[PRP] A Little Birdy Told Me (Yaariq x Keepa x Asban)

[Hopefolly]

IC Timeline: Near the IC start of Breytast Vindar, following few days after Beauty in the Breakdown and overlapping Burning Red.

Whether Asban was being sensible or an arrant fool thinking with his d**k, Keepa helped him when it suited her. She didn't belong to this sorry lion, she liked him, liked his company. Most of his kind were apt to treat her own like pets. Dira and Uss D'mzil came to mind, for starters. Now the seer b***h was with child, a litter of monsters she'd raise to be just like her.

"And your wife, Captain," Keepa had informed him dutifully. "She's round in the middle too. The thrall says she'll have six at least."

Asban only dared his roguish grin when no one but her was looking. Once when they were lounging near the freshwater she had asked him why, of all lionesses, he didn't try to charm himself into Freyja's den. "I don't want Kondo killing me, for one," Asban had said, "but if I were sure I'd win..." He'd nodded up to the passing lioness in question and her lovely thrall, always in tow. "She's not much for the manes. They're saying Meshindi will be his only offspring. There's a bet on it."

"What's the wager?"

"Hunting. If he doesn't have her pregnant before Breytast Vindar, whenever it is, loser hunts for the winner for a month."

Keepa had watched the pair as they drank. They did stand awfully close, but she wasn't convinced. "And did you bet for or against?"

"For. I've never seen Kondo take a female. Not out there, not in here. He's loyal to his wife, but a b*****d like him is getting it from somewhere. If he's not forcing himself on them..."

"And you? Have you 'forced yourself' on some unfortunate female before?" Keepa had turned to him, lifting up her wings, ruffling her feathers. They'd smoothed back down by time he answered.



She led Yaariq with an impeccable sense of direction and a lie. "We still have a ways to go, but we'll get there." The Pridelands. A place of unity and prosperity; lots of species, lots of food, and so old that near everyone had heard of it. The perfect decoy destination.

Kaelyndra

 

[Kaelyndra]

Hopefolly

Prosperity.

Yaariq's claws gripped a log and she hauled the rest of her body over it. Ahslen dangled over the edge, his newly opened eyes taking in the fallen leaves and needles beneath them. Back legs scrambling, she reoriented herself, and nudged the cub into a cranny in the tree.

Food.

Yaariq's head spun as she rose on shaking legs on the limb. The perch was not high--the mother did not want Ahlsen falling to his death--but it was hidden. Anticipating the absence of his mother and milk, Ahlsen began to squawk and cry in his hiding space.

"I don't know if I'll make it." Yaariq's voice was air and as distant as her mind. Perhaps she would find a huge, delicious gazelle freshly killed on the lands, it's killer mysteriously left. Maybe a bird would have fallen out of a tree. "Sorry, Keepa," she spoke out loud, apologizing for the thought she had not.

The last three days, Lakisa's voice had haunted her. It was in every stream, every rock. Now, she was too tired to respond to the trickery, though it repeated every time she walked. Keepa's promise was a godsend, but it did not fill in her sunken belly and poking ribs. It did, however, lead her to water and gradually out of the deep forest.

"You'll find someone to take him, won't you? If something happens?" If she died.  

[Hopefolly]

Kaelyndra

Yaariq took precautions to hide her son, for all the good it did. That wailing was bound to attract predators unless every beast in this forest happened to be deaf. Keepa stretched out her neck and jammed her face in the cranny, tilting her head at an angle that provided levity in a grave situation. She probably wasn't helping near as much as she thought. "You stop that fussing, cub," she ordered, gentle in her demands. Affectionately bossy.

Perhaps it wasn't Lakisa's voice Yaariq heard, but Keepa's. They acted much alike. Her wolf in eagle's feathers waddled beside her all the way to the stream. "Once we get some water you'll think clearer," she was saying along the way. "Stop talking that nonsense. A cub can't survive without his mother, you know that."  

