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 Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:37 pm
Baridi'ini was on her way to visit the den of her sister, her only remaining family member that was in the pride. Baridi'ini's not so little cubs were all growing off on their own adventures to find themselves and their true names. And as for Baridi's mate, he'd gone off the deep end, and was searching because the voices in his head told him to. Trying to make the best of things, and not fall completely to pieces the best thing the lioness thought would be to go visit her sister and her sister's children.
Walking briskly she continued on her way, in the late afternoon through the trees and around logs in hopes of forgetting for a moment how lonely she was feeling, and how crazy her life was turning out.
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:44 pm
Kisulisuli was out.. and Bosede, Thelo and Bato were all out.. and so Ibala had the den all to herself and she was loving it! She was wandering around the area they inhabited, making a point of stomping as hard as she could where there was enough mud to leave prints and trying to mess up everybody else's prints while she went around.
"Thelo! I need you to catch me a frog. Or five of them!" she said, instructing imaginary cooperative and submission versions of her siblings, "Bosede can help but then you have definitely have to get the five. Bato, those are not the right flowers you have to go back and get better ones!!"
She continued to stomp around, having no idea anybody might appear suddenly.
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:50 pm
Baridi after first thought she'd stumbled upon nieces and nephews as they played, she could heard Ibala's voice, and identified the names of the others. Peering around the bend in the path she stopped watching. The adorable Ibala was talking, and stomping..but no one else was to be seen to take her commands.
The cream colored lioness watched and held back laughter as her niece played, the adult wondered what type of game this was that she was playing. Then the idea struck her that she might actually think she's playing with someone...an imaginary friend, or like Gebali'moyo's voices.
"Maybe they're already off following your directions?" Baridi inquired, "Five frogs seems like an awfully hard task for one lion!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:56 pm
"Ee!" Ibala shrieked when her aunt suddenly revealed her presence, spinning around in place to face her a little too quickly. She relaxed quickly when she really saw who it was and heard what she had said.
"Five frogs is nothin', Aunt Didi," she said reassuringly, adding with a touch of exasperation, "But maybe not so easy for Thelo.."
It was a little more awkward, playing pretend like this when she wasn't by herself. Sometimes she could get her siblings to play along but most of the time it didn't go the way she wanted when that happened.. someone always changed something. And adults tried hard sometimes but they weren't very good imaginators. Ibala was sure of that.
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 6:54 pm
"Oh, I didn't mean to startle you," she padded closer happily, seeing her sister's children always reminded Baridi about when her four were very young.
Aunt Didi smirked and tried to very hard not to laugh at the remark at Thelo's expense.
"Now, it's not very nice to say things about your brother," She nodded sagely, "I am horrible at catching frogs, Uncle Gebali is the one to talk to about that." she laughed thinking about her mate avoiding the deep ends of the water and slinking around in the mud.
"Where is everyone? Do you want someone to play with?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:16 pm
"But you're so big and old, you should be good at catching frogs," she said, unimpressed, "Why doesn't Uncle Gebali teach you how to do it?"
Ibala figured all adults would have been awesome frog-catchers.. she never realized that her mother was far too jumpy to manage it, she was always more focused on playing along in the lessons to notice that mama never caught anything. And she always blamed it on them getting in the way.
"Mama went somewhere, I don't know," she said, "Everybody went with her or something.. what do you want to play?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:24 pm
"Too big and old," Baridi repeated looking at her little niece, her face went from a blank slate to practically tears of laughter rolling down her eyes. "I'm not that old, Ibala." the lioness continued laughing.
"Uncle Gebali likes to keep his very ancient Jini-msemi secrets..maybe next time you see him you could ask him to share them with you. He wont with me."
"How about you tell me what you'd like to play?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:28 pm
"Well, no, but you're not a baby," she said matter-of-factly, not seeing the problem with her statement. She looked very pensive when Baridi suggested that Ibala ask Gebali about frog-hunting, deciding that she should do just that.. but where was Gebali?
"Where is Uncle Gebali? Could he help now?" she said, "I want to hunt for frogs!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:33 pm
Not a baby, indeed. She had babies who were old enough to have babies. Baridi grinned, her little niece's statements were perfect, naivety and intuitiveness all wrapped into one ball of adorable.
"Uncle Gebali," she paused, she hadn't even spoken to Kisuli about it yet, "He went to visit some friends in the rogue lands, but he'll be back soon enough. When he comes home I'll make sure to let him know he owes us one frog hunt."
"I could take you hunting, maybe you could teach me a thing or two?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:41 pm
"Hmph," Ibala pouted, disappointed that Uncle Gebali was not around to help her with frog hunting. At least Aunt Didi seemed to be interested in doing it anyway.. and she was asking for help- and Ibala had just been trying to boss around imaginary versions of her siblings.
"Ok! I can teach you eeeeeverything I know about it," she said brightly, bouncing a bit and then hopping a couple steps, "First we got to go find some water, they like it best by water."
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:46 am
Aunt Didi nodded enthusiastically ready to take the orders of her wonderful niece. Had Ibala always enjoyed giving orders? The youth was even doling out direction to imaginary siblings. The dream colored lioness followed behind Ibala, taking a small step for every hop.
"Water? That seems like a very good idea. I'll follow your lead. Please lead the way, Great Frog hunter!" Baridi exclaimed and waited for any sort of command Ibala had, she was ready to play. Baridi was all for spending time with the little ones, they were only young once; and besides it could make for embarrassing stories to tell her later when she's an adult.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:20 pm
"K!"
Ibala hopped along, preparing herself for the next step- which was, of course, to think like a frog. She didn't need to explain that to aunt Didi yet, though. She would find out soon enough. The cub did not tire of hopping, managing to continue the whole way to the water.. which wasn't really that far away.
"Do you see any frogs?" she asked, crouching down to the mud and looking around with narrow red eyes.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:27 pm
Baridi'ini crouched low to the ground following her niece closely, the fur of her belly scraping the ground. She couldn't help but smile at Ibala's antics, her hopping along toward the water's edge.
"I don't see anything," she whispered raising her bright eyes to scan the water.
"Oh, Over there!" Baridi exclaimed, her voice raising to a loud whisper. She was pointing to a group of three large frogs, all sitting against a fallen log.
"What now?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:50 pm
"Shh shh!" she shushed her aunt a little louder than necessary once the frogs had been pointed out. She nodded ambiguously to Baridi and then crept along in the mud, heading around the water to get closer to the frogs. She'd need to be near them before she could catch them, she wasn't a fast enough swimmer- or a quiet enough creeper through the water. She wasn't really that quiet creeping through the mud.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:03 pm
"Oh, of course." Baridi clapped a paw across her own mouth and nodded back to the enthusiastic youth. Not quite sure exactly what Ibala was aiming for in her instruction - or lack thereof the adult was forced to make an assumption.
Thinking that Ibala must want Baridi to hang back and sneak up from the other side, she started heading in the opposite direction of Ibala to circle around. Hopefully, Baridi would be able to scare them into the young lioness' paws..and not into the water. Baridi crept slowly, periodically stopping to look from Ibala to the frogs...this was what the youngster wanted, wasn't it?
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