{PRP} Super Secret Pact! {Kamau and Naamini}

[FerretPrince]

For the love of Hestia, this was big news!! It was the biggest news that Kamau had ever heard, and that was saying a lot! Prior to this news, the biggest thing to ever occur in his life was Naamini’s birth, which had only happened… what? A couple of minutes after his? Actually… yeah, that was still pretty big in his life too. Probably bigger than this. But this was still huge! The cub paused, panting, and glanced around for his sister. She had to know about this! She wasn’t back at the den, so Kamau assumed she was out exploring. Again. Without him. He pouted a moment before scurrying off, his little legs moving as fast as they could.

“Naaaaaammmmmmy!” he yelled every so often, ears perked up to hear any response. His chest heaved, but he kept running, because there were just some things that were more important than oxygen. Not even the pleasant day, with all of its warm sunshine glow and birds singing could distract him now. Now where could his sister have gone…? Once again, he paused a moment. “Naaaaaminiiiiii!”

Maybe at the old dens? They had explored those recently… well, at least one of the tunnels. But, he was prepared to bet everything he owned---which consisted of a small pebble Naamini had given him, a pretty feather that reminded him of Momma, and bits of eggshell that he thought was interesting---that Naamini would be exploring one of the old dens they hadn’t checked out yet.

“Naaaaamy! I got something impooooortant to tell you!” he yelled, once he had located the old dens. He was far too scared to go check them out alone, but he figured standing out here and yelling ought to work. Naamini was always listening for him, just in case he was ever cubnapped.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Naamini, as usual, was elsewhere by the time Kamau was even up to discover his big news. She had a tight schedule to adhere to, and she wasn't about to let her lazy brother slow her down. Every once and a while he could come with her – she made sure to step on him on her way out or stand in the light in hopes of waking him up – but for the most part she chose to do her exploring on her own. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy his company, because she did. But he was her brother and her twin, which meant that some alone time was still a good thing. Besides, even if he didn't come exploring she would always come back to play with him later. She would never totally shun him.

But, as he had expected, she was down in the old dens. She had systematically been through four more dens since their little adventure, and today marked the start on the fifth. It was smaller than the last three, and not very deep. About halfway through it had collapsed, and thus she had stayed fairly close to the entrance. A little caution couldn't hurt, especially when the cavern she was in could potentially collapse at any moment. It was better to hang near the cave entrance where she could bolt if necessary.

Bolting, however, did not seem to be a necessity any time soon. She could hear her name being called in a very familiar voice, and with a small sigh she began her trek back through the cave towards her brother. He wouldn't come too far into the caves looking for her, so it was better for her to come to him. "In this one, Kamau!" Naamini called as she trotted out of the cave. "What's the matter?"  

[FerretPrince]

Far too excited to wait for a reply, Kamau studied the dirt on the ground closely, as he had seen older lions do. Yep. Definitely dirt and it was definitely here. Oh! Look! It was sort of scuffed up over here, so maybe Naamini had gone this way. Or it was the wind. Or possibly a bird. Well, with a lack of any other ideas, he followed the dirt-scuffs to the opening of one of the caves and looked in warily. With all that dark pressing in, he didn’t want to go into it… but, if that’s where Naamini was, he would clearly have to go into the cave. Thankfully for his heart, Naamini came out to greet him soon enough.

Bounding excitedly once more, Kamau almost ran his sister over in his enthusiasm. “It’s amazing, Naamy! It’s really big! We have a father!!” He paused then, grinning widely enough to split his face in two. It faded a little, however, when he thought about his wording. Umm… well, everyone had a father, he supposed. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. Still, all of his life, Kamau had just sort of assumed otherwise. He grew up with Momma and Auntie Ficha. That was all he knew. But then… then he started to think about things… namely, he thought about his cousins.

They were the children of his auntie Nyonda; they had a father, just like he had a Momma, but the two were very different. Their mother had gone away in the quake, so it stood to reason that their daddy had gone away too. Kamau was still very proud of figuring it out all by himself though.

“I mean… we have one… but we don’t know anything about him,” he explained, or tried to explain. “Everyone else knows about their fathers, but we don’t.”  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

"We have a father." Naamini repeated, trying to keep her expression away from Whut Is He Thinking. Instead, she tried for Serious and Attentive, hoping that would at least keep him talking. Of course everyone had a father. You had to have a father and mother if you wanted cubs. Everybody knew that. The actual mechanics of the whole process were unknown – which was fine by her – but everybody knew that a father and mother were essential. Apparently Kamau had discovered something about their father that she hadn't, and thus she said no more until he had collected her thoughts.

