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 Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 2:31 pm
Shaitani rose in eerie silence, going from half asleep and docile to alert and restless in a moment. Once could almost say she felt the sun go down, her motion was so well timed. Gliding to the opening of her den in the bank below the giant tree, the red and white lioness scented the outside air, cool and damp with growing night.
Night, of course, was the leech's time. Time to hunt and wander and let her scattered mind direct her as it would. She longed for the taste of blood in her mouth, hot flesh between her teeth... her stomach cramped with want, her day-long fast leaving her hungry. Still, something tugged at some deep part of her mind and she turned back to blink at the other occupant of the den, the purple and white bundle she'd had with her for a few months now.
That tug came again, but Shai was unsure what she needed to do or what it was trying to tell her. It -felt- important though, keeping her from just disappearing into the darkness.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 8:49 am
Kitu was unaware of his mother's stare for the moment, pink eyes stretched wide with horror as he looked to a far corner of the den.
There was a large, misshapen clod of dirt, towering like a small, beckoning demon. Kitu watched it with trembling lips as his mind warped it into something even more real; more than just a lump of earth.
Come over herrrrrrrre... it hissed, itching Kitu's ears. I'll keep you saffffffe...
The juvenile backed up and backed up until he bumped into something. With a choking cry, the boy spun around, hairs shooting up on his back. He was met with the face of his mother. There were mixed feelings then. He felt safe from the monster behind him, but just as well, what if Shaitani didn't feel protective? What if she felt like a monster...?
"Ss..." Kitu tried to say something to make up for his bumping into her, but his words were choked back into silence as his fears took over his throat in trembling waves.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:32 pm
When the bundle moved, Shai's eyes opened wide and she stared as it scooted back till it bumped into her front legs. She was surprised when it felt like fur and whirled to suddenly form itself into a cub, skiny and dirty, with a look of profound fear on his small face. She frowned as she tilted her head, unsure of what to make of him. The broken bits of her mind refused to piece together into a real thought, so she finally shook herself all over the dispel the nagging feeling in her head.
Without a sound, she swooped down to Kitu and wrapped her jaws around the back of his neck, gripping him maybe just a little tighter than another mother might have, and slid from the den like a shadow, her paws noiseless. Whatever this cub was, she should probably keep him with her if that -something- was so fixated on him. She bore him along effortlessly, though she was gaunt herself, slender nearly to underfed. There was wiry strength to her body that few would credit her with at first glance.
The pair moved through the darkness in silence, on Shai's part, her red eyes darting almost widly, her nostrils flaring as she confused scents with that of the thing she held in her mouth. Then, the one she searched for. Without knowing she did it, she dropped Kitu from her mouth and lunged over him with a snarl, her silent, chaotic travel bringing her acrossed the sleeping place of a fawn, not quite at its maturity and still laying hidden while its mother foraged.
The young prey didn't stand a chance and all too soon, Shai crouched over her kill with a happy rumbled, gobbling down the hot red meat, her cub forgotten on the ground behind her.
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Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:24 pm
Teeth clutching the back of his neck was shocking at first. Kitu was always frightened of her teeth; blood-red's teeth. Shaitani's teeth. And the feel of them on the back of his neck was familiar, though usually more painful. But the sensation of being carried by them was not. He squirmed at first, but experience with his mother quickly reasoned with him to stop that at once. So he did.
Shadows blurred past as his mother moved through them, shapes of distorted trees curling and unfurling all around him, frightening him. Kitu shut his eyes tight, willing his fear to go away. He just wanted to go back into the den, where he was safe. He was safe there. The outside was scary. He didn't know it. He didn't like it!
But his train of thought crashed very quickly then, as his stomach tightened at the feeling of falling. He grunted as he hit the ground, remaining motionless and holding his breath in the split seconds he heard his mother's snarling. Wind swept over him as his mother pounced, and for a moment, he thought she was going to pounce on him. But the sound of a fawn's scream and the scent of blood were enough to shake him of that notion.
Slowly, tremulously, the small boy turned his head to look in front of him. His pink eyes were saucers, absorbing everything around him as he struggled to focus on what was really happening.
"Blood..." he whispered almost out of habit in a squeak, ears folding back. Tiny claws dug into the dirt as he watched his mother feed.
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Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:59 am
Shaitani started when she heard the word break on the air, her eyes wide and staring as she layed her ears back, blood dripping from her jaws. Paused in her eating, her eyes darted till she found the cub she'd dropped a short distance away, having forgotten she'd had him with her at all. For a long moment, she stared at him in confusion, her face scrunched up at the effort of coherent thought.
