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 Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:43 am
"Muscar, come here. You've got blood all over your face." Gliri laughed as she called to her brother, who had been thoroughly enjoying his dinner and in the process getting blood everywhere, from his chin to the edge of his mane.
Without waiting for him to obey her, Gliri stepped over her portion of his kill and went over to him. Standing across from him over his share, which was of equal size to hers in deference to her pregnancy, she began to groom his face with short, brisk strokes of her tongue. She could taste the coppery saline flavor of blood along with dust and Muscar's fur. Of the three, she preferred the first, but the other two were unavoidable. And it wasn't as if Muscar could lick his own forehead and cheeks and ears.
"Why do you have to be such a messy eater?" she asked. "I don't have blood all over my face and paws. I'm not licking your paws clean, by the way. You may be grateful for that."
When she was finished she stepped back to survey her results. Satisfied, she returned to her meal and very pointedly began to eat so that a minimum of blood ended up on her. Her muzzle, of course, would be bloody, but she would not need Muscar's help to clean that. With a grin she thought that maybe she should get pregnant more often - it got her the truly choice parts of the duiker. She had barely begun to show, of course. Later she might not be so flippant about it.
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Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:06 am
Muscar glanced at his sister without ceasing in his feeding. He was hungry. Duikers weren't enormous creatures, so bringing them down was easy enough, but they were damnably fast, which made catching up with them to bring them down pretty difficult. He'd worked hard for this meal, and he intended to enjoy it. If she didn't like how much mess he was making, she could come over and...oh.
"Augh," he said, protesting as her rough tongue rasped over his face, pulling on his fur and flesh. It didn't hurt, but he hadn't expected her to do it at all and being caught unprepared meant that she'd nearly ended up licking his eyeballs off. That would have been unpleasant for both of them.
"Is this some weird manifestation of maternal instinct? I am not your cub," he grumbled once she'd backed off. "As for being a messy eater, I am a fearsome lion who killed not one, but two duikers today and brought them both back for your consumptive pleasure, pregnant-butt. I think I have a right to eat with gusto."
He was teasing her. She would know that. Otherwise he'd hurt her feelings by implying that she was useless, which was hardly the case. Her contributions just weren't edible, which was unfortunate sometimes, but given her condition he wouldn't have allowed her to hunt anyway. It was enough for him that she keep herself hidden and safe while he was out hunting and told him stories when he came back.
"I'm not going to thank you for not licking my feet, by the way." He nudged his half of the duiker carcass with one paw, causing blood to spill over it, which gave him an idea. He sprang forward and slapped Gliri's shoulder lightly with his bloody paw, leaving an obvious paw print. "Hah!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 5:09 am
"I am so relieved that you're not my cub," Gliri replied. "Think about the implications there. I would have had to have sex with our father."
The thought made her shudder. It was just an instinct that told her family members who were so closely related ought not to create offspring. She, herself, had no real objections to romantic love between close relations, but only if they didn't choose to breed. She didn't know what would happen - maybe nothing - but she guessed it would be bad, and very wrong.
"And by the way, the fact that I don't want to see your face covered with blood has less to do with maternal instinct than it has with basic tenets of cleanliness. We both learned them, and I don't see why I'm the only one who follows them, regardless of your hunting prowess."
She made a jab in his direction with one paw before returning to eating. This sort of banter with her brother was fun, but it was important that she eat. After all, she was eating for her cubs now, and so she couldn't afford to skip meals or allow any food to go to waste. She would eat until she felt ready to burst, in order to make sure her cubs would not want for nutrients while they were in the womb.
Gliri's purpose was diverted, however, when her brother leapt at her and very deliberately marked her with one bloody paw. Her first instinct when she saw him leaping, even though she knew he was her brother and would never do anything to hurt her, was to cower, but he moved too fast and she was left cowering after the fact.
