Drudgingly, Kimatuli advanced across the grasslands. At first their lush greenery had cheered her, brought a smile to her tired face but not they merely mocked her. What’s the matter? They sung to her in shrill voices that the birds did not seem to notice. Her mind felt crowded inside her head and nothing she could do seemed to quiet it. The shaking in her legs had intensified as she walked, now it felt more and more like a leap with each step.
Algani had been watching the construct-like lioness for some time, fascinated by her loping weighted steps. There was something off about her, the dog knew that much, but she was not sure why or what exactly she was noticing most. The other was skinny, but her skin suggested she had not always been, it seemed to hang on her ill fitting, if such a thing were possible. She was not yet comfortable approaching, not knowing what sickness had driven this lioness so outside of normal behaviors, but she could not resist following her at a safe distance.
Safe, it seemed, was not quite far enough. Though Kima’s eyesight was awkward at times and her mind flooded, her ears remained quite acute. The dog was not trying very hard to mask her steps, and the lioness had known for some time that she was there. Finally, it felt a monumental feat to take one more step so she resigned herself to a rest, half collapsing into the tall grass. A beetle rolled its prize past her face, amusing in its commitment that no one should steal it. She smiled despite her exhaustion, but found that when she looked up the dog she had known was behind her was now rather close, peering into her face.
It had been too much to resist when she had stopped moving. Surely she was no longer dangerous, if she even had been. Algani was too curious for her own good sometimes, and seeing the lioness had collapsed, she had made her way to its body for a closer examination. Still alive, as it turned out. She startled when Kima breathed slowly in and out, and jumped back when one bright emerald eye rolled up to look at her. “Are you alright?” she asked cautiously, tilting her head to look around for any sort of injury. Seeing none, she took another step back. It was sickness then. She knew of that.
“I am old,” Kima told her, excusing the intrusion because she seemed to sense that it was in good faith, “Old and sick and tired of being so.” Her breathing was healthier now that she had eaten recently, but it still betrayed the progression of her illness. Not respiratory or wheezy, but distinctly weak. It was strange, the dog seemed to know already but had not fled as many tended to do, not knowing the meaning of a bloodline sickness.
Algani sat, flicking her white ear back and forth as she contemplated this new news. “Plague sick?” she asked hesitantly, unsure whether the answer she got would be truthful. She knew there were plague sick lions in the world and they were usually safe enough for her kind, but surely there were others as well that were not so safe. Her eyes showed a wisdom and compassion beyond her years as she looked closer at the lioness’s body, stretched and scarred with the troubles of life.
“No, not plague sick,” Kima told her softly, glancing up into her shimmering blue eyes, “Mesmerized, dazed, shaken, all these things and more together.” Her answers might have seemed scattered and useless to another, but this dog seemed to understand her on some level, even if only the shallow need to not be alone, to find out about and connect with others. She inhaled slowly, savoring the smell of the sweet grass roots.
Before she knew it Algani’s nose had joined Kima’s in the weeds, rustling about for the pungent scent that they gave off just before a new shoot sprouted. She was not sure why it pleased the other so, but she wanted to know firsthand. To her, it simply smelled like grass, useful and beautiful in its own right but hardly something one would desire so strongly. “What are you doing?” she asked politely, wrinkling her nose to stave off the itchiness when she pulled it from the grass.
“Contemplating the smell of green,” Kima told her, as if it were a perfectly logical thing to do, “This one is sweet. Yours is more… watery.” She nodded, closing her eyes lightly, “I like to think on the colors of things.” It was a reasonable thought for one who had never had much on themselves or the rest of their life. Even on the worst days she could depend on color to be there, easily comprehendible, reliable.
Algani frowned giving her shoulder a little sniff, “You mean I smell like I’ve been in water?” She wasn’t sure she understood the concept. Colors didn’t have smells of their own, they smelled like whatever they were on. The grass smelled like grass, she smelled like Algani. You wouldn’t say that a piece of meat smelled red, however red smelled.
“No, not like water, like the essence of it, the best,” Kima explained, her eyes clouded over and calm. Her head seemed too heavy for her neck as it bounced slightly on her paws. This was something she did not do nearly often enough, simply sit and think and experience. Perhaps it wasn’t the most usual experience but as she got older she found it was one she valued more and more. The nature of things, she had decided, was much more important than their present existence.
Algani seemed to relinquish, her tail wagging quietly in what she now saw as very curiously green grass. “What are you looking for?” she asked, ears pinned back against her head. As she spoke she caught the scent of the ocean breeze, and suddenly the concept made more sense. It was multidimensional, with almost a life of its own. “Is that the smell of blue?” she added, nodding her head in the direction the breeze had come from.
Kima felt her eyelids growing heavy again, and the dog’s words seemed to slosh about in her mind before they were fully comprehended. “Blue is pure, almost as nice as purple. I’d like to have some purple,” she whispered as her eyes fluttered shut. Her breathing condensed to a low whistle as she slipped into her dreams, dreams where colors were touchable and smelled just as they should.
Algani stood over the old lioness for a long time, thinking about her words. They were confusing, certainly, but they had conviction and she had never seen that before. Even in her frailty she had seemed so sure of what she was saying, what she believed to be true. Purple. She would bring her some purple, if only she knew where to get some. There were flowers maybe, or she could ask the birds if they had seen some. If anything was around, the birds probably knew about it. Nodding to herself that this was a suitable plan, the dog turned about and began to leave, looking back periodically to see that the lioness was still in that spot.