"Blood is life, life is blood..." She whispered, half to herself. "We feed on blood and our blood feeds others, around and around we go till we all fall down." She giggled at the last part, rising with her meal half eaten. Sauntering over to a bit of lush plant life, she dropped down on the springy material and set to licking her paws and cleaning her face, her glittering red eyes falling to slits. The fawn's body lay broken and bleeding where its mother had left it earlier, its liquid eyes now glassy and dull. Some might feel sympathy for the lost life, but Shai knew only that she had been hungry and it had been a way to still the crying in her belly. Its purpose fulfilled, it was now forgotten, much like her own cub. It was lucky for him that some instinct in her had chosen not to see him as food. He was certainly small enough for it. Maybe it was the way he smelled so much like her, or maybe some memory had eeled its way past her insanity to insist that he was hers, not food.
Shaitani sang softly to herself as she cleaned, though the words were vague and unidentifiable. She was content to lay for now, a creature of reaction rather than first movement. She'd probably stay as she was till something called her attention to it... most likely that would be Kitu when he got up the courage to move from where she'd dropped it. He was ever an attention getter to his mother, with his bright pelt and small, soft body.
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:39 am
Sickeningly-sweet blood stung Kitu's nose, rousing drool to his mouth and a quick beat to his small heart. His eyes were shining with hunger and hesitation as he stared at the abandoned carcass, paws itching to move forward, but mind telling him not to. It was risky, after all.
It was always risky.
His mothers words rang in his ears. He mulled over them, his mind breaking them apart into pieces and digesting them. He always thought about what his mother said very carefully. Her words were not entirely rare, but whatever little she did say was all Kitu had ever heard in the world. She was the only one he knew; the one he was learning speech from. He had developed a strong sense of love and familiarity for his mother, despite all the bad things he had experienced in his short life. It was all he knew, so he didn't question if it was right or wrong, normal or abnormal. She was Shaitani. She was all he knew.
And so it was with lucid, careful steps that Kitu padded over to the lifeless fawn, putting aside all his doubts and fears and silent questions. His instincts wavered as hunger and lust for blood took over, and before he knew it, he was crouched over the fawn, drinking deep and eating its flesh.
Something inside of felt almost happy at the sound of his mother's singing. He felt lighter as he ate; safer, and he forgot anything painful or frightening. Just for a little while.
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:42 am
Eventually Shai's wavering attention was drawn back to her cub and her eyes drifted to watch him with a rapt, confused sort of attention. She couldn't remember what he was, all he seemed to be was a little purple cub, eating food as though starved near to death. She might have felt a stab of motherly concern, but it slipped away before she could grasp it.
It was her fascination with him that let him finish eating, her eyes watching every motion of his jaws and throat. Only when he was done did she rise and stalk over to him, all the while staring intensely. For once, she didn't do something violent to her cub. This time, all she did was push him over with her paw and roll him a little before she seemingly lost interest and stepped away. After a moment of looking about herself, she started off at a slow walk, the steps looking to be designed to give a cub with shorter legs a chance to keep up.
Tonight was a night for Kitu to get a look around the outside world. It just happened to be in a Shai way, rather than how a normal parent would do it.
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:09 pm
The warm, fresh lumps of meat entering the cub's stomach filled him with happiness. He closed his eyes, swallowing the blood with contentment and finally, for once, lost all his fears and cares and focused solely on his meal. He had to fill himself. He didn't know the exact reason; just that he had to fill his stomach with food. There was an urgency about it, as though he might not know when the next time would be when he could eat again. But, having lost all cares in the pleasure of eating a big meal, Kitu couldn't quite pin-point his feelings. So he brushed them aside and continued to feed.
When he was full, he trailed his tongue over his bloodied white lips, eyes blinking over the unrecognizable fawn carcass. Rib bones stuck out in the air, and the juvenile observed them, taking in how they looked; how something looked on the inside. The images stuck to his brain like glue, and he found himself fascinated. But his new interest slipped away in an instant when the sound of movement touched his ears.
Head snapping to the left, Kitu's pupils thinned with fear at the sight of his approaching mother. He remained completely still, not daring to move in concern of provoking her. He liked to think he knew some of her ways; some things that triggered her. But in the end, the lioness was unpredictable. And that was what made her truly frightening in his mind. But only sometimes. Other times...Other times--
Kitu's train of thought crashed abruptly when his mother began to roll him around. He fell to his side with a soft grunt, eyes squinted shut as he waited for whatever was going to happen to pass. He kept his paws close to his body out of some kind of instinct, perhaps to protect them from being broken. By some string of luck or fortune, however, the rolling stopped quite quickly. Eyes opening a crack, the male's ears shifted and he listened to the shocking sound of his mother walking away.
