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 Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:19 pm
They were bright orange, and appeared to be growing on the back of a dead female beatle from what he could tell. He edged a little closer, trying to get a better look, while he held a long stick in his mouth. The situation was a delicate one! He couldn't poke the egg sack too hard for fear of harming the creatures within... but without moving the eggs, his latest eperiment would all be for naught, and he couldn't very well have that, now could he?
He lightly stepped forward, tipping the eggs so that he could see the marks on the beatle. Then he looked up at the tree, a grin flashing across his face. If he had been wearing glasses, he likely would have tipped them to himself in satisfaction, "Ah-ha!" He said around the stick, "It is the rare-" well, maybe not rare, but he had never seen one before, "-red-spotted-black-tree-beatle! And it appears the yellow-toad-spider has laid her eggs on its back! Excellent!"
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:11 pm
 Kunjufu blinked away, hanging languidly in the branches of the tree. Had she heard something? Blinking, not yet fully coherent, the lithe creature stretched her legs toward the floor, balancing on her belly without a trace of hesitance despite how precarious she looked. Her green coat worked in her favor, blending her into the dull leaves around her. Yawning a second time, she looked down with one eye closed and noticed something white on the ground below.
Drawing a breath, she forced her other eye open and tried to focus with a bit more clarity. She was in a very sleepy state of mind, perfectly comfortable and content, and having a rather pleasant dream. But now she was interested in whoever was talking to themselves beneath her. She recognized it to be a cub of her own species and she smiled, tilting her head.
Sliding from the tree effortlessly, she dropped to the ground like a stone, landing lightly in a sitting position near the cub. Tilting her head, she looked at the tree and the thing that had apparently sparked the little thing's interest.
"I don't think that's too excellent for the beetle," she said, having caught the tail end of his exclamation without any real context to it, "but I'm glad you're excited about it, at least." She smiled pleasantly, "what are you up to, little one?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:00 pm
Poor A'k jumped a good foot in the air, his little stick flying out of his mouth when the large female leopard dropped out of the tree beside him. He had never seen another female of his kind, besides his mother, that was, and seeing one beside him now made him immeditaly on edge. But his father was nothing if not a leopard supremicist, so he knew he couldn't possibly be in that much danger. And she actually seemed interested in what he was doing... while his siblings and mother were often disgusted by it, and his father showed no interest... well, in much of anything his children did really.
"Stand back!" He told her, though it was in more of an authoritative tone than in a scared one now. He pointed at the beatle, "This bug is very rare, and if the spiders hatch, the first thing they'll do is look for their prey!" Which he was honestly just flat-out making up, and the spiders would have probably just eaten the dead beatle anyway. But it sounded cooler when he said it like that.
He slowly moved away from the dead bug and beside the lioness, whispering to her very calmly, "The spiders are deadly. I don't want to wake them up... I'm just trying to figure out how to catch them and hide them from my parents." He nodded, mock-knowingly, as though he had a perfect handle on the situation, "But you have to be very delicate with these situations!" His voice became even more hushed, almost paranoid now, "You never know what these things will do to you."
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 9:10 pm
Kunjufu arched her eyebrows at his command, looking incredibly amused. Trying not to smile, her muzzle scrunched in a rather silly expression somewhere between a forced, dutiful frown and a grin, she nodded her head and kept her seated position, not daring go near him now that he had so forcefully ordered her to stay back.
She looked at the tree, listening to his little lie and smiling. She didn't know the first thing about bugs, but she knew she had nothing to fear in spiders. Rare or not. Looking appreciative, she nodded again, swallowing before breathing a sigh of relief.
"I didn't know that. I might have been in some trouble up that tree, if they had hatched while I was sleeping and made their way up to me." She lowered her tone when he confided his plan to her, nodding and speaking in a conspiratory tone, "I understand, you must be very careful then. I'll help you, if I can. You want to take those things home, do you? Maybe a big leaf will help here?"
She looked around, tail flicking in her amusement. She found this cub to be very interesting, and she wanted to keep him company for at least a little while longer, just to find out why he was so fascinated by these bugs.
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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:07 pm
A'kigeni smiled immediatly. His mom just thought this kind of thing was gross, and he only had brothers, so no female had ever given him the time of day for this kind of thing. He quite liked her for that, because he wouldn't have thought girls would say anything except 'ew' or 'icky'. But she was interested! Clearly they had to hang out more.
"Oh, it would have been TERRIBLE if that had happened. They would have swarmed you, attacked you, you wouldn't have been able to see a thing they would have covered up so much of you!" He warned her, wagging his paw back and forth to make his point. Not that he actually knew any of this. But he had every intention to find out.
"Well..." He said thoughtfully, sitting down, "I need to find a way to keep them close, but so they won't get away from me either..." He scratched his head, looking thoughtful, "I don't know how I'll go about studying them if I can't keep them all together... or if they decide to attack me." Which he really didn't want to happen. Especially if his 'theory' was correct.
