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 Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:52 pm
This was the way things were for Jai, the way he remembered for a long time now, the way it would probably always be. His inability to function as a fit male might have showed clearly. He was thin - not enough to count his ribs, no, but the vertebrae of his spine were visible upon close inspection, and his hip bones seemed wider than his stomach. He certainly didn't like it, no, but he'd grown accustomed to it. He considered himself at least somewhat lucky to stumble upon the remains of some kill that had been left behind earlier that day, and after picking what was left from the bones, he found a shady spot to relax, to sit and ponder and wish.
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 8:47 am
Snaedis knew too well what it was like to be without a pride, but she was a fit and capable lioness with both of her eyes. She was also without a pride by choice, not by coincidence. While being a rogue lion didn't have many perks, it did have one massive pro to the numerous cons: She was totally and utterly responsible for herself, and no one else. It was nice like that. She could be risky without endangering the lives of everyone else in her pride; she could play it safe and run instead of staying to fight solely because her pride's leader told her to. It was up to her what she did.
Sometimes Snaedis did feel the tug deep in some hidden part of her to follow after some lion's footsteps, to join his pride. For her sake, thankfully, it wasn't often. Most prides weren't very well established, and if they were, they'd hardly want some old rogue who'd probably die before being of any use. She was getting less and less capable of finding her meals, age slowing her lunges and instincts. But damned if she couldn't hunt something down. Today, it was large; she'd probably only eat half of it and leave the rest to the scavengers.
The white lioness stood out boldly, surrounded by grass that was certainly not pale enough to conceal her striking fur. The sun danced off it mockingly; that was another con that most prides would kick her out for. They'd deem her unable to hunt because of camoflouge. Pff. She ripped into the animal's side thoughtfully, and lifted her head, looking around. She didn't expect to see another lion or something like that, she was instead checking for any scavengers who'd think of getting two meals for the price of one.
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Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:34 am
Some said that when you lost one sense, your others grew stronger instantly. It hadn't quite so quickly developed with Jai; he found that his other senses sharpened out of necessity. Though his sense of smell hadn't evolved quite as much as his sense of hearing, he could catch the scent of a carcass on a calm day with relative ease. Such was the case while he was lounging, his nostrils flaring as the smell of a kill wafted into them. He raised his head from his paws and breathed in slowly. The scent remained, but he couldn't pick out the smell of a pride. Perhaps it was already abandoned? Either away, he had better investigate it before it became some other scavanger's meal. Raising to his feet, he wandered in the direction of the source of the scent.
At first, he thought the lionness might have been a bobcat; they weren't unheard of, after all. Still, he kept the precaution to keep low to the ground, just in case. It was when he got closer that he realized that the creature busily having its lunch was a lion. A lioness. He tensed, but kept his head and belly low. If he was still and silent, she would surely eat her fill and then leave. He just had to be patient. Patient and...invisible.
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Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:04 pm
If he was still and silent, any other lioness would leave after she ate her fill. Unfortunately, Snaedis was far from the garden variety lady. She was a paranoid lioness, and after a few bites, Snaedis lifted her head and looked around. She couldn't smell much with the blood covering her nose; the stench of the carcass clogged her nostrils and blogged out the scent of anyone. Snaedis knew better then to trust her lack-of-scent, and looked around, blue eyes narrowed. She hadn't spotted him, though. Yet.
She lowered her head and took a few more bites from the carcass, hardly picking through the meat there. Food was food. Then she lifted her head again, glancing around. This time, she spotted something that might've been an intruder. She turned to face what she thought was just another scavenger, baring her teeth and growling low.
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:26 am
As unusual as Snaedis was in comparison to an average lionness was just about how unusual Jai was juxtaposed to an average lion. Any other male would have long since charged the smaller female off, or at the least least not cower like a wild dog. But Jai was paranoid, too, among a myriad of other things. The female was more muscular than he, even if she was smaller; she'd had more luck getting her own kill than he had, clearly. A fight was the last thing he wanted. And if he lingered too long and irritated her, what if she carried the carcass away? Then he'd have some irritated female keeping an eye on him and still be hungry.
Perhaps it was best to give her space. He would have never been this close to a lionness under any other situation aside from that of getting food. He rose a bit off of the ground, enough so that she could see that he was a male of her own species, not something else. With his head low but his good eye remaining on her, he slinked a few feet back. No sense in hiding, now; she had seen him. Instead, once he had put more space between them, he lowered himself back to the semi-reclined position he'd been in a few moments before, head resting on his paws as though he sought to make himself as small as possible.
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Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:37 am
Snaedis watched Jai, no longer growling; she'd ceased that rumbling once she was certain he was only a lion and not something else. Her eyes narrowed a little as she took him in, licking her maw to try and get rid of some of the blood. She watched him try to become one with the ground and for just a moment, she couldn't help but smirk. It made her think of a cub in trouble, trying to sink into the grass and go unnoticed. He was certainly not a cub, though. She knew that.
