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 Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:24 am
 Checking the way Warmee fell over his back and shoulders, and deciding that it would do, Uruloke gave a small shrug to settle the jackal pelt and set off, away from his home. He had been wandering around on his own for a bit now, and he had no fear for his safety. After all, his family was everywhere, what with having twelve other full-siblings and who knew how many half-siblings, and there was no chance someone wouldn't see him. Which also meant that he had to be well-behaved, since bad behavior would reach his parents' ears long before he returned home, and then they'd be waiting there to scold him.
Loke wasn't really the sort to do bad things, though. Mostly he liked to sleep, and when he wasn't sleeping he was perfectly content just closing his eyes and letting his mind wander. He didn't have to be active to be entertained, but since his mother brought him the jackal pelt to wear he had been more active because he didn't feel the need to conserve all his energy for producing heat. Often he would set out from the den with a goal in mind. Today's goal was to meet someone who wasn't related to him. He thought it would be a challenge, particularly since he only really knew his parents' names and the names of his siblings, but other people might know more.
Or, you know, he could just find someone to play games with. That would be fun, too.
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Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 1:24 am
 Miale'ku'majivu was the sort of cub who preferred observing others, and staying in the background until she was needed. It wasn't that she had any less fire than her siblings...her fire simply just burned deeper. After all, in a pride of hotheads and overzealous lions, someone needed to keep a relatively cool head. The female cub yawned and stretched, scratching behind an ear absently before standing and going to see what today held for her.
Usually, she liked watching the grown-ups spar. One learned all sorts of nifty things from that. And it was nice to watch, too. Like fire made alive and living, dancing about. So she started towards an area she knew the grown-ups liked for sparring. And nearly ran into another cub as she came around a rock.
Miale stopped quickly, to avoid actually running into the other cub, staring with golden eyes for a moment. Huh...she didn't recognize him. She frowned a bit and bobbed her head in acknowledgment. "Sorry, didn't see you."
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Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2010 9:39 pm
"Meer!" Loke exclaimed, both startled and embarrassed that he'd nearly run into someone.
He was too young still to be embarrassed at having uttered such a sound, but later on in life he would probably work very hard to eradicate it from his inventory of exclamations. Probably the first time one of his brothers pointed out how ridiculous it sounded, that would be when he decided he would never make it again. In the meantime, Loke displayed his dismay with his almost-squeak.
"I didn't see you either. Sorry."
He smiled in a way he hoped would be winning and keep him out of trouble. It wasn't that Loke was in any way opposed to fighting or anything like that. He simply didn't want to end up in any sort of rivalry or real fight with hard feelings. It hadn't yet occurred to him that he had twelve siblings to cover his back if he did end up in some kind of trouble.
"I'm Uruloke, and I'm pretty sure you're not one of my sisters." He still had to recite his siblings' names like a litany every night before bed and every morning when he woke up, to make sure he remembered them all.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:49 pm
It was good that the other didn't seem to take offense...though the sound he'd made put a slight smile on her muzzle. It sounded silly and odd coming from a Firekin! His introduction was met with another nod.
"I'm Miale'ku'majivu...though just Miale is okay." Okay...he was very amusing. "And I'm pretty sure you aren't one of my brothers." She knew each and every one of her many siblings, even if she got their names mixed up sometimes.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:13 pm
Loke didn't fail to notice her smile, but he hadn't figured out that he should probably be embarrassed at having provoked it with a completely ridiculous sound. He smiled back, convinced that she was merely being friendly. Friendly was good. Friendly wasn't fighting.
"Miale!" he repeated, so relieved that she had a shortened version of her name that he could use. He didn't think he could pronounce all the rest of it. Somehow the name reminded him of something sweet on his tongut. He had no idea why, or what he was reminded of, really, but that was what came to mind. Probably because of the beginning M, which sounded like a pleased hum.
"Oh, good. But wouldn't it be awful if we were each other's brother and sister and couldn't tell?" It could happen, conceivably, though probably not within the same litter. Not unless they were raised very oddly indeed. Loke's family was large, but his upbringing so far hadn't been unconventional in any significant way.
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:31 am
Miale nodded in agreement. "That'd definitely be awful." She wrinkled her nose at the thought of not knowing on of her siblings! She let the thought drop, and looked to Loke again. "Where were you goin', before we ran into each other?" Hopefully it wasn't to training! She'd feel REALLY bad if that was the case.
