[SRP] We're helping! (Odd & Kazul)

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

A green cub with wing markings on her back and eyes of a muted shade of gold scampered down the vague path leading from the Warlord's den toward the forested area by the pride's borders. Her passage was swift and surefooted, despite the somewhat treacherous terrain and howling wind which warned of a hellish storm to come. She didn't think it would hit just yet, and she wanted to see her favorite half-brother before it did, since she didn't know how long the storm would last. She had not been paying attention when her mother remarked on it earlier that day, nor later when her father had made a similar pronouncement, using different signs to predict the weather than those her mother had used.

The sky was still grey and ominous by the time she reached the pride-side edge of the wood where her half-siblings lived with their mother. Odd said his mother felt more at home in the forest than she did in the main part of the pride, and sometimes Kazul wondered if it was something to do with the fact that she'd borne the Warlord's cubs even though he already had a mate. It wasn't unusual for that to happen while a lion was out viking, but it was unusual for the lioness to show up later with her cubs and demand entrance to the pride.

Her father had stolen one of the cubs though, which was probably why Odd's mother had acted the way she had. He had stolen Calder. The blond one who was absolutely impossible. She didn't get along with him very well, but she wasn't going to see him today. She was going to see Odd, who she did like. It was too bad her da couldn't have stolen Odd. Then they could have known each other for even longer.

"Odd," she exclaimed when she saw a flash of his orange fur at the forest's edge. "Let's go do something."

Odd

Odd's nose itched, even though there was nothing there to irritate it, and so he set out from his mother's den, moving silently through the woods. It was very dark in the woods, and he didn't need to look at the sky to know a nasty storm was brewing. He had no idea what could have prompted his half-sister to come all the way down to the forest on a day like this. If she didn't watch the weather carefully she would end up going home in a torrential downpour. Or, perhaps worse, she might end up having to wait out the storm with his family. That would be very bad for everyone, Odd knew.

Kazul didn't get along with most of his siblings. He still didn't know what she saw in him that set him apart from them. They had all been raised the same way and they were all more or less of a type. True, Calder was more domineering and Broni and Ember were more calculating, but generally there wasn't much cause to distinguish so sharply between them. Spirits. Most people couldn't even tell Odd apart from his two brothers.

He saw Kazul from a good distance away. She had made no effort to sneak or conceal herself. Everywhere she went, she went with confidence, and yet somehow she was frequently overlooked, particularly when she was in the presence of her sister, Badb, who was undeniably remarkable. Badb had gotten their mother's look and Kazul had gotten their father's, for the most part. He did wonder if it was her upbringing or her ability to go unseen which made her completely eschew all conscious attempts at stealth.

"Have you noticed the weather?" he asked incredulously. "You should go home."

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

"Of course I noticed the weather, Odd. I'm not blind." The wind chose that moment to whistle through the trees like a mournful bird of some sort. "Or deaf."

She shook her head and then nudged his shoulder with her nose. Sometimes her brother could be very silly, she thought. Not because of the strange beliefs he held, which she found fascinating, but some of the questions he asked. They were just ridiculous. Like whether she'd noticed the weather. Certainly she'd noticed it. She'd just managed to notice it without taking into account what it actually meant, apparently.

"What is it about the weather that's got you so worked up you can't even greet me before you start scolding me and trying to get rid of me?" she asked. "Is this some sort of spirit storm?"

Odd

Odd might have bitten his lip, if he'd been human, upon hearing Kazul's response to his question. Not blind or deaf, but perhaps a little dumb now and then. He loved Kazul as if she was his sister through and through, rather than his half-sister, but he would never have had to ask any of his sisters the question he'd just put to Kazul, and they would never have answered as she just did.

"There's a storm coming," he said. And then went on to elaborate, "I highly doubt it's a spirit storm, but I shouldn't be surprised if a few spirits aren't stirred up by it."

He'd never heard of a spirit storm before, actually, but he could imagine exactly what one might be like. He was a little startled that Kazul would have any concept of such a thing. Perhaps the Stormborn beliefs weren't as different from his mother's as he'd initially believed. Unless it was just Kazul making things up again. It was sometimes hard to tell with her.

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

Kazul grinned. It would have been better for Odd if he hadn't mentioned the spirits at all. Being born the daughter of the high priestess, Kazul had a lot less fear and a lot more curiosity when it came to gods and spirits than most of the young freeborn in the pride, and her half-brother's particular brand of spirits were unlike those her mother had been teaching her about. She always wanted to know more about them.

