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Failure was flying around the rogue lands, as he liked to do. It was not that he had nothing better to do, he told himself. Sure, he had lots of important God things he could be doing, with his oh so important and well loved domain. Right? Except not. He had not quite figured out what he was supposed to really do, for all the time he had been alive and flying around. Maybe he should ask someone, but when it came to it he just… forgot.

Did that mean he was failing in spreading failure? Was that his goal? He was not sure he could count that one as a loss, if he was not even sure about it in the first place.

He circled around the clouds a bit more, liking the way his fur got moist with dew as he flew. It helped that the clouds were low and heavy with the threat of rain, fog rolling over the grounds below. He moved down to the plains, though, landing heavily on his paws, his legs buckling a bit at the awkward landing. He was still moving forward, so he had to take some stumbly steps to catch himself unless he wanted to face plant. Which he did not.

Not again.

Folding his wings against his body, as much as he could considering how large they were, he padded along the mortal grasses, using the fog for cover.

“We're fine, Painti, really. It's just a little rain, and fog...and wind. No problem at all.” The lioness's panicked voice didn't quite match her words and it was obvious by the way the gray genet clung to her mane for dear life, pink eyes wide that he didn't believe her. “Less talking, more flying!” Jazi flapped her wings, gaining a bit of height as her companion yelled at her. And then there was a high pitched chirp and the goddess rolled her eyes up to the bird that was puffed up to twice her normal size and huddling down in the nest on top of her head. “Not you too, Tooki.”

There wasn't time for the bird to respond before Clumsiness got buffeted by the wind. Too high. She needed to get below the clouds, there'd be less wind there- she hoped. “Hold on!” Her wings were pulled tightly to her body as she dived towards the ground. Painti, realizing what happened closed his eyes with a moan. “Oh, Mkodi help us all.” The last time Jazi had tried this it didn't work out that well, or the time before that, or the time befor- well, it never worked out, so his hopes weren't high.

The rainbow lioness shot through the cloud cover, and was about to snap her wings open to slow their descent, but one of them got caught on her scarf and the fall continued. “It's okay, that was completely planned, we'll be fin-” A high pitched voice interrupted her words. “TREE!” So busy attempting to try and free her wings Jazi hadn't seen the acacia tree she was hurtling towards until it was too late. She crashed into it, her momentum taking her straight through the trees branches to hit the ground, or she would have hit the ground if she hadn't been incredibly lucky and instead barreled into Failure knocking them both paws over ears.
When she finally stopped moving she lifted her head slightly, not seeming to realize she was lying on top of another lion. “See? That wasn't so bad.” The genet's voice answered her from somewhere between her and the brown god's body. “Maybe not for you.” Tooki, who had taken off after her warning about the tree, had made her way back to her nest and deigned to comment. It was Painti's words that had Jazi looking down and her violet eyes went a bit big. “Oh no, I did it again didn't I?” She was constantly running into other lions, she didn't mean to, but she was a bit of a klutz.

She attempted to get up, the poor guy probably didn't appreciate her using him as a pillow, but found herself immediately falling on top of him again. Her scarf it seemed had gotten tangled in her crash landing, and it wasn't only wrapped around her paws but one of his as well. “I am so sorry about this.” She looked down at him with a sheepish smile. Hopefully he didn't have a temper.

Tindika was not really paying attention. That probably played in to a lot of his problems. He had a very short attention span sometimes, but it was more than that. It was like he had blinders on, and didn’t see things coming at him, or even hear the calls above him. As a God, he felt some duty to be alert, in case anyone needed help from a Failure God, but so far no one had ever called out his name whenever they prayed to the Gods. Imagine that?

So he kind of stopped listening, if only to keep his feelings from being hurt.

Still, he probably should have heard the noise above him, at least before it landed square on top of him.

“Ooomph!” He said in the flurry of fur and paws that he became as he fell over. He hugged painfully, trying to figure out which end was up and which was down. As it turned out, he had it wrong, his paws toward the air, large wings blanketing the ground, fluffy mane poofed out in all directions. He looked up and saw the ground, felt it against the back of his head, and frowned at it meaningfully, as if it should know better than to be there and not under his paws.

He didn’t move, though, until the weight that he was fairly sure wasn’t his own had moved from on top of him. Looking down, at least for him, he saw another God, a Goddess in fact, and she was holding one of his paws hostage in her scarf.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he said kindly, like someone far used to these sorts of things, shaking his paw and trying to free it, but just succeeding in wrapping it farther and tugging her toward him because of it. “Oh! No! I’m making it worse.” He shook his head thoughtfully and tried to get to his feet, but that just pulled her again.

