[SRP] Water (Jani & Nagua)

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He was dying of thirst.

Either he had missed the telltale signs of rivers and streams, springs and seeps, or there simply was no water to be found in this place. Nagua was inclined to believe the latter, but he was aware enough to recognize that his senses were far from their sharpest due to his wretched state. He had the idea that if he could manage to make a kill, the blood would slake his thirst somewhat. But...

But he couldn't manage to summon up the interest or attention the stalk would take. He knew that he was so exhausted that he'd stumble noisily or carelessly let his scent drift to the prey. All he could do was keep walking in the hopes that he would find water soon.  

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Jani didn't necessarily have to be out hunting today, but she wanted to practice. She'd heard a rumor that the Queen had a special rank for those who kept their mouths shut and their ears open, and the green lioness was particularly interested in it, in part because she couldn't find very much out about it. So she was practicing moving noiselessly and undetectably.

The lioness was so focused on her own movements that it took a slight shifting of the breeze to realize that she was no longer alone. Still slinking around, she got a good look at the stranger she'd scented. He was...not at all from around here. There were some differences in his build and mane from the lions she'd known all her life. Not to mention that his coloration was somewhat...outlandish.

But the problem was with how he was walking. Putting one foot in front of the other, as if even that effort was exhausting. Jani had never seen a lion in such a state, but she knew something was wrong.

Abandoning her pretense she rose to her full height and headed over.

"Hey! You there, are you all right?"  

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Step. Step. Step.

Nagua's world had narrowed to what he could see a few lengths in front of him as he moved first one set of black-toed feet followed by the other.

Walk. Keep walking. Don't stop...or he'd never be able to start again.

Then something happened to throw him completely off his mental balance. A voice called out to him. It wasn't familiar, but that was hardly surprising given how far he was from home (home being a swamp and not a mountain), and for a moment the adolescent wasn't certain how to react.

He stopped. And looked up, yellow eyes not quite focusing on what he saw before him.  

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Hmmm...this wasn't answering her question. At least she knew he wasn't deaf! Since he'd clearly heard her, and had stopped walking. She saw him look around, look right at her, but his eyes were unfocused and Jani didn't think the stranger was really seeing her. Idly, the lioness wondered what he was seeing.

Well, no help for it. The Huntress came nearer, until she was at a conversational distance. This gave her a much better look at the other lion, and she wasn't impressed with what she saw. He was thin, no gaunt, with ribs showing against the ill-kept coat. His mane was mussed and didn't look to have received any grooming in quite some time.

The worst were his eyes. They were wide open and staring blankly around him. Creepy.

"Hey," she spoke again. "You don't look so good. I'm no Healer...but you look like you need one. There's a pride here...but I don't know if you want to come in..." She wasn't even sure how to warn him about the disease, considering she couldn't be certain he was even hearing her words for what she said.  

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Noise. It came from a shape that should have had meaning and didn't, one that was coming closer. Nagua watched as the green lioness came near and spoke some more. He forced himself to focus as best he could.

"Water..." the young lion's voice cracked abominably on the two syllables of the single word, hoarse with disuse and dehydration. It was all he could think to say as he tried to recall her words to mind so that he could learn what she'd said. Something about...a pride? Hope flared. Prides needed water to survive!  

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Jani had almost given up hope on getting anything out of the stranger as the moments stretched into minutes of silence. Then he forced a word out of his mouth and praise the Goddess, it was spoken in a way she could understand. Water!

Then she realized what he meant.

"Oh! Of course! You must be so thirsty!" The green lioness thought rapidly. She could run to the pride, beg to borrow a Healer's water carriers, and bring them back here...but with him in this condition, she wasn't certain that would be the best thing to do.

Jani weighed her options and decided to risk it. She'd bring this stranger into the pride, straight to the watering hole. If he survived, he could blame her later.

The Huntress came over next to the stranger. "Come on, walk with me and I'll take you to the water," she told him.  

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He must've blanked out for a second because suddenly the lioness was next to him, encouraging him to walk even further. Nagua wasn't certain he could until he caught a word out of her mouth. Water! She was taking him to water!

The teal lion found the strength to put one foot in front of the other once again, heading in the direction the lioness was guiding him. Water. He was going to live after all.  

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Their pace was agonizingly slow, but Jani managed to cajole the stranger all the way to the edge of the water. She lent him her shoulder, helped him move his feet, anything she had to do in order to get him there. Each step made her even gladder that she'd decided to just bring him in - Jani truly doubted that if she'd left him for a moment he'd still be alive when she returned.

