Post by Shomoro on Apr 13, 2008 16:11:09 GMT -5
Involved:
Aya, Male Ethiopian Wolf
Najisi, Male Lion Cub
Forgotten Lands - Waterhole
Sunset has cast a sickly red glow across the dry savanna; it illuminates what little moisture is left in the shallow pond, which at this point has really become more of a mud pit. Still, the stuff glimmers invitingly in the dying light, and it's attracted at least one creature hopeful for a drink--a small, scruffy thing has picked its way out into the centre of the once-waterhole, where most of the silty liquid has pooled. It might take a few minutes for it to be identifiable as a lion cub; they're often accompanied by watchful parents, after all. Sunk up to his hocks in the mud, Najisi laps greedily at whatever he can get, though his eyes are wary and his ears alert to the slightest of noises around him. He looks up frequently, squinting into the fast-gathering dusk.
This dry season has stretched-- it seems as though it's been going on forever, days upon days of flat no-clouds or, worse, clouds that build and then fade away again just when he's begun to think it might be at an end. Aya, like most of the land's inhabitants, is hard-pressed for food and water-- he's got no pack, and being alone food is harder to find than ever. Still, he's survived long enough and once the rains come... This evening, having spent most of the day curled beneath a pathetic excuse for a bush, Aya comes down tot he waterhole for adrink. Mudhole. -Whatever-. It's his ritual at this point, plodding steps, head held low. Yes. Drink, and then spenda few hours nosing along the dry cracked bed of the waterhole hoping to find frogs and lungfish holed up in little nooks beneath its surface. He slinks across the stuff now though without paying any attention, and now his gaze has focused on the little thing down at the diminished centre of the waterhole. Small as it is, there's not much room -for- Ay
-for- Aya to keep his distance as he lowers his head to drink.
As watchful as he is, it's inevitable that he'd see the wolf drawing close. At least Aya, through some stroke of luck, approaches from the direction he's staring off in instead of coming up behind him. But still, Najisi's tongue stops lashing at the mud-water the instant he sees that something both strange and larger than he is seems to be headed over for a drink. It's quite possible that he's never seen an Ethiopian wolf before, but prior experience with them isn't needed for him to figure out that this probably isn't something he wants to stick around by. And so, he backpedals--or tries to. The mud sucks at his paws as he tries to yank them out, and as his struggles grow increasingly more frantic he does the only thing he can think of and bares his teeth at Aya, forcing a rather childish-sounding hiss out between them. As young as the sound is, however, it does a good enough job of making his displeasure known.
Aya watches him without ceasing his drinking, eye a-gleam, tongue lapping industriously at the liquid, which is so thick with the waterhole's remaining life-- mostly tadpoles and larvae-- that it's practically a meal unto itself. "Where's your mother?" he asks, and then, "I'm not keen on eating lion cubs. They always give me stomach trouble." Little pause. "On account of their mothers would come and gnaw it out."
The only response is another hiss, which soon escalates into an all-out rumble. Given his size, even that is less than impressive...but there's an amazing amount of anger blazing in his eyes. Not only is he afraid of the wolf, but maybe he blames Aya for his inability to move, too. Najisi's ears are folded flat on his skull even though moving them makes the torn one throb painfully, and he redoubles his efforts, finally managing to work one of his paws free. It slides out with a rude splorch, and a few minutes later he's managed to claw his way back to more solid land. He pulls himself up onto the dead grass and just sits there, hunched, his narrow sides heaving. He glowers at Aya from here--either he's forgotten about wanting to run away or, more probably, he's just too worn out to do so.
Aya watches all this with mild interest, still lapping water, 'til he feels as though he -has- eaten. Goodness. He's not -amused- by that anger-- even little things can hurt when they're pissed off enough-- but he is -bemused-. There's a feral quality to the little thing, altohugh he can't have been alone for -too- long. "There you go," mildly encouraging when the cub pulls himself free, is the only thing he says 'til he's done drinking at last. Straightening, licking his mouth, he heads in Najisi's direction, a slow, loose-hipped gait.
