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 Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:00 am
He'd seen it in a dream, and like most things he saw in his dreams, he took it as a sign of inspiration. Veru's dreams had a habit of focusing on the most irrelevant of worldly events- but that didn't mean they weren't useful!
"LADIES, and WOMENFOLK," he proclaimed to the surrounding area. Which was actually the area right outside Seide's sleeping quarters. Veru was a firm believe in 'stacking the deck' in his favor, you see. "I have very important news for you!"
"As of today, I am officially a member of the pride for a month!" While this was true, it seemed like Veru had been an almost-official-pride-member for the last half year. In the opinion of some, it might have felt like longer. "This means I am now on the market!"
He leaned a bit forward, directing his comments so that they were loud enough to wake her up if she was still sleeping. "This is crucial news! I could be taken at any moment! Hordes of ladies, pouring out from the sand!"
When he wasn't getting a response, he said a little louder: "SEIDE, I am asking you to breakfast!"
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:34 pm
It was just before dawn, and the air was positively chilly. The numbness in her skin, seeping into her bones, made it easy to rise and stretch her muscles. Seide could train, school, and take orders before the heat of the day truly set in, and she could spend the remainder of the afternoon catching up on poor sleep in the night.
'WOMENFOLK' was what, unfortunately, woke her up this time.
The female's ears went flat to her skull, and she uncovered a cold, wet nose, placing her paw onto the earth next to her. It did not take her much longer to pull to her feet. The voice continued as she stretched, listening idly to a voice that was becoming increasingly familiar. Her lip curled, in disgust, by the time 'on the market' reached her ears. Seide was a serious lion, who took things seriously. This included relationships. Veru was anything but.
Deciding to put an end to this before it turned embarrassing for both Veru and anyone foolish enough to take him on the offer, Seide made her way outside, head high, eyes searching. It wasn't her name she was expecting to hear after all of that dribble.
"Ve--" the matter-of-fact scolding began, stopped suddenly by the closing of her own mouth as her eyes locked on him, hot and proud. You could almost see the way her teeth moved together, her mouth in a tight line. Then, a long, inward breath that may have been a sigh.
"Veru, is this supposed to be romantic?" It was an honest question, and she looked from him to the nonexistent mess of women that was supposed to be pouring from the sand towards him.
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:29 pm
"Endearing, actually," the white lion explained. His demise might have been imminent, but he didn't seem the least bit nervous. He jumped off the rock, amazingly avoiding the hordes of nonexistent women. "I figure if I can get you to come out with that, the rest will be easy."
Or maybe not. Veru did have a habit of running aground with bad luck.
Unhindered, he approached the rather sour faced female and offered her a pleasant smile. "Although perhaps not the wisest thing to do, I was serious about the breakfast. You're hard to catch once the day starts."
Which was true. This was actually the third time he'd embarrassed himself in front of Seide's home. [Vlam now had rather considerable blackmail against him.] This time however, he'd made double super sure that she was actually home at the time. "Surely you've got enough time for that?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:40 pm
Seide raised both of her eyebrows at his logic. Veru practiced seducing women like one might witchcraft - sooner or later, it would have to rain, and the raindancer would get what they desired. Seide did not think like this. You did not see her dancing to solve the water crisis.
"Hm," she answered him. She wanted to try and explain the concept to him, but Veru was no better learner than Vutha, though the former appeared to try harder. Seide truthfully wondered if he had fallen from a tall rock as a smaller child, or had been kicked in the head by an angry zebra.
"I have enough time for it." While she said it, she was sure to break eye contact, as though the other coves for sleeping were far more interesting. She bit her tongue, toyed with it inside her mouth, and debated a few words.
"Fine." Moto'Seide shoved past him, making her way down the slippery-stand-coated rock faces and heading towards the communal region the hunters brought the rest of the pride meals. Her right ear was already tipped back, tucking itself against her head in preparation for the onslaught that was liable to come in from that side.
It was a strange morning. She'd just agreed to have breakfast with Veru.
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Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 5:26 pm
Veru smiled. He didn't seem too surprised- which Seide might have taken as confidence in his plan. In truth, Veru was simply glad he didn't have to resort to the five other plans he'd had as backup. Considering how exceedingly elaborate they got, he was more then happy to keep it at just the one breakfast.
"That's marvelous," He said. "No need to look so glum! In fact, if anyone asks you can say it was all entirely by accident." Coincidentally, this was plan three. Not that anyone would believe her, of course! Veru's charms were quite legendary.
Funny that with all the planning, he hadn't exactly thought about small talk on the way to breakfast. Veru wasn't as ego maniacal as he might have seemed on the outside- he knew that without much prompting, he'd start talking about literally anything on his mind. And Seide had a fairly low threshold for annoyance. The last thing he wanted was to annoy her. This would be no easy task.
"You have a lot planned?" He finally decided on. That sounded innocuous enough.
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Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:02 pm
Seide had doubts that anyone who lived in the same vicinity as she would believe her breakfast with Veru was an accident. "You don't live here," she began to point out dryly. "And I'm walking with you towards breakfast." If she were the type to lie, she supposed she could say that Veru had simply deserved a verbal beating. "No one will believe it was an accident."
