Jhulsa did not like to sleep. Sleep was wasted time and missed opportunities. The world moved on without her while she slept, and that was unacceptable. She had a finite amount of time to live, to be, to seek and find everything that she was looking for, and she didn't want to spend a moment of it with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, biology disagreed with her assertion that sleep was unnecessary, and now matter how strong her will, she had to sleep now and then. And so she did, in fits and starts and not quite often enough.
It had become a sort of game, a challenge, to see just how long she could manage to stay awake, and the longer she went, the more interesting it became. It had started simply enough, a stubborn unwillingness to shut her eyes, but it was beginning to become more than that. The effects had been aggravating at first, a nuisance, but she soon became fascinated by them.
Almost two days in to her first intentional trial, she had certainly felt - and looked - better, but it was tolerable. Though usually one to go at a slow and deliberate pace anyway, she found herself having to move more slowly than usual, as her coordination was lacking, to say the least. It didn't help that her vision would go blurry occasionally, or that she was starting to see things out of the corner of her eye. She'd stopped turning to try to get a better look at them after she'd run into a tree.
Which explained why she didn't notice Jackal until he'd bumped right into her...and why, after staggering and having to sit gracelessly in order to avoid falling over, she stared at him with narrowed, skeptical eyes.
That lion was probably real, but she wasn't entirely sure. At the risk of talking to thin air (in which case, no one would be around to know, so it was safe enough), she offered a flat "Hello."
The male she'd bumped into didn't seem the least bit bothered by her clumsiness, instead returning her greeting and commenting, after some pause, that she was 'a pretty one.' At least, she was reasonably certain that was what said. Things were just...flitting in and out of her head so erratically that sometimes it was difficult to hold onto them. Had Jhulsa thought her impromptu experiment through a bit further before undertaking it, she might have postponed until after she got home and could conduct it in relative safety. Depriving herself of sleep while alone in rogue lands was, admittedly, not one of her better ideas to get carried away by. But she had wanted to know, and that was a desire she had always been prone to obsession with. Wisdom and good judgement had yet to catch up with the physically adult lioness.
But the important thing was that he was speaking. So. Real. Good. Except maybe not, because this was hardly a fitting state to meet someone in. Jhulsa canted her head to the side and blinked at the stranger, clearing bothersome spots from her vision so that she could get a better look at him. Once she had, she was able to determine, "So're you."
Not a statement she would ordinarily have chosen to make, but it was the first that came to mind, and the wait for another to form would have been long. It was better than a blank stare.
His response was to look and sound amused when he thanked her, studying her carefully, and taking a slow step forward as he asked, "What's your name?"
That was an easy question! Thank goodness. She could practically feel her intelligence level dropping as the hours passed, a particularly unsettling side effect. Coordination and vision issues she could handle and even be amused by, decreased thought process not so much. "Jhulsa," she answered, a little faster than her previous reply. "'Til I find a better one."
A moment, and she remembered to ask, "Yours?"
"Jackal," was the answer, straightforward but also odd. That was a word, a thing, not name. But what was a name but a different word for a word?
"You're not a jackal," Jhulsa observed in a moment of shining, brilliant obviousness that she would likely find embarrassing later, assuming she remembered the details of this conversation. Even then, assuming that she did, the male would probably be long gone, back to whatever journey he was on (or maybe he was just a wanderer?), and they would both more or less forget this encounter as just another conversation with another passing stranger. That was what life in the rogue lands seemed to be thus far: just a series of random, usually meaningless encounters.
Rather than confirm or refute her observation, the stranger made one of his own, "It's getting late. Do you have a safe place to sleep for the night? Or do you not, and that's why haven't slept?"
The implication was subtle enough that Jhulsa had no hope of picking up on it in her current state. She was far too busy leaning gradually but ever more precariously to the side while she processed what he was saying. Late? Hmm, yes, she supposed it was, though for her it had been 'late' for a day or so. "It's not that I don't have anywhere to sleep," she asserted, "I just didn't want to."
"You...don't want to sleep?" A brow quirked up in incredulity. "Why is that?"
"I wanted to..." There was a brief pause, accompanied by a furrowing of her brow, while she tried to summon the words she wanted. "The effects. I wanted to observe the effects." Problem was, the effects made observation difficult.
Jackal met her answer thoughtful silence, watching her lean ever further to the side while he shook his head. That was a new one, for sure. Deprive yourself of sleep jsut for the sake of seeing what would happen. It spoke to a great curiosity, and the way she worded herself even half-aware to not insignificant intelligence, but not so much to forethough. "It's dangerous, is what it is." Still, he was curious to know what she had observed about it for herself. "And what have you observed?"
"That is...not incorrect," she decided after taking a long moment to consider, a moment during which she also realized she was looking at him at a rather odd angle due to the fact that she was leaning, and straightened up into a proper sit again. He was interested, and that was actually quite exciting! Enough to bring her a little more alertness, at least. "Coordination and balance go-" there was another word she wanted, but 'go' worked well enough, "Faster than I expected. Started seeing things, awhile ago. Hard to tell if I've been hearing things, I haven't been going to check."
"Now that, Jhulsa, is a wise decision. As, I think, would be ending your experiment before anything untoward can happen." He frowned, trying to decide what to do with this lioness - he didn't want to leave her alone for someone else to find, but would she come with him elsewhere? "I could escort you, if you would allow it?"
"That...you may be right," she agreed after some thought. "I think...I think maybe I'll stay here. Jhulsa slowly sagged to the ground. "Yes, I think I'll stay here. It's...good."
Here it was, then. Jackal made himself comfortable at his current respectful distance, not too close to the odd lioness he barely knew but found himself deeply intrigued by.
