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 Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:30 am
It wasn't much of a secret that Imityaz sim Fereydoun was feeling a little bit lost. It was hardly a surprise to anyone who knew him, and even to some who didn't. He had always been more confused about himself than the average lion, and less capable than the vast majority of the Burkuteshti population. To say that he was less capable than the vast majority of the population, period, wouldn't be much of a stretch.
The sight of the tan lion wandering semi-aimlessly throughout the land controlled by the Burkuteshti had always been a common one, but ever since his mate had left him - had knowingly chosen exile over him - he had seemed even less directional than before. And who could blame the lion? That incident, he had chalked up to his endless list of failures. It wasn't the first, and it would not be the last.
But of course, having grown up as Imitiyaz sim Fereydoun, and having known no other alternative, Mitya was uniquely designed to cope with who he was. That was, he had no expectations for himself and expected nobody but his father to have them for him either. And at least that way, he was granted an unusual amount of free time. He worked when it was required, but few other lions dared give him any chores for fear that he would fail - and it was probably smart of them.
So it was that noon of a rather nondescript day found Mitya wandering across the land, heading toward nowhere in particular from nowhere in particular.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:10 am
 Parto bint Sartaj was taking a leisurely stroll through the Burkuteshti territory. The female lioness, just finished from her patrol, had decided to take the time for some fresh air. Her strong, muscles rippled as she moved, the result of many battles fought, though not all of them won. Scars scattered across her body showed just how dedicated she was to her pride. She had fought in many battles to help keep the Qyrhyeshti in check, and to honor her dead parents, who died in combat at the hands of the Qyrhyeshti scum.
Her green eyes scanned the area and noticed that there was another lion about. She looked him over and recognized him as that lion who everyone gossiped about. She raised an eyebrow, not sure what to make of him and the words that surrounded him. But Parto was a civil lioness, and treated everyone in the pride like family, they were. Her light golden paws made their way over to greet him.
"Hello," she said, cocking her head to one side. Perhaps there was more to him than what was being spoken about him.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:27 am
Since childhood, Mitya had gotten into the habit of walking with his eyes downcast, scanning the ground for any potential obstacles to his light-footed shuffle across the land. It wasn't the healthiest of habits, but it had saved him from many a fall throughout the years.
At the sound of a female voice, his head lifted to find its origin, giving him a much prouder, more confident look than he had had about him a moment ago. But all things have trade-offs, and as Mitya's luck would have it, he stepped on a rock at the exact same moment, and went stumbling several paces before recovering. How ungainly. Hastily bringing his paws back under control, he turned around, mane ruffled, to face the pale lioness that had greeted him.
"Uhm," he cleared his throat, ears flattening slightly as he tried to read her. He was looking for expectations - not good ones, mind, because very few creatures had those. Negative ones, ones that said his companion expected him to fail, expected him to screw up. He wasn't quite sure this time. A small frown flitted momentarily across his brow. Perhaps she wasn't quite sure either... That rendered him somewhat unsure as to how to act. It was much easier when there were clear-cut signals. If he was expected to fail, he could just... fail and fulfill those expectations, nice and easy. "Hello." He ventured, testing the waters.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:41 am
Parto couldn't help but let off a small laugh as he stumbled. Rude yes. But it was funny. At least he didn't fall over, for if he had she would have followed him onto the ground, her laughter to strong to maintain a standing position. However it was not, never the less she was entertained, and intrigued. How could one be so clumsy?
"I guess what they say about you is true." She lifted a golden paw and pointed to his feet as she spoke. "And here I was hoping that it might all just be rumors."
She sighed. It was a pity he had proven to be clumsy as she had heard. How difficult it must be for him to serve the Bey, when the chances are probably greater that he may stumble, then he would strike. A glimmer of disappointed flashed across her face. She was one that put her heart and soul into helping the cause of the pride. "I'm Parto by the way." she said, introducing herself.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:51 am
Oh, no. So she had heard. Of course, it hardly came as a surprise - after all, who hadn't heard about him before? There were plenty of stories about him circulating throughout the Burkuteshti, some more true than others, but all of them relaying the same message: Imitiyaz sim Fereydoun was something of a loser.
Mitya himself wouldn't have put it so explicitly, but it was hard to deny when everyone else seemed to agree so more often than not, he simply put his head down with a sigh and went with it. The chances that they made one collective right were much higher than the chances that he himself was. And it wasn't like he was trying to outright deny it, either. There was more than enough evidence to support the fact that he was a bit of a lost cause.
