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 Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 5:48 pm
Eigyr Eigyr's head was near to bursting by the time she had made it past the pride's outer guards. It wasn't that she disliked the gossip, but there was a time and a place for it and at the moment all she wanted to do was slip loose and go foraging. She had a number of new recipes she was hoping to try out, if she could find the test subjects anyway. It was easy enough to find ingredients, even though she tended to be picky. First there were the fungi, dirty work. She loathed skirting beneath the tree roots in search of her prizes, but she had no helper. She'd simply have to accept the stains on her otherwise blanched coat. Isa Isa's father was hunting, which meant that her half-brother Khozar was supposed to be looking out for her and her sister Aara. Kho was a very good guard, and ordinarily Isa would never have gotten away from him. However, she and Aara had made an agreement that once in a while one of them would give the other a signal which meant they really wanted to go exploring for a bit, and then the other one would distract Kho and slow him down once he set out looking for his missing sister. It wasn't very nice of them, maybe, but they missed so many interesting things because their father and brother kept such a close watch, it could be frustrating. Anyway, today Isa had given the signal and Aara was covering for her. Life was good.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:00 pm
Eigyr With a few short searches Eigyr had spotted her first test. Beneath the roots of a large tree she spotted a cluster of mixed fungi. Some were unfamiliar to her and those she wanted samples of. The familiar ones were common, but necessary to many of her medicines. But the gap beneath the roots didn't look quite tall enough to fit her. She'd either need to reach from the top or widen the gap to fit. Neither sounded particularly appealing. One of these days she'd need to find an apprentice, or at least a runner. Sighing softly she resigned herself to getting them somehow, laying herself out across the roots as she thrust her paws down inside the gap. It still wasn't quite reaching. Isa Isa watched with narrowed golden eyes as a pale pink lioness crawled across some roots on her stomach and shoved her paws down a hole. Was this some sort of game, the older female was playing, or had she lost something beneath those roots that she was trying to fish back out? The short amount of time Isa had spent in her father's pride had included some basic instruction on how it was the duty of a female to be compliant and helpful whenever the occasion arose, but Isa was no longer part of that pride any more than her father was, and further more her father had told all three of his offspring that they were not to talk to strangers, and his word meant more to her than the rules of a pride she didn't even belong to anymore. So rather than offer to help she crouched and watched with growing amusement.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:09 pm
Eigyr After batting at the fungi a few more times Eigyr got the odd feeling that she was being watched. It wouldn't have been uncommon for someone to follow her, trying to get treatment without paying. Her fur rose up on edge as she tried to look sidelong without being too obvious. A cub? Or maybe something even smaller, she couldn't be sure. Still she pretended she hadn't noticed, feigning that her paw was caught. If they had bad intentions, they'd run. If not, perhaps she'd get a little more information without giving up anything else. "Aw dangit," she said loudly as she dramatically wrangled her paw around in the gap. Isa Isa continued to watch the older lioness doing whatever silly thing she was doing for a while until there came a dramatic exclamation of frustration. At which point the cub could not contain her mirth any longer and let out a giggle that she hurriedly stifled by flattening herself to the ground and biting onto her paw hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to draw blood. The hurting made her stop giggling, which was the point. Now she had to figure out how she was going to get away without being seen or captured. She knew Kho would be in a lot of trouble with their father if he found out that she'd not only gotten away from his watchful eye, but also encountered a stranger. Isa didn't know why exactly her father was so wary of strangers, but she suspected it had something to do with the way they'd left the pride in darkness and silence.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:19 pm
