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 Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:28 pm
Kali was closer and closer to finally escaping her family. They were boring, unhelpful, and...plain. She wanted something else to do, something to happen. An adventure.
Which is why she spent so much of her time wandering around, as far away from the den as possible. Den, she said to herself with a laugh. It's a hole in the ground, not a den.
Her paws dug into the sandy ground and made tracks; she was curious to know how her paw shape differed from every other animal's. So she walked backwards and tried to erase her paws as she walked, dragging a small branch with some leaves along the path she walked on. Slowly, her pawprints were erased.
Like she hadn't even been there.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:29 pm
 Hadaya was trotting along feeling particularly upbeat that day. He did not know what had put him in such a good mood, but he was feeling great. It was a nice morning, after all, and nothing had gone wrong yet. That was a good sign. Humming to himself, he walked with a smile on his face.
Then he spotted something rather odd.
A small cub was pulling a branch in its mouth, walking backwards over a sandy earth beneath her. Tilting his head, he watched until he was certain that she was actually doing it on purpose, to erase her own pawprints. Interested, and feeling brave enough to confront the sight, he trotted over to her carefully.
"Are you... uh... okay?" he asked carefully, looking around for the cubs family, "what are you doing?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:13 pm
Kali jumped at the voice, dropping the branch from her mouth instantly. The lion had totally snuck up on her; she hadn't heard his pawsteps or anything as he had approached. He kind of blended in with the ground, too, she thought, as her eyes glanced him over.
"I'm fine," she told him, acting as if he hadn't startled her. "I'm just messing around, nothing serious.
"Kid stuff," she added drily, noting that he looked older than she. Maybe he was one of those types that thought that the older one is, the more respect and power one has. And for being the youngest in her family, she wasn't too keen on meeting such a lion.
"What are you doing?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:43 pm
"Well, I didn't think it was serious," he said blandly, keeping his head tilted at her, his expression curious and mildly confused, "just looked weird. But hey, if that's how you like to play, I guess I don't really... care."
He offered a grin, though the attempt was sorry. He felt uncomfortable with the vibe he was getting from her. It was as if he had already done something wrong, and she was tired of him from the get go. If that was the case, he imagined the rest of their conversation was going to be unpleasant, at best. Searching his mind for something funny or engaging to say, to disarm her and smooth the playing field a bit, he almost missed her question.
"What am I... I'm just walking," he said quickly, suddenly sounding suspicious without actually being guilty of anything. He was just out of sorts from his recent visions, and his good day had suddenly gotten a bit tense with this new encounter. Meeting another lion always presented a grand opportunity for failure and, more often than not, he seized the chance.
"Would it be too much to ask why you were pulling that stick like that? I mean, besides just messing around and kid stuff. Just, like, what made you think to do it in the first place? It didn't look that fun to me."
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:03 pm
"Nope, not serious at all," Kali repeated, giving her head a little nod to add to the affirmation. She hadn't really expected running into anyone, really, so when she had the bright idea of picking up a branch and erasing her pawprints with it, the cub hadn't thought of a good reason why she had done so.
She just had.
"Where are you walking to?" she asked, trying to get the attention off her. It didn't work. He asked another question about why she had been doing what she had been doing. Great. He's a curious one, that's for sure.
"I can erase myself. Like, I can walk somewhere, but also erase my pawprints, so no one else will be able to follow me. Or even know that I was even here. Or know that I even existed. It's so easy to make yourself disappear. I didn't know I could do it, which is why I started dragging the branch in the first place. I was bored; wanted to see what would happen if I did something different."
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 7:11 pm
"No where," Hadaya said. It sounded defensive, like he was hiding something dangerous or unsavory. Really, however, he was just uncomfortable talking about how he occupied his time. He tilted his head as she answered his question, arching an eyebrow.
"Well that's weird," he said without thinking first, as he was wont to do, "You can't erase yourself if someone comes up on you while you're trying to do it. Kind of just slows you down, really, and gets you caught. You'd be better off just walking where your paws didn't leave prints."
He frowned, finding his logic reasonable enough. He kept getting the feeling that she didn't like him, and he doubted arguing with her about her efforts with a branch was helping. Clearing his throat, he shrugged his lean shoulders.
"Why would you want to erase yourself from somewhere, anyway? Unless, I guess, you do something bad and don't want any one to find you... but I'd think you were a bit young for that."
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Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:25 pm
She raised an eyebrow in response to his statement of her being 'weird.' What, exactly, was that supposed to mean? That she was odd because of what she did? Kali didn't even care anymore what she did, or what others thought of her.
"Well, I wasn't planning on being found right now, so that's irrelevant," she replied in a cool voice. "And I happen to like the feel of sand beneath my paws, so I plan on continuing to walk there whenever I want."
This lion was really curious, wasn't he? Either that or he didn't know when to stop asking questions and mind his own business.
She gave another shrug, rolling her eyes.
"I don't know why I did it," she sighed. "I was bored, and so I found something to amuse myself with."
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 12:30 pm
"I guess that makes sense," Hadaya said with a sigh, giving up on trying to be nice with her. She was sharp and irritable, it seemed, and nothing he said would fix that. If she didn't want to be nice, he didn't want to hang around. Waving his tail, he looked around for an escape route.