Fathers were always a bit of a touchy subject. Nobody in the pride seemed to want to talk about hers and Kamau's, but everybody else's father was fair game. Except maybe Mapatano's father, but she'd never asked about him. Regardless, Naamini was at the age where she did notice the avoidance of her questions. She just wasn't old enough to understand why yet. Still, if Kamau knew something about their father then she wanted to hear it. It could be something intelligent.

"Uh-huh. Because nobody likes talking about him," She agreed, trying to figure out where this was going.  

[FerretPrince]

Why wasn’t she excited about this? Kamau pouted a little bit, unable to figure out why his sister wasn’t hopping up and down with anticipation. Actually, now that he thought about it, Naamini had never actually jumped up and down. That was his thing. But she normally gave some sort of indication of being excited… and, as her twin brother, Kamau was an expert at picking up these signals. Well, mostly. Sometimes anyway. Occasionally.

But, his own excitement returned soon enough, and there was enough for everyone. He shuffled on his feet once more, unable to stay still for very long with all of this stuff going on in his head. “Exactly! No one likes to talk about him! That means that they know something about him!” He beamed brightly; for a very, very brief time in his life---two days, actually---Kamau had worried that their father might have been a rogue or something, a lion who had merely wandered in and out of the pride without so much as a ripple except for the one that resulted in Kamau and Naamini. “Since they don’t like to talk about him, they must know something! So he was a member of the pride! And if he was a member of the pride, then everyone must know about him, except for us!”

Yes, he was absurdly proud of himself for coming up with this theory all on his own. It was a complex thought for him. He hadn’t given a whole lot of thought as to why the other pride members didn’t want to talk about him… he assumed it was for the same reason that no one liked to talk about Nyonda and Kuruka and all the others who had died or gone missing in the big quake. Their daddy was probably a hero, a brave warrior of a lion who had fought to save his family and everything!

“Everyone knows something… I bet we could figure it out by ourselves if we just listen and ask carefully.”  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Aw he was pouting. That meant he had been expecting some sort of reaction from her that she hadn't given. Naamini wasn't quite sure what Kamau was asking her for this time, and thus did not change her facial expression from Serious and Attentive. Her twin should know better than to expect anything different from her. After all, she was definitely not the type to get really excited or really happy about anything. She could do happy, but really happy was pushing it. Naamini had heard it was easier to smile than to frown, but she begged to differ.

"Uh-huh. They probably do know stuff about him," she agreed, trying to coax him onward. He was smiling – beaming would be a more accurate term – which meant that he must be getting to his point soon enough. And then he finally spat it out. Naamini's eyes widened at Kamau's declaration, before she frowned deeply. Serious and Attentive had changed to just plain Serious, as Naamini rolled the idea around in her head. So their father had been a part of this pride. That was why everyone seemed to know about him and not just their mother. She had to admit, Kamau's logic was good here.

"So what you're saying is… we should find out on our own if we listen in to what other people say? Because the pride members would talk about him…" It was a good plan. A very good plan. A grin started to form on Naamini's face. "Let's do it."  

[FerretPrince]

Kamau watched happily as Naamini began to catch onto his line of thinking. Oh, he knew it wouldn’t take her long! She was so brilliant sometimes! (Of course, other times she was just a stupid face, like when she insisted that he was more likely to be cubnapped. Ha!). It was easy to tell when Mini’s mental train had boarded; the phase of her face told Kamau plenty. Soon enough, the young cub saw a truly rare sight; instead of her Srs Face, Naamini actually looked… happy. It was a nice look. Kamau puffed with pride a little and nodded happily once again.

“Exactly! You know what Momma always says: we have to work together. So long as we work together, we can accomplish anything!” This would be the greatest game ever, Kamau felt. Especially better since it involved him and Naamini. Everything became a bazillion times better as soon as they were involved. Well… as soon as Naamini was involved, anyway. The male cub’s ears drooped slowly, however, as his mind encountered a new problem.

