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 Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:11 pm
 It had been a long time since he'd been somewhere where there was a feeling like this. Where had he been the first time? Thinking back on it, he couldn't recall, and instead, it simply burned his senses. Death.
Was that it?
No, it was the -other- aspect of death. He smelt and could feel it everywhere, oh the illusions of the mind. Some dark bodies there who whispered to him, telling him to go away, and others wishing their dark and dead fates upon him. Yes, that was what bothered him. The feeling of the passed on, and large, spirits of the dead.
The brown lion shuddered a bit as he stepped across the dark earth, a shiver running down his spine to warn him he was being looked at. Calm yourself, Yua. It's nothing. It's nothing.
But he couldn't help but stop again, and stare paranoidly into what would have been simply, an empty space, to any other lion, or creature even, that looked.
"Oh... this is -not- good.." he whispered to himself, the fur along his spine puffing ever to subtly. Note to self: Have a pep-talk with your thoughts: Common sense > Curiousity.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:27 pm
Dhamisa was hunting, hunting because it was that or starve. The oasis was far from a kind place to live, always being trodden underfoot, always having to hide your weaknesses from others. She'd cried herself to sleep in the past with a belly that felt so empty it hurt, these days she'd do no such thing, she'd stopped feeling, stopped really living for anything other than survival and to make Nyek proud.
Her memories of the graveyard and her loving father were fading as she grew.
Her one good eye scanned the horizon, the other, pupiless and clouded white stared at darkness, the scar across it still an angry reminder of what subordination meant even in Nyek's generals. She paused, spotting a brown furred figure on the horizon, a lion, she could now see, but not a lion she'd ever seen in the pride before.
She raised an eyebrow, looking round about her, no, there was no one to say she'd been speaking to an outsider. They were alone out here and her curiosity demanded she draw nearer, even if only to look upon what sort of lions lived in the places outside her physical and mental prison.
Padding nearer, she asked. "Friend of foe?" her tone her usual steely, lifeless one, designed to hide what she felt from those who would punish her for it.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:40 pm
His ears perked up in a sort of shock as another voice spoke out to him, causing him to jerk and shift suddenly in the sand, then sink into it, growling a bit, but only at that one of his legs was about knee-deep in the sand, and he was making himself look utterly foolish.
Stupid spirits, stupid voices, and stupid mental fatigue. So much going through his head, and he couldn't even place a paw down on it and yell at it to 'STOP'. Though if he had right then, he probably would have looked -really- weird for doing so.
Olive colored eyes shifting upwards to look at the lioness, the MUCH scrawnier lion looked over her, appraising if he was safe to answer such a demand, or if doing so would possibly get him ripped apart for giving the wrong answer, before grumbling a reply to the question that had put him in his current state of idiocy.
"Neither until otherwise proven. So for now, I am a stranger who is being eaten by the sand." Yua replied, pushing on his front legs to get his other leg out of it's griplock with nature, but failing horribly. What a day, have a few mental-spasms, get eaten by the sand, meet a female who looks like she can kick yer butt into last month.
Yeah, things were -really- going well.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 3:59 pm
Dhamisa was silently delighted by getting an answer that wasn't either submissive to the point of simpering or painfully arrogant, she'd actually begun to wonder if there such a thing as middle ground but this male dispelled it. In the oasis, those she met were met with chilly orders and simple statements, all meant to give her a greater air of superiority, out here there was no one, no rules. She even smiled slightly, the expression grown so foreign to her fact that it felt as though she'd just discovered it for the first time.
He looked like no lion she'd ever seen before, such intricate tattoos and an unusual almost fragile frame. The others at the oasis were a ragtag group but none of them were as foreign to her eyes as this male, though what it was, she couldn't put her paw on. Either way, she couldn't help but grin at his plight, recalling that she had been similar in being stumped by the sand at one time.
Her smile turned wry "These sands will swallow you up if you let them and never let you go. These lands border the Mtamani pride." she gestured to the triple V scars on her shoulder "And if I were on duty rather than simply hunting, I'd be obligated to try and temp you back to the oasis and enslave you."
She smirked "But I'm not, so I won't. I'm Dhamisa."
It felt delightfully delinquent to simply chat to someone else rather than try and capture them, breaking the rules but not.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 4:28 pm
A dry laugh came from Yua, as the obvious was restated for him, before he yanked his leg out of the sand, a quiet whine of discomfort in the limb escaping from him, before he shook it out and set it back on the sand gingerly, then leaned back on it. Oh good, nothing was broken.
