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 Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 4:40 pm
Alake officially hated the pridelands. She could hear her mother's voice badgering her to not be so biased, scolding her she hadn't been raised like that. Her mother had a nice voice, very soft. Easy to ignore. Just not quite easy enough to keep it from being there. Had she actually been there, not just a voice in her mind, she'd have understood. Those boys were terrible, troublesome little twits. She was hesitant to dare to ask anyone to help her again, but...
All in the name of love. When true love asked for a hand in shaping your destiny, how
could you tell it no? You couldn't! Alake couldn't fathom the idea of it. She'd keep asking strangers if they'd seen Fadhi. Someone had to have. It was just a matter of finding them. If she didn't find them, better, she'd find him.
Destiny had sent her out in the middle of no where in these terrible rogue lands. Alake felt ashamed for doubting the faceless lady of fate when she saw the male. Cautiously, but determined, she approached. "Um... excuse me?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:00 pm
Konja was a lion of dark color and awkward visual effects. He towered over every rogue he'd met, because short and sweet, he was just big. Really big. At the same time, he was thin, almost frail looking. Like he hadn't eaten in months. He had, but not a lot. Mama had told him to wait right here, and he had. Right in this spot. The grumbles from his stomach didn't convince him. The pain following the noise didn't either. Somehow it wasn't really reaching upstairs even though his body felt it. Likely it hadn't been able to find it's way since there wasn't any light on upstairs from the looks of things.
He did so enjoy company. When Alake approached him he'd have been wagging his tail fast enough to be a hurricane if he'd been born a dog instead. Since he was a lion, he just flicked it a bit, and jumped somewhat, and twitched a lot. "Yes?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:01 pm
Wow, he was... excitable. Alake couldn't believe, once she was up close, she hadn't noticed him far sooner. How could you not? He was the biggest lion she'd ever seen, other than a God. Was he a God? They weren't a subject she could preach about it, but she did know of them. There were rumors they could mask themselves, and that they regularly did. Could they manipulate size, too? Was this a runt God hiding himself among mortals? "Are you a God?"
Tact was for losers.
"Oh... If you are, you must be the god of starvation..."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:01 pm
Three seconds into the conversation, Konja was lost already. "A god? Of starving?" The knowledge of the God realm wasn't a factor they shared. Probably close to nothing would be. He wasn't sure how long it had been he'd been waiting right here. It felt like a long while. Little did he know it had been years, almost. The world passed Konja by as he sat below his tree. Kings and queens dying, wars, Gods. These were all things he'd missed out on, never learned of. They were things he couldn't find under his tree. "No, not a God. I'm a Konja."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:02 pm
"Okay..." What was it about this guy that made her so uneasy? It was such a rarity Alake felt nervous around anyone she didn't handle it well. No experience. She wasn't experienced on many emotional levels outside her feelings for Fadhi, less than she assumed. Had she been she'd have realized she wasn't nervous, she just felt bad. Maybe even a little guilty. She hadn't done anything to feel that way. When she did she still didn't usually feel it. Any actions worth guilt were worth doing, because the other party had it coming for whatever they'd done to annoy her so much.
Still, no one deserved to be out here starving like this. It was a sad sight. One that provoked pity and guilt from someone who couldn't even identify them. Perhaps a testament to just how sorry a state the big lug was in. "So, uh... Why don't you bother to eat?"
Again, tact? For losers.
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:06 pm
It could be said other lions would've been taken aback by the rude behavior. They wouldn't have. Not because Alake wasn't being a tad obnoxious. Because no other type of lion would've been out here starving to begin with. If there were any "types" like Konja out there to join his minority of morons, they wouldn't last to long. Probably die out before they could breed. A good thing for the lion species if they didn't want to make so many senseless children that other species they dominated, like cheetah and leopards and hyenas (Konja couldn't stand those jerks!), started laughing. "I do eat. Sometimes people bring me food, then I eat it."
His ears perked up, "Did you bring me some?" The only reason people came out here was to bring him food or taunt him. She wasn't taunting him, soo...
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:07 pm
"I didn't, sorry..." There was that nervous feeling, which was actually guilt, gripping at her heart and making her stomach flop again. She did acknowledge the pity now. Not just because he was so starved and didn't have food. Also because he expected someone to bring it to him. That just wasn't proper for a boy. They were bigger so they should go, hunt, kill and drag food back. Do whatever else needed to be done. Not cubs and mothering, that was female stuff. Obviously.
"Why don't you just go and hunt?" Seriously, it was only logical. He was big enough to take down a baby elephant if he tried, she reasoned. The brittle looking ribs of his sticking out that were more peculiar. How had he allowed himself to get in this condition to begin with?
