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 Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 4:39 pm
 Ingmar slunk away from his mother's den, jackal fur in slight disarray, and headed down toward the fjord.
Dodonna had told him he needed - a lot - of practice fighting, and since he didn't have much of anyone to practice with, he practiced on the beach - pouncing hermit crabs, faking out his own reflection, running, climbing, jumping, and attacking the "lion" he had made out of some driftwood and seaweed. It wasn't very convincing - but it at least allowed him to practice instead of just lazing his day away in the den.
He began his "training" by running up and down the narrow beach to see if anything interesting had washed up that he could use for his driftwood lion.
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Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:28 am
 Kazul's parents weren't the type to baby or coddle their children. Even Daddy, who wasn't very good at hiding the fact that he was completely enthralled by his little girls, didn't go out of his way to make their lives easier. If Kazul decided to attack him, he would tolerate her violence for a while, but then he would shake her off or bat her away and even his casual brush-offs made her still-tender cub skin lingeringly sore.
This morning neither Mommy nor Daddy had time to play with her, so after breakfast Kazul had decided to see what was going on in the pride, but she wasn't in a mood to watch Thralls work. Watching Reavers and their Captains practice was always fun, but the fact was even that got boring when she wasn't allowed to participate. None of the Reavers or Captains would let her spar with them - she'd asked - and it got frustrating to only be a spectator.
So she'd moved on, drawn slowly downhill by gravity as much as by any sort of conscious decision, until she reached a ledge above narrow strip of beach where, she was told, the Reavers on guard duty watched from hidden places for intruders. No one stopped her on her way down, and she didn't see or hear or smell anyone, but she was sure they were there. If they weren't they'd be in big trouble with her daddy!
From her elevated vantage point Kazul could see what looked like a jackal running around like a mad thing. She watched and her claws slid in and out in anticipation. It would be excellent if she could kill the jackal and bring home its carcass to show her family. They'd be so impressed!
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 3:17 pm
Ingmar found a piece of driftwood that almost looked like a lion's leg, bent in a sitting position, if you squinted when you looked at it. He seized it in his jaws and started dragging it back toward the pile, but kept stopping. He had this feeling like someone was watching him, but he didn't see anyone, so he kept going. He would put it against the end of his lion, by the seaweed tail, and practice attacking like Dodonna had told him too.
Once it was wedged into place, Ingmar spun around. That feeling was still with him. He spun towards the ledge, and the path he took down to the beach.
"Come out and fight! I know you're there! And if that's you, Mom, I'm not going back to the den, it's boring and I need to be a fierce Reaver like Dad!"
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 4:22 pm
The carrying pieces of wood to and fro wasn't a behavior Kazul had ever observed in a lion before. It only served to further reinforce her misapprehension that she was spying on a jackal or some other type of wild dog performing some asinine canine task. She was utterly convinced that the small figure must be doing something stupid, because she couldn't detect any rhyme or reason to his actions, which meant there obviously wasn't any.
But just because he was acting like an idiot didn't mean he was one, she noted. He'd somehow known to react to her presence, even if he didn't seem to know exactly where she lay in wait and ready to pounce him. She crept a little closer, making every effort to remain hidden as she did so, but aware that there were only so many ways onto the beach, and that eventually she would have to reveal herself, but ideally that moment wouldn't come until she was on top of her prey, bringing it down.
The jackal's assertion that he was going to be a fierce Reaver like his father just infuriated her though. Her father was the most fierce of all the Reavers. He was the Warlord, which was better than being simply a Reaver. But that aside, it was impossible for his father to be a Reaver, because there were no jackals among the Stormborn. She felt the irresistible urge to set him straight, even if it meant ruining her stealth.
From her hiding place she called, "I'm not your mom. And your dad can't be a Reaver. Jackals can't be Reavers. Only lions can."
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 1:31 pm
"I AM NOT A JACKAL!" Ingmar roared (rather pathetically, but he tried). "I AM A LION AND I AM GOING TO BE A REAVER LIKE MY DAD AND THIS IS JUST A STUPID COAT THAT I CAN'T GET OFF."
