[DONE. W1 - PRP] Shut Up and Eat (Skadi x Blota)

[Pearlyblue]

Skadi was perhaps not in the best of moods as she approached the area where the young Sacrifice should be. She couldn't help it, but on some level she took the recent decrease in prey personally. As though the stupid beasts were staying away just to mock her.

And no, knowing that every other member of the pride was finding it just as difficult to hunt prey didn't help at all.

To top it all off, this one had been particularly difficult to get a hold of: It had even managed to land a kick on the side of her face. It didn't show, it didn't impair her in any way, but it had smarted really bad at the time, and that was quite enough to make a Skadi go from grumpy to irked, and stay there for a while.  

[Annchen]

It was extremely hard to try to work up rightful indignation over something you had no good reason to be upset about, but that wasn't stopping Blota from trying. It wasn't fair. He was much more mature than some adults he knew, and he couldn't help that this pride was so boring that he hadn't experienced much yet. In his opinion it was extremely unfair to hold his age against him. It wasn't as if he could help it!

He didn't feel like spending time with the other Sacrifices, or anyone really, and he had gone off to sulk. Deep down he knew that it was a pretty ridiculous thing to do, and that moping around for several days wasn't going to accomplish anything, but damnit it felt good right now. Or maybe not good. But he didn't want to feel good anyway.  

[Pearlyblue]

Ah, there. Finally!

Catching a glimpse of a familiar orange hue, Skadi hastened her trot, eager to be rid of the last part of this troublesome gazelle. She had had to search more intensely than she had anticipated to find him, and now that she finally had... she could see why.

She had known Blota for quite a while, actually. They were close enough in age that they had spent some time with the same minders off and on, and at the very least she knew him well enough to see when he was sulking.

So he was hiding. He probably wanted some peace and quiet, to contemplate whatever might be weighing down his young mind.
Well, too damn bad.

Not even caring if he noticed her, she padded right up to him and dropped the quarter of a gazelle as close to his nose as she could get.

"Here. It's probably the last ration you'll have today. Buck up and eat, stripeypaws."  

[Annchen]

It would take more than gazelles falling from the sky to take Blota out of his funk. More food. What was the point anyway? Perhaps some starving would enrich his spirit and provide some new experiences. He moved his head away from the carcass and sighed as he rested it on his paws.

"Not hungry," he mumbled, staring vacantly ahead and ignoring his stomach's growl that it would be nice with some food right now, "You can give it to someone else."

He didn't even want to look at Skadi, but he had recognised her voice. Had he been his usual self he would have grabbed the opportunity to pass some time by chatting for a while, but right now the lioness was getting in the way of a perfectly good sulk. Why couldn't she just go away?  

[Pearlyblue]

Skadi let out a small puff of air through her nose, which was accented by a significant twitch of her ears. Ears which quickly flattened out, accompanied by the quickening of her tail. So he was going to be like THAT, was he?

If she had been looking for a way to vent her frustrations, she could not have found a better one.

"Your stomach says otherwise, doesn't it? I could hear it all the way to here! Now stop being a baby and eat your rations: I had a really hard time hunting this damn thing down, you know!" She thrust her face in closer to his with an accusing scowl. "Not to mention finding you so that I could finally deliver it. But here's the food, and here's you, and I will not go skipping off and leave you to staaarve just because you happen to be feeling sorry for yourself today, so you will damn well eat this gazelle. Now."  

[Annchen]

Had Blota bothered to look he might have been alarmed by the tell tale signs that Skadi was getting more and more irritated, but unfortunately he did not pay attention. Not until she started to yell at him at least. His ear flattened and he flinched as she closed in on him. Then her rant registered and the insult hit home. Baby?

"I. Am not. A baby," he growled and rose to stand face to face with the annoying lioness, "Why is it that everyone seems to think that I'm a cub that needs protection and mothering? I'm nearly adult for the Spirit's sake! Why can't I be treated like one?"

It could be argued that Blota hadn't exactly been acting like an adult lately, but he wasn't about to admit that. And besides, yelling at someone to get some of his frustrations out felt almost as good as sulking.  

