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 Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:23 pm
( Slight time-skip RP : D) It was a bright, hot day out in the desert. Though dark furred, Shisa was only mildly uncomfortable as she hopped along on the sand. She was getting better at moving quickly on the inconsistent terrain, finding the challenge of becoming more talented to be quite entertaining. Hopping around, she surely looked rather silly but she was unconcerned. She was doing her best to make the perfect paw print in the sand. The wind made it hard and the necessary push often smudged them.. but she was keeping herself entertained and out of trouble.
"Hop-hop," she mumbled to herself.
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:48 pm
With hardly any grace or poise, Miali moved along the slippery sand, her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth. Her toes were splayed out as far as they could go, her little baby-claws clinging to the sand. Of course, that wasn't any help. It just moved around through her toes anyway. Her tail was wiggling all over the place, the little tuft tangling in the sharp wind. She squinted her eyes against the grains flying up in her face. No - she hadn't mastered the art of walking on sand yet. She was determined, as any young cub might be, though. It was just another step.
The sand moved like fluid under her, and she practically slid her way along, wriggling and practically tripping all over the place. She was steadily making her way back to her siblings and parents for a bit of rest, when she finally did lose her footing. Her front left foot sunk deeper than the rest and she tripped over it, fell face first into the sand, and tumbled her way down the small hill - right into Shisa. "Oof."
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:55 pm
Shisa was distracted, she wasn't far from home and she was used to the chaos of eight cubs being around all at once- she took no notice to the approach of a single sibling. She was, instead, focused on the best paw print she'd made so far. Beaming, she was caught unaware and was also pushed face first into the sand.
With an irritated squeak, she rolled over to see what happened- rolling a bit too far and ending up trying to twist around awkwardly. She had to take a moment to right herself, shaking the sand from her dark fur, before she spotted the bright red spot also face-first in the sand.
"Miali!"
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Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:33 pm
Slowly, Miali pushed her awkward paws into the sand. She lifted her face up and shook vigorously, sending grains flying everywhere. Her eyes stung from what had worked through her eyelids and her nose itched like it was on the brink of a sneeze. She sniffed out hard and coughed, shaking her head again. It took her a moment before she remembered she had crashed into somebody. With her eyelids twitching slightly, and little balls of tears forming in the corners, she looked sideways at her sister. "Sorry."
She sneezed. Her paws pushed into the sand a little further from the effort of holding herself up against the push back of the sneeze. It was so hard being a cub! Her paws were too big, her legs were to short, her tail was too long and her head was completely out of whack. She felt lopsided and ungraceful. Her mom moved across the sand with such grace. Why couldn't Miali do that? She sneezed again, and then sighed. "That didn't work very well." She glanced back at Shisa. "What were you doing, anyway?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:41 pm
Still somewhat side-tracked in the effort to get the sand out of her dark fur, she jumped when Miali sneezed the first time, looking up briefly with a slight scowl. Sand wasn't the most comfortable feeling when it got buried in your fur, but Shisa figured they would get used to it somehow. Everybody else did.
"What were you doing?" she asked curiously, looking up at the trail in the sand her bright sister had made.
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Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:52 pm
Her itching nose feeling slowly went away. She wiggled it for a couple of seconds, sniffled, and then decided it was fine. The stinging in her eyes had already gone. Over all, she was feeling much better already - aside from the sand that was all stuck in her coat. It was a wonder any of the Firekin had bright red coats to begin with. All this sand made her red look like mud if there was enough in it.
In the back of her mind, Miali wondered if she should still be trying to walk around. She was determined to master the art of moving across sand with style, holding her head up with class, showing everyone she knew what she was doing and she was something to be looked at. It wasn't so much that she wanted to be looked at, though. It was more that she didn't want to not be looked at. Or, even worse, looked at for the wrong reasons. Her pride simply couldn't handle that.
"I was... Practicing." She held her head up high, as if defending herself.
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Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:56 pm
"Practicing?" Shisa repeated, brightening up considerably and stepping closer with only a bit of awkwardness in her step- it wasn't very far and she was getting very good at this after all! "What were you practicing? That sounds much more exciting than what I was doing, it's really boring right here all by yourself sometimes."
The small cub glanced around, wondering if someone might overhear. She wasn't necessarily a creative thinker but she was an enthusiast at least! Besides, she wanted to be as good at whatever Miali was doing as Miali.
