[JRP] A Good Day to Die (Solvtorn)

[fenshae]

Solvtorn stretched, then sprawled out in a patch of sunlight and relished the warmth as it beat down upon him. He was feeling both bored and lazy, two contradicting emotions that struggled against each other like poles of a magnet.

If he could overcome his laziness, he could go find something to occupy himself. But he had no particular desire to get up, and so instead lay and dwelled on his boredom, the tip of his tail occasionally lashing.

Maybe he'd think up a new song, he thought. Something long, with lots of verses. Something really epic.

....But there wasn't much point in thinking up an epic song if there was nothing to sing about, and that was precisely Solvtorn's problem. It had been entirely too long since he'd done much of anything, and he'd best put a stop to that immediately.

An ear flicked, and he lifted his head. Had he heard someone? Someone, perhaps, coming to light a fire under him for spending all this time doing nothing? Well, let them come....maybe that would give him something to sing about.  

[Princess_Feylin]

The fur down Ru's back still bristled with residual irritation as he stalked away from the grounds where the reavers sparred. He had been going there daily to watch the warriors train while he waited for the wounds he acquired in his challenge to heal enough that he had the healers' permission to join them, and it had been educational and interesting, even enjoyable. Today had not been enjoyable, and Ru thought he might have made an enemy of an older lion of the pride simply because, well, he didn't actually know why.

The fact that he was irritated didn't keep him from maintaining an awareness of his surroundings, however, and so he did not fail to notice a spotted lion with a bright purple mane lying in a patch of sunlight near enough where Ru was passing that if the young and newly-accepted Stormborn did not alter his course he would probably brush against his lashing tail. Without having to think about it, Ru adjusted his course so that would not happen. Since he was coming up on the lion from behind, he deliberately trod more heavily so he would not be accused of sneaking, which was probably another form of cowardice here.

As he passed by the lion he could not help saying, "Pardon me."

It didn't seem like something said often among the Stormborn, but Ru had not been raised in the pride and his mother had been very adamant that her cubs know how to use excellent manners. Most of her lessons had gone in one ear and out the other, but basic courtesies like that had become deeply ingrained in Ru and he wasn't even aware of performing them most of the time. His tone might have been a bit less friendly than it would have been if his morning had been better.

It occurred to him that probably he should try making a few friends here, too, if he was going to have enemies. And so rather than keep walking he turned and said to the lion, "I'm Ruzanski."  

[fenshae]

His ears flicked back and he glanced back, letting his eyes fall on the adolescent. A brow quirked. He looked a bit worse-for-wear, he thought, and though he seemed like he might be familiar, Solvtorn was damned if he could put a name to the face.

When the dark youngster spoke, Solvtorn's other brow raised and he stared at him for a moment with an expression of somewhat smug amusement. "You must be new," he said, as much because of the lion's manners as his general appearance. Well. At least he wouldn't be the most dapper lion in the pride any longer. "Solvtorn." He offered, with a nod of his head. He resisted the urge to say 'a pleasure to meet you'.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"I am," he agreed.

Ru was not impressed by the spotted lion's powers of deduction. There were so many cues to indicate his newness and difference that no one ought to have been surprised by it, or even felt the need to remark on it. And yet people always seemed to. Some of them greeted and welcomed him, and others were more suspicious, treating him as though he had somehow cheated his way into the pride or something.

All of their complaints, he felt, would be dealt with if they'd just be patient. Yes, he was smaller than the average Stormborn, but he was larger than the average lion as far as he could tell, and he wasn't finished growing yet. And no one but Lucivar had seen him fight, it was true, but that would change once he healed. And maybe he was too polite. According to his mother, that had been an impossibility. He'd be pleased to drop the courtesies she drilled into him once he learned what should go in their stead, but right now he didn't know enough about the pride to do that.