Heart leaping to his throat in a sharp feeling of separation anxiety, Kitu jumped to his feet and doubled after her, all of his past fears resurfacing in his mind. He stayed close at her heels, careful not to touch her, and simply walked by her. As long as he was close to Shaitani, he wasn't very afraid of beckoning monsters in the shadows, though he knew they were hiding somewhere... After a few moments of profound fear and confusion, something else took over; wonder. And with saucer-sized eyes, Kitu began to observe the world around him. He took it all in, brain getting overloaded with images, smells and sounds.
Where...WAS this place? WHAT was this place? Where was he? Questions pumped through the boy's mind, but they subsided, and he allowed himself to merely exist where he was.
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Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:43 pm
"Outside..." Shaitani mumbled to herself as she paced along, seemingly unaware of the cub at her heels. "Outside. Lovely, sweet-scented night... no moon, no light, only darkness, so soft..." Her voice took on a sing-song quality, her steps wavering a little side to side with her words.
"The sun is bad." She finally stated, after a while of silence. "Sun burns... hot, hot light through the leaves... death in bright, white light. Darkness is best. Cool, soft, welcoming mother night... The jungle protects us, protects it children, the Coven. Blood flows sweetly in our mouths and we hunt the darkness that shelters us. We are beautiful and terrible and perfect..." She hissed, pride in her voice. She could have been talking to Kitu now, about the things every vampire knew. Things he would need to know, if he was ever without his mother. There was no way to tell when or even if such a thing would happen... but anyone who was not these two would have known it was only a matter of time. As far as Shai was concerned though... there was only now. No past, no future... only the darkness and her fragmented mind.
The pair were making a roughly oval path around where Shai's 'hidden' den was, though it was hard to see between the trees and brush to really tell. Kitu probably couldn't see anything at all, with all the scrub towering over him. But it hardly mattered. It was the moment that did, and in this moment, Shai and her son were as close to normal as they would probably ever get.
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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:09 am
Tiny paws stumbled as they moved, wide eyes gaping up at his mother. His ears were turning and twisting with every word that left the adult's lips, but his face remained completely focused and absorbed in her. He took in every tone, ever movement, every word, every sound...The times that Shaitani spoke with him were his favorite times. He always tried to do his best to pay attention, not for any real reason other than to learn from her and in some strange way, bond with her. He didn't know the word "mother", but Kitu knew what Shai was. There's a bond between mother and child that cannot be unfamiliar with lack of mere words alone. Not even cruel actions could sever that instinctual understanding.
Heart swelling strangely as he took in all the new information, Kitu pointed his stare upwards to stare at the canopy of trees overhead. He didn't know the full extent of sunlight. He was always safe in the little den, sheltered. But now he knew never to leave the den during daylight hours...The sun was bad. Now, he feared it because his mother was warning him of it. But the night...Yes, the night was best. The night was what he loved. It was everything she said it was, and a strange twitch of a smile lined the juvenile's maw. Sharing an opinion with his mother made him feel like he was doing something right, and that doing something right would make her happy. He really just wanted her to be happy...With him...
The things he was learning were things he would hold onto for the rest of his days. No matter what happened in his future, he would always remember the lessons his mother taught him, especially this one. Rare were the days when she spoke to him as an individual, whether she was really speaking to him or to the air. Kitu took it all in no matter what. It was all important. And maybe if he knew a lot, his mother would have more relaxing moods instead of...Other moods...
Pink eyes squinted ahead, unfamiliar with the territory and intimidated by the hugeness of the outside world. He walked close to Shaitani, feeling safe amidst her stepping limbs. He watched her paws move and mimicked her walking style, paint-brush tail twitching as he did so. An amused smile quirked onto his face and Kitu observed his mother, doing what he could to make even his expression mirror hers. Then he looked ahead, moving as a tiny mirror image of his mother.
His life was so much simpler than the life of any other juvenile lion, so blissfully ignorant of anything outside his orb of knowledge. But in those times, it was just him and his mother. And nothing could taint it. Not even the darkness in his mother herself.
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Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 7:56 am
"Blood is life..." She hissed softly, her head darting snake-like as her steps slowed, her ears perked to catch the nocturnal movements around her.
"Blood is a bond... master to slave, mother to child, lover to lover... Share blood and take life into yourself. Blood-binders... the ones who feed the pride and keep it strong. There are so few of them, so few, so few than what there should be. Outsiders, that's what it is." She murmured, her words tripping over each other as a growl rumbled under it all. "Outsiders are taken, bitten, drunk from... blood-binders they become, to feed the pride and keep us beautiful. But one binder now... and she has not been seen in many nights."
