This was it.
Lately, Atesh had been feeling as though something was amiss, as though... he didn't stand out enough, that he wasn't special enough to be his father's son. And all he wanted--all he had ever wanted--was to make his parents proud.
This was it.
This was his chance to prove, as much to himself as to Azarax, that he was worthy of lineage, that his parent's courage and greatness had not been lost in him. He was going to find that lioness.
Getting lost was not particularly an area of concern for the striped lion. This was his home; these were his lands, and he had been wandering them almost since birth. He knew every dip and dune in the desert instinctively, and the mere idea of getting lost within the pride's lands was entirely foreign to him. Of course, that didn't apply for new lions. But that was okay. He would be there.
---
So. She was not lost.
Well, okay, no, she was, and the realization had set in some two days ago at this point, but—there was a but—she was not as lost as she had been before. She could have sworn she recognized that rock, the one she was… now sitting next to…
Mishaal sighed and shook her, glancing down in a futile attempt to placate her growling belly. The hunting trip that had started this mess had been a rather… necessary one, to say the least. She had been hungry then (why else would she have asked for directions anyway?) and hungrier she had grown in the last two days.
As it was, here she was, and what she was waiting for she wasn’t quite sure. Behind her was a was a makeshift shelter, half hole in the sand, half shelter under a strange, jutting rock that she had fashioned on the first night out in the desert, lost. The temperature had dropped to chilling degrees, and a hefty wind had whipped up at one point, forcing her to dig through the gale to find herself some shelter.
Thank the gods for the water. Although that, she supposed, could only be attributed to her god-given talents. She was quick to recognize a potentially life-saving situation when she saw one, and the little creek she had been camped out at for the past two days had, undoubtedly, saved her life, and she could only be grateful that she had had the wits to stay near the water, instead of strike out stubbornly into the desert. She would have ended up twice as lost if she had done that.
---
That the lioness had been lost for two days made tracking her altogether more difficult than it should have been. Any tracks she might have made had been swept away by the winds, and those same winds would have lifted away any scent she might have left in the sands. That he didn’t even know her scent was also a… problem, simply put.
Atesh was almost left scratching his head as he stood, surveying the dunes that stretched across his corner of the desert. It was a distant edge of the pride’s lands that he did not often frequent, and though he recognized the dunes, he didn’t know them nearly as well as he would have liked. If he had picked a spot closer to the main pride lands, he would have known the lay of the land better than the back of his paw. As it was though, good sense had told him to do otherwise. How likely was it that a lioness would have been lost for two days in the middle of the Simo lands?
The striped lion sighed. As the moments ticked by, his chance to shine seemed to be slipping ever farther away from him. The chance to show his father that yes, he was his father’s son. If Atesh had known that never had Azarax wanted any proof, the black lion would have felt much more at ease. Perhaps he wouldn’t even have volunteered for this expedition in the first place.
But he hadn’t, and he didn’t, and he had so he was determined to give it his all. If he was nearby, then damn it, he would find her and if not, then he would at least return to Ea and the rest of the trackers satisfied that he had combed every inch of the desert before giving up.
---
She was tempted to leave her little den. She could only stay there without for for so long, after all, and she didn’t suppose she should be under the impression that anybody was out looking for her. Or if they were, that they would find her. This was a desert, and landmarks were few and far between. What were the chances that anyone would figure out where she was?
Mishaal was new these lands, but she had figured out enough to know that the sands here shifted constantly, that nothing was ever still, nothing was ever the same. It was a land of change and rebirth, and it wasn’t going to wait for her or anyone else to find her.
She would have to take matters into her own hands.
That she had wasted two days was a shame in and of itself. She wasn’t about to waste any more precious time. In any case, she had to move. She had to find some sort of subsistence, or she would starve to death out here on her own.
The white lioness rose from her spot, padding down to the waterside to lap slowly at the water while her impending actions weighed against her mind. Then she lifted her head, and with one last wistful look at her makeshift den, she turned and padded off into the desert.
---
He had just about decided that that was it—that was the entire corner of the desert combed and searched—when something caught his eye. A little twig from the nearby skeleton of a tree that had once held life and now stood cold and shriveled amongst the endless sands lay half buried in the dunes. The dark lion’s bright eyes widened , and he stood, almost disbelieving. He wasn’t that lucky. He couldn’t be.
He padded closer, and with a paw, scraped lightly at the sand hugging the twig, unearthing it and leaning down to sniff. He took a long breath. There it was. A scent. It was faint. The twig must have been there a day or two by now, but it was a scent, and something within him told him that that was what he had been looking for.
Pulling the sand away, Atesh bent to study the twig. It was snapped in half and rolled toward the side. He frowned, tilted his head. Then he turned away from the stick’s point, and headed the other way. That had to be it.
---
The sand shifting beneath her paws was a feeling she had still yet to get used to. Mishaal paused midstep, and glanced back at the trail she had left in the ground, pawprints leading from her little shelter back at the waterside. Then, in the blink of an eye, a light wind had come and churned the sand, and the light prints were all but gone. The lioness sighed. With every step, her finding her way home seemed increasingly bleak, and now, the chances that she would find her way back to the shelter seemed to be disappearing before her eyes.
---
He had followed a roughly straight line leading away from the twig, and as he walked, he thought he saw signs. More signs, subtle as anything, that were becoming more and more obvious to him. And he followed them, based on nothing but instinct, until he had reached the little stretch of water almost at the very edge of the pride’s lands. It was almost as far as he had been from the center of the Simo territory, and yet, there was something… He drew closer. A… hole?
