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 Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 1:25 pm
Tyr had gotten really, really good at looking pathetic. He didn't even have to really try to look pathetic. It seemed like he evoked sympathy in everyone he met. The cub had it down to a fine art, one that he'd perfected thanks to his mother. She just didn't understand that he didn't want to wear this stupid fur. It was hot, scratchy and it was real stinky to top it all off. Tyr was almost convinced that his mother was off her rocker, not that he'd ever blatantly say it to her face. He'd rather eat mud.
Little did his mother know that he'd found a way to slip in and out of his furs. It was a long, harrowing process, but he'd gotten pretty good at it. He never dared remove the fur unless he was a safe-enough distance from home. Today, the sun high in the sky, Tyr found himself in a little clearing surrounded by little pink and purple flowers. He was 'naked' -- free from his pelt -- and sprawled out on his back watching the clouds inch across the sky. In Tyr's mind, this was what perfection was made out of.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:04 pm
 Kazul was sneaking. At least, that's what she thought she was doing. It bothered her that she had so far failed every time she tried to sneak up on someone, and she was determined to master the skill. There was more to being a Stormborn Reaver than just the ability to charge fearlessly into battle, she had heard, and that had to do with being clever and sometimes sneaky. Kazul knew she was clever, because her ma was just plain terrifying with how smart she was, and she'd gotten some of that, but sneaky was something she'd have to learn. And so she practiced.
With great stealth and sneakiness, Kazul slunk and slinked and crept and crawled with her belly on the ground and her ears flat to her skull, doing her best to blend in with the pink and purple flowers around her. She'd noticed something approximately her size come this way a bit ago, and she'd resolved to stalk it and maybe kill it and bring it back as a prize. Her ma and da would be so proud of her!
At least, that was the plan, but the closer she got the more disappointingly like another lion cub her quarry looked. But wait! There was still something furry hulking not far from the other cub. She couldn't believe he was just ignoring the potential prey in favor of...what? Sleeping? Ridiculous. She wasn't going to let such an opportunity go to waste.
With an attempt at a fearsome roar, Kazul sprang forward to land on the heap of skins Tyr had shed, biting viciously at the pelts.
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Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:05 am
Tyr froze, paws in the air. He had been in the middle of some very important thoughts. He couldn't stop thinking about how his mother must hate him, making him wear a girly set of pink furs when his other siblings had strong colors like silver and brown. He couldn't stop thinking about how the headpiece of his stupid outfit had been matting his pretty mane. He couldn't stop thinking about how good it felt to be free of the suffocating furs.
Though the roar didn't have the heft and tone of his mothers, for a split second he was terrified that it was her. What could he do? Where could he hide? She'd probably already seen him. Deep down he knew it wasn't his mother, but ... what if it had been?
Rolling from his back to his stomach, eyes wide, Tyr peered at the little lioness cub that had attacked his clothes. On one hand, if he let her chew them up he wouldn't have to wear them any more. On the other hand, if he let her chew them up he would have a mountain of explaining to do to his mother, and he could just imagine how furious she would be.
"Hey," he said, following that up with a louder, "Hey! Stop it!"
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Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:53 am
It took several moments for the shouting to turn into words in Kazul's mind, and another few moments for her to actually comprehend them. She had been doing her very best to experience the battle frenzy the stories told about, and she knew that berserkers didn't notice unimportant things like people shouting around them. If they did, battles would probably be too distracting for them to keep up their fury for very long, which would sort of defeat the purpose. Not that she'd been going anything like berserk, but that's what she imagined she was doing, since her opponent was putting up so little of a fight, comparatively speaking.
At last she realized with disgust that the person shouting wanted her to stop mauling the pile of furs. The disgust was twofold. One, she couldn't believe someone had just left a pile of furs around for no readily apparent reason. Two, she didn't see why she should stop, since obviously no one cared too much about the furs. If they cared, they wouldn't have just been left there. She'd been enjoying playing, too. It was good to be able to feel fur and flesh between her teeth and still be allowed to bite as hard as she wanted to.
"Are these yours?" she asked. "You shouldn't leave things just lying around like that. Someone could get the wrong idea. Why do you have a bunch of skins anyway?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:04 am
Tyr frowned a frightfully ferocious frown, at least it felt like it. He edged closer, hoping that she hadn't put a hole in one of them, or torn out bunches of fur. His mom would be so pissed, and Tyr didn't really know how he'd be able to explain the holes without matching holes in his own hide.