Veru had succeeded, with his first question, in not pushing the Corporal towards annoyance. There was a brief quiet, as the calm female considered this.
"Yes." The one-word answer would usually suffice, but given the circumstance of their meeting, Seide worked hard to extrapolate on the short answer.
"Basic soldier-training occurs after breakfast. Following that, I have offered to join those seeking water. There's an area that shows promise, though I suspect it will also be dry." But they needed all the eyes and ears on the problem that they could get.
"And do you have a lot planned?" Her purple eyes swung to the side, to look him down, and catch what she took as a permanently smug expression.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:35 pm
He wished he could have suggested better. These days most of the water hunting was made up of wishful thinking and dreams. They found water, enough to survive till the end of the week, but nothing substantial. For a lion who didn't like to take anything seriously, even Veru had very little to offer.
So he did what he did best, and ignored it. "Plenty of things planned!" He chimed. Which was true, Veru didn't spend all his waking hours planning breakfast dates, after all. [Only most of them!] He liked to keep himself in the know. He might have made avoiding problems into an artform, but to do so it required ample foreknowledge. Veru did not like to be caught be surprise. "I like to keep a booked social calendar. Plenty of things happening around here. Although it seems most of the fighting has settled."
It turned out it was hard to fight over nothing.
"Actually," he continued. "My job for the morning is dispersing some of the rogues. There's a few crowded out in the south, and there's no water left there for them to be squatters." It wasn't actually a job he enjoyed. He didn't like conflict, which might have been the reason it had been assigned to him.
As they rounded the corner between some of the rockridges that protected the main lands from the brutal wastes, there was a small dab of color resting on one of the rocks. It didn't seem all that surprising to Veru, since he'd put it there. "OH MY LOOK THERE ARE WILD FLOWERS."
Actually, they weren't. No water, no flowers, so what he'd made due with were a sort of bizarre shrub that had red buds. Red buds, and dry branchy twigs and thorns. Birds liked to eat them, and even as they approached there were a few angrily circling around.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:19 pm
No fights, for now. There had yet to be deaths, which Seide would have considered a miracle if she believed in such things. Instead, it was attributed to the management of those in high positions, and the dedication to those guards taking watch of what water they had. The undeterred perseverance of those seeking water also aided their task.
"Be careful," Seide found herself warning, before she considered how heart-felt it sounded. The large lioness' perhaps morbid thoughts were interrupted violently by Veru's loud, overcompensating voice.
"Veru!" she admonished, her tongue hissing through her teeth. Had she not been used to his loud exclamations, he might have pushed her right out of her skin.
In an ironic twist of fate, Seide came to a dead halt, her eyes on the gnarled, dark stems and long, spiny thorns. "How did you know those were my favourite?" It might have been sarcastic, but Seide was not the type of lion to resort to facetious behavior, regardless of Veru's constantly unserious presence.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:59 pm
Veru ran a gamut of emotions in less then a second. First, terror. Then amusement because, well, he'd half expected a negative reaction anyways. He certainly had never taken Seide to be sentimental about anything, particularly flowers. Not that they were flowers. Flowerish things... they were in the same family! He'd been hoping for the thought to count. Maybe show her he wasn't afraid of her. But the last thing he'd expected was to be so perfectly right at something that even he was dumbfounded.
"They-" He choked the words before they could even make it out of him. He hadn't had any idea they were her favorites. He'd thought they'd make a somewhat pathetic promise for flowers in the future. For a moment, he wasn't sure what to say. "Well, they were..."
The white lion scooted around to them, like an artist might trying to describe a work. He wasn't about to tell her her favorite flowers were stand ins. "I had a feeling! They're very sturdy, survive anywhere. Birds love them." He squared his jaw. "Birds probably angry about me thieving them, actually."
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:08 pm
Moto'Seide's eyes and ears were on Veru has he stammered his way through the first few sentences, and then physically walked towards the flowers.
He'd had a feeling. The large, red lioness was forced to push her upper teeth into a lower muzzle to school her expression.
"Ah," was the only answer she could muster for that.
As he continued to speak, her eyes moved towards the sky above them, the flapping, angry birds. She'd wondered, often, as a child, what it must have been like to leap from a towering rock, full of adrenaline, and be able to travel with apparent ease over the obstacles below. It was not a thought she shared with Veru. She was not sure that he would like the idea that he made her feel like no more than a child some days, for most days, he acted like no more than a child.
There was certainly her mother showing through her when, with a quiet voice, she said, "We should leave them there, for the birds." It was the voice of her father and sister which used the words, "Maybe we can catch one."
She knew she needed to eat, or she would be unable to function properly in the day, but her mother and father had both hinted that she did far too much work. There was something. . . nice, about the idea of taking a respite to do something completely illogical and useless for anyone. And Seide found herself doubting Veru would tell anyone, which made him perfect for doing completely illogical things with.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:24 pm
"You want a bird?" Veru said, signing on for the illogical as though it were a perfectly rational thing to do. He looked up at the sky and the circling, angry birds. He dawned his serious face, which had been squirreled away for such an occasion. "Then we'll get one!"