And to see his gaze when they got there as he collapsed at the edge and began to drink...well, that just warmed her heart. Made her remember when she'd been that age, showing off for her mothers...

The lioness cut that thought off. Now was not the time to dwell on things she had no power over.

"Well, I'm glad you made it! My name's Jani by the way, what's yours?" If she sounded forcibly cheerful, well, he likely wouldn't notice.  

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Water was a gift of the gods. Nagua blessed them as he drank his fill at last, feeling mental acuity return to him. So that he wasn't entirely surprised when, as he was finishing, the lioness addressed him and introduced herself. Swallowing a last mouthful, the teal lion sat up and regarded his rescuer.

"Nagua," he answered. "Thank you for your help. I...probably wouldn't have survived without your aid," the boy admitted ruefully. He still didn't know how he'd managed to do that to himself. Ah well, live and learn.  

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Nagua, huh? There was something about the name that tickled the back of her mind, but it wasn't quite coming out into the light. Jani put the thought to the side and smiled.

"I'm always happy to help out! Think nothing of it." She supposed she should welcome him to the pride...warn him about the disease...

...oh! That was it!

"Nagua, hmm? Did you know your name means 'diseased'?" she asked with real cheer in her voice. "It's rather funny that you ended up here, with that name, since this is the Kitwana'antara, the diseased pride." Okay, so illness wasn't that funny, and she should know, who'd had a parent and a sister succumb, not to mention a nephew who didn't look to make it to adulthood. But it was still somewhat funny...right?  

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He was smiling and nodding at her words when she began speaking about his name. He'd already learned the meaning from Nebo, who had mentioned a diseased pride-

-this pride!? Nagua's mouth hung open and his yellow eyes crackled like sulfur as he tried to reconcile this. That...that...b*****d! That double-crossing slimey toad-faced load of monkey dung squahed under an elephant's foot on a stormy day!

His mouth worked as he tried to get words out, but to no avail. He was simply too furious. Finally, he managed to subdue his temper enough to speak.

"I am not going to spend my life as some plague lion!"  

[mouselet]

Oh dear. It looked like she'd really put her paw in it now. The boy looked absolutely furious at the revelation and his angry words proved it. Jani looked away in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you angry," the lioness apologized. "But since you weren't wounded in anyway and haven't exchanged any bodily fluids with anyone, you'll probably be okay to go. I just didn't think you'd live if I left you out there and ran back for a water carrier," she explained, bringing her blue eyes back to meet his yellow ones.

"And I'm very sorry for saying your name was funny, I didn't mean to offend you." And this was probably why she was a Huntress and not any more important rank. If she couldn't keep from annoying a passing stranger, well, it was just as well.  

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Nagua glared at Jani as she began apologizing and explaining. He did feel safer as she commented on how the disease was passed since he wasn't in danger of catching it at the moment. And seeing the lioness' shoulders slump, well, he felt like a heel. Even worse than when his mother scolded him for something.

"Look...it's not your fault," he said at last. "I'm not mad at you...I'm mad at someone else. He's the one who first told me what my name meant and mentioned your pride...and I asked him to show me the opposite direction." The adolescent gave a sour laugh. "It seems he decided that your joke was a good one and sent me here."

The teal lion stopped speaking abruptly and ran that last line through his head again. Sent here. He had been sent here.  

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Jani was relieved to hear that the boy's anger was towards a third lion not at all present. A lion who...had sent him here? Well that was odd indeed...unless perhaps the paw of the Goddess was at work? The green lioness was not the most religious in the pride, but she couldn't help shuddering slightly as the implications ran through her mind.

"How very strange," she replied. "But...perhaps this is the place you are meant to be? It is said that some lions are Seers, and can See more of what we should do and where we should be than any other mortal." It was downright creepy, but it made an eerie kind of sense.  

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"Maybe you're right," Nagua answered slowly, turning over possibilities in his mind. There was...a rightness to his being here that he didn't want to admit. At least not yet.

"Well, if I can...protect myself from getting the disease...perhaps I could stay for a bit and you could tell me more about your pride?" the adolescent offered. There was no harm in staying a day or two and learning, right? As long as he could be assured of not getting the disease, he should be able to leave again after that.

There was simply no avoiding the strange and wonderful notion sprouting in the back of his brain, so he chose to ignore it for the time being.