did enjoy. The quiet, the knowledge that she was seeing everything there was to see... that was something special about that. How could there not be? She was seeing the world. She was seeing... everything.
Who wouldn't love that? Certainly not her. Despite the fact that she was on a bit of a rough treck at the moment... rocky. She had decided she was most certainly against rocks. In general. Oh yes. Rocks were bad. And a pain.
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:38 pm
Scrabble. Skitter. Scrape. Sliiiiiiide... THUD.
"Ow." said Zururuka, wincing as one last bit of skree decided to bounce directly off his nose before landing on the pile that was currently trapping his hind quarters.
"Ya aren't helpin' none." Zuru informed it, testily, as he wiggled the offended proboscis. There were bigger problems at hand, however, so Zuru turned to them. They were, A) He was currently stuck under a nice mound of small rocks, and possibly some boulders, B) The place he was resting on was unstable, and likely to give way to another rock-slide if he wasn't careful in extracting himself, and C) He was hungry.
Zururuka sighed mightily, causing a few loose pieces of stone to go tumbling further down the hill. His eyes followed their path, and, lo and behold, there was a lioness down there! Upon seeing her, Zuru knew that he couldn't risk another rock-slide, since she would be in danger. However, she could also possibly be the key to his getting out of this mess.
Holding very still, he called out to her.
"Howdy! Ah don' wanta innerupt yor mozey, but Ah seem to have raised mahself a bit of sand here. Ah don' suppose you could lend a paw?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:59 pm
Xinavane blinked when she heard someone calling her. She looked straight upwards, and then she saw him... a trapped lion! "Woah... WOAH! Are you okay!?" She hated stating the obvious, because clearly the lion above her was NOT alright! Also, he was right above her, and if he caused a landslide, she would probably die. Which would be no good at all.
She moved up to the side of the cliff and looked up, trying to find a way up, "I'll help you! Just don't move! The cliff looks unstable! Man... how did you ever get all the way up there!?" She wondered, finding her footing before she moved up the cliff.
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Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:40 pm
"Ah think Ah see a stable path over thataway. There, by that bush. No, the other one." Zuru called back down to her, gladdened that he'd happened to get trapped in the whereabouts of a helpful mortal. Since he had the better vantage point, he was a captive audience to her efforts to get up the cliff, so he tried to help by pointing out safer looking points on the cliff.
Even with the situation as tense as it was, Zuru could only chuckle at her exclamation. "Well, yah see, Ah wasn' goin' up, Ah was comin' down from t' other side." he explained. Zuru caught himself playing with a pebble between his front paws, and willed himself to stop. It was his nature to want to be constantly on the move, and he tended to get a mite antsy when he was staying in one spot, but now was not the time for fidgeting!
"You know, Ah coulda sworn Ah've been through this terr'try before. Ah don' remember it bein' so unstable, tho'. I reckon it musta been the earthquake. Right unfriendly, that big shake." Zuru commented. If his legs couldn't move, at least his lips could.
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Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:27 pm
"Got'cha... right..." Xinavane said, following the path the other lion explained to her. It was easy enough to follow, and he had a better chance of seeing it from where he was, than she did from below. She was glad he was talking... it meant he couldn't have been injured too badly. Maybe he was just stuck?
"I have no idea how you made it up the other side..." She mentioned, moving up until she was only a few feet away from him, "But yeah... there was an earhquake not long ago... it probably made this area unstable. Only the stupid lions like you and I seem to be ready to get stuck in this area."
She moved over, making a small jump and nearly falling, but she managed to keep her footing. She finally came up beside him, stepping carefully so she wouldn't knock down the ledge and make another slide, "There we go... Now... let's see if I can't get you out of this mess without killing us both." She said to him, offering a small grin.
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:11 am
"That'd be mighty appreciated, lady. Ah'm just hopin' we two stupids can manage to get out o' this as easily as Ah got into this." Zuru replied, smiling back up at the lioness. He was relieved that she'd managed to get up here without hurting herself, but something had shifted in the pile on his hindquarters, and there was something decidedly heavy crushing one paw. While immortal, it was still possible for him to feel pain, and Zuru winced as the pile shifted once again, lowering more weight onto the paw. They had to hurry.