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Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:31 am
"That sounds terrifying!" Kunjufu laughed, which ruined her attempt to look legitimately scared. She didn't think there were quite enough spiders in those eggs to do any such thing, but she didn't raise the point to the cub. At least not yet. Maybe if the time came, and she needed to rationalize his theory a bit. For now it was harmless to let him keep on coming up with his own explanations and ideas.
It wasn't right to stifle a creative mind, after all.
'That's a good point. I'm not sure what you could use. Something to hold them in. Hopefully not something they can climb out of, though if they can scale trees to reach sleeping leopards I'd have to think they'd be capable of escaping many things. Can't you study them here? It might be safer that way, too, for you and your family."
She smiled, moving closer to peer at the bugs and, from her peripheral, get a better look at the cub. She had seen many children in her time, traveling from family to family and even helping mothers birth and raise their young. But she had never had any of her own. She always found them so fascinating.
This one particularly so.
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Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:42 pm
"You have no idea how scary it is! I mean it!" A'k said excitedly, completely pleased that she believed him. He did have a rather wild imagination when it came down to it... but he wanted to devote it to science. Sooner or later. When he actually had some new developments. "I'm A'kigeni by the way ma'am. What's your name?" He asked while he peered over the little spider eggs.
"I just need to figure out how to make it work..." He mumbled under his breath, "Because spiders can climb anywhere. And if they can climb out..." He shivered a little, beleiving his own lie for a moment, "Can you help me think of a way to do it? I mean... there has to be some way to keep them trapped so I can watch them... and they all might crawl away, and then how will I be able to observe them and learn more." The little leopard threw up his paws, "I wish I were a human with more fingers!"
His mother had drawn him a picture of a human once in the dirt. She had never seen one directly, but she had known a leopard who had once lived in a zoo. And since he had drawn her a picture, she had in turn shown them to her cubs so they would know what they were looking for. And they certainly had 'fingers' and now 'paws' as his mother had explained.
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:55 am
Kunjufu smiled. How polite he was! Introducing himself and asking her name. Though, she wasn't sure how much she liked being called 'ma'am'. It sounded so old and formal. She didn't consider herself either of those things, though she tried to act as refined as possible. She knew better.
"I'm Kunjufu," she said nodding in greeting. She followed the line of his eyes and she thought about his problem. She almost didn't hear his comment about humans. She had a bad habit of filtering things out, on instinct, that she either didn't understand or didn't have an interest in. Humans, it seemed, fit one of those categories and she was too busy thinking about catching spiders to worry about fingers.
"Well, let's see. I'm not sure I know of anything that would allow you to watch them. I've seen birds' nest built like little circles with a hole in the front, where the bird can go in and out. If you had something like that, and kept something over the hole, you'd be able to peek in at them when you wanted. And they wouldn't get out to harm you or your family."
She smiled, though she tried to hide it, as she continued to play along with his fib.
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Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:45 pm
A'kigeni was glad that she smiled at him. It was so nice for a woman to take interest in his work! Even if she was... well, 'old', by his standards anyway. She looked like she was his mom's age! So it was certainly 'old' for the young cub anyway. So he treated her as such, because his mom had always told him to be polite to other leopards. Even if they were mean.
"That's a pretty name." He told her politely while he picked up the stick and poked at the bug again, tilting his head as he examined it more closely, hoping that he wouldn't accidentally kill any of the babies. After all, he had to keep track of how many hatched!
A'k gasped, now clearly excited. That was brilliant! The perfect way for him to watch them and find out... well, what they actually did. Because he'd like to know for sure. It was no fun making stuff up so that she sounded smart if he actually wasn't. He wanted to be more informed than that! What good would it be for him to be a scientist with no actual science?
"That would work perfectly! We have to do it!" He leaned forward, dropping the stick out of his mouth, "Will you help me!?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:32 pm
She watched him poke at the bug, smiling. She thought about warning him against angering the dangerous babies that lay in wait, but she imagined he was an expert on the subject and must have known what he was doing. She purred and nodded when he complimented her name, not really thinking it particularly pretty but glad to be told so. Flicking her tail, she blinked.
Laughing at his exuberance, she nodded a few times, as if to placate him by returning his excitement. She held her tail high, bowing her head close to his and smiling at him.
"I'll help you! I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't want to help. I'm sure we could find something. How good are you at climbing trees? I'm adept, but my big paws might not be suited for getting nests out of tight spots. I wouldn't want to break one, especially if we don't find any others."
She turned and spotted a group of trees that seemed, to her eye anyway, to be a nice place for birds to gather. "Want to go check out those trees?" she asked, stepping towards them by stepping over the little cub, her shadow moving over him as she crossed.