His legs and belly are covered in mud now, but he doesn't seem to take any notice of it; Najisi only has eyes for the wolf, and in a bad way, considering that he's still rumbling under his breath. At least it had settled into a much softer sound while Aya was staying put. Now, as the canine strolls towards him, it grows louder again, and the cub flinches away. His claws are out, like he's planning to take a swat at Aya if he gets close enough, but it's just a bluff. He's rising again a minute later and slinking off hurriedly towards the longer grasses, his body held low to the ground.
He -could- leave it be-- and he doesn't follow immediately as it is, instead peerig after the cub for a short while. But he -does- follow after a bit, wanders after really, as though tied to Najisi by a very loose string. "Where's your mummy?" he wants to know, "Or haven't you got one?" maybe he -hasn't-, for a few days at least-- he does look scrawny.
Accordingly, Najisi speeds up when he hears the grasses rustling behind him. But he's none too stealthy, either, and in any case he's leaving a trail of mud behind him. Still, he's moving rather quickly now--as quickly as he can go without breaking into an all-out run--and every so often he'll throw a glower over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming in the lengthening shadows. Aside from his growls and snarls, he hasn't offered any sort of verbal response to Aya's questioning and doesn't seem inclined to start now. Perhaps he's mute. Or just very rude. Surely a cub of his age should know how to talk by now.
Indeed, the cubs -he's- seen, at least in the vicinity of their mothers ,have been by and large friendly, plump little creatures-- were he foolhardy enough to try his luck with one, one of -those- would have made better eating than the scrawny little bug he's following. Still-- he -is- curious. "What have you been eating?" his questions a sort of one-sided progressive conversation.
Another of those soft growls floats back on the wind, and Najisi really does start to run now--well, lope, morelike, until, catching sight of a flat boulder nearby, he angles towards that. It clearly isn't a place where the rest of his family is waiting, though; it doesn't smell of lion. Probably he just thinks that being up higher would afford him some sort of protection, which proves true as he scrambles up onto it, his claws scraping against the rock. And from here, he proceeds to glare /down/ at Aya, baring his teeth again.
The Ethiopian wolf sits down below him, staring up, red tongue lolling. "Shall I get you a snack?" there's something almost teasing in his voice-- bright. Gives him something to -do-. Left to his own devices isn't his -ideal- state of affairs: any interaction is fine by him, and truthfully he's already considering how he might regulate his days to run into the little bug-- as long as it survives, anyhow.
"Najisi!" he snaps all of a sudden, effectively dispelling the idea that he's mute. Rude, then. "Chukiwa makuruhi!" Or possibly he just speaks a different dialect. Or, judging by the angry tone of voice he uses, both. The boy glares some more, as wary as he is inexplicably furious, but he's settled himself into a tense sort of crouch. His jaw is set; he's not going /anywhere/ as long as those long jaws are hovering right below him, even though Aya hasn't showed his own teeth.
Nonsense, to Aya. He stares at the boy. "Is that your name then?" he wants to know. "Najisi?" -that- he knows-- it's not a -nice- word. His nose wrinkles. "-Well-, little bug, I'll go and try to find you a scrap then." The one-eyed wolf turns, then, to head off back towards the waterhole and dig for things. From the cub's vantage-point he can doubtless see the whole track of Aya's progress-- and then his silhouette along the muddy flats.
"Najisi," he repeats sullenly, not confirming /or/ denying anything--then again, who's to say he can even understand Aya, if the only words he knows are foreign? He watches the canine leave, scowling after him, and looks down at the ground. Considers jumping off and racing away. But he can still see the wolf, which means the wolf can probably still see /him/, and so he stays put in the stubborn hope that it's at least somewhat safe up here.
In fact, -were- he to leave now, Aya wouldn't notice at once-- he's bent himself to the task of snacks, eating for himself first and then venturing back into the grass, finding a few more things, fat crickets and a few rodents, and-- then, few lizards, both of which he carries back to the rock and the boy, pleased with himself. "Here--" propping his forepaws up on the rock so that he can deposit them by Najisi.
