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 Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:29 pm
At least once in their life, everyone was destined to encounter something that stopped their heart as quick as their steps. Roka had thought herself better of it, but that sunset brought her back down from high-and-mighty to the lowly reality of it all. She'd never liked it down here, where things became personal and not something to be researched. Luckily, after the initial, gut-wrenching impact of her discovery, she could return as she was. Some might say to what she was, and follow it up with less-than-polite names.
Roka was not cruel, would never be cruel, but monsters came in many forms. One being apathy. Often underestimated, more often misunderstood, and almost always overlooked.
The cub's body was just... there, and that was the unacceptable thing to her. No signs of felled parents nearby that had fought to the death for their child. No siblings. For all she knew, the vultures circling in the sky were the only company this boy ever had. Roka had followed them expecting a meal, not a tragedy.
His coat was an earthy, rich brown; like hers, but darker. Could have been a younger sibling, a cousin, or if she was feeling daring in her imaginary explanation, her own son.
Tch. She'd have fed him better if he was hers. Tiruan, for all the lying he did, always made sure his kin was well-fed. And Tanana, helpless in a real hunt, would scout day and night for some scraps if they needed them. If Roka could survive with these shady types as parents, why had no one come for this cub?
No rogue had spared him a meal? No one had taken him in to be the brother of their birth children?
How could someone be so unlucky and die so young?
Roka didn't wonder these things with emotional undertones, but she did wonder them still; she was bothered there was no way to know for sure. And somewhere along the way she figured she had some kind of duty to bury him.
The sun was setting and Roka was digging a hole.
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:45 pm
Uuni was tired of digging. Holes, whether physical or metaphorical, had completely lost a romantic appeal they had never possessed to begin with.
Someday, perhaps, a rogue would be burying her own sons, her own daughters just as Roka was burying an unknown cub now. Uuni only buried others' cubs, or ensured they found a proper resting place. The world was full of burial rights, and too many missing relatives to complete them.
No one but the wind said anything for funerals of one.
One could say she was keeping an eye on Roka. In a mortal sense, she suppose 'stalking' may have been the first used words. But mortals couldn't teleport, couldn't hide themselves, and usually had obsessively ill intentions in mind.
For Uuni, it was a harmless boredom. And mortals politely assumed Gods could simply watch from wherever they were as though they had limitless powers.
Hah. It made a nice story.
"I hear you mortals say a red sky in the morning means clear skies the next day." It was easy to approach a lioness involved completely in a task; moreso when your voice gave her lots of forewarning lest you invoke a violent response.
Uuni tossed her mortal mane to the opposite side of her neck, moving to settle into a seat near the growing hole.
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:07 pm
Father keeping up with his white lies required a sharper mind than she gave him credit for. You'd need a good memory. And most people could connect the dots, but with him, he had to connect them in ways they weren't supposed to be and still make a picture out of it -- then claim the image was his intention all along. In a way, Tiruan was a genius, and Roka could accept she had his kind of smarts, only the improved version.
Had this been her son, how smart would he have been as the third generation?
"I hear you mortals say a red sky in the morning means clear skies the next day."
With her improved, second generation memory, Roka tried to think of a time she'd ever heard anyone say such a thing.
"Which mortals? None I know."
Mortals.
Not just the rancid smell leaving a bad taste in her mouth anymore.
Roka would have gambled on Uuni if she'd appeared as anything short of a suspicious rock. One need only connect the dots. She looked up at her and shook her head, then kept digging. "And to what do I owe the pleasure?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:17 pm
"You're traveling alone." Uuni's voice was calm as she lowered herself down onto her belly.
Her eyes traveled from extended claws to the growing pile of dirt. "You ever talk with anyone but your own head?" Not that she had anything against walking alone -- she did it all the time. Not that there was anything she had against sharing nothing, and therefore receiving nothing. Not that she was scraping a wet tongue against her teeth and sometimes wishing it was dry.
Finally, her eye settled on the swollen body, the cub which she was amazed was not yet in pieces. Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten about him. Even the flies were not yet giving him their full attention.
"Some mortals think it's a blessing to let the vultures pick your bones clean." She stretched out, dug her claws in. She looked away from the cub.
It was far too easy to start confusing brown for a deep grey. Chalky-spots for white runes. One son for another. If she went far enough, she was the dead one. It was easier to keep her eyes on Roka. There were other reasons than her own selfish, lazy demeanor that kept her from helping.
But if you asked, it was that death was a mortal's business.
"Others throw bodies into the sea."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:03 pm
"You ever talk with anyone but your own head?"