Being called a jackal upset Ingmar. A lot. His mom and these stupid coats upset him so much. Frantically, he started clawing at the hood of the skin, desperate to prove to whoever was spying on him that he was a real lion. The Stormborn should not hide under the coats of jackals!
He rolled around in the sand, against his driftwood lion, and tugged and yanked at the hood until one of the strips it was tied on with finally snapped. In the end, half of his baby face was poking out from under the jackal snout.
"I am a lion! And real Reavers don't spy, they'd come out and fight!"
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 1:50 pm
"You look like a jackal," she called down to him helpfully.
The jackal's furious declaration that he wasn't a jackal did very little to convince Kazul that he was a lion. However, it went a good way to convincing her that he didn't pose much of a threat to her safety or well-being. In fact, she could foresee the potential for lots of fun to be had with the odd creature, be he jackal, lion, or something else completely.
When he began to roll around Kazul had less than no idea what he was doing. It occurred to her, though she had never seen such a thing before, that he might be having a fit of some sort. Stormborn didn't have fits, in her experience. She had yet to meet Uss D'mzil, and so did not realize that there were at least a few Stormborn who did have fits. Even so, she would not have been particularly impressed by any Stormborn who had fits. Weaklings like that should just take a leap off a cliff or something.
"Are you all right?" she asked, forgetting completely that she was supposed to be sneaking and moving to the edge of the ledge to get a better look at Ingmar as he behaved like a right idiot (in her opinion).
Upon seeing part of his face revealed, Kazul was taken aback enough that she physically skittered back toward the rock face, away from the edge of the ledge, and perhaps out of Ingmar's view once more. His remark about spying struck home, though. Hiding and spying wasn't as brave and valiant as coming out and fighting, and Kazul wanted to be the bravest of the brave, as well as the most beautiful and clever. She had her father's reputation to uphold, after all.
"Fine. I'm coming down," she said called, and began to work her way onto the beach.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:30 pm
Ingmar vaguely recognized the cub that was picking its way down the beach toward him. The markings looked familiar.
They looked very familiar.
"You're the warlords cub!" he blurted as the spy got to the beach, looking at her half through his mask, eyeholes askew. Ingmar was a little bit nervous. No one ever actually said he couldn't be on the beach . . . but no one really said he could, either. Hopefully she wouldn't ruin everything, with her thinking he was a jackal and spying on him from the cliffs.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 4:33 pm
Kazul stepped onto the cold sand of the beach and barely repressed the urge to recoil. She'd never walked on sand before, and only knew she was dong so because she'd heard it described to her. She came to the instant conclusion that she didn't like it, and that it felt horrible between her toes. All rough and granular and shifty and cold. She suspected it would be worse when it got wet, as it evidently did closer to the water.
Despite all her distaste for the surface, she continued walking onto the beach, her head held arrogantly high and her pale gold eyes fixed on the not-jackal in front of her. For all that she'd seen half of his hood come off to reveal part of a lion cub's face, and for all that he claimed to be a lion, Kazul just wasn't sure. It was weird for a lion to go about trussed up in a jackal's pelt. She knew it wasn't normal, and that there was probably something seriously wrong with him.
"Of course I am," she replied, rolling her eyes. "And you look ridiculous. Do you wear the jackal fur because you're even weirder looking without it than you are with it?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:52 pm
"I know I look ridiculous. My mom laced us into these and they're too tight to get out of and if they start to slip she laces them right back up. I can't get out of it but soon I'll be too big for a jackal fur and then she won't be able to make me wear it anymore. But when I'm big I'll wear skulls like my dad to scare everyone when I go out Reaving."
Ingmar sounded a bit arrogant - as if there was no doubt he would terrify people on his Reavings, or indeed, that he would not be the fiercest Reaver of his generation. He was sure he would be.
"What are you doing down by the water, anyway? You don't have to skuk around cause you're tied up in a stupid jackal fur like I do."