“Umm… how do we start?” he asked eventually, looking to his sister for some guidance here. “Whenever I ask anyone about Dad, they change the subject.” More or less. They were obviously just afraid of making him sad. “It would be so much easier if we had birds… they could spy for us.” Although that would take away a large part of the fun.  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

Silly Kamau. Naamini was always brilliant. Someone had to be the smart one out of the two, especially since Kamau thought silly things like he wasn't the perfect candidate to be kidnapped. She had to look out for her brother, and thus, naturally, she was the smarter one. That was why she did things like visit the pride healer and ask her for information regarding helpful plants. Kamau was the one who was more likely to get a stomach ache, which was all the more reason for her to learn how to solve that. Ashiki had said to bring Kamau to her, but Naamini wanted to be independent. Her brother would only need her and their mama, and that was the way it should be.

"Working together'll get the job done faster. And we'll have two of us to remember stuff." Already a plan was forming in Naamini's mind. They could follow the hunters of their pride. They talked a lot. And there was always that yellow lioness who apparently knew lots of things and talked about them. They should trail her, or at the very least trail Mapatano. He seemed to know things as well.

The younger twin gave a small, thoughtful sigh at her brother's question. "We can't ask them 'cause they won't tell us anything. But we gotta like… find stuff that reminds them of our father so then they'll talk to each other or to their bird about our father. That way we can listen in." With a decisive nod, she asked, "What do we know about him besides the fact that he was in this pride? Anything special about him? He must look sort of like us otherwise we wouldn't look sorta like him." The resemblance between the twins and their father was more uncanny than Naamini knew, but it was a good start.  

[FerretPrince]

This was so cool! They were like spies! Trying to figure out a mystery for the good of all! Well… ok… Kamau knew that it wasn’t really for the good of everyone. Really, only he and his sister would get anything from this little exploration, but it was something to do. It sounded like much more fun than exploring the ol’ dens or sitting around and asking each other, ‘I dunno… what do you want to do’, which was their usual activity in the absence of anything more interesting. “Yeah! We both remember lots of stuff!” Despite having all of the navigational senses of your average turnip, Kamau had a good memory for facts. Little things about how other lions acted… what they said and did… that was what he was good at.

And Naamini, he knew, had the marvelous talent of being able to put things together. It boggled his mind, sometimes, how she could come to these conclusions. A little leaf turned over in the prairie of Kamau’s mind, letting some sunshine reach a little plant of a thought. Ding. “Birds!” he said suddenly, looking positively delighted with himself. “All of us have got birds, right? So Daddy must’ve had one too! If we find his bird, we’ll be able to know all about him!” of course, that was providing they could find a bird. For some reason, it seemed easier to Kamau to find one bird than one lion.

What did they know about him…? Kamau put on his Srs Face and went to buzzinss. “Well… we’re the combination of our Momma and Daddy, right? So, if we take away the stuff we got from Momma, we’ll have our Daddy.” It seemed to make sense to him. A little, anyway. “Umm… Momma doesn’t have masks like ours, so I guess our father brought that.”  

[Chibi Sheepcat]

It was most definitely more interesting than spending all morning trying to decide what to do. Naamini had to tailor her ideas so that she wouldn't freak her brother out, while her brother always seemed to remind her about the rules their mother had set down for them. She usually tried to remember those rules, but often times she forgot and just did what she wanted. It wasn't that she didn’t like their mother or disrespected her; she just didn't really pay that much attention to the rules when they restricted her exploring. She had yet to be injured so she was content to pretend she didn't remember the rules. Or something like that.

Naamini was quite surprised by Kamau's exclamation, and even more surprised that it was actually relevant. She really shouldn't have been, seeing as they were both growing older and wiser every day, but she had a feeling that her brother would continue to surprise her over the years with his powers of deduction. Sometimes it took a different angle on the problem to solve it. "It would be weird for his bird to be here and him not to be though," she pointed out, still looking thoughtful. "But the birds who are unbonded might have known dad's bird and could tell us about him. It would be a start."

Kamau may have put on his Srs Face but his sister refused to mirror his expression. She always had a Serious Face on, so all she had to do was relax her features and they went back to that expression. Instead, she tried for Thoughtful, while she waited for her brother to answer her questions. "Yeah, that's true. Mama's not white like us either, but she's got the green leg bits like ours. We've got mom's eyes too." She paused for a moment, before asking, "Does she have an ear spot like ours?"