But he hadn't tried running her off from her kill. He had backed off, instead. It didn't take her long to figure out just what he was; another rogue. Like herself. She debated with herself for a few minutes, glancing between Jai and the carcass she was standing over. After that debate was won, she sighed and walked towards Jai, stopping a safe distance away in case he was trying to lure her into a false sense of safety. "What do you want?" She knew what he wanted, it was what every rogue wanted. A meal to eat.
But asking couldn't hurt.
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Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:40 pm
Had things gone along more indifferently, had the female settled herself to eat her fill, it would have been fine. He was really alright with that. Now and then, he scored a meal or two just by wallflowering near whatever pride had taken down whatever creature, and there would be a meal's portion left for him in the end. But when Snae started moving forward, he found himself tense. She wasn't being aggressive or trying to intimidate him this time, but he still found himself scooting backwards a few paces as she advanced. Raising his head off of his paws, it was only then that Snae would've gotten her first opportunity to see his bone-white eye, bright against his dirt-brown fur.
"Nothing." If that wasn't the lie to end all lies, its blatancy heightened by the male's quick glance over at the carcass from around the female's shoulder. His tail twitching anxiously, he purposed didn't meet her gaze. He could tell she was older than he was, certainly, but he was certain she was stronger. She seemed amiable enough; she certainly wasn't chasing him away like he was some wild dog...though he couldn't help feeling like she should've.
"I'm sorry." His voice showed the age that his body hide; he was certainly not as old as Snae, no, but he was definitely a full-grown male who had some years beneath his paw: long ones, from the looks of him.
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Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:52 pm
Snaedis was used to being interrupted during her meals; it was common place where one fended for himself against hundreds of others. She wasn't a greedy girl, but she wasn't quick to share with those who weren't lions. Anyone else would sooner try taking her down then take food and leave, so she erred on the side of caution with her prejudice against non-lions. But lions were entirely different and despite how much she would have liked to tell this lion to get lost, she couldn't. He was kin, whether she liked it or not, another lion under the great Zahina.
After she saw the white of his eye, the whole white of that brilliant eye, that just cemented her decision.
"Liar." She didn't say it with malice; it was more an observation then an accusation. She watched him quietly, glancing back towards the carcass he'd been glancing past her to. She smirked a little as she observed him, tilting her head. "When was the last time you ate?" She didn't acknowledge his apology because it was unwarranted in her eyes, but it was a nice clue into how he lived; alone, like her, and it sounded like he had his fair share of life's difficulties. Just one more thing to make her even more sure that they were alike, at least in some ways.
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Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:12 pm
Even if her words were said without malice, they still made the male hesitate. If he looked uncertain as to how to handle the situation at hand, it was because he was. Pity or concern were not emotions that others of his kind shared with him very often, and certainly not to the extent where it seemed like they were willing to share food with him. For a brief second, it relieved him, instilled in him a sense of hope. If lions like this female existed, perhaps there was a chance for him and those like him. For the first time in longer than it seemed like he could remember, she made him forget.
"I eat a little now and then, but I...not enough to remember when, really." A ghost of a smile, small, awkward, and uncertain, showed on his maw.
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Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:51 pm
Snaedis bobbed her head in a short nod, and offered a small smile to the hesitant male. "Then come on." She said, turning and starting to walk back to the carcass that awaited the two of them. "I'm not nearly big enough to finish this off myself."
Whether he came or not was his own choice; if he wanted to wait, that was his prerogative. But she had offered not just a meal but company and for the briefest instant, she hoped he'd take the invitation. Loneliness was a well known and intimate part of Snaedis's life, but it wasn't because she liked it. It was just part of the life she'd accepted as her own.
"My name is Snaedis, in case you were wondering." She glanced back over her shoulder. "What's yours?" Conversation was better then inner angsting any day.
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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:32 am
"Are you sure?" came his uncertain voice to her back, low enough that Snae would have had to strain to hear it. Even as he spoke, though, he found himself putting one paw infront of the other, following the female to her kill. It must've been the hunger that drove him, the hunger that chewed at his bones for lack of muscle to gnaw on. It wasn't enough to push him forward to eat alongside her, though. He stopped a foot or so away from both the kill and its killer, stopping as though it was expected of him - a pause that was timed almost perfectly with the female turning to speak to him.
"My name?" he asked rhetorically. Part of him wanted to know why this female was welcoming his companionship, but the rest of him knew that she must've longed for it just as much as he did. That part didn't care to know her motives; the fact that she asked was enough. Still, he seemed uncertain - enough so that he didn't move forward after she addressed him. But he did respond.
"My name...is Jai. Just Jai."
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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:57 am
Snaedis frowned at his question, and nodded again slowly. "If I wasn't... I wouldn't have asked," came the quiet reply, tossed over her shoulder as if she hardly cared. But she did, and that was evident in her hesitation in her answer. But he must've known that even as he asked, because he was following her back to the carcass. Like he was torn, she was too. Part of her knew it was just the carcass he was following for, but she didn't find it in her to really be offended. He didn't know her; for all he knew, she could be an absolute psychopath.
