Ishara still found her visions odd. They came quickly, left suddenly and sometimes left her absolutely exhausted and unable to move. She knew what they were now, so that was useful. Since hitting adolescence, her visions became less like dreams and more present during the day. Which, of course, made them more painful and inconvenient. She had had a vision the night before; two females being attacked by a male. In a savanna, beside a watering hole.
The pale cheetah was the first one to be attacked, approached by the male while she was alone. He started talking to her, but grew agitated as the encounter continued. He swiped his paw out at her when she made a comment to him, catching her off guard and sending her splashing into the water that they stood near.
He roared in anger. Ishara, despite her vision, was only watching it and could not hear what was happening. She didn’t know what the female had said to the male to anger him so much but all she knew was that the cheetah was struggling out of the shallows of the lake as he approached again.
A flash of light happened and the vision was gone, replaced with the vision of a chunky adolescent lioness shoving the male and sending him into the water. The cheetah was bruised and bloodied, but still alive. Together the two females growled at the male, and he seemed to consider fighting them again. There was a scratch across his face; showing that one of the females had gotten a blow in.
He started to move away, shooting some vile words back that made the females flinch. He left and her vision faded to nothing.
When Ishara had woken, she had rushed to the watering hole, in hopes of finding the pair and helping their plight; hopefully stopping the cheetah from becoming so injured by the battle. Instead of finding a battle, she had found the aftermath.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Ishara asked nervously as the cheetah washed herself carefully in the watering hole, cleaning the blood from her fur.
“No, no, it’s fine dear,” Ghasia, the cheetah, assured softly with a gentle smile. “You were very sweet to try and come to our aide.”
“I’m just sorry I didn’t get here in time,” Ishara said sorrowfully.
Ndotombin’guni, the adolescent lioness who was a bit on the chunky side, wandered back to the watering hole, some herbs clenched in her jaws from the surrounding area. She dropped them on the group beside the water and began to smoosh them together ontop of a rock. “This should help you with the pain a bit,” she said to Ghasia, a look of concentration on her face. “Or it will kill you.”
Both Ishara and Ghasia blinked, a lot of trepidation coming across the cheetahs face. “It’s ok…I can’t deal with the pain,” she assured the lioness but she appeared no longer to be listening to the protests.
“Here, eat this!” Ndoto said, shoving the herbs at Ghasia. The cheetah hesitated, but seeing the expectant look on the lionesses face, tentatively began to chew the herbs. They were bitter and disgusting and Ghasia could feel her stomach churn at the taste, but she began to swallow them down, to make the lioness happy.
“Don’t swallow it!” Ndoto shrieked, and Ghasia gagged, quickly spitting out the herbs into the water with a look of panic on her face. “Phew! That would have killed you!” Ndoto beamed, crisis now adverted. Ishara winced and watched Ghasia closely for any side of poisoning. The cheetahess seemed to be ok though, and Ishara sighed.
“So what happened? My vision didn’t allow me to hear the confrontation,” Ishara asked, curious. Her tact had not improved with age, and the question was probably a bit blunt to be asked so shortly after the confrontation had occurred, but she wanted to know. That was the only thing she was really considering at the moment.
Ghasia winced as she gentled washed her cuts and bruises, feeling them sting. “I don’t even really know,” Ghasia admitted with a shrug. “We were just talking about things, and then he got really angry when I brought up family. I’m wanting to have cubs soon, but I wander so much that I worry they may get a bit exhausted following me around. He just snapped and hit me. I tried to fight back but I wasn’t strong enough. If Ndoto hadn’t come along and caught him off guard, I might be dead.” She smiled at the adolescent who was crushing up more herbs with a sort of feverishness that mildly concerned the cheetah.
“So he’s just crazy?” Ishara asked, concerned. It worried her how many people were just flat-out crazy in the rogue lands. It wasn’t safe for her here, it seemed. It was safe for her anywhere…
“I think so. It’s alright though. We all got out of it alright!” She smiled cheerfully, trying to look on the brighter side of it all but she really ached now.
“I suppose that is true, hopefully we’ll all be alright,” Ishara remarked, slightly nervous of the future.
Ndoto had frozen in her place, staring down at her herbs as pain rocketed through her body. Flashes of images were coming to her rapidly, making her slightly dizzy and throwing her off her balance slightly. They were images of blood, and pain and screaming. But they weren’t negative pain, it was positive pain. It was….families? She smiled.
“We’ll all be fine!” Ndoto announced cheerfully. “New lives fix everything!” She continued to grind her herbs beneath her paws, ignoring the confused looks that Ghasia and Ishara were giving her. Ndoto didn’t feel like telling them about their soon to be offspring; they would figure it out on their own eventually. Still, it made the lioness happy to think that they would be ok. She hadn’t seen herself in the vision but surely nothing bad would happen to her? Surely. Her father would protect her.
What use was having a god for a father if he didn’t protect her from harm? Her own guardian angel.