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 Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:37 pm
He had moved towards the pelts, as as far as Thorgnyr knew, until Kazul blocked him, he was going to help her. So he frowned slightly as she positioned herself in an inconvenient location. He almost voiced that, where she was, he couldn't get to the furs, but then she seemed to retract her request for help.
honestly, Raiden wasn't so sure how much better it was to just accompany someone while they did their chores rather than help them, because at least the latter seemed somewhat less boring. But he figured Thorgnyr wouldn't object. So he nodded. "Okay, lead the way, then."
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:42 am
Not that there was much way to lead. Privacy was an illusion in the Warlord's den, which was the largest of the pride but not much divided. Kazul and her family typically slept in the main area all together. Kazul had learned about sex very early thanks to that arrangement. With Thorgnyr staying as a guest of the Warlord, one of the partially hollowed-out almost-chambers had been partitioned off with a heavy skin hung across the entry way. But either way, there wasn't a lot of way to lead Thorgnyr.
"Right," she said, speaking around a mouthful of harness.
Kazul began to drag the furs back into the den, backing in and continuing to back along the way until she came to the space Thorgnyr was occupying. There she began to sort out a few of the better skins to give to their guest. After a moment she paused and turned to Thorgnyr.
"Actually, would you prefer to choose your furs for yourself?" she asked. There wasn't much difference, except the ones she'd been about to lay out for him were probably softer than the ones the rest of the family used, and a little less crushed. Kazul's personal furs had her form imprinted in them, no matter how they were beaten.
"What are the people like where you live?" she asked. "Do they speak a different language?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:36 am
"Those are fine." He shrugged, because he didn't pay much attention to the furs. Raiden didn't exactly care too much about where he slept.
At her next question, he hesitated a bit, then answered, dumbly. "I'm living here right now." Mostly, that was just to buy time. Truth be told, the god of Thunder had been born, and part-ways raised in the Pridelands. Fun fact! It seemed like only yesterday, really, because he had such a long string of lifetimes to compare to. It was a nice place, with good lions, and he actually quite liked it there. Maybe someday he'd return and visit.
But it was hardly a warrior pride, and Thorgnyr would not have come from such a place. "They spoke a different language, yes. But I learned the common tongue." If she asked for a demonstration, he was sure he could work something out. Certainly somewhere in his memory there was a foreign language. "But aside from that it wasn't too different from here. Perhaps smaller."
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:04 am
"You're a pain in the rump. You know that?" Kazul pointed out. She didn't hold it against him though. Pretty much all of the Stormborn were difficult in one way or another.
Learning that Raiden or his alter ego had been born and raised in the Pridelands would not have elevated him in Kazul's eyes. He was correct in assuming that. The Stormborn were incredibly proud of their pride and their ancestors, and while they believed that a lion could certainly rise above his birth, a generally peaceful, pleasant pride like the Pridelands really wouldn't impress her. So it was probably a good thing he just made things up to tell her.
"I'm not surprised it's smaller. We Stormborn are an acquisitive pride, and so our territory tends to grow rather a lot. We have smaller settlements and outposts all over the place." Maybe she was boasting a bit, even telling him things he already knew, but Kazul was proud of her people.
"Still, if you have time I'd like to hear about it sometime. How do they train for battle? Do women fight and lead, like here? Do you keep thralls?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:20 am
"So I've been told." He said with a smile, because sometimes Raiden liked to know that he irritated people, especially when he intentionally attempted to irritate them. Not that it had been the case now, but still.
The god almost rolled his eyes as the green lioness talked about her pride. Yep, he had definitely heard about the greatness of the Stormborn, we could move on-- oh. Well, she did move on, but that gave him a bit of trouble. Because now he had to make up more lies. Fortunately, he had some memory to draw from. "You train for battles by fighting them. There was the usual training and sparring thing, of course, but conflicts with a neighboring pride were common. so everyone got a taste of battle." Raiden briefly wondered which pride's history he got that from, then decided it didn't matter.
"Women fought, but didn't really lead. And there were slaves, but most ended up dying after a few weeks. We didn't feed them or anything." He made sure to speak in the past tense, because, to avoid ever being discovered, his imaginary pride should be dead. While she didn't ask, the god thought up reasons for the pride to have died out, and left only him.
