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 Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:03 pm
As was not unexpected, it was a beautiful day in the Jungle. Humid, as usual, but nice and sunny- at least in the areas where the sun could get through the overhanging trees. Mtima'safi had been in the Jungle for a short while now, and despite her lingering sorrow over leaving her family, was rather enjoying herself. She'd not yet started really looking for the friend she'd hoped to find amongst these trees, but expected she might try it soon.
While she walked, she hummed quietly a song she'd heard from a lioness near the Pridelands not too long after she'd first arrived there. Mtima remembered the meeting well, and wondered what had become of the lovely purple lioness. She thought about it idly, walking along and watching her surroundings carefully. Her wings were not hidden from mortal sight as they had been for a good amount of time recently, she was still working on rediscovering the value of being herself, a goddess, and not the mortal she'd been pretending to be.
It was nice.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:27 pm
 Mfuto lay at the base of the tree which Alana had been calling home, taking in the sparse sun which escaped through the branches. He tried his hardest to enjoy the warmth of the sunlight, despite his melencholy. For about a month now, he'd been traipsing the jungle with the leopardess and her daughter, trying to call the place home... but it didn't feel quite right. It felt like something was missing. Of course, he knew exactly what was missing. He hated how he could be so angry with Uten, and yet still miss him so much. After all, it had been Mfuto who had told Uten to go on without him, who had chosen to stay behind with Alana and help look after Heu. He should be content... but he wasn't. And the long gashes down his side, healing yet still sore, weren't helping either.
In fact, Mfuto had concluded that his current position was uncomfortable as it had him lying on his scars. Thus, he wriggled and shifted and flopped over, making quite a show of it, until he landed such that his scars were now exposed to the sun. In the process of this feat, his eyes happened upon quite a curious sight. He spied the form of what seemed to be a lioness, and yet great wide wings bloomed from her back. She was like nothing Mfuto had ever seen before, and he regarded her with a great curiosity. His misery briefly forgotten over perplexity, he propped himself and called out to the passing lady, "Ascuse me miss! What is you? Is yer mommy a birds?" He blinked rapidly and cocked his head to the side like a dog, awaiting reply. Physically he may be an adolescent, but mentally he was still a child.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:44 pm
Mtima'safi caught sight of a strange young lion shortly before it called out to her in rather poor grammar. She couldn't tell if it was an accent or mental age that caused it to be so, but certainly assumed the former. She offered a friendly smile, and walked closer to answer his question. It would be rude to walk on and ignore him, and she wasn't one to be rude intentionally. Not to mention it only took a single glance to tell that this lion possessed a good soul.
"There are no birds in my family, as far as I am aware," she answered, wrinkling her nose in amusement at the idea. It wasn't a bad theory for someone who wasn't aware of gods, in fact it wasn't anything she hadn't heard before. Perhaps not in those words precisely, but it was no new idea. "I am a goddess," Mtima answered quite simply, preparing to explain should he ask more about it.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 12:54 pm
Mfuto's ears drooped at first. He had been momentarily excited, thinking he was the first to discover some kind of special lion-bird hybrid. But he was quickly reinterested when he found out what she actually was. He gasped, and his bright green eyes widened. "Wowwwwwwwwwwww... reallies!?" he cried.
He seemed to remember his father saying something to him of goddesses before he had passed, though the calico lion's recollection of his father's words was vague at best. He strained to cobble together what he did remember into some semblance of an idea of what a goddess was. The effort was hurting his head. "So..." he began, even as he was still putting the thought together, "...does that means you can does magic trickses?" He blinked. Yes, that was what goddesses did. Magic... right? He hoped he wasn't mistaken. He also remembered a vague description of something called... 'gopherses', or something. Maybe those were the magic ones. He blushed a little, though continued to stare unappologetically. Only someone as innocent as Mfuto could regard a goddess in such a way and be unafraid. Mfuto didn't think anything of it.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:03 pm
Mfuto's reaction to her being a goddess was her first indication that he might not be quite as mentally aged as his body was. The fact was not given much attention, and she quite enjoyed his shock and questions about it.