With a halfhearted hiss which was directed at both of them Gliri asked, "What, are we savages now, to mark ourselves with blood? Will we next dance around our kills and shriek to the gods?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:15 am
Whether it was out of obedience or whether it was just the way his mind worked, Muscar did give a thought to the implications of being Gliri's son. It was disturbing and uncomfortable to think such things. Neither he nor Gliri knew their father, but he wasn't sure if that made it worse or better.
With a sly grin he said, "You know, it's possible that this Al-Hattal you were with was our father. It's not as if we've ever met him."
He decided to ignore her jab about his practices when it came to grooming. He was a very clean lion, all things considered. He simply didn't feel like working to keep himself clean while he ate. He'd clean up later. It wasn't as though he planned to leave the blood there to dry, like some sort of permanent decoration. That would be barbaric. It would also attract flies. Muscar despised flies. Those nasty stinging, buzzing nuisances were the bane of his existence when he went out hunting. It was nearly impossible to keep the requisite stillness with flies biting at him.
But for some reason what his sister said about savages marking themselves with blood and dancing around the kill sounded like an appealing activity for the evening. He really was very proud of the day's hunt, and if he wasn't quite foolish enough to shriek it to the gods, he wouldn't say no to the rest of all that, even though he knew Gliri had spoken mostly in jest.
"Why not? Is this not a fine kill? And do we not live outside of any pride, and thus any rules of behavior? Therefore, may we not dance as we wish and decorate ourselves with the blood of our prey?" He was unaware of the manic expression he wore, but suddenly he was full of energy and eager for a bit of savagery in good fun.
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:37 am
Gliri's look at her brother's suggestion was horrified. "He couldn't have been our father, Muscar," she said, trying to reassure herself. "There's just no way. No way at all."
Al-Hattal was older than she, but was he that much older? Her mind scrambled for details of their brief acquaintance, but mostly what she remembered was his strength and vigor and how he had met her needs and exceeded her expectations for what her first time would be like. He couldn't have been her father, though. He looked nothing like herself or Muscar, and his eyes were dark. Since their mother's eyes weren't blue, their father's eyes had to be.
Gliri was glad to be distracted by her brother's odd mood. So he wanted to play at being savages, did he? She glanced at her unfinished meal. She was definitely going to eat as much as she could, but the idea of joining Muscar's game was appealing. She would, after all, have to learn to play if she was to be a good mother, and maybe this kind of game would be all right for her to play, unlike hunting and fighting games.
"It is a fine kill," she said, feigning reluctance to granting him acknowledgment. "And we aren't bound by any specific pridal rules as far as I know."
She hesitated, deliberately dragging out her decision, even though she knew she would give in and at least give his game a try. It might turn out to be too boisterous or frightening for her, but she hoped it would not. She waited a little longer before adding, "And I do like to dance."
With a very small nod, which was all the warning Muscar would get, she dipped one paw into her duiker's bloody guts and swatted him on the cheek. Her claws were retracted, and she didn't hit him hard enough for it to hurt. She just wanted to surprise him.
"That's meant to be a mark of prowess," she told him.
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 10:05 am
Muscar laughed at his sister's dismay. Neither of them had ever given much to thought to the identity of their father, and he, at least, had not been one of those who regarded all males of a certain age with curiosity, wondering if he might be the one. He doubted Gliri had ever done that sort of thing, either. Mostly she tended to hide from strange males. She tended to hide from strangers in general, actually.
"Gliri, I was only joking. I really don't think there's any chance he's our father."
He was still grinning, though, at how distressed Gliri had been at the thought. He wished she'd do a little more thinking about how they would handle having cubs. It wasn't something he could prepare for all on his own, after all. Both of them would have to work pretty hard at it, and there was a lot of planning to do that Gliri had not yet begun to consider, as far as he could tell.
His concerns about the future dissolved in good spirits, however, as Gliri gave some thought to the fiction he had proposed. She hadn't often liked to play games of pretend as a cub because so many of them were violent or rough and she disliked violence and roughness. She did tell wonderful stories to make up for it, but it wasn't quite the same. He couldn't believe she was even considering going along with his idea, and waiting for her to make up her mind was torture, as she probably meant it to be.
