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 Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:06 pm
At that moment, Li was about chest deep in a bowl shaped whole, dirt and dust making her white look like tan. Even her grey mud markings seemed to be coated, though if she looked for them she could see the difference in color on her legs. She would have to do some vigorous grooming tonight, boy. It'd take her at least an hour. But! Right now that wasn't the focus. She directed her energy back to her digging and searching, though what for she hadn't really figured yet.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:19 pm
Since coming to his senses about his family and making a new friend, Manuku had cheered up considerably. He was still a little awkward with his daughters and grand cubs but most of that was guilt now. He did his best not to let it show, there were only so many times you could be told not to feel so bad before you started feeling guilty about worrying someone enough that they had to keep saying it.
"No, seriously," he said, "Twenty-one siblings, twenty-seven counting step-siblings. And you can just imagine how big it gets once they all start having kids- and a bunch of them have, just not all of them are here." Manuku and Marini were talking about their families. Marini had met Hamamu and thought it was hilarious that Manny was a grandfather even though he wasn't that much older than she was. She had a large family, but was impressed by how large his immediate family was. Even with a whole bunch of them not living in the Pridelands.
"My parents only have five," she said emphatically, "I suppose it wasn't that bad with just Pya but the four of us when I was little was a lot. I had a hard time ditching my brothers and there were only two of them, you must not have gotten much alone time."
Neither of them were paying too much attention to where they were walking, they were just happy to walk and talk.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:31 pm
A full morning and part of the day's worth of digging had finally been fruitful. She had found it. Beneath her paws was a bone. Specifically, it was a leg bone from a young-ish antelope that had probably met it's demise by some Pridelander a while back, and it's skeleton had since then been spread around by anything that got it's hands on it. Liyana was completely oblivious to all of this, of course, being so young and unknowledged about the passage of time and what a clean bone looked like. She was of course eating meat these days, but she rarely saw something picked so clean as this. She was absolutely enthralled. "Wooow." She stared wide-eyed at it for a few moments, and then scooped down her little head to try and lift it. Considering her small stature and the fact that it was a leg bone, she managed to just barely get it out of the hole.
Once she had worked it up the side, she set to work chewing. All of the marrow had been sucked out already, to her dismay, but it was still quite a find in her mind. She'd never seen such a bone, and after all, she'd been looking all day for it. She was just about to turn it over, having one end of it in her mouth and one end leaning on the ground, when she spotted two lions walking her way. They seemed to be peacefully conversing and not at all paying attention to her. She was happy to let it stay that way until she caught sight of the lion. The bone hit the ground. She stared obviously at him, her jaw slack and eyes wider than they had been when she'd found her shiny new toy. By gosh, that boy was familiar. If he'd been a she, she could've easily yelled out Mama and expected it to be Intombi herself.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:47 pm
"Not really, but I didn't want much. I liked being in the middle of all the chaos, that's probably why I still hang around home so much, dad has three cubs again, Enzi has six..."
"Your daughters have one each," Marini cut in with a stifled giggle.
"And them," Manny mumbled, but it wasn't nearly as enthusiastic or amused. He looked away from Marini and suddenly his eyes were on the little one ahead of them-- and she was staring at them, looking stunned. He might not have given it a second thought but he knew they weren't really central now, she could have sneaked far out from home and been caught now.. or maybe she was a rogue, but out here alone was odd.
"Wha-"
Marini had noticed that Manny was looking at something and looked ahead herself. She thought similar things but didn't seem as put off by it. She was still walking normally when Manny had suddenly hesitated and come to a stop with a confused look on his face. The pale lioness stopped a few steps past Manny, looking back at him and tilting her head.
"Manny?"
She looked back at the little lioness but she didn't understand why they were .. having a staring contest?
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:22 pm
Liyana couldn't get anything out for a few moments. She couldn't even hardly thing. One single thought was burned into her brain, straight ahead of anything that might've tried to fly by it. This lion was the spitting image of Intombi. And at this distance, the blue color he had looked as if it could be shared with her. She blinked a couple times, changed her staring glance at the lioness. With her jaw still slack, she gave the other female a once over, and then returned to staring at her mother's clone. She racked her brain for any mention of family members outside of her litter, any inkling that could explain this insane likeness to her own bloodline.