Rarely. As evidence, Roka kept the response to herself. Her mind was such a busy place. A 'why?' or 'what if? occupied every corner. She didn't let her curiosity get dusty. To her, that was the first step in being complacent, and that was as good as being dead. They may as well bury her beside this cub the day she stopped wondering. Roka had plenty of company all by herself.
Besides, three's a crowd. The world counted this cub out, but she wouldn't leave him off the tally.
"There's no sea out here," Roka pointed out. Dig, dig, dig.
Death was a mortal's business. They could agree there.
Uuni should take that to heart and mind her own.
"Since you're so wise in the ways of we mortals, why do you think he's out here?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 12:30 pm
"Because he's dead." Wasn't it obvious. Why was anyone anywhere? Reasons mattered to mortals, because they tried to change a fleeting future. You could measure the value of a mortal's life by how much change they induced. Cubs could provide endless change, it was why they were so valuable.
Uuni wondered, if mortals knew how strictly they really defined life, if they would be so caught up in spirits, religion, in gods themselves.
"If his tongue is cracked, it was probably dehydration." A terribly common death for the lost.
"Mwokoti is not usually so poor at her job." A quick glance at the cub, a shiver, and another look away.
"Perhaps his single mother died. Disease, a fight, a hundred answers." The lack of siblings, though, that was a rarity. "More likely abandoned." Natural colors. Male.
"Someone wanted him to die, but didn't have the heart to kill him." Now she was getting a bitter taste in her mouth. This wasn't her favorite conversation topic.
"It's going to freeze tonight." Not it might get cold. The weather seems to be cold. No, a strong, factual, it will freeze. Jaw locked tight, she watched Roka's eyes as she finished the hole.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:05 pm
Dehydration...
If at some point the tongue lolled out, so be it. Roka wasn't morbid enough to pop open the jaw to have a look. She had her limits. Their borders went a little farther inch by inch, day by day, but the lioness she was now refused. And she hadn't mused the how, but the why.
Dead mother. Abandoned.
These were more sufficient answers.
Her paws were an angry red beneath the fur and promised to stay sore throughout the frozen night. "I'm not afraid of the weather," Roka said. Her attempt at a joke came out as bland, forced egotism. "Mortals live in all kinds of conditions."
So this cub had frozen. How devastating.
Roka circled the hole to make sure the dimensions were suitable, and to put off having to touch the corpse.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:21 pm
"They also die in all sorts of conditions."
Uuni gave it a few moments, and then gave her a toothy smile. The weather was a nuisance she rarely had to deal with. Somewhere, it was raining; somewhere, it was sunny, and somewhere in the high mountains it had begun to snow.
Curious, she wondered if Roka had seen snow. It was hard not to assume mortals had seen everything, knew all that Uuni did. They were children that did not look like children.
"Seems like a waste of your energy, to me," she idly commented as she slipped her way around the hole to the opposite side of the dead cub. She had no intention of going any closer to it, thank you.
"He can't give you anything from the afterlife."
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:36 pm
"I wasn't doing anything better with it," Roka retorted. Her game plan for the day had been to drift aimlessly, drift more, dinner, drift. This cub added some variety and meaning to it.
She had a mean poker face, figuratively speaking. On the literal side her expression was numbed by logic and just being herself. Roka was the kind to recite there's nothing you can do and it's not your fault until any heartbreak healed.
Unnerving how her careful movements could so easily be trying not to wake a sleeping cub, not finding the best angle at which to dump him in the grave. Uuni wouldn't volunteer to help and she wouldn't ask.
The body was small, but the dead weight was heavier than she thought. For all her smarts, Roka was too busy thinking of the best end result; the method to get there wasn't as cautiously heeded. She'd regret trying to use her nose to nudge it before Uuni could think of something smartass to say. Not that Roka thought that would stop her.
She snorted, loud and heavy, trying to exhale as much of the smell as possible.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:55 pm
"Egh." Uuni's nose wrinkled up as Roka began to move the corpse. A whole noseful was not needed; she could already tell how disgusting the smell was and moving certainly made it worse.
The goddess side-stepped as the body inched its way towards the grave. Things were getting terribly uncomfortable by the time the small cub lay, askew, at the bottom of the crude hole.
Uuni couldn't take it anymore.
One paw heavily dug into the soft, unearthed dirt and she shoved as much as she could forwards in one push. It didn't quite cover the cub's face, and so she swiped another paw until its eyeless head wasn't staring at her anymore.