"You're not though. Your speech marks you as someone who has lived here for a long while." There was a marked accent that the Stormborn had, a way of adding a bit of a growl to their words that thickened their speech. "Mayhap you could tell me a bit more about the pride?"  

[fenshae]

"Ah, well, and what would you be wanting to know?" He asked, but a glitter had started up in his eyes -- a glitter that suggested there might just be a song brewing up there. He wasn't sure how the youth would respond to a sudden musical history lesson, however, and reeled it back in -- for the moment.

"We're the best there is, for one -- the descendants of the storm gods themselves, head an' shoulders above other lions. For another, and I'm sure you know this, we go a-viking...taking what we please and plundering where we go."

But there was so much more to it, and this was where Solvtorn felt he might need to sing a bit in order to explain. Some concepts -- like the bonds of brotherhood, and the immense pride at being one of them, and the sheer joy of living by one's own rules -- seemed to require song to really get the meaning across. He looked a bit distracted, considering his song options.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Ru guessed that answering something as vague as "anything and everything" would be a mistake, and so it was probably for the best that Solvtorn began speaking almost immediately after asking him what he wanted to know. It ought to give Ru a few extra moments to figure out what he wanted to ask. At least that was what Ru originally thought.

After hearing Solvtorn describe the Stormborn, however, he found himself frowning. Taking what they pleased and plundering sounded like what the pirates who killed his sisters did. There had to be more to it than that, or else why wouldn't the Stormborn and the pirates simply band together to make one unbeatable, terrifying pride?

"How does that make us any different from the pirates then?" he asked. He almost used the word "you" in place of "us" but stopped himself at the last moment. For better or for worse, he had made the decision to become one of the Stormborn, and that meant he had to live with his decision.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Only counting Solvtorn's posts in this RP from where I took over.

Solvtorn regarded Ruzanski through dark magenta eyes and a moment passed where he considered getting up to slap some sense into the young lion he was speaking with. He couldn't believe the darker lion even had to ask that of him. But then he reminded himself that Ruzanski was new to the pride, though perhaps not new to the area if he knew of the pirates.

"Pirates are undisciplined, lazy, filthy thieves," Solvtorn replied.

It was something of a rote response, given that the spotted lion had never encountered a pirate before in his life. His lack of experience was due in no small part to the fact that he had never actually left the Stormborn stronghold. As a cub he had aspired to be a fierce Reaver like his father was, but he always seemed to be little more than mediocre when it came down to it and his adolescence passed without any captain choosing him for crew. After that he decided in a fit of pique that he didn't want to be a Reaver after all.

"I don't know a lot about them," he confessed. "But I know they are a relatively young pride, especially compared to the Stormborn. Their current leader is the founder of the pride and he's some stinking rogue who decided to gather a bunch of like-minded individuals together so they could get drunk and occasionally raid nearby lions."

As an afterthought Solv added, "Aesir hates their leader. He was the one who came back with stories of pirates at first when he was only your age, more or less. More lions encountered them later and confirmed his first impression, but it was Aesir who discovered them."  

[Princess_Feylin]

"And murderers," Ru added in an undertone edged with hatred. "You left out the part about them being murderers, too."

It bothered him not at all that he had not actually seen the lions who had taken his sisters and then killed them. At least not in terms of matching stories to fact. His sister's spirit had returned to tell him of the wrongs done her and his other sister, chiding him for leaving them alone and easy prey to those lions. She had been able to tell him a little bit about the lions who had committed those acts, too, and one of the things she remembered was an expression they often uttered which he later learned was associated with a pride of lions who called themselves pirates.

"It's interesting to know even that much more about them."

What he had learned about the pirates he had learned from rogue lions, who knew precious little enough. Most of them tended to avoid any of the coastal prides in the area, believing them all to be about as bad as the other, though the dread of Stormborn Reavers went much deeper than any sort of fear of pirates. It was a little strange to think that the Stormborn viewed the pirates as being so insignificant when they seemed so very important to Ru.

