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 Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:24 pm
Kohana stared down at her charge and tried to give her a friendly smile, the type that females gave each other to commence friendship or camaraderie. Her emerald eyes locked onto the blue ones for a moment before giving a slight nod. This didn't seem so hard, just watch the little one and make sure she didn't get hurt or throw any fits or anything right?
She looked around hoping Mafu would come back quickly, she had no clue what to do with a cub. She smiled "So...whats your name? I'm Kohana." She tried to make her voice sound smoother, friendlier instead of it's usual syrupy coy tone. There was no mistake that this little one was related to Mafu, but she had a sly look to her as if she was hiding something.
Kohana sat down infront of her and tried not to feel awkward.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:45 pm
Malaika sat watching the adult cheetah with a strong look on her face, the kind that said 'You gotta be kidding me, right?', one eyebrow raised and mouth quirked defiantly to one side, her spotted tail lashing from side to side. Sure, the cheetah was bigger than her and Mother told her to listen to the cheetah while she and Uncle took the others on hunting practice. Malai knew why she didn't go. She was beyond the training her brother and sisters needed. It had absolutely nothing to do with whacking Zikwi's ear or biting Ini's tail too hard. No, nothing to do with that.
And then the cheetah spoke, smiling and sounding so god-awful nice. The little hybrid cub's face split in a huge grin, her eyes narrowed and her ears flat.
"The angel, Malaika," she replied in the best menacing voice a cub could come up with, adding, "And I'm you're worst nightmare."
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:51 pm
Kohana looked at the little cub startled her green eyes wide with shock. Her first thought was to hightail it out of there and let the parents of this little thing handle it. Of course that would break her promise to help Mafu out and that was a strangely upsetting idea. Instead she braced herself and let her false smile fall into her usual tricky grin.
"Oh really? Well listen here Malaika, if you give me any trouble at all I have no qualms about sticking you in the-uhh..." She frowned slightly, maybe death threats weren't supposed to be used on cubs. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Look you cheeky little cub, give me any trouble and...well...just don't!" She huffed.
"Besides if your nice we can...you know..be friends or whatever." She rolled her eyes.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:03 pm
A snort came from the tiny black nose and Malai's face returned to the original one, only with a smirk on her mouth instead.
"Are you kidding me? I've seen hares more threatening than you," she snerked and licked one paw.
"Donno what Uncle sees in you. Look like a pushover to me," she added, smirking at Kohana over her groomed paw. Now all she needed to do was find a way to torment the adult. What was it the Uncle disliked her doing, since Mother didn't mind half her antics...? Ooooo, she could climb out of reach. They were in the shade of a lonely tree on the morning savanna, after all, and her momma had taught her and her brother and sisters how to kinda climb.
The little "angel's" eyes narrowed in glee over her plots against her poor babysitter.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:09 pm
A hare!? She would show her threatening! Her eyes darted to the cool clear water of a small pool shaded by the tree they were near. Was it bad to hold a cub under until it passed out? Would she hurt it if she did? Did she care? Kohana grimaced, of course she had to care that was part of the babysitting ordeal.
"Look you don't give me any trouble and I won't give you any trouble." She huffed. "As for your uncle, he knows I'm no pushover." She grumbled. Who wanted cubs? They didn't seem like any kind of joy at all. Little wretch was trying to make things hard on her.
She decided to try another approach. "Come on now, theres no need for us to squabble...why...just look at our coats, we're both...umm...spotted." She searched for common ground. "And pretty!" She added uncertainly, didn't little girls like to be told they were pretty? Not that she had ever had anyone around to tell her or to say it too. "And...well...yeah." She finished lamely, so much for trying to nice talkative approach.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:36 pm
"Whatever," Malai replied, standing, and stalked over to the tree. She inspected it for a moment and noticed the rock. She grinned at her babysitter over her shoulder before jumping onto the rock and then to a branch that was hanging low. It bended under her weight, threatening to break, but she scrambled quickly along it until it could support her weight and climbed to a higher branch, out of Kohana's immediate reach.
"And for your information, warriors are not pretty," she snapped back, sticking her very pink tongue out at the cheetah. She climbed like a leopard, a trait she was glad to have gotten from her papa. She lied down on her branch and crossed her front paws.
"What now, babysitter?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:59 pm
"Well you don't LOOK like a WARRIOR....you...you look like...like...like a BRAT!" Kohana glowered up at the cub. "Now get down here, or else!" Where was Mafu? She hated this cub thing, this wretched babysitting, no wonder they called it that, she should have sat on the baby.
