[PRP] Minas Tirith, city of kings (Kazul & Lucivar)

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul stretched and admired her forelegs as she realized that they were not only longer than they had once been, but she was developing some muscle tone. Oh, not a lot, not yet, but definite more than she had as a cub. That pleased her and she rumbled her pleasure in something between a purr and a growl. She practiced fighting with her brothers and her sister and whatever other cubs she could convince to go along with her games, which often ended up becoming duels or epic battles fought one-on-one. She was getting bigger and better, and that was as it should be. She was, after all, a Stormborn.

Of course, sometimes she tended to neglect her other duties and assignments in favor of her preferred occupation. That was what she was doing here and now. Her mother had asked her to climb up to the ice melts and bring back a few chunks of ice to be melted for drinking water later that day, but Kazul was delaying, killing time. She enjoyed the ice melts because of the way the sun glinted off the ice and shone through the formations translucently. The view below was also spectacular.

And, of course, what cub had not found themselves unable to resist the urge to lick the ice and risk getting their tongue frozen to the glacial deposits? Kazul had taken that risk some time ago, but fortune had been on her side and she had not gotten stuck. No one else had either, much to her disappointment. It might have been interesting if someone had. Of course, they had been up there in daylight, when it was warmer and there was a layer of water on the ice. At night and before sunrise it was significantly colder and unwitting contact with water could turn frozen at any time, trapping a body until sunup unless they were willing to tear free.

It was not so early that Kazul was at any risk of that, but it had been when she'd gone up. She'd been a long time about her task.  

[Tanakako]

This was not one of Lucivar's usual haunts, though he had spent plenty of time up here as a cub, slithering about on the ice and playing in the snow when it was present, but as the months went by he had focused more on training that playing and had eventually stopped coming here at all. But today he felt like a change of scenery and the massive slabs of ice with their haunting shadows and eerie voices were perfectly in tune with his mood.

The young adolescent wove his way between the soaring corridors of ice, ignoring his twisted reflection that shimmered off multiple surfaces all around him. The image that was reflected back was of a young lion just coming into his prime, the untidy ruff was beginning to grow thick and full about his shoulders, spreading down from his neck. The heavy medallion that swung from his neck no longer reached his knees but instead sat full against his chest, gleaming in the pale sunlight. Solid muscle rippled under the multi-tones of brown and chocolate that swirled across his body. While still a leggy youth, the gangliness of childhood was long gone and the promise of strength and swiftness was starting to become a reality.

Pale ice-blue eyes roamed the area, aware but not on alert. This was his home and he did not expect to run into trouble.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul watched a shadow grow and twist, distorted by the ice which was everywhere around her. There was virtually no way to tell whose shadow it might be until its owner actually came into view, and so Kazul did not trouble herself with trying to figure out who was coming. Instead she ducked behind an icy outcropping of stone, just in case it was her mother coming up to see what was taking her daughter so long.

It was not, she told herself, an act of cowardice, since she was hardly afraid of her mother and she wasn't unwilling to take whatever punishment Morrigan meted out as a result of Kazul's dawdling. It was a game. She would try to spy a glimpse of the person who had just come up before they caught sight of her. The stealth aspect made it that much more acceptable in Kazul's golden eyes.

She supposed she should just run the errand she'd been send up to run, but at this point it had become a matter of pride not to run it, and instead to stay up here for as long as she could before someone was sent after her. Perhaps that's what had happened already, but if that was the case, the lion who had just come up would have to find her first.  

[Tanakako]

Soon enough old memories were returning to him, the way that if he stopped for too long, the ice would melt just enough under the warmth of his paws to make him slip. The echoing groans of the densely packed ice used to be considered monsters in their games and used to scare each other silly.

For the first time in a while, Lucivar's lips quirked upwards in a slightly sardonic smile. Old memories, but they were good ones. It had been a while since he had bothered to remember. Suddenly something off to one side caught his attention, the barest flash of something dark among the ice. Pausing, pale-maned head lifting as he squinted through the uneven walls of semi-opaque ice between him and whatever it was. With nothing else to do, he considered going after it. It was likely a thrall of a misplaced cub and none of his business, but with time on his paws and a lighter mood than usual, the adolescent reaver turned and set off in pursuit at a leisurely pace.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

Her position among the ice-capped rocks and stones of the ice melts was not bad for hiding, and very convenient for slipping away to different places should she need to do so, but it was not much good for spying. She could not clearly see the person she had arbitrarily decided was pursuing her, and it took a special kind of concentration to block out the sounds up here, which were unlike the sounds heard anywhere else in the pride. The wind wasn't unusual, but it did whistle more up here because of the way the ice formed tunnels her ma said, and there was the constant sound of water trickling and dripping from high to low as well as the sound the ice made when it shifted, the deep creaking and occasional squealing. Kazul knew the sounds, but she was not so familiar with them that she could easily tune them out to listen solely for the sound of pursuit, which meant that she would need to leave her hiding place to get a first-hand look at whomever it was coming after her.