"Yes, really," she confirmed with a slight grin, "Magic? Somewhat, the only magic that I can do that you would be able to see is illusion. However, that is so far from what I do that it is very limited."
As the goddess of the souls, control over the physical aspects of herself and others, even temporarily, was not something that came easily to her. It'd been catching up with her, hiding her wings for so long, and her energy for such attempts was restored. Energy or not, it was not her greatest talent.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:19 pm
Mfuto smiled brightly at the goddess, pleased at her friendly attitude towards him. It had been an awful long time since Mfuto had seen a nice person besides Heu. Well, to be fair, Alana was quite nice herself, but she was always so sad and quiet. Besides those two, Mfuto was slowly becoming convinced that every other nice person had fallen off the face of the earth, and he was glad to be proven wrong.
Besides, having the goddess to talk to gave Mfuto something else to focus on besides his own sadness. Her next comment confused him a bit, and he furrowed his brow. Limited magic? That was about all Mfuto had comprehended from her statement. Having processed this, the young lion went right on with his questioning. "So... if'n you doesn't do magics, what does you do?" He wondered what kind of goddess she could possibly be, if she couldn't do magic.
It was entirely possible that the true idea of a goddess was something too abstract for Mfuto to grasp.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:37 pm
Mtima watched Mfuto, and had a feeling what she said wasn't quite as clear as she had hoped. It wasn't exactly the easiest thing for her to explain, though, so that was certain to be a part of the problem. At his next question, she thought her answer through more carefully.
"I'm a guardian, of sorts," she tried to explain, "It's complicated." How was one to explain the specific job of a god? There was not much for one to do that would directly effect the souls of others.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 1:49 pm
A guardian? Well, Mfuto didn't think that was very complicated at all. A guardian was something he could understand... someone who looks out for someone or something. He beamed at the goddess and bounced up and down in place with excitement. "Ohhhh, I sees!" he said, perhaps a little more loudly than the distance between them required. "I's a guardian-sorta too! I looks after mah friend Alana's daughtah Heu when Alana's off doin' somethin's else. She calls me a 'babysitter', but I doesn't think that's right." His nose wrinkled up a bit at the thought of this. "I means, I doesn't do a lotsa sittin' when I's with Heu. We does a lotsa playin'." He nodded firmly then, to add a sort of certainty to his statement. He thought that perhaps he and this goddess had found some sort of common ground, now, as guardians.
Then he remembered his manners. "Oh yeah!" he yelped. He stood up tall before her, puffed out his chest with rather silly-looking pride and declared, "I is Mfuto! Is nice to meet you, missus." He then bowed to her stumblingly before sitting once again. There, a proper introduction. A little out of order, but at least he'd set it right.
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Posted: Mon May 21, 2007 3:21 pm
Mtima looked pleased when her description got a positive reaction, perhaps it wasn't necessary to go into complicated, detailed explanations. She listened carefully as he explained how he too was a guardian, smiling as he described how he did more playing than sitting. That sounded like a perfect babysitter, in her opinion. He obviously enjoyed the playing.
"That's wonderful, you sound like a delightful guardian," she complimented brightly. She smiled, and nodded to his bow when he finally introduced himself, realizing that she too had been somewhat distracted by their conversations. "My name is Mtima'safi, it's a pleasure to meet you Mfuto."
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:09 pm
Mfuto blushed a little as the goddess complimented him, and smiled bashfully. He felt the sadness in his heart diminish just a tiny bit. After all, to be complimented as a guardian by a professional guardian is a very big deal. He must be very good indeed. "Thankies," he murmured. Then, for a moment, he hesitated, then amended, "But, it don't even feels like work ta me or nothin's. I likes lookin' after Heu. Makes me feel... a'portent... or somethin'..." He shuffled his feet awkwardly. He was old enough now that, even being the way he was, he understood how developmentally behind he was. When he looked after Heu, though, he didn't quite feel as... useless.
