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 Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 11:28 am
 Bronislawa had been training with Susu for a long time, and she was learning about oracles and signs from the gods. Although there were many signs that were for the pride as a whole, the Preistesses could attempt to read signs or cast a foretelling for specific lions as well. Broni needed practice reading signs of all kinds.
Somehow (Broni wasn't really sure how, nor did she ask) her mentor had gotten one of the older Reavers to agree to let her throw the bones for him. Actually, it had been a choice between bones and reading intestines, and Broni preferred bones. Intestines should be saved for really special occasions.
She found a flattish space in the ground and put down the bag she had made to carry her bones in, made of a stretched wildebeest bladder. She sat with her back to a tree, and waited for the Reaver to make his appearance.
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 11:49 am
 Vol sighed deeply. His injuries from the last viking had healed completely. There wasn't even any lingering pain, though he had acquired a new scar behind one elbow where he kept tearing open one of his wounds by performing simple, standard tasks. He was feeling pretty good, all things considered. But he also remembered how he had felt immediately following that viking, how stiff and sore he had been, and how the healer who tended him had been concerned about an infection in the scratch behind his elbow. These factors all combined to make him feel a little bit like he might be approaching a point where he would soon begin to have to think about the possibility that maybe he would have to consider his age.
The idea of growing old did not sit well with Vol, but for the time being he still considered it preferable to the alternative. He was still too fond of life and living to be willing to give it up for death of any variety, be it the final journey to Valhalla or the little death a Reaver died when he ceased to go viking. Being fond of living, but suddenly aware that he was actually growing older, he decided before his next viking to have a foretelling cast. He just wanted to know for curiosity's sake, and there was nothing wrong with that. Many Reavers did the same.
Of course, he was somewhat less than thrilled to learn that it would be an apprentice Priestess who did the foretelling. He wasn't sure he trusted someone inexperienced to look into his future. But at least the worst she could do would be to see things incorrectly. She couldn't change anything. This is what he told himself as he stepped into the clearing where a dark-coated young lioness waited with her back to a tree.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:00 am
Broni recognized the Reaver that was walking toward her; Susu had pointed him out, and she knew him by name and by reputation, if not personally. He was supposed to be a good fighter, old, experienced, and fierce.
"Hello, Voldemaras. Today is a good day to die."
The words might sound strange coming from the voice of a priestess, but she was still one of the Stormborn.
"Are you ready for me to do your reading?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:50 am
"So it is," Vol agreed, nodding a greeting to the young Priestess-in-training.
Looking at her Vol saw a great deal of the Warlord in her. Well and so. She was Aesir's viking-born daughter. One of three, he remembered. The other two he had not seen around the pride so much. Their mother made her den in the woods by the inland foot of the pride's cliffs, and so probably her daughters and sons did likewise, which explained their comparative scarcity. It was really a shame though, because this one was certainly very attractive, having received the best Aesir had to offer in terms of traits, apparently.
"I am as ready as I will ever be, I expect," he answered her. "Do you mind if I sit for this? I've not found that it tends to make much difference to the fates whether I am seated or standing to hear a foretelling, but some Priestesses have personal preferences of their own."
For all that he truly believed females belonged in the home, raising Stormborn Reavers and defending it while their mates were out viking, Vol acknowledged that being a Priestess was an exception to this rule, and he afforded Priestesses more respect than he did most Stormborn women. That this one was one of the Warlord's daughters didn't make much difference to him. If she proved stupid or incompetent, he would let her know that. And the Warlord, too, if the opportunity presented itself.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:04 pm
"I don't expect it matters to destiny, so it doesn't matter to me. If you are more comfortable sitting, please sit. It shouldn't take long."
Carefully, so as not to rip it, Broni opened the pouch. Throwing the bones was difficult, mechanically, because she had to either throw the bag or topple it from a paw, making sure they all came out. Before she picked the pouch up to toss the bones, though, she spoke a brief prayer under her breath to let the gods (and any other spirit type that could be watching, just for good measure) that this throw was for Voldemaras, Reaver of the Stormborn.
Then she picked the bag up in her teeth, tossed it lightly in the air, and caught the bottom in her mouth so the bones spilled out onto the flat ground before her. She waited until they all stopped moving before moving to start their reading.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 6:07 pm
"Excellent," Vol said and dropped into an easy, relaxed sort of crouch. He was still large, even after lowering himself so, and a lion without Stormborn blood would probably find him intimidating. It wasn't something that bothered him in the slightest. In fact, he tended to enjoy the effect he had on outsiders when they realized that even crouching down he was still pretty damn big.
He watched with detached interest as the apprentice did her thing with the pouch and the bones and whatnot. He had been present for enough castings that he could actually say what certain patterns and symbols meant, at least in a general way, but interpretation of overall messages was not something he had been trained in and he rarely felt any sort of temptation to second-guess the priestess. Even in working with an apprentice, as now, he did not attempt to guess what the bones' placement and all meant.
