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 Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:10 am
 Tala watched the fight with quite a bit of interest, ears perked and focused. This was very intense! It was so intense! "Go leftie!" she cheered, because the two beetles really looked quite a lot alike, so her only mode of differentiating them was the side they were on. This also meant that when they switched, if she didn't keep up too well, she might lose track of who she had originally been cheering for.
But that was okay!
Anyways, the fight was between two beetles. Two dung beetles, actually. And they seemed to have perfectly opposing ideas of which direction they should take the dung ball. Perhaps Tala would have just stuck in a paw and helped the beetle she favored the most, but... Well, it was kind of fun to just watch what was going on!
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:28 am
 Kito was bouncing on the tips of her paws as she walked, giving herself a rather odd little prance as she moved through the grass. Today she was out and about away from her siblings, intent on hunting down someone new to play with. Brothers and sisters were all well and good, but sometimes it was nicer to meet someone outside of her immediate family. Someone new and exciting.
So, when she heard a cheering voice rise up, her ears turned with anticipation in the direction it had come from. Her bouncing gait then carried her towards it, bright eyes wide with curiosity which didn't fade even as the other cub came into view.
Ooooh, what was going on?
Abandoning her cheerful but slower pace, Kito dashed the rest of the way, skidding to a clumsy halt close to where the other cub was settled. "Hello!" She chirped loudly. "WOW! What are those!?" She shuffled sideways so she was closer to the darker coloured cub and peered across at the 'battling' beetles. "Do they...bite? They look sort of mean. Maybe they're...you know...poisy-nous?" She looked proud at using such a big word. She'd learnt that one from daddy.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:47 am
Tala was young, and, amusingly enough, hadn't actually met other lion cubs just yet. So she was a little perplexed when she heard a 'hello!' and turned to see a golden cub bouncing her way. Still, she wasn't going to be awkward. Why? They were both cubs, and cubs were automatically all part of the same club. "Hi!" She replied, swishing her tail and shuffling slightly to the side once the new cub was interested in the beetles.
"Umm... they're dung bee-tols." Beetles, actually. But Tala, so far, usually said beetols. "Or that's what mommy said. I don't think they're poisy-nous!" She frowned. "But they like poop, so they're still weird."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:36 pm
Kito giggled. The idea of bugs liking 'poop' was surprisingly amusing. Silly things! Surely there were much better things to play with...or...fight over?
"Not seen one 'afore." She replied, leaning closer to them, her nose quivering with curious delight. "Very, very weird. Are they having a fight?" They both seemed to be intent on the dung ball and they seemed rather undecided on where they wanted to go. "You think it's a mean fight or a play fight?"
She wriggled curiously and reached out a paw as if to poke one in the back. A moment later and she decided against it. The beetles still looked a bit mean even if they weren't 'poisy-nous.'
"It's...sort of hard to tell when they are so tiny, tiny small like that."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:41 pm
She liked this, because even though this other cub seemed a bit older than her, Tala could feel like the expert on these little dung beetles. "Yeah, they're fighting over the poop ball!" She nodded, and not wanting to be left behind when Kito leaned closer, did so as well.
"I dunno what kind of fight it is. Maybe mean. Like when you fight with your brothers or sisters over something!" She mused, that made sense. Like when one had a toy and the other wanted one. "Anyways, I wanted that one to win." She pointed at the beetle that was on the left, even if it probably wasn't even the same beetle anymore. Tala didn't really care, because it was the beetle on the left.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 12:54 pm
Kito nodded. This cub was smart for knowing all these things! The golden cub had a tendency to believe what she was told without question. "Oh, oh! So is that why you were cheering earlier? You were trying to encourage that one to win?"
She bounced on her paws for a moment and then resettled herself. "Does...it have a name?" Her head tilted. "Maybe if we both cheered it might win faster? That's how it works, I think?"
Her eyes blinked and then she cleared her throat and called out. "Go dung bee-tol! Go, go, go!" When the cheering didn't seem to have much of an affect, she wrinkled her little nose and exhaled noisily. "They...don't look like they're going to give up, do they? Do you think they'll be fighting for hours? Is it cheating if we give the other one a poke?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:08 pm
A.. name? "I just call him Leftie." Maybe that was his name. Or maybe his little beetle mom had given him a name, back when he was beetle-born. "Oh, that's a good idea!" Tala grinned when the other cub cheered for her beetle, and added in her own approving hoot. "Go, Leftie, go!"
But the golden cub had a point, and Tala tapped her chin, pondering this. They had been fighting for a while now, and it seemed they were both just so determined! She had thought about making a poop ball and just giving them another one, if that was the problem, but...
Well, then she'd have to make a poop ball. "I don't think there are rules, so I guess you can't cheat!" It would be like helping a friend, right?
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:39 pm
She wriggled with anticipation of Tala's reply. "It's a cute name! I'm sure he won't mind, even if it isn't his real name! It'd be like having a nickname! The other day, there was this cub and he called me a gazelle. And then he said he was going to hunt me and I had to run and run and run. I thought my lungs were going to go POP!" She giggled, still not having caught on that she may have been 'bullied' by that particular cub.
She beamed across at the smaller cub and extended a paw again, preparing to nudge the beetle on the right away from the dung ball and, thus, make their 'favourite' the winner.