"You can go on walking where ever you want, if that's what you want. I'm not going to stop you. Not that I think you think that. Look, whatever. I'm ah... I'm going to... go."
Smooth, as always, Hadaya transitioned flawlessly from his conversation to his action, turning abruptly and making ready to speed walk his way out of there. He made it three steps before he was stopped by a strange vision. At least this time he knew what it was, his friend having explained them to him. Sitting down heavily, he shut his eyes tightly and shook his head until it went away.
As far as he was concerned, the visions were meaningless.
Looking back at the cub, he frowned. Had she been in that vision?
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 8:19 pm
Kali smirked. Oh good, he was leaving now. She could get back to what she was doing. Actually, she doubted she would return to that 'childish little game' after their conversation about it and her behavior as to why she was doing such a thing. It wasn't her fault that she was sometimes easily amused and easily distracted from real things. Often delved into deeper things without realizing it.
"I shall," she replied with a firm nod. "It was nice meeting you," she added politely, turning to go herself. But she heard him take a few steps and then sit down, hard. Curious and unable to stop herself, she glanced back. He was staring at her with a frown on his face.
She blinked. "What now?" she asked with a small, irritable tone underneath the question.
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:00 pm
Hadaya reacted to her question with surprise. He hadn't realized he had been staring at her, and he quickly diverted his gaze as he chocked on something invisible. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his throat as he thought of an excuse for being so weird. Not coming up with anything, he opted to go with the truth.
"Sometimes I see things," he said, looking back at her, sighing, "like... I guess, visions. My friend told me they're of the future, and the Gods let me see them. I don't know. I'm not really sure if it's supposed to be my future, or someone elses future, or what. I can never tell, and I don't feel anything when they're done, you know? Like 'oh, go that way and you'll find who that was about'. So I just have these stupid visions I can't do anything with."
Heaving another sigh, he continued, not liking having to talk for this long at one time, "but since you're standing right there, and you have a pretty... unique coat, I think... I think you were in this vision. But you were bigger, I think."
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:41 pm
Kali blinked again, and couldn't help but turn completely around and move another few steps closer to him in shock. Her mother hadn't explained the idea of a Seer to her, but she made the assumptions herself. She was, after all, quite a smart little lion.
"You can See things?" she half-whispered, suddenly finding some respect for this lion, after all.
He had Seen her? How could that happen?
"What was I doing? What was going on? Please, will you tell me?"
She regretted being so harsh and rude with him earlier. If he decided to hold that over her head, who knows what he would ask for in exchange for this new information.
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:02 pm
Hadaya nodded, a small movement of his head that was more for his own benefit, to note that he had heard her, than to respond to her question. He wasn't a great fan of his abilities as a Seer, and was still extremely careful around the whole concept. He didn't want to come off as special when, really, he had no way of using his visions for any sort of good or bad.
"Well, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of hard to focus on anything, and I don't really know what I'm looking at, or if it's even me I'm looking as. But I know I saw your coat. There were other lions around, I think they were all females, but they didn't look the same so I don't think they were a family."
Hadaya was not much for grudges. He often made so many people mad at him, it was hard to hold it against them. It was his fault, after all, that he irritated people, on way or another. So he had come to accept the way he got treated, and roll with the punches. It hardly registered that she was being nicer to him now than before, as he was too distracted by being glad to have her talking to him at all.
"It didn't look like it was around here, either."
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:24 pm
"Is that how it is every time? Does every Seer See it the same way you do, or are they all different?" The concept of someone being able to "see" something in the past, present, or future (as is obvious from Hadaya's visions) was mind boggling to Kali. She would love to be able to do such a thing, but sadly, the skill was not in her veins.
He mentioned other females. Not a family, though, because of different colored coats. Then who could it possibly be? Yeah, her family was mostly female--there was only one boy in the whole litter--but...
Where else could she find other females? She was now terribly interested in this place. Maybe there was a big group of friends? Or enemies? Rivals? Maybe all three?
And it wasn't anywhere nearby...she would have to search for it, then.
"Could you see anything that would help me to find them? Like, what the place looked like?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:44 pm
"I don't know," Hadaya said, shamefully, "I don't know how any other... Seer... might see things. I haven't met any other ones. From the way my friend was telling me about it, I think I'm supposed to be better at knowing what they mean than I am. But... I'm not."
He frowned, trying to recall the setting of the vision. He was always so blindsided when the visions came to him, he could never take everything in. He would focus on one or two main things, but lost everything else. This only contributed to his feeling that he was a completely useless Seer, and that this gift the Gods seemed to have accidentally given to him was a waste.
"Uhm. I don't know. I guess... it looked... like a cave?" He sighed, not remembering where it had been. Chewing on his lower lip, he closed his eyes and tried a bit harder.
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:17 pm
She pondered on that thought. What if she met another Seer, and asked him or her the same question? Kali was very interested in this new and different kind of life, now. She had so many questions. Could Seers call upon visions whenever they wanted to See something? Or did they come and go, unbidden and unseen until they wanted to make themselves seen?
"I guess practice makes perfect, though, even with visions," she chuckled not unkindly.
And then he mentioned a cave. A cave? There were caves all over the places, though!
"Well, let's see. Were there a lot of plants or jungle surrounding it? Or was it like, out in the open, like on the savannah?"
She had never lived in a cave before. She wondered what it would be like, and if she would even be living there.
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