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 Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:47 pm
 "The tragic day she washed away, the lady of the sea," Solvtorn chanted. He would work on the melody later. The metre and rhyme were more important initially. At least that was how the self-appointed bard felt about it. Others might feel differently, but they would be wrong.
He wasn't actually composing this particular piece for anyone in particular. He was not a bard who was reliant on anything so fickle as a muse. When he felt like composing, he did so, and when he did not he tried to do so anyway. Being a bard ought to be a profession as respected as being a priestess or a lawspeaker, but it was not, and that was because those who practiced the trade did not ply it seriously. In Solv's not-so-humble opinion.
He had been working on this piece for some time, but he couldn't get it to work. The story he wanted to tell was all there. It was a much-told tale of a lioness who loved a reaver and threw herself into the sea when he left her. Unlike most lionesses, she had not drowned when she did this though, and instead was taken to an island where she found monsters been similarly scorned. These took her in and she slowly turned into a monster like themselves.
It wasn't a bad theme, but the words wouldn't fit the metre and it was making him sullen.
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Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 9:38 pm
She was far less musically inclined.. That much was true. She could hear his words, and it caught her attention from early on. The tune lacked any sort of melody, and she wondered why it was they were simply... chanting. She arched an eyebrow and rose from her lying position on a slab of stone. She stretched out her legs, the muscles under her pelt preparing herself for anything that might come from another member of the pride. Some were so quick to fight, and others were actually rather happy about the idea of company. It was hit or miss, and she found herself not really afraid of either scenario.
The words stopped, and she found herself following a scent. There was only one someone around where she was, and he was a male at that. She smiled, and found her curiousity piqued.
"Lovely words you speak." She said, once she had the lion in her sights. He was handsome enough, and she found herself wondering what it would be like to be with such a creature. Though she knew it was because she wanted someone to call hers. Even if it was for the evening.
"You should speak them more." She hinted.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 8:38 am
"Thank you," Solv said as a bit of purr crept into his voice.
He liked to be complimented, and in his opinion he was not complimented nearly often enough. He was a talented young lion. A gifted lion. No one else seemed to appreciate that though. They all tended to see a lion who would rather talk than fight, and who lost almost every fight he'd ever been in.
"The words will sound better once I put them to music, but they're not ready for that yet. I still need to get the words right. I'm afraid I'm something of a perfectionist."
The grin with which he spoke these words hinted at something else. Hinted that maybe pleasing people with his music wasn't the only thing in which he was a perfectionist. Perhaps he was a perfectionist when it came to pleasing women with other things, too.
"Would you rather hear a finished piece?" he asked.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 10:26 am
She wasn't really interested in brawn. Not really. She had always been a bit of a tomboy, and she could hold her own. She was unlike the freeborns, and she only sought out entertainment. Something he seemed to be good at.. At least at her first observation.
"Well words that pretty should be perfect." She agreed, slinking down from the rock she had been standing on. Her muscles were evident, she was no small lioness. She smiled at him, nodding a little when he grinned. She felt herself begin purring.
"I would love to hear a finished piece, if it is as lovely as what you just spoke." She said, her tone still that sultry purr.
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Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 6:42 am
"But can't you hear how they don't quite fit the cadence of the piece?" Solv asked, a little exasperated even though he knew he shouldn't be. It was a rare lion as musically gifted as he was. In his opinion.
To demonstrate what he meant he extended his claws and tapped out the rhythm on a small stone. It made a kind of pathetic clicking sound, but it would suffice. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and not repeat the words again as he tapped. she ought to be able to remember and realize that the match wasn't perfect.
Belatedly he realized that she had been agreeing with him, and not saying that he'd done so well that his words seemed perfect, but it was too late to backtrack and take back his patronizing little display. Well. If she was educated a little more as a result, that was just as well for everyone, right?
Besides, she was purring so she couldn't be that upset at him.
"Thank you. I could try to come up with something short for you if you like. Tell me about yourself."