Her young mind and lack of knowledge of her mother's family (and previous lack of curiosity, for that matter) couldn't make the necessary jump to give her this Pridelander's identity. She kept her gaze boldly steady. "WHO are you?" There was accusation in her voice, but also a slight shakiness. She'd never raised her voice to a male adult lion before. It wasn't so much that she was worried about the consequences as that she was unsure of where she stood here in a pride's territory. But just look at him!
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:32 pm
The first thought that went through Manuku's head was how much like Zi the little lioness looked. And the conversation he'd had with his brother about family and cubs ran through his mind. It didn't make any sense. It couldn't be Zi. But.. she looked so much like him- him and, well, mom. She did start staring first, it couldn't be coincidence that she looked like family and stared at him with the same kind of confusion.
Her bold voice startled him, he wasn't expecting it- and he couldn't find his voice fast enough.
"His name's Manuku."
Marini had gotten in a good glance back and forth between the pair of them and decided to jump right on in. She wasn't so dense as to not notice the tension and confusion but she didn't seem to particularly notice the personal nature of it. She still hadn't made the connection between them, not really. She did notice they had similar blue but blue was hardly uncommon.
She didn't seem to have anything else to say, though, once she answered for her friend.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:41 pm
Manuku. Maaanuuukuuu. Nope, that was not ringing any bells. She tilted her head and squinted her eyes, questioning the validity of the name and the situation. She'd seen plenty of lions from afar. She'd usually kept to just talking to her siblings and her parents. However... This had to be investigated. Suddenly remembering her long searched for prize, she put a protective paw over her bone and continued to squint. She turned her questioning blue eyes onto the lioness. This one shared no resemblance with anyone she knew and was therefore easier to digest talking to. Plus, she'd been the one to answer.
"And who are you?" She certainly was full of questions today. But really. LOOK at him. Her body was buzzing with excitement and anxiety and curiosity. She wanted him to speak. He was clearly amazed by her presence. She couldn't reason out why, though. And WHO was he? Sure, she had a name, but goodness. That didn't mean anything since it wasn't ringing the bells in her mind. Where did he come from? Why did he look like Mama? And why was he not speaking?
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:46 pm
Manny was stunned when Marini answered for him, though he knew he really should have been, he knew her well enough by now to realize how she was.. and it wouldn't be so obviously strange to her where she hadn't really met his brother.. or any family that had the same blue eyes, something else he noticed was alarmingly familiar.
"I'm Marini," she responded brightly, smiling genuinely and glancing back at Manny again before taking a couple steps closed to the little lioness, "What's your name?"
She did like cubs, Pya had been so much fun when she was small. And Manny's granddaughter had been fun when they met, too. Even if this one seemed a little loud and cautious right now.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 4:55 pm
She gave one last meaningful squint back at this Manuku character and then gave up and turned her attentions to the lioness. Her lack of similarities to Liyana's family was soothing, considering the lion she was with. There was something about this lioness that the cub liked very much, though she wasn't really sure what it was. Either way, it was nice to give her spinning head a little bit of a rest and completely ignore the ever silent Intombi-clone.
"My name is Liyana." She shuffled her paw, not knowing what to say. It wasn't usual for her to talk to anyone outside of her troop of a family. With so many there, it was easy to always have someone to talk to. "I found this." She patted her shiny bone proudly, smiling a little. The shock of the situation was wearing off some. Suddenly reminded of the elephant in the savanna, she shot another squint at him. "Do you talk?" She was becoming borderline rude, but the situation was throwing her at odds.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:13 pm
"Of course," Manuku mumbled after another long pause where Liyana introduced herself and explained she'd found the bone, raising his voice when he continued, "Of course I talk. Who- where are you from?" Surely if someone this familiar was in the pride it wouldn't be such a big surprise. If Zi somehow managed to have cubs with someone in the pride, it would have gotten back around to them. Especially since they had so many connections just by being so gigantic a family.
"Very impressive!" Marini said when Liyana showed off the bone she'd found, looking very much like she meant what she said. It looked pretty heavy for such a petite cub. And when Liyana glared at Manny and asked him if he could talk, Marini couldn't hold back a giggle. Why was he so stunned? She was adorable, and pretty friendly.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:22 pm
Liyana seemed pleased with Manuku's response. She became suddenly aware of how dirty she was. With her mind somewhat at ease with the presence of an Intombi-clone (she was a cub, after all, and didn't have the largest attention span ever), she had time to focus on other things. Like the state of her toes. She stared down at them for a moment, but still mumbled out an answer to Manuku's question. "Oh, I'm not sure. Everywhere." Since they were weaned, they'd moved around at least a little bit. She wasn't from a pride, and that was really all she knew. Her parents and her siblings were the only ones she saw regularly. "Maybe nowhere." She shrugged and then leaned down to the paw that was on her bone, inspecting it further.
