OOC: Ahahaha, I started working on this when they WERE juveniles... 8D;;;
Digging in a spot against the rock face of the outside of the medical wards, Kiran tried to get at the dried remains of some plant. He let out a frustrated growl, his ears back, before gripping it with his teeth and pulling. He tugged... And tugged... And tugged.. And tu-- With a dull snap, the bit he'd been gripping broke, sending the white juvenile tumbling in the sand. When he sat up, he glared at the plant. "Yui dokm vroms!" He got up, going back up to it and digging at it again. "Get out of the dokm ground!"
She heard a commotion, and it wasn't the plethora of lions in the wards being tended to. Aurinko frowned, padding around a rock. There she found Kiran, attacking a plant. As he tumbled, cussed at it, and went back at it, she let out a sigh. The black and red cub slowly walked over, her own ears going back. "If the plant offended you, that's no reason to attack it like that. Stop wasting energy on it, and use the common language! None of that stupid Hongshan babble!" She gave him a hearty shove, knocking him back into the sand. "Why do you want this stupid dead thing, anyway?"
Kiran glared for a moment, rolling over and getting back to his paws. "It's not just stupid babble, Aurinko!" He went back over to the dead bush remnants. "And I'm trying to get this, because Singh needs it!" Once again he began digging at it, sending sand flying. As his claws tore at the ground, the sand soon turned to actual dirt, dried and dusty. Finally, he tugged it free, tumbling in the sand. After a moment, he got up, untangling from his hard-won prize. "A good medic can communicate with their patients, anyway. If I can speak the Hongshan's language, then I can make them more comfortable with my presence when I ask them what ails them!"
Aurinko gave a sniff, then batted at the plant. "Is this thing even WORTH the trouble? What does it even DO?" She then eyed him, frowning deeply. "The Hongshan are... Weird..." She glanced over her shoulder toward where they were staying. "It's so strange, because they're so like us and yet NOT like us..." She took a seat next to Kiran, tail flicking. "Do you think the stories of monsters from the north are true...? I mean..." She reached up, rubbing a shoulder, suddenly slightly self-concious. "WE were called monsters, once..."
Finally free of the long-dead plant, Kiran jabbed it with one of his own paws. "This? Um... I'm not sure yet. Singh just said to get it for him." He picked it up, putting it on his back, then paused at Aurinko's words on the Hongshan. "I think they're true... My sister..." He shifted, looking away, slightly embarrassed. "She sees things. Our uncle Kosuke encourages her... Mother does, too, because she says Arevik is a Seer... And two of her own sisters were seers, and our grandmother was a seer... And she says Great-Uncle Kidondo is a seer... So they encourage Arevik. But she Sees things... Lions with bones for faces, scary, unruly-looking... Filthy in some cases..." He shook his head, not liking his sister's visions.
She tilted her head, listening. His sister was a seer? She'd never known that before now. "Oh wow... I can't imagine what that's like... I don't think any of my brothers or sisters are seers... I'm not sure ANY of my relatives are..." Seer visions sounded more like horrible nightmares. "But what of us? Are we still monsters...?" She didn't want to be considered one. There were lions out there that were nothing more than blood-thirsty monsters, and others who weren't even out for blood - They destroyed from the inside all that was good. Aurinko was nothing like that... Was she?
He started toward the medic dens, waving a paw. "Nah, we're not monsters! Not ANYMORE, anyway... Uncle Kosuke said once, we weren't just fierce, we took what we wanted, when we wanted... And we kept SLAVES!" The way he'd been told it, once upon a time, all had been low before the Blood. Unworthy were beaten into submission, and if they were lucky... They were killed. He noticed the look on Aurinko's face. "Well we don't keep them NOW... Regardless of how loud Uncle Kosuke complains." He didn't care either way for or against slaves, personally. As far as he truly cared, he only cared that it was part of their history, a piece of the past to look at and learn from. "Besides, we couldn't keep slaves NOW... Too many new-blood lions." Like her parents.
Her jaw dropped and eyes widened. They kept SLAVES? "Wow... We were so fierce and mighty we put OTHER lions to work doing stuff FOR us..." She was thoughtful for a moment, and it almost looked like she LIKED the idea. Then... "But that breeds lazy idiots for cubs, so doing away with slavery was for the best." Nevermind what else doing away with slavery stood for, she just didn't want to see lazy lions! Everybody had a role in the pride and had to do it. They just HAD to! If they got lazy in their duties because somebody else was doing it FOR them, it opened them up to problems down the line, like invasion from the monsters. Aurinko frowned, ears back as she sat up straight. "When I have cubs, I'm going to teach them that keeping slaves is a bad idea, because it leads to LAZINESS, and I won't have lazy cubs!"
Kiran eyed Aurinko, frowning. "That's assuming some lion is going to go NEAR you to breed!" He grinned as he ran away, cracking up laughing as she yelled at him.
The red-striped lioness let out a roar as best she could, given her present age and size, hackles raising as she gave chase. "GET BACK HERE, YOU SAND-BRAINED MEDIC!" She tried to grab him, but he proved just a bit more agile, dodging her every attempt. She chased him into the den, only to be chased back out a short while later, after a distinct crashing sound, by a rather angry Singh. Who knew, even the pale medic got mad...