Fortunately, the boy is convinced that this is some sort of nasty trick and that Aya would notice if he so much as /breathed/ wrong. So he stays put, his ears tucked back and a rather alarming frown pressed to his brow, and just watches the distant silhouette of the wolf. Continues to watch, as it comes closer, and then--quite suddenly, he's nose to nose with the other as Aya just rears up and puts his paws on the rock. Najisi's eyes widen, and he shoots backwards at once; clearly it hadn't registered that the strange beast would be able to just hop up here with him. He hunkers down, another of those little snarls issuing from his chest...but then the smell of something dead assaults his nose. The smell of something /edible/. His nostrils flare, and he gives Aya a long, nervous stare before creeping forward again to grab one of the lizards. He backs up again immediately, but at least he's taken it, and he does settle down to rip into the small carcass as soon as he's far enough away.
For his part, Aya settles down on his belly in the deepening purpley dark. His muzzle drifts down to rest on his paws and then lifts-- and then drifts down again, slow. He's happy to listen to the sounds of someoe else eating. It's really-- rather pathetic that he's this hard-up for companionship, but he hails from mountains far from here, and he hasn't seen much of -anyone- in the long moons he's been here, til now.
At least he's settled down. But Najisi is faced with the same dilemma as before: Aya is right below him, and he doesn't trust the wolf at all. He's able to finish the lizard in peace, and slinks forward to grab the other--as he does so, he peers off the edge of the rock and sees that Aya seems to be settling in for a nap. Well, he's not up /here/. That's something. The boy retreats again, wolfing down this morsel as well, and after a little while he even settles down onto his own stomach, licking his lips. He's curled in on himself and his eyes don't shut altogether; he's nowhere near relaxed enough for that. That he's laid down at all is a step forward, though.
Whenever the other's narrow muzzle does lift, though, his eyes are wakeful and agleam. "Good lizards?" lazy-- he's eaten as well as can be considered, and napping -is- a good way to conserve energy in times like these. It's rather exposed though. "So no mummy or daddy around then?" the concern is a small one but it -is- there.
Najisi's eyes snap open the rest of the way at once, when he hears Aya's voice again. After a minute he leans over to frown down at the wolf, but he seems a little strange. Drowsy, almost. Maybe the combination of a full belly and so much stress has wiped him out. In fact, even as he regards the canine sternly, his eyelids are fluttering a bit. Is he still frightened of Aya? More than likely. But he's also /horribly/ tired, from the looks of it.
Aya peers back up at him-- the little fellow -does- look stern. "You can come down if you want. I'm -quite- full already." Yawning as he says it-- he's got no -real- territory here-- there are a few jackals but he's not one of them, and a little bigger, so although they threaten him they leave him along beyond that, and there -really- aren't many lions-- only a few lone ones. So he can afford to sleep where he likes, when he likes.
A soft snort is the only reply; perhaps Najisi understands the offer, or can at least guess at it, because he pulls back at once. And tries to make himself comfortable again, laying his head down, though his large ears remain alert for any suspicious noises from below.
Aya stretches himself out a little more comfortably, and at last his muzzle ceases to rise from his paws, and his ears go limp. He's a skinny animal, enough so that the slow rise and fall of his sides is easily visible.
And maybe, at some point Najisi drifts off as well. Certainly he stops shifting around after awhile. It's really a wonder that he manages to fall asleep at all, with what he's convinced is some sort of sneaky, underhanded predator resting nearby as well, but the boy is exhausted. After a certain point he really can't help it anymore.
Aya stays away a little while long after he stops moving-- just listening. He'll be rather surprised if the little thing is still there when he wakes up-- but it's a possibility, and anything is bettre than the quiet bubble he's been living in since he left home, aything at all. And perhaps, he decides, he'll spend a little while longer when he gets up stockpiling some things-- bribe it to hang around. -Yes-. It's a thought that's soothing to -him-, and one he -does- drift off to, his regular breathing slowly growing shallower.