[Kaelyndra]

Hopefolly

"He's hungry," his mother defended him. The cub, whatever his real reasons were for crying, grew silent as an eagle's face pushed into the tree. Ears laid back, he bobbed the eagle once on the nose with a clawless paw and shrunk further back into the cranny.

Yaariq waited until Keepa's head had emerged before descending the tree. The walk to the stream was shaky, though much of the outwardly apparent exhaustion was mental. "Yes," she agreed, just as she'd agreed to follow the bird to the pridelands. It was easier to nod, follow, and agree than refuse. Yaariq had no mental energy left for arguments, and if she disagreed, she simply went quiet.

Yaariq waded into the small stream, legs buckling as she lowered herself into it. She could drink while lying down. In the back of her mind, her eyes searched the water for crocodiles and the treeline for mysterious lions. What she would do if any should appear, however, was another story.  

[Hopefolly]

Kaelyndra

A story to be told in its entirety as early as tomorrow. Furtive glances cast twice to the trees when Yaariq was looking elsewhere afforded no insight into Asban's coordinates. Keepa wondered if he wasn't nearby keeping occupying himself with, say, breaking a promise. They'd made a deal the cub would be spared, and if he wanted to keep his eyes, he best comply.

Lying to Keepa was a singular affair. Fool her once, shame on her. Fool her twice? You wouldn't. She'd like to think Asban wasn't so afraid of a tiny cub that he'd risk losing the invaluable benefits of having a friend who had wings.

And a shoddy moral compass.

"Stay here and I'll go check on the little one," Keepa said. She had flapped her way several feet from the water shortly after.  

[Kaelyndra]

Hopefolly

Yaariq's head pulled out of the water, water dripping from her chin. A long breath filled her lungs, fighting against the column of water above it. She nodded at air, for Keepa had already taken flight.

Being left alone felt like floating. The water was close to her mouth, but it felt miles away. Keepa had, briefly, kept her routed to reality and now Yaariq had to witness a dream again. One in which Ahlsen, the first, lie just around a corner and waited for her to finish bathing.

So, as if humoring his ghost, that was exactly what Yaariq did. Standing, she waded further into the stream, dunking her head, shaking her body free of the muddied dust that had settled onto her coat. When the water was no longer brown, she found a rock on shore and began to groom herself. A glance was taken towards the path they'd taken from Ahlsen's tree. Hopefully, Keepa had not run into trouble. A pang of worry hit Yaariq in the stomach.  

[Hopefolly]

"And you? Have you 'forced yourself' on some unfortunate female before?" Keepa had turned to Asban, lifting up her wings, ruffling her feathers. They'd smoothed back down by time he answered.

He hadn't lied to her, smart lion. "Once," with a sober thoughtfulness and a kind of regret that didn't satisfy her want for liability. He didn't so much see his misdeeds as wrong as he did unfortunate for making him feel contrite.

Even when it came to having their innocence taken, in the eyes of so many of their male counterparts, nothing was ever about the lionesses. This one, Yaariq, Asban would have for his own. Keepa could tell by the fire in his eyes. It didn't burn bright often, but when it did, nothing but victory snuffed those flames.

So she'd told him this one would not be taken forcefully like the one before her, sexually speaking. Her cub, male or not, would be spared. Keepa furthermore planned to feast on the dead one, but she felt no need to negotiate that. If Asban didn't tell the other reavers where her corpse was, they'd be none the wiser. Her coat wasn't all that impressive anyway, and her teeth were old and broken.

Here by the stream, she took to a branch where she could easier see than be seen. And there she waited.

Asban's encore debut had no flair worth a bard's time. She was different. They could craft many dolorous melodies about this sad, beautiful lioness. After he stepped from the shrubs to the far right of her, he called not to her, but for her, as a mother would their cub. As she would Ahlsen. "Yaariq."

Kaelyndra

 

[Kaelyndra]

Hopefolly

The dreamworld quickly became a nightmare.