There was a small sigh of relief when the God didn't immediately begin roaring in her face. She'd run into a very grumpy lion before, it hadn't ended all that well for either of them. Now that she wasn't worried about getting yelled at she noticed how his mane had gone all askew and she couldn't help but laugh. She knew from experience she didn't look much better, she probably had twigs and leaves sticking out from her mane, though with a nest already there it was hard to tell whether or not it was intentional. “I'd say this doesn't happen to me often, but it actually does.” She attempted to pull away as he tried to free his paw, thinking it might help, but instead she just fell a little further when she was tugged down.

Laughing she shook her head, Tooki and her nest somehow not being dislodged. “Maybe if you-” Her words were cut off as he tried to move and she was pulled down. Instead of getting frustrated she just laughed harder. “Oh it's alright, I've been in much worse situations.” She smiled good naturedly even as she was trapped against him. There was a beat of silence and then another voice spoke. “Maybe you have Jazi, but this is pretty high on my list of awful situations.” The genet was sandwiched between the two Gods and didn't really seem all that happy about it. Jazi gasped, and then had to smother laughter. “Oh, Painti, I'm sorry.” There was just a grumble in response and then the ball of fur that was pressed between their stomachs started to wriggle and wraggle until the small creature finally managed to pop out from between them falling to a heap on the grass. Looking at the two lions he blinked. “Well, you two are definitely in a mess.”
Jazi gave him a sidelong look, but then just laughed. At least she was a cheerful klutz. “I think we're stuck.” She looked back to the God, their muzzles nearly pressed together because of the way the scarf had them trapped. “You wouldn't happen to be the God of Untangling Things, would you?” At the moment she wished a God of such things existed. “Maybe if we roll back towards the tree it'll help?” Jazi wasn't completely sure of her idea, but they had gotten tangled when she rolled him over, so if they rolled back the other way it should untangle them...right? There was a reason she wasn't the Goddess of Logic.

Tindika was so far from a grumpy lion it was a little funny to even think it. He looked at her, hoping now that she wasn’t an angry lioness, because he was just making a mess of things. A ridiculous mess of things, in fact. He was the champion of making a mess of things.

“You know, I can say the same thing. I mean… this happens to me… all the time.”

He sighed, shaking his head. She was basically back on top of him again, and there was no use trying to get up on his end of things because he couldn’t stand without pinning her to the floor and that would just reverse the problem without solving it. Complicated failure wrecks were a part of his life, but this one seemed particularly spectacular. He was a little worried that it was his fault.

At least he was fluffy and comfortable?

“Oh, I’m sorry!” He said in surprise when he heard another voice. He hadn’t realized there was another traveler with them. He looked at the Genet as it appeared and laughed, blushing under his fur. “That we are. I am the god of Failure, so I think that might be… uhm… the problem here. I’m sorry.” He did look a little sheepish, and very apologetic, like he did believe it was his fault.

Why wouldn’t it be?

He was willing to try the rolling thing, though, and nodded his head. He moved to follow her instructions, but half way through realized he hadn’t understood what she meant and ended up directly on top of her anyway. He wasn’t exactly a small lion, and his wings certainly did not make him lighter, though they looked feathery and light.

Jazi couldn't help but laugh again at the surprise in the God's voice, and his blush didn't help her keep her maw shut any. What genuinely took the cake was when he revealed his domain. The Goddess dissolved into a fit of giggles, unable to speak as her body shook with laughter. Painti sighed looking at his Goddess, his charge, his pride and joy that he had raised after finding her as a cub. He could have sworn he'd taught her better manners.

“What Jazi here is failing to say, is that she's the Goddess of Clumsiness.” He looked to the God with a small smile on his face. “In this case the blame isn't all yours.” At this point the Goddess had managed to stop giggling with a hiccup and smiled apologetically at him. She was going to make a verbal apology, but then they were moving, and rolling, and then- ooph! The air puffed out of her lungs as he fell on her, and it only took a moment of squirming to realize two things. One: they were still tangled together. Two: He was heavy. Jazi attempted to say something but being smaller than him her maw was buried in his mane and only muffled noises came out. Turning her head she managed to shift just enough so that her head wasn't surrounded by him. “I don't think it worked.” She sounded a bit out of breath, but she was still smiling so at least things hadn't gone downhill.

With a sigh she relaxed against the ground the best she could, attempting to think which was slightly difficult because one of her wings was trapped underneath her, while the other was spread out to the side. After a moment she blinked and then focused her gaze on him. “My big idea failed, so now it's your turn to come up with one.”

