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 Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:58 pm
Zuberi was out star gazing in the early evening. He had had a peaceful sleep the day before. It had been a difficult task to slip out of the pack lands tonight. He wanted to do be out in the 'wilderness' as he referred to it in his own head. He loved his pack and his family but the best way to learn in his opinion was to get out and see it for yourself.
He was laying on his back and staring up at the stars attempting to perhaps count them.... truth be told her knew he would never be able to count it. As he was gazing up he caught the scent of something.... something was the only thing he could think of to describe it. Zuberi flipped over onto his stomach and gazed threw the grass trying to find the source of this peculiar smell.
That's when he spotted it . Zuberi had never seen such an odd creature. Well truth be told Zuberi had never really met anything other then wild dogs, and what stood on the other side of the field was most definitely not a wild dog. His inquisitive side getting the better of him, Zuberi began what could only be described as a belly crawl towards this odd creature, trying to get a better look at him.
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:23 pm
A'kigeni was wandering off on his own. With the whole family sleeping, and his mother safely tucked between his brothers, he would be safe without her worrying too much about him. His father was hunting, which meant he was even safer. Though on occasion he wondered if his father was anything other than vaugly aware of his presence anyway. Kenya only seemed to like his sons because they kept Mkia company while he was busy.
A'kigeni was thinking a little more about how he could explore the nocturnal wildlife around the area... and that was when he saw it. The strangest looking creature he had ever laid eyes on, and A'k made a point of looking at some very strange things when he got the chance.
He paused and sat down, staring at the strange thing which was not a lion... not a leopard... not a cheetah... what in the world was it? He had never seen anything like it. Which meant, of course, that he had to STUDY IT.
He practicaly ran up to the other creature, walking around it several times before stopping in front of it, "What are you?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:13 pm
Zuberi got dizzy as the this odd animal circled him. He was wondering what in the world... this thing was and why was it circling him. Zuberi had heard it ask him a question. But first he need to get a better grip on what he was talking to. He was first surprised that it could talk, the odd animal must be something similar to him. Yes it looked nothing like Zuberi.
With the decision that this animal couldn't be something much different then him, Zuberi answered its question "I am a wild dog. What in the world are you?" Zuberi had answered the question with a slight hint of superiority in his voice. It was like him to see himself as better then others, in fact that some pretty much went against his packs beliefs. But this creature was so odd.
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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:26 am
A'k looked slightly indignent at the question. He didn't feel there was any need to get defensive about what species they were, especially seeing that A'kigeni hadn't exactly known what the creature was either. But he had found out, for science!
"I am a leopard." He said, sitting down and puffing out his chest proudly at the statement. Though the wild dog was... interesting... he had no idea exactly what the name meant. But the creature was obviously intelligent... or at least sort of intelligent? He would have to find out!
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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 9:41 am
Zuberi sat once the leopard sat. He realized he was probably over reacting with the whole it thing. He was curious about this animal. He seemed friendly enough so there was obviously no need to be defensive. "Hmmmm a leopard..... I have never met a leopard." Zuberi announced. He was very intrigued by meeting a new creature.
Zuberi stood and did a quick circle around the leopard. Then he realized he was referring to this creature as a leopard.... but he was sure he had a name. "Uh my name is Zuberi. " he told the leopard. He was hoping that leopards had names... he was really confused about how social interactions with another species went, he hoped he was doing it right.
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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:22 pm
A'kigeni nodded, accepting the dog's name, "They call me A'kigeni... You can call me A'k... or Geni. Everyone seems to acll me something different. It's very odd." He admitted with a shrug. "I've never met a wild dog either... do you live around here? Are there more than one of you? Are you full grown?" He asked in a wave of questions.
He had always been a curious creature, and had no intention of changing that fact in particular. The more questions he asked, the more he knew after all. At least he was aware that Zuberi had a name, and wasn't just... well, a species. But in his experience, everything had a name.
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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:43 pm
Zuberi laughed to himself, A'k sounded just like him when he first met others, and he was mirroring the question Zuberi himself wanted to ask. Zuberi looked back over his shoulder remembering where the pack borders were when A'k asked if he lived around here.
Zuberi took a deep breath he was going to attempt to answer all of his questions, hoping he could actually remember them all. "Yes I live around her, yes there are more of me, I live with a whole bunch of mes, and no I am not full grown I am a juvenile." Zuberi answered. Yes he thought to himself he had got them all. He looked inquisitively at the leopard as a set of his own questions rushed into his head.