She moved as quietly as she could, though she was forced to dig her claws in for purchase occasionally. Holding still for as long as she had wet her paws and the fur between her toes, so now she had to be very careful, lest the damp fur - or paw pads - freeze to the ice or the ground, though that was unlikely, since it wasn't that cold this morning and she was still generating sufficient body heat to melt ice if she remained in one place long enough. Obviously. It also meant that she would leave wet paw prints if she was careless enough to step on a patch of dry earth or stone, of which there were fortunately few.

Peering over and around a precariously stacked pile of stones Kazul caught her first real glimpse of the lion and recognized him as one of Gunnar's sons. Lucivar was his name, and while she was sure they'd met before, she didn't recall too much about him beyond his name, his father's name, and his ambition to be a Captain someday. She also knew that his mother was in another pride somewhere, she suddenly recalled, but that still wasn't much to go on. Her tail twitched and she began to back down from her vantage point.

Midway down one of her paws slipped, a weight-bearing paw, and her momentary flailing for purchase brought the paw into contact with the stacked stones, causing a minor rock slide wherein she ended up partially buried beneath several rocks ranging in size from approximately the size of her paw to the size of her skull. Fortunately none of them actually struck her skull, but her attempts at stealth had undeniably been foiled.  

[Tanakako]

Unlike the cub he was tracking, the young male had spent a great deal of time up here, first as a cub playing with anyone else who would join him in those misadventures, and later as a juvenile, practicing not only moving about but fighting on the slick, slippery ice sheets.

Now, as a well developed adolescent, Lucivar was a skilled fighter both on and off the ice and tracking the dark flash he had spotted provided little difficulty for him. But even so, he was not in a hurry and took his time admiring the impressive natural ice sculptures that lay all about, ducking down glowing tunnels and scaling the ice-made ridges. He had been getting close to the shape that flittered about behind the glimmering ice-walls when the peaceful air was shattered by the sound of tumbling stones and rocks that had come from the area he had last seen the mysterious blur.

With several bounding strides, he came upon the scene of devastation and blinked at what it revealed. The blur had been a cub, and it was now stuck under a small slide. After a moment he pieced together the bits of fur he could see and realised it was Kazul, Aesir's daughter by the scary high priestess Morrigan. Huffing with barely concealed amusement at her predicament, Lucivar stepped forward and bent to the stones covering her. Grabbing one of the bigger pieces in his jaw he tossed it away and repeated the process, working from the top down to prevent any of the smaller bits getting into her eyes or anywhere else equally unpleasant.

Pausing to spit rubble from his mouth he eyed the semi-uncovered youth. "You are not hurt I take it?" His unintentionally gruff voice was just starting to deepen as Lucivar approached adulthood, though he had a way to go as yet and did not have the impressive vocals of the adult males, but nor did he possess the high-pitched tone of a youngster any longer.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul's first thought when gravity turned against her was that it was going to ruin her hiding place. There was no way he wouldn't have heard the noise. There was, of course, the chance that he would decide to ignore it. Things did succumb to gravity from time to time up here, what with the ice constantly melting and then re-freezing, it wasn't all that uncommon actually. Maybe he would think it was just that, and go about his business.

Her second thought was "ouch."

Her third thought was more along the lines of how she was going to get out from under everything without attracting any further attention, but it seemed that would be taken care of. She did not fail to hear the sound of barely concealed laughter and her youthful features shifted into a scowl. She could live with being laughed at, particularly when it was deserved, but she disliked being thwarted and then laughed at. It tended to make her grumpy. Mostly because she preferred not to have people around to witness her failures.

"I'm not," she replied firmly. She began to shove small stones away from her until she'd uncovered the rest of herself. It hadn't seemed like there were so many of the things from where she'd been moments before.

"You're not going to scold me are you?" she asked, eying the older lion suspiciously.  

[Tanakako]

Lucivar grinned unashamedly at her swift and slightly irritated reply, sitting back on his rump as she finished uncovering herself. He had watched her and her siblings on occasion, curious how the offspring of the Warlord lived and trained, and he had oft noticed her particularly feisty nature. She was a true stormborn, as to be expected from a daughter of Aesir and Morrigan.

