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 Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 4:24 am
 The grumpy little boy was padding slowly alongside an outcrop of rocks, keeping nicely within the shade as he went. The small, blue wings were tucked firmly against his back and his head was down, the expression sullen.
A stray stone marred his path and he kicked it out of the way with a growl.
As soon as he learned to fly, he was getting out of here. Away from everything and everyone. Yes, he loved his family, but they didn't understand him and the emotion they brought out in him was frustration at best. He was a growing god! Didn't they understand that? With a huff, he sauntered from his path and began to scramble up the side of one of the taller rocks. It took him quite a while to get himself into position, turning so that he was facing out across the desert, following the path of the wind. Breathing deeply, he stretched his pinions and rumbled at the feel of the wind against them.
Today was the day, he could feel it!
With a few experimental flaps he lowered himself into pounce position and leapt.
The wind snagged at him but even the frantic beating of his wings was not enough. He hurtled to the sand and landed hard on the ground, flailing and crying out with anger at the betrayal of his own pinions. How dare they not carry him away from here?!
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 6:31 am
 Hiimatayt didn't often venture very far into the desert. She had been told often enough of the dangers that lurked there when she was younger that she had never really experienced much of an urge to go exploring. However, she was at liberty for the time being and one of her siblings had said that the view from a particular outcrop of rocks was really cool. So she had decided to see it for herself, being very mindful not to disturb any hidden scorpions or sleeping snakes.
She had just about reached the shade of the rocks on the pride side when she heard someone cry out. It was not, she decided quickly, a cry of pain. That pleased her. It was still not a good sound, though, and so rather than attempt to go over the rocks to see the view, Tay hurried around them, moving quickly over the hot sand as much to spare her paw pads as to reach her destination with alacrity.
When she came into view, Tay saw a mostly brown lion of an age that was difficult to determine. He was built like someone around her age, but he was very large. She didn't think she had seen him before, even at lessons, which was a little odd, but ultimately unimportant for the moment. The important thing was that he had apparently fallen from the rocks and might be hurt. If nothing else, he certainly didn't seem to be in a good mood.
"Are you all right?" she asked, closing the gap between them and peering anxiously at him without actually touching him. She didn't know anything about healing, really, and if he was hurt she didn't want to make it worse with her ignorance.
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Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:24 pm
He was startled by the sound of another voice close by and whirled to face the intruder, puffing himself up to appear big and scary. The blue feathers arched and fluffed up, doing well to increase his size as he eyed up the newcomer.
He hadn't met her before. He was sure he would have remembered if he had. She was dark pelted like a lot of the lions here, yes, but she had strands of purple in her fur that was a rather unique marking. It certainly did well to brighten up a pelt that would otherwise be extremely dark. He blinked his own, red-brown eyes, and wrinkled his snout in displeasure at her questioning. "Yes. I'm fine. I can take care of myself and I don't need you taking care of me." He was fed up with his mother fussing over him let alone a complete stranger, too. Were girls always like this, whether small or grown up?
"Now, go away. I've got important stuff to do." And he moved to the side, intent on clambering back up onto the rocks, using his claws to help him haul his bulk back to the top. He'd give it another shot and if it still didn't work, then he'd be too angry to try again.
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:47 am
If Khaldun was startled by Tay's voice and nearness, it was nothing compared to the surprise Tay felt when he got to his feet with his fur and feathers all fluffed up to make himself appear larger. She couldn't believe that she had failed to notice the fact that he was winged before. Now she almost couldn't tear her eyes away from those blue and white pinions. It was rude to stare, however, and by reminding herself of that fact she was able to make herself look back at his face, though her dark eyes remained wide with amazement.
"All right. I won't fuss over you," Tay said agreeably. "I did want to make sure though. If it had turned out otherwise, I don't think I would have been able to live with myself if I hadn't at least asked. Thank you for sparing me from that guilt. It was very kind of you."
Her every instinct told her to fuss further, but she had already committed herself to a path of non-fussing and she didn't wish to go back on her word. Besides, he was moving around all right from what she could tell, and if he were injured or in pain it would be obvious, wouldn't it? She told herself that it would be and that she was doing the right thing by going along with his obvious wish not to be taken care of.