He was actually pretty good at off-the-cuff compositions, but he didn't consider them all that important. They were just a way to impress and amuse girls.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 9:09 am
Ali was about as laid back as they came. She heard him defend himself and his music, but she waited until he was finished and smiled. When he was tapping out the tune, she wondered if he should even add a tune. The words had been so nice, she wasn't sure if the tune did it any justice. She hoped it sounded better, when it wasn't a claw tapping against the stone. She remembered the words, but Ali hardly forgot anything. Her mind was a wealth of knowledge from over the years. But she was pretty good at hiding it away most times. "Well.." She started trying to think of what was interesting about her, but the only thing she could think of, she wouldn't ever be able to tell anyone. No one would trust her if they knew she had come from the Pirates.. Even if she was loyal to the Stormborn. "I'm afraid I'm far from interesting. My name is Alehandra, and .." She began humming, while thinking of what was interesting about her. Without much to say, she sheepishly looked up at him. "I suck at this, don't I?"
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 10:36 am
"I'm Solvtorn."
Solv rolled onto his side so that he could watch the lioness as she talked about herself. He was behaving well today. He wanted to get to know this new freeborn. She was attractive and she liked his music, which were two points in her favor. She also seemed to want to impress him, which made him more inclined to like her as well. Three points in her favor.
"You're an outlander," he prompted her. "Did you come from a pride, or were you a rogue? Who did you fight in your askorun? Did you have to fight multiple times?"
The questions he asked were fairly banal and likely ones she had heard before and would hear again in the pride, but they would also tell Solv some important things about Alehandra. Such as her views on fighting and how important it was to her that a person could fight.
He figured himself to be an excellent judge of character. As far as he was concerned, the fact that he didn't get along with most of the pride was not due to flaws in his judgment of character or his ability to get along with people, but rather in flaws with everyone else. He knew his own failings, namely that he was not any kind of a fighter, but he had himself mostly convinced that it was only because he'd never really tried to be one, and if he did try, he'd be great at it.
"Would it help if I told you a little about myself?"
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 10:52 am
She noted his name, jotting it to memory and nodded. "Pleasure to meet you." She said and then took a deep breath. Okay, so those were all pretty good questions. Questions helped give her direction, she liked having direction. "I -uh.. I was a rogue, living with my brother before I lost him. I fought a male, though I regret that I never learned his name. I only had to fight once, but the circumstances were rather.. odd.." She chuckled, shaking her head and continuing. "We ran into each other, and knocked heads together. Knocked us both out, and.. well.. That's my brave fighting story." She grinned. She was a fighter, and she was good at it. However she valued other things besides fighting. Such as a mind, and wit. Some things hse heard, weren't really all that prized here. "Do tell." She said, shifting her weight and sitting to get comfortable.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 11:23 am
Solv didn't frown when he learned that Alehandra had a brother, but he kept it in mind. In his experience, brothers complicated everything. He was very glad that he didn't have any. At least not as far as he knew. It had crossed his mind that having brothers might have made him more of a fighter, but the rest of the trouble they usually came with didn't make them seem very worthwhile to Solv.
"Well, if you can describe him for me, I can probably put a name to him," Solv said truthfully. "People will likely want to know. It...matters sometimes. And in such...heroic duels as yours, it is definitely worth knowing the name of the reaver involved."
Solv now had a mission for the short term. He would figure out what reaver had fought so pathetically and see to it that the whole pride had a couplet to sing to remind him of his failure. It wouldn't win him any friends, but it would sure annoy the hell out of whatever hapless reaver ended up being tormented. And that was enough for Solv. It was the only way he could really get back at the pride's muscleheads.
"I'm my father's only cub, but my mum was his saltwife rather than his mate, so I was not encouraged to spend much time with him. Instead I listened to the lawspeakers and the bards and learned from them. I know all the ballads and sagas and legends of the pride and I started making up my own when I was still a cub. Not my own stories. My own songs and poems." Bragging, bragging, bragging.
"See? Far more boring than your life." Mostly because he left out all the interesting bits about how he was kind of the pride punching bag for lions of a certain generation.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 12:21 pm
"Well.. He had a light body, and reddish stripes all over. I don't really remember much, the hit to the head was a pretty hard blow to my memory of the day." She said with a chuckle. She knew it sounded lame, but it was her story and she was proud to have SOMETHING to talk about with the guy. He was handsome, and she found herself wanting to know him. Which was good enough of a reason for her to spend more time with him. "That's a shame. I was close to my family, for a while. Then my mother and father went looking for somewhere to call home. I just couldn't until I explored. Exploring .. landed me here." She purposefully left out the bit of her living with the pirates for a few seasons.. "Oh yes, far more boring." She teased, and smiled at him.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 5:09 am
"Olaf," he guessed.