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:33 pm
Kazul rolled her eyes. Some people were just entirely too pleased with themselves. Though perhaps Thorgnyr had more reason to be pleased with himself than most. He was the messenger of a god after all. She wondered how one ended up with that particular job description, but decided against asking for the time being.
"I see. I don't think we really have any neighboring prides to sharpen our fighting skills on anymore." She had never left the Stormborn stronghold for any period of time worth mentioning, but she knew that there were no prides living nearby. They had either died out, been subjugated, or fled in generations past. Her pride's doing. She was proud of that.
"Took on a lot of slaves, then?"
The idea of not feeding slaves struck her as being kind of stupid, but maybe if there were a lot of them, like an unending supply. Perhaps prisoners from the neighboring pride, in which case letting them die seemed like a fine plan to her. Bad for enemy morale. She nodded her approval in between laying out furs. They'd done about half of them.
"Typical," she said with a snort. "The way you lot regarded women. Still, it produced you, and you don't seem to be a total waste of air. At least, your god doesn't think so, and one would have to assume he knows what he's about, jah?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 3:12 pm
"Sounds like you need a few more enemies!" Maybe Raiden could arrange that at some point, he was good at making enemies. Might be exciting. And he could watch as all the drama unfolded from the clouds..."And yes, many slaves." Even though it was unnecessary, the god imagined the slaves that his supposed pride had captured, and let starve to death. He wondered why they let the slaves starve to death/ Maybe they simply thought it was silly to depend on slaves, and just wanted their enemies to spend their last days in misery, or something like that.
Amusingly enough, that was actually a little gruesome in Raiden's opinion. He wasn't a kind god, but... that seemed downright evil! He found himself hating a pride that never existed.
But, of course, Thorgnyr wouldn't think that way. "Hah, yes." He agreed with her, albeit distractedly. For a god to favor a mortal in the way Thorgnyr was supposed to be favored by the god of thunder, the mortal would probably be pretty darn special! "I suppose so."
All of the sudden, Raiden felt like he needed to fly. That happened sometimes. So he glanced at the furs that were left, suddenly eager to get this chore done with and escape somewhere. "After we're done with this I'm going for a walk." He stated, even though he wasn't actually doing much work. Or any work, because Kazul hadn't let him.
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2012 6:43 pm
"Boring you, am I?" Kazul asked with a quick grin as she shoved some more furs into their place. "You're free to go whenever and wherever you wish, you know. You don't have to hang around and be bored by menial labor."
Really, Thralls ought to be doing this work, but the Warlord didn't keep personal Thralls, nor did his mate, and so lots of chores around the den were performed by his children. Perhaps when the den was empty, when the cubs moved out, the Warlord and High Priestess might consider finding some Thralls to do the work.
"I'd offer to join you, but I'm actually supposed to be meeting up with one of the lawspeakers later this morning. So as soon as I finish this I'd have to be off."
Not quite the truth, but Kazul was a proud young lady and her pride would not allow her to be left in a way that made it seem she was too uninteresting and unengaging to hold a companion's interest. Thus, she had to invent this meeting with a lawspeaker. She could go visit Tuomas. He'd been her instructor in the pride's laws and history since she was a cub and he would have no difficulty verifying her story if asked.
"Sometime though I would like to hear about how it was decided you were worthy of being a god's messenger. You seem like a pretty normal fellow to me."
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:29 am
"Maybe," He said, though he kept a teasing tone. It wasn't her fault she was a mortal, and not always too exciting. As far as mortals went, actually, Kazul was pretty cool! But it had been... like, two whole days since he had really been able to take flight, and Raiden missed it. He spent most of his time flying, and all.
He had no reason to suspect the truth of what she said, and even if the green female lied he didn't really mind. He was a liar, anyways. "Alright."
Speaking of lies, Kazul asked him a question. Hmph, that was a story he'd have to think about. What feat would a mortal need to do, to gain his favor? "There's more to me than meets the eye." He said, and it was true, but probably not in the way most would think. "That's a story for another day, though. I'll be off." Since the green lioness was just about done with her pelts, and she had said he could leave.
So he did! "See you later!" As soon as the god knew he was out of sight, he turned into a little black bird and flew away.
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