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 Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:11 pm
 It was going to be one of those days. Mirsajadi could just sense it. He was out of the den - definitely out of the den - because his father was in a mood and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of his temper. It was one thing to catch his father's attention on a good day and win some rare praise. It was another thing to catch his father's attention on a bad day and suffer an ego-rending lecture on what a disappointment he and his litter were for being so slow to mature.
"I'm plenty mature," Mirsajadi grumbled fiercely as he took a vicious slash at an offending flower which had the audacity to stand too high above its fellows. "Just like stupid Anwar."
By this he meant the flower. Maturity wasn't really something Mirsajadi associated with his older half-brother. He supposed he was mature, and he was undeniably bigger and older, but mostly Mirsajadi viewed him as competition. Both of them were smaller rather than larger, and had early on developed the same idea that it was better to excel in the mental arena than to fail utterly in the physical one.
He prowled through the field, still barely taller than the tips of the flowers' uppermost petals. His paws moved silently, however, and the only real indication of his presence was the low, rumbling growl emanating from deep in his chest. It was not a cub's growl, but the frustrated growl of someone who felt like an adult trapped in a cubl's body.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:45 pm
For once, Badiah wasn’t plotting to sneak away from the den area to explore. She usually loved exploring and pretending she was on a mock journey, much like her brothers sometimes pretended, only she usually fantasized about being a world-renowned hunter rather than collecting girls like they were a bunch of shiny rocks. Today though, there was no pretending, and no exploring. She had wandered away from the den to be alone, but she didn’t go too far, for worry she would have to return.
It was a strange dizziness that made her worry. She had awoken after a strange dream dizzy, and while playing tag with her siblings the dizziness had struck her again. She had thought running around usually cheered her up enough to ignore most problems, but while walking through a small field of flowering grasses the dizziness had struck again and she lied down to close her eyes while her head reeled. The grasses ate up her tiny form entirely, and she might have been stepped on if she hadn’t heard an approaching growl that came between the stalks like distant thunder. She opened her eyes in time to see the male only a short distance from being upon her and yelped out, “Oh, Mirsajadi!”
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2011 8:15 am
Mirsajadi hadn't really expected to encounter anyone. He rarely did at this time of day and in this part of the pride. Even though it was a frequent getaway spot for lions seeking solitude, somehow he only rarely managed to cross paths with them. Which was just the way he liked it. Especially when he was in a foul mood, as he was in this instance.
However, when he thought he saw a cub's figure a little bit away he didn't immediately deviate from his chosen path. He was older, bigger, and there first, and in just foul enough a temper to be willing to give the other cub a reason to go out of their way. And then the figure vanished below the level of the grass completely and he wondered for a moment if they were actually going to be stupid enough to try attacking him. Mirsajadi had never enjoyed being stalked.
He strode very deliberately toward what he assumed was a would-be stalker, intending to make it very clear that he was not prey, and that any attempts to treat him as such would end very, very badly, when a somewhat familiar voice called out his name. Was that...Bad? He slowed his pace for a moment to determine whether he'd heard correctly, and then decided that she sounded sufficiently distressed that he really ought to just see what was the matter, and do the thinking and evaluating thing later.
He covered the last of the distance in a somewhat impressive, ground-covering leap which brought him within a foot or two of his prone half-niece. She did not look to be in particularly good condition, and his dark red eyes grew darker with concern.
"What happened?" he asked, deciding not to bother with stupid questions like, "Are you all right." Obviously she wasn't all right.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:17 am
Badiah squinted. She usually liked Mirsajadi’s stripes, but watching them suddenly grow as he leapt toward her made her eyes hurt. She settled for closing one eye – which gave improvement enough that she could actually look at him anyway. “Nothing,” she answered, shifting uncomfortably. She wanted to get up so she wouldn’t feel so much like a squashed bug, but didn’t want to stumble in front of her uncle. It would have been too embarrassing. “I’ve just been dizzy all… all d-d...”
Badiah gave up on speaking entirely as fear shot through her. Her eyes. There was something wrong with her eyes. She could still see the surrounding flowers and Mirsajadi’s face and the hazy heat waves toying with the tops of distant trees, but overlying all that was another image, something that was hurting her eyes to try and focus on. Bad shuddered and her eyes twitched jerkily, but the ghost image stayed centered in her vision, blurring everything. “I can’t see,” she said plaintively, her voice sounding too scared to belong to the same niece Mirsajadi had first met a few days ago.
