|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:41 pm
The first thing she did was wash the green from her pelt. But only after she'd stopped running.
It was the second time in her life that Petra had run. The feeling was similar, but this time, she'd learned from her mistakes. The first time she'd looked behind her. For familiar faces and promises of idealistic change. If the Mizimu had been right about one thing, it was this: she was young and foolish. A warrior did what they had to do to keep fighting. She wouldn't forget that. This time, Petra had run and she hadn't looked back. She'd run until her feet blistered. She pushed all the thoughts of her friends and her sister behind her until they were nothing. Until she felt nothing.
Petra didn't expect anyone to give chase. Although the Dhati had been defeated, things had never truly recovered. Sickness spread. They wouldn't go looking for some 'cursed' slave... but she wasn't about to take any chances. Petra was done with this place. And if it damned her spirit, so be it.
Eventually she'd reached a point where she simply couldn't run any further. The air was salty and the water undrinkable. None of her grandfather's stories had ever spoken about such things. Had he ever seen them? Did he even remember being free? It was strange and overwhelming, but she'd run out of things to be afraid of. Tired and sore, she collapsed into the water, and let it sting at all her cuts and bruises. So much water everywhere.
But the burn felt good. It was the first time in a while that she really felt something.
The lioness let her head slide beneath the waves for a moment, floating. It was unfortunate she could not simply keep running. Run along the ocean floor until she became a fish. Learn to breath the salt. Tempting, but she hadn't come this far to die. Not yet anyways.
Petra resurfaced with a gasp and sat up. Foam was pulsing around her. Licking at old wounds and bad memories. It was only then, looking over her dripping figure, that she remembered the green. The green mark at her hip. She growled feverishly, and started to smudge it with her paws. She'd pull the damn fur out if she had to.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:55 pm
Rowtag had been shamed but there was no one but himself to blame for it. It was his shame to carry, his burden to bear, and bear it he would though it hurt him to do so. It troubled him in his sleep, troubled him in his waking moments, addled his mind and had him trapped in the past, unable to let go. Unable to move on. He woke most mornings to the memory of Zii'moto's stricken face as she realised the lion she had come to love was nothing more than a traitor. A traitor who had led rogues to her parent's den no less.
Except he hadn't meant to be a traitor. It had just somehow turned out that way and suddenly the promising student of the General and soldier of the Firekin was nothing but a pitiful coward, running for his life across the hot sands. Leaving behind everything he had come to love. Leaving everything he knew for this strange world of green and brown. The grass still felt odd beneath his paws. The firm earth, too. It was too cool, too damp. If he ever had good dreams - which were rare and few between - it was always of the burning sun on his back and the sweeping, changeable tide of gold beneath him. Unpredictable and yet comforting in that ever-changing manner.
Like Petra, he had run until he could run no farther. Wounded and maddened from heat-stroke, he had thought - for a terrible moment - that he had fought to escape one death only to leap straight into the jaws of another.
Then she had come along.
The white lioness who was both Zii and not Zii. The name passed by his lips more often than not, though she seemed to humour him with it nowadays. She was white and she had fire. A different kind of fire, certainly, but one that had kept him there at her side, though he had almost walked away many a time before now. And then there had been talk of him unable to care for himself and of a new pride and he had agreed to it. He had followed this 'not-Zii' to this new land - where some of her family resided - and it was here, by this huge expanse of water (he still wasn't sure whether it was real or some figment of his imagination) when he heard the splash of the lioness entering the water.
His glossy eyes traced the strange motion of the water and, after a moment, he spotted something break up through the surface. It was bright. Like the sun.
Was this another imaginary thing?
He stood somewhat warily and moved a little closer, pausing to check to see if Zii had returned. No, not Zii, he reminded himself. It was Miw-Sher. And no, she hadn't returned yet. She had told him to stay put, but the sun was drowning and he figured that he ought to see if there was anything he could do to help.
Except on closer inspection it wasn't the sun, but a lioness, and she seemed to be...attacking herself.
And he had thought himself mad?
He lowered himself back to his hindquarters and watched, strangely fascinated. What was this land that the little white female had brought him to?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:06 pm
Petra spun, trying her best to get the dye off of her. It might as well have been causing some sort of physical pain by the way she was wrenching herself out of shape to get rid of it. The dye clung like irony. She hated irony.
Petra continued to writhe- and only when she was at her most embarrassing position did she notice the rather large male watching her. She jerked forward and rolled forward into the water. It was hard to tell if she had intended to do that, or if she'd forgotten she was standing in water.
Whatever the case was, she emerged soaking wet and spitting. Her bright eyes narrowed into slits, and she stormed back onto the beach. "Something wrong with your eyes?" She snapped. Almost self consciously, she tried rubbing out the dye again. Like it was a secret.
Had he followed her? She doubted it, she would have recognized him. She wasn't that dumb. It was only a matter of time before she started running into strange lions- which meant she only had a short amount of time to make sure they knew to stay the hell away. She bristled and held her ground. "Find your own water, you can't drink it anyways."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:15 pm
He was silent for a moment, absorbing her words and the surroundings as if he were sitting in a weird dream that he was hoping to wake up from. And then, when it was clear the world wasn't just going to fade away and release him back to reality, he decided it was best to speak.
