The drone of the waterfall in the distance had been what originally captured her attention, it had been what originally drew her in the direction she was heading. She had departed from the rest of her siblings, growing bored and tired of their antics, striking out on her own to sit down with thoughts of a relaxing afternoon and perhaps a nap. What she had not originally planned upon was finding her sister, although it shouldn't have really surprised her. She did often seem to be found sitting alone - talking to herself to boot.
It was her scent that drew her first, mingled with that of water, the smell she knew as well as her own mother or father's - as well as her own. Her paws shifted to that direction, a soft hum on her voice, a playful smirk upon her maw, and eyes searching for the figure of her sister among the newly growing foliage. Her ears perked as she heard a voice, then the abrupt end of what seemed to be a one-sided conversation, although she couldn't make out any words over the drone of a waterfall.
"Who are you talking to, Jasisi?" she asked in an almost sing-songy manner, steps light with a little dance as she rounded the boulder she had determined her sister had chosen to hide behind.
"Kayro," Jasisi answered. She'd mentioned him more than once to her siblings already, and the lion had never seemed to find fault with that. Not that he had ever been able to fully explain his aversion to her family. She had looked up at her sister's pawsteps, and rolled over onto her back in the grass. The contrast between the two greens--her dead fur and the living grasses--was a great, obvious one. Not that she ever seemed to mind how much like her ghastly-looking father she appeared. "He left, though. You're aweful far from the caves, arn't you?""Oh, left did he?" She asked with a quirked eyebrow, turning to look around slowly and making a point of exaggerating the gesture. Well, she certainly didn't see him, and if he was as brightly colored as her sister said, he should have stuck out against the still mostly-dead landscape like a sore thumb. "He must run pretty fast," she said with a bit of a nod, letting herself flop and slump comfortably against the side of the boulder. "Yeah, so? You're pretty far from the caves too."
"Seems that way." Jasisi replied with a deep frown. She didn't like the implications in Zuri's tone, but knew better than to react to it. Calling her sister on implying that she was a liar was only bound to start a fight, and Jasisi simply didn't feel like fighting right now. "Yeah.. but I'm usually far from them."
Satisfied with that counter, Jasisi stuck her tongue out childishly. "why'd you come?" Zuri quirked an eyebrow at her sister, picking up her paw and examining it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. "Just because you're out here all the time doesn't mean you own the waterfall," she said calmly, "I've got just as much right to come out here and talk to imaginary friends as you do."
She yawned slightly, rolling over onto her back, letting her indigo eyes shift up towards the sky overhead. "I was thinking about naming mine Nanu, what do you think?"
"I didn't say i owned it!" Jasisi snapped in return. She rolled onto her feet again and stood to shake the grass loose from her fur. Throwing a glare at her sister, the elder girl snorted derisively. "And he's not imaginary! He's just really quiet and skillful. Don't be so mean." Zuri shifted her eyes to stare in the direction of her sister, watching her calmly, but with a look upon her face that said she had absolutely no idea what Jasisi was going on about. "Mean? I'm not being mean Jasisi, quit being so sensitive." She flickered her tail, shaking her head and waved a dismissive paw. "Of course I believe you, I mean, it's perfectly reasonable, I don't see why everyone else is giving you a hard time." She shrugged, looking up at a lazy cloud overhead, humming under her breath.
"But you were just--" Jasisi frowned then sighed. She shook her head and huffed. Her fur was on end and after a second she bent her neck to lick it back down.
When the girl seemed to have her fur in rights again, she lifted her eyes to Zuri's gaze. "So why'd you really leave the caves? Zuri was deeply amused with her sister's confusion and mild anger, drawing terrible satisfaction from her ability to say whatever she wanted and be able to come across as perfectly honest. However, she never pursued a subject that was dropped, as that always seemed to bust her jests wide open.
"Really?" She sighed and pushed herself to her feet, glancing over her shoulder with a bit of a frown on her mug, and then back to her sister. "I was playing in a cave," she whispered, "when I saw a ghost."
Jasisi's ears flattened back. She was, perhaps, a little too gullible when it came to her sister... and especially so when it came to the subject of the paranormal. "it wasn't.. wasn't him was it?" The fearful whisper held a slight quavering note to it. Certainly none of their siblings had yet to run into the darkness that haunted her nights, but that did not mean it wouldn't happen. She'd long since warned them all, and repeated the things it whispered to her from the shadows; bad, bad things whispered from the shadows.For a moment her sister almost faltered, almost, because she was confused as to who she meant. At the last possible moment, just before she ruined it all with letting her expression change, she remembered what her sister was going on about. More of those silly ideas. "No, no I don't think so," she said quietly, her voice still barely above a whisper, "I think it was a female."
She scrunched her features up, as if she were confused over something, "she was saying something, but I couldn't understand. She scared me so.. I came out here." She hesitated, glancing up at her sister with a look of what almost seemed to be a look of nervousness.
"Oh.. ... well.. at least it wasn't.. him." Jasisi nodded. "maybe we should go see what she wants."
The green cub looked around the boulder back towards the caves from whence Zuri had come. After a moment she nodded and stood up. "Yeah, we should go see what she wants. It might be important!" Without further ado, Jasisi began making her way back to the cave at a healthy lope.