Lifting a paw he pushed a few of the remaining larger stones out of her way, grinning at her question. Sometimes he forgot he was getting older, age certainly came with some interesting side-effects along with his increased strength and endurance. Young cubs acted differential to him and some even asked for training, it secretly amused Lucivar no end.

Lifting a brow at her question, he tilted his head. "Why would I do that? You made a mistake and certainly paid for it already." Nodding to her dust and ice-covered fur and the no doubt painful bruising that she would develop later. He had experienced more than a few 'mistakes' himself, including spraining his ankle while practicing on the rocks as a youngster. If nothing else, the land itself taught a lion to be wary.
 

[Princess_Feylin]

"Jah, I have a bit, haven't I?" Kazul remarked, glancing at the spray of stones around her and then wrapping her tail around her paws in a manner that was almost prim. She was going to pretend that she didn't feel like she'd taken a beating, and be grateful that her fur coat would hide any bruising that might develop so that she wouldn't have to explain how she had been beaten by something as stupid as a small rock slide.

"Just the same, I'd rather not be scolded. It gets annoying."

She wasn't one of those constantly in trouble sorts of cubs, but she was a cub, and that came with a certain amount of scolding. The instances were becoming fewer and farther between as she got older and better learned how to avoid committing scold-worth offenses, or at least how to avoid getting caught at it, but they still happened from time to time, and so she was wary.

The topic wasn't one she particularly cared to discuss for much longer, though, and so she changed the subject. It was something she liked about being her age, and which she knew she wouldn't be able to do for much longer, changing the subject on a whim with no warning or transition. She planned to take full advantage of that aspect of her youth.

"You're going to be a reaver, jah?" she asked as she stepped over the pile of rocks. "Have you given any thought to which captain you want to pick you for his viking?"  

[Tanakako]

The grin remained as she spoke, pale blue eyes regarding her with an amused but impressed expression. He knew she had to be hurting after her fall, rocks were hardly soft and fluffy, but she seemed determined to ignore the whole thing and he had to admit that he was impressed. For one so young, she had the attitude of a true reaver.

Chuckling he shook his head, his blond mane falling into his eyes, something he had yet to get used to. "You are safe from a scolding by me. Though I will not answer for your parents when you go back." Lips quirking upwards he decided it had been a good idea to come up here, Kazul would be one worth watching in the future and if all her siblings were like her, then the pride would be in good paws for the next generation.

Her sudden topic change made Lucivar pause and he regarded her thoughtfully. So she seemed to know a bit about him as well eh? Well, that shouldn't be entirely surprising, Gunner had been in the Warlord's first viking and certainly was well known in the pride, it made sense that his offspring would be known as well. "Yes, I plan to be." He nodded briefly, though added mentally that he didn't expect to stay a reaver for long. His true ambition was to be a Captain, but he was not naive enough to think it would happen over night. After all, that was why he had been training himself since he first learned of reavers and captains and warlords. He wanted to be a truly great Captain and was fully prepared to put in the effort to get there.

Her second question however did require a bit of though, though after a moment he realised there was only one answer he could give. "The Warlord, of course." What better way that to have the pride's most impressive warrior to watch and learn from?
 

[Princess_Feylin]

"Oh, good," Kazul said, grinning toothily. All of her grins were toothy, and very few of them were reassuring or convincing. It was a habit she'd picked up from her father, of course, who was amazing at intimidating people. Of course, it was easier for him. He was big and strong and everyone knew it. She probably could have learned more from her mother, but her mother wasn't overtly intimidating and she'd still not yet come to appreciate the power of subtle intimidation, or how to replicate it, anyway.


"Well, I'm going to be scolded anyway," she said with a shrug. "I was supposed to be back with ice to melt a while ago, but I got distracted. So I may as well enjoy myself before I go back to that, ne?"

Her mother probably wouldn't scold. If someone hadn't been sent after her by this point, all would probably be all right. Besides, Morrigan wasn't really too much of a scolder. She had other ways of letting her cubs know she wasn't pleased with their actions - or their inaction, as the case may be. Sometimes she just looked at you and it was like all the spirits and gods ever were looking at you, too.

"My da might not be going out for a while, I've heard," she said, sharing a bit of gossip she hadn't realized was gossip. "Last time he went out, he came back with a cub, after all. Ma wasn't terrifically pleased about that."

She'd been less pleased when the orange cub's mother had shown up with five other cubs, undeniably the Warlord's get. Kazul hadn't been hugely thrilled either, actually, but the family was mostly taking it in stride, it seemed.