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Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 4:54 pm
Miali narrowed her eyes slightly, silently debating the possibilities. She could keep her practicing to herself so that she was the best, or she could practice WITH her sister and they could both get better faster. "Practicing walking." She looked down at her paws for a second, and then looked back up at Shisa. "I'm trying not to sink or trip. I've been getting better, honest!" She stood up tall and took a step. Her claws splayed out a little, but she didn't wobble. Of course, she was now on flat ground instead of a hilly dune.
It took a second for her to realize just how easy it was to walk on flat ground. Quickly, she jumped to her defense. "It's not hard here, but it is up there." She lifted a paw in the direction of the dune she had just tumbled down. "It's like everything just slides out from under you!"
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Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:33 pm
Ahah! So she was not the only one to have trouble walking around. With so many cubs around it was often hard to tell who actually couldn't do it well and who was just flopping around from all the harassment. They'd only really just started wandering at will away from their den, after all.
"Mom and dad make it look easy," she commented, glancing back up the dune that Miali had slid down, her eyes following the little track the cub had made. Shisa had not consciously been practicing on one incline or another, but now that Miali brought it up.. she had been having a much easier time when she wasn't going steadily up or down.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 9:11 am
Miali furrowed her eyebrows. She turned her head back towards the dune, glared at the wobbly track she had left on it. This was just so frustrating! She was a well balanced cub! She could walk just fine when it was flat... Or at least, almost just fine. But then, put her on a slope and ffllwwwop down she went. It was terribly hard to blanace and walk at the same time with the ground was moving beneath you. It was almost like the whole darned desert was alive under her paws, breathing and shifting around to amuse itself by toppling cubs. She huffed and looked back at her sister.
"I know. It's like they have no trouble with it at all." Secretly, she hoped her mom, a graceful, powerful Firekin lioness, had once had trouble with these sands as well. And her dad, a strong and swift lion, had once tripped and rolled down a dune. Watching them now, she thought it was practically impossible, but it was nice to think that maybe they had started out with some trouble, too. "And some of our brothers and sisters, too. Not everyone seems to be having a problem..." Her voice grew quiet. She narrowed her eyes, flicking her ears around. That was defintely something she wasn't all too willing to admit. Some of their siblings might actually be better at something. The horror.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 7:28 pm
Shisa glanced around thoughtfully and looked back at Miali, nodding when she commented on their siblings. Shisa had been hanging around with Chaka earlier, he hadn't had much trouble at all. In fact, he'd been making fun of her. It was what prompted her to practice. She would show him. Stupid big-head.
"Yeah," she agreed, "And they aren't very good about it either." She grumbled at the thought of her earlier conversation with Chaka. She was determined to get better, and it seemed Miali was too. If she were so competitive, she could just ignore Miali and take pleasure in being better than her sister at least. Or they could work together. There was nothing wrong with teamwork, that was part of how things worked around here. They were an army, they worked together, not apart. How you would work on this in partners wasn't clear, but support was good.
"We could practice together," she suggested.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:33 pm
Mia was slightly uneasy about this whole teamwork thing. She hadn't quite decided if she was competitive yet, but she wanted to get a head start on it if she was. Maybe. On the one hand, if she could balance on this sand better than Shisa could, she had the upper paw. On the other hand, didn't she also have the upper paw later on if her sister was just as good as she was? She might need help some day, and she might ned Shisa to have this skill to help her. It was a possibility, right? By helping Shisa get better, she was also helping herself get better, in a sense. Maybe.
There wasn't a whole lot of time to think about this stuff, though. So, she jumped on it. "Alright. What're we gunna do, though?" She pushed her bottom jaw to the side, bit at her top lip a little. They could try tripping each other up, maybe. Or they could try balancing somehow on a slope. Shisa could start walking up the slope and then all of a sudden Mia could jump on her. That could work. And then they could switch! Or, maybe something that made a little more sense, like actually trying to run in the sand and then just egging each other on and boosting each other up sort of thing. Mia felt like her eyes were rolling. Too many ideas.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:33 pm
Miali's hesitation was hard not to notice, though it was quickly pushed away when she agreed to the teamwork. Shisa eyed her sister briefly, and nodded. She wanted to get better and if it was most convenient right now to ally herself with Miali, then that was who she would work with. The next question that came up, though, was a problem. Neither of them new how it would work exactly. Shisa felt confident enough on level ground, she hadn't even considered the dunes yet. That seemed a likely place to start, even if Miali had a head start.
"I dunno," she said, looking around, "We should focus on the hills, though, I think. What do you think we should do?"
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