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 Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:49 pm
 Mirsajadi's mother had lately been encouraging him to go out and meet other cubs in the pride. He didn't mind doing that, ordinarily, but today would not have been one of the days he chose to leave the den, had it been left up to him. The sun was beating down as if its intention was to roast every living thing below it and some rocky parts of the ground seemed to shimmer with reflected heat. Mirsajadi wanted nothing more than to go back into the shady den and lie there, just breathing, until nighttime.
But he had been told to go out and be social, and so that's what he would do. Even though the order had come from a banu. Even though there' weren't a great many other cubs out in the sun. A part of his mind wondered if he had somehow done something to make his mother angry at him, and if she was maybe trying to kill him off. It didn't seem very likely, but he couldn't imagine why else she would send him out into this disgusting heat.
He scowled at his surroundings, his dark ruby eyes flashing in the sunlight - the only part of him doing anything even remotely active. The rest of him was sprawled and panting softly, trying to melt into the ground.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 1:57 pm
"What're you doing?" came a voice seemingly out of the shadows of some rocks a little ways away. It was loud and high, the voice of a very young female who was being a tad nosy from a short distance away. Dafina's dark coat made being outside too hot, but she'd wanted to play, and had ended up finding some nice rocks and camping there till she found a playmate.  Stepping out of the shadows a bit more, one could see she wasn't too much older than Mirsajadi. Dafina's fur was a dark shade of blue-black, and her eyes were a ruby red. All in all, however, she seemed cheery and happy, despite the weather. "Do you wanna come over here? It's not so hot."
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:08 pm
Mirsajadi's eyes had been closing sleepily as he succumbed to the sun's relentless heat, but they snapped open and he looked up on hearing the high voice of a young female asking what had to be the most moronic question he'd heard in some time. Once he'd caught a glimpse of the dark-furred banu, he let his head fall back to the ground, as though the effort of holding it up was too great to bear.
"What am I doing?" he repeated, addressing the banu without actually taking the trouble to look at her. "What does it look like I'm doing, banu? I'm dying of sunstroke."
It didn't occur to him that she might be too young to recognize that he was being sarcastic. He had been born to this pride, and he could endure its weather as well as any other. The day just seemed abnormally hot, and the sun unusually radiant, and so Mirsajadi was feeling melodramatic. He was also feeling like a melted cub, but that was simply more melodrama.
"Coming over there would involve moving," Mirsajadi said, not incorrectly. "So I think I'll stay here, thanks. I'm sure I'm only minutes away from bursting into flame."
For a cub who was almost a juvenile, Mirsajadi had a very good grasp of sarcasm and wryness. It was something he had learned from his father, he liked to believe. Sometimes he didn't use it correctly, but most of the time he seemed to.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:15 pm
Dafina gave him a dirty look. Hey, he didn't have to be mean about it! "Fine, stay over there and be hot! Stupid pesar! It's nice and cool over here so nyeh!" truly a juvenile move to stick her tongue out at him, but the blue female was a tad too used to her father's amusement at her antics and being proved right over her brother.
Going back to her nice cool rocks, Dafina sat there, glaring at Mirsajadi because how dare that boy be so mean to her when she was just saying hello! Sarcasm was lost on her as everything seemed to be black and white - you were either stupid or you weren't. Not that she really knew what stupid was.
"I hope you DO burst into flame!"
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:32 pm
Mirsajadi missed the dirty look, and it was probably just as well. The striped cub had his father's strong feelings about how banus ought to behave around pesars and pads, and shooting them rebellious looks did not fall under the Acceptable Behavior category. However, the point was moot, as he was totally unaware of having been glared at.
He could not fail to miss, however, Dafina's words. He simply couldn't be bothered to sit up and look at her to respond to them, and so he missed that her tongue had been stuck out. Had he seen that, he probably would have found the necessary motivation to get to his feet and close the distance between them just so that he could take her tongue out. Or try to, at any rate.
"I can't believe it's any cooler over there," Mirsajadi pointed out, closing his eyes once more. It was too hot to get really angry over mere words. "But if you're so sure, I'm happy for you, I guess."
The thought of bursting into flame was briefly entertaining. He wondered if he would still feel hot, or if it would be like when he got wet all over, and he didn't notice that he was wet because the water all around him was wet, too, only with heat instead of dampness.
"If I burst into flame, I'll make sure to singe your whiskers right off," he threatened her. It probably wasn't too effective, since he showed no signs of moving, let alone becoming the first case of leonine spontaneous combustion.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:44 pm
Dafina was very lucky he hadn't seen the look or the tongue, because getting in a fight with a pesar - whether or not she could possibly win - would look TERRIBLE on her father, and then he'd be mad at her. And Daddy mad was scary! She'd seen it, of course, since he tended to get mad if Amjad caused trouble - but not as mad as he'd get at her if she got in a fight with a pesar. And given how the pride seemed to be, she'd be treated as wrong.