Tindika was very used to others laughing at him, and that was what he thought she was doing. Laughing at him, teasing him, but it was usually harmless and he could certainly live with others making fun of him. It was when they tried to attack him, or drive him away, that really mattered. The rest? All a part of his life and he had long ago accepted it.

He looked surprised, then, when he was informed of her domain and suddenly her laughter made sense. He started to laugh, nodding his head, though at the moment he couldn’t find his words. After the fit of laughter passed, he shook his head.

Then he heard her saying something in ‘squished by mane’ and realized what he was doing.

“Oh! Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

A flurry of stupid questions. He shook his head, struggling to look down at her, since she was lost in his fluff, “I don’t think it did either. How about I try to… I could maybe fly up a bit? See if that won’t make it let us go?” He spread his long wings and gave them a flap, lifting off her at least to keep from crushing her. He tried to pull but he didn’t want to rip her scarf.

She smiled a bit at his question, yes he was crushing her a bit, but at least he was concerned about her well being while he was doing so. “I'm alright, the breathing part is difficult, but I think I'll live.” She would have laughed then, but that took more air then she cared to use at that moment.

Staring up at him she nodded when he shared his idea. “That might work! Hopefully. As nice as you are I don't really want to be tangled together forever.” Her smile widened, and then a deep breath was taken as some of the weight lifted off her chest. That was a hundred times better! Taking a moment to breath the Goddess stared up at him, fascinated by his giant wings. She herself was fairly small for a Goddess, bigger than a normal lioness, but not by a whole lot. The only time she had wings like his was when she made herself bigger- her face lit up as the idea came to her.

So happy that she came up with an idea that might actually work in conjunction with Failure's idea she acted on it before warning the other God. There was a moment where nothing happened, but then the colourful lioness began to shrink, getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. As she shrunk in size her scarf loosened until she was the size of a cub and she fell to the ground. Shaking herself she grinned up at him, now he looked really big. “It worked!”

Focusing again she began to grow in size until she was back to normal, oddly enough the basket that was stuck to her back paw seemed to grow and shrink along with her. "Oh no," Looking up at Failure again she couldn't help but laugh. “Now we just have to get the thing off you.” The scarf was still looped around the male, but it would hopefully be considerably easier to pull the scarf off of him now.

Tindika felt his fur heat up again at her words, flapping his wings and keeping himself lifted over her. He tilted his head at her, grinning. Something he had done actually worked? That was insane, as he was not entirely sure he had ever succeeded in anything before. Of course, that was a stretch. He wasn’t all failure all the time. Still, when it counted, he usually messed it up.

So at the moment he was ecstatic. He grinned at her.

Well, it was close enough to a win to count for him, anyway. Yes, he still had a lot of help from her and she had done most of the work with her trick, but still. Totally counted as a win for Failure. He laughed excitedly, not quite sure what to do with himself. He span in the air, flipping around and noticing that the scarf didn’t seem to want to leave him. He fluttered back down to the floor and settled, lifting his paw to keep the scarf out of the dirt.

Carefully, he bent to take the scarf from his paw, using his teeth and then offering it to her bashfully.

“This is yours, I think,” he said, though his words were muffled. He grinned at her. “I’m sorry about all of that. My name is Tindika, by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” And, he found, it really was.

Watching him flip through the air Jazi found herself grinning widely. She wished she was that agile in the air, but the last time she had tried a fancy trick she had completely messed it up and some hyena had laughed at her. That hadn't been a fun day. But Failure, even with his over sized wings, seemed to be quite good at the whole spinning thing. Maybe he could teach her? But that would be something she'd have to ask, and really when it came down to it, she was a bit shy about that sort of thing.

When he landed back on the ground she smiled and stepped towards him, watching him save her scarf from getting too dirty. “Thanks,” Leaning forwards she took the scarf from him carefully, her whiskers brushing against his maw as the material transferred from one God to the other. Turning her head slightly she started to drape the scarf over her neck, then stopped with a sigh, speaking around the scarf. “Tooki, some help, please?” The bird that had somehow managed to sleep through the fiasco woke at her words, and after fluffing herself up to show her indignation she flew down to take the cloth in her claws. A few flaps of her wings later the avian had draped the scarf across Jazi's neck before promptly flying back to her nest to tuck her head under a wing and sleep.

Once her scarf was settled in it's rightful place Jazi turned back to Tindika and smiled widely. ”It's okay, and I'm Jazi'bahati, but you can just call me Jazi If you want.” When he said it was a pleasure to meet her she felt her insides warm up a little. No one had ever said that to her before, mostly because she met most lions the same way she had met this God- by running into them. She'd learned that most didn't appreciate it, but the lion in front of her didn't seem to mind. “Thanks, it's really nice to meet you too.” She looked away, then back again the smile still on her maw.

