Welcome to Gaia! ::

Blue eyes watched the white leopardess from a distance. He had never seen another leopard outside of his mother, her friend, and the multitude of cubs that shared the den. Still, after spending all his time around them, someone new was a novelty. This leopard was white with just a bit of brown here and there, and he wondered how she survived. His mother - and all of his siblings - were bright blue in color and he knew hunt wasn't - and wouldn't be - easy for them. He was very thankful for his more natural coloring, even if his orange fur was a bit bright.

Jua Bwana tilted his head a bit as he watched the larger female capture a butterfly. That was pretty hard to do...he had tried, so he would know. Curiosity peaked, he stood and slowly shuffled closer to the female. He didn't want to come off as stupid, so he kept his head high so he could look down his nose at her. Granted, if she stood up, he wouldn't really be able to do that.

"Is that all you can catch?" he asked as she stopped a few paces away. "Butterflies must not be able to see how badly you stand out against the rest of the savanna." His mother had told him they smelled with their feet, so maybe they had bad eyesight. You couldn't smell from your feet very well, after all. That's what your nose was for.

Bwana snorted quietly at the white leopard's answer. Hunting in the trees? He glanced over at the jungle that wasn't too far from where they were and wondered if that was even possible or if she was just making it up to make him feel dumb. There weren't enough trees out here for that to work.

"Huntress...that's not hunting. You sound like you barely have to work for your food." His mother worked hard for their meals, and she was just as bright and oddly colored as this leopard. Well, white wasn't odd persay...it was just an 'unfortunate' color to have.

"I don't hunt for food," he said, shaking his head slightly. Oh silly! He was far too young to try to take down food. Butterflies and lizards, though, were a different matter. They were also a lot slower than antelope. Butterflies were pretty hard to catch, though. "My prey are slow and stupid, so my coloring doesn't matter. Once I get bigger I'll be too fast and powerful for it to be a problem."

Granted, he was the smallest of any of his brothers and sisters. He knew he'd grow up strong, but big might be a bit of an issue.

"Oh yeah?" Bwana said with a smirk. "My mother says my father is a king of a pride. So that makes me a prince, which makes me more royal than you." Right? That was how it worked...he was pretty sure, anyway. And of course, he had never met his father and didn't know where this pride was...but hey. Mother didn't lie. Not to them, anyway. She'd lie to her friend and her cubs, but to her own children she never said one little lie.

At least, that's what he thought. Who really knew in the long run?

Bwana sniffed quietly as the larger leopard commented on his size. He knew better than to get up in arms about it - he was just a cub, after all, who knew how big he'd end up being! - but when she said he was smaller than a rabbit, he lost his cool a bit.

"You're a big liar. I've never seen a rabbit bigger than me, and Mother brings them home all the time," he said, flicking his own tail in annoyance as he narrowed his bright blue eyes. "And I practice hunting. I'm better than my brothers and sisters. They're loud and don't care about catching stuff. They just like playing with it. Well, except Moke. He likes killing things. We go hunting for lizards together and we're pretty good."

He puffed out his chest a bit, proud of his collection of dead lizards in the cave. Not that he could show her, of course.

"Maybe that's how your pride works," Bwana said, unimpressed by the white leopard's tactics to tick him off. Where was the fun in a pride anyway, he wanted to know. Being out here in the open was his idea of a good time. No one to bother you unless you wanted to be bothered, you could go wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted...as long as Mother said it was okay, of course.

As she continued to poke and prod at him, though, he began to really lose his cool. Normally he liked doing that to his brothers and sisters to get them to run back to Mother, but man it was annoying when it was being done to him! The paw on his head nearly knocked him to the ground, and he snarled as the last of his patience left him.

"You stop that right now!" he demanded, lowering into a crouch, ready to pounce. Of course, his head was the size of her paw, so she would have no trouble keeping him at bay if he did jump. "Some huntress you are, smacking around leopards a quarter your size. You must get stuck on dragging duty. Can't catch anything so you're the one to bring it back!" A princess didn't like getting her paws dirty, after all. At least his sisters didn't particularly enjoy it.

Who was this stupid leopard to think it was okay to laugh at him? She was getting him so worked up, he wanted to chew her paws to bits! He was about to pounce after the runt comment, when he suddenly realized that he was acting like a fool. She was much bigger, stronger, and faster than he. There was no way he'd survive a real fight with her. And he had to remind himself that he was being beaten with his own weapon: words.

Bwana snorted quietly and pulled out of his crouch, licking his paws to calm himself. "Sure. I'd like to see you try to catch something out here, might huntress. There's no trees to help you." He knew he couldn't catch something that she could, but he did know that out here she'd be at a disadvantage.

"And I climb higher than you can. Those branches way up high can't hold your weight anymore." Maybe when she was a cub, but now those slim branches were reserved for leopards only his size. He loved being able to go higher than his siblings, even if it was just a few branches.

Bwana didn't let the 'compliment' penetrate too far. He took it as words and nothing more. He had seen what happened when someone let 'kind' words boost their ego. Being proud and full of oneself was not what he wanted to be like. Those kind of people relied on others to live. If you pushed others away, you could be independent and strong without standing on the backs of others. Normally he'd have walked away by this point, but this leopard was fascinating him to the point of no return. She was far colder than his mother - of course, she was his mother...perhaps that was just because he was her child - and getting a good dose of his own medicine was annoying, but needed. She was also incredibly sly, if the darkening of her coat had anything to say about it.

He settled down to watch her hunt, flicking his tail as if uninterested, but really was watching with wide eyes. She was very good...she was both fast and strong, something he had to work on to get to her level. But, of course, he was just a cub. There was no way he could hope to be like that right now.

As she returned with the rabbit he scoffed quietly, even though she had done everything he had challenged her to do. "You should keep your coat like that. It looks better than that stupid white you normally have." And he could actually look at her without the sun glaring into his eyes. White hurt so much!

"So. What's your name, Miss Perfect?" he asked, wrinkling his nose slightly as if asking was disgusting him. "Or should I just call you bird poo? That's what you look like without all that dust, you know. White with some brown in it."

Bwana eyed the rabbit and had half a mind to grab it and run. That would be a bad idea, though, considering the rabbit was quite large and she could easily outrun him. Instead he remained where he was, peering up at the white lioness as she cleaned herself.

"Orange and yellow are like fire," he said with a sniff, rolling his eyes a bit. "And fire is not something to be messed with. I'd much rather be orange than walk around like a giant shiny thing and let everyone know where I am."

He was thankful that he sun had set, because the rays of the moon were far lighter than the giant ball of fire. She was no longer painful to look at. Or...not as painful to look at. She really was annoying. "And you completely ignored my question. What is your name?" he asked again, this time not beating around the bush. He wanted answers!