She shut her eyes, and everything at once cleared. The ghost image became the only one, and there was a lioness, clear and solid. She was black – no, maybe only a dark blue – with lighter blue markings under her eyes and at her feet. A lake shimmered (the watering hold?) in the late evening sun behind her, and… and…
And then everything faded, and Bad was only staring at the back of her eyes. She opened them and glanced about, startled. “Did you see her?” she demanded of her uncle, leaping to her feet with a suddenly clear head. It had ended so quickly! Had she imagined it?
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:13 pm
Mirsajadi watched his striped half-niece close one eye and shift as though in fairly severe discomfort. It would not have taken a genius to see that she was unwell, and which Mirsajadi might not have been a genius, he definitely had enough grey matter to come to that same conclusion. Her admission that she'd been dizzy - all day probably was what she was going to say - made him quite certain that was the case. At least for another few seconds.
When she shuddered and complained of being unable to see even though her eyes were wide open, another thought occurred to Mirsajadi. This one filled him with a degree of horror. A detached part of his mind watched Bad twitch and wondered clinically if that was what he looked like when he was caught in the grips of one of the less severe seizures. Then, once he had that stray thought, it was impossible to keep the others out. Up until that point he had been doing his very best to ignore the fact that all the symptoms she'd described had borne a remarkable resemblance to those he suffered in the hours leading up to his bouts of hallucination.
He waited, making no move to touch her and uttering no immediate words of comfort. Physical acts of tenderness did not come naturally to Mirsajadi, and while he knew most people would have done something like lick her or touch her in some way, he did nothing of the sort. He didn't like to be touched, and he really hated to be touched after one of his fits. It was possible, if Bad suffered from the same affliction, that she would feel the same way about it.
However, Bad seemed to recover instantaneously from her miniature fit - a feat Mirsajadi had never managed to accomplish - and astounded him by her ability to leap to her feet. Perhaps it was something different. Except she'd just asked him if he saw someone, "her," when there was no one else there to be seen. Hallucination. Like him.
"No," he told her, again not bothering with stupid questions like, "Who?" or "Where?" He knew what she meant, he just hadn't seen what she'd seen.
"But that's how it works. No one around you will be able to see what you're seeing." He wondered if he should have said that. He had never before even hinted that he might have a mental problem which made him see things that weren't there from time to time.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:34 pm
No, no, of course he hadn’t! Bad craned her neck to see over the gentle bobbing flower heads, but there was nothing to see but the same old field, nothing to hear but the click of beetles scratching at the ground and birds squabbling almost out of earshot. There was no lake, and no other lioness. She was sure something had happened though. She’d been sick with that dizziness all day and now she felt clearheaded and her blood rushed hot and excited in her veins. Maybe if she went to the water hole that lioness would be there – only it was full day now, and she’d seen the adult Banu towards late evening. She almost turned to leave Mirajadi since he couldn’t possibly help her with something he obviously hadn’t seen, but his next calm answer made the erratic cub jerk her attention back toward him.
Her ears folded back and her gaze narrowed into a critical and discerning stare – one of her more common expressions – but now she wasn’t composed enough to just sit and consider what he’d said like she normally would have. “How do you know?” The question came like a demand and she stepped toward him as if she needed to physically impress her will on him. It wasn’t her intention to be rude, but she was too disturbed to be tactful.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:54 pm
Mirsajadi didn't turn to look in the direction his niece was investigating. He already knew that there was no one there. He knew because when he was younger and inexperienced in the affliction which made his brain cease to function properly for short periods of time he had spent some time looking around for people and things which weren't there. And then he had learned that what he had seen was never there, and stopped searching for the subjects of his visions.
Watching his niece perform the action, however, had the unexpected effect of generating a streak of compassionate empathy which might have annoyed him at another time. He had worked very hard to eradicate as much compassion and tenderness from his emotional makeup as possible. But he could actually empathize with Bad, as opposed to merely sympathizing, and she was family. The only member of his family that he liked, in fact. He could tell her what he knew.
"I know from personal experience, unfortunately," he said, doing his best to keep his tone casual as he explained further. "There's something about my brain - and yours, too, I think - which causes us to see things that aren't there and experience physical fits of varying degrees of severity. I used to think it was something that came from my mother, who isn't really all there, if you know what I mean, but seeing that you seem to have the same trait I wonder if perhaps it came from Tariq'ra'd, since he's the only relative we have in common."
It felt blasphemous to suppose that it might be his father's fault that he suffered these things, but what other explanation was there? She was Tariq's granddaughter, he was Tariq's son, and they both had the same affliction in common, but no other shared blood. He felt vaguely sick to his stomach just thinking about it.
"It would be better if you didn't tell anyone about it," he said. "People would think less of you for it."