"Well... some of them are... kind of," he said somewhat sheepishly, discreetly pushing the offending rock away from him lest he accidentally trip on it again. Now that would have been embarrassing. "But probably born out of a true story... there are a lot of them, apparently." Mitya himself could not quite keep track of his own failure, but it seemed that some of the more gossipy pride members could. At least that way, he never had to worry that his actions would be forgotten... "I'm Imitiyaz." He added hastily.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:04 am
"Well Imitiyaz, perhaps you've never found what you're good at." Reasoned the lightly colored lioness. She could could tell he was a little down about it but didn't know the best way to cheer him up. If she was like him she would probably feel the same way, for she would never be as good as she was in a fight.
Parto looked him over. He certainly seemed like he would be a capable lion, if not a bit on the scrawy size, perhaps because of his lack of battle experience. She frowned as she looked, wondering what could be the cause of his dysfunction. He certainly didn't seem disadvantaged in any way. A puzzled expression crossed her face, she couldn't work out what caused him to act so clumsily.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:10 am
"Oh." He thought about it carefully for a moment, wondering if there was any sage wisdom behind it. Probably, he decided. "But maybe that's just because there isn't anything..." He mused. That seemed to Mitya much more likely.
Then again, he had never really gone looking for that one thing that he was good at, or even just that one thing that he really liked. It had always seemed to him that neither could exist, and that it was therefore futile to go searching. Plus, seeking would involve having expectations, which in Mitya's case, most likely meant that they would go unfulfilled and leave him disappointed.
It was a chain of events that he certainly didn't wish to relive (for most certainly, he had lived it many times before). But still, it seemed as though Parto could be right.
"Well... how do you go about finding it?" He said finally, deciding that perhaps he would look into the matter.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:44 am
"But there has to be something." She decided. One could simply not be bad at everything. That would be aweful. Parto was sure that there was something that Imitiyaz would be good at. What that was however, she was not sure. The lioness pondered just what could be Imitiyaz's calling. Of course there were quite a lot of things that could be tried and tested, and experimenting and narrowing down the list could take time, and Parto wasn't sure she had a lot of time.
"You just have to try things out." She nodded, for what other way could you determine if you were good at something if you've actually never done it? She thought for a moment where they might begin.
"I suppose," she started, slowly, hesitantly, not wanting to be too rash. "That anything that involves movement would be out of the question." It was a statement based on what she had witnessed and what she had heard from others. She was not trying to be mean, just logical.
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Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:15 am
"Oh." He said again. Trying out new things had not boded well for him in the past, and somehow Mitya doubted that it would this time around. After all, his luck hadn't changed once in the years that he had been around, and there was absolutely not reason for it to change now.
"Like... what do you think I could try out? What's something one could be... good at, potentially?" It was a subject with which Mitya had had very few dealings, and if he was forced to be honest, he wasn't really sure what it was that people were actually good at. What constituted proficiency, and how did you know you had it? Was it possible to just be fooling oneself?
He glanced over at Parto with a wry little smile. "That would be correct," he said, nodding. "Moving is not so... good." Had he understood sarcasm, he might have taken this opportunity to employ some. But as usual, it was something he had tried and failed to master.
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:58 am
"It is hard to think of something," Stated the lightly colored lioness. "Most others simply just fall into whatever it is they are naturally good at. You just seem to... fall." She winced and made a sorry expression on her face. She didn't mean to say it, it just came out.
Parto thought of what else there could be that did not involve much movement. Which was difficult, seeing as almost every skill required movement in some form. "Hmmm..." she sighed to herself, wondering what else there could possibly be.
Then, an idea came to her, though she was unsure if it counted, but they were desperate, so she decided to voice her thoughts. "What about, thinking. You don't have to move for thinking," she shrugged and looked at Mitya, wondering how he would react to this idea,
"and thinking and strategy is important in battle." She added as an after thought.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:38 pm
He might have despaired at the falling, but Mitya was too used to such things to react much. He didn't blame her, though. It was quite surprising for most to witness his clumsiness firsthand. And it wasn't even just clumsiness... he seemed to have a knack for getting everything wrong before getting them right (if he got them right at all... which, most times, he didn't), and there were even times when the wrong words came out of his mouth without his quite realizing it. Thankfully, that hadn't yet happened today, and perhaps it wouldn't... it seemed a somewhat more intermittent failure.
"Thinking?" His ears perked somewhat from their usual state of being held backwards. Mitya wasn't the most confident of creatures, so it only made sense that they stayed that way most of the time. "I never really... thought about thinking." He admitted thoughtfully.
