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 Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:15 pm
Something was not right in the world when Kivuli, son of Nyota, was bored.
After his escapade with Shemshi – otherwise known as Shishi due to the fact that she shared her name with another – Kivuli had decided to stay away from all things stuck in trees. It was much too messy to get them down. He had scoured the ground for more interesting artifacts, however nothing had come up. The only thing he had found so far was the odd frog, which he left for those females who wanted to take up hunting. Surely nobody expected him to hunt. Clearly, that was a lioness's job.
Thus, with nothing to do, Kivuli set out each morning in the hopes that something exciting would happen to him. This morning was no different than any others. He was on his way through the swamps, on a different trail than yesterday, eyes moving constantly to keep a look out for something interesting. He was even starting to hope for exciting things to fall from the sky.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 1:58 pm
When the pitter patter started, Shemmie looked up at the sky smiling. She loved the rain. Considering she was surrounded by mud and swamp water, it wasn't exactly that it was water falling from the sky that got her excited. It was more that it was fresh and made such a pretty noise against everything it fell on. Plus, living in a swamp, she hardly minded getting wet. "Hello, rain." She spoke up to the clouds and then dropped her head again, a bright smile on her face. It was going to be a good day.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 6:39 pm
Well, his excitement sure had fallen from the sky.
Kivuli scowled the moment the first raindrop landed on his nose, turning to look at the overcast sky that was barely visible in between the swamp foliage. Urg. Why did it have to rain when he left the den? It could have rained all it wanted when he was sheltered, warm and dry. He really didn't enjoy getting soaked in the rain. He also didn't enjoy having to run for cover, which put him in a bit of a dilemma. Did he just sit here and get slowly wetter and wetter, or did he try and find a place to stay before he got too wet?
As more raindrops began to fall, the young male finally made up his mind. To shelter! The wetter he got the grumpier he got, and he could never think up good ideas when he was grumpy. With a small huff, Kivuli began to head back the way he came, using the trees to block out as much of the rain as possible. As he settled beneath a gathering of overturned trees, the young male spotted a rather brightly coloured young lioness sitting out in the puddles. Why was she out there getting wet? That seemed rather dumb.
"Are you talking to the rain?" He called, head tilted.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:06 pm
Shemmie looked around her, at the ripples in the puddles and how the leaves danced when they were touched by the water. She smiled sweetly at the scene, finding beauty in the rather glum landscape. Down at her feet, puddles upon puddles were wiggling with ripples. She looked down at them, still smiling. "What a pretty dance, puddle-spirits." She splashed at one with her paw lightly, watching the miniature waves. If anything, the little yellow lioness was very easily amused. Give her a puddle and she'll be good for a while, at least. She was amused by such simple things, and amazed by almost all around her. Really, she was nothing more than a sweet little girl avoiding the family drama.
The last thing she had expected when she swirled around the muddy water was a voice. For a split second, she thought it was a spirit, but abandoned the idea quickly when she reasoned it out. Her ears flicked in the direction of the voice, and her striking red eyes quickly followed. Everything on her body was mellow: the colors, the simple markings, the fur. She was very simple and calm looking, until you got to her eyes. The dark red contratsted against her fur, and sparkled with life more than her soft yellow coat ever could. "Hello." She smiled much wider, even though she had yet to locate the voice. The other's dark fur was prooving difficult to find. "Well, the spirits, too. Don't you love rain?" She looked back up at the sky for a moment, speaking dreamily.
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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:20 pm
If Shemshi considered her colours mellow then Kivuli was just plain dull. The young male was nearly a solid black, possessing only several stripes of his mother's colour. He had her darker brown toes and tail fluff, but for the most part he was the same colour as his father. Kivuli had never met the lion, but that was hardly a problem. He had his mother and that was all that was important to him. Besides, he has his mother's soft purple eyes. That was good enough for him.
The young lion tilted his head at her smile, unsure about what to think of this other young lioness. She definitely seemed happy, though why she would be happy about the rain Kivuli didn't know. Perhaps she had just found out something amazing, and now she was standing in the rain still thinking about that amazing thing. Surely rain couldn't cause someone to be that happy. "You talk to the rain? How come? It's not like it'll answer you or anything. Besides, it's wet and disgusting."