Aya, Male Ethiopian Wolf
Najisi, Male Lion Cub
Forgotten Lands - Waterhole
Sunset has cast a sickly red glow across the dry savanna; it illuminates what little moisture is left in the shallow pond, which at this point has really become more of a mud pit. Still, the stuff glimmers invitingly in the dying light, and it's attracted at least one creature hopeful for a drink--a small, scruffy thing has picked its way out into the centre of the once-waterhole, where most of the silty liquid has pooled. It might take a few minutes for it to be identifiable as a lion cub; they're often accompanied by watchful parents, after all. Sunk up to his hocks in the mud, Najisi laps greedily at whatever he can get, though his eyes are wary and his ears alert to the slightest of noises around him. He looks up frequently, squinting into the fast-gathering dusk.
This dry season has stretched-- it seems as though it's been going on forever, days upon days of flat no-clouds or, worse, clouds that build and then fade away again just when he's begun to think it might be at an end. Aya, like most of the land's inhabitants, is hard-pressed for food and water-- he's got no pack, and being alone food is harder to find than ever. Still, he's survived long enough and once the rains come... This evening, having spent most of the day curled beneath a pathetic excuse for a bush, Aya comes down tot he waterhole for adrink. Mudhole. -Whatever-. It's his ritual at this point, plodding steps, head held low. Yes. Drink, and then spenda few hours nosing along the dry cracked bed of the waterhole hoping to find frogs and lungfish holed up in little nooks beneath its surface. He slinks across the stuff now though without paying any attention, and now his gaze has focused on the little thing down at the diminished centre of the waterhole. Small as it is, there's not much room -for- Ay
-for- Aya to keep his distance as he lowers his head to drink.
As watchful as he is, it's inevitable that he'd see the wolf drawing close. At least Aya, through some stroke of luck, approaches from the direction he's staring off in instead of coming up behind him. But still, Najisi's tongue stops lashing at the mud-water the instant he sees that something both strange and larger than he is seems to be headed over for a drink. It's quite possible that he's never seen an Ethiopian wolf before, but prior experience with them isn't needed for him to figure out that this probably isn't something he wants to stick around by. And so, he backpedals--or tries to. The mud sucks at his paws as he tries to yank them out, and as his struggles grow increasingly more frantic he does the only thing he can think of and bares his teeth at Aya, forcing a rather childish-sounding hiss out between them. As young as the sound is, however, it does a good enough job of making his displeasure known.
Aya watches him without ceasing his drinking, eye a-gleam, tongue lapping industriously at the liquid, which is so thick with the waterhole's remaining life-- mostly tadpoles and larvae-- that it's practically a meal unto itself. "Where's your mother?" he asks, and then, "I'm not keen on eating lion cubs. They always give me stomach trouble." Little pause. "On account of their mothers would come and gnaw it out."
The only response is another hiss, which soon escalates into an all-out rumble. Given his size, even that is less than impressive...but there's an amazing amount of anger blazing in his eyes. Not only is he afraid of the wolf, but maybe he blames Aya for his inability to move, too. Najisi's ears are folded flat on his skull even though moving them makes the torn one throb painfully, and he redoubles his efforts, finally managing to work one of his paws free. It slides out with a rude splorch, and a few minutes later he's managed to claw his way back to more solid land. He pulls himself up onto the dead grass and just sits there, hunched, his narrow sides heaving. He glowers at Aya from here--either he's forgotten about wanting to run away or, more probably, he's just too worn out to do so.
Aya watches all this with mild interest, still lapping water, 'til he feels as though he -has- eaten. Goodness. He's not -amused- by that anger-- even little things can hurt when they're pissed off enough-- but he is -bemused-. There's a feral quality to the little thing, altohugh he can't have been alone for -too- long. "There you go," mildly encouraging when the cub pulls himself free, is the only thing he says 'til he's done drinking at last. Straightening, licking his mouth, he heads in Najisi's direction, a slow, loose-hipped gait.
