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 Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:25 pm
Adokh stood near the marked border of the territory, hesitation on his face. The tan and black lion reached a paw over, only to stop and pull it back. "No, I can't..." He looked back. "My family..." His very big family... "There's a lot of members, ONE leaving wouldn't be THAT big a deal, would it..?" He swallowed, then placed his paw across the border. For a moment, his fur all stood on end, starting with his paw and going up his leg to spread down to his tail tip, before his fur all settled down. "Well that wasn't SO bad..." Another paw followed, and then the other two, with his tail trailing behind. After only a few steps, he stopped and looked around. "I'm outside the border... Wow..."
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:31 pm
 The white lion was busy investigating the lush green grass for some sort of edible prey. And was, surprisingly, finding a few things. Small mammals mostly, not much more than a mouthful each, but enough to fill his stomach. He was under express orders from Demani to not stray from the area bounded by a tree and a rock and another rock, and the lioness had scratched all three to make it obvious in case he forgot what they looked like. Which meant that if he wanted a snack, it had to be found within this area. Then he heard something. It sounded like it was coming from beyond one of the rocks...but it sounded like a voice! Curious, Pas went over to the rock to see. It was another lion! Oh sure, there were differences in coloration, and something different about the other male's build, but he was still a lion! "Hi there!" the white male hailed him.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:42 pm
Adokh looked around, confused by the call. Was somebody else there? He soon spied a rock, and a lion behind it. As he had seen many lions in his life, he was confident that it was, indeed, another lion. He walked around the rock, then looked around the area the lion was in, even more confused. It looked like the lion had trampled the grass everywhere in JUST this area. "Hello... Um.. I'm Adokh, who are you? And... Have you only been in this little area?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:46 pm
"I'm Pas," the white lion introduced himself to Adokh with a smile which quickly turned into a sheepish grin as he looked back at all the flattened grass behind him. No need to ask the other male how he knew, it was obvious even to the Jini-msemi.
"Er...yes," he admitted. "But what about you? Do you live nearby?" Pas didn't ask if there was a pride nearby. He had no idea about how close or far prides were from one another, especially as he hadn't managed to run into one thus far. He thought Demani might have, but it hadn't come up yet.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 5:58 pm
"Why would you only stay in this area? You didn't grow up confined here, did you?" If he did, he was a very physically and mentally healthy lion so far!
Adokh turned and pointed past the rock. "If you jump up on the rock there, you'll see an even bigger one in the distance, Pride Rock. It's at the center of the Pridelands, where I'm from!" He looked at Pas, offering a smile. "I have LOTS of family there, and in other prides! We're EVERYWHERE!" He motioned with a paw, indicating the big wide world beyond them. "What about you? Do you have family outside this little area of the grasslands?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 6:23 pm
"What? No!" Pas couldn't believe this lion, Adokh. He thought Pas had been in this tiny circle his whole life? How utterly ridiculous! "I've never been here before today!" he returned hotly.
The flash of anger faded quickly as he followed the other lion's advice and clambered up onto the rock. Sure enough, he could see a massive chunk of stone in the distance. It wasn't a mountain, but it was perhaps even more impressive just for being out here in the middle of all this grass. And even from here he could see the forms of countless lions all over the place. That was...a lot of lions.
"What? Oh, of course I have family. They live in the Jini-msemi," Pas answered absently, still looking at the big rock.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 7:55 pm
"Oh! I'm sorry! I was just worried that you were one of those lions I'd heard about with mothers so protective, they didn't let them leave a certain area EVER!" He relaxed visibly, happy he wouldn't run into an angry over-protective mother.
He followed the white lion, then sat down by the rock, smiling. "Yup, big pride there! I think that's part of why it's called the Pridelands, since such a big pride lives there. But there's big prides other places, so..." He paused, listening to the absent answer about family. "Jini-msemi? Where's that?" His curiosity had been triggered. He wanted to know MORE!
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 7:58 pm
Pas snorted. His mother had never been that overprotective. Not even his grandparents had been! But that just went to show you that strangers knew nothing.
"Oh, it's on the mountain," the white lion answered vaguely, gesturing away from Pride Rock. He really had no idea if that was the right direction or not, or even how far said mountain was from here. Neither directions nor distance were strong points of Pas'. He did know that the mountain wasn't too far from the Ela'wadiyi, whose lands he remembered vaguely from traveling through as a cub. But that didn't really have any bearing on this.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:17 pm
He turned and looked in the direction the white lion had gestured, frowning. "Is that really the right way...?" He then shrugged. "I'll ask lions as I go to make sure. So.. Pas... Why are you in this circle, anyway? You never DID say, since it's happily NOT an over-protective parent." If it had been, he'd have tried to liberate the poor lion. But Pas was no poor lion and he needed no liberation from a sheltered life.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:19 pm
"So that Demani can find me again, of course," Pas answered logically enough without once mentioning his...directional impairment. It was a fact, yes, but it wasn't exactly something he wanted to share with this random stranger, even if he did know Adokh's name.
"Why are you here?" he asked, turning the tables on the other male.
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Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2014 8:37 pm
So Demani could find him again... Actually, that made a rather lot of sense to him. Adokh knew at least one pair of lions in the Pridelands where they were... Interesting. Kushindwa couldn't really hunt, and fell over a lot, so Madaha would hunt FOR him and tell him to stay in one place or he'd scare the prey away. For all he knew, that's what was going on here.
His ears pricked as he let out a surprised sound. "Oh! Well... I grew up in the Pridelands, and until a few minutes ago had never stepped outside the border... I got curious about the world beyond our borders, because we get a lot of lions coming in from outside... And I wanna know more about the world without having to wait for others to come in to tell me!"
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:39 pm
"Oh." Well, that was...huh. Pas eyed the other lion surreptitiously and decided the other male was almost certainly older than him. And...he'd never left his pride's home before? The white lion, on the other hand, had been ceremoniously booted out as an adolescent and told not to come back until he'd found his true name.
Well, it was a lot more formal and ceremonial than that, but still, that's what it had boiled down to in the end.
So the fact that this lion who was clearly older than Pas had only just now stepped beyond his pride's bounds for the first time was...weird. Hah, now that he thought about it, Pas could say he'd done so as a cub, when they first left the swamp! Though it only counted in the sense of the land, as he'd still been with the pride as they traveled to their new home on the mountain.
"Well...it's a big world," the white male responded at last. He really wasn't sure what Adokh was asking...or if he was asking something.
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:45 pm
He was still staring off into the distance, one ear focused on Pas. Adokh wondered... He suddenly looked back at Pas. "What about you? Did you leave your pride because you were wondering about the world outside the borders?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:50 pm
Pas shrugged uncomfortably, unwilling to answer the other lion's question aloud. He wasn't sure why he didn't really want to talk about the Jini-msemi's traditions...but he just didn't feel up to all the explanations. It was hard. He couldn't leave this area without making Demani pretty angry - with good reason! - but the other male kept asking questions! If he lived here, didn't he have stuff he should be doing?
Of course, Pas conveniently forgot all the times he'd wasted an entire day doing something as silly as looking at clouds. But he'd been a kid at that time in the pride, and if he'd done so as an adult (which he had) at least he hadn't been in a pride depending on him to accomplish something with his day!
Maybe Demani would be back soon.
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Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:55 pm
And Adokh kept asking questions, until he passed out. After all, even he could keep going for only so long, and the spot he found WAS very nicely sheltered. He'd keep going later... After a nap.
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