"Great, just great," he muttered to himself, digging through the furs and doing a visual once-over. For a few long moments he completely ignored the cub, the predicament at hand far too important. His mom would tan his hide if he came home with torn up clothes, and for a split second he relished the thought. If she had torn them, well, he obviously wouldn't be able to wear them any more and he could just point a paw in this cubs direction and blame it all on her.
"'Course they're mine," he groused, shaking his head. "My mom makes me wear them and I took them off because they were stinking and scratchy."
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Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:38 am
Kazul frowned back at Tyr, refusing to be intimidated, though she might have been a little. He wasn't nearly as scary as her da when he frowned and glowered, but she'd never had her da frown at her at her. Just sort of at her. But either way, her da was much scarier, and she used that to bolster her confidence and help her frown back. Nope. Totally not afraid.
"You've got a pink brother, don't you?" she asked, plopping down on her bottom to watch him as he examined his furs closely.
She hadn't seen very much of his brother, but it seemed that she'd had a similar conversation very recently with another cub whose mother made him wear a jackal skin. It seemed unlikely to her that there were multiple mothers in the pride who felt the really weird urge to put their cubs in other animals' fur. Surely it was just one crazy lioness.
"Your ma is really, really weird you know. Mine wouldn't do that to me or my sibs. We wouldn't let her if she tried."
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Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 11:45 am
Tyr scowled petulantly at the cub, his sturdy body heaving with the most tremendous sigh. She was kind of annoying, bothering him when he was valiantly trying to assure himself that no holes had been bitten into the fur. "I have a pink brother," he grunted in the affirmative, sighing again as he thrust the furs away from him. He just couldn't make himself care about holes at the moment.
The more he looked at the cub, though, the more she looked familiar to him. Those wings, the face markings... "You've got a warlord dad, don't you?" That was pretty neat. "Of course your ma doesn't make you wear stupid outfits. Your dad is the Warlord. No Warlord is gonna let his cubs be laughed at." Miffed, Tyr snuffled softly to himself.
"I know my ma is weird, okay? So's dad. He won't talk to her about these stupid furs. And can you believe she gave me a PINK one?! It was matting my haaaaair!!"
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Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:55 am
"My brothers aren't pink. They're both dark colored, like our da." She didn't bother trying to sound nonchalant. "I bet you wish your brother wasn't pink."
The topic of das, and hers in particular, made Kazul grin. "Jah. My da's the Warlord. He's the biggest, fiercest, bravest lion ever. And my ma's really smart and can talk to spirits and tell the future."
Her mind jumped back to the topic of pinkness for no good reason other than that there was a heap of pink furs right there, impossible to ignore. And, since it had her attention, she had to comment on it. The filter between thought and speech still wasn't in place yet.
"Pink's a silly color for a male to be," Kazul decided. She wasn't sure what had brought her to that conclusion, but she hadn't been hugely impressed by this other cub's brother, and she did think pink was a pretty silly color.
"I bet you look really stupid wearing it."
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Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:09 am
It was becoming rapidly apparent that Kazul had a fascination with the color pink. The conversation kept returning to that particular topic, and Tyr wasn't impressed. In fact, he was slowly growing slightly furious that she kept making fun of his brother. Ingmar was his favorite brother, and just because he was pink it didn't mean he was worse off. He knew he shouldn't snap at the younger lion, he knew he should keep his cool and respect her because of the status of her father, but her voice was just driving him insane and he couldn't stop the words from spilling forth.
"You're a stupid color, there's nothing wrong with pink. Ingmar is a good brother and I bet you only WISH your brothers were just as good. Just because you're the Warlord's daughter doesn't mean you can go around making fun of people. You look really dumb when you do that. You look really dumb all the time. In fact, I bet you wish YOU were pink, don't you?!"
Though he felt slightly better after his little tirade, he just knew that he would probably get in trouble for it. He didn't care. Tyr just didn't care and he'd had enough of it all. He would return to his pride without the stupid fur and his mother would have to beat him if she wanted him to wear it again.
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Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:01 pm
"I'm not a stupid color!" Kazul growled back. "You are. And you smell bad. I didn't say anything before because I was being nice, but if you're not going to be nice, I'm not either."
