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 Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 7:45 pm
Konje really didn't do a lot of late night training sessions. Mostly because he liked to use the night for hunting and sleeping. However, he'd recently made a large kill and thus wasn't in need of any more food, leaving those hours where he felt at his most active completely empty. So why not do a bit of fitness training before bed?
This night, he decided to train his back legs, sitting himself upright on a flat-topped rock he'd spend a good hour searching for. Once seated, he pushed himself up on his back feet, standing awkwardly as he attempted not to lose his balance and topple off the rock into the mud that surrounded it.
Awesome, he was managing it. Tail sticking straight out to help with his balance, he smiled. How long he would stay in such a strange position would depend simply on how much strength his legs had in them.
Sekuda did not like night time. Not only was she terrified of the multitude of shadows and dark places, but she couldn't see a single thing. So why was she out at this time? Because she still hadn't found a place to sleep for the night, and as tired as she was, the leopardess wasn't about to just drop anywhere in the savannah to sleep.
It wasn't totally dark outside, yet. It was getting there quickly and that reflected her almost-jogging pace as Sekuda looked around the area for a suitable den. And, as she was trotting around, she came across a very strange figure on top of a rock. At first, she thought it was a tree in the distance that looked like it was on top of a rock (since she came close to it at an angle and wasn't near enough to see the definition of a lion between leopard and rock).
So she walked up close to it to see, and once she got there, was surprised to see a leopard doing the strangest thing she had ever seen.
Ears flicking, Konje turned his head, spotting someone watching him from a distance. With the growing darkness and his eyes needing just a bit more time to adjust, he couldn't tell if it was a male or a female. He was able to see two things, though. It was a leopard, for one, and it was a very lightly pelted one too. Aside from that, he could only stare and wait to see if it came closer.
It did: it was a lady.
Smiling, Konje didn't get down off the rock, keeping his position there as he watched the other come towards him. "Hi!" he hummed, "is this your rock? I don't mean to steal it from you... I was just using it for my training!" She would understand the importance in that, right?
Startled, Sekuda shook her head a few times. And then she realized that he couldn't really see the movement because it was getting so dark out.
"N-no," she replied quietly. "That's not my rock." Training? Whatever for? Leopards walked on four legs. Sure, they climbed trees with two at a time sometimes (depending on the tree), but mostly, four was the rule.
"What are you training for, if I may ask?" Now curiosity was overcoming her instincts to simply nod and move on, try to find shelter before it got too late to see anything...and then she'd be really out of luck.
"Well good!" Not that any other leopard had more claim to a rock than he did, really, but he liked to be certain of things. Some leopards seemed to be very picky about letting others use the same things they liked to use, even if it couldn't possibly belong to them.
So strange to cling to things like that!
"For? What for?" the male repeated, "well... for anything! Whenever someone wants to challenge me, I have to be ready! So I'm making sure my back legs are strong, not to mention that I keep good balance! It's all really important. Would you like to try?" He asked suddenly, grinning. He loved training so much- why not share the fun?
The pink and white leopardess blinked, tilting her head to the side slightly, and smiled a bit. So he was one of those types, that liked to be ready for anything. And she had to admit, she was curious as to how this 'training' worked.
"Sure, I guess," she answered, eyeing the rock. "Is there enough room on there for me, too?" She could always do it on the ground. She wasn't sure why he was on a particular rock for the training.
"You can use it!" He said, springing down from his perch to give her plenty of room to climb up, "you should be careful though! It's not as easy as it looks." Actually, it was pretty easy. Especially if you didn't do it for very long. Really, it was the kind of thing that wore you out more than anything else.
Sitting down on the dirt, he tilted his head to one side, watching her a moment.
"Balance is the key! Use your tail to keep yourself even." He didn't want her to fall off. It would probably hurt her, and that would be his fault entirely.
Oh, well. Sekuda thought they'd share the space, but she could use the whole rock. That worked too.
Carefully, she climbed up and tried to find the best spot to sit and copy his stance. She found a good one and sat on her hind legs. Slowly, very slowly, she lifted her front paws off the ground and tried to balance. This was all very new to her; she was even surprised at herself when she climbed onto the rock to try something new and different.
She wouldn't have, before...
Sekuda shook the thought from her mind, physically, but the extra movement was her undoing. One moment she was perched on her hind legs, front paws out in the air with her tail out helping her balance, and the next moment the world was moving again as she started to fall backwards.