She shot up her head to Marini at the appreciation for her find. "Thank you! It took me all day to find." And with that, she set to work on her toes. She worked her tiny pink tongue around and inbetween toes, seeming to have either forgotten that she was in the presence of anyone, or stopped caring as much. Really, she was just becoming concerned that she was being scene in such a dusty and dirty state.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:29 pm
As soon as Liyana started grooming, Zi left Manny's mind completely and he was suddenly staring at a miniature dark version of his mother. He was looking for similarities and so the likeness was more unsettling than it might have been.. but it was there.
"From nowhere?" he repeated.
"That was buried here?" Marini said, tilting her head upward and glancing at the holes that the little one had been digging. She stopped hesitating and walked closer now, looking into the holes and sniffing curiously. Digging in the dirt could be a lot of fun and clearly the cub needed practice locating buried items if it had taken so many tries.. but did bones really smell that strongly? She lifted her head again, wondering if Liyana would let her close enough to sniff the bone.. and then, looking at the bone thoughtfully, she realized Liyana's legs had the same kind of marking as Manny.
"Hey! Your legs are kind of like his."
Oooh, and around the face! How funny!
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:37 pm
"Oh, yes," she managed out between vigorous licks. "I don't have a pride. I just wandered here because... I was looking for something but I didn't know what until I found this." Her words were somewhat muffled by her paws, but she managed to get them all out. She wasn't familiar with the term 'rogue' seeing as her parents had never really sat down and said, well kiddo we're rogues. So to her, she was simply from no place that had a name. She wasn't entirely sure if that meant she was from anywhere or nowhere. She would probably figure it all out some day, but for the moment she was just unaware.
"Oh yes, it was buried here." She lifted her snout from her paw. "I just knew something interesting would be here." She nodded firmly and then had just started to lick again when Marini made the comment about her mud-marks. Sloooowly, Liyana lifted her gaze, her tongue sticking to her paw in midlick, to Manuku's legs. She was once again buzzing, remembering the original reason why she'd been staring at him. She stood up fast. "Where did you get those." She wasn't so much questioning him as just voicing what was coming to mind.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:45 pm
Manny was still stunned but he was recovering, she did seem very much like his mother. The mud markings were one thing, the eyes and mannerisms were another entirely.
"Those what? The leg markings?"
Manny, too, was just saying whatever came to mind now. If you didn't know him you'd think he'd never spoken to a cub before. He couldn't help but glance to Marini, who looked surprised but amused if anything.. and then back to Liyana.
"I got them from my mother," he said, "This is what my mother looked like."
Marini was looking rather amused by the realization and she was thinking about how this one was just a bit bigger than Hamamu had been- and already looked so much more like him than she did. They definitely didn't know each other, though. So the tan lioness kept quiet, watching as the pair of them discussed the observation.
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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:56 pm
Li seemed to consider this as an option for a moment. She squinted her little eyes again, but not in disbelief this time as she had before. Now she was thinking rather hard. She drooped her neck, staring at Manny's legs and considering. From his mother? That was so strange. She couldn't make the leap that they must be siblings on her own, but she did see that this situation was so terribly odd. And he said he LOOKED like his mother. Well, that was even stranger because quite frankly, he looked like her mother. A part of her wanted to run home, grab Intombi by the tail and pull her back here to explain this situation to everyone. Surely Intombi knew the answers. Not that... Intombi had ever been particularly gifted at explaining anything, but SURELY she could explain a clone of herself. Right?
"Oh." She cocked her head, trying to decide what to say. What to think. "I got mine from my mama." It suddenly struck her that her mom and Manuku's mom might be related. Intombi had never talked about family. However, looking at just how much her own siblings all seemed to look alike. Well, maybe he was her mom's brother? She just didn't know. "You know, it's weird." She suddenly had widened her eyes and stared straight ahead at absolutely nothing. "My mom looks like you, too. Maybe they were related."
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