Zuri smirked as her sister promptly began to stalk off, rolling herself over slowly, pushing herself up, and shaking the bits of grass that clung to her tri-colored fur. Then with a little chuckle, she leapt to catch up with her sister and let her look of nervousness fall right back into place.
"Jasisi, are you sure?" she asked quietly, her tail flickering as she walked along, though her ears were somewhat drooped as if the simple idea of going back in the cave were making her uncomfortable.
"yep!" Jasisi replied confidently. The girl nodded and continued her stalk towards the cave. The buzzing in the back of her head took on an aggrieved tone, the jumble of words sorting itself out into a convoluted sort of message. She barely had time to register that it'd made some form of sense (even if it was an odd sense) before the "message" dissolved into nonsense again.
That went by with barely a flick of an ear to betray her surprise. It happened more often than it really should have, all considered, and Jasisi knew better than to make any big deal of it. "Maybe the ghost needs help. Or it wants a friend! It probably didn't mean to scare you." Zuri frowned and glanced down at her paws as she walked, as if she were pretending to consider her sister's words. Of course, it was more to hide the slight curl of her mug into a smirk, but she was confident that Jasisi was too caught up in what she was doing to notice the slight faltering.
As they neared the caves, she turned her indigo eyes up towards them, letting them shift over the caves as she chose one at random. She really hadn't been in one at all, and to make this even slightly believable, she had to be able to point it out easily. "There," she said in a shakey whisper, slowing down as she eyed a random cave. "I saw her there."
Jasisi nodded. She followed her sister's point, never catching the slight smirk upon her face, and headed out towards the cave without much of a pause.
Scrambling up the side of the cliff wasn't too hard with the natural pathways worn into them, but the cave that Zuri had pointed out happened to be one of the ones the pride hadn't used in quite some time. Probably not since their mother's childhood days.
Jasisi stopped just outside the doorway and paused a moment, peering about its edge. "Helloo?" She called softly. "HellOOOOoooo?"
When no one answered, she looked back over her shoulder to Zuri's direction. After a baffled look, the girl shrugged and went into the darkness beyond.Zuri climbed up after her sister slowly, finding it just as easy, although she had never been the specific cave before despite her little lie. She was glad it happened to have an easy path and not one that ended up being a little more difficult - that could have ended badly if she had had to explain how she got there.
"Maybe.. she's hiding?" Zuri asked with a frown, brows furrowed, pausing at the entrance of the cave with her paws rooted. She tucked her tail and let her ears droop, looking as if she were afraid to go in. "Or maybe she's gone, we can just.. leave too?"
"No way! she might need our help!" jasisi insisted. The juvenile kept right on making her way back into the darkness. "HELLOOOO! We want to help you!"
Suddenly the girl stopped and her fur abruptly stood on end. A shudder made its way from the base of her tail up to the tips of her ears. She tried to ignore the glowing red eyes in the darkness, but there were there at her peripheral vision. He always was. She was in the middle of looking meek and scared, listening to her sister call out to something that didn't exist, brows furrowed, when she noticed the difference in Jasisi's stance. She took a hesitant step into the cave, glancing around, double-checking to make sure there truly
wasn't something in here.
"Do you see something, Jasisi?" she asked, trying to appear calm, but what if there really was something in the cave?
Jasisi began to back out of the cave and ran into her sister. She sat down heavily when she touched the familiar fur and whispered over her shoulder. "he's here.. d-don't.. don't make any sudden movements.. ok?"Zuri furrowed her brows at the darkness around them, moving her head slowly in an attempt to make sure nothing was there. Then she realized why her sister had put the emphasis on the word and almost sighed. Her sister and those silly imaginary friends of hers, they made her want to give her a good fwap. "Jasisi," she said softly, "I don't see anybody here."
"He's here. I saw him Zuri.." She frowned, "He just doesn't like being seen... he doesn't like taking people alone... if we stick together and leave I don't think he'll hurt us." A dark voice chuckled in her ear. She flickered her tail and quirked an eyebrow at her sister, taking another glance around the cave. She wasn't quite sure what her sister was on about, and with a bit of a sigh, she simply decided the best way to deal was this was to get it over with. She didn't want to play with Jasisi's imaginary friends right now. "Alright, Jasisi, alright," she said quietly, nudging her sister lightly, "come on then, it's just a few more steps out of the cave and then..
he can't get y- us. He can't get us." She wanted to call him the boogey man, but she didn't think her sister would appreciate that.
"Y-yeah.. yeah that's probably best." Jasisi agreed. "I feel bad for the lioness-ghosty, though.. trapped in here with.." She shuddered, "him."
Turning, the girl gave a few bouncing leaps to reach the edge of the cave and sunlight. She looked behind her again and gave a final shudder. Urzo's laughter followed her as she lead her sister back down the path.
Zuri stayed close to her sister as they made the short walk out of the cave, her eyes shifting behind them towards the darkness. Her words passed over her, though she remained unmoved, choosing to stare into the darkness instead. There was nothing there, she was sure of it, positive. "Yeah, poor lioness," she said softly, her indigo eyes slowly falling back upon her sister. With her back turned, Jasisi never saw the confusion that passed over Zuri's face, or the worry.
With a soft sigh, she began to follow her sister back down the path, taking it slowly, her mind reeling as she tried to figure out what had just happened.