For a moment, he had been impressed with her. She had managed to get onto her back legs without swaying around too much at all. It had been more graceful than when he first started doing it, that was for sure. But then she seemed to falter. Maybe a bug had gotten in her face?
"Oh watch out!" He yelped, running around the rock to try and catch her. But he wasn't on his hind legs anymore- he didn't have free limbs. Even if he had, what could he have done to keep her from falling? Push her the other way? He made it just in time to have her land on top of him, giving a half-laugh, half-grunt and he toppled over with her into the mud. The rock wasn't too far from a water hole, making the ground around the moist and squishy. All the better to land on, but not if you wanted to keep yourself clean.
"Are you alright?" he asked from under her, his voice a bit muffled since his mouth happened to be under the mud at the time he spoke.
The squish and the soft, wetness of the mud was a sharp wake-up call to the dazed feeling Sekuda had been in while she had fallen. She realized that the stranger had caught her, actually softened her fall into already soft-mud (which was horribly sticky and dirty and yuck), and she had actually been doing well before her mind started to wander.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she whimpered, rushing to pull herself up and off her savior. How embarrassing! "Are you okay? I'm so sorry," she repeated, trying to help him up out of the mud. "You were being so nice by letting me practice too, and I just lost myself and fell. I'm sorry!"
While it was lucky that there was mud there to soften their landing, what was even luckier was that the actual watering hold that made the dirt so mushy was close enough for them both to take a decent bath. At least, to clean themselves off enough to look more presentable. But she frowned in worry still at her accident.
Pulling his face out of the mud, he looked up at the female, grinning from ar to ear, exposing white teeth through thick brown mud. "I'm fine!" he chuckled, getting himself up into a sitting position, "I just thought you might be upset with me if I let you fall... since I was the one who said you should do it and all, I didn't want you to get hurt cause of me."
He laughed, enjoying the cool mud against his fur. Keeping clean wasn't so important to him. "You don't have to apologize! I should be the one who's sorry- maybe I should have talked about it more... explained it better. I'm not really very good at teaching..."
Much better at doing.
"So you got lost in thought? Well, I do that. No big deal! Why don't we go clean up now? I like wet mud, but dry mud isn't that great."
Sekuda was incredibly lucky that he was taking this so well; after all, if it had been a different feline, she could have very well been yelled at or worse. But he was kind, and she smiled a little at his apology.
"Okay." She tried to chuck off mud, or as most as she could, before they got to the water, but the substance was being stubbornly sticky and wouldn't come off. She sighed and began to walk towards the water, sinking a little with each step. It made her giggle a bit.
"Oh, I'm Sekuda by the way. It's nice to meet you, even if I did make you get covered in mud," she teased a little, a rare glimmer of laughter in her eyes.
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Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 7:47 pm
"My name is Konje!" He hummed lightly.
Moving into the water after her, he chuckled at the thought of what had just happened. Good thing that hadn't been a contest. He was pretty sure that he failed that one. Saving someone. Apparently he needed more practice in that department.
But how was he supposed to train in an area like that? Running around looking for animals who needed help with something? It didn't seem like the best idea in the world, really.
"It's really nice to meet you, and I promise I won't let you fall again!" He put his face in the water, shaking it around to clean off some of the water.
She followed him into the water and daintily wiggled her legs in the water to shake off the disgusting mud. Thankfully, she didn't get any on her face, but it did reach almost to her shoulders. So she had no choice but to wade in entirely, and swim around until she was all clean again.
Sekuda dragged herself out and shook the water off her fur on the opposite edge of the water, so as not to spray him.
"Well, if you promise that, then I suppose I'm up to trying it again," she admitted. She did feel better knowing that he was there in case she fell, and she was eager to try again. If only to say she could do it.
Pulling his head out from under the water, he grinned wildly. His ears had been above the surface, so he hadn't missed what she had been saying to him. "Really? Great! Then we should go back!" Though if they fell in the mud again it would be another trip to the watering hole to get clean. Not that it was an entirely bad thing, of course.
He went under the water for a moment, cleaning himself off the best he could without taking too much time doing it. They had more training to do, after all. After a moment, he surface, a new thought presenting a reason to frown.
"But... it's getting dark now. Maybe it would be better for you to find a place to sleep? It's hard to find a den or tree in the darkness. Unless you already have a place, of course!"
She couldn't believe she had forgotten about the dark. Suddenly, she was frightened again, and she unconsciously edged closer to him, the only thing she was beginning to be able to see well enough in the darkness.