"I know about the storm. But it's just wind and water and noise, right? Besides, we're the Stormborn. It's not like anyone in this pride has anything to fear from them."

As far as she was concerned, her ancestors, somewhere back there, were gods of the storm, and so they wouldn't let anything happen to her, their descendent. Maybe she ought to ask her mum sometime which of the Stormlords in particular was their ancestor. Some lions could actually trace their lines back that far, according to Tomi.

"Why don't we wait until the storm hits and then see if we can find any of the spirits it stirs up?" she suggested.

Odd

Odd blinked in surprise at Kazul. He did that a lot as a cub. He wouldn't learn to take her suggestions in stride until they were older and he was more comfortable asserting himself and telling Kazul that her idea was bad or dangerous or stupid. Right now, he was still amazed by how much she seemed to like him, even though they had different mothers and his existence along with that of his siblings' was something of a scandal.

"I guess you're right," he mused. "But isn't your da an outlander like my ma? I'm not sure your gods will extend their protection to me."

But the spirits might. If they weren't feeling angry and violent because of the storm. It would depend on which spirits were stirred up, and in what way. Spirits that liked stormy weather would probably be elated and in pleasant moods, but spirits that preferred tranquility probably wouldn't be as inclined to look out for young lions who did stupid things.

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

Kazul considered Odd's concern about being an outlander for a moment before deciding that it wasn't worth worrying about. As she hastened to reassure him, "Our da earned his place in the pride and now he's the pride's leader, which means even if he wasn't born here, he's the best of all the Stormborn. The gods wouldn't have let that happen if they didn't think it should, right?"

She went on, "And since he's claimed you and your siblings as his before the lawspeakers and the priestesses, that makes you as much a part of the pride's blood as my ma and her family."

Her explanation didn't really cover the possibility of his mother not being protected by the Stormlords, but neither of them were really worried about Raven's safety. They both knew that the vulpine lioness was more than capable of looking out for herself. In fact, Kazul secretly suspected that any god or spirit who decided to take her on would find itself unpleasantly surprised. Raven could be every bit as scary as Morrigan when the mood struck her.

Odd

Odd had no difficulty following Kazul's reasoning, and he was surprised to find that she actually had reassured him about this foolish idea to go gallivanting in the storm. He knew that Kazul and her siblings were being educated in the pride's ways and history by one of the lawspeakers, which was an education he sometimes envied until he remembered that he was receiving a different sort of education from his mother which was harder to come by. If Kazul said that he was protected by the pride's gods, Odd had to accept that she would probably know best, between her mother the high priestess and her teacher the lawspeaker.

"That makes sense," he said, correctly guessing that without some sort of acknowledgment Kazul would continue trying to make him understand her reasoning until her explanation became hopelessly convoluted and incomprehensible.

A roll of thunder and a crack of lightning heralded the storm's arrival, and with them came fat raindrops that left small pockmarks in the dirt when they hit. Odd had the feeling that he and Kazul were both going to be very wet, very quickly, even if he was able to convince her that they ought to look for spirits in the forest, which was unlikely. Everyone knew the place to look for spirits during a storm was under the sky or by the water.

"So...I guess we're going to go looking for spirits now?"

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

The green cub wrinkled her nose when a fat raindrop struck just between her eyes in that spot that gets itchy and twitchy whenever something gets too close. Then she shook her head and got over it. There was a storm coming. Presumably there would be more where that came from, and she wasn't going to let something as mundane as rain keep her from seeing the spirits her half-brother always talked about.

"Exactly," she agreed, very pleased that Odd had gone along with her idea so readily. His concern about the gods' protection had struck a chord with her, but even if the gods decided not to include him, Kazul herself would protect him to the best of her abilities. Even against spirits, if necessary.

Unaware that her next words echoed Odd's thoughts, she mused, "We don't have to go into the forest, right? I mean, since we're looking for storm spirits, we'd do better to go somewhere where the storm's more obvious. Like the beach or the cliffs."

Odd

It wasn't until Kazul suggested the two most likely spots for meeting storm spirits that Odd came to the realization that there could be some real danger involved. Not from the spirits, but from the physical storm itself. The cliffs would be very slippery and dangerous - not to mention windy - in this weather and the beach would have much rougher water. Given a choice between those two locations, Odd guessed the beach would be marginally safer, but only by a very little bit.

He did not like the thought of what would happen to him if something happened to Kazul, but voicing that sort of concern at this point would just get him called flowery and ignored. Or Kazul would decide to go by herself, without him, and Odd would feel even worse about that. At least he knew about the spirits and could maybe ward off the worst of them with his mother's protections.

