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 Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 9:10 pm
Mingan Galvlati had been fully engaged in the Moon Ceremony. His mane had been specially washed, raked back with claws of his clan members. Perhaps he'd be lucky enough to impress a lady and find his wife.
When the beasts of the south emerged in a great horde, some coughing smoke and a few limping, he'd been engrossed in storytelling. How a fearsome creature (a snake) had nearly severed his limb as a child. It was over-exaggerated on purpose, spoken with a facetious air, and if he made the others laugh then he had accomplished his goal.
Now, the same beast who had been grinning before, hoping to see his friends smile and maybe catch the look of a lioness, was stone faced as he worked his way through the growing chatters of people.
To say what he saw stunned him would have been wrong--Mingan had seen lions without tattoos before. They came in as rogues to the Ela frequently. Yet, a few rogues was not the same site as an entire pride, tens of lions mingling without a trace of tattoo.
It was weird. Who were these people? Mingan went in search of someone who could tell him.
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Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 9:41 pm
 He could still see the fire, smell the smoke, feel the heat. He would have nightmares of this event for years to come, but while he was awake he had more important things to worry about. Like finding a new home, his family had made it out of the fires safely. Along with quite a few other lions it seemed, and after a somewhat successful search party, the remaining lions had deemed it time to move on. He was far too young to fully understand what was going, instead he simply followed his parents without question. Now as he drug his feet across this strange new terrain, all he wanted to do was sleep. But he knew from the days before, that sleep would bring the nightmares. Siri shuddered at the thought of it, but yearned for it so badly. A yawn rolled over his features as he tried to take in his new surroundings through bleary eyes. There were so many new lions ... with such strange markings. And their fur! They looked like giant balls of fluff! It he wasn't so tired, he likely would have giggled himself into a fit. Instead, he found himself focusing in on one particular lion ... he seemed to be lost ... though he definitely wasn't a lion from Siri's pride.
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Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 9:59 pm
Unfortunately for Siri, Mingan was not focusing on him. The lion, newly come into adulthood after his first hunt, was looking for someone of equal age or older. His adolescent years were behind him, and he didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by reverting to childish behavior.
The result was a near collision. Mingan dropped his head and saw the young cub at the last second. Maybe the brown lump of fur would have gotten out of the way, or maybe he'd been too focused on Mingan to move. The minty-green lion solved the problem entirely.
"Whoa, kiddo," he rumbled out as he came to a sudden stop. "There are a lot of big paws here, and you're not the biggest cub." What he meant to say was: I almost smashed you, be careful.
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Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 10:05 pm
Siri'moto had watched the lion lumber over to him, but hadn't moved a muscle. He was just too entranced! The male was already much bigger than his Father. Siri was willing to bet that he was bigger in both muscle and in fluff. But that wasn't the point, the point was that this lion was strangely mesmerizing to him. He'd never seen anything like him! From his large stature, to his ... were those markings? As the male skidded to a sudden halt, Siri finally snapped to his senses. Backing away quickly, he nearly ran right up the leg of the lioness behind him. He mumbled a quick apology before trying to hide behind her leg ... she was not as eager to help as he'd hoped. "S-Sorry I didn't mean to, I wasn't paying attention! I'll do better next time, I promise!" Siri's head began to hang with remorse and shame as he was forced to face the lion. His heart was racing a mile a minute and he was terrified. This lion wasn't going to eat him was he? He'd already seen how large he was ... it was definitely a possibility.
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Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 11:07 pm
Hang on a minute!
Mingan looked at the cub blankly. He hadn't met to bite the kid's head off (metaphorically speaking). Had his words been too loud? Was his voice deeper than he thought? The surprise from almost stepping on flesh and bone probably didn't help his tone.
The male cleared his throat and tried to drop his voice an octave.
"No harm done," he tried to soothe. Though he'd had three siblings, they had all been his age, and Mingan had not grown up any sort of master of children. When he finally had children of his own, he'd have terrible fears about being a good father.
"Kinda crowded, isn't it?"
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Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 11:03 am
Siri's fear subsided a bit with the lowered tone of voice, though he was still a bit spooked by his size. Siri let loose a heavy sigh of relief at the male's words, glad to hear that he hadn't been as bothersome as he'd assumed. "Yeah ... is it always this crowded here?" He asked with genuine interest. At this point he hadn't been told that he had stepped into another pride's territory. He still assumed he was in the rogue lands, and that the group had happened upon a rather large gathering of some sort. "I - well we aren't from here ... we're trying to escape from a fire. It burned down our home, and we lost a lot of members in it." A shiver ran down Siri''s spine and he shuddered at the feel. It was strange, and almost surreal. If it wasn't for his nightmares when he slept, he would think this was the nightmare.