"Y-yes, that's very true," Sekuda replied, glancing around the area. A tree would be nice; she forgot about that option. "No, I haven't found a place yet. I really should."
Konje wasn't about to move away- she looked like she needed the comfort so he kept himself close to her, frowning as he looked around. It really had gotten quite dark. Where had the time gone? Between the new meet and the falling face-first into the mud, he couldn't recall what had happened to the time.
"Well, I can help you look! I'm sure there are plenty of spots to sleep in around here!" He didn't know for sure, he didn't actually live around the area. Normally he found a tree for himself and that was the end of it. Shouldn't be hard to do that for someone else, right?
"Let's go," he said warmly, "we'll find the perfect spot for you."
Sekuda was incredibly thankful that he didn't leave her; instead he seemed sympathetic to her problem and kindly offered to help her. At first she was wary; but she remembered how he had acted towards her since they met, and she was put more at ease.
"Thank you," she replied, the appreciation clear in her voice. "I'm just..." she tried to explain. "I'm terrified of the dark. I know it's childish, but it scares me." She chuckled weakly. "It's not nearly as bad when I'm with someone else, but most of the time, that's rare."
Her eyes gave a weak sweep of their surroundings again. There were a few trees close by, but she didn't know if they were big or strong enough to support her weight. And what about him?
"What about you? Do you already have a place to stay, as well?"
"It's not childish!" Konje replied, "fears are a part everybody. You wouldn't be sane if you didn't have at least one fear! I like fears- they're challenges. Challenges that are really hard to over-come. But it's worth it if you CAN over-come them!" He had his own fears, though the dark wasn't one of them. "You should find someone to travel with! That way you might be able to over come your challenge with someone to help you out."
He moved towards the trees, directing her to the spot he had pin pointed for himself for the night. It was a small price to pay to make sure she was comfortable. Anyway, he could find another place to sleep- wasn't like he was scared of the dark.
"Nah, I usually train a while longer before I look for a spot," he fibbed, "what about this tree? It looks nice and strong!" He knew it was because he had tested it out already- the sneak.
That was...an odd, different way to look at fears, she thought, following him and trusting him to lead her to a decent sleeping perch for the night. She would have a companion, if she met more than one creature every couple of weeks or so. It was surprisingly tough. She hoped to find one, though, one day.
The tree he picked out did look nice and strong, and she smiled at him through the darkness.
"It looks perfect. Thank you very much for your kindness."
"No trouble at all! I'll sit here under the tree for a while. Just to make sure there's nothing to be scared of, okay?" Until she fell asleep, he imagined. He didn't want to just leave when she said she was scared. It would be really unlike a hero, something he already needed to work on being.
It made perfect sense in his mind to stick around. It was practice for him, in a way, and he could make sure she didn't have to worry about anything. He sat himself down near the trunk of the tree, his tail beating against the ground lightly as he smiled.
"It was nice meeting you," he added, since he wasn't so he would be there in the morning to say it then.
She could almost cry with happiness at how nice he was being to her. Nodding, the leopardess ascended the tree and picked a strong branch to hold her weight. It wasn't the first time she had slept in a tree, being a leopard and all, so she wasn't scared of falling off.
"It was nice to meet you, as well." She paused, processing what she was about to say before she said it. She could take it back before, but after it left her mouth, there was no going back.
"If..if you haven't found another spot to sleep after you finish your training," she was still unused to the concept, "you're welcome to come back here if you'd like. This tree has other sturdy branches; I'm sure it wouldn't mind sheltering two leopards tonight."
Konje appreciated the gesture, smiling and nodding. "Well I just might!" He wouldn't want to disturb her if she was sleeping, though, so he would have to make sure he practiced his sneaking. Ninja-skills were pretty common for most leopards, so he wasn't too worried about that.
Settled beneath the tree, he made sure to keep watch for anything that might be harmful, even confronting bugs that happened to float too close to the tree.
This was his place to protect, darnit. He wasn't going to mess it up. While he didn't stay on the ground the whole time, he did remain near his new friend, eventually climbing up in the tree to join her.
Sekuda smiled, glad he accepted the next outreach of friendship she had offered. Making a new friend was never a bad thing; it was the least she could do after he was so kind.
She murmured a soft good night, and promptly fell asleep on her branch. The day--a ton of walking plus a new exercise to practice in, or rather, train in--had worn her out, and soon she was dead to the world in a deep sleep. She didn't notice when Konje climbed into the tree as well, but she trusted him enough to sleep with him close by. And trust was the beginings of a friendship.
FIN
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