Abruptly, Shai shook herself all over and blinked rather stupidly at the shadows around her, glancing about in confusion. "Drakkul?" She called out, her voice plaintive. "My love, my life, my darkness divine..." The blood lioness whimpered as she threw herself to the ground, her limbs twitching and scrabbling against the ground as she rolled herself into the leaf litter. Just like that, her teaching was done and gone and she was back to being her broken self. It was amazing that Kitu was as sane as he was, with her around.
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Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:56 am
Blood is life...Blood is a bond... he whispered in the confines of his mind, memory echoing his mother's every word. He understood much of what she said--much more than he used to when he was a cub. The times his mother was just barely stable and taught him things that would be important for his future were crucial to him. Imagination rolling and twisting, he conjured up images of strange, contorted beasts submitting to him, as he bit the creature and drank its blood--its life.
Pink eyes glazed over, he shifted his stare up to his mother, listening to her information of the one binder who had not been seen in a long while. Who was this binder? And what was a binder? He knew what they did, what their purpose was...but what kind of creatures were there? Kitu was unaware of other creatures like himself in the world, so sheltered from the outside by his mother's tattered embrace.
At the sudden confused-sounding call his mother emitted, Kitu's heart skipped a beat, instinctively ducking down a bit, afraid of foreign beasts pouncing out of the shadows. But Shai's whimpering brought him out of that state, and instead of being wary he became confused and sad. Brows knitting up and purple tear-marks shadowed by his hair tuft, the juvenile watched his mother collapse to the ground. He scanned her form in confusion, unsure of what to do. He stood very still, thinking. Then, slowly, he lied down away from his mother where he stood, completely still as he watched her.
Was it sleep time now...?
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Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 12:57 pm
After a few moments of her scrabbling in the dirt, she burst to her paws again and spun, taking off into the jungle. She didn't even look back to see if her cub followed, so intent on getting back to the safety of her den. At least she left a clear trail for him to follow if he was clever and fast enough.
Inside her mind, monsters loomed all around her and she let out fearful sounds as she careened through the trees. She often lost her balance completely and fell, giving Kitu precious moments to catch up, and she often rebounded off trees as she ran full-tilt into them. Even pain-loving Drakkul had never treated Shai as harshly as she treated herself... battering her own body in her unawareness.
There was something she needed... desperately, but she couldn't find it. She had to get back to den, where it was safe! There was something behind her, something that would devour her if she didn't go faster!
Desperately clawed at her and she broke into a keening whine as she ran.
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Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 6:19 pm
"AH!" Kitu cried, throwing himself away from the earth at the sight of his mother vanishing into the trees. The sheer horror was plain to see on his face, tiny paws ripping against the ground, lungs heaving to suck in enough oxygen to sustain his frantic chase.
No doubts crossed the boy's mind as he ran. No question of why he was following her. She was his mother, his Shaitani. She was his everything. She was the only thing he knew. Without her, he would die. Without her, he knew nothing. He was alone, scared in a world of terror and nightmares and mysteries and evil, screaming shadows. She was cruel to him at times. SHe wasn't always the same. She hurt him and made him bleed, looked at him sometimes as though he wasn't even alive. But Kitu was young--only more than a cub. It was in him to forgive and forget. He did not judge the one closest to him. So now, as he saw his mother rushing away, he blindly rushed after her.
"WAIT!" he screamed, almost feminine voice cracking from disuse. He saw her trip, he caught up a little, only to see her disappear again. But he kept running, kept blindly following the trail his mother left behind, so terrified of everything around him. He gasped in and out, tripping time and again himself.
He would rather die than live without his mother.
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Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2009 7:36 pm
It was a measure of their twisted relationship that when Shai came in sight of 'home', that the first thing she did when she slowed was cast about her absently, taking a circuitous path around the spaces between the trees as she looked for something she'd lost.
How odd... it was here just a moment ago.... Her terrified flight through the forrest forgotten, she crooned in a lost sort of way, scenting the ground and the air and the sides of the trees. Where did it go?
She'd still be there, looking, when Kitu finally trudged home. Of course, by this time, a light rain had started up, filtering down through the tangled branches from a might fiercer storm overhead. The lightning made the shadows flicker in the oddest ways, and even Shai had become a little nervous. Her calls took on a more frantic note, distress heavy in them. They should be inside, in warmth and dryness... why where they out here, where it was cold and wet and ugly?
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