"Do you know how the Warlord met them?" His mother's good manners made it a little challenging to just refer to the Warlord by his name, though it would probably become easier with time. Kazul had already warned him that her father didn't like to be called "sir."  

[Princess_Feylin]

Solvtorn watched the young Freeborn's expression darken as he added his own moniker to the ones Solvtorn had already shared with him about the pirates. He also heard the edge in his voice, the raw hatred there, and had the feeling that this Freeborn had a history with the pirates. A part of Solvtorn wanted to see if he could learn what it was, and perhaps turn it into an epic song or story.

"I had not heard that they were murderers, but I don't see why they shouldn't be." Solvtorn wasn't bothered by the fact that Stormborn lions probably killed far more people than the pirates ever could or would. The Stormborn were his people, and what they did was done because it was their right to do so as the strongest lions in the land, descended from the gods of the storm.

"I'll trade you a story for a story," Solvtorn suggested. "You tell me how you know the pirates are murderers, and I'll tell you how Aesir met the Pirate King?"

It occurred to him that Ru might make the connection that the story he was offering might be available from someone else, and so he added, "I'm one of the best storytellers in the pride, and I pay the most attention to detail and accuracy. You're best off hearing it from me. But I do want to hear your story first."  

[Princess_Feylin]

The deal Solvtorn proposed didn't exactly sit well with Ru, who preferred to keep his past private. His vendetta was vitally important to him, but he was aware that to another lion, particularly a Stormborn, it might seem like a trivial thing. He knew that he would have to kill the lion who suggested it was, though, and while he didn't exactly shy from the idea of killing - indeed, he took a great deal of pleasure in it - he wanted to avoid killing Stormborn unless they forced him to. A pride where nearly everyone was considered a brother, even if it was just a brother-in-arms, was just the sort of place he knew he could fit. But the fit would probably be better if he didn't kill someone right off.

"How long do I have to think about it?" Ru asked in the end.

It might be that Solvtorn was telling the truth about being the better storytellers in the pride and he might know more details than the others, but Ru still wasn't sure it was worth it for giving him the details of why he had come to the pride. He hadn't told anyone about that yet. He still carried the burden of his sisters' murder as a secret. His secret shame, for he had allowed it to happen. He should have been there, protecting them, and he wasn't, and that was why they were dead.

"Because if I have to answer you right now, my answer's going to be that I'll just ask someone else. I don't want to discuss my past right now." And if Solvtorn was offended, well, that was just too bad.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Solv's ears swiveled forward and his magenta eyes widened unconsciously as he took an interest in Ru's story beyond what it might have been if the younger lion had simply acquiesced to his request. Secrets were good things to know, and he would have loved to be the first to know all about the pride's newest Freeborn. Anything so closely guarded had to be good, he figured.

"Hum. How long do you need to decide?" Solv asked.

He didn't like the idea of a delay, and he was mildly affronted by Ru's casual dismissal of his skills as a storyteller, but he could put up with a little insult to know more than everyone else for a time and have the opportunity to be the first to put Ru's story to song, or just epic narrative. Since it seemed to cast the pirates as the villains, there was even a good chance that he could use his finished product to curry some favor with the Warlord. His effort with the story of Aesir's meeting with the Pirate King had not met with much success in that regard.

"You'll have to tell your story anyway, when they feast you. I could help you figure out the best way to tell it. How a story's told is very important in this pride. That way you could decide how much everyone else hears." He just wanted to be the first to know it all.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"Probably it would be better if I told my story my way when I'm feasted," he said, working toward extricating himself from this conversation with the too-curious Solvtorn.

Now Ru's whiskers twitched, just very slightly in a barely perceptible way. The silver and black lion was becoming entirely too interested in learning his story, and it was putting Ru off of him while simultaneously putting him on his guard. Why was he so interested? Ru already knew he would have to share his story when he was feasted - Kazul had told him as much - and he had been putting some thought into how he would tell it.