She watched him climb the rocks once more, wincing at the sound of claws on stone as he neared the top. His dismissal didn't really have much of an effect on her. Now that she had met this new person, she was determined to befriend him, and maybe make his day better, since it didn't seem to be going very well so far. Maybe if she could figure out why, she could help.
"What's the view like from up there?" she asked. "Do you mind if I join you?"
Without waiting for an answer, which she was certain would be in the negative, Tay began to climb and found immediately that it was not half as easy as he had made it look. She couldn't watch him and climb at the same time, and so she chose to watch her paws' placement instead. She didn't want to end up causing some sort of rock slide and get both of them crushed.
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:46 am
He gave a small snort as he climbed, wondering why the female would thank him for being grumpy at her? Again he was reminded of his mother. She would never get angry at him, even when he was being a little pain in the butt. No matter what he did to rile her, she just smiled and pulled him into hugs that had him fighting to get free of.
Ugh.
Wait. What? What had she just asked? He paused in his climb to look back over his shoulder. Sure enough, there she was, following him up. He had wings and couldn't fly down, so she sure as heck couldn't! Silly mortal! Was she looking to get herself hurt? "What are you doing?" He asked, balancing carefully on one of the ledges. "You might fall on your head or something." Oh, wait, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. She might actually stop being so pesky!
With a small shrug, he turned and clambered the rest of the way up, perching on the very top and arching his wings to feel the wind beneath them. Glancing down, he gave a little smirk.
"You struggling down there? Maybe you better give up." He crouched as if in preparation to throw himself off, hind legs held taut. He just needed to wait for an extra strong gust of wind and then maybe he could be up and out of here for good.
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Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:35 pm
"I want to see what it's like up there," Tay panted determinedly, breathing in dust and beginning to cough and sputter.
While she coughed she pressed herself as close to the rocks as she could, afraid that her body would hurl itself backward as she sneezed. Unfortunately, just as Khaldun reached the crest of the ridge she gave a last mighty sneeze which caused her to do just that.
Her stomach turned somersaults as she experienced a moment of weightlessness falling backward. Fortunately she wasn't thrown completely away from the rocks; her hindquarters remained mostly as they had been, which still didn't help her keep much of a grip. The result was that rather than fall through the air and possibly land on her head, she tumbled down and backward head over tail, squeaking when she struck stones.
"Ow," she whispered. More loudly she called up, "I'm not going to give up."
It was with a bit of a shiver that she set her paws on the rocks and began to climb up once more. She didn't want to fall again. It had been really scary the first time, and it had hurt, but she wasn't likely to fall again. She'd be careful and not breathe in deeply while she climbed. Then there'd be no dust to make her cough and sneeze. That was the plan, anyway, until she realized that the other cub meant to jump.
"Don't do that!" she shouted.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:44 am
He had paused to watch the female's rapid descent back down the way she had come, his brow furrowed with a frown, though it was more out of irritation than concern. Why was she bothered him when she clearly wasn't capable of climbing?
"You shouldn't bump your head too much." He warned. "Reckon that's what happened to my mother and she's a few wildebeest short of a herd." He huffed and, at her exclamation to stop him from leaping, did just that.
Spreading his wings and kicking off from the rocks, he felt a small breeze under his wings but nothing more. He gave a few hard flaps and then went down like a stone. He crashed headlong into the ground and rolled a few times before coming to a halt. With a groan he sat up and rubbed his nose with a paw. A loud sneeze shook him and, with a growl, he kicked a stone and began to stalk away.
He'd had enough now and having an audience wasn't helping. Now she'd go back and tell everyone that this little godling couldn't fly.
Hmpfh.
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:03 am
"I don't do it on purpose," Tay panted, figuring that that if she opened her mouth to talk she'd get more dust in her throat and start coughing again and fall even worse, but she'd already shouted without any of those things happening, so maybe it would only happen once in a day. She knew she'd been lucky only to get shaken and a bit bruised. She sighed and scrambled the last few feet to the top and tried not to think about maybe falling.
Naturally, he leaped before she could do anything to stop him, and so all she could do was shriek with sympathetic terror. Maybe he wasn't afraid, but she was definitely afraid for him. His wings didn't seem to be doing their job of keeping him aloft, and that made what he was doing really dangerous. His crash landing and rolling stop was evidence of that, though she was relieved to see that he seemed to be able to shake it off.