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Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 8:39 pm
After the cub had settled down, Mingan had started to think he must have been extremely brave. How far had the little guy walked? And how he was talking to a strange, really talking without crying over himself and holding his mother's tail in his mouth.
His first hunt had been nervewracking, and Mingan couldn't imagine what his first treck across the universe would be like. They were a peaceful people, but they'd never been in danger.
"Nah-just," the green lion had began. "A fire?" Mingan gawked. Both his ears sat straight on his head, and his mouth pursed forwards.
"You lived through a fire?" As if suddenly remembering his adulthood, Mingan cleared his throat and adjusted.
"You, uh, do you feel okay?" How far had they walked? Their lands were relatively open; surely the tribes would have seen the smoke from that fire.
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Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:53 pm
The male's interest helped to fuel Siri's storytelling and soon he had a small grin on his face. Any other time, it might have been bigger, but with all he'd been through, he was lucky he could muster that. Siri settled himself, taking a set in front of the larger lion, watching as the other lions passed him by. He took a deep breath and tried to retell his story to the best of his ability. "Yeah! It was a big fire too, it engulfed the entire swamp really quickly! My family was lucky enough to be close to a safe zone, so we were able to flee pretty easily." Siri nodded matter of factly, sort of sad that his intro hadn't been all that exciting. "But pretty soon even the safe area was swallowed up with the flames! It was really hard to breathe for a couple of days! The smoke was really smelly. I bet my fur still stinks! See! Smell!" Siri pushed himself a bit closer to the male in case he actually wanted to test that theory. "Well I guess i'm OK ... but there are a lot of us who are sick. Even a few who got hurt by the fire, my moms says some of them are really sick." The once smile slowly faded into a frown as he remembered watching a few of the pride's lionesses scurrying around trying to mend the injured. "Me, i'm just really tired. My paws are sore too! But my mom says i'll live through it." Siri's head tilted as he realized he didn't know this strange male's name. "Hey! I just realized, I don't know your name! Would you please tell me who you are?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:17 am
Wonder of wonders, the cub had plopped himself down right in front of Mingan. It had taken a deep breath, and then it had opened its mouth.
What happened after that Mingan only remembered in bits and pieces. He gathered important parts, squinted his eyes and strained his ears as some of the cub-vocal's were harder to distinguish.
Big fire.
This kid was smiling after that? Mingan tried to remember if he had been this brave as a child, but he couldn't scrape together even a moment. He dipped his head down and gave a polite, if awkward sniff of the air around the cub. His nose wrinkled up.
"Yeah, I smell it," he politely informed. Like ash. Mingan smacked his mouth and tried to scrape the smell that had perforated onto his tongue.
"Your mom somewhere around here, then?" he inquired, his head going up. There were so many of them. Already, the big group was passing around them, people anxious to rest their paws, to get food, to see a friendly face, and to avoid those unfamiliar.
"Mingan," he told the cub, his eyes still scanning lion's backs for anything brown or with bright orange hair. "Who're you?"
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Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2013 12:09 am
Siri had hardly noticed the male's squinted eyes, or concentrated expression. He was so involved in his story, oh man! This lion didn't even know how fun it was to retell such an event. One day, he would be able to tell others about the fire ... he would have to be ready for that day. But what better a way to retain the information than to tell it over and over again? This male would be his first subject, but most certainly not his last, of that he was certain. Siri's ears flattened in fear as the male leaned over and took a short whiff, though his fears quickly diminished and were replaced with a cheesy smile. "See!? It doesn't smell good does it? I can't smell anything but that stuff! Mom says I must have ash in my nose ... but I keep sneezing and I don't see any smoke!" Siri shrugged his shoulders in confusion, genuinely unaware of just how incorrect his comment had been. Ears perked once again, Siri began to scan the area at his request, sure his Mother was somewhere close by. No doubt helping the injured to get where they needed to be. "Yep! There she is! Way oveeeeeer there!" Pointing to his far left he nodded approvingly at the male. "Want me to go get her Mingan?! I could go get here for you!" Astutely pronouncing the male's name, he smiled with pride. It wasn't often he was able to pronounce a name right on the first try. "My name is Zuberi! But in my pride, my name will change when I get older. So you'll have to ask me again when i'm older!"Kaelyndra Just realized i've been calling him Siri the entire RP XD Little late to fix it now >w<
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Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:00 am
Depawsit (( Oops! There are just too many lions and too many names! ))
However, the idea that warmth could cause damage was something his brain could not wrap its head around. Mingan had no concept of the pain, and he equally had no knowledge of how ash burned the lungs and smoke could provide adverse health effects for years. It did not seem strange to him, however, that swallowing a black cloud was a bad idea.
