Awani was picking her way carefully down a hillside not long after sunrise. It wasn't particularly steep, but it was tricky footing due to a heavy rainstorm overnight. The soil under her cautious paws shifted with her weight, squishing downhill slowly. She took care to step on hillocks of grass when she could, but determinedly avoided a section of the hillside that had flowed away with a mudslide. Dangerous ground, that was! With relief she reached the level ground at the base, though she sighed as well. There was no help for it, she'd be wading through mud to continue her journey. Turning to follow the base of the hill, she began slogging her way gamely, coating her dark paws in ochre sludge.
Ghasia was bouncing as she walked, laughing to herself as she made a game to jump from one rock to the next, much like a cub would play, despite she was obviously not a cub. The rocks were fairly large, and some shifted as she lept onto them, but none tipped, which she was thankful for, else that would have gotten messy and she would have been unable to head home when the sun was down. She wasn't likely to stay out overnight anymore, not now that she had a family waiting at home for her - not cubs, or anythign like that, just her brother and his family. She rather liked being part of them again.
Ghasia gasped, as a rock shifted beneath her and she jumped quickly to the next. The rock she had been standing on before crashed to it's side and she winced. "Oops," she murmured. She hadn't meant to break the rocks.
It was with some amusement that Awani watched as a cheetah came leaping her direction from rock to rock. She might have been able to pull that off, but in the end it would have been infinitely more exhausting for her than just enduring the mud. The light-boned feline though was made for that sort of thing. Just as she was drawing nigh to the leopardess though, a rock tipped further than any other had. Awani had winced as the rock went crashing over, but gasped immediately after. Unfortunately the rock had fallen into a depression in the land, which was of course full of muddy water. Being close enough to it, she had been directly in the splash zone, and now was soaking with dripping, watery mud. For several moments she simply stood there, jaw open in shock, eyes wide, stock still.
Ghasia watched the mud fly, looking amused - until she spotted the now muddy figure, covered head to toe in muddy water - that she had splashed up! Oh no, Ghasia thought, leaping to another rock so that she was closer to the figure. "I am so sorry!" Ghasia gasped. "I didn't know you were there and the rock fell, and I'm so sorry," She repeated, hoping that the creature burried under that mud - Ghasia couldn't quite make out the species, since it was kind of hard to see at all through the mud, was not angry at her.
She had her tail held low, the earlier light-heartedness fading away to be replaced with worry and distress. That silly rock, ruining her game and making someone dirty.
First thing to move was for her mouth to close. She blinked several times, still not moving otherwise. But then, after taking a very deep breath, the leopeardess burst out laughing. Huge, deep belly laughs rolled from her gut, so that she was laughing hard enough for tears streaming from her eyes to track the mud away from them in two wavery tracks. "Oh my," gasped Awani, grinning up at the distressed cheetah. "I was surely asking for that, wading about down here and watching you and your fun without greeting you." She grinned hugely, her white fangs showing up well against her already dark hide now slicked wet and vaguely brown with mud. "Pardon me lady, but you'll want to step back real quick... best way to get most of this off right now is a good shake, and as much fun as it might be to return your favor, I hardly think it necessary." Her grin remained in place, though she held her tail very carefully still, so as not to flick the drippy stuff around.
Ghasia was thrilled when the female did not seem upset by the fact Ghasia had literally dosed her head to tail in mud, and Ghasia soon found herself grinning as the leopardess began to give her own deep laugh. It was a wonderful sound, she decided, and resisted the urge to giggle along with the female. The female didn't seem upset at all, which thrilled Ghasia. "Still, I'm very sorry! I think the rock was being mean today," she said, nodding and giving her own small laugh.
Her eyes went wide and she nodded when the female suggested to shake off the mud and Ghasia glanced around, spotting a rock not far away she could leap to, that would get her out of the mud-range. She smiled at the female and lept off to that rock, before glancing back. "Go ahead! Make that mud fly!" She cheered on, with a laugh.
Powerful muscles flexed as she began to shake, slowly at first, but quickly increasing in speed. Mud did fly, literally in all directions. Soaring drops scattered far and wide, spattering everything within range with brown polkadots. Her shake traveled down her body and ended with a wild circular twirling of her tail, sending glops sailing high into the air and forcing Awani to dodge them as they came back to earth. She pawed at her face to scrape off what was left there, and then smiled up at the bouncy cheetah. "Well, greetings to you too!" She agilely leaped up onto the rock she'd vacated, leaving muddy prints on the rock's surface. She had to admit, it did feel good to get out of the clinging mud and onto the warm surface of the rock. "I am Awani. Who might I owe the dunking to?" Her smile took any sting from her words before she began licking her paw and wiping her face to clean it better.
Ghasia watched the female shake the mud clear from her fur, laughing as she had to duck one or two thick globs of mud which had managed to cross the distance between them. They were determine drops of mud, to cross that lenght of space, but she had barely a drop of mud on her when the shaking was over. The female still looked muddy, but less so then she had before and Ghasia felt less guilt about having dosed her so heavily in mud.
She smiled as the female jumped to the rock she had vacated. "A pleasure to meet you, Awani!" She announced, laughing at the joke of Ghasia being owned a 'dunking'. "You can knock me into the mud if it'd make you feel better," She announced. She didn't really mind getting a bit messy. "My name is Ghasia," she added, almost forgetting to properly introduce herself.
