Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gliri waited almost anxiously for Muscar to depart on his hunting trip. She asked before he left how long he thought he'd be away and was somewhat relieved to hear him say that he expected to be gone all day. This was something new. She had always asked him how long he thought he would be away, but before a long trip had never really filled her with relief. It did now because it meant that she would have more time to spend with her new friend Shazidi.

Almost as soon as Muscar was out of sight, Gliri left the den through the hidden back exit and made her way toward where she and Shazidi had first met. Her paws carried her there with as much haste as would be seemly. She had first reached the place by running full-out until she could run no more, and she had not known how long it would take her to return home - in fact, she'd managed to get herself lost that first time and required Shazidi's help finding someplace famliar - but she now knew that the trek was somewhat longer if she wasn't running as though pursued by a pack of hyenas, and paced herself accordingly.

And the walk did seem long, as it always did. She theorized that anticipation lengthened it, but knew of no way to prove it. By comparison, the walk back to the den always passed very quickly. Life was odd in that way, she thought to herself, and continued to walk at a comfortable, ground-covering lope of the sort she and her brother used when they were relocating. Finally she reached the spot and sat down, her head turning this way and that to see if Shazidi was there or not.

There he was! Gliri couldn't believe she hadn't spotted him right away. Or, for that matter, that he hadn't seen her. It wasn't as though either of them were there for any other reason, but to see the other. She tried not to think about how she was definitely going against Muscar's wishes in continuing to meet with Shazidi. He'd tolerated it when he'd only known about it, but hadn't met the other lion. After that disastrous meeting, things hadn't been so cordial.

"Shazidi!" she called, picking up her pace and jogging toward him. Her mouth formed a pleased smile that she couldn't really dismiss.

"I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to come back here. I can't imagine what you must have been thinking," she said, beginning at once to explain herself. She felt guilty for sneaking away from the den and she felt guilty for causing Shazidi to come out here and wait for her daily. She was just one big, furry ball of guilt lately.

"I told Muscar I wouldn't go with him if he left, like we'd discussed. I still can't believe he believed me. But then for a while he insisted that I come hunting with him. He gave up on that though." She wasn't going to tell him that Muscar had given up on it because she either got sick or turned into a quivering mass of terror whenever she went. She really didn't like violence, and the idea that her brother could, conceivably, be on the receiving end was a miserable one for her.

"So. Here I am," she concluded, running out of breath. It was the most she'd said all at one time for several days.

"I don't know," Gliri admitted. "I know he wants to leave and, well, get me away from you. But at the same time I think he truly does believe that I would let him leave without me."

She looked down, her blue eyes focusing on the ground and the dirt. "I'm not really going to stay if he goes, Shazidi. I...can't. He's my brother, my twin. My other half. We need each other"

It broke Gliri's heart to say this to Shazidi, because she truly did love him in a way she had never thought she would love anyone. She had not thought she would ever need to love anyone like this. She had Muscar, after all. How had Muscar not been enough for her? How had this happened? At night, before she went to sleep, she would vacillate between wishing it had never happened and being glad that it had, but in truth she wasn't sure what she wanted.

"I'll stay as long as he does, and I'll do whatever I can - whatever I have to - to keep him here longer and see you, but when he goes, so go I." She had to make that clear, and if it meant the end, so be it. She had known this all along, really, but Shazidi proposing that she stay with his family had made it clear to her, as well.

Gliri's eyes remained fixed on the ground. She was not used to having frank conversations like this with people outside her family. Which meant Muscardini. Even while she and Shazidi had been glowing close, she had felt awkward having meaningful, heart-to-heart conversations and making confessions of her feelings. This wasn't quite the same. In this it was Shazidi who was confessing, and in truth she was no more comfortable this way than she would have been if their situations were reversed.

"What about your family? You were raised with a big family supporting you. I can't imagine you would get by without them." Gliri had not met his family, really, in a large part because the enormity of his family intimidated her, but she knew they were as important to him as Muscar was to her. Or she'd thought they were. He claimed to be willing to leave them for her, which was a humbling thought.

"Muscar really wouldn't like it if you came after us," she murmured. "But if we go, I'll try to make it so we're easy to follow." It wouldn't be enough, but there was no other option.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Gliri exclaimed, startling herself with her outburst, which was accompanied by the unusual action - for her - of flinging herself at Shazidi, burying her nose in the longer, thicker fur of his mane, pretending for half a moment that she could hide from reality in this way, just by closing her eyes and breathing his scent.

"I don't want to lose you. I can't remember being as happy as I am when I'm with you, and I'm afraid I'll forget in time." She wasn't sure how much of that he got since his mane muffled her voice, but it was easier to say these things when she wasn't looking at him and could pretend he wasn't looking at her.

"Just slow down," she repeated. Being near him like this, with her emotions running high from grief and stress and the general excitement of having sneaked away from the den and her brother, that was advice which she felt applied very well to her heart. Her heartbeat felt so loud and heavy she couldn't believe he couldn't feel it through their contact.

"Your mother is a wise lioness," she observed. "But I think I've said that before."

Returning to the familiar helped slow her racing heart and calm her distressed spirit. The thing was, she was now able to be more aware of the contact between herself and Shazidi, and how close they were, and could still be, if she would just let go of Muscar. If only she could. But she couldn't, in all truth.

"So we should try to be happy in the moment," she said slowly, taking a step backward so she could look at Shazidi. "While we still have moments together to be happy in. Right?"

Gliri forced herself to smile, returning Shazidi's beaming expression with a weaker version of the same. It was hard to pretend to be happy when she knew very well that this might be the last time they saw each other. But she was supposed to be living in the moment, and mourning the future was hardly that.

After a deep breath she said, "A walk would be nice. I think we should get a little farther away from where my brother might easily come upon us. I'm afraid I didn't do much to hide my tracks in coming here, and he is a very good tracker. If our situations were reversed, he'd find us easily." Which was one more reason why running away with Shazidi simply wouldn't work.

What she wanted to propose, she felt uncomfortable even speaking about. She would have to say it sometime, she supposed, given Shazidi's solicitousness and good manners, but she was not used to being in the position of being the aggressor. It could wait until they had walked a little.

What Shazidi accomplished by focusing on his surroundings, Gliri accomplished by focusing on him. It was just as well that he wasn't looking at her, because she would have felt very self-conscious about watching him so blatantly otherwise. She just wanted to drink in the sight of him and make as many memories as she could, even minute ones like the way his tail moved when he walked and the way his mane blew in the slight breeze. She would save them up for the future, so she could be sure not to forget him when Muscar moved on.

"There are worse things to be bad at," Gliri said, deliberately bumping his shoulder. Talking to people, for instance, and making assertions. There was something she desperately wanted to ask him, a favor of sorts, but it was just so awkward to have to ask. She should have been allowed to let the moment happen naturally and in its own time, but Muscar had taken that option from her.

"Shazidi," she said, looking fixedly at the ground and speaking wretchedly. "Will you. I mean. Oh, I can't even ask it. It's Just. Too. Forget I said anything."