He was nearly positive she would go along with it when she admitted that she liked to dance, which he already knew, but he was still taken by surprise when one paw suddenly flashed toward him and marked his face with blood. The rapidity of it all shocked him, particularly given how close to violence the action was, but by her hesitant tone when she explained herself he realized she wasn't sure she'd done the right thing.
"So it is," he agreed. "The one I gave you means that you're pregnant."
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 9:13 am
Gliri smiled hesitantly. The game was unfamiliar and not the sort she was used to playing, and she hadn't been sure she'd been playing right. Muscar's acceptance, however, seemed to indicate that she was getting it right. Usually she was the creative one in the family, but that was not because Muscar was incapable of creativity. Rather, he preferred to let her exercise her creativity more often because they both knew it made her feel like she was actually contributing to their way of life, rather than simply leeching off of Muscar.
"That's the best you could come up with?" she asked. "I would have thought pregnancy might be marked, oh I don't know, closer to my belly?"
Even as she teased her twin, however, Gliri was making ready to give him another, different marking, thinking that she could do more than simply leave paw prints. Maybe she could actually make designs with the blood. A few of the people they'd met in their travels had used paints to make deliberate designs and shapes on their coats. Blood could surely be used in much the same way, could it not?
"Hold still. This one's trickier. It means that you're a twin. You'll have to make the same mark on me, in the same place, so pay attention."
Using two toes she began to draw a curved line on Muscar's upper right leg. Then she drew the same line, reflected over a vertical axis and crossing the first. Beneath them she drew a rising sun. It was far more challenging that she had expected, and the lines weren't exactly the shape she'd meant them to be. Muscar might have a difficult time copying them. But then, maybe he wouldn't. She's just have to wait and see, she decided.
"What do we do when we're finished with the markings?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 9:42 am
"These markings were passed down through generations. Are you going to argue with generations of tradition and lore?" Muscar asked, feigning horror and indignation. "Or do you think you know more than our ancestors?"
Warming to the game, he went on. "They decreed that pregnancy should be marked on the shoulder so that enemies would not be immediately apprised of it, and thus would know know at once which among our people were the most valuable."
He'd almost said vulnerable, but he shied away from the term just in time. He didn't want Gliri to think of herself as vulnerable and tried not to bring it up in conversation. She saw herself that way, but he knew she could be brave. There had to be at least a glimmer of bravery somewhere within her, or else she wouldn't be able to function as she did. Certainly she wouldn't have been able to get herself impregnated.
"Twins, eh? You know it's kind of difficult to see what you're doing around my mane, right?" His mane was a source of pride for him. It had come in early, much to his delight, and was now full and thick, and had worked to his advantage on numerous occasions. It did have some disadvantages, however, and this was one of them.
As he stared down at his leg he thought that he shouldn't have much difficulty replicating Gliri's design and as soon as she had finished he eagerly wet his toes with blood and went to work on her. It was a different sort of fine motor control than he was accustomed to, and his lines were a bit shaky. It was also difficult to know how much pressure to apply. In the end, however, his efforts produced something more or less like what Gliri had drawn.
"After we've marked each other, declaring what we are, we dance of course!" He leaped backward and began to engage in what he thought of as dancing.
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 10:04 am
"Well, I wouldn't want to argue with all that tradition," Gliri said lightly.
She didn't mind pretending that they had a long family history, one that they actually knew about and could trace. Gliri didn't even know their mother's name, after all. She'd only been Mother for the time they'd been together and after that, well, she hadn't been around to be called by any name. That one time she returned briefly to say that they wouldn't see her anymore, she did not speak her name. It was a pleasant fiction, therefore, to pretend that she and Muscar had a family with traditions and the like.
It hadn't actually occurred to her that Muscar might have difficulty seeing what she was drawing on him, since she didn't have to habitually contend with a mane and make whatever necessary adjustments Muscar constantly made for having one. She also didn't think about the fact that she'd forced Muscar to recreate her design rightside up after having only seen it upside down. That being the case, she was amazed he duplicated the pattern as well as he did.