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Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:22 pm
Encouraged by the young male speaking, Shemmie continued her optical hunt for his figure. She giggled at his words, but listened as best she could, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from. Was he hiding on purpouse? Was this supposed to be a game? Shemmie had become mildly antisocial since her mother's departure, so she wasn't really used to playing games. She wouldn't know one even if she was in the middle of it. "Oh, you're so funny." She giggled again and took a step towards his voice, still squinting through the rain. The lack of light due to rain clouds certainly wasn't helping. "It isn't wet and disgusting. It's falling life." To Shemmie, water was the pride's life force. They were surrounded by it after all. Without the rain, would the swamps still be here? She certainly didn't think so! "It's fresh and smells good and makes pretty sounds if you listen. Shhhh." She shushed the figure she couldn't see and closed her dark eyes to tune in to the pitter patter.
After a few moments of this, she opened her eyes and sighed. "Isn't it lovely?" Her voice was dreamy. "It doesn't talk, really, but it sort of does. If you listen." She smiled again, softer this time. Everything had a story to tell if it was only listened to. Lately, the young lioness had been picking up the knack for listening and learning stories. It was quickly becoming a hobby of hers.
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Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:35 am
Had it not been rainy and disgusting out there, Kivuli would have approached the female. Despite being rather snobby due to his intelligence, he did try his best to approach people and stand near them when he was talking. That way he could make sure that they were listening, and give them a swat if they weren't. However seeing as leaving his little haven would make him uncomfortably wet, the young lion was willing to forget his manners. His mother wouldn't mind. She didn't like getting that wet either.
"Falling life? It only makes things mushy and muddy. And besides, stuff grows in the ground not on lions. I don't need to get wet in order to grow." He hadn't tested this theory, but he believed it to be true. After all, his mother had lived out on the dry Savannah her whole life. She grew up just fine without getting rained on all the time. Hopefully it wasn't some strange Swamplands trait that made it so you had to get wet often to grow. That would be totally unfair.
Kivuli blinked at the shush but did as he was told, listening to the rain falling. Nope, it sounded exactly the same to him. Wet and muddy. "It just sounds like water hitting the ground and making it muddy. I don't hear anything, and especially not a story." The young lion replied rather doubtfully, watching Shemshi with a raised eyebrow, "What could it possibly be saying?"
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Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:20 am
Shemshi considered the logic for a moment. Did lions need to be rained on to grow? She decided she certainly had no idea. Either way, that hadn't been what she had originally meant. "Mushy mud is our life, silly!" She looked down at the muck she was standing it, suddenly noticing her paws were no longer yellow. "Everything needs the water. The plants need it. We need it. The antelope need it. Without the rain, all the water would go away, wouldn't it?" She'd never been able to figure out if that were true or not, considering she hadn't lived in the savannah long enough to experiance a harsh drought. That, and she hadn't been here long enough to witness any large loss of swamp and drying of mud.
"You're hearing it, you aren't listening." Shemmie shook her head slowly, splattering the surrounding area with extra water droplets from her growing hair tuft. "It could be saying lots of things. Sometimes it says how soon it will be gone, sometimes it says it will stay for a very long time. Sometimes it just hums at you, a really calming hum. Then sometimes it tells you everything's alright and not to worry." At least, those were all the things she heard when she listened to the rain. The last being the most important. She needed to hear something like that, she needed more than anything to feel renewed and be told that everything was going to work itself out.
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Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:05 pm
Kivuli scoffed. "Mushy mud is disgusting. It gets all in between your toes and then you have to get it out and it still feels icky no matter how much you clean it. And if you try and clean it in a puddle of water you end up stepping in more mud!" Clearly the young male detested getting muddy, despite his current choice of home. The young lioness's words about the rain, however, were true, as Kivuli had to begrudgingly admit. They did need rain to survive, even if they didn't need it to grow. "It's good sometimes," he muttered, nose scrunched, "Just not like this. There should be places to go to avoid the rain."
The young lion could only stare when Shemshi spoke of the rain, brow furrowing. He was hearing but not listening? What was that supposed to mean? "The rain all sounds the same to me. I dunno how you're hearing all sorts of special stuff unless you've got a gift." He couldn't hear any of the things that she was hearing, which made him feel slightly left out. It was like when someone else knew something he didn't and was rubbing it in his face. "... Can you... show me how you listen?" He asked, nose still scrunched.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:51 pm
Shemmie shrugged. She had no problem with mud personally. She also found it a little crazy that someone who lived in it all the time could hate it so much. "Maybe if you try not to think about it so much it won't bother you." She wiggled her head again, flinging her now stringy hair tuft into a goofy mess. "A place to get out to the rain could be good..." She considered this for a moment. Never in her life had she really wanted to escape rain or mud, but now that the idea had been planted, she thought it might be nice. After all, sometimes rain made her colder. The little lioness wasn't very fond of being cold. She much prefered being warm or even hot. The swamps could get awfully muggy and humid sometimes, but she certainly prefered that to cold.