Failure watched as the bird helped her, wishing he had a nest in his hair that came with a companion to help him when he was in a mess. They would be very overworked, though, he imagined. He was very often caught up in things, or messing something up, and now that he thought about it he didn’t want to wish that amount of clean up work on any of them.

He smiled at her.

“Jazi. I like that name, it’s fun to say,” he chuckled. He often told people to call him Tin, not realizing that was a flimsy metal. He didn’t know too much about metals or human things. But tin was kind of the fail metal, so at least it fit.

“You know, I’ve never met someone who has, uhm. Issues. With… life… like I do. I mean, I don’t mean that you have any issues or that I think… no, what I mean to say is that it’s nice to meet someone who knows failing things like I… no that’s not coming out right either. Uhm. I…”

He stared at her helplessly.

Jazi grinned, she had never really thought too hard about her name, but now that he mentioned it she had to agree that it was a fun sound. It fit her in that way, she would hate to have a name like Mordrid or something equally as horrible.

When he began to stumble over his words and ended up sticking his paw in his maw the Goddess couldn't help but giggle. The giggles increased as he stared at her and she had to take a moment to get her breath and settle down. She wasn't laughing at him, it was just kind of cute the way he was having so much trouble. “I know what you mean,” She smiled at him and was opening her maw to say something else but whatever words she was going to say were drowned out by a crack of lightning and the rolling of thunder.

Violet eyes looked a little worried as she looked up at the clouds. She didn't particularly enjoy storms, the wet and rain didn't help her clumsiness any. The Goddess looked back to Tindika, the smile gone. “Maybe we should find some shelter?” It was as if her words triggered the weather, a raindrop falling from the sky to land on her nose, quickly followed by more rain. She made a face, shaking her head her small mane already getting damp. Yup, definitely time to find shelter, but where? She looked about trying to find somewhere to keep relatively dry.

Tindika looked up to the sky. He knew the storm had been close. He nodded his head, smiling softly.

“I think that might be the best idea. It’s going to rain pretty hard soon, and we’ll be in the middle of it.” He was glad she hadn’t taken offense to what he had been trying to say, even if he had failed to get it out. He sometimes lost track of the things he wanted to say, so he would not have been too surprised if she had gotten confused or upset. But, things seemed to be working out well.

Maybe Clumsiness evened out with Failure, and made them both more normal. He certainly felt normal, and content, having met her and finding that he could do some small things without making a complete mess of it. It was probably the fact that they both had to deal with their own awkwardness all the time, it made them much more prepared to deal with whatever trouble the other could cause now that they had met.

He wasn’t thinking too hard about it.

Spreading his large wings, he moved closer to her and offered her some cover with them. Being large paid off some times, and his wings were excellent overhangs. “I think we can find some trees.”

“I really, really dislike the rain,” The statement was unnecessary with the look on her face already showing her dislike. A thought occurred to her and she looked down, and then around her eyes searching for the genet, but he seemed to be gone. She sighed shaking her head a bit, Painti didn't like the rain anymore than she did, at least he had the sense to get out of it.

When the rain suddenly stopped falling on her she blinked, surprised and then turned, finding herself face to face with Tindika again. Rolling her eyes up she saw his wing arching over her and realizing what he was doing she smiled looking back to him. “Thank you,” She licked his cheek to show him her appreciation before she looked out from under his wing, searching for trees or any other kind of shelter.

“What about there?” She gestured with a paw to a small group of trees not too far away that were denser and provided more cover than the lone tree she had crashed into. She would walk a bit further if it meant being dryer. It also helped that being as close as she was to Tindika was keeping her warmer than she'd be on her own.

The God of Failure nodded his head, though he didn’t know why she might not like the rain. Maybe she would tell him about it once they were out of the rain. Asking her now would not be very good, as she would be in the rain still. At least he had thought of it that time: his instincts very nearly made him ask without considering the facts as she had just told them.

When she licked his cheek he fluttered, wings drawing in toward himself for a moment, a sheet of rain dropping off them and right onto Jazi. He yelped and stretched his wings again to block the still falling and picking up water, looking more than a little embarrassed.

“I-I’m sorry!”

He moved with her toward the trees, scooting quickly and just wanting to crawl under one and hide himself for a while. Once they were safe, he lowered his wing down over her, to try and dry her off and try to make up for getting her wet before. He looked at her and shook his head.