Instead he wondered how long she had to practice to toss the bag that way and have all the bones come out. He could toss small prey animals up in the air like that and catch them again, but he didn't have to get their innards to spill out when he did it. He just had to catch them again. It was still a form of showing off, that snap of the head and then the snap of teeth, but he thought it was probably a slightly different skill.
No matter. He waited while the young lioness began to study the bones.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:38 pm
Broni didn't want to rush it - she wanted to give a good and accurate reading for the Reaver.
The first part of the puzzle she noticed was the way two bones formed an oval - the symbol for a female. A few bones came off it, forming a pattern Broni recognized as blood. None of the classical signs for violence were there, however, leading Broni to believe that either the female was already bleeding or she was the color of blood. Because Vol was certain to meet this female - somewhere outside the pride, and fairly soon, based on the tight grouping of vertebrae set far away from the center of the reading area. A few weeks, at the latest, but it was more likely just a few days.
Broni walked around the circle, examining it from different angles. Sometimes new things were revealed. Looking at it this way, there was not only blood, but offspring. Aside from the female, though, the bones had very little to say. There was a formation that looked like a warning of oncoming strife, but that almost always appeared in readings for Reavers. She would mention it, but the bones were focused on this female, for good or ill.
She looked back at the Reaver. "The bones are very single minded today. You'll be meeting a female. It's unclear whether she's wounded or she's blood red, but either way the meeting will go well for you, and cubs will follow later. I don't think you'll ever see them, judging from their distance to the heart bone. And it will happen soon. I'd say a fortnight, at the latest. And there is strife on your horizon, but you're a Reaver. There is always strife on your horizon."
Broni was a bit puzzled by the reading. Usually she got lots of little bits, not one whole picture. But it was what it was.
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 7:43 am
Vol wasn't in any sort of a hurry, so it made no difference to him whether the apprentice took her time in studying the bones or not. He was more interested in whether she got it right. So far he had not been misinformed by a Priestess casting a foretelling, but he had never had a foretelling cast by a Priestess-in-training either. He assumed the reason they tacked on the "in-training" was that they didn't know everything about their chosen profession just yet, and so were more likely to make mistakes.
Fortunately, he supposed as he waited for her to finish studying the bones she'd thrown, he was not one who put huge amounts of faith into foretellings. He didn't mind having them done, and more often than not they did prove to be of some assistance, but it was rare for them to be correct on all the particulars, and even rarer for them to make any kind of useful sense until after the thing they'd hinted at had already happened. Which was almost worse than being useless, in a way.
He glanced at the bones curiously as the young lioness walked around them, wondering if viewing them from a different viewpoint could change the reading. He recognized one formation - strife. It was one that showed up in every Reaver's foretelling. They led strife-filled lives, by and large. It was just something a lion learned to take in stride, and not to worry about as long as the formation didn't appear in conjunction with other signs to indicate serious or deadly strife.
Finally the apprentice began to speak and Vol listened attentively. A meeting with a female that went well for him sounded good, but cubs didn't. Fortunately, it didn't seem he would be obligated to do anything with these cubs, or even be involved with them, and that suited him fine. Vol had gone all of his long life without having any offspring. At least, none that he acknowledged. It worked for him.
"Well, that doesn't sound too bad overall," he said when she seemed to have finished.
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:43 am
Broni agreed. "It looks like the next few weeks will be quite uneventful aside from the female, and I am sure a Reaver of your reputation will enjoy himself. Although it is odd that the bones gave me such a clear picture."
Still puzzled, Broni pawed the bag open carefully and started placing her bones back inside it. She would still have to clean them, purified for the next reading she did so that the bones would not confuse two strands of fate, but the care of one's oracle bones were another thing priestesses did away from the male eyes of the pride. She wondered if that served any practical purpose, or just helped to add to the priestess's mystique.
"Thank you for allowing me to read the bones for you."
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Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 9:54 am
Vol grinned. The apprentice was right in supposing that he would enjoy himself with a reading like that. He was somewhat practiced at putting such things into terms that would apply to his activities, and he could tell that this would be a pretty enjoyable viking indeed. Even a bit of tail, from what she had said. Vikings were always better with that little added bonus.
"Maybe you're just good at this," he offered.
Vol wasn't a lion who offered his thanks or gratitude for a person doing their job, but he didn't much mind praising them when they did their job well. If they simply did their job as well as could be expected, he wasn't likely to say anything, but it seemed to him that she had done a pretty good job. He wasn't used to foretellings that were so specific either, to be honest. It was an interesting change, though by no means unsettling or unnerving.
"It was well done," he said, climbing to his feet. "I will tell your mentor as much, if she asks. Good day."
And with nothing more to be said Vol departed.
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