"How about we try the beach?" he said at last, since Kazul had evidently decided that he was the local expert on these matters and expected him to make a decision.

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

By the time the pair made it to the beach it almost felt as if they were breathing water, so heavily was the rain falling. And it was a cold rain, too, the sort that soaked through the fur and to the skin and left a person shivering for hours and hours.

Kazul's underside, from chin to tail, was covered in mud from sliding down an embankment that gave way beneath her feet. Odd was similarly dirtied, and now that they were on the beach there was wet sand clinging to their paws and weighing them down.

She was not having fun anymore.

Looking at Odd, it was difficult to believe that he was having fun either, going by the way he trudged through the sand and cast dubious glances at the roiling waves to their right. If he would only say something, then she could agree with him and they could both go home. But she wouldn't be the first to complain. She couldn't be. This had been her idea.

Odd

Odd felt as if he weighed a million pounds between the water and the mud and the sand. He didn't like to feel this way, because it made him feel like he would be too slow and heavy to escape if one of those enormous waves suddenly came up too high on the shore and tried to drag him or Kazul out to sea. Not that he'd run if the wave came for Kazul. But, well, he felt weighted down, at any rate.

"Kazul?" he began. But then he saw the determined look on her face and misinterpreted it as determination to finish their quest rather than determination not to be the first to complain. "Have you seen anything yet? Because I haven't. The rain's too thick to really see through."

That much was certainly true. He could barely open his eyes more than a squint, and even if there were spirits to be seen, Odd was more likely to feel them than he was to see them. And even that was unlikely with his senses so attuned to his own misery, his sense for the spirits was pretty effectively dulled.

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

"No. I haven't seen anything," Kazul said. Miserably. She thought about adding that seeing things was supposed to be his forte, but had to concede that the rain probably was making it impossible.

As she squinted away from the wind, out to the water, the sodden cub put her back paw down in a squishy tangle of seaweed, and that was just the last straw. Her head snapped around so that she could see what her paw had found and she snarled ferociously for a moment before her snarl worked its way upward in pitch until it was practically a howl of rage and frustration.

"I bet there aren't any spirits out in this. No sensible being would come out in this," she shouted, now beginning to slip into a temper tantrum that couldn't have been worse timed if she'd tried, for the water level on the beach was rising to the point where they would soon be trapped, and her attention was needed elsewhere.

Odd

His half-sister's outburst didn't even make Odd flatten his ears. He felt much the same way she did, even if he wasn't going to be so vocal about it. In a way he was relieved that she had taken it upon herself to throw this tantrum, because otherwise he would have had to say something soon. This was wretched weather to be out in.

Thunder boomed and lightning flashed overhead, effectively blinding and deafening both cubs for a moment, and in that instance Odd felt something tug at his tail. It was not the wind. The wind did not behave like that. As he cast his eyes around for the culprit and saw nothing, Odd became aware of the incoming tide nearing his paws and patted Kazul on the tail in much the same way the spirit had tugged on his tail.

"Kazul!" he shouted over the rising wind. He was about to tell her about the spirit when he decided that was not really the priority here. "We should get back to the stronghold. Or else we'll have to swim back."

 

[Princess_Feylin]

Kazul

Odd's pat on her tail was all it took to stop Kazul's caterwauling. At his urging she also looked at the water which was beginning to lap at her seaweed entangled toes and then back toward the path which would lead to the pride. She made a silent exclamation of surprise and nodded her agreement.

Making their way back was a challenge with the water tugging at them, but after a terrifyingly long time they were starting up the slippery path to the pride proper. Meanwhile overhead lightning and thunder raged and rain continued to pelt the cubs mercilessly.

"You should come back to my den," Kazul called. "It's closer."

Odd

Odd could not remember ever being so relieved in his life as he was when they left the beach and were on the mostly solid - if a little slippery - path back to the stronghold. He could not recall a spirit ever touching him before, and he was certain that the fact that one had done so on the beach meant that he and his sister had been in grave danger.

Ordinarily he would have refused Kazul's suggestion since he could never be certain of his reception in that place when their father's mate was in residence. In this instance though his interaction with the spirit had shaken him pretty deeply and he did not feel comfortable being alone in this storm, or leaving Kazul alone in it either. He was, in fact, a little bit afraid to make the long trip back to his mother's den in the forest.

"All right," he agreed, huddling closer to Kazul for the trek to their father's den. "Let's hurry."