[Pearlyblue]

As the young sacrifice aggressively rose to his feet, Skadi couldn't help but notice that the kid had grown up a bit. He was almost the same size as her soon, and with the way that his body was starting to fill out, slowly leaving the awkwardness of youth behind, he would probably end up quite a bit bigger.

But not yet. And certainly not if he didn't eat. Skadi's tail kept lashing unabated, and she didn't so much as flinch at his silly little outburst. In her current mood she was in no way inclined to avoid a conflict, rather the opposite, and she had apparently found quite a juicy sore spot to wheedle at.

"Well, it would probably help if you tried acting a bit more like one," she snapped, "And show some bloody gratitude for the hard work that's been done for you to get a decent meal, instead of moping about and trying to starve youself to death for some stupid, cubbish reason."

True, she had no idea why he was feeling down, but she didn't really care. Judging from his recent reaction, though, it was probably because he hadn't been treated as the adult he thought he was and as far as Skadi was concerned, that qualified as ridiculous.  

[Annchen]

Blota was really fed up with people telling him things that were sort of true, but worded in ways that made him look bad. And why couldn't this stubborn female just stop screwing around with him and leave him alone? Was it really too much to ask for? Skadi had just arrived and he was sick of her face already.

"Oh yeah," he yelled for lack of a better retort. His nostrils flared as he desperately tried to figure out something that'd shut her up, "Why should I eat when there are others starving? You know, actual cubs. You eat it if it was so difficult to catch it! You look awfully scrawny for a hunter."

Neither of them was acting very maturely right now, but if she wanted to pick a fight Blota wasn't going to back down. Had she been a bit nicer about it he might have gnawed a little on that stupid gazelle, just to please her, but since she wanted to be a b***h he wasn't going to play nice either.  

[Pearlyblue]

"Nnnf!" Skadi's frustration was really building up now. This little half-grown whiner was calling her scrawny? And he was still stubbornly refusing the food. Sure, her approach on the matter was probably not the smoothest, but why should she try to put her best paw forward and be all understanding and reasonable when he had clearly decided to be as dramatic and whiny as possible today?

"I am trying to feed a hungry cub," she growled. "In case you didn't notice. Do you think starving yourself is going to make anyone respect you more? Snap out of it!"

Skadi struck out towards Blota's head with an unclawed paw, not aiming to hurt but to startle the stubborn kid into submission already.  

[Annchen]

"Well, I'm not hungry," he said stubbornly, "And I'm not a cub so if you'd just..."

Unfortunately Blota did not even see it coming. He had never been hurt by another Mizimu lion, not for any reason, and didn't have the sense to avoid the strike. Skadi managed to get in a good hit that sent Blota's head spinning, more because he was unprepared than because of the force. It hurt his ego more than it hurt his cheek, but it did indeed make him "snap out of it".

"Fine," he mumbled, hunkered down in a submisive stance, "I'll eat it if it's so important to you."

He quickly picked up what was left of the gazelle and started to pad away from Skadi, without as much as a thanks. Hopefully she wouldn't follow, because he didn't feel like being hit for not eating quickly enough.  

[Pearlyblue]

Skadi just blinked as Blota deflated, taking all the fight in her with him. She hesitated to put her paw back down again, flexing it slightly as if to get a replay on just how hard she had hit him, anyway.

Pretty hard, hadn't she? Hard enough to cause an unconditional surrender. If it was her, she would have had to be hit pretty damn hard to achieve that effect. Why had she gone so far, anyway? He was smaller than her, younger than her, and a bloody sacrifice, to boot. Why had she let her temper run away with her like this? Just because she happened to have a bad day?

She slowly put the paw down, feeling her temperature rise most uncomfortably. Blota slunk off, defeated, taking the gazelle with him, and she pulled in a breath as if to call him back, but held it.

No, she would not apologize. He had had it coming, being so stubborn and ungrateful... and cubbishly dramatic. Starving himself, indeed... he should probably actually be grateful that she hadn't accepted his nonsense and made him eat. Okay, so she had been a bit rough about it, but it had done the trick, hadn't it? Could he really have been convinced otherwise?

She let the breath out with a frustrated huff and sent another glance after the retreating Sacrifice, before turning and padding off in the other direction. Let him feel hurt or whatever he was feeling - he was eating, and that was all she needed from him.

But her skin still tingled with embarrassment.