Welcome to Gaia! ::

Oh, now that he was talking louder, Kisa could hear him more clearly ... and she found herself drawn slowly closer. Was he telling a story..? Or was this something true? The young cub was always and forever asking 'why', intensely curious about this world she'd so recently come into. And this was something she had never heard before...

Creeping closer still, she finally lay herself down in a little patch of grass, eyes wide as she listened. Maybe when he was done, she might summon up the courage to talk to him... but for now, the story had her full attention.

Ahh, she was listening! Bombei couldn't help but smile, and as he went on he slowly turned his head to half-face the little cub. She was full of starry-eyed wonder, and paying rapt attention. His favorite sort of cub! The rowdy ones were a challenge, but the ones that really were spell bound were the best by far. Aiming his tale more at her than the sky now, he continued, raising and lowering his voice to better 'play' the characters.

"'Yes, but there is no one I can share it with!' Ethile cried out. 'If only you would give me a companion, or several!' And the Gods looked down upon poor lonely Ethile and decided to grant his wish. They cast down their powers, and from the air sprung birds, fast and free. Ethile looked on in wonder, but the birds were too wild and enchanted with the sky. They would not come down to play with Ethile.

'O Gods, please! The birds of the air will not come down! I need something that will not hide in the clouds, too busy flying to be with me!'

And again the Gods conceded, and summoned fish to the seas and rivers. For a time Ethile was glad, but when he would finally coax a fish from the water to play, it would gasp in pain and retreat at once. Those that didn't return to the seas in time died, and not even Ethile would eat them, for he ate grass. He called upon the Gods again, and they agreed one last time to make creatures for Ethile."

Kisa's eyes only got wider as she listened. From the way that the male was telling this, it sounded real. It made -sense-... and it answered some questions that she had already started to think about herself. Like, where did they all come from? Maybe this was the answer.

Kisa's eyes widened and her ears flattened back for a minute. That -did- sound pretty stupid, even to her! And she was just a little cub. But then again, adults could be really stupid sometimes, so it wasn't that weird. Tail tip flicked against the grass and she smiled a little at her thoughts, wondering if that was the end of the story...

And the cats and dogs were ashamed of themselves indeed. For a time they continued to work together, hunting and thriving. Indeed the prey beasts fled from them, but they did not fear death as those today do. As a gift to those creatures who willingly went to new lands, the Gods had made death painless for the prey. Only after many more years, and many more stories' worth of adventures, did things finally become as they are today."

Bombei paused a while, scratchign at the dirt with one paw while he let himself relax. The end of a story always gave him pause, but after a moment he smiled and laid his head down on his paws, putting his nose nearly up to Kisa's. "So, little one, did you like my story?"

Kisa blinked at the large lion and then smiled, nodding enthusiastically. "Yes, very much!" she said, voice actually fairly low-pitched for one so young. Hers was the sort that might be good for telling such stories later on ... if she only knew that. "I've always wondered where we all came from, and why we eat the preybeasts... thank you for telling it!"

Kisa blinked at that, looking up at the lion wide-eyed. Though her own father had been a lion, she had never really met him, she he was the first she had seen in her life. "But I don't really know any stories," she protested softly, suddenly shy. He knew -so much-...

Bombei nudged the cub again and smiled. She hadn't been so shy before, and he wanted to only encourage her. "Well you know one now. You should ask your parents sometime to tell you one. Everyone knows at least one story." Of course they did. That was the story of their life. Few would share that though, even if subconsciously anything they made up took on different aspects depending on the real backlog of the teller's life. "And you can make stories up. You play pretend with your brothers and sisters right? That's like acting out a story. You just have to put it all in words."

Her eyes widened. "Really? Those can be stories? But I thought that stories were more... special.." Like the one he had told. She didn't know if she would be able to remember all of that later! And she hadn't really heard the beginning..

Kisa's face fell at that, and she said quietly. "Oh... " It made sense, though... if he had to travel to learn new stories. She would have to do that too, when she got older! Right now, though, she couldn't leave. "If you really want to ... I ... don't want to be trouble," she said hesitantly, blinking up at him.

Bombei let a paw fall on the cub again, patting her gently and mussing her fur playfully. "It's no trouble at all. Like I said, I have some time. And perhaps, if you do become a teller of tails, you will see me one day, and we can spend all the time in the world catching up. That would be a lovely story to hear in and of itself, I think." He grunted and rose, stretching languidly. "But first you have to learn." He nodded to the little one. "And so, little Kisa, which way?"