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 Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:36 am
 Light flashed painfully across Jakyra’s vision for the fifth or maybe the sixth time that day. She had been counting them because it gave her something to try to concentrate on other than the unfortunate smell emanating from her hind leg where some damn reptile had bitten her. The problem was she couldn’t remember if it was five or six times the light had flashed like that, and she wasn’t sure how long a period she should actually be counting. It was strange to think that she had been lying here for more than a day, and so she assumed she hadn’t been, but it was truly hard to tell since she couldn't see anything other than blackness, complete and total. It could be night or day.
"I wonder if I'm going to die," she mused, talking to herself.
She had been doing so since she first felt the sting of a serpent's bite. Actually, her first words had been directed toward the snake that bit her, and none of them were the sort of words a nice girl would use, but Kyra had long ago ceased to consider herself a nice girl. Nice girls were hurt, used, and abused. There was no reason Kyra could see to be one. Of course, if she had been a nice girl there was the possibility someone would be with her to notice, as she recently had, that her words were slurring together to become incomprehensible mumbles.
"At least I'm still coherent," she told herself. That had to count for something. And she could count flashes of light, too. Kyra tried to convince herself that these were signs she was going to pull through, and that she would not be killed by a gods-damned snake.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:28 pm
Erlendr was on far patrol for Luc and the band he was Captain of. They needed to find a better supply of water then the one they had, and Erlender was one of the better trackers that Luc had. So at his Captain's request he had gone out.
He'd been following his nose toward the faint smell of loam and mud, when another smell hit him..infection and worse..decay, and over it all lion..female too. Tilting his head, he changed the direction of his paws, and headed toward that smell instead.
The walk was not long, he could see her in a small shallow depression between a rock and tree, the tree covering most of her, and with her dark coat she would have been very hard to see, had it not been for the smell coming from her back leg.
Looking at her, he carefully approached her, staying the right distance from her should she decide to take a swipe at him. " Hurt you are?" Erlendr asked in his warm voice and odd syntax, " Help I may offer."
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:42 pm
What the lioness actually heard and saw when Erlendr approached was anybody's guess. The blue-eyed creature was beginning to veer toward a complete loss of lucidity and maybe even consciousness. A loss of consciousness would probably be a boon to her at this point since she was in more than a considerable amount of pain, though it wasn't actually excruciating. In any event, her attention really was not on the golden lion who had come to investigate her predicament.
His inquiry did not prompt a reply either. Her eyes had unfocused once more and since she was already limited to shades of grey it was difficult for her to identify shapes. If she had realized that she was being approached by a male it was likely the hate-filled lioness would have struggled or spat at him, even in her weakened state, but she was not given such a choice. She wasn't even able to identify his speech as having been generated from an external source. She believed it was what she now sounded like, a result of progressing delirium perhaps.
"Not good that," she murmured. "Speaking." Of course this came out slurred together and with more than a hint of whimpering.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:01 pm
Yes, hurt she was, and help she needed. If he left her there she would not last long and would be so much meat for the scavengers of the savanna. The Reaver moved in for a closer look at her injury. What he saw did not bode well for the lioness.
That leg had gone sour, the swelling moving both ways along the leg, from ankle to knee, and the skin had split where the venom and pooled into a hard knot. She would not travel as she was to either food or water. She was in pain,and suffering. It might prove more merciful to end it all for her now, quick and painless.
Erlendr moved in to do just that, then he saw her. Her grey-blue eyes, and delicate markings along her muzzle, and the sense of pain that came from her, a deep pain that was not from the snake bite.
He had these kind of senses before, with Luc, with his mother, with the fiery thrall that Luc had brought home, and it made him pause as he reconsidered.
Sitting down beside her, he place on large paw on her head, speaking softly to her, " Awake you are? Hear me not at all?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:18 am
Something was on her head. Something was on her head! There wasn't a great deal she could do about it, and Kyra didn't even know why she minded, but her instincts told her that she had to fight and get away. She pawed weakly at whatever it was on her head, tossing her head from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the thing on her head.
"No," she said. She was somewhere between hissing and whimpering, which perfectly combined the two things she was feeling at that moment: defensive and miserable.
"I'll kill you," Kyra warned Erlendr, putting the effort into making sure she could be easily understood. At least that her words could be. In context they probably wouldn't make a great deal of sense, at least not to the casual observer, but even a casual observer would be able to tell that she was not in her right mind.