His legs and belly are covered in mud now, but he doesn't seem to take any notice of it; Najisi only has eyes for the wolf, and in a bad way, considering that he's still rumbling under his breath. At least it had settled into a much softer sound while Aya was staying put. Now, as the canine strolls towards him, it grows louder again, and the cub flinches away. His claws are out, like he's planning to take a swat at Aya if he gets close enough, but it's just a bluff. He's rising again a minute later and slinking off hurriedly towards the longer grasses, his body held low to the ground.
He -could- leave it be-- and he doesn't follow immediately as it is, instead peerig after the cub for a short while. But he -does- follow after a bit, wanders after really, as though tied to Najisi by a very loose string. "Where's your mummy?" he wants to know, "Or haven't you got one?" maybe he -hasn't-, for a few days at least-- he does look scrawny.
Accordingly, Najisi speeds up when he hears the grasses rustling behind him. But he's none too stealthy, either, and in any case he's leaving a trail of mud behind him. Still, he's moving rather quickly now--as quickly as he can go without breaking into an all-out run--and every so often he'll throw a glower over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming in the lengthening shadows. Aside from his growls and snarls, he hasn't offered any sort of verbal response to Aya's questioning and doesn't seem inclined to start now. Perhaps he's mute. Or just very rude. Surely a cub of his age should know how to talk by now.
Indeed, the cubs -he's- seen, at least in the vicinity of their mothers ,have been by and large friendly, plump little creatures-- were he foolhardy enough to try his luck with one, one of -those- would have made better eating than the scrawny little bug he's following. Still-- he -is- curious. "What have you been eating?" his questions a sort of one-sided progressive conversation.
Another of those soft growls floats back on the wind, and Najisi really does start to run now--well, lope, morelike, until, catching sight of a flat boulder nearby, he angles towards that. It clearly isn't a place where the rest of his family is waiting, though; it doesn't smell of lion. Probably he just thinks that being up higher would afford him some sort of protection, which proves true as he scrambles up onto it, his claws scraping against the rock. And from here, he proceeds to glare /down/ at Aya, baring his teeth again.
The Ethiopian wolf sits down below him, staring up, red tongue lolling. "Shall I get you a snack?" there's something almost teasing in his voice-- bright. Gives him something to -do-. Left to his own devices isn't his -ideal- state of affairs: any interaction is fine by him, and truthfully he's already considering how he might regulate his days to run into the little bug-- as long as it survives, anyhow.
"Najisi!" he snaps all of a sudden, effectively dispelling the idea that he's mute. Rude, then. "Chukiwa makuruhi!" Or possibly he just speaks a different dialect. Or, judging by the angry tone of voice he uses, both. The boy glares some more, as wary as he is inexplicably furious, but he's settled himself into a tense sort of crouch. His jaw is set; he's not going /anywhere/ as long as those long jaws are hovering right below him, even though Aya hasn't showed his own teeth.
Nonsense, to Aya. He stares at the boy. "Is that your name then?" he wants to know. "Najisi?" -that- he knows-- it's not a -nice- word. His nose wrinkles. "-Well-, little bug, I'll go and try to find you a scrap then." The one-eyed wolf turns, then, to head off back towards the waterhole and dig for things. From the cub's vantage-point he can doubtless see the whole track of Aya's progress-- and then his silhouette along the muddy flats.
"Najisi," he repeats sullenly, not confirming /or/ denying anything--then again, who's to say he can even understand Aya, if the only words he knows are foreign? He watches the canine leave, scowling after him, and looks down at the ground. Considers jumping off and racing away. But he can still see the wolf, which means the wolf can probably still see /him/, and so he stays put in the stubborn hope that it's at least somewhat safe up here.
In fact, -were- he to leave now, Aya wouldn't notice at once-- he's bent himself to the task of snacks, eating for himself first and then venturing back into the grass, finding a few more things, fat crickets and a few rodents, and-- then, few lizards, both of which he carries back to the rock and the boy, pleased with himself. "Here--" propping his forepaws up on the rock so that he can deposit them by Najisi.