... Which wasn't too far off base on her bad days, but this wasn't one of those.
"Just Jai?" She looked over at him, smirking a little. "Well, just Jai..." She nodded to the kill, smirking a little. "Help yourself." She then turned her attention back to the carcass, taking a large bite out of the animal's hind leg.
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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:57 pm
Jai frowned a bit, opening his mouth briefly to clarify that his name wasn't "just jai", the humor completely lost on him. But nothing came out after Snaedis had freely offered to share her meal with him. This didn't seem right. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat - his physical shape alone betrayed that answer - but more that he wasn't sure if he was supposed to. He had never eaten with another one of his kind at a kill before, even in the too-long days since he had been a part of a pride.
That was when it hit him. That was why he felt so unsure of the situation, why he kept hesitating and why he kept a distance between himself and the female even after she had all but hunted something down for him. Oh, for the love of Zahina. How could he let himself forget?! He shouldn't have been so close to her. What if he did something he'd regret? What if he did what he had done again, woke up found blood on his paws, blood that wasn't that of the creature that was the day's meal? Ears flat and muscles stiff, he seemed to freeze in his steps beside the kill. The silence that was only broken by Snai's teeth ripping at the creature's flesh seemed literal, weighed down on his shoulders and making his head sag.
"I...I shouldn't," he murmured, his head so low that it seemed like he was talking to the carcass. As he breathed in after the sentence, the scent flooded his nostrils again. He didn't mean to be so...feral. He hadn't intended to let the lioness who'd been kind enough to share her kill see that side of him. But when he tasted food - a real kill that hadn't been dead and baking in the sun for days - when he braced the carcass with his claws and ripped the still bleeding flesh from bones, he forgot decorum, forgot kindness, forgot uncertainty and civility...and remembered, however briefly, what it was to be wild.
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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:11 pm
Snaedis was well aware of his hesitation, but the reason beyond it was as far from her as the ocean across the plains of Zahina's great green Earth. She simply ate, enjoying her kill and the company (however hesitant and awkward) that had come along with it by mere happenstance. When he spoke, she barely acknowledged it with a flick of her ears. The smell would overwhelm him as she knew it would because he was hungry, no matter what he might want to think. She could see it in his good eye when she'd looked at him; it was him and only him that stopped Jai from enjoying the carcass before them.
She couldn't help the small, smug smirk from pulling across her maw when he finally gave in and dove into the carcass. Although she hadn't meant it as literally as he seemed to've taken it. Lifting her head from the dead animal, she looked over at Jai, taking his distraction in the meat to observe him. She frowned a little, stepping back and sitting down to watch him. Snaedis hardly doubted he would notice her watching him so closely. It was like the flip of a leaf, the way his hesitance to so much as sniff the meat had turned to eager overindulgence. He must've been hungrier then she'd thought.
Snaedis finally tore those bright blue eyes away from Jai, to look around them. There was no animal for miles, she couldn't see or smell anything. So the white lioness stretched with a loud yawn, and laid down, watching Jai patiently. She'd eaten most of her fill before the lion had even come along. He could easily finish the rest if she left him alone long enough, she wagered.
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:59 am
And so it seemed was his intention and goal. He ate quickly enough that every few minutes, he'd have to stop to breath, lifting his head and looking off for a few seconds, his bloodstained mouth open in a slight pant before he dove back in again. Zahina, it felt so good to eat! It didn't occur to him that eating so much so fast might have made him sick, or even made him throw up the precious meal that he'd managed to happen upon. It didn't matter, though; not when there was food.
There wasn't a great deal left when he was done. The carcass was barely recognizable as the creature it had once been, if it weren't for the head and basic bone structure staying mostly in tact. Half of an organ here, a bit of meat between two ribs there, was all that really remained in the brief expanse of time between when he started and when he stopped. Surely enough, the first thing he noticed was his stomach cramping at the sudden influx of food that he was far from used it. That didn't matter, either. With a maw-stretching, tongue-curling yawn, he decided that he'd had his fill.
Where had the female gone? Out of his immediate line of vision, he had to turn his head to see her. It was the first time he was seeing her, in actuality, and took the opportunity to look her over while she wasn't watching. She was older than he was by a good many moons, and her coloration was unusual, albeit unique. She was...actually quite pretty, he found himself noticing.
And just like that, in the same way the switch had flicked between his modesty and his hunger, he felt disgust welling up in him. It wasn't enough to force his meal out of his stomach, no, but he scowled at himself despite it and backed away from the meager remains of the carcass. "You...didn't have to let me do that," he frowned, putting a few more feet between both him and Snaedis before he dropped his haunches to the floor. "You shouldn't have let me do that. I...I'm sorry."
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