"Besides...your wrong, lots of warriors are pretty, they use their beauty to confuse their enemies." She stamped over to the leotah and hissed up at her.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:19 pm
"Brat I may be but-" Malai began but was cut off when the other comment sunk in. She blinked bright, intelligent blue eyes at the cheetah and tilted her head to one side.
"They do?" she asked, curious now. Kohana had struck a chord in the young hybrid. She wanted to grow up to be like her grandfather, and the cheetahs she had met at their naming celebration, the ones from the Troupe Uncle Shaha was joining. But then, they were all males, and not very pretty. She'd never really considered that female warriors could do that. In retrospect, though, it seemed rather obvious...
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:25 pm
"Well of course they do! Do you really think some big brute of a male is going to expect a pretty, sweet, little female to come up and slice out his gizzard?" She smirked to herself "It's cunning." She blinked as she realized what she had said to the young cub.
"Oh! Don't tell your mom I said that...I don't think she would appreciate it." Boy did she fail at this babysitting stuff, what was she gonna do next teach the cub how to cut someones hamstrings? She hoped the cub wouldn't run to her uncle or mother to report that Kohana had been telling her about slicing and dicing.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:37 pm
Very carefully, Malai stood and slid down the trunk of the tree, making itty-bitty claw-marks in the bark. She sat in front of Kohana like a willing student and studied her.
"Mama knows. She says me and Han have our Gran'pa's wild blood in our hearts. She doesn't want us to get hurt, but she doesn't mind us being trained how we want to live our lives," she replied and grinned cheekily, tilting her head to one side. "Besides, she blames the cheetahs I met at my Naming. They were warriors and were so cool! My cousins went to live with them."
She grinned after that, looking expectant, wanting to hear more.
"Come on. I wanna learn more how to be the best!"
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:40 pm
Kohana watched the cub descend and looked at her surprised. "Wild blood huh? Are you fast?" She grinned and felt her muscles twitch in hopeful anticipation.
"I guess...it wouldn't hurt to show you a few things...but don't go hurting your siblings or anything with them okay?" She looked at the cub expectantly for some sort of promise not to cause mayhem and mischief.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:00 pm
Malai looked to the ground and let out a little sigh.
"I don't think I'll ever be as fast as Mama, but I'll be stronger. I'm already better at climbing than she was at my age, or so she says," she explained with a serious nod. When Kohana mentioned the thing about her siblings, she let out a very dramatic sigh.
"I don't MEAN to hurt them, they're just softer than I anticipate. Makes me miss Han... He was better at fighting," she replied dejectedly. It had been hard, trying to understand why Han wasn't coming with them when they left Papa. And little Malai had been so conflicted, between wanting to be with her mother and family verses being with the sibling she felt she shared the most with. They could have been the closest of friends, but she couldn't leave her mama. Now all she had was Shahara. Sure, there were Ini and Zikwi, but they were more to themselves. So was Shahara, actually, but for some reason Malai butted into her more than her other sister and brother.
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:06 pm
Kohana glanced at the tree and laughed "So I see..." She nodded and lay down infront of the cub. She was a spunky little thing, kind of cute now that she wasn't trying to get on her nerves. Was this why females had cubs? To teach them, and pass on the bloodline?
She looked at Malai and frowned "Your family is split?" She tilted her head mildly confused, didn't families always stay together? Still in the back of her mind she knew that wasn't the case, often the females raised their young alone. Yet it seemed that this cub was seperated from her brother, weren't the little ones kept together?
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:14 pm
Malai nodded slowly, her gaze on the ground.
"When we left the jungle, Han stayed with Papa and our close-sisters and close-brother and their mama. Ini and Zikwi and Shahara and me went with Mama and Uncle," she replied with a little shrug. She still wasn't sure just why things were the way they were, just that Mama and Papa loved then very much, but that Mama and Papa didn't love each other like Uncle Shaha and Aunt Kiji did.
And for a cub, even one as smart as Malaika happened to be, that was a hard thing to figure out, indeed...
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 11:18 pm
"Oh..." Was the only response Kohana could give, it seemed somehow strange and wrong to her to know that cubs split away...were alone. She gulped to force the lump from her throat and felt her heart give a squeeze.
"Well..." She forced a smile "I guess I should show you some stuff then..lets see first a move that works sometimes...dosn't have to be hurtful either." She grinned and cocked her head in the cubs direction. "Say you see someone running REAL fast, what you do is a basic trip, except you get infront of them and crouch your body really low, and then either they trip over you! Or! You can lift your claws up and the next thing they know their belly is spilling all over the place!" She growled playfully.
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