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 Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 12:30 pm
 Sadara huffed, wiping a paw over her brow, and using it to shade her pale eyes from the glare of the sun. It was hot, beyond hot, and she thought wistfully about the rainy season months ago.
Months ago, before the fluffy male and she had spent time together...before the cubs. She sighed, wincing a little at the thought of them. She'd stayed only long enough to ween them, and even then she had left early, knowing the other females with Athena would continue their care. It wasn't that she hated them...it was just...she was leopard and they were lions...and with all that had happened in so short a time...she'd known in her heart she wasn't ready to be a mother.
Lucky for her, Athena was more then thrilled to be a father and had vowed to take care of the tykes in his solemn and fluffy way. Sadara smiled, he was a good lion, kind and generous...she had to be a fool not to have stayed with him and his little family...but she hadn't, just like she hadn't stayed with Lahui.
Was there something wrong with her? Something that made her need the solitude of the endless savanna? She enjoyed company, but not all the time. Frowning, she stared out into the heat...Forefathers, but it was to hot to think, at least out in the open.
Spotting a ridge of tea trees that looked like they might offer some shade, Sadara headed for them. Better to think about it all when her brain wasn't boiling in her skull.
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Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:40 pm
This business of finding himself a banu was turning out infinitely more complicated and difficult than he'd been led to believe it would be. Or at least, than he'd thought he'd been led to believe. Truthfully, he'd been so excited about heading out on his quest, he hadn't asked others much about their experiences. So many of them tended to beat up their prospective banu and drag her back to the pride. He simply couldn't bear to hear such tales, and thus hadn't ended up asking anyone about it.
At least he hadn't been out here very long. He knew some lions didn't come back until they'd gotten their full mane grown in. He certainly hoped he wouldn't be that unlucky, but the great circle of life tended to turn how it wanted, rather than how you wanted it to. He might be in for a long haul, and needed to be accepting of the idea.
Today was quite hot, making him tend to simply plod along, blocking out his outer stemuli and focus on his inner thoughts. A bright flicker on the horizon caught his attention though. He squinted at it, wavering in the rising heat of the distance. Was it light on the water? It could be, and water sounded wonderful just now. Yes, it was time to alter his route. Panting to cool himself, he directed his paws towards the gleaming spot on the horizon, shining like a beacon to follow.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:46 pm
Sadara let out a soft sigh as she lounged in the tree branch above the water. This was far better then the boiling heat out on the plains. The river had not dried up yet, though it was just a lazy trickle rather then a roaring tempest, but it served its purpose of cooling the shade of the tree branches.
The pale leopardess was in a half dose, her eyes narrowed to slits as she contemplated a nap to pass the heat of the day. She'd hunt a dusk, when the herds were settling down, and when the scorching sun wasn't trying to cook her in her fur.
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 10:38 am
The distant gleam eventually winked out, but by that time he was close enough to realize it was not water, and to also realize it had entered a grove of trees. Now drawn by curiosity as well, he kept heading towards the clump of trees where the bright spot had disappeared. He was pleased to realize as he neared that there was indeed water here after all. His step quickened, taking him directly to the trickle of a stream, finding a shallow bowl where it gathered before flowing on. He plunged his muzzle into it and drank as deeply as the little hollow of ground would allow. He had to wait for it to refill several times before his thirst was slaked.
It was only then that he lifted his head to examine the grove with interest. It perhaps was a foolish thing to have not examined his surroundings before he drank, but he was not used to needing to guard his own back. Pridal life was nothing like that, since everyone was looking out for each other, the males in particular. It was so tightly knit, like a family, even when you weren't related to the other male. He searched for whatever he had been following, but saw noone in the shade under the trees. Puzzled, he began padding about, examining the ground in the direction he thought he'd seen the other come in. Yes, there were tracks! He followed them around, eyes down rather than up, and stopped in complete bafflement at a tree. Where... where had this feline gone?