Her mind brought to the surface memories of being younger, smaller, and weaker, and how badly that had worked out for her. She had learned to be cunning and vicious, she had learned to kill to defend herself, and then just because she was good at it and enjoyed it. Her instincts told her that she should be fighting now, but her body wouldn't obey her thoughts. Panic began to set in.
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Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:16 am
" Still life in you there is, if such words you can say." He said softly, calmly, " but kill me not you will if lay here to die you remain."
He manged to get down beside the lioness enough to get a shoulder under her and shift some of her weight onto his back. It was a precarious balancing act, for she was in little condition to help him with the maneuver.
"Deal make you I will, survive serpent's bite, and kill me you may try." With a slight grunt he managed to get across his back, head hanging down one side, legs dangling over the other. When he managed to reach the others, he'd have Luc tie her more securely to him, so she would not risk falling on her head on top of every thing else.
Till then he had to keep his pace even, and fairly even.
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Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:54 am
Yes, there was still life in Kyra. She was one lioness who would still be fighting death after she actually died. No matter how miserable her life got, she had never wanted to end it. She had just achieved a balance between wanting to live and not being afraid to risk her life. This injury and its accompanying illness scared her more than any lion ever could because it was beyond her to do anything about it.
She didn't really understand what Erlendr was saying, but his voice was soothing. She had learned not to trust males who spoke with soothing voices. They were the type who pretended to be other than what they were and tried to lure lionesses into believing they were safe. Kyra would never believe herself safe with a lion. They were all violent, murdering rapists beneath the surface, no matte how polite and mild they seemed.
Being shifted onto his back didn't actually hurt her except for the one time her injury struck something solid. Then she squeaked in pain and flexed her claws reflexively, but she couldn't struggle. She was in no position to struggle. Besides, she was fairly certain she had heard the lion say that she was allowed to kill the lion when she was healthy. She could wait that long.
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:57 am
When she settled down enough that he could actually manage to walk with her, without the fear of her taking a tumble, he contemplated her reaction to him. It seemed to be more then just the fever from the bite that had become infected. No this was something a little deeper.
She didn't trust him, and not in the way that a injured lioness didn't trust a stranger, but in the way a lioness didn't trust a male. He'd seen it enough times when the other Reavers brought in Thralls, females captured, unwillingly, brought to be bearers of cubs, yet never to be mates, and while the cubs were treat as if they were not bastards, the Thralls were never more then what they were.
Yet the only way he would be able to help her, to protect her in any fashion, was to bring her in as a Thrall, a practice he did not care for. Glancing back over his shoulder at the dark form that lay limp, yet still struggling with weak flexes of his claws, he knew he would have his paws full with her, but he couldn't leave her to die on the savanna.
So it was with a very resigned sigh that he padded back toward Luc and their band, with his new 'Thrall' hanging off his back, ready to endure the jeers and jokes that he could only capture a wounded women. Only Luc would know the truth, because he would be able to read it in Erlendr's golden eyes, and that would be enough for the foreign born Revear.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:54 am
She grit her teeth, feeling every step with a sick sloshing feeling in her skull and stomach but absolutely refusing to give in and sick up. It was bad enough how much weakness she'd shown so far. She refused to show anymore, no matter how ill she felt and how badly she hurt. It was already obvious of course that she wasn't well, but she was proud, almost to the point of stupidity. Sometimes past it.
When he turned to look at her, however, he shifted beneath her and she felt it miserably. To her embarrassment she whimpered pathetically at the motion. Her instinctive reaction was to bury her face in the bright lion's dark mane and cry. She gave in to the first, but managed not to cry. It was no longer a question: the lion carrying her would have to die. He had seen her vulnerable.
That was her last coherent thought before she slipped into the blissful relief of unconsciousness. Unconscious she was still plagued by feverish dreams and nightmares, but at least she didn't have to be aware of her own vulnerability for a time. At least that was what she believed, though in truth she called in her sleep or her older brother, a figure she had tried not to think of since she was very young, when he didn't save her from enslavement and worse.
"...Riddiq, please."
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 5:07 pm
Erlender felt her shift and bury her delicate muzzle into his mane, it made his feel warm, and he suddenly felt very protective of her, because he could guess this was something she did not show, would not show.
She was ill, near death, and not herself, so he would take it as the small gift it was, because he doubted he would ever see it again from her once she woke.
Riddig, a name now I have, one for get I will not.
As he made his way back toward the Reaver's camp he spoke to her in his native tongue, nonsense words really. Meant to sooth and calm, if he had a free paw he would have smoothed back her mane tuff.
" Close there we are Bright Eyes, moments more and with Luc be we shall."
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