"Maybe."
Another pause, his eyes narrowing. "I don't need water. I thought--" that the sun was drowning? "--it doesn't matter." He snorted agitatedly. "I'm waiting for someone." And then as an afterthought. "What are you doing? Is there something wrong with your leg?"
Maybe the pride here were killers, too. Maybe the Firekin had already been there to warn them about him? Perhaps they'd already killed Zii - Miw-Sher - and were coming for him right now. Perhaps he should run whilst he still had a chance. But then what would he do? Where would he go? Perhaps Miw-Sher was right and he wouldn't be able to make it out there alone.
"Wait." He narrowed his eyes. "Are you a member of this pride?" He couldn't remember what it was called.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:25 pm
"Nothing is wrong with my leg," Petra said, in a decidedly unconvincing fashion. She stopped rubbing it, but judging by the way her side was twitching, it was still on her mind.
It did surprise her that this hadn't immediately gone to blows. Maybe because he knew he had friends to back him up? Something she didn't have, and that made her edgy. At least with her back to the water, she wasn't about to be caught unexpected. "And I don't know what you're talking about. What pride?"
She turned her head around, as if there was some invisible mass of lions hiding just beyond the bushes. To be safe, she took a few steps back into the surf. "Look, maybe you think you can threaten me by saying you've got a bunch of brothers at your back, but I am not that dumb." Not anymore. "So why don't you just turn around where you came from and bother your own people."
There was a sound across the beach. Petra snapped around, just in time to see a faint sprig of brown fur dance around the bushes. She took a few more slow steps back into the water.
Well, crap.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:14 pm
She was making no sense.
Or perhaps...he wasn't hearing clearly? Yes, that seemed more likely. After all, confusion and misunderstanding seemed to be his new-found habit since leaving his homeland. So much so that the little white female had decided that he couldn't even survive out in rogue lands without her to help. Which, of course, was utterly ridiculous. And, for the record, he wasn't here because he believed her! He just...didn't fancy wandering off on his own just yet...
"I already bothered my own people." He muttered bitterly, standing again and shaking specks of sand from his pelt. Even the sand here was wrong. Stony and darker and...just wrong.
"You are not making any sense. What is wrong with you?" She probably just found him threatening to look at. Couldn't say that he blamed her. He was a rather impressive looking lion with all his new scars and what-not. "Never mind, just shut up. I'm getting out of here before--" He trailed, following the line of Petra's sight to a small shape darting around out there.
"Zii?"
No. Not Zii.
Then his eyes turned accusingly back to the female in the water. "What did you do? Is someone after you?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:34 pm
For a moment Petra looked legitimately horrified. Someone could be following her, after all, and the male's shared bewilderment didn't help things any. She practically staggered back into the warm waters, wondering how far she could swim before she was captured. Not very far, she supposed. She'd never had much practice in swimming. "I didn't-"
Her heart ached, and she took another step back. "I didn't do anything. Not that anyone here can control," she snarled.
Luckily for the pair, the lioness in the bushes was about as lost as they were. She'd spotted the ridiculously sparkly girl half drowning herself earlier. In fact, she'd almost come out had it not been for the other lion coming short on her heels. Things were strange these days. Muses gone, family gone... now outsiders. Another lioness might have been terrified. Instead, Shiala but her bottom lip and jumped out of the bushes.
"Hey!" She said, her tail curling. As if that was the customary greeting to two scared rogues. "There's no reason to be afraid! It's just me!"
"Who the hell are you?" Petra growled.
"Shiala! This is my home!" She chimed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:22 pm
If Rowtag hadn't been so confused and on edge, he probably would have laughed at the scene unravelling all around him. Petra's nervous, defensiveness had him bristling in preparation for something terrible and then - all of a sudden - a lioness was leaping out at them from the bushes.
He jerked to his paws with such swiftness that for a moment he forgot he was wounded at all, turning to face the newcomer with a snarl. The scar on his muzzle - left their by angry claws - puckered angrily against the fur and then he startled again. That little lioness was no Firekin and even if the sparkly, drowning, sunshine lioness was being followed, there was no way that little thing could cause a panic. Which meant...well, he didn't know, exactly, but it wasn't as bad as either of them had feared. Surely...
He blinked, his snarl evaporating as quickly as it had come.
"Shiala?" He echoed the name pointlessly. And then, frowning again, he took a step forwards and gave an irritated snort. "Where's Zii? Are you those...those people she was looking for? Did she find you? I've been waiting!!" But not for as long as his irritation seemed to be portraying.
Apparently he didn't really understand the concept of time either.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 1:09 pm
Shiala wasn't sure what they were talking about, but one of the advantages in growing up in a pride full of madness was a remarkable tolerance for the bizarre. The young lioness simply smiled, looking them both over with her wide bright eyes. "I don't know a Zii! But she sounds like a nice person. Who are you two? You're waiting for someone?" She pranced towards the beach. "Or hiding?"