"Now Ah don't mean to rush the pleasantries, but can you see if you can make heads or tails out of the pile on me? There's something crushing one o' my paws. Any large boulders sitting in that vicinity? Ah can't quite crane my head enough to see clearly." he explained, trying to hold still. "The skree back there is very unstable. Stick to the clear ground, if you can."
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:52 pm
Xinavane nodded quickly, taking a good look at the rocks on the other lion's legs, "Okay let me see now... I think if I move this... and this and... that's bigger than I thought but I think I can get... okay..." She mumbled, sifting through the rocks with her paws and teeth as she tried to sort out where the problem was. Eventually, she found it. A large boulder crushing the lion's leg, "Ah... okay..." She mumbled, "I'm worried that moving this will collapse some of where we're standing..."
She stopped, her mind racing for a moment as she sorted out what to do, "Okay... I have a plan... but I'm going to need your help I think." She told him, before she found a large stick and wedged it under the boulder, "I'm going to push on this... and you're going to hold onto the edge of this cliff and hope for dear life that it doesn't collapse, because if we do, I'm grabbing onto you, and you're the only thing keeping us from falling to our deaths. Sound good to you?" She offered, trying to keep the situation light... but it was getting harder by the second. But she couldn't just leave him...
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:24 pm
Zuru twisted his neck around, momentarily wishing he was a giraffe. He couldn't get a clear view, so he would just have to trust the lioness. There was a general lightening of the load, and much flinching on his part, as each rock that she moved, he expected the rocks underneath him to give way. As it was, there was plenty of ominous skittering sounds coming from beneath him. It was still holding, so their luck was still good.
As the lioness came to her conclusion about what to do, Zuru listened intently, nodding. She was quite a resourceful lion! But he could see that she was trying hard to keep calm, he could hear it in her voice. Reaching over with his paw, he gently touched the back of her hind paw, which was the only part of her he could reach, reassuringly.
"Hold yor antelope. You're doin' just fine, there." he said, returning his paws to the ground, and attempting to find a good anchoring place in the skree about him. If it came to it, he might have to fly. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary, but he wasn't about repay the lioness's kindness by letting her plummet to her death. "Ah promise, you jus' set that boulder to a rollin' an' Ah'll make sure we both get out o' this rattler hole in one piece."
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 5:01 pm
Xinavane blinked a little, suprised from the praise she wasn't used too, along with the touch to the back of her paw. Odd... she didn't know what to do about that, but decided not to think on it. Anyway, she had to focus otherwise they most certainly would plummet to their - or at least her own- deaths. "We'll be okay... I'm sure of it. Just hold on tight, and hope we stay up... We have until three. Okay... one... two... three!" She declared, jumping down on the stick and heaving the boulder, which tipped and rolled off Zuru's leg... though just barely... before it rolled off the ledge and smashed it's way down below them.
They didn't fall. "Okay... We did it... Oh man... we actually did it!" Xinavane said, relief hitting her like a brick wall, "That was great! We're-!" Then the ledge gave a very odd groaning noise as it began to shift... falling away under their feet, "Oh... Shi-!" It slowly began to give away, Xinavane nearly falling through before she turned and made a grab for the other lion.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:26 pm
"Ack!" Zuru exclaimed as he scrabbled for a purchase in the collapsing cliff face. He was finally able to use his hind legs, though he'd found out almost immediately that he couldn't place much weight on the one that had been crushed. It was deja vu as he felt the ground give way beneath him, and small rocks bounced, stingingly, off his pelt.
He saw the lioness reaching out to him, but he couldn't get a steady hold on the cliffside. He reached out a paw towards her, and latched his claws into her shoulder. There wasn't time to feel bad about how he was keeping ahold of her, since the cliff-side gave way at that point, and the both of them entered free-fall.
Cursing lost amidst the thunderous noise of the rocks around them, Zuru pulled the lioness to him, and grabbed her scruff much like a mother lioness to a cub. Once he was sure he wasn't going to drop her, he concentrated and the wing markings on his sides became a reality. Great bronze wings spread out, feathers flashing brilliantly in the sun. Zuru angled them away from the rocks and the cliff, carrying himself and the lioness away from landslide.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:17 pm
Xinavane was a little distracted at first by the blinding pain that came along with Zuru grabbing onto her shoulder, but she knew it was the only way to save her. She had fully intended on sinking her claws into him, but she hadn't jumped far enough... though this did seem to raise the question of how she hadn't fallen to her death yet.