Nothing ever sounded the same to Shemmie. Perhaps it was because of her vivid imagination. Perhaps because she sought escape. Or perhaps it was simply because she took her time, didn't rush anywhere, and often had a quiet mind. A quiet mind in the way that her thoughts weren't racing. She thought an awful lot since she didn't often have anyone but the spirits to talk to, but her thoughts weren't all over the place and loud. They were simple and connected and followed a clear line.
No matter the reason, she could hear other things in the rain. "Well, I can try if you come out. You can't listen very well if you're trying to hide from the rain." She smiled in the direction of the voice welcomingly, patting the wet ground beside her with a muddy paw.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:49 pm
If he didn’t think about it? Kivuli frowned a little, but paused to consider that option. She was basically telling him to ignore the mud, and that by ignoring it he could forget about it more easily. Hmm... that would probably work. If he simply pretended it was not there, perhaps it wouldn't bother him so much. He would have to try that, but not while he had an audience. The young black lion did not want to make a fool of himself in front of anyone, especially not a girl. What would his mother say about that? Though, he was sure his mother enjoyed the rain more than he did. That was only because she had grown up on the plains where it didn't occur as often, so she had an appreciation for it. Perhaps this female had grown up on the plains too. He would have to ask around.
Come out? The young lion's frown deepened as he weighed his options. Go out there in the mud and learn something cool to show his mother, or stay here and watch her do her thing? Deciding he liked the former the best, Kivuli made his way out from his little hidey-hole to join Shemshi in her mud-infested play place. He flattened his ears as he walked, not enjoying the feeling of the rain on his head, but he did his best to just ignore it. He wanted to learn something cool. "Kay, I'm out. What do I do now?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:39 am
Shemmie watched the young lion emerge with interest. It was nice to put a face and body to the voice she had been chatting with. Her imagination had cooked up a fierce looking swamp creature, even though she had known he was simply a little lion like herself. In her mind, she had pictured a large, hairy, black creature that the swamp had created over a long period of time. He had large horns in her mind, and blazing orange eyes. The real boy, however, did look something like a swamp creature, though. His coat could make it easy for him to blend in here, and he simply fit the picture of a swamp lion. Or at least, the picture she had in her mind. (Besides the big horned monster, of course.)
"Firstly, just sit here and relax." She smiled brightly and turned her gaze out to the puddled swamp ahead of them. The ripples really did look like a dance. She bobbed her head lightly from side to side with the pitter patter for a moment, getting lost in the rain. As slyly as she could manage (which in reality was very, very obvious) she glanced at Kivuli. "Are you relaxing?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:10 pm
[ Sorry for the late reply! D: ]
Alas, Kivuli was not a big scary swamp monster. Maybe when he was older and shaggier he might be able to pass as one if he wore a pair of sticks for horns, but for now he was just a little lion. Black as he was, the swamplands provided him ample shade so that he didn't get too hot, not to mention it helped him blend in better. He was thankful for this, though he knew it would be very unpleasant the day he left the swamplands to go on his naming quest. Surely the Savannah would roast him alive, black fur and all. When the time came, he would have to decide on his name quickly and return home before he was fried to a crisp.
The young male stood tall while Shemshi watched him, watching her with the same sort of interest (though he didn't imagine her with horns). She was young like himself, but quite a bright yellow. Her colour made her very easy to spot in the swamps, but that didn't make the colour a bad thing. It was kind of pretty, Kivuli decided. Though, he added as an afterthought, she must get very dirty. He hoped her fur didn't stain with all the mud playing. The young lion was shaken from his thoughts by his new acquaintance's first command, and he blinked at her. Relax? Okay...
Kivuli did his best to relax and ignore the annoying pitter-patter of the rain on his head. His ears flattened a little, but he stayed put, staring out into space as she was doing. Okay, what was supposed to happen next? "Uh... sure." Kivuli was proud that he managed to keep his ear from twitching irritably. The rain really made his ears tickly. "What do I do now?"
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