She stood with her toes on the edge of the top for a moment before she paced along the perimeter, learning that there really was no easy way down, or any way that didn't involve falling or jumping from what she could tell. That was less than ideal, since it meant she couldn't hasten down and join him. True, he didn't seem to want her company, but Tay was determined and could be very stubborn when the mood came upon her.
"Wait!" she called down after him as he began to stalk away. "How do I get down?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 2:24 pm
He paused and threw a look over his shoulder at her. Well, she'd made it to the top which counted for something. But...now she wanted to get down? Stupid female...
"I thought you wanted to see the view?" He snapped, turning back to face her, his tail twitching with irritation at not being able to make a getaway because she'd gotten herself stuck. Granted, he could have left her, but some sort of responsibility kept him rooted to the spot.
He huffed and rolled his eyes. "Well, either you grow some wings that actually work, or you jump down." He hopped up on down on the sand thrice and gave her a meaningful look. "It's soft enough, see? Just jump so you keep clear of the rocks, otherwise you might break something." He'd hurt his paw the first time he'd jumped - a nasty little gash that his mother had fussed over for days.
"Unless you're too scared?" He challenged, assuming that she'd hurry up if he suggested she wouldn't do it.
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Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 5:48 am
Tay did not appreciate being snapped at. A part of her wanted to say that Khaldun wasn't snapping at her, that he was just teasing her, but it was undeniable that even if he was just teasing her, he wasn't doing it in a nice way. Though at least he hadn't kept walking, leaving her completely alone and stuck. His suggestions were less than helpful, however, and didn't make her feel any better about her predicament.
She looked down, not so much to appreciate the view as to see whether it would be possible to get down in a way that wouldn't be injurious to her person. The peak had definitely not seemed so high from the ground, nor even while she was climbing it. Illogically she wondered if it was possible for it to have grown. All right, so she knew it wasn't, but that didn't change the fact that it definitely seemed to have done exactly that.
"I think I'll just wait for wings," she said, carefully settling herself into a more stable crouch. "You didn't seem to have such an easy time getting down, and I know I can't jump as far as you can."
Of course she was scared. Why shouldn't she be? She didn't want to get hurt, or get into trouble. That possibility had also occurred to her in the last few moments when she realized that she might be in need of rescuing, and that it probably would not come from the lion who was currently waiting impatiently below her. Her parents were going to be so mad!
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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:27 pm
Wait for wings? Seriously?
"Or...you could just mewl for help. Maybe your mummy will come help you?" He gave a small laugh which he smothered into a paw and flicked his wings. At her rebuke on his own jumping attempts, the laugh died and his face became grumpy again. "I can jump down just fine." He snapped, fluffing up his wings indignantly. "You just didn't see the--"
Khaldun! Are you being mean again?
The voice in his head had him flinching back, ears pinned against his head. "No, muuum." He whined, glancing around as if to look for her. Her mind-speech was annoying. It was...difficult having a telepath for a mother. Particularly a happy, innocent and carefree one.
Do I need to come over there or are you going to play nice?
"No! No. It's fine. It's all fine." He hastened back to the rocks and, figeting nervously as he tried to think of a plan he decided the best way to do was to bring the ground to her. "Hang on a minute." He called up to Tay, throwing himself to the sand and digging at it furiously. The plan was simple: kick the sand into a mound that would make the jump down less difficult. And, with his little paws working like clockwork, it wasn't long before the mound of sand had built up enough to make a suitable platform. He stopped, panting from the exertion, and then turned to face her, waving a paw towards the newly created aid. "There. Better?" He took a few steps back, just in case the plan utterly failed.
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 12:50 pm
"I could," she acknowledged. "But I think I'm more likely to grow wings."
She smiled pleasantly down at the winged lion despite the sort of sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that worsened whenever she looked toward the ground. It definitely hadn't seemed to be so high up when she'd been looking up at it from the ground. Next time she would keep her feet firmly on the ground, she vowed.
"Of course, I'd have to grow pretty big wings," she mused. Khaldun may or may not have been able to hear her words, but likely he could tell that she was saying something. "And I don't think I'd know how to use them. They seem like they're kind of complicated. Probably I'd look silly with wings."