Eigyr Definitely not a threat, she decided with a laugh of her own. With a little twist she freed herself and rolled off the roots onto solid ground. "Having a laugh at another's misfortune?" she asked as she tried to sound serious, "That's hardly a good way to start a conversation little miss." She could see more closely now what the stranger was, a little striped cub. And there didn't seem to be anyone else around, curious. "Have your parents sent you looking for remedies little one?" Isa She'd been heard. No surprise there, Isa thought resignedly, but all of the cub's laughter was gone now. She didn't like when her father was mad at Kho for things that were really her fault, and she knew he would be if she didn't handle this exactly right. It did not make her particularly happy that the grown-up wasn't as stuck as she'd appeared to be before, either. "I'm not trying to start a conversation," she said bluntly. "I just wanted to see what was over here." She had never tried it before, but something told her that maybe being rude would make it easier for her to get away without being followed. If a stranger followed her back to Kho and Aara, she had no doubt her brother would take it upon himself to act in defense of his sisters, and she wasn't so sure he'd be victorious against a full-grown lioness.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:30 pm
Eigyr Eigyr raised an eyebrow, a little curious why the cub was reacting that way. Well then, she certainly wasn't from the pride if she was treating a healer that way. "Well you've seen then, a lot of plants and bugs and old folks bumbling around," she said with a laugh, hoping it would calm her enough to tell her true reason, "You're out scouting then? For who?" Isa Isa's eyes remained narrowed. She was suspicious of strangers because her father was suspicious of strangers. She was particularly suspicious of strangers who asked questions because she knew for a fact that cubs were never considered reliable sources of information by grown-ups unless the grown-up was trying to make the cub like them. Isa was prepared not to like anybody her father didn't want her to like. And since her father didn't even know this lioness, it was impossible that he would want her to like her, so by default Isa figured she was supposed to be suspicious of her. "Not a lot of old folks bumbling around," Isa said, sticking to the rudeness tactic for the time being. "Just you. And you look perfectly ridiculous, crawling in the dirt like, well, a bug. What were you doing?" She shouldn't have asked a question. She knew it right away. But it was too late. The words were out of her mouth.
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:37 pm
Eigyr "Ah just me that you see," she said with a nod, "But there's a whole kingdom just over that ridge. They're good folks too." A bug? Well she hadn't ever really considered herself that way but she could see how her reaching could be misconstrued. "I was looking for herbs, I make medicines for little ones like you, to keep them healthy," she answered a little proudly, lifting her head up as she tried to brush the dirt off her chest. Isa "Yes. You. Bumbling around. Like a bug. In the dirt," Isa elaborated. It seemed to her that the lioness she was dealing with was either too stupid to realize that Isa had meant to insult her before, or else even stupider and trying to make Isa believe she hadn't realized she'd just been insulted, or else really clever and trying to make Isa believe she was stupid for some nefarious reason. Since she had decided to be suspicious, Isa guessed it was the last reason, and so her eyes narrowed even further until she was definitely squinting at the lioness. The fact that she'd mentioned a kingdom set off warning bells. Isa didn't know what a kingdom was, but it sounded something like a pride and she didn't think her father would want her getting involved with a pride lion at all. Time to step it up a notch. "I don't need medicines. I stay healthy by not being stupid enough to get sick."
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:51 pm
Eigyr Stupid? Now that was certainly not the sort of thing parents ought to be teaching their cubs, but it wasn't really her place to say so. Instead she raised a paw and shook her head, keeping her distance. "I'm sure you're not, of course. Only stupid cubs have accidents or get fevers." This was hardly the calm excursion she'd been hoping for, and she still hadn't gathered any of her necessary supplies, "But they still need care, and I still need those mushrooms." Isa It was definitely the smart-pretending-to-be-stupid-to-get-something kind of adult that Isa was dealing with here. She was trying to be so nice and agreeable. Something was up. Maybe she wanted to test those mushroom things on Isa before using them on the stupid sick kids in her kingdom. There was no way that was going to happen. Isa had enough. She stood up and gave her very best fake smile. "Hum. Well. Good luck to you and your mushrooms and your kingdom with its stupid cubs," Isa said with more confidence than she actually felt. It took a great deal of courage for the striped cub to make herself turn her back on the mushroom-hunting lioness from a kingdom and walk away at a jaunty-but-hurried pace.
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