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Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:01 pm
A'kigeni seemed very pleased that she was taking him so seriously. He really wasn't used to this! She even wanted to help him collect his specimins! What a nice leopardess she was. So he perked up completely, nodding happily as she explained the best way to find the nests they could use. It all sounded like it would be quite an experience! Perhaps she would be his assistant.
"I can climb quite well... if you um... maybe gave me a little boost up in the tree? I'm not so good at the bottom part, but once I get started I'm pretty good." He explained, hoping she wouldn't make fun of him for that. His own mother never did, though his brothers had a bit of a tendancy to. His dad never really said anything on the subject.
"Sure, let's give those one's a try. There's bound to be some nests around here." Plus, being up so high in the trees was bound to give him both a better view of the area, and let him get a good look at some more of the bug life in the area.
One day he would have to work on exploring to see if there were different bugs in the areas of the world... he'd figure it out for certain one day. He had no doubt about that.
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Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:32 pm
Kunjufu nodded, now with a game face on, and continued walking, looking back at him occasionally until they covered the short distance to the trees. She waited for him, then looked up at the tall tree. It was a bit daunting for a small cub, she imagined, because it was a nice sized tree for a full sized leopard to rest in. But she somehow didn't doubt that this little one would be fine.
"Alright, I'll give you a head start, and you climb up to that big branch there," she pointed with her paw, "and see if you can't spot a nest somewhere. You could even try to look in the other trees from there. I'll climb up to that branch," she pointed to the other side of the tree, "and help you if you need it."
She smiled at him, waited for him to give the go ahead, then moved to pick him up. She was very used to carrying cubs, and she plucked him from the ground without any shyness or hesitation. She lifted him up the trunk, going up on her back feet and putting her paws against the tree for support. She placed him on the bridge her arms made, letting him find his own grip for climbing.
"Just don't go too fast," she warned maternally, "I wouldn't want you falling or hurting yourself, when there's bugs to examine."
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Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:34 pm
A'kigeni curled up instinctively and let her place him up in the highest branch he could reach. He really found the whole experience quite exciting. He nimbly balanced on the tree branch, glad that he had escaped the wide bottom of the tree. He was very good at just sliding down the bark and never reaching the higher branches... generally speaking. He supposed he would have to practice that a little more if he ever wanted to be able to climb the trees himself.
Maybe when he was bigger he'd be better. Or maybe he'd just find himself an assistant who would do it for him... yes, that would have been quite useful he imagined.
"I'll be alright! Never fear!" He called down, jumping from branch to branch to get higher to where the bird's nests were. He was as quiet as he could be, though he didn't know why he bothered. It wasn't as though he was hunting birds, he was just after their nests. He just felt like he was stealing something from the poor small animals... but it was for the sake of science, so he was sure that they would understand.
He grinned when he saw a nest and called down, "Kunjufu! I found one!" He climbed forward a little... but the branches were starting to get smaller which meant that he had to be more careful, or he really would be in more trouble. And might never be able to finish his experiment either!"
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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 1:00 am
She watched him carefully, her body poised just in case she needed to spring away and catch him. She wasn't about to let someone elses child get hurt on her watch. Particularly since it would technically be her fault, after putting him up in the tree anyway. She was not a careless lady by nature, so she was almost at ease in her watchfulness. It was just natural to her, there was no need to stress.
She could handle anything.
"Oh, I know you're perfectly capable," she called back, nodding to affirm this. She smiled, more to herself than for his benefit, and relaxed a bit. Tail flicking, she followed his movements carefully. She stood and followed under him as he drew precariously closer to the thinner part of the branches.
"Don't put too much weight on those," she warned tersely, knowing he was probably aware of what gravity would do if he tipped the balance of the branches, "if you can unlodge it, I'll catch it when it falls. Just poke at it, but try not to get too close if you can help it. I don't think it's in a good spot."
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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:38 pm
A'kigeni wobbled a little on the branches, but he managed to keep his balance. He decided it would probably be a good idea to heed the older lioness' advice... it would be really bad if he fell. He didn't want to leave his mom all alone... she was already so afraid of letting her children out of her sight. If he died, she was bound to never let his brother's leave her side ever again. Then they would be... doomed. She was pretty protective.
"Okay!" He called down, staying in a steady position while he reached out with one paw to try and knock down the bird's nest... but he couldn't quite seem to reach it. "I don't think this will work... can you toss me up my Experiment Stick? I think I'll be able to poke it down if I use that!" He mentioned thoughtfully. That would probably give him the length he needed so that he wouldn't get himself killed.
He really needed an assistant. Clealry he shouldn't be the one climbing trees like this. He was a scientist after all! If not... a very young one with no experience to speak of. But he was getting around to fixing that, and this was the first step! "I'm sure I can reach it!"
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