Kusimamia'Utulivu - -_Wish of the Goddess_-
&
Aisling - Das Tor
Tulivu had wandered a rather decent way away from the pridal lands of the Aikanaro'hini. His silvery mane was rather snarled today, his blue eyes weary and heavy. He wondered why his visions had pulled him out this way today. Honesty, the mediator didn't really care. He'd find out somehow, and it would be something that would...be good for him, or so he believed. Large paws padded over soft earth, quiet and calm...
Aisling was the one out hunting that evening. Well...almost-evening. The sun had started to set not long ago, and her family had settled to making 'camp', while she and Laoch separated to hunt. The black lioness couldn't help but stop as the scent of water reached her, the faint scent reminding her of what she'd lost, the land they'd been driven from. The only home she'd known before the Bati'vichwa had driven them from it. Perhaps her blood wasn't truly Mar's, but she'd been raised as a scion of the Clan of Mar. If she was missing 'home' so badly, she could only imagine how hard it was for her adoptive father and brother and sister.
Aisling sighed and shook her head...and another scent caught her attention. She immediately crouched down into the grasses, stalking forward. Another lion? Were they friend...or foe?
The scent of a Lioness caught his nose, and those blue eyes glanced up, towards her. He knew she wouldn't make herself visible, but nonetheless, he called out, "It is alright. I'm not out here to do harm....like some of my kindred might."
Aisling didn't like the sound of how he phrased that. Her tail flicked behind her, her pale violet eyes narrowing. She took a breath, loosening her throat so she could throw her voice. The things one learned when growing up with Dragan friends. "Your kindred? Who are you, stranger?" She wasn't about to be caught off guard. Not after what had happened to her home.
He took a slow breath, "Kusimamia'Utulivu. Son of Telemakhos, and Hakuna'jina of the Aikanaro'hini..." He called. His blue eyes were calm and even, "I am a Tuazan, though. A Mediator. I do not believe in fighting lest I must..."
Aisling blinked at his name. It seemed oddly familiar...like she'd heard it somewhere before. And it did not inspire any sort of fear or wariness in her. Perhaps she'd heard it in her rare visions, the ones that marked she and her brother-by-blood as different, as something a little more than just a lion. She considered her options carefully, then stood up and stepped forward a bit. "And I am Aisling, a scion of the Clan of Mar, and once Banbharún of Tearmann's North Quarter."
His pale blues studied Aisling with a calm intent. Her name....something had sounded right.....very right. "A pleasure, Aisling of the Clan of Mar. Your name....Have you traveled by this way before? It is familiar to me..."
Aisling shook her head. "No. I have not. My family and I were recently displaced, and we are a long way from where home once was." She smiled slightly. "If it helps, your own name is familiar to me as well. Do your dreams sometimes have more meaning to them than simply being dreams?"
Blinking, he stood a bit taller. So she knew of Seers, "Since I was but a cub. My dreams have foretold many things, lady Aisling. Many things indeed. I take it you, or relations of yours, are much the same?"
Aisling nodded. It was...nice, finding someone who truly understood. "My brother and I both. Though mine are not often, they always hold some piece of information myself or my own find of use."
"I am one of two in my litter as well." His eyes became a bit serious, "....I...have absolutely no control over myself. They come upon touch, or upon their own volition..I have no such abilities..." He seemed rather irritated by that...
Aisling looked rather saddened by how his own worked. "I have no control over mine either. But..." She looked down, pale violet eyes half-closed. "To have them as you do sounds like a worse burden to bear than not Knowing."
Looking at the horizon's setting sun, he purred, "It is not such a burden, when it allows me the Knowledge to settle disputes amongst my Pride mates." His demon within rumbled his appreciation for the words, and the female before him. He moved closer, taking in her scent, just for his own sake, "I have....a mild curiousity. Would you mind, lady Aisling, that I should touch your flank? I would like to see if, with another Seer, the visions still come."
Aisling was glad that he could find some use to his uncontrolable gift. She smiled slightly at hearing it, and then blinked at his question. "I do not mind." She smiled again. "It would be intriguing to find out, I think." Hopefully, his visions did not come. Or if they did, he did not See the sorrow that had fallen over her once-home.
Moving fowards on paws as silent as the night, he pressed his nos to her flank, carefully. He prayed she saw nothing of the things he'd Seen of his Pride, and that....Wait. Confused, he raised his head, then touched his nose to her flank once more. She.....He did not see the Visions with her, "......" Shock riddled his mind as he tried to make sense of it, though Vassago within him roared in approval. And with her coloring, it insisted, she would make a good mother of children, even if it were only an arrangement of convenience. Shaking that voice away, he tried to ignore the flush beneath his pelt, "How strange..."
Aisling blinked, curious. "Are you alright?" Had he Seen something? Her own visions did not come...then again, they were rarely triggered by touch, and usually came to rob her of sleep when they did come. She hoped it was surprise at NOT Seeing, though. One could hope. He seemed nice...a respite would do him well, she thought.
"...I Saw nothing, Lady Aisling..." He murmured, in shock and amazement, looking at her, eye to eye, with eyes much like a cub who'd found a rare stone, or a pretty butterfly.
At his words, she smiled, one that reached her pale violet eyes and made her ears twitch back. "That is a good thing, perhaps. It certainly gives you a small relief. After all...it must be lonely now and again if you can't touch another without visions coming to you." And lions were not meant to be solitary, not truly.
He smiled sadly, "It is indeed a worthwhile respite." He took a breath, not believing he was about to ask her this, ".....I....also have a problem that arises. My Pride is divided between the Sparda side and the side of Morifaer...On my side of the Pride....I am related to many of the Members...and I came out to this part of the lands to see if perchance I could find a female willing to.....perhaps provide me with a cub or two." He looked almost ashamed to be requesting it....
Aisling listened, head tilted to once side in curiosity. She'd never known any pride but the one she'd been born into, and it was interesting to hear even a little about another pride. Though...she felt the skin beneath her dark fur flush a bit with what he implied at the end. That...was...well, a bit odd. To her, anyways. Then again...she knew very well that Seascann was not her father-in-blood, that her mother had not really loved her father-in-blood. It had been but a night where her mother sought to fight off the loneliness as she traveled between the Tearmann and the pride two of her sisters resided in. And then there was the fact of how familiar his name was.
"I would need to talk with my family about me staying in this area for a time. My father and adoptive brother especially." Both males had lost so much in their lives...she didn't want to worry them with a sudden disappearance.
He bowed his head, "This I do understand, Lady Aisling. May I propose that I return in three nights time for an answer?" He asked, " Or less, if you so choose." Tuli was trying to be as cordial and polite as he could. New blood in the Pride would be most welcome...
Aisling nodded. "In three nights' time, we shall meet again." She gave him another smile that reached her eyes. "I look forward to seeing you again, no matter what the answer is." He had an air about him that made him comfortable to be around, once one stopped being wary.
He smiled, and bowed, lowering his paws to the ground, a sign of respect. "Thank you, Lady Aisling. In three days time." His purr was gentle, and he turned on his paws, trotting for the Aikanaro'hini once more, his mind full of things to tell his brother about, at the very least....and likely his mother as well.
Aisling watched him go, then turned to resume her hunt before returning to her family. She knew her mother would understand. Likely her adoptive sister as well. Now whether her adoptive father or adoptive brother would was another thing to be seen...
