Bren
Bren was fluffy and fierce. He was proud of his fluffy bulk and his fearsome growl and the way he could lash his tail like a Stormlord. That was what he was doing. He was playing Stormlord. Admittedly, it wasn't much fun to play Stormlord all by himself, but it was better than playing with his siblings. Or trying to play with his siblings. Except for Canicah, they weren't very easy to boss around, and that made it harder to be a Stormlord if people weren't going to do what he told them to. Imaginary subjects were far more obedient.Keev
Kivi was prancing along the primrose path, as it were, humming to herself one of the mushier verses of a much-longer ballad which was decidedly not mushy. Kivi ignored the bloody gutsy bits of the ballad and pieced it together so that certain parts that told an almost-coherent love story. Apparently a lot of the old ballads had hints and indications of romance, but those weren't the parts people liked to hear, and so the bards and lawspeakers tended to leave them out of their recitations. Kivi had been forced to ask Speaker Tuomas specifically to tell her about them.Bren
Bren was doing his very best to loom menacingly over his imaginary subjects. He was convinced that his looming was menacing, despite what his siblings had to say about the matter. They told him his menacing was meek and his looming was lame. Well, he'd show them, he vowed with a growl. He'd show all of them. As Stormlord Brenning, he was the lord of fire and flame and...okay those weren't very stormy things. He would be the lord of lightning! That was a stormy thing. Puffed up with pride at his cleverness, Bren declared himself the Lightning Lord Brenning!Keev
Not being deaf, Kivi had no difficulty hearing a growl coming from behind a carefully stacked pile of stones. She had even less difficulty hearing a piping voice roaring that someone was the Lightning Lord Brenning. She stifled a giggle, thinking how much it sounded like something she might hear from one of her sibs. It really sounded a great deal like Heldig play at being the warlord or the high priestess and forcing Resimus to be the warlord. They didn't really play that game anymore and she sort of missed it. On soft paws she peered around the stones.Bren
"Oh, hey! Who are you?" Bren demanded, making himself even more fluffy and fierce looking and lashing his tail as if he was going to use it to stir up a storm. He even tried to put a bit of a growl into his question, but the initial shock of someone just appearing like that had scared all of his best growls right out of him. If he had known that Kivi thought of his voice as piping he might have regained his ability to growl out of sheer indignation."You should be careful. You're dealing with a mighty Stormlord!"
Keev
"Oh, really?" Kivi asked. "A mighty Stormlord who's chosen to disguise himself as a cub? It sounds like I'm dealing with a mighty sneaky Stormlord."She smiled, friendly. She didn't want the red cub to think that she was making fun of him. Cubs could be so touchy, she thought with the unconscious superiority of a lion who had grown beyond cubhood and now considered herself so much older and wiser. Sometimes even nice people could be know-it-alls.
"Did I hear you say that you were the Lightning Lord Brenning? I don't think I know very many of his stories."
Bren
Bren might have bristled and taken offense, but the girl didn't seem to be making fun of him. She was just ignorant of the stories he made up in his head. It wouldn't exactly be fair of Bren to hold it against her that she didn't know stories that didn't quite exist yet. Instead he manfully volunteered to tell her some of them."Oh, well, you know how that Thorgnyr fellow is the messenger of the Thunder Lord? Well, the Lightning Lord brings his own messages and to do it he borrows the body of the best Stormborn. Meaning me."
Keev
Kivi nodded and managed not to giggle at the idea that this little red cub with the flame marking over his left eye was the best Stormborn in the pride. Personally, Kivi probably would have chosen, well, a grown-up to be her vessel if she was a god coming to bring a message to his descendants. Or her descendants. Girls could be gods, too."So the name Brenning belongs to the Stormlord's vessel or the Stormlord himself?" she asked. "Actually, that's probably not the important part. What I really should be asking is what message you've brought to the pride."
Bren
"Oh, Brenning's my name. I mean, the Stormlord's name isn't Brenning, but since the best Stormborn is named that, while he's borrowing my body, he uses my name so people don't get confused." It didn't occur to him that it would be confusing for people to tell whether they were speaking to the cub or the Stormlord. It seemed to him that different names would make things needlessly complicated."And my message is this: cubs with names beginning with the letter B shouldn't have bedtimes and should be allowed to have mint like grown-ups because they're better than other cubs."
Keev
Now Kivi did grin. That was some pretty quick thinking from a cub, and his godly proclamation was funny."Wow. I'd probably better go tell the priestesses about this. They're going to be so embarrassed that they missed the visit of one of our ancestors."
In reality, she just knew she had to get away before Brenning said anything which would make her laugh. She liked to laugh, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings by laughing at him.
"My name is Kivi," she said. "Perhaps sometime when the Stormlord doesn't have important business, we could play together, ja?"
Bren
Bren thought about it. The lioness, Kivi, seemed like a nice person, even if she was older than him and bigger than him. He thought that he was nearly as big as she was, and she wasn't small, so he could forgive her for being bigger, especially since she was also older."All right," he agreed. "That would be nice. But right now I should probably go tell my parents - I mean Brenning's parents - about cubs with B names being allowed to stay up and all. You don't have to bother the priestesses though. I'll get to them."
Keev
Kivi nodded and made her whiskers move forward in something like a human's friendly wave."I'll see you tomorrow then! In the mean time, do not die in bed!"
After taking charge Kivi turned and scampered off to find a secluded place to giggle about the "Stormlord" she'd met. She couldn't wait to tell the Miz about him.