By the time she was aware, past the pain, of what was going on, what was happening... she knew she was flying. Or rather, he was flying, and holding onto her, "Woah..." She said quietly, blinking a few times, "Woah... are we..." She hung her head, as much as she could, "Oh man... we are. We really are. We're flying. So that means..." She tried to look back at him, "You're a God, aren't you?"
Another one. Not ANOTHER one. She couldn't believe it... she had almost thoroughly convinced herself that she HADN'T met one... but she was flying now. That was the only reason she was alive. Because she had met another God.
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 8:02 pm
Zuru's mouth was otherwise engaged in holding onto the lioness when she made her observation. Since he didn't want to drop her, Zuru treated it as a rhetorical question, and kept his mouth firmly clamped around her scruff. They were now well away from the landslide, but there wasn't much available in this rocky land in the way of a landing strip. The great, bronze wings pushed against the air, denying gravity its hold on the two, but Zuru could feel the beginnings of fatigue form between his shoulder blades. He wasn't meant to fly, and this was a great drain on his energy.
Finally, the landscape beneath them gave way to brush and a winding river, towards whose clear shores Zuru descended. He barely had enough room to land, and he wasn't very experienced in the procedure either. Wanting to spare the lioness from the stones on the shore, he dropped to a few yard above the shallows, and released his grip on her scruff. Seconds later, he crashed into the water himself. The shock of the cold water made his head ache, but it was only about three feet of water, and the current wasn't very strong. Still, upon obtaining the surface, now wingless, he looked around to make sure the lioness had a safe landing.
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:06 pm
Xinavane hit the shallows with a small splash, hissing at the water, and sitting bolt upright against the cold. She looked around wildly for the God, "Come on, you're hurt, you need out of this or you'll get sick..." She told him. His wings were gone. That kept her a little more calm. She could treat him like he was... a normal lion then. Like he wasn't some superior being... She wasn't very good at dealing with that kind of thing.
"Come on..." She said, moving in deeper into the water to help the other lion. She had to think about his injury and about the possibility that he could get sick from the cold water... did Gods get sick? Could they be hurt? She didn't know. She didn't want to ask. She didn't want to think about it. Gods didn't exist. They DID NOT exist.
She had not just flown... she had just flown... she had been in the air... felt it on her face... No. No. That hadn't happened. She and the other lion had just fallen. That was it. It made sense... If they hadn't been so far away from the slide.
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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 8:15 am
"Don't you worry 'bout me." Zuru replied, paddling towards the lioness, looking rather like a clump of wet grass with his mane plastered about his head. Though he told her not to worry, the beginnings of a truly spectacular headache were roiling behind his eyes, which the cold of the water wasn't helping. Ah well, at least it made his foot feel numb. "You aren't hurt none, are ya? Ah'm 'fraid there was no good way to hang on to ya while we was flyin', an' Ah'm not the best at landin' either."
He accepted her help readily in reaching the shore, and as soon as there was good, stable ground beneath his three feet (the other one still didn't want to bear much weight), Zuru sighed heavily in relief and flopped on the ground, exhausted.
"Jehosaphats, Ah'm sure glad you came along when you did." he remarked, looking up at the lioness. "You know, Ah don't think we ever got 'round to innerducin' ourselves? Ah'm Zururuka. Pleased to make yor acquaintance, miss."
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Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 2:23 pm
Xinavane let out a sigh of relief as she was allowed to flop down beside him, shaking herself. Nerves managed to catch up with her after the crisis, which was nice. Then she started to laugh, "Me? I'm..." She could barely remember her own name she was laughing so hard, "I'm... Xinavane... Sorry... I shouldn't be laughing, I really shouldn't... but I always seem to get myself into wierd situations like this..." She said, trailing off, "The wierdest things seem to happen to me... You'd think I'd learn to stay out of trouble and not run towards it..."
She smiled at him, "I'm glad you're alright. I thought for a second there we would both die... but I guess you saved my life too... So we're kinda even on the 'rescue me, rescue you' scale, don't you think?" Xinavane lay her head down and sighed, "Still... at least you're not as wierd as the last God I met..." Though he did speak sort of funny... but she guessed everyone spoke differently from place to place? Who knew, she had never really been anywhere... And there she was using the 'G' word again. But now he looked so... normal, without the wings. It was strange to think of the lion she had met as... well, anything but another lion.
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