Now, this seemed like a good proposal. If thinking was still important in battle, that meant that he could still be an asset without having to get his butt kicked, which seemed to happen often enough for him. That was provided that he actually could think, of course. He wasn't really sure how to determine something like that, and he didn't think he knew any battle strategies...
"Maybe... maybe I could watch fighters... and see if I can figure out what they're doing," he mused.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:47 pm
Patro watched his reaction, noting that his ears did perk up a bit. Perhaps they were onto something. It was unfortunate that someone could feel the way he does, and although Parto hadn't originally intended on assisting him with his issues, she wasn't going to stop now. She was a determined lioness, and once she started something she saw it through, and this was something she was going to see through. Hopefully. If they could find something Mityo was good at.
At his suggestion the lightly colored lioness nodded her head in agreement. "Yes, that sounds like a good idea." She paused and thought a moment. "I'm sure that others wouldn't mind if you watched them sparring. I don't think it would be a good idea to go out to the borders and look for fights. You might end up on on." Her eyes narrowed at the thought of the Qyrhyeshti. Scum. She hated them all. After what she had seen them do to her parents, there was no denying that she wanted to see them all suffer the pain they had bestowed upon her. But, there weren't any Qyrhyeshti around, so her anger subsided and she focused her attention back on the current issue of Mityo and a skill.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:01 pm
"You're right," he said with a small nod. The idea of getting caught in a fight with a Qyrhyeshti lion didn't appeal to him in the slightest. It was easy enough getting his butt kicked in a simple sparring match, so he didn't doubt that it would be doubly easy to do so in a real, no holds barred fight.
He watched as her eyes narrowed at he mention of fights. She must be good at them, he figured. Of course, everyone he watched fighting seemed to be awfully good, and Mitya wasn't quite sure if they really were that good, or if it was just in comparison to his own lack of ability.
He knew his father was a good fighter, but really that was only because he had heard it from his parents. Of course, he had watched Fereydoun spar before, and he had seemed awfully good too, but... then again, so did the rest of them.
And if he couldn't tell which ones were good... how was he supposed to figure out their strategies? Mitya wasn't too sure. But he imagined that was something that he would slowly come to figure out. First, he would have to give it a shot. It was a good enough shot.
"Well, you're quite pretty yourself, aren't you?" His eyes widened. Whoops. Word vomit. "I mean, smart. Smart was what I meant, not... the other thing." His ears promptly flattened again. Oh, darn. Now he had gone and made things awkward, and he hadn't even meant it. So much for intermittent failures.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:30 pm
Parto was a good fighter. But it had taken a lot to get there. But she had, mostly due to the drive and determination to punish the others for what she had seen them do to her parents. From that day she'd sworn revenge and threw herself into everything possible to make that happen. It had taken a lot of time, and practice, and learning from her mistakes, but Parto was now an adept and confident fighter, willing to do anything to serve her pride.
"Thank you." She said, whether it was in reply to his first or second statement she didn't let on. Though she was flattered, she didn't want to let it on, and it wouldn't do the pride any good if she fell for a lion who wasn't capable of fighting. As a lioness she was responsible for bringing in the next generation, and for her, producing strong, capable cubs was important.. Perhaps if he discovered a valuable skill she might act on it, after all, his clumsiness was kind of adorable.
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Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 9:14 am
"You're welcome," he said slowly. The poor lion was now acutely aware of every word that came out of his mouth, on top of being mildly surprised at how easily she had taken the slip-up. The situation as a whole seemed much less awkward than he had anticipated, but that didn't mean he was completely reassured. After all, he had embarrassed himself in front of Parto more than enough times today, and the fact that she was taking it so well in stride seemed somewhat... fishy.
Well, okay, maybe she had reacted some to the tripping. So that meant she wasn't perfect like he had thought, but close enough to it. Mitya himself was so far from perfect that it didn't take too long before he came to idolize someone else. He thought that perhaps he had picked a good candidate to put up on a pedestal. Parto was much more skilled a fighter (he supposed), and much wiser than himself, so it only made sense that he would want to be more like her.
"Uhm... well, can we... be friends?" He asked rather hopefully. He had never been the most popular child, so the idea of making friends naturally and without explicit statements of friendship seemed a foreign one to him. To him, it was like a survey: check yes, or no. There didn't seem to be an in-between, or any sort of grace period. "I can, I don't know, keep you updated? On the whole... thinking thing, I mean." He added hastily, as a form of incentive. Having a friend seemed like a nice change of pace.
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