"It looks very good," she complimented him. In the back of her mind a voice reminded her that she would have to lick all this off at some point, and that she'd also have to get the mark she left on Muscar's face, since he couldn't lick that part of himself, and she grimaced at how well she'd done making more work for herself.
Her grimace faded rapidly when she saw Muscar 'dancing.' Her brother had not much in the way of technique, but he made up for that with enthusiasm and athleticism. Gliri was not like him when she danced. She tended to make patterns, varying them and building on them as she danced so that it was an exercise in memory as well as physical ability. She joined him, however, dancing her dance while he danced his and smiling at him fondly.
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 10:57 am
Muscardini leapt and bounded gleefully, twisting his body into all sorts of shapes which would baffle a human contortionist. His tail swung about wildly and his paws occasionally flailed. His mane flew all about him in a tangle which made him look completely wild as he roared to announce to any within hearing range that he was a mighty hunter. The sound reverberated and echoed, coming back to his ears as an even greater sound than when it had begun.
He could see Gliri dancing her careful, graceful patterns. Ordinarily he liked to watch her dancing like that because it was so graceful looking, but in this instance he was living in his own joy. He could not perform her kind of dance, for its finicky patterns and repetitions with their minute variations tripped him up, which had never bothered him. It was something Gliri did well and he appreciated well.
He wondered how she appreciated his dancing. Probably she thought he looked like a buffoon. He probably did, but he wasn't going to let a little thing like dignity spoil his evening. Life was too short to be dignified all the time. He was certain Gliri would say as much to him if he could give her the right conversational in. That is, he knew she would agree with the sentiment if he said it aloud, but he was too breathless for speech.
It didn't take too much longer for him to drop in a weary heap.
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 7:18 pm
Gliri's energy didn't last much longer than Muscar's for all that her dance was less boisterous and outwardly energetic. Containing as much energy as she did while managing to convey as much as she did in her dance was as tiring as what he did, and required a great deal more control, she felt. His dancing looked like it was fun, but she knew she'd probably hurt herself if she tried it. She'd stick with her kind of dancing.
When she tired, she made her way back to her unfinished meal and sank into a crouch, looking at the shapeless form which was her brother in a collapse. Such a fierce and brave protector, Muscar was. She smiled to herself and then twisted to lick at the blood on her shoulder. She didn't want it to dry there and make her fur stiff and gross. As it was, the blood was tacky and difficult to remove, even with her barbed tongue. The stuff on her leg would be easier, she guessed, but she wouldn't work on it until she finished with her 'pregnancy mark'.
As she finished with the markings Muscar had given her, Gliri realized she'd have to help him with the marking she'd put over his eyes. His tongue couldn't reach there, and if he tried to rub it off with his paw he'd only succeed in getting blood in his mane. However, given his reaction to unsolicited help, she wouldn't do anything about it unless he asked. In the meantime, she would go back to her dinner. It was important that she eat as much as she could stomach.
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 8:22 pm
Slowly Muscar dragged himself to his feet and shambled back to his meal. Unlike his sister, who had been stuffing herself to the point of nearly being ill at every meal, he took only a few more bites of his duiker. He reasoned that what he ate now was sufficient to restore the energy he'd expended in their charade.
He could not stop smiling as he ate. He was very pleased with how this day had gone, and he felt entitled to some basking in his success. In deference to Gliri, he made an effort not to make too much of a mess, in spite of his delight. As it was, she was going to have to help him remove the marks on his face. He didn't need to give her more work. Not that it's really work to groom, but just the same, he could spare her a little effort.
"That was fun," he said after he'd finished eating. Gliri was still eating, and not paying him too much attention, but he guessed she'd hear him anyway. "I'm going to sleep, though. I'm beat."
So saying, he stood up and strode a short distance away. He wouldn't sleep, really, until he was sure his sister was asleep and safe. He also knew she would follow him shortly. She didn't like to be alone, particularly in the evening.
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