The cub had moved on, thankfully, from the equally gruesome and confusing topic. Mingan lifted his beastly-maned head high and searched through the crowd.
He nodded, as though he'd seen her, but Mingan was no more educated than he had been a moment ago.
"Sure." The first question, though it was not a particularly inspiring answer. "Why do you change your names?" The lion's voice was distant and automatic; he was still trying to piece together which one of the lion's was this cub's mother.
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 2:18 pm
One thing was for sure, Mingan was a lion of very few words. Unlike Siri who was a lion of as many words as he could fit in a sentence. But he was still too young to realize that he was likely pestering the older male. He liked to think of it as more of ... meeting a new friend! A very large, and interesting friend! Mingan's unsure comment, made Siri look back a bit, perhaps he hadn't seen her? "She's the one with the dark grey body, and her legs are a muddy brown! She even has a little bit of muddy on her face too!" He giggled a bit covering his face as he did so, all the while pointing in the direction she was in. While she was a ways off, she didn't seem to be around other lionesses of the same coloring. So perhaps he'd see her a little better. He hadn't expected Mingan to say much else, but he was quite wrong. Apparently something he had mentioned had sparked his new friend's interest. "Oh well that's an interesting one! When we're older, we are sent away on a journey of self discovery. I'm not sure what that means yet but its supposed to mean we find out who we are or something. When we come back from that journey, we change our names to something that ummmm.... Hmmm"' Tapping his chin for a moment the cub had stumped himself. "I don't remember the word, but our name is supposed to change based on how our journey went. My mom says its a rite of passage!"
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:56 pm
One ear remained engaged with Siri's speech, but Mingan continued to squint unsuccessfully. There were a few dark grey lions within the grounds--whoa, that one was not a female--and trying to pick the perfect one out in the moving commotion would be difficult.
After a moment, he gave up his search and returned his eyes to his new comrade. The cub, he guessed, found his mother based on the appearance of her toes. Mingan had memorized his own mothers feet and the shape of her ankles when he'd been small. The memory far escaped him now. His mind was far too befuddled with ideas of having to act as an adult and what his future would hold.
It took him a moment to figure out if he'd heard correctly.
"Your family sends you away?"
Mingan's jaw almost dropped from his skull and his head tilted ever so slightly to the right. He'd never been outside the lands of the Ela, and the prospect was, well, spooky. Mingan could not say it wasn't tantalizing, but the fear of the unknown kept him firmly rooted to his land of safety.
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Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 1:44 pm
Siri's head cocked to the side quite a bit at Mingan's question and at the slight change in both his tone and expression. Was it so strange for his family to send him away? He'd never known anything different, did this mean Mingan had never done the same? "Well, yeah!" Pausing but for a moment, he straightened himself out, realizing his current posture might come off just a tad rude. "You mean your family doesn't?" He looked up at the large lion inquisitively hoping for some sort of answer. But as he looked, he began to notice thing he should have noticed before. The differences between them, while obvious visually, maybe weren't so obvious on other levels. "I guess its a pride thing, Mingan!" Shrugging to himself, he began to get curious about the large, furry male's own traditions. "But, if you don't go on a journey to discover yourself .. how does your pride declare someone an adult?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:17 pm
I guess it's a pride thing.
Mingan felt out-done. What the cub had said was so simple, and it made too much sense. The Ela choked down the desire to say Siri's pride did things the wrong way. In terms of acceptance, the big male had a long ways to go.
"You're pretty smart, aren't you?" he asked the cub.
At least the second part Mingan could answer. Making sure he was squarely on his haunches, the male stretched out a large, flat paw.
"These," he explained, brilliantly. "I get a new one each month. You know adulthood when there is no room left on your back for another line." A large smile pulled over his face.
"See this one?" He asked, briefly balancing on his outsretched foot to point to a flower on his right leg. "In honor of my first crush. I brought her a flower and asked her to marry me." Mingan laughed, though his mouth pulled tight at its corners.
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