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 11:32 am
Sadara had seen the young male lion approaching and promptly hid herself up in the tree, curling her tail tightly around her. Male lions were dangerous, young ones without a Pride even more so. The last thing she needed was to have to fight for her life, though being young, he didn't have the full weight behind him a full grown male would have. Still, best not chance anything.
She watched him drink through the leaves, he was absolutely oblivious to his surroundings. Had another male, a wild dog..or gods forbid a baboon wanted to watering hole, he'd have been on the ground in a fight before he even realized someone was there. He obviously hadn't been on his own for very long, and at this rate, his stint out in the Roguelands was going to be short..and messy.
When he started circling her tree, a perplexed look on his face, Sadara finally lost it and the laugh she'd been trying to hold in came out in a muted huff as she covered her mouth with her paw.
" You're really something, you know that...you have to learn to look UP also." She chastised him as she uncurled from her branch, her pale form unfurling like a flower before she turned her clear, ice blue eyes on him.
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Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 8:07 pm
He jerked his head up in startlement, nearly jumping out of his skin at hearing a voice from above. He was further astonished to see a feline form uncurling from within the tree itself, above his head. As she came unfurled, his eyes grew wider and wider, until they were dilated into dark pools of amazement. Why... there was a girl in that tree! Climbing trees might have been something he'd consider as a cub, but as a grown-up? The very realization that she had not only thought of it, but done so and looked comfortable with is floored him.
'Y-y-you're a girl!" he blurted without thinking. "What are you doing up there?!" The astonishment was clear in his voice, but he was finally starting to register more than just her position and gender. This wasn't a lioness he faced, but a leopardess, much more compactly built, more graceful than many of the lionesses he knew. Granted, she was smaller, but look at her! She was up in a tree and comfy as could be! His amazement began to shift to outright admiration, changing his expression from that of a stunned cub to a more mature gaze up at her. "Why would I have thought to look up?" He asked in a more normal and curious tone. Why indeed?!
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 8:01 pm
Sadara raised both her eyebrows at the young male, and had to stifle another giggle. She certainly wasn't more then a whisker older then him, but at the moment it seemed like decades..but then again, there had been so much heart ache for her these past six moons.
Slipping down from the tree with a natural grace, she came and sat in front of him, her tail curling around her paws, " Yes, last time I looked I was a girl, and if you must know, I was trying to take a nap."
Sadara shook her head at him, making a soft tisking sound, " You should always look up when under trees out here in the Roguelands. All manner of things lurk in them. Small things like spiders and snakes, to large, like a baboon...and let me tell you, they certainly do not like people under their trees."
The female gave a light laugh, " You aren't from around here are you? You're from a Pride. I can tell."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 10:16 am
Faraji was nothing if not easy-going. So as she gently scolded him from dangers he'd never even heard of, and then pegged him as a lion from a pride, he broke into a laugh. "Why yes, what was your first clue?" His teasing smile showed that the question was rhetorical. "You are right, I'm not used to being out here, beyond the normal life of my pride." Hmm... this could be a good way to bridge the subject? Perhaps. He inwardly opted to let things go their own way, since that had worked out last time well enough, parting with no drama of rejections of indignance. The more he'd thought on it in the time since, his meeting with that young lioness could have gone much worse than it had. So instead of leap right into asking her to come back with him, he bided his time and let the conversation develop how it would.
"I don't have much choice in the matter currently, though thankfully I'll get to go home eventually." He mentally added a silent plea of I hope! Still, it was a big, wide world, and there must be plenty of girls out here who would take a liking to him. But now it was his turn to swing the focus back on her. "Ah, but let me guess... you are a rogue!" He let his expression overreact to his 'guess' as if it had been a great triumph of deep thought to arrive at that conclusion. He was finding it easier to be himself with this leopardess than it had been meeting the last female stranger. It was... nice, plain and simple. "My name is Faraji," he offered openly, "What is your name?"
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