Veru also was seemingly forgetting the last time birds had gotten him into trouble.
He moved around the stone, and picked up the branch in his mouth. You would probably think he would remember the thorns, but for the second time that day he got pricked. He hardly flinched. "Not an optimal place for pouncing though," he said through clenched teeth. "Better to make them think they've got the better of us."
As though this was some expertise of his, he moved further out and away from the rocks. Turning his head to the side, he stuck the sprig down into the sand. Like it probably would have naturally looked, if he hadn't gone and uprooted it in the first place. It slumped a bit, and he delicately corrected it with his paw. Once he was sure it was steady, he backed up towards Seide.
"They should land if you stay very still," he said. "Or they may attack. In that case, they had it coming."
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:40 pm
"No," she began, as Veru's expression changed and Seide was forced to close her mouth and watch him with annoyed curiosity. Seide enjoyed the idea of catching a bird, but had absolutely no intention of keeping it. What would she do with a bird? Give it to her mother, perhaps.
The wild stud called Veru, however, was already off. Seide's face looked no more impressed than she was, but she did not leave, and she did not make comment. Why should she tell him all the pointless games she and her siblings engaged in as cubs?
"Alright." It seemed Veru had a sense of leadership in him. Perhaps one that left a lot to the imagination, but the essence of it was there, and so Seide calmly settled into orders. She moved out across the sand after the white lion, and then hunkered down.
Though Veru would not see it, his paw busy with correcting his project, a flicker of a smile worked over Seide's face. It was gone the moment he had begun to speak again. "Yes," she agreed, his rump dangerously close to her face. The lioness leaned out, away from him, before the fellow Firekin settled. Perhaps a little too close. Seide tried not to notice. She'd almost forgotten how forwards Veru could be. She had not intended to invite him for a morning cuddle session, despite the chill.
"Quiet." She realized, in that fraction of a second, that she had never heard Veru actually attempt to be quiet. A funny little thought made her wonder if it was a difficult task for him.
Secondary thoughts passed very quickly as the birds began to lower themselves. The braver ones swooped in first, though they were not blind to the large, carnivorous creatures. Seide was completely still, and her eyes did not wander. Focus might have made her a good hunter, if she had not been more enamored with beating up her fellow lions.
One landed. Seide's tail gave a twitch as her muscles tensed, tapping Veru lightly on the rump and then swinging back out of range. Patience. Let it get closer.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:53 pm
It was exceedingly difficult for Veru to remain quiet for five seconds, even when he was the one who had suggested it in the first place. He practically trembled trying to keep the words that ran rampant through his head from expelling themselves.
Something that became all the more difficult when the birds started landing. His mouth opened to comment on it, but the slap of her tail quieted him. Resigning himself to having to somehow create a telepathic bond between them, he watched as the small shrub birds descended upon the trogan bush.
This would be difficult. She wanted to catch a bird, but didn't want to keep it. Hrm. Unless she wanted to eat it, he supposed he'd have to be careful not to injure the little thing in the process of trying to secure it. These weren't exactly the weighty eagles some of the lions pranced around with at their shoulders. He could probably have fit the whole bushel of them in his mouth and still had room for more.
The birds were still swooping, a few landing on the unsteady branches. It seemed the were wary about the unnatural way the plant sunk into the sand, but unable to cognate much further beyond that.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:02 pm
Seide did not wait for Veru.
One was just a little too close, and the large lioness was lunging. It was almost instinctual, in her childish mind. The bird was close; her body reacted.
The bird reacted, too.
It gave an alarming, chirping squeak. "Letgo!" It was pitched high, and its whole body vibrated beneath her paw before the sand took it over, and its poor, small body was engulfed, the sound drown out. It went still.
Seide raised both brows at this, and swallowed. One paw reached out, quickly, though tentatively, brushing away the covering sand. It was still breathing, strongly, though it seemed paralyzed from fear. The lioness' expression hardened. Catching it was not as enjoyable as she thought it would have been. There was guilt there, where as a child it had just been something fun and interesting. Her paws had not been so large then.
She nudged it with her nose, rolling it over to Veru. It didn't yet flop about, though its eyes moved around, watching them. Its friends had long since abandoned it for the air.
"It isn't broken, is it?" She meant its bones. She had been rough on it. It was so small, and she knew little of birds. She could not tell.
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Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:12 pm
Veru watched dumbfounded as the whole thing occurred in a blur. It almost didn't seem real: Seide running after a little bird as though it were an adversary, and then the inevitable outcome of her frenzy. Veru suddenly felt himself playing the adult, unsure exactly of how to confess that he really didn't have a clue about bird anatomy and whether or not she'd crushed the life out of it.
He approached her, his red eyes focused on the little thing. A few scattered feathers blew past. Probably dislodged from it or his friends when Seide had lunged. The little bird didn't seem broken, but it was breathing in that panicked, half shocked way small animals often did when confronted with predators. "I don't know-" he said. "They're not really made for good landings. Hey little man, you still with us?" He nudged it with his paw, which was probably the opposite of helping.
But one thing was for certain, Veru wasn't about to let this date end in tragedy! "I know someone who can fix it though!"
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