Light body and reddish stripes...immediately Solv had thought of either Taraxa or Olaf, and since Taraxa's markings couldn't quite be called be reddish or stripes, it seemed likely she was talking about Olaf. Or maybe someone in Olaf's family, but Olaf was the one who was most likely.
"I'm glad you seem to have recovered since then. Or has your brain just been broken in ways too subtle for someone you don't know that well to realize?" He grinned to let her know that he was joking. Olaf's skull wasn't quite that hard. The unkind thought came naturally, even though Olaf had never been one of the reavers who contributed to Solv's generally miserable state.
Relaxed by conversation and the fact that so far no one had shown up to make his day unpleasant, Solv began to lick the fur between his toes, taking care to work around his sharp claws. One thing about his claws was that they were always very sharp. He rarely used them, and so they never went dull.
"And you decided you wanted to stay here? What helped you come to that decision? The massively muscular males with a permanently adolescent mentality or the lovely perpetual cloud cover? Or perhaps it was the society in which the only truly important people are those who can subdue everyone else through violence?"
It felt nice to be able to badmouth the pride a little. He had his complaints that he didn't dare voice around other Stormborn, and while he would never have tolerated those same complaints from an outlander, he could voice them to one. He remembered just in time to grin so that it wouldn't sound like he was a bitter whiny baby.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 12:31 pm
"That could have been him." She nodded. She hadn't really known much about the male. The challenge had been accepted quickly, and they had hardly spoke at all.. If not in taunts. "I have recovered, quite well. I have the memory of an elephant.. except for that one day." She chuckled. She was a bit embarrassed by it, but what could she do? She just had to take it in stride, that was the only thing she knew to do. "It was the idea that I was as strong as any of the males here. I was drawn in by the power, I guess you could say. Though I'm hardly very ambitious. I have not lost a challenge yet, and they've all been against males." She smiled, proud of herself. "It's safe to say I can hold my own." She was a bit of a vain girl, she knew she was strong. But she was humble, and had no thoughts of being the most lovely, or the most outgoing. She was happy just being strong, and smart.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Solv smiled at Alehandra's remark about elephants' memories. It wasn't one that was often spoken among the Stormborn, and so he doubted many others in the pride would have known what she was talking about, but as a bard Solv could think in analogies and metaphors on occasion. He was very proud of this ability.
His smile remained pleasant when she mentioned that she was as strong as any of the males here. The fact that she had won a single challenge did not make her as strong as any of the males here. It made her as strong as one of the males here on that one occasion. He continued to smile though. It was cute when females thought they could fight.
As soon as she mentioned that she hadn't lost a challenge yet, however, Solv's smile vanished and his entire demeanor changed.
"You've been fighting challenges? Have you been on a viking? Until you've been on a viking you aren't considered a reaver, and if you aren't considered a reaver, you're not supposed to take part in any lion's askorun. The challenge doesn't count for them if it's not fought against an actual reaver."
He frowned and a deep crease formed between his eyes. This was a problem. This was a problem someone else should have explained to her, too. Olaf should have told her about this, or the lawspeaker he took her to ought to have told her.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:41 am
She watched him smile, and noted them down. However she made no mention of it to him. She wasn't really sure why he was smiling, because he really didn't seem the happy, friendly type.
Though when he asked her if she had even been on a reaving, she frowned. What, did he find her dumb? He had been picking on her before, sure. But she had been pretty tolerant.
"Of course I have been on a reaving. Do you take me for a fool?" She asked with an eyebrow raise. She wasn't really upset, but she didn't take well to being questioned.
"I know that I'm still -relatively- a newcomer. But I still know how to live to your rules." She said, and she offered a slight smile. Though it didn't quite reach her ears.
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 11:52 am
"I don't know what to take you for," Solv said. He accompanied his words with a smile that bordered on flirtatious. "But somehow I don't really think you're the sort who likes to live by the rules."
Honestly, that was a pretty safe bet as far as Solv was concerned, making that guess about Alehandra's personality. Lots of the Stormborn liked to think of themselves as independent and too badass to follow rules, though he had not noticed too many of them breaking the rules of the pride. Probably they didn't want to incur the warlord's wrath, and he couldn't say he blamed them. Aesir could be pretty damn intimidating.
"Let's not fight. There's no cause for it."
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