Petra wasn't so quick to abandon her growls. Or her positon in the surf, despite how it rocked against her in unpredictable intervals. "Where I come from people mind their own business," the fiery lioness said. It wasn't entirely true, but she doubted Shiala knew that. "My name is Petra."
"Petra?" Shiala said, as though she were absorbing it to memory. She looked over to the larger male. "And you have a name too, certainly. These lands are my home. You're in no danger here. There's no need to fret. You two look a little...rough."
The lioness leaned to the side, as though she were observing the two quite carefully. "You can come out of the water. I'd think the both of you could surely take me if you wanted to." And then to the other: "If you're looking for a Zii, I'm sure we can find her if she's here. There are lots of people missing around here, so plenty of people out looking."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 2:37 pm
"Rowtag." The red lion grunted, frowning deeply as he watched the two females with both a strange unease and perhaps just a slither of curiosity. The drowning, sunshine one was all growls and fire. What was the likelihood that she was a Firekin spy? No...possibly the wrong colours for that, though maybe they'd recruit one like that to throw him off the scent.
Suddenly nervous, he was back on his paws again, dithering as he lost himself in endless paranoid theories about who might be watching him. Following him. Planning to attack him.
And then Zii's name was mentioned again and he nodded gruffly. "She is here. She told me to wait." He sucked in an irritated breath. "If this is your home, Zii was looking for one of your people. She wanted to join to be with...her family. She said I had to come too." Well, that sounded rather pathetic without having told them the whole story. But he didn't want to tell them. It was none of their business. He growled, tearing at the sand with a paw. "How do we join this pride of yours? Do we fight? You're a little small to be fighting."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 3:44 pm
"Fight?" She said, a smile sliding across her face as though he'd told a joke. "No, of course not! What sort of pride makes people fight for their place? I thought we were strange! If you wish to stay here, you are more than welcome. You'll have to meet with some of the important people and those are....uh..."
Shiala paused, her brows knitting together. So many people had vanished... her parents along with them. For a moment it seemed to be sadness that hovered above her. But it was gone by the time she looked up. "Things haven't been so easy lately. Nothing you need to worry about though! It'll be for the better, I'm sure. In either case, you are certainly not unwelcome."
"That seems a bit naive," Petra said. At least for the moment she seemed to believe the small lioness, and was wading out of the water. She felt somewhat foolish. "You don't know what sort of people we are."
Shiala grinned. "We can take care of ourselves should the need arise. I don't think two rogues are going to topple us, not from what we've been through. We're a tricky bunch if anything. And we're used to the unusual."
Petra fidgetted, looking towards the strange male, and then the stranger. This was a pride after all... "We could both-"
"You're certainly both welcome to stay," Shiala said. "I can even show you where to drink some water! Surely you haven't been drinking that salt, have you? One of my siblings did that once. Made them sick for days, never do that!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 4:04 pm
Rowtag curled a lip, ears sinking back into his mane. No fighting. So what, then? Just ask and be accepted? Wasn't that a little too easy? How did they know who they were letting into their pride if there was no test to pass? Apparently the other outsider agreed with him. It was naive. Almost as if they were asking for trouble. It was weak. Pitiful and inexcusable. They certainly would have had a shock if they ventured to his home. They would not have had such a friendly greeting there.
Eventually, he gave a grudging nod, hoping that this was what Zii would have wanted. He could follow this female, Shiala, to water and seek Zii out later. Maybe by then she would have spoken to some of these so-called important people and got everything arranged so he wouldn't have to. No point them both being a bother when one could do the job perfectly well. After all, she had gotten him into this mess.
He had shifted his weight from one side to the other and then, with a low growl, nodded his head and took a step towards the small female. "Show us this water, then." He blinked across at Petra, wondering whether she was intending to stay, also. "That living water would be too hard to drink anyway." He eyed Petra, wondering if she had swallowed any when she had been flapping around in it.
"I think the plan is for me to stay so I shall, if it is as easy as all that."
And Petra? Would she stay?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:04 pm
"Of course," Shiala chimed. It seemed such suspicious nuances did not exist to the small brown lioness. "It is in fact, so easy. In a manner of speaking."
With that, she glanced over her shoulder. Her tail swayed. "Don't underestimate my people, strangers. Just because we don't force our members to fight, doesn't mean we don't watch closely. Better to offer the paw and keep people in sight, right? But if you wish to be one of us, we'll treat you as our own," she smiled. "If you return the favor, of course."
Petra glanced towards the male, her brows furrowing. It seemed too easy. It really did, and she knew better then to be so trusting. Her claws pusled into the earth. Would it be better to strike out on her own, hoping her best to keep ahead of anyone who might have been looking for her? Or trust these people so blindly? "I was a slave, where I come from." She said stiffly.
Shiala didn't seem too taken aback. "You aren't a slave here. You can be anything you want to be." Her expression widened. "Quite literally, actually, I know some people who thought they were trees for a while!"
Petra...didn't exactly know what to make of that. But in a way, it was exactly what she had been wanting to hear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