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:51 pm
Badiah was now staring as much through Mirsajadi as she was at him. It was too much. She had met Mel’tamu only a few days ago, and she’d said she could see the future, but only because her father was the god of manes. She’d been very nice, but in retrospect, she’d seemed a little hesitant in explaining what had been different about her. And then, after Badiah had touched her paw….. whatever Mel had seen, it had unnerved her, and the older Banu had left quickly without explaining it. Added to what Mirsa was saying now, this difference couldn’t possibly be good.
Badiah’s tail sunk and her expression went tight with concern that was entirely selfish. There was something wrong with her. Mel had been sweet and good-natured, and Mirsa seemed too clever to ever succumb to problems, but what about her? “Does it get worse?” she asked tautly. She couldn’t help but be scared, but she was going to get answers instead of crying. Crying doesn’t get anything done, she reminded herself. Her mother usually praised her for being brave, but maybe it would be of more use now.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 4:26 pm
Mirsajadi continued to watch his niece, neither ashamed nor proud of the way his mind remained distantly appraising when he viewed her reaction to his revelation. In truth, focusing on her reactions made it easier for him to bear the stunning realization that his father might have been the one to pass on this defect in his brain. That would take him more than a few moments to digest.
The older cub shook his head, taking pity on his niece without realizing that was what he was doing. "I don't think it will for you."
In a way he envied her the comparative mildness of her experience with the hallucinations, and how quickly she was able to recuperate from them. When he was struck with a bout, sometimes he got warning but mostly he didn't, and then he was just floored and in searing, screaming pain of the sort that made him bite his own foreleg to keep from crying out. When they left him he was weak as a newborn cub and sick and the resulting headache would linger for the rest of the day, usually.
As that didn't seem to be the case with Bad, he didn't see any reason to tell her about his own difficulties with the defect. She would only think less of him for being more severely afflicted, though it made perfect sense if the affliction came from Tariq. He was more closely related to the vizier than she was, so he would be more strongly affected. It wasn't fair, but it was just, and maybe even a little fair. He was a male, and she was female. He ought to be able to bear more than she.
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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:31 pm
Why not? Bad didn’t ask the question, because she felt she already knew the answer. He was probably lying to make her feel a little better. Her uncle didn’t seem a sentimental sort, but if there wasn’t anything to be done about it anyway, it was an easy lie to offer, and if he had admitted he shared her affliction, he must at least care that much. She looked worried for a long moment, then managed to accept and swallow the fact of the situation – at least for now. “I saw a lioness when I closed my eyes. She was a very dark blue or maybe black, but there were some lighter marks on her feet and face. I don’t know why though – is it supposed to make any sense?”
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:22 pm
Mirsajadi didn't miss the question in his niece's eyes, but since she didn't ask it, he didn't offer any further information. He didn't know a whole lot about the strangeness which Tariq'ra'd had passed on to his son and granddaughter, and what little he did know was all surmised and guessed, and if he was going to speak about it to someone, he wanted to be sure he could give them correct information. Particularly Bad, who was independent and clever enough to call him out if he misinformed her.
"It's worse for me," he said quietly, answering at least part of her tacit question. "But it's always been bad for me. Sometimes it's less painful or more sensical, but I've never had it hit me significantly worse than the first time. Though I may be misremembering."
Instinctively Mirsajadi looked around, craning his neck to see over the top of the grass stalks to make sure that there was no one around to overhear. He even glanced up to make sure the sky was clear. Birds weren't known for their keen hearing, but he knew some people kept birds that they used to collect secrets and spy on people. He had been incredibly fortunate so far in avoiding discovery and he would like to keep it that way.
"I can't say that anything I've seen has ever made any sense to me, but since I think it's just my brain misfiring that's not a surprise." He didn't make the connection between Bad's description and a banu of his acquaintance, Arezoo, because he wasn't thinking of this as seer-like visions, but rather as hallucinations.
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:50 pm
Bad had a notion what he was glancing around for. As often as she snuck away from the den area, she knew about keeping a lookout for snoops, but she didn’t follow his gaze. He was taller and she wouldn’t be able to discern anymore than him. Besides, she was betting he had a more critical eye for this sort of thing at his age. She wondered a little sadly if she would have to develop the same skills. At any rate, she would probably have to careful about who she was around and find some way to avoid others when her dizzy spells came around. Maybe if she got stuck in the den she’d be able to pretend she was tired and take a ‘nap’ while her brain tried to spin straight out of her head.