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:38 am
"You have no idea," Loke said feelingly. "I have twelve brothers and sisters in just my litter, and a couple of older half-siblings, and...I wonder if I'm related to everyone in the whole pride sometimes."
He laughed easily when Miale asked where he was going before they'd run into each other. "Actually, I had decided that today I would try to meet someone who wasn't related to me. I thought it would take me a lot longer than it did though, so I don't really have any plans at this point."
Suddenly it occurred to him that maybe Miale had someplace else to be, and she had asked about his plans just to be polite and give herself a way out. To be careful and make sure he wasn't keeping her from being somewhere else Loke asked, "What about you? Where were you going?"
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 4:30 pm
The golden-eyed cub winced a bit. "That's more than me. I've got eight brothers and sisters." She smiled slightly, though. "You and me both. My grandparents are the Regents." She loved her Grandpa Kidondo and Grandma No, though. They were, in her eyes, exactly what Firekin should be...Strong, proud, and regal.
"So who're your parents? I bet I could tell you if we weren't related." She'd paid attention to who was related to who. She knew it was important, especially when she grew up into a big lioness, like her mother. "And I wasn't really going to anything big or important. Just to watch the grown-ups spar."
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 6:38 am
"Eight is still a lot," Loke said, not wanting to sound like he'd been trying to one-up her. Though perhaps he should have said that sooner, because maybe the reason she'd told him who her grandparents were was because she felt he had been trying to make himself seem more...something than she was. Certainly, he didn't think he had regents for grandparents.
"That's really amazing. So you get to see them a lot, right? Are they scary?" He hadn't been around them enough, even at a distance, to find the regents scary. They were more of a vague concept in his mind, though it was really cool that for Miale they weren't just vague concepts, but relatives. And close ones, too!
"My mom's Jyotika and my dad's Vanhi," he said, answering her question about his parents. "Do you really know how everyone's related?"
To him it seemed like a daunting, impossible task to trace the lines of relationship within the pride, which were very complicated from what he had been told. Not that many people talked to him about it, since he was just a cub, but sometimes they talked about it around him when they thought he was asleep and he was really just resting his eyes a bit. He overheard a lot that way, actually.
"Could I come with you? To watch the grown-ups, I mean. I'm supposed to do that, too." It was a good way to learn, he had been told, and he did want to learn to be a better fighter so that he wouldn't always be bossed by his siblings.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:11 am
She nodded. "It can be a lot to keep track of. But it's never lonely! For either of us. Whenever we want company, we just go find one of our siblings, right?" Sure they each had a lot of siblings...but that wasn't necessarily BAD. "And they aren't scary. They're..." Miale thought of how to describe her grandparents. "They're amazing! Like lions from the legends the Storytellers tell us!"
She tilted her head when he told her his parents, and she thought. They didn't SOUND like anyone her parents had pointed out as relatives..."I don't think we're related. Mom and Dad pointed out to my siblings and I some of our relatives...and they don't sound like anyone that was pointed out." She looked in the direction she'd been going, then back to Loke. "If you wanna come, that's okay. It'd be nice to have someone to watch with."
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:48 am
"Exactly," Loke agreed. Sometimes it was a bit much to be part of such a large family, but he didn't think he'd like to be the only cub either. That would just be very lonely, he thought. Even a small-sized litter seemed like it could get pretty lonely if everyone else was busy. He was just as happy to be part of the family he had, even if sometimes his name got confused with others' and there was a lot of competition for individual attention from his parents.
"I think I'd still be a little nervous meeting a legend, too," Loke said truthfully. "What if I said something stupid?"
He wasn't actually very concerned about being beaten upon or anything like that because he knew he wasn't the sort of lion that really invited fights with strangers. His siblings were something else entirely, but they knew him well. Miale's legendary grandparents wouldn't, he expected. It would definitely be scary if they did, since apparently they weren't even related.
"Hah. Then I've accomplished today's mission and I'd definitely like to come watch with you." He grinned, feeling pleased with himself and with the day in general.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 1:37 pm
Miale looked Loke over seriously a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think you'd say anything stupid." She smiled slightly, then turned to lead him to where she'd been headed. "I'm glad I could help you." And started off, not worried about him being faster than her or her leaving him in the dust. After all, they were both still about the same size.
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