"Ah yes, I can see the sand is very unforgiving," he parrotted back "but the pride you speak of is not one I am familiar with." Indeed, he couldn't put a paw on such a pride, one living in an oasis. Or one that enslaved lions outside of the pride. That wasn't something that would sit too well with him, being a slave at least.
At least he didn't have to worry about that, however. Taking a wearing step forward, Yua looked towards the scars that were pointed out to him, though they were pale even against her light fur. Hmm... curious.
"Well, I'm glad to hear that. I have a firm belief I wouldn't make too good of slave-fodder anyways." he joked, before lifting a paw and turning it to himself.
"Ah. That.. is a lovely name." he paused for a minute as he spoke. Lovely, yes, though it's meaning was a bit less then a 3 on the 'happy' chart. But, of course, so was his. "Mine is Yua." he then introduced, out of his ever so barren stack of manners, before again dropping his paw into the sand.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 5:00 pm
She nodded "I don't think many lions know about it." a frown flitted across her features "I didn't really join it by choice to start with, I was brought here by the king of the pride. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me." quite an ironic statement for a lioness who only had one good eye left thanks to her ever gentle "king" "It's a growing pride, not very old but getting much more dangerous by the day" she all but swelled with pride at the thought, glad to be able to serve in a future forged by the Mtamani.
She had no dreams any more other than what she had been taught over and over again.
"But yeah, slaves are usually just lions who Nyek or the generals can break. If they don't break, they don't live. It's harsh but that's pretty much all I've ever known." Well, not all she'd ever known but at least what she'd known since Mrost and Nyek captured her.
She smirked "Yeah, I don't know what my father was thinking when he named me, it's a bit odd. I like Yua, it's nice and straightforward."
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 5:38 pm
Yua sat down and frowned a bit, considering her words. A future forged by the pride? "... A future forged for who?" he inquired, quirking a brow slightly. "The slaves, the generals, or the king who seems to be walking over all of you?" There was a pause, as he quickly defended his take on the subject with a, "just from what I can tell, I mean."
Again the male's expression darkened severely as the 'life' of the slaves was spilled out to him, pressing his front paws into the sand to prevent his partially exposed claws to be seen, and possibly taken as a signal to go to war with him. In fact, it would be far from Yua's intentions to do such a thing. He simply was trying to understand everything that was being thrusted at him.
He had -tried- to make it seem 'nice' in his head, but already again it had been broken apart to a less then charming thing.
This made him happily accept the name conversation to lighten his mood. "Ah, parents can give their young ones odd names, no?" he chuckled, nodding. "And my name isn't as 'straightforward' as it would seem to be." he added, a joking tone of 'warning' in his voice.
"In fact, Yua is simply the first 'segment' of my name. Yua'Lopoka Mila."
Tradition of speaking nonsense.
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 12:38 pm
Dhamisa frowned briefly, his question being one she had never allowed herself to ask. Surely the pride's future was for all of them, not just Nyek? Either way, she was sure the generals would get a piece of whatever was going, the slaves...well the slaves were irrelevant she told herself, despite having been one herself not so very long ago. "It's a future for himself and the generals. Those too weak to ascend the ranks deserve none of the eventual spoils. Nyek doesn't walk all over those who can stand for themselves."
She wasn't inclined to fight with him just now, even despite his "blasphemous" veiws in her mind. She wasn't sure why, perhaps it was the logic his veiw rung with that stayed her paw. Either way, she was glad when the conversation moved onto names instead, if only because she was being things to think about that she hadn't considered prior.
His full name made her blink and smile, apparently there was a lot more to him than met the eye, even in his title.
"A rather ironic name I'd say, far from speaking nonsense you've spoken the most sense I've heard so far."
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 4:53 pm
He beamed at the compliment, shoving the topic of her pride off over one shoulder, seeing it meanlingless to bring more of his views out into the open, aside from the obvious one peice it would keep him in for doing such. "I know not of how much irony is given to a name that was changed by my parents for my actions of the past." he stated simply, going into no further depth of WHY such a thing would happen.
Yua shrugged his shoulders casually after that, considering what to say next, if only to keep conversation running. Oh! He knew!
Looking about around them, if only to check and make sure nothing that was right there would stick out at him and prevent his stupidity, the rogue heaved a bit of a sigh; "You noted earlier that you had simply come out to hunt, as oppossed to other things. I myself have not seen much out here that is worth hunting. What -do- you hunt in the middle of a desert?" he inquired curiously.
Indeed.. all -he- had seen as of late was a lot of sand, and maybe some cacti. Mmm.. prickly in the face. Yeah, not quite a delicacy he would have eaten.
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