“I can fix it!”

“Aaahh!” Her exclamation was somewhere between a scream and a shout and she jumped nearly a foot off the ground when the water broke over her not having been expecting it at all. Like all cats she landed on her paws, but only for a second before her legs slid out from under her and she belly flopped on the quickly-turning-muddy ground. She quickly picked herself up, her white underbelly and chin turned brown. What warmth there had been under the shelter of his wings was gone replaced by cold seeping in from the rain and the mud. The lioness didn't seem to be angry though, “It's alright, it was an accident.” She didn't connect the lick with the rain being dropped her.

Her smaller set of wings was pulled in close to her body as they shuffled across the savannah to reach the trees. When they finally got under them she sighed, relieved. She had managed not to fall, trip, or stumble on the walk over which was a miracle in and of itself. Feeling his wing around her, Jazi looked at him with a smile even though she was dripping wet and muddy. “I don't think I'll be dry until the sun comes out again, but thanks.” She pressed against his side, half to try and steal his warmth, and half so that he'd be wet too.

She glanced out at the rain that was beginning to fall in sheets as the sky lit up with a flash of lightning. “How long do you think until it stops?”

Tindika settled next to her, encouraging her to lay down next to him, cuddled under his big, fluffy wing. He was a good blanket, at least. He hoped he was better as a blanket than he was an umbrella at any rate. He had really made a mess of things there, very literally because now she was covered in mud. He felt bad about that, as her fur was light and soft, and mud had no business being on it.

He didn’t mind being in the rain himself. He liked flying through rain clouds, and he liked the cool feel of the water as it dripped through his fur, but he certainly would not like being told he was going to stay dry, then getting absolutely drenched.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to make up for that one.

“Can I do anything? I mean, to help you. You’re a mess now,” he moved his wing, rubbing her fur to at least generate a little bit of warmth for her where he had given her quite a heavy dose of wet and cold.

He looked up at the sky, shaking his head.

“The clouds look pretty thick and dark. It might last all night for the looks of it.” He frowned, looking at her. She would be stuck there with him, if she didn’t want to get soaked again.

It didn't take much to get Jazi to lay beside the male, lying down was much easier than standing especially when you were wet. Curling her legs up under her she nestled her head against his neck, using his mane as an extra source of warmth. When he began to rub the warmth back into her she closed her eyes. It was a nice feeling, and his wings were soft.

It took her a moment to process his words and when she did she shook her head a bit. “Just don't leave, okay?” That would suck, if he left she'd still have some protection from the trees, but not nearly as much as she was getting from him. Not to mention she'd be a lot colder.

When he predicted the storm would last all night she frowned, lifting her head slightly to look out at the sky again then back to him. All night was a long time, and while she didn't like the idea of it raining for that long, she was at least glad that she got caught out in the rain with Tindika and not an angry or inconsiderate lion. “I guess we're stuck here then.” She paused for a moment, “I'm sorry, I'm sure you have better things to do than wait out a storm with me.” With a sigh she settled her head back into his mane.

Tindika smiled and nodded his head, which she would feel since she was resting against his mane. He had no plans of going anywhere, anyway, not until she told him to, at any rate. He was the reason she was much more shivery than she should have been, or so he believed. And her scarf wasn’t enough. Sure, they both had fur, but getting drenched had a way of making fur kind of useless.

He put his head down on his paws, sighing heavily.

“I really don’t have anything better,” he said honestly, “besides flying into things and making life hard for people. Which, by the way, I’m sorry for doing to you. But I can’t really think of anywhere else I’d rather be at the moment, so that’s good. I mean.”

His fur got a little bit warmer. Words were hard sometimes, and he either said too much or too little, or completely the wrong thing. At least it wasn’t the lattermost this time.

“I think we should probably just sleep it out. You look like you’re already halfway there.” He smiled, letting her rest against him and not minding in the slightest.

Jazi smiled into his mane, feeling a different kind of warmth rising to her cheeks. Luckily both his mane and her fur hid her blush. “You didn't make things too bad, I'm the one who couldn't even land on my paws.” She smiled closing her eyes as she cuddled against him. Maybe the cold and the wet were worth it?

“Mm, 's just 'cause you're so comfortable.” Truth be told all the excitement of getting tangled, and then untangled, and then caught in the rain was starting to catch up to her. Not to mention that it was oddly cozy tucked under his wing. The combination of the two were quickly pulling the Goddess towards sleep. Before it fully took hold she managed to mumble a few more words into his mane. “Tindika...thanks for everything. I'm glad I ran into you.”