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:08 pm
Now there was a question. Everything he'd said before, Konja had hesitated. The pause was very brief most of the time. Alake may not have even noticed it. She may not have noticed this time there was none. "Mama said to stay right here." On the same note, he spoke with the confidence of someone too arrogant in his belief to change his mind in terms of words. In tone, of someone full of hope and promise.
He puffed his chest out. Sort of. It was hard to when your fur was such a matted mess and you barely had any chest to puff because you were so thin, too thin. "Right here, she said, so I'm waitin'."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:09 pm
Alake herself was not the brightest apple in the bunch of her siblings. Or her former pride. The general public as a whole, really. On the ladder of common sense she was without a doubt higher than Konja, but still pretty far down there. Her level of ability didn't grant her the knowledge to reason when he said that he meant he'd been waiting out here a while. Instead, she guessed he meant his mother had recently wandered off.
"Where did your mother say she was going?" The outside world was a place Alake had been around for a long while. Sometimes, it was more a measure of experience than time. Emotions weren't the only thing she was missing the former for. The strangers she'd chosen to ask about Fadhi could bothersome, but they never were dangerous. She wouldn't approach dangerous lions so she'd never really grasped just how dangerous they were or why they were that way. She planned on giving his mother, whoever she was, a good talking to.
Once she remembered, that is. After Fadhi's name sounded in her head she got distracted fast. "Oh hey, have you seen someone I'm looking for, maybe? He's my age, maybe a little younger. He's got.. .a lot of marks. Stripes and spots of a lot of different colors. His name is Fadhi."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:10 pm
Alake dealt with her inner-turmoil and Konja was content to just watch all the absent faces she made thinking this and that over. Ignorance really was bliss sometimes. He was as oblivious to her intentions and answered truthfully, "I don't know. She didn't tell me. She just said to wait right here and don't move because she'll be back."
Fadhi, Fadhi, Fadhi... "Nope!" chirped the solid colored rogue. "I have seen a lion with just spots, and one with just stripes, but never both together. I've been out here a long time so I might've forgotten him! Is he your brother?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:11 pm
Try as she might to resist she found her eyes wandering the area in search of something to offer him as a meal, at least a snack, gender-segregated morals be damned. Alake was rude, yes, sometimes even pointlessly hostile, but cruel? No. Letting him starve was cruel. "Oh...No, he's not." No sign of Fadhi here. The disappointment was in her voice clear as a bell. When it passed she just felt angry. Finally, it hit her what had happened here. This poor lion's mother had abandoned him a long time ago. He'd stayed put like she told him. How long had it really been?
Fear. She wasn't used to that one either though she recognized it more. She hated it most of all. It was a combination of not just that, angry as well and a spice of flat out rage that made her afraid to ask, "When did she leave you out here?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:17 pm
"A long time ago," Konja provided cheerfully. He wasn't dense enough to be happy about the length of his abandonment (or temporary lack of a mother for a really "long time" in his eyes). Happy was his default voice. It had more levels of happy than anything. This one wasn't his lowest because he knew his mother would come back for a while. Had he been more patience with her he'd have been at the highest. But she'd been gone such a long time he was getting anxious. So many times he'd seen the sun rise or go somewhere far away at night time and wake up to still be left alone.
He thought about it and continued, "I was really little when I first got here, or this tree just got smaller. I don't know what's taking her, but she'll be here soon. Sorry I don't know where your friend is."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:19 pm
Gawking. Alake was gawking at him. A cub? That long? Another wave of emotions swept over her. A lot more anger, sadness bordering sorrow and other things she couldn't have even begun to explain if her life was on the line. There was silence for a good minute before she spoke up, the words stumbling uncertainly, barely rolling off her tongue, "Why don't you just leave?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:22 pm
Konja gave her a look like she was the crazy one for wondering things like that, let alone suggesting them. As if he was perfectly sane for waiting for a month, then two, then three, then however many had passed for a mother who anyone else would know by the first, if it even took them that long, they'd been abandoned. "I can't just go. She told me to wait here. Right here. So I'mma wait until she gets back. Thanks for worrying for me, miss. That's real nice of you. But I'll be fine. When my mama gets back everything will be fine."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:32 pm
Alake frowned the first real frown since Fadhi had left the Unity Walkers far too long ago. She'd thought these bad feelings were reserved only for her life's true tragedy, yet here she was, standing in the middle of nowhere talking to some completely batshit rogue feeling sorry for him. This was guilt? This was true pity? How terrible. No wonder the smart lions were mean.
"If...you say so," she mumbled uncertainly. Bright eyes watched him for a while longer. Her mouth opened several more times without a sound coming out. After that count, she gave up, turning away from him and heading to the west.
Until he was out of sight, and even then, she couldn't stop looking back at the poor fool...
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