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 Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:32 pm
Kule sat tall on a large rock, closing her eyes to enjoy the breeze. It had only been days since she parted ways with her family, and yet her excitement had not dwindled. She was going to the home of her father, and she wanted to know everything about it! Why they wore so many funny articles of jewellery, why the feathers, why the tattoos, so many whys that it was hard to keep them all straight in her head. Not to mention the questions would have to wait until she had settled in. Her mother would be very upset to hear that her daughter had been impolite.
The young lioness was unable to help but grin as a new breeze blew her small forelock out of her eyes. It was like the start of a new adventure, going out on her own like that. For as long as she remembered her family had been traveling, but this kind of travel was different. This time she had a destination.
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:58 pm
Nishan was Not Happy. The reason for that? That, he would say, is what you call a stupid question. The only appropriate question was a rhetorical one: what could it possibly be except Bitty? This "quest" wasn't something he was happy about to begin with. Then when he finally did start to think maybe there was something to this after all...
He'd had to kick Bitty in the face to get him to wake up that morning, so went the compressed version; in the longer one he was nudged, asked politely, then kicked. Nishan didn't expect him to tell anyone all of it. Just for him to say, 'he kicked me.', was all he predicted.
With a paw to the face being the arrangements that morning to get them both up and moving, they of course wouldn't be on good terms. At least, not Nishan. Stupid Thibiti. Stupid Mwokoti and her stupid... Godliness.
When he spotted Kule in the distance, he spoke to his brother for the first time in a long time. "What about her?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:03 pm
Bitty was also Not Happy. In fact, he was completely miserable. Not only had he been awoken by a foot to the face – his brother had not asked politely first – but he was also reminded that he was still away from home. After they had fled from the scary gay lions in the Pridelands (terrifying, to say the least) they had had little luck finding any girls. All of them were so dumb you could practically impregnate them and then steal their cubs. Not that they weren't pretty, but Nishan wasn't the type to get attached to girls just based on appearance. Or so he said.
He grunted when his brother spoke to him, so engrossed in self pity that he hadn't even noticed the lioness sitting on the rock. For a moment he paused, studying her. "Well, she's the first we've seen in a long time. Do you think you have a chance with her?" Bitty was secretly harbouring a belief that the lions' gay had rubbed off on his brother, and this would be a good time to test it.
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:10 pm
Nishan was most certainly not vain like that. Except, looking at Kule, he couldn't really say she was the prettiest he'd ever seen. Actually, she looked kind of plain compared to the coats he was more familiar with. Like Hasana's line. To top it off she sort of reminded him of their family, which... Yeah...
It wasn't going to help his attention was more focused on his brother than the potential hook-up they were supposed to be so dedicated to finding. Nishan's hope for this journey was like a butterfly that Thibiti took a rock and smashed to death.
"What does that mean? Of course I do." He turned back to Kule and eyed her suspiciously. "But... does she seem like someone who would have a bunch of cubs that might try to come back and kill me later as part of some demonic ritual because she just gave them away to the father because he asked for them?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:24 pm
Bitty rolled his eyes. Nishan didn't have to use that tone with him. He knew everything there was to know about women and their wily ways. Not to mention he totally had more experience with girls than his brother. Nishan only knew Hasana and Mwokoti, who didn't really count as a girl. Bitty knew lots of girls. Intimately. So many he couldn't even name them all. It would take to long.
"I'm not sure what you're talking about, Nishan. I don't think there are any girls out there like that." He gave a small sniff. Demonic lionesses. As if such a thing existed! He would eat his own tail fluff if he ever met one, that was for sure. "Well, why don't you go and talk to her? Besides, it would be better if she did have your cubs. You could take them back to Mwokoti as proof that you met a girl."
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:31 pm
"Yes there is. I've heard about them. They're out there, Thibiti!" Nishan had 'full named' him to show how he was Super Serious about the discovery he'd made. More correctly, that he'd been told of. There were murmurs everywhere about this kind of thing. Hadn't those gay lions mentioned it? Or was it someone else in the Pridelands? It didn't matter. Point was they were real. "I don't want a bunch of kids following me at all, and if I had them, I definitely wouldn't want to showcase them to Mwokoti. Who knows what she'd do."
His tail thrashed toward his sibling, thwacking him in the side of the head as Nishan passed him. When push came to shove he really was no help. He was going this alone.
The adolescent strolled on over like a pimp strutting to one of his bitches. That confidence--or whatever it was--only lasted as long as it took him to open his mouth.
Nishan, suddenly, realized he had nothing to say.
"...My brother thinks you're cute."
...Whoops.
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 7:04 pm
"Yeah sure they are, Nishan."
If he was going to pull a full name then so was Bitty. Not that it made a difference. Nishan didn't have a name you could really shorten into anything close to the amazingness that was Bitty. He supposed he could have called him Nini, but that sounded lame. Besides, if he gave him a nickname Mwokoti would probably get angry. He was named after one of her sons, so it was probably best just to keep his name as it was.
Bitty grumbled at the tail swat, but decided that he had come out on top in this little squabble. His brother was going to meet that girl despite his comments about demon lionesses. And he was going to find out if Nishan was gay. He had to watch carefully in case he missed something subtle.
Kule's ears twitched again, and she opened her eyes when Nishan made his way over. Aaah, one of the rare male species! She had only encountered a few male lions besides her father, and even then they had never stayed to chat very long. Having one approach her was quite interesting. His words surprised her even more than his boldness, and for a moment she simply blinked at him. Then, she smiled brightly.
"Does he really? You'll have to tell him thank you for me, but I think my sisters are much prettier."
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:19 pm
Nishan gawked at her, trying not to look as positively horrified as he felt. But he failed like two green and blue lions trying to make cute cubs, and shrunk back at the vibrant smile. s**t, since when were girls this nice?! It had to be a trap!