Her emotive face, wrinkled, lip raised in disgust, must have been a treat for Roka.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:08 pm
Ava and Ava had both taken to finishing their meals with fruit when it was available. Roka had never been one for sugary foods, but this kind of sweet she could stomach. Uuni's disgusted face and hurried actions weren't very Almighty. Mmm, delicious, delicious smugness.
It helped. The reactions were easier to focus on than what caused them. Roka wasn't cruel, remember? What kept her heart from bleeding like the rest of her family's was that she knew how to guard it without trying. Without knowing. Every day she got better.
Every encounter she got more... what was the word?
Tolerant of Uuni.
She chuckled and began to pat the grave dirt with her paws. "How do you know he can't help me? What happens when we die?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:28 pm
There was a low chuckle from the goddess' mouth. Uuni didn't bother to school it, letting it turn into a laugh of surprise.
"Aren't you supposed to wait for death to find that out?"
It must have been a facetious display because she kept going.
"In theory, you pass through a gate. A giant, ******** gate." Uuni's eyes moved upwards, glancing over the stars that speckled the sky. It occured to her, quite suddenly, that Roka would not know what a gate would look like, and that 'gates' came in many forms. "And unless you are a god, you never come back." Sometimes you still didn't come back. "Death guards that secret carefully."
Unfortunate, too. Uuni had tried to pass through several times, using trickery, manipulation, and flat out requests. It was probably all a trick, to keep Gods afraid, and mortals in check. At the very least, it gave Gossip something to talk about, and gods something to be afraid of.
"But I wonder," the goddess began to muse out-loud, her eyes glancing back to Roka as if she could answer the question simply by existing. "If you imagined a god into existence which trapped souls, and another which allowed the dead to affect the living, if a small, deceased cub would be able to help you after all." It was a complicated subject, mortals and gods. "But, I suppose you could even kill a God if you imagined the right one into existence." She shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't happen often."
But then, gods didn't often go spewing their secrets, let alone ones they didn't understand themselves. Uuni was terribly bad at following directions.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:09 pm
Roka pictured a cave with a little more glamor for the gate. Death she was more familiar with, now more than ever. Her imagination slowly sketched a face with no eyes and a jaw falling off; a rib or two poking out; dirty tuffs of mane and fur tangled around pieces of rotted flesh.
"If I imagined a God into existence?" Could she manifest something like that into being? Roka's heart was beating so hard it might give out. Maybe she'd die today, be buried next to that cub, and see what a gate was for herself. "Who made you? And the other one? Who made her?"
When a cub first wailed for his mother, so too was Mwokoti born. That's what she always said.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:33 pm
"Suddenly, you have a voice." It seemed Blood Magic was not done with smartass comments.
Did she want to keep answering these questions? The goddess narrowed her eyes at Roka. Knowledge had a price. The silence stretched on and Uuni debated.
Then, at last, she opened her mouth. "We aren't told. There's no one to tell us. No one cares." The first gods must have been worried, frozen, upset as they found their way in the world. It was no wonder Gods were so like mortals - that was all they had to learn from before they discovered themselves.
"I suppose it could have been more than one. As long is there is blood, some poor lion will think there is magic in it." Uuni closed her eyes, tail swaying. Brows furrowing, she began to think, hard.
"Tayrin was his name," she managed. "First one to summon me. b*****d of a lion. Kept me there three days before he made up his mind. He died a painful death." Though, that had not been her fault. She'd kept tabs on him; she wasn't going to let those first lions get away without knowing what happened to them. "But he didn't think me up."
"But Lost, you'd have to ask Mwokoti. I don't keep track of her miserable life." It was doubtful that Mwokoti knew, either. It was not as though mortals were able to choose every exact detail. There were too many conflicting thoughts for that.
"Are you done with questions? You're supposed to be my entertainment, not the other way around." Though, she was, this Roka. She was entertaining. Roka wasn't crying while she asked what happened in the afterlife, she wasn't dissecting dead animals, and she wasn't trying to kill a god when she asked what made them. Perhaps, some day, she would, but for now humoring those harmless questions was a spit of fun.
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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:43 pm
In the same light, Roka didn't know yet the significance of what she'd been given. Uuni, queen of no regrets, might very well live to see the day where she felt the sting of one; mainly, having done a tell-all to someone with potential like Roka. No mortals were truly harmless. Almost all had the opportunity to become anything they feared or hated, but some more than others, and smart ones like her... They could get spiteful.
Roka's lip curled back and she bared a few polished teeth. Far more a display of annoyance than a threat. She had never been known to make those; Roka believed in saying what you meant and doing what you said, and what harm could she bring to a Goddess?
One day she might find out.
"Thanks for you help," she deadpanned. "Should we say a few words?"
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