She gave up on trying interpreting the bizarre image she’d seen at Mirsajadi’s explanation. It made sense to rank her dizzy spell along with dreams, which were pointless to wonder about really. “I didn’t know it hurt you,” she said with a frown of concern. “I’ve just been dizzy and nauseas all day. I had to lie down so I wouldn’t fall.” This was half a prompt for her uncle to further explain his experience, but even Bad, who was rarely couth, thought it rude and insensitive to question the pain Mirsajadi had mentioned directly. “Have you kept others from finding out about it?”
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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 5:54 am
Mirsajadi shrugged, more than a little uncomfortable discussing his weakness with one of the few people in his family - in the whole pride, really - that he liked enough for their opinion of him to matter. He cared about his father's opinion deeply, but he was coming to learn that didn't mean he had to love his father, or even like him. And he didn't really. He respected him and sought to please him as best he could, but their family atmosphere had not been one which led to close, affectionate relationships.
"If it doesn't hurt you, I'm pleased to hear it," Mirsajadi said truthfully. "I don't think it would be fair for you to have to bear that as well."
It wasn't that he was unaware of the prompting Bad was trying for, and he certainly approved of her subtlety, though he might have advised her under different circumstances not to give away any more personal information than she had to, even to people she thought she could trust. She could trust him. He would keep her secrets as handily as he kept his own. But that didn't mean she ought to get into the habit of giving things away. Mirsajadi just had to work very hard to convince himself that he could trust her similarly. She was only a cub after all.
"As far as I know, you and I are the only people who know about my difficulty," Mirsajadi said. "I've been very careful my entire life to keep it secret. It's hardest when it happens in the den, but fortunately the hallucinations don't last very long for me. The headache and nausea I can ignore if I have to."
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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:45 am
Badiah didn’t have any trouble guessing he didn’t want to talk about it, and the assumption wasn’t intuitively based on Mirsajadi’s body language. He was better at controlling his emotions, and Bad was as of yet only a cub and prone to missing things; but, she did feel a new and bright shame over her own… disability. And if his was worse, no wonder he said less about it. Whether he was aware of it or not, his silence on the matter invited more concern on Bad’s part that was less ignorable than the curiousity that came with it.
“It’s not fair for you either,” she said with quiet conviction. It was disturbing to think this sort of affliction could be passed through blood, but that didn’t mean those it fell on deserved it. Despite her nickname, Bad didn’t believe she deserved any fault besides perhaps making things more difficult for her mother than strictly necessary (and if her mother would simply relax that would have been solved), and she liked Mirsa, so this couldn’t be fair for either of them through her child’s logic.
Mirsajadi hadn’t revealed the details of his problem to her, but she found it more important that he had kept it revealed from everyone else. It was immediately clear now that he broken that secret for her, just for her, just to help her now as he’d stumbled upon her. They were kin, and she had thought they were sort of friends before, but the impact of his telling wasn’t lost, and she was quiet for a moment considering it. She thought that, in a way, she had power over him, like the power he had in return over her now. That was a new thought too. Her siblings had told her secrets before, but it was always something stupid, and sometimes she told just to see their tricks found out, a childish prank. But this wouldn’t be the same. Even if it was information that would only serve to embarrass Mirsajadi among his peers, it was a lot to trust with a Banu, especially one as a small as her.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said solemnly, her orange eyes meeting his directly. She wanted him to be assured of this. “I know I’m little and all, but I won’t, not to anyone.” If she could lie to even her mother for her own sake, she could stay silent for Mirsa too after all.
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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:55 am
"As much as I hate to say it, particularly to a young banu like yourself, I don't think life has much to do with fairness," Mirsajadi said, thinking of how his morning had gone so far. There was nothing fair about that.
"I've learned to live with it as best I am able, and if you want, I can try to help you, but I'm sure you'll figure things out for yourself. You're smart enough, certainly."
If nothing else he was a talented liar and could provide her with a number of excuses to help her get by and either hide or explain away her moments of strangeness. Though she was a fairly different sort of banu already, and a certain amount of strangeness could be justified in that way, he didn't know if what he had just witnessed in terms of her fits would fall under that kind of strangeness. He doubted it, in fact.
Responding to Bad's serious vow not to tell anyone presented a moment of indecision as he tried to figure out whether he ought to respond just as solemnly, or if he ought to try to lighten the mood. Clever or not, she was a very young banu and he didn't want to traumatize her. Though the moment he thought that, he realized that maybe for someone like her, it would take trauma to make the lesson stick.
"Thank you," he said somberly. "I won't tell anyone about you, either, until or unless you tell me otherwise."
Well, it hadn't lightened the mood any, but he hoped it would offer her at least a little bit of reassurance. He liked her, and even if he hadn't, she was family. Whether or not he liked his family, he felt a responsibility to look out for them.
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