Fortunately, the boy is convinced that this is some sort of nasty trick and that Aya would notice if he so much as /breathed/ wrong. So he stays put, his ears tucked back and a rather alarming frown pressed to his brow, and just watches the distant silhouette of the wolf. Continues to watch, as it comes closer, and then--quite suddenly, he's nose to nose with the other as Aya just rears up and puts his paws on the rock. Najisi's eyes widen, and he shoots backwards at once; clearly it hadn't registered that the strange beast would be able to just hop up here with him. He hunkers down, another of those little snarls issuing from his chest...but then the smell of something dead assaults his nose. The smell of something /edible/. His nostrils flare, and he gives Aya a long, nervous stare before creeping forward again to grab one of the lizards. He backs up again immediately, but at least he's taken it, and he does settle down to rip into the small carcass as soon as he's far enough away.
For his part, Aya settles down on his belly in the deepening purpley dark. His muzzle drifts down to rest on his paws and then lifts-- and then drifts down again, slow. He's happy to listen to the sounds of someoe else eating. It's really-- rather pathetic that he's this hard-up for companionship, but he hails from mountains far from here, and he hasn't seen much of -anyone- in the long moons he's been here, til now.
At least he's settled down. But Najisi is faced with the same dilemma as before: Aya is right below him, and he doesn't trust the wolf at all. He's able to finish the lizard in peace, and slinks forward to grab the other--as he does so, he peers off the edge of the rock and sees that Aya seems to be settling in for a nap. Well, he's not up /here/. That's something. The boy retreats again, wolfing down this morsel as well, and after a little while he even settles down onto his own stomach, licking his lips. He's curled in on himself and his eyes don't shut altogether; he's nowhere near relaxed enough for that. That he's laid down at all is a step forward, though.
Whenever the other's narrow muzzle does lift, though, his eyes are wakeful and agleam. "Good lizards?" lazy-- he's eaten as well as can be considered, and napping -is- a good way to conserve energy in times like these. It's rather exposed though. "So no mummy or daddy around then?" the concern is a small one but it -is- there.
Najisi's eyes snap open the rest of the way at once, when he hears Aya's voice again. After a minute he leans over to frown down at the wolf, but he seems a little strange. Drowsy, almost. Maybe the combination of a full belly and so much stress has wiped him out. In fact, even as he regards the canine sternly, his eyelids are fluttering a bit. Is he still frightened of Aya? More than likely. But he's also /horribly/ tired, from the looks of it.
Aya peers back up at him-- the little fellow -does- look stern. "You can come down if you want. I'm -quite- full already." Yawning as he says it-- he's got no -real- territory here-- there are a few jackals but he's not one of them, and a little bigger, so although they threaten him they leave him along beyond that, and there -really- aren't many lions-- only a few lone ones. So he can afford to sleep where he likes, when he likes.
A soft snort is the only reply; perhaps Najisi understands the offer, or can at least guess at it, because he pulls back at once. And tries to make himself comfortable again, laying his head down, though his large ears remain alert for any suspicious noises from below.
Aya stretches himself out a little more comfortably, and at last his muzzle ceases to rise from his paws, and his ears go limp. He's a skinny animal, enough so that the slow rise and fall of his sides is easily visible.
And maybe, at some point Najisi drifts off as well. Certainly he stops shifting around after awhile. It's really a wonder that he manages to fall asleep at all, with what he's convinced is some sort of sneaky, underhanded predator resting nearby as well, but the boy is exhausted. After a certain point he really can't help it anymore.
Aya stays away a little while long after he stops moving-- just listening. He'll be rather surprised if the little thing is still there when he wakes up-- but it's a possibility, and anything is bettre than the quiet bubble he's been living in since he left home, aything at all. And perhaps, he decides, he'll spend a little while longer when he gets up stockpiling some things-- bribe it to hang around. -Yes-. It's a thought that's soothing to -him-, and one he -does- drift off to, his regular breathing slowly growing shallower.