She couldn't hear what was being said to Khaldun, obviously, and she couldn't quite make out what he was saying in response, but she could tell the tone of voice he was saying it in, and she couldn't figure out what part of her conversation could have provoked whining from him. Well, whatever it was he spoke to her again and told her to hang on. She wondered if maybe he'd just been thinking aloud, like her.
"Sure. Not a problem," she called back. As if she had so many other options. The thought made her smile. It wasn't irony, quite, but it was humor and it helped her to feel less afraid.
After a time of being a little too nervous to look, but hearing the sounds of effort and exertion she called down, "What are you - oh! My word! Thank you."
Toward the end she had peered down and seen that he'd built her a small mound of sort of soft-looking sand which would make the jump shorter and the landing less painful. It still didn't look like it would be fun, but Tay doubted she'd get anything better. And she didn't want to hurt her maybe-friend's feelings by evincing doubt in the efficacy of his creation. Just the same, she wasn't sure she wanted to jump.
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Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 3:02 pm
He huffed to himself as he listened to her chatting on about wings. He didn't need to tell her! Bah, sometimes he just got so frustrated with the darn things that he wished he could just tear them off. His sister didn't have them, so why did he need to? They weren't useful for anything! Especially if his sister could fly without them. Even his mother - who had huge wings - seemed to struggle on a daily basis with landings.
He'd clearly inherited her clumsy gene.
Ugh...it wasn't fair. Why did he have to suck at everything? Couldn't he, just for once, be able to fly out of here and find something useful for him to do? He felt like he'd been a child forever...no powers...no flight...he couldn't even cast a simple illusion over himself like his parents could. Was he just...a mortal with wings stuck on? He was really beginning to think so.
He sat moodily by the sand mound and lifted his head to look up at her. What was she doing? She'd said thanks. Said a whole bunch of stuff. But she was still sat up there? Huh? "Well, come on then. I haven't got all day!" And he didn't fancy climbing up there again. "You better jump down before it gets dark. Otherwise the night monsters will get you. And that's a bad thing, by the way."
He wrinkled his nose and remained in place, watching her through slightly narrowed eyes.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 6:28 am
Tay peered once more over the edge and gritted her teeth. She couldn't really stay up there all day hoping someone would rescue her. Even if someone else did come along, it wasn't likely they'd be able to do more than slide down the rocks while holding onto her, which sounded like it would be more dangerous than simply jumping on her own. She wouldn't like anyone to get hurt on her behalf.
"Sorry," she said in a small voice that somehow carried. "I'm not as brave as you are. I really am trying."
She edged a little bit closer and tried not to think about what it would be like if darkness fell and she was still sitting up there. Maybe there really were monsters that would come for her. She'd never heard that there were any nighttime monsters around the pride, but maybe that's because anyone who saw them didn't live to tell the tale. The thought made her shudder. Why did he have to mention monsters?
At last she squinched her eyes shut and flung herself forward off the rocks, sort of aiming for the mound of softer sand Khaldun had made, but mostly just aiming for not-on-the-rocks. About half a second into her leap Tay yelped. It might have been a scream, but her body couldn't manage enough breath for that, so it came out as just a yelp. When she hit the ground (absolutely gracelessly) she grunted.
"Ow," she mumbled. Then she looked around for Khaldun. "Good thing you helped me, or it would've hurt a lot worse."
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:09 am
He sat quite still and watched, wordlessly waiting for her to find the courage to jump down onto the mound of sand. He was rather proud of it, in fact. A thought he'd come up with all by himself! He was a genius!
He was about to reply with something along the lines of; well, try harder then! When she flung herself forwards. He'd almost expected her to just sit there and do nothing, so he couldn't help but bounce back in surprise. Then she was laying there on the sand and he took a small step forward. Was she hurt? He'd be in big trouble if she was hurt.
Oh. No. She was fine!
A small grin managed to crawl its way across his face and, with a smug look, he puffed out his chest a little and rolled his eyes. "Just remember that next time I might not be around to help. You might have had to stay up there alllll night." He'd apparently forgotten it was partially his fault she was up there in the first place.
"Anyway, if you're done fooling around, I'm going to go home." He was getting hungry and his dad had been out hunting for them earlier that day. Surely he'd have brought something back by now?
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