He put on a chipper face at Mtima's introduction. He'd hate to show her anything less than cheer and pleasantry; anything else he'd think would be rude. "Is nice ta meetcha again, Missus Mattie-ma," he declared, finding 'Mtima'safi' a bit too much of a mouthful for his clumsy tongue. He figured what he managed was close enough.
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 9:24 pm
Mtima couldn't help but beam at Mfuto as he described the pleasure he got out of babysitting thus Heu, for it was certainly a fantastic thing to find something you enjoy and that makes you feel important. It was especially important to be good with cubs, something that wasn't always easy. She supposed it would be easy for Mfuto to relate, he certainly seemed as innocent and sweet as a cub- well, most cubs.
"That's good, and keeping cubs safe and happy is a very important job," she complimented again.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 12:06 pm
By this point, Mfuto's face had started to hurt from smiling. Perhaps, he thought, he was smiling too hard. But he was enthusiastic about this smiling. He hadn't been complimented so much or treated so nicely since...
...oh, Uten.
Mfuto's smile dropped from his face, and he hung his head. The distressing events of the last couple months were now rushing back to him. He backed up a little, and leaned against the tree for support. His brain, which had trouble even processing the most basic of information, was all tangled up and burned out over his encounter with that bloodthirsty lady, and over what Uten had done. He sighed, and then he looked up at the goddess with pleading eyes. Goddesses were supposed to be super-special people... maybe she'd have some answers for him. "Um... Missus Mattie'ma?" he addressed her softly. "I was wonderin'... does you know what makes peoples... bad?" He hung his head again. He didn't like to think of his former bestest-bestest friend as 'bad'... but he certainly wasn't good anymore either.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 9:23 pm
Mtima could see the goodness in the young lion, but she could not read his mind as he suddenly seemed to get sad. She could only really wait for him to explain what he was thinking about, and wasn't sure she should pry. However, it wasn't like she wasn't trustworthy!
"Is something wrong, dear?" she asked with an encouraging smile. When he got his question out, her smile because more sympathetic. There had to be a reason he was asking about someone being bad, and that was a shame really.
"Well, sometimes they aren't actually bad when they do bad things," Mtima explained, trying to treat the subject carefully and speak in terms that he could understand, "Everyone has a soul, it is basically their personality. Sometimes it's good-natured, sometimes it's not. But it can change, though it's rare to change dramati- a lot." It was a somewhat simple explanation of her own domain, it was explaining how people were good and bad in something she knew. Your soul pre-determined your nature, but nuture had it's effects. The greatest mystery to the goddess was her own daughter, who went from very bad to rather good.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 11:03 am
Mfuto tried to let the goddess' warmth and compassion and mere presence comfort him, but it just wouldn't work. Nothing felt the same without Uten there. When Mfuto had been orphaned and alone, Uten had been there for him and taken him in and treated him like a little brother. When they had become seperated, Uten had searched everywhere to find him again. They had been quite the little family.
Mfuto just couldn't understand how Uten could turn his back on his real family so easily. It was something Mfuto couldn't have and wouldn't have ever done.
But he looked up curiously and expectantly as Mtima began to explain to him. He sat there, riveted, staring and unmoving, and took in all her words, slowly processing them even as she spoke, trying to apply them to his own situation. "Soul..." Mfuto murmured, pondering the idea of it. He thought he recalled his father mentioning something about a soul when he was small. "So... so... Uten's not bad... his 'soul' jus' got rotteded?" Mfuto questioned. That was his best understanding of the situation, anyway.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 12:20 pm
Mtima tried to keep an encouraging smile as the poor young lion seemed not to cheer up very much, if at all. At least as she explained he looked interested, and like he really was trying to understand what she meant by it all. She patiently allowed him to get out his entire question, not rushing him- she had all the time she could ever need.
"Possibly," she agreed, deciding to go with the analogy that Mfuto used and understood. To anyone with a good soul, it would certainly seem as if another's rotted when they became less good-natured, "There might be other reasons, though I couldn't say."
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