Unfortunately, her girlishness fell over her and she could only utter a small squeal of fright as she came close to touching the bug. With a sharp breath, she snapped her paw back and looked beseechingly at her new-found friend. "I...I don't think I can touch the beetle!" It might crawl on her or something and then crawl into her ear and nest in her brain! "You do it. You do it!"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:50 pm
Her rationalizing Tala's name for the beetle made sense, so the red cub nodded. She tilted her head curiously as the Kito talked about what had happened to her the other day. That seemed so weird! She would never want to be a gazelle, gazelle got eaten a lot. She probably would have just told him that 'no! I am not a gazelle!'
But that wasn't important right now.
She watched, totally transfixed as the cub extended a paw, waiting for the moment of the poke, to see what happened. And then... well, the other girl pulled back. Tala didn't have the same issue, bugs and things didn't bother her. So she was a little confused. "Why not?" She asked with a small frown, but, nonetheless, stretched out her own red paw and prodded the beetle on the right.
The small black creature at first didn't budge, and, figuring she had underestimated it's strength, prodded a bit harder. Now it fell to the side, and the beetle called "leftie" immediately tried to get away.
"Go Leftie!" She cheered, hoping the other one wouldn't catch up too quickly.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:03 pm
"Weeeell." Kito replied. "It might jump on me and then, and then, and then, it might try to nest in my brain." She shuddered in an over-exaggerated fashion and widened her eyes in a silent plea for her friend to help the beetle instead. Thankfully, it seemed the pleading-eyed look wasn't needed as a moment later and the red cub had reached out to give the beetle a poke. Clearly Kito believed that Tala had some sort of immunity to the bug's powers that she did not.
And then the battle was turned in Leftie's favour and the little cub whooped with excited joy, waving her front paws in the air as she rocked back on her hind ones.
"Look at him go!" And she was on her paws, side-stepping in an arc to stay close enough to watch the beetle's progression but still just enough away that she should escape if the beetle turned feral. Unfortunately, her manoeuvring put her in the path of the 'right' beetle - which, in her excitement, she had forgotten all about.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:10 pm
That was a weird idea, one that Tala had never considered. And she was just beginning to consider such a possibility, but suddenly all the excitement about Leftie taking off made her forget to consider such a thing. She smiled widely as she watched, making some sort of happy sound as it went.
...And then she glanced down and noticed the other beetle had begun to grab onto the furs of the other cubs tail. "Hey! Watch out! Your tail!" She exclaimed, which was perhaps unwise. Maybe she should have just flicked him away first...
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:17 pm
Kito was somewhat slow to react to Tala's exclamation, turning her head to glance back at the red and black cub with her head tilted quizzically. And then she spotted the shiny, dark shape of the beetle on the tuft of her tail and her little face fell in utter shock and fright.
She gave a high-pitched squeal - like the sound of a trapped rabbit - and flicked her tail once, hard. Unfortunately, even if the poor beetle had wanted to fall free, its legs had gotten entangled and it flailed helplessly as the cub tried to rid herself of the 'brain-eating' beetle.
"Help! Help! Help!" Kito was squealing now and had dropped to the ground to roll on her back and try to shake the poor thing loose that way. "It's going to crawl in my ears!" She cried, not seeming to notice that the poor beetle was too stuck and terrified to get anywhere close to her ears.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:28 pm
"Wait! Careful!" She hadn't expected such a reaction from the other cub, and looked completely bemused as the hit the floor. Was the beetle hurting her? Maybe it really was poisy-nous! "Hold still!" She suggested, but, not really waiting to see if the other girl would listen, placed a paw on her tail to keep it steady.
"I'll get it off! Just don't move!" She squinted down at the beetle in the fur tuft, and took a moment to ponder on the situation. "...I think it's stuck. Maybe we have to cut it off!"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:52 pm
Kito did as she was told, falling quite still as she waited for her new friend to help her. She was lying on her side now, panting from the exertion of her panic and rolled her eyes up to see if the cub had had any luck in freeing her from the beetle.
"C-cut it off?" She whimpered, her ears falling back against her head sadly. "Oh no. Won't that hurt? Wont I look silly? Will everyone laugh at me? Will...will it grow back?"
A tail would look silly without a tuft on the end, wouldn't it? Then maybe no one would want to be her friend any more and she'd grow up all lonely and sad. Perhaps it would have been better if the beetle was in her brain, after all! At least no one would see that!
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:02 pm
Tala glanced back at Kito, then back down at the beetle, then back at Kito. "I... think it grows back." She frowned, ears low. A grown up would be able to give her a better answer, and Tala was almost sure hair grew back. But... what if it didn't?
The bug was squirming, and making this a whole lot messier and sillier. She had to act fast! "I'll try to not cut out a lot!" She said, and bent over to work. Hands would be extremely useful in a time like this, but, alas, Tala had only paws, and paws weren't very dextrous. Still, she did her best to pull fur away from the bug, and in the end, only had to cut a couple thin strands. Which was good, because cutting fur like wasn't so easy with claws.
Eventually, though, the bug was free. "There!" And before it could cause any more trouble, Tala promptly swatted the beetle away. "You're free!"
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