"It is cause it's dark and the sun can't hit me." Dafina told him calmly, "and the rocks would keep me safe from the fire - you're not big enough to get farther than them." Really, she should have just shut up and gone back to looking for someone to socialize with - someone who wasn't a jerk, anyway - but he'd gotten her mad and made Dafina feel stupid - and she wasn't! He was!
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 2:55 pm
Was there shade over there that he had somehow missed? That particular bit of information caught and held Mirsajadi's attention. He hauled himself up so that his weight was on his forequarters and he could actually look at the banu. She sounded so smug and sure of herself, he thought there was no way she could be lying to him about her spot.
When he turned his head in her direction he saw that she was, indeed, in the shade. Mirsajadi would have sworn that shade hadn't been there before. If it had been, he would have been occupying it, rather than her. It crossed his mind that things could still end up that way. He was a pesar, after all, and would be within his rights if he told her to move so that he could have the better place. It also occurred to him that she would probably argue with him about it, and conflict required too much effort.
"You'd better hope you're right," he said, looking directly at her. Her eyes, he noticed, were a more vibrant shade of red than his. "Because if I do burst into flame, and you're not right, I'm not only going to singe your whiskers, but I might just get your tail, too!"
Of course, he still wasn't moving as he uttered these threats, and in his mind he had already decided that he was playing with her, and wouldn't do it even if he did burst into flame, but he enjoyed playing these games. It amused him, and didn't require lots of energy or movement.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:01 pm
Dafina rolled her eyes, poking her head out a bit more again, "It's so cool back here, the flames couldn't even last." she told him. Well, that was an exaggeration but still! He couldn't singe her! And singeing a banu was probably against the rules anyway. At least the cub hoped so.
"It's not my fault you're grumpy cause you're hot. I was just tryin to be nice and invite you somewhere cooler, but you had to be mean to me." she told him with an annoyed pout. Boys were so weird and difficult!
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:49 pm
"That's not how fire works, stupid," Mirsajadi pointed out.
Actually, he didn't know how fire worked. He'd only seen it a very few times in his very short life, and he had no idea how it worked. He'd been warned that it was very hot and that it spread easily, and he knew some of the words associated with it, but he'd never gotten close. He'd honestly like to keep it that way, too. His mother had warned him that fire could be very dangerous, and even though mothers tended to worry too much about all the wrong things, he thought she might be right in this instance.
Mirsajadi was about to argue that she hadn't invited him anywhere when he recalled - dimly - that she had actually asked him if he'd like to join her. Time and heat being what they were, he had forgotten, and the memory felt like it had happened half a century ago, instead of only a few minutes before. Maybe he actually was getting a sunstroke.
"I wasn't being mean." That was an argument he felt confident making. "It's not my fault if you're a cry baby. I bet when you go home you're going to tell daddy all about the mean cub you met. Just make sure you tell him who I am, too. I'm Mirsajadi, son of Tariq'ra'd."
If she had any sense, she would recognize his father's name at least, and realize that she was talking to an important pesar.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:30 pm
"I wouldn't bother my Daddy with someone like youuuu." Dafina grumbled, rolling her eyes again. Since that was about the best way she knew to express any sort of frustration without getting violent. "You're the one who got all snippy cause I talked to you and you're hot, even if I was tryin to be nice. That iiiiis being mean!"
Sadly for her, she really didn't recognize the name at all, still being a bit young and barely allowed out of her mother's sight just yet. Speaking of whom, happened to be wandering over that way to round up her daughter right about then.
Kinaya spotted Mirsajadi first and nodded politely to him, "Hello Pesar Mirsajadi." she greeted cheerily, before looking around and spotting her daughter's blue mane tufts in the rocks. "There you are, I was looking for you." she told the cub, walking over and picking her up.
Dafina looked pouty about being picked up, but didn't say anything about the stupid boy. She wasn't a cry baby!
(Sorry if that's the improper way to address him XD Kinaya would know better but I do not so I went with what sounded appropriately respectful)
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:43 pm
"I don't think I've even heard of your father," Mirsajadi retorted. For him, that was one of the worst insults he could come up with. After all, he was so very proud of his own parentage. At least he was proud of his father.
"Hello, Banu," Mirsajadi smiled, taking extra care that his expression be as sweet and pleasant as possible. He wasn't usually one to bother trying to appeal to banus, who weren't worth his attention at all, but in this instance he felt just a little indebted to Kinaya - whose name he did not know - for removing her annoying offspring.
He continued to smile as the adult banu walked away, but when he caught Dafina's gaze his smile became a smug smirk. No one came after him and carried him off like some newborn. He was too grown up for that sort of treatment. His smirk said that he thought she was a baby. What it didn't say, because he was trying not to think it, was that he half-wished someone would come and carry him home, too. He was back to feeling too hot to move.
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