Just run! his mind screamed. But he didn't. For some reason.
"Ah... y...eah... You have sisters?" Cautiously, he leaned to the right, then the left, looking behind her for any other lionesses he somehow missed. Nishan just assumed all siblings generally stayed together, when in fact outside his pride and the Nchi it was the exact opposite. Had he and Bitty been born elsewhere they wouldn't have been together past the first four weeks of their life probably.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:27 pm
Kule nodded, seemingly unaware of Nishan's obvious distress. She had learned from her father that the best way to get around this was to keep going like there was no problem. If you started reacting to it or asking what was wrong things just went downhill from there. Males always reacted weird around nice girls though. Perhaps because they were such a rarity. It was hard to know.
"Five sisters, to be exact. They're going with my family to another pride. Are you from a pride? You and your brother?" She peered around Nishan to look at Bitty, who was trying to look as nonchalant as possible while he watched them.
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:31 pm
Nishan knew nice girls were so hard to find because Savannah laws stated any polite and kindhearted female was Asking For It. They'd find themselves with six cubs, but in the end only two, because the others would either wander off or be snatched and drug off to one of those cultist prides. That's what he'd heard anyway.
"Five?" Ah, from a litter of six? They had something in common then, since Nishan one was of six himself. These days, a mother only had freedom to brag if she'd shot out at least ten, Lakisa had told him. Or maybe it wasn't her. Was it Sen? ...Yeah, probably Sen.
"Oh, uh... Yes. We are, actually. To the East, near the mountains. I doubt you've heard of us, we're pretty quiet. Are you not going with your family?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:37 pm
Indeed, Kule had heard the same sort of rumours. If you were a nice girl you were automatically a stupid one and extremely willing (though she was not entirely sure how anyone would reach that conclusion). She had always thought cubs could only come when a lion and a lioness loved each other very much, but apparently that wasn't all true. These days, all you had to do was look at a lion to fall head over heels in obsessive love, instantly willing to bear his demon spawn. Yeah, it happens a lot.
"Mhmm. Five girls. My dad was pretty surprised, but he got used to it." He was one of the few remaining males who were actually awkward around the opposite sex. These days it seemed like everybody was half player.
At his question she only smiled brighter. "Because I'm going to my father's old pride. Have you ever heard of the Ela'wadiyi?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:46 pm
Five girls... Nishan was already wanting to bash his head on a rock and he only had a few sisters. Just one, actually... Until recently he had actually thought himself one of eight, but he couldn't get past how two of his sisters didn't look a thing like him. Later, on this adventure, he would realize it was actually common for cubs to look absolutely nothing like either parent and backtrack his accusations of them being adopted from someone else. By the end of the week he would once again be convinced they were really his sisters.
"The Ela'wadiyi?" He echoed, thinking hard.
Let's see...
"Over this way, you've got the Unity Walkers where Hasana came from," Sen had said to him long ago. "They're more hugs and butterflies than even we are. Like, if we were gonna go to war with someone, it should be them. They're probably all related to her somehow. You know how that family is. Good thing we're not part of it. Then that way you have the Mistweavers, bunch of wusses, too. Just don't bother with 'em. Then the sissy Firekin are that way, as opposed to the... other sissy Firekin. They used to be scary and tough but some black b***h swooped in and took it over. I heard it from Mwokoti because she used to have ties to that place. Man, I'd be ashamed if that lioness was like my sister or something."
...Eesh.
Nishan shook his head. Sen, be gone. That wasn't someone you wanted haunting your thoughts for sure. "I haven't. But they must be special if you're going the opposite way of your entire family."
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:53 pm
The lioness listened with polite attentiveness as Nishan listed off prides, not surprised that she had never heard of any of them. She only knew about the Pridelands, if only because of their sheer numbers. They were practically legendary even to rogues like her parents. Her mother hadn't come from a pride, and her father only briefly spoke of the Ela'wadiyi, so there was nobody in her family to go and visit. Not to mention the fact that her parents had never been interested in settling down when she was little. Now that she was old enough to travel they had decided to join a pride. It was very strange.
"You live near a lot of prides. I didn't even know that many existed!" She had only thought there were one or two really big ones and some little fledgling prides. Apparently she still had a lot to learn. "And it is a special pride. It's a very old pride, but my father says it's a very nice one. And my family doesn't mind really. We'd been spending less and less time together anyways because everyone's growing up. Did you and your brother leave your family?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:04 pm
"Yeah, there's actually a lot of them now." Nishan fidgeted. "Uh, yeah... We're looking for something." Something, someone. Same thing. It wasn't as if he was lying to her. Except he must have been, because otherwise karma wouldn't have damned him so. The entire Savannah and somehow they had ended up right here.
Sen paused a good distance away, tilting her head, squinting her eyes. Bitty wasn't exactly a standout. He didn't even have wings or anything. But Nishan? He was that bright yellow color, with all those black and white toes. "Hey, Nsu, look. It's my nephew. The gay one, and... the other gay one." Shut up. She did so know their names. "I wonder what they're doing talking to that girl?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 6:11 pm
"Oh? What kind of something? I might be able to help you." For once, Kule's generosity was very misplaced. But how was she to know that Nishan and his brother were looking for a mate? It was such a novel idea these days that any female should be surprised if a male came up intending to be their mate. Courtship was so overrated.
Nsundu turned to look at Sen's words, taking in the two young males with a rather bored expression. Boys weren't very interesting, not even when they were her own sons. And two boys talking to a girl? That was hardly anything new. It wasn't common these days – talking took a back seat to cub making – but it wasn't anything original. "They're probably trying to woo her. Unless they're gay for each other and want her to bear their cubs."
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