"My turn" he announced boldly, he tried to rapidly organize his questions in his head "How old are you? Are there more of you" he asked this even though he assumed there must be where else would A'k have come from? " Are you called a bunch of different names because you are in a pack? That's why I have a bunch of names." Zuberi stopped he decided that was enough questions in one shot for now. He gave the leopard a chance to speak.
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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:19 am
"Ohh..." A'k said, admiring everything that Zuberi told him with rapt attention. He practically soaked in every word that he spoke, glad that Zuberi had been very straight up and honest with him.
"I'm just a kid." A'kigeni told him, tilting his head thoughtfully, "And there are more of me... but it's just my brothers and my mom and my dad. So that's about it. But I've seen other leopards just sort of... wandering around. And we aren't called anything at all. We're just... leopards. But someone called us Cannibals once... but then daddy chased them away." He said, glad that they were taking turns asking questions.
"What's a pack? How many brothers and sisters do you have? How big do you get? What do you eat? What's your favorite color? Do you have another name because you're in a... pack?" He asked back, shooting off every single question that came to mind.
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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:51 am
Zuberi listened carefully to each of Ak's answers. He was suddenly very happy he had met this young one, he was getting the chance to learn so much!! Hmm so this leopard was younger then him, but not by much... Zuberi liked the idea that they were fairly close in age. The fact that there were more leopards around made sense to Zuberi. The one thing that did catch Zuberi somewhat off guard was the fact that this leopard had a father.
Now to answer Ak's questions... he had many for Zuberi. "Well a pack is a group of many families living together, in the case of my pack it is groups of wild dogs. Its hard to say how big I will get, not big as a lion that's for sure. Yes I have many names because I am in a pack, Zuberi-sikio is my given name, I usually short form it to Zuberi when I introduce myself, and my pack name or wolf name as we refer to it is Strongear." Zuberi paused to take a breath aware that he had only answered about half of Ak's questions. He searched through his brain what was next.
"I have seven brothers and sisters, I am the oldest... there is 5 boys including me and 3 girls. My favorite color is the color of my mom's eyes which coincidentally is the same color as my eyes." Zuberi said smiling as he thought of his mother. "I eat small game mostly, I don't hunt as there are dogs in our pack whose job is to pack for the whole pack." Zuberi was proud of himself, he had got all the questions in a comprehensive order, he hoped that Ak had been able to follow him.
It was Zuberi's turn to ask the question, which excited him so many things to ask. He decided to start with the one that stood out in his mind the most, "You have a father? One that lives with you and take cares of you? The idea some what baffled Zuberi, although he had seen male wild dogs around the pack taking care of the kids, it wasn't something Zuberi really understood. "Do you travel a lot or do you stay put do you have a home? How many brothers do you have and no Sisters? What is your mom like." Zuberi was really interested in family life, he wanted to know all mom's were like his or if he was truly lucky.
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:09 pm
A'k sat back and listened carefully to what the dog told him. After all, this was research, and that was way more important than anything else he had been planning to do that day! Time for some serious inter-species learning!
"I see... I see..." He mumbled, taking mental notes. "And yeah, I have a dad who stays with us and hunts for us while mom takes care of us. He doesn't talk with us muh, mostly mom. He says it's our duty to stay with her an make sure she doesn't get scared, and if we do, then he'll leave us alone and never come back." He explained, nodding as though it were perfectly normal for a father to threaten to abandon his children if they left their mother alone.
"We travel around a lot. Dad says because we eat bigger animals, we can't stick around or their families might come looking for revenge and kill us while we're sleeping. Mom says we should just eat dead animals so no one will care, but I think dad likes hunting more than she does. And I have three brothers, not including me. But no sisters. You seem to have a lot more siblings than I do... but that's okay."
He smiled a little at his mother's mention, "Mom is really strong. She takes care of us all, and makes us all do whatever she says. But she gets really frightened if we leave her alone... one day she thought she lost me and my brothers, and she started screaming. That's when dad said at least one of us always has to stay with her, or he'll leave us behind. I don't mind staying with mom usually..." Except when she said that his experiments were gross.
"What's your mom and dad like? And your brothers and sisters? And why would you all live in a pack with lots of you? Don't you run out of lions and stuff to eat?" A'kigeni asked in return.