"Since you know you'll hear my story when I'm feasted, why are you so interested in hearing my story now?"

His green eyes were narrowed marginally, but otherwise he didn't give away much about his rising suspicions. Perhaps the brothers-in-arms idea needn't apply to everyone. He wasn't even sure this particular lion was a fighter. He didn't really have the build for it, other than the larger size which seemed to be universal among the Stormborn.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Solv could tell that he had said something wrong to make Ru uncomfortable. It wasn't all that hard to take note of the changes in Ru's posture and tone, and even his expression, though he was harder to read than many because of the foreignness those things. Without realizing it, Solv really was something of a scholar, and realizing that he was going to be denied knowledge, particularly previously-unknown knowledge, was going to drive him up the wall.

"I'm curious is all," he explained. "The Stormborn do get lions who challenge their way into the pride from time to time, and they're usually adults who have been fighting all their lives. You're younger than that, and smaller. Your kin must have been very impressive warriors and raised you to be the same."

Now he wondered if maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but subtlety was not as much in demand among the Stormborn as their legends and stories would lead a person to believe. Trickery and cleverness they could get behind, but actual subtlety tended to go unappreciated. Thus, compliments tended to be heavy-handed. They did tend to go a long way toward smoothing ruffled fur though. It was pretty much universal among the Stormborn, the fondness for hearing of their own prowess.

"If I've said aught amiss, it wasn't a-purpose," he added. Then he suggested, "Perhaps it's the difference in our upbringings."  

[Princess_Feylin]

Ru felt a mild pang of guilt at his manner toward Solvtorn. As the black and silver lion had pointed out, their upbringings had been different. Kazul, too, had been curious about where he'd come from, as had the lion he'd met by the practice area earlier that day, the one who'd put him in a bit of an off mood to begin with. Voldemaras.

Thinking back to that encounter Ru recalled that the Stormborn had a preoccupation with people's ancestry that bordered on the ridiculous, as far as Ru was concerned. However, that being the case it was more understandable that everyone would be curious about his origins. Even if the lion he'd fought to get into the pride had been an adolescent and even if they'd fought to a draw, perhaps that really had been an unusual occurrence. Once again his ignorance irritated him.

"Perhaps it is," he allowed. "But I'm still not ready to tell my story. As you and several others have mentioned, storytelling is important here, and I don't want to have the first story I tell as a Stormborn be unimpressive or lackluster. I'd like some more time to work on it."

That seemed like an excuse Solvtorn would accept. "Probably I should be doing that now, actually. I'll be seeing you around, no doubt."  

[Princess_Feylin]

Well that was...frustrating. But also fair. And there was nothing Solvtorn could say, really, having already made so much of the importance of a story well-told. He couldn't believe he had put himself in such a position. It was very, very frustrating. Even so, Solv didn't let his frustration show. He had already seen that Ru would be discommoded by any expression of excessive interest and he didn't want to make matters worse between them.

"All right," Solv said. "As you say, I will probably see you around."

As he watched Ru walk away he was struck with sudden inspiration for how he might get the new lion's story out of him, but it was too late and he was feeling too lazy still to go chasing after him. But he had thought it might be clever of him to challenge the new Freeborn to a duel, and the loser would have to tell their story. That sort of thing a younger warrior like that, particularly one who wanted to make a name for himself, or build on whatever name he already had earned based on his askorun.

Maybe he would make the offer later that day. It wouldn't be difficult to find out where Ru was staying and offer him a haunch of something. He could point out to the suspicious young lion that it was never wise to turn away potential friends, particularly when those friends could be useful in explaining the ways of the pride to him. Yes, that would be good. No, it would be better if he lost the fight to do that, because then he could say there were no hard feelings. That would be best. Ru could have a friend and mentor and Solv had a feeling that Ru was destined for greatness and he wanted to benefit from that.