She paused to glance up in surprise and amusement at the offer. She waved the half-clean paw in a gesture of rejection. "Oh no, there's no sense in both of us being earth-colored if we dont' have to!" She started cleaning her other paw and wiping the other side of her face now. "Besides, a thing as pretty as yourself, surely there is a beau to look nice for, hmm?" She smiled at the slender feline. She herself of course had no such thoughts. Males tended to be intimidated or challenged by her physical prowess and independant nature, so it was rare a male ever showed even an inkling of interest in her.
Ghasia laughed a little. "I'm already earth coloured," She pointed out, flicking her brown tail in amusement. "So the mud might not make too much of a difference to my pelt!" She giggled, and an embaressed look flittered across her face as the comment over the 'male' to look good for. She thought back to the sweet, if overdramatic, male she had spent days with - but who had left her quite quickly. She had not seen him again for a while, and she doubted that she would agian. She shook her head, with a slightly amused look on her face. "No, no Beau of my own. What about you, will some male come chasing me, claiming I ruined your coat?" She laughed.
She chuckled low and deep, a look of wry amusement at the sprightly cheetah. "Ah, no. There isn't a male in this world who cares what state my hide is in." At least not yet, she amended silently. She resumed cleaning her paw more thoroughly, speaking between licks. "I do hope one will someday," she admitted, her face heating to have said such a thing, as solitary as she tended to be. "But so far, no male is up to it," she finished, setting the paw down and grinning a bit ferally at her new friend. "I don't mind. I'm good on my own right now."
Ghasia nodded her head. "I'm sure a male will come along," she told the fellow feline with a warm smile on her face. "You're far too pretty and too nice to be alone forever!" She laughed a little, pleased to hear that the she was happy on her own anyway. "I'm not actively looking," she admitted with a shrug, "but if the right guy comes along - and doesn't leave - then I'm happy enough to find one of my own." The middle part, of him leaving, was said quietly, as if she hoped the other feline wouldn't hear but it was not said quietly enough to be sure that she wouldn't.
"It's better to rely on yourself," Ghasia said, nodding, "then build your life completely around another." Even with a mate, she would never be completely dependant on him.
Awani paused in her grooming to give the cheetah girl a solemn look. This was a serious topic, clearly, and she'd never have treated something so openly important to someone else lightly herself. "There is a great deal of truth in such a philosophy," she said after a moment of thought. "Reliance on yourself is both important and, usually, trustworthy." After all, was that not how she was living her own life? But.... "There is something to be said for building your life with each other as the foundation," she said carefully and slowly. "It only works, to my mind, if you both are willing to put each other as the base for everything. Without that, everything will come tumbling down." She nodded firmly in emphatic agreement with herself. Not that she'd experienced it herself, but she was intuitive, and had seen the results of such a situation, with a female's life in shambles. Better to trust in herself and let the male come join her if he so chose, that was how Awani felt for herself personally.
Ghasia listened to the other female with an openly curious expression on her face. The woman spoke well, and she spoke the truth - or the truth, as Ghasia saw it. She nodded along with the female as she spoke, and after she had finished her talk, Ghasia sighed a little. "Building your life with someone else as a foundations ounds rather romantic," she said calmly, and smiled a little. Ghasia had always loved romance, and fairytales, but she was older now, and not as easily swayed. "You speek well," she told the leopardess, "and give sound advice." She glaned at the female with a curious expression. "Though I fear that I might not be able to trust someone quite that much, though I can see the appeal in it. I think...I would like a male, to build his life, next to mine, with our foundations just as strong. So that we may stand together, and apart." She nodded.
"It is good to think for yourself," she applauded the other female with a beaming smile. "Make up your own mind and let life come at you." Rather how she did it! But now that they'd been sitting in the sun for a while, she was encountering a rather more pressing problem. The mud was drying, both as a thin coating atop her fur, but also as tiny bits and pieces within her fur. It was this under-drying that was beginning to be a problem. She twitched her shoulders, which of course only sent more dried mud skin-ward from the drying outer layer. She gave a grunt and tried to groom back along one shoulder blade, but was unable to fully reach the itchy place between the shoulder blades. Augh, what a swift and sudden torture! With a sigh, she turned back to her new friend. "Forgive me, but I need to go find a nice, deep watering hole and submerge myself, or I'll never get any rest with all this drying to me!" Her tone and expression were genuinely apologetic, but very clearly set. This was not an option, but a need!
Ghasia nodded, pleased that the female approved, but to be honest, it would not have mattered much if she had not approved either. However, she was sad to see the female was leaving, but she understood why. "It must have hardened like a shell now," she said sympathetically and nodding her head. "Go! I'm very sorry that the rock did it, but I am glad that I got to meet you." She smiled warmly at the female before her. "I hope that all the mud comes off easily, and that you find someone to build a life with some day, when you are ready to have such a companion in your life, Awani," she said honestly. She would go home as well, knowing her brother would expect her back soon.
Awani chuffed gently, almost as a mother would to a cub. "Thank you little one," she said softly. "May you have all the happiness you could wish!" It was brief, but sincere. Unable to stall any longer, she waved her tail in farewell, accompanied by more itches and further shifting of dried mud, and bounded hastily at a right angle from the hillside. All that rainwater had to have flowed somewhere, so hopefully there was a pond of relatively clean water somewhere in this direction, preferably nearby!