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Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:16 am
"Why'd your ma do that?" Kazul asked, intrigued despite herself. "You can't be that ugly."
Her own mother had never tried any such thing, and she was incredibly glad of that fact. She was certain that neither she nor her siblings would have put up with it like this silly pink creature did. Of course, the only reason she could come up with to hide a cub like that would be if they were extremely unattractive, and she knew for a fact that she was not unattractive, nor were any of her siblings.
"You know, she could just put you in the fur of a bigger animal," she pointed out unhelpfully. "My da wears a fur sometimes, and it's way bigger than you are. Me and two of my sibs can hide under it if we don't move a lot and scrunch in close."
As she spoke she tried to remember if she had seen a Reaver who wore a skull. Off the top of her head, she couldn't recall, but she didn't feel like asking. That would imply a level of interest in the other cub's personal life that she simply didn't feel. She had already drawn the conclusion that someone - or possibly several someones - in his life was mad, and not in a fierce, Stormborn way. She wasn't very interested in crazy people.
"I'm patrolling," she said very seriously.
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Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:27 pm
"She doesn't really explain herself. And she's a lot bigger than me so I can't do much to tell her no."
Ingmar knew that until he got really big, he would probably have to deal witht the furs - but his dad seemed to think it was silly,so hopefully he would get through to his mom so they wouldn't have to wear them anymore.
"If you're patrolling, why don't you go patrol somewhere that needs it. I've got this beach covered, and no one ever swims up the fjord."
Ingmar knew nothing ever came down here - he never even saw tracks of anything except the white sea birds on the sand. It was just him, and his driftwood lion.
"I have to get back to target practice, but if you don't want to patrol you can practice on my lion, I guess."
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Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 6:34 am
"You could...um. Get bigger? Or be really squirmy when she's trying to put it on you."
In truth, Kazul hadn't the faintest idea how she would deal with it if her ma decided she wanted to bundle he up in skins. Probably she would hiss and fizz and spit, but she doubted it would amount to much. Her ma was smart and would either force or trick her into it somehow. But then, her da would never let her ma do that to them. He was proud of Kazul and her sibs, and wouldn't want them to be all covered up.
"Ugh. The point of patrolling is to go both where people go and where they don't go. It makes sure they don't try going where they don't go because we don't think they'll go there. A patrol has to go everywhere."
The Stormborn actually weren't very big on patrolling. The general attitude was that if people came into their territory, they got what they got in terms of treatment. And if they could come in and out without being noticed, more power to them. Cleverness was a valued trait among the Stormborn, if not quite as much as courage and battle skills.
"But fine. I'll go patrol somewhere else. But if someone comes up from this beach or the fjord, I'll know whose fault it is." She gave him what she hoped was an arch look. Her ma was great at those, but Kazul had yet to master them quite.
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 1:26 pm
"I'll guard the fjord from all of the seabirds while I work," Ingmar promised. And he really had to get back to training; Dodonna always knew when he hadn't been at work at his fighting and exercise, and when he hadn't, Dodonna was a lot tougher on him.
He gave the female cub a strange look. "Did you eye start twitching or something? You're making a funny face."
Ingmar turned back toward his piecemeal lion, and prepared to start pouncing practice.
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 1:57 pm
Kazul sniffed disdainfully. She wasn't sure if she was being mocked or if the fur-wrapped pink cub was serious, but she wasn't going to just assume he was in earnest. She didn't know him, not even his name, and so she wasn't sure she trusted him. She still didn't even know for certain if he really was a Stormborn, or if he was just pretending to be one.
His last remark about her eye twitching just served to make her tail twitch irritably. She hadn't been making a funny face. She'd been trying to look like her ma did when she didn't quite believe shat a person said, and wanted them to know it. Stupid boy.
She wanted to say something cutting and take off, but she couldn't think of anything and she knew it was worse to stand around trying to think of something to say than to just leave. So she turned around and strode off, heading back to the main pride area and thinking that he was lucky she wasn't the sort of cub to tell on him for being where he wasn't supposed to be. She was sure cubs weren't supposed to be on the beach.
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