Squinting, the dark lion peered. Across the thin stretch of water, under a jutting rock, there was what appeared to be a hollow, dug into the sand. A shelter.
He crossed the river with a splash, his paws treading into the shallow water with ease, and inspected the area. The scent, the same one that had lingered faintly on the twig, was here. The smell was fresh, and strong—she must have been here for the past couple of days, and only decided to leave not long ago.
Atesh’s ears pricked. Signs, he needed signs! His eyes scanned the sands for clues as to where she had gone. And then he saw them, light pawprints that had almost been covered up by the wind and the sand, leading away from the little hollow.
---
Mishaal sat for a moment to rest her weakened legs. The lack of food was really beginning to take its toll on her, and she felt energy seeping from her. She just wanted to sleep, really. Sleep for a while and dream of prey and meet and freshly opened carcasses.
Anything was better than here. The loneliness she felt was indescribable. It enveloped her, and made her feel… so, so small. So insignificant, in the face of something somuch larger than she. And she was completely powerless to do anything to change it.
In that moment, she felt appreciation for the vastness of the world, of fate, of life itself. It was strange, this utter hopelessness that surrounded her.
---
Then he saw her. Distant, but her bright coat and unmistakable Firekin colors alerted the black lion and drew the attention of his bright eyes. There she was! He had found her? It was… he couldn’t quite believe himself. For all his talk, he had never actually imagined what it would be like to succeed. It felt… good.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, Atesh broke into a lope, covering the ground between himself and the lioness with ground-eating strides. He let out a low roar to alert her of his presence, a friendly one, that said he meant no harm.
---
A roar.
She must have been hallucinating. Hunger tended to do that to her.
But then, a frowned flickered across her brow and she turned, quizzically. Her dark eyes widened, brightened at the sight that they beheld. The shape of a dark lion making his way toward her. She didn’t think for a second that he might be out to harm her. All she could imagine was that this was her savior.
She broke into a lope to meet him halfway, having already decided that she wouldn’t allow herself to be seen in any more trouble. “I am Mishaal,” she greeted him. “Who are you?”
---
“Atesh,” The black lion replied, perhaps a little more gruffly than he had intended. He just… wasn’t all that used to talking to lionesses, and years spent training with rough and tumble soldiers had made him a little coarser than perhaps he would have liked.
“You’re the lioness that got lost?” He added, realizing that perhaps it would be wise to confirm her identity.
---
The lioness felt herself bristle, both at the way he had answered and at his question. Only moments after meeting and already he was seeking to discover her weaknesses. A brown-noser, this one, she decided. Not to be trusted. Even if he was her savior.
“If you insist.” She answered bluntly, refusing to elaborate. “Are you here to lead me back?” She added sarcastically, though perhaps she shouldn’t have been. If he decided to turn around and leave her standing in the dust, she would be lost, all over again.
---
“There’s a search party looking for you, you know,” Atesh said with a small frown, regarding her with his large, bright eyes. “Lots of lions involved. Taking time out of their busy days to look for you.” He studied her face carefully, wondering why she wasn’t more grateful that she had been found. For all she knew, they could have just left her out in the sands and let the desert do what it would with her.
---
“Well, gee thanks,” Mishaal said with a roll of her eyes. Though inwardly, she was grateful—more than grateful—that they had even bothered to come looking, she wasn’t about to admit it to this lion. “Only took one of you to find me didn’t it? Do you get to go back and claim your medal of honor now?”
She didn’t quite know what it was that was egging her on. Perhaps it was simply bitterness at her own incompetence and the fact that she had had to be found… and it wasn’t his fault anyway. He had only been looking out for her.
---
Atesh scowled. “You know, for a little lost lioness, you don’t seem so happy to be found.” He was losing his patience quickly enough. The walk back would take a while, and if he was to be accompanied by her… “Look, I don’t have any qualms about leaving you out here alone-“ he did, actually… because the whole point of finding her had been to prove himself and if he left without her then there was nothing to say that he had done what he had done “-so either you keep track of that witty mouth of yours, or you can stay out here and have fun waiting another two days for your next rescuer.”
---
Mishaal scoffed. “Oh, look at you, big strong Firekin lion, threatening the helpless lioness.” She spat. The lioness herself was in no way a small lion, but bulky black lion’s massive size still managed to dwarf her. There was something oddly enticing about his size, she realized, a certain capability and strength that came with being so big.
“I wouldn’t imagine you came out here with my best interests in mine in the first place. You might as well.”
---
“Look,” the black lion said finally with a shake of his head. “I came out here to find you, and I’m not leaving here without you, alright? If you’ve been gone for two days, you obviously don’t know your way back, so. You may as well just shut up and follow me.” He raised his brow meaningfully. She knew he was right.
---
The lioness paused, frowned, and regarded the lion curiously. So. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as she’d pegged him down to be. “Fine.” She said grudgingly, rising. Her stomach grumbled, and she was reminded suddenly of how hungry she really was. She’d have to follow him back, and find some food as soon as she could.
---
“Hungry too, huh?” Atesh noted dryly. No surprise there. He turned and padded back toward the pride’s main lands. At least she was well enough off, apart from being half starved, and that meant she wouldn’t have to bother Ea with needing to be doctored.
“We’ll get you some food then, alright? Come on.”
---
She trailed behind for a moment, a little smile on her face. He was a considerate one, she decided, if a little rough around the edges. There was a certain sparkle in those strangely bright eyes of his that tacitly relayed the care he held in his heart. He was a good one, this Atesh. One of the better ones.
/fin.