Her tufted tail lashed back and forth in fury. How dare he say she was a stupid color? And insult her brothers! He was lucky she didn't just pounce on him and hand him his own ears to eat. If he said anything else about her family she absolutely would. And then she'd scratch his nose off.
"I can say anything I want, to anyone I want. I'm a freeborn Stormborn, and no one tells me what to do. Unless they can prove they deserve to." Her yellow eyes flashed a challenge.
She was hugely offended that he thought she was acting like she did because her da was the Warlord. She was acting like that because she was a Stormborn and she knew that made her better than normal lions, from outside the stronghold. And as far as she was concerned she was as good as any other lion in the pride until they proved otherwise.
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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:12 pm
"I doubt you even know how to be nice!" Tyr ranted, furious now. "And I'm a freeborn Stormborn too but you don't see me walkin' around bein' mean to everyone that I meet, do you! AND! You're really ugly on top of everything else," he railed, growing more and more upset by the second. She was acting so high and mighty because her dad was the Warlord, Tyr just knew it and there was nothing she could say that would change his mind.
"I bet if you got in a fight and lost you would run off crying!" That was huge insult in Tyr's mind and he felt pretty good after he'd said it. It was as if all the frustrations over the past few weeks had snowballed to this point and once the cub in front of him had started attacking his pelt, well, Tyr just couldn't hold in all of the emotions that strained in his chest, aching for release.
"I bet," he continued, "you're the worst fighter in the pride!"
Ouch!
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Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 12:49 pm
"No, of course you don't. You're just rude and loud and you yell at people," Kazul shouted back, the irony of the fact that she was shouting at him both loudly and rudely completely escaped her notice. She was a bit young to really understand the concept, though there were brief instances where she seemed almost to glimpse its shadow.
She glared at him fiercely and wished she could set him on fire or turn him into a mouse or something just by glaring at him, but since that didn't seem to be working, she could always yell at him and insult him some more. That felt kind of good, actually. In the den, she was always told not to call her siblings names because they were family and family was important. She understood that, but this jerk wasn't family. He was just a jerk.
"Pfft. I wouldn't lose any fight I got in," Kazul boasted. So what if she'd never actually been in a fight, except tussling with her siblings? That was irrelevant.
"Losing's only something people like you do. You and your brothers. You all lose everything, all the time, I bet." Struck with sudden inspiration she continued, "And probably the reason you smell so bad is you pee on yourselves, too. Like babies."
She was really beginning to enjoy this, though at the same time she still wanted to bite his face off.
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Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 1:40 pm
Oh BY THE BLOOD OF THE GODS he just wanted to smack her ugly face RIGHT off. He really did. Tyr was usually a very good-natured young man, one would rather pick flowers and find pretty rocks or come up with poems and song but this... this girl was just so annoying! It was HER fault that he was feeling like this! That lower lip of his trembled -- he wasn't gonna CRY, she was just a stupid girl, after all -- as he fought with the plethora of emotions that ran through his mind. He wanted to say something so hurtful and so... so mean, he just couldn't think of anything that might even come close to making her cry!
He stood there, silent for a long moment just giving Kazul the stinkiest stink eye he could muster until he spat with all of the loathing in his little heart, "You're a terrible, terrible lion and I bet you don't have any friends and I bet you won't ever have any friends ever in your whole life and someday you're gonna wish you had SOMEONE that wanted to be your friend."
That being said, Tyr stomped off. He didn't even care that he was leaving behind the skins that he was supposed to be wearing. He was furious and he really wanted to find somewhere he could hide so he could cry.
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Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 3:37 pm
Kazul had begun to think of their back-and-forth as a sort of a game. Yes, a game that mostly involved saying the most hurtful thing possible, but how was that any different from sparring really? And this way no one got hurt and had to explain why they were bloody and unhappy to their parents. Besides, it was just kind of fun to say the meanest things she could come up with. When her temper cooled down, she would probably find she didn't mean most of them.
That was until the other cub said what he did about her being a terrible lion and friendless. That brought her up short, and all she could do was stare after him as he stomped away from her. She couldn't say why, exactly, his accusations bothered her. He certainly wasn't good enough to pass judgment on her as a lion, and she had friends. At least, she had family who would be there for her and who loved her, which was even better. There was no reason she should feel like she was just hit over the head with the better part of an antelope carcass.
Only very slowly did another thought occur to her: Did that mean she won? It didn't feel as good as she had thought it might. And he'd forgotten his silly skins.
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