There he stood, a dirtied cream mane held high. Dark fur, wrinkled by crisp brown patterns. His eyes seemed larger and brighter against the cream patchwork around them. But dark as they were, no less haunting.

Her heart pounded in her ears and she bolted into a sitting position, Yaariq's front legs splayed out in front of her. Ahlsen was nestled safely in the tree. Keepa was there to protect him. As long as he didn't wail...

She'd have to lead Asban away from the tree. "Go away," she tried, firmly, willing the apparition to dissipate.  

[Hopefolly]

Kaelyndra

Leaving was the least he owed her. He'd killed her mother, or an elder sister. Maybe a friend. A loss that he couldn't atone for today, nor for many days to come. But in time, she would forgive him. As sure as he damned her, he'd save her too.

"Get your son," he ordered evenly. "Bring him with you. Once we're home, I'll bring you meat," said the lion who was not her mate, not her lover, yet spoke in soft voices of favors and promises. This was infuriatingly easy for him, Keepa felt.

Go with him, Yaariq, the eagle pleaded. You'll only make it worse if you don't.  

[Kaelyndra]

Hopefolly

Home.

Ahlsen had used that word. He promised they would one day have one. They didn't have to travel forever. Yet, even when they'd had a daughter, Ahlsen did not settle. It was as though he had a personal bug, which bit him every time he spent a single day too long.

Meat.

Yaariq did not know she'd begun to salivate until her tongue was wet when it swept over her drying nose. She swallowed. If her stomach had made the choice, she would have followed without hesitation.

"You're planning to hurt him." Adrenaline followed her pulsating heart. Sensing she had a bargaining chip in herself--the look in Asban's eye made her shiver--Yaariq pleaded her case, "I'll throw myself into a river if you do."  

[Hopefolly]

Throw herself in and what? Drown, leaving the cub to starve? Drown the both of them? Asban had heard rumors of thralls mercy killing their young rather than forcing them into a life of servitude. Some said it was what had happened to Kondo's wife and daughters. Giving up was a universal experience, shared across all species in all lands. He'd known this since he'd learned to hunt.

His preferred method remained exhausting his prey. Take their fight before their life. But he need tread carefully here. Capture, not kill.

"No." A fool would have denied her the right to her own death. Asban instead denied the truth of what she spoke on his behalf. "I won't hurt him for as long as you're with me, you have my word." He glanced in the direction he thought Keepa might be, and he hadn't known this was the same path that led to Ahlsen.  

[Kaelyndra]

Asban glanced, and Yaariq stumbled onto all fours. The weariness in her legs was gone, and her mind prepared for another sprint. Physically, it would be impossible for her to win, but Yaariq would still try.

The tension, however, did not snap. Asban did not move towards her son, and Yaariq eventually remembered to breathe.

"Alright."

As she turned, one ear remained on Asban. Yaariq's strides were long as she headed back towards the pathway. It was hard not to sprint, but she reminded herself any quick movements might change her captor's mind.

Maybe, she thought with a false hope that gave its own strength, Lakisa was already at this place called home. At least Keepa would be spared the lion's teeth. Sensing they were close, Yaariq's eyes searched for the tree.  

[Hopefolly]

Relief. That's what Asban felt. Their individual trails of thought led them to the same lioness. I should have kept her alive. The physical trail led them to the cub, luckier than Lakisa, who probably would have wanted it that way.

Asban kept far enough Yaariq had room to breathe, close enough she had no room to run. The others were too far ahead as it was; two more days was two too many.

Any birds Asban saw were not the one he sought.
 

[Kaelyndra]

The struggle up the tree was harder than she remembered. Bark was ripped off, leaving scars in the flora. The mewling started before she'd reached the branch she needed.

Scraped, but relieved, Yaariq's head disappear from view. When it returned, a scruffy, thin cub was held her in jaws. She all but slid back down the tree.

Without speaking, either because she was afraid to set her child down or because she did not wish to, Yaariq approached Asban's side. The white lioness kept her eyes on the ground and her head low. It was signal enough she was ready to be led, wherever that might take her.