Vizuri had lost her meal. Again. It was just entirely too hard not to say no to a cute bunny face. The animals would always be so frightened and, when they could, gaze up into her eyes with big ones that pled for their lives (always, as well, claiming they had a large family to feed and such). So she had never been very good at hunting for herself; her food always seemed to come from what she could scavenge around from other kills.
Now, with her stomach rumbling greatly, she stopped at a water hole in hopes of drinking her fill and stalling her belly's hunger for a bit longer until she could find food somewhere. The cool water was so inviting to her warmed skin that she decided to wade in a little bit. A sigh escaped her as a happy smile crossed her face and she stood in the water.
It had been an... interesting night for Twiga. She had met a male, a very strange, almost girly male named Hadaya and had asked him to show her what it felt like to mate. She had heard that mating was the only thing males were good for and had wanted to see if she could prove it wrong. But now that she had done it... she wasn't sure what to think. It hadn't been a completely wonderful time by any means. Awkward at best, and he didn't seem to have any idea what he was doing any more than she did.
But...
Now that it was over, she somehow felt different. Better, in a way. Maybe even more complete. If she never saw Hadaya again it would be too soon, she imagined, but it was still nice to have gotten such an easy male to do her bidding. Maybe she would thank him one day. Maybe. Sighing softly, she noticed herself coming upon a water hole. Normally she would have passed by, but there seemed to be someone standing in the water. "What are you doing?" she asked the female lightly, always happy to meet another lady.
Vizuri jumped at the unexpected voice, turning her head and her body to face the other female. Her feet made the water splash up a bit towards the stranger, and she laughed nervously. "I'm sorry, you startled me. I was taking a drink so I wouldn't be hungry anymore, but then I decided to go for a little swim. The water is just too perfect not to, right now."
She took a good look at this new female. From her coat, she kind of looked like a giraffe. She wondered how that had happened. There was no way the lioness had the prey animal's blood in her. Maybe it was just one of those things?
"Would you like to join me?" she offered, smiling lightly. "I'm Vizuri'maana by the way. Vizuri for short. Don't know why my mother gave me such a long name if I was going to end up using only half of it."
When the water came towards her, Twiga backed up, grinning. For the young tom boy it was pretty much an invitation to have a water fight, though she did what she could to keep himself calm. Just because she liked to play games like that didn't mean all girls did. In fact, the more she hung around other girls the more she felt like she was a lot different from all of them.
"You're taking a drink not to be hungry anymore? Woldn't it be better if you... had food to be not hungry anymore?" She looked around. The place didn't look like there wouldn't be something yummy to munch on. Water holes usually had guests.
"Sure!" she said, shrugging off the confusion easily enough. "Haha, I like your name. Mine's Twiga! It's not short for anything."
Vizuri took the grin as a good signed and returned it right back at Twiga. "Yours is still pretty. Easy to remember, too. Can I ask why you look like a giraffe?" Her grin took on a somewhat silly aspect since asking such a silly question as that.
But she nodded at the thought of actually getting something to eat rather than drinking her hunger away. "I would, but I can't find much to eat. I'm not very good at hunting, you see. Actually I am, but I can't eat what I catch so I end up letting them go. My stomach hates me for it later, but I just can't say no to the little faces of rabbits and whatever else I can catch." She frowned. "And zebras are too fast for me. I end up tripping and falling if I even try to go after one of those."
"I look like a giraffe?" She frowned thoughtfully, looking at her reflection in the shifting water, "huh, I guess that's why my name is Twiga. My mom always told me that it meant giraffe. I dunno! Most of the members of my family look this way. I guess it's just... genes?" She didn't mind how she looked, really. She thought her spots were rather attractive.
"Maybe the question is why DON'T you look like a giraffe?"
Listening to her tale, Twiga felt bad for the female. "Well, I'm pretty good at hunting. At least the smaller things. If I caught something and brought it for you, do you think you'd be able to eat then? I've already eaten, so I promise I won't run off with anything I kill."
She giggled. "That makes sense. I think I look like a crab, a bit. Have you seen those before? There's a lot of them over by the ocean. They're little creatures that run sideways on legs and have big legs with these big claws at the end that pinch things. They hurt. Don't make a crab angry; I know from experience." Vizuri looked to the tan markings on her aqua fur. "These look like the claws, but I don't pinch and hurt lions." She giggled again.
But she shook her head at the kind offer to hunt. "Thank you, but I couldn't let you do that for me. I've survived this long finding things, so don't worry about me. Thank you though." And she waded a bit deeper into the water, splashing a bit, taking a gulp of water as she did so.
"I don't think I've ever seen a crab," Twiga admitted playfully, trying to imagine one. She pictured something small and furry running sideways with huge legs. The claws she imagined being just like a lion's claws, only much longer and curled for pinching. It was really nothing like a crab, but she didn't know that. She only changed the shape of the claws in her mental image when Vizuri mentioned that the markings on her back looked like them.
Now that was one weird looking creature. "I don't think I would even want to go near one!" she gasped, "much less make it mad."
Frowning, she watched the other move into the water, following after a moment. "Well, if you change your mind, I'm okay with it. Hey! Do you like males?" she asked abruptly, deciding to give herself a bath while she was there.
Vizuri danced in the water with laughter. "They're not too bad. They're kind of slimy and have beady little eyes. But, thinking about it, they are kinda scary if you're too close to one. There are a lot sometimes, on the beaches," she added as an afterthought.
The lioness copied her new friend and laid down in the water to give herself a bath as well, and to try and cover as much of her fur as possible with the water. "Males?" She blinked and frowned. "Do I like them? Well, I guess I like them well enough. Why do you ask?" She was kind of wary, now, debating why Twiga was asking her this. Vizuri didn't particularly want to reenact her past. But if it came up...she didn't really have a choice, did she?
"Beaches?" Twiga had never been to a beach. She wasn't even sure what one looked like, really, but thought it better than to ask. Already she was starting to feel like this lioness knew a hell of a lot more than her. She didn't want to look like a complete idiot. So she nodded along, pretending to know just what the other was talking about. "Beaches, right," she hummed.
"I don't know," she said with a shrug, "where I come from males aren't things to like and I was just wondering if all girls hated them. A male tortured my mother and almost killed her. And the male I just met called me rude!" Not that the name calling was really anything to be compared to torment, but it was enough to ruffle the giraffe-colored creature's fur. She lowered her head into the water just below her nose, blowing bubbbles.
Vizuri flicked her tail into the water and lightly sprinkled droplets onto the back of her head, liking the shivers that rolled down her spine as the water rolled down to her neck. "Sounds to me like you and where you come from have a good reason to not like males." Since Twiga had shared her stories, it felt only proper to share her own as well. "A while ago, I met an older male and fell in love with him. Then he left me pregnant, and I left the cub somewhere where she would survive. I haven't met many males since then, though. I try to be polite because not all males are the same (just like not all females are the same), but at the same time, I'm wary."
She laughed, though, when Twiga said the male she had just met had called her rude. "Well, I'm sure he was out of his mind! I don't think you're rude at all. I think you're fun."