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:26 am
Zuberi wasn't sure what fathers were suppose to be liked but he had a feeling Ak's father wasn't there typical father. However he was happy to hear that Ak was close to his mom. Because Zuberi had only ever grown up with his mom and as a result he was very close to her. He had a feeling moms were very important.... of course he would never be one himself.
"Uh my dad? I don't have one." Zuberi answered. "I have been in the pack since I was born and the only ones in my immediate family are my siblings and my mom, but the pack makes up the extended family." When Zuberi was younger he felt like he was missing something but now he took his family just the way it was. Sensing that the blunt way of putting this news might throw Ak off he tried to justify it somewhat, "Its no big deal though, the pack is like one big family and my mom is amazing I don't need a dad, and I watch out for all my younger siblings." Zuberi paused while he was thinking about his mom, he missed her when she was out hunting.
Pausing Zuberi tried to remember the other things A'k had asked. "My siblings are great I am closest to my youngest brother and my youngest sister. He is a real sport he works hard to be a valuable member of the pack and my sister has a great what ever happens happens attitude its refreshing." With the number of sibling Zuberi had it was hard to be close to all his siblings.
Remembering that A'k had asked about the pack life Zuberi tried to formulate his answers in his head, if he didn't think about it all before hand it was a possibility that the words would all get jumbled up and A'k wouldn't understand what he was trying to say. "I live in a pack because its like a big family, we all take care of each other, its a great environment! And we don't run out of food we have hunters who are responsible for getting food for the pack, and if there isn't enough in the area they will move further out, as a pack we try to make sure we don't effect others around us negatively." Zuberi was proud of his answers he felt he had highlighted the most important things.
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Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:12 pm
A'k listened to everything, desperate to soak up every single ounce of information if he could. After all, who knew when he would need to know everything possible about wild dogs? And this one seemed perfectly happy to share!
"Wow... do wild dogs usually not have dads and live in big packs? That's so weird!" He hadn't met many other leopards outside of his own family. How wild that you could live in big groups like that! How could they possibly have enough food for everyone? Still, it was pretty cool... but he wasn't sure he would have liked being around that many creatures.
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:14 am
"I honestly don't know what most wild dogs do, I know before my siblings and I were born mom didn't belong to a pack at all, she was alone. As for wild dogs and dads I am not sure, I see other dogs with dads, I guess my dad was just a bad dad." It was weird having to think about whether his life was normal or not... truth be told he wasn't sure if he was normal or not.
"Is it normal for leopards to have dad and not live in packs." Zuberi was feeling insecure now wondering whether or not he was normal. He sat down in front of A'k curling his tail around his body. "Whether it is normal or not I like being a member of the pack, its great having so many others around and they teach and love you just like a parent would, plus there is more people I can watch and judge this way." Zuberi announced proudly, he was trying to make himself feel better.
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:23 pm
"I see..." A'kigeni said thoughtfully, scratching his head as he looked at the young wild dog. "I don't know if your dad is bad... maybe he's dead or he just wasn't around?" He suggested thoughtfully.
"And as far as I know, most leopards either live on their own or with their families, so I don't think that kind of thing matters exactly." He mentioned off-hand. His mother had said that her parents had been on their own, and that her father had left them when she was still a young girl. His father hadn't known what had happened to his parents, but he seemed to think that they had been killed. He wasn't sure. But he assumed it must have been very interesting to be in a pack... "That all sounds very... odd. But interesting to be in such a large group..."
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Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:01 pm
Zuberi thought about what A'k had said about the possibility the his father was dead, for one reason or another the impression Zuberi had was that his dad took off after his mother got pregnant, or before.... the details were a little foggy, as his mother didn't talk much about his father, or how she came to be pregnant with himself and his brothers and sisters. "I guess it is a possibly my father is dead, I never thought about that as an option." Zuberi said softly, he was tired of the topic of his dad, it was something a little bit on the touchy side for him.
He began to think about what A'k had said about leopards not living in packs.... why wouldn't they? "Don't you feel like yo are missing out on something not having a pack, I mean the pack builds such bonds, and you can count on others to help you out." Zuberi couldn't imagine what he would do without his pack, he supposed his mother would be able to provide care for him and his siblings, she was a hunteress for the pack but who would watch him and his siblings when she was out trying to get food from them all. "I love being in a pack," Zuberi announced proudly, "Living amongst a big group is great, it allows for a lot of bonds. You are never lonely."
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