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 Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:39 am
Miako'moto had adapted to the whole pride's situation rather... nicely, over all. Despite the fact she, for some reason, felt herself to be above it all (it was a feeling of self-importance that she couldn't quite shake), she was discreet enough about it that she passed unnoticed. Her age and size probably had something to do with that tough; she was barely a juvenile and while she was hardly a runt, she wasn't the most impressive sized firekin around by far.
In fact, her build was far more delicate than some of her litter mates, and her features made her look more like pageant beauty than a fighter. She was also not fond of the idea of having to roll around the dirt, clawing at someone else in a fight. Shuddering slightly, the young lioness sneered from her perch on a high up rock, "How vulgar," she voiced out snobbishly to a passing scorpion that ignored her rather deftly, going on it's way.
Her perch on the rock gave her a nice view of what was happening around the pride (or rather, the section of it that she was looking over). She'd long ago noticed she rather enjoyed watching over events, reading over people and generally just treating them as if they were some sort of pawns in a strange game. She'd always been subtle about it, and others hardly noticed her, so it made it all the more interesting for her to be able to predict outcomes of fights, or events within her mind silently.
She would often grin knowingly from her perch on a rock, looking much like the cat that found out a way to eat the canary and was keeping it all to herself.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:53 am
The scorpion is not the only creature to have heard Miako's disdainful utterance. The older juvenile hops down from her own lofty perch, her over-large paws and tail making her look rather clumsy even as they speak of the bulk she will one day possess. But Kidondo moves lightly despite her awkward appearance, reaching out to spear the scorpion's tail upon her own claw (and taking care to keep that dangerous stinger away from her flesh!).
"Vulgar?" She snorts, dangling the scorpion towards her companion. Its claws snap uselessly at the air, reaching for Miako's delicate (and thankfully out-of-reach!) nose. "It's just a scorpion, what's vulgar about that?" Deliberate ignorance is a fun game to play; she knows full-well that the pretty little lioness is referring to something else, but it's much more fun to play stupid and annoy her with pointless questions.
It would seem, at first glance, that there could be no more unlikely friendship than what exists --no, wait, what will exist -- between Kidondo and Miako'moto. And that assumption would be correct - the two young lionesses are as dissimilar as night and day, both in appearance and preferences. The one thing they do share is the overwhelming feeling of superiority.
Unfortunately, Kidondo is also of the opinion that she is clearly superior to Miako. Size matters, and her mom is the most important lion in the pride and everyone knows that.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:04 am
Miako's nose wrinkled upon the other female's appearance; she knew this one, if only in passing. She prided herself in knowing most of the 'important' figures of the pride, and this bulky, disproportionate looking female was no exception; she was royalty. Or used to be anyhow, seeing as her mother had been dethroned and was currently on probation. A very long, probably hopeless probation, no doubt. At least in Miako's mind.
"Ugh," it was a sneer that seemed to voice the lithe female's distaste at the current situation. Her head, now lifted up as she tried (and somehow succeeded despite their height difference and age difference) to look the other female down, tilted to one side.
"I was most certainly not talking about that poor, wretched beast," she gave no further explanation on what she HAD meant, and instead watched Kidondo through keen, intelligent eyes, "You are rude," she told her finally, her features revealing a frown, "I do not recall inviting you over."
She wasn't entirely sure WHY she felt she was entitled to more than others, but her base, sixth sense told her she was. At that moment in time though, it was also telling her to be wary, that things were not often what they seemed... and that the lioness before her was somehow different from the other children in Kenna's litter, now that she was getting a better look (feel, rather) of her.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:14 am
"You are ignorant," is her bright retort, her voice deceptively cheerful, "I do not recall having to ask for an invitation." Kidondo settles herself nearby, humming happily to herself while she pins the scorpion to the ground by the claw she keeps pierced firmly through the bulb at the end of its tail. Poison drips slowly from the violated chitin and seeps into the dry earth, and she stares at it with mute fascination for a brief moment.
Her eyes still fixed on the scorpion, she speaks with an odd sense of certainty behind her words. "You should probably be nicer to me, we're going to be stuck with each other for a while. And you don't want to be on my bad side." A casual observer might think that the invertebrate she has pinned is meant to serve as an example - anyone who knows the lioness would understand that the consequences would be far, far worse if the scorpion was actually on her 'bad side.' She's just bored.
"So go on, tell me what's so vulgar?" The scorpion has given up on trying to escape, and is now swiping at anything it can reach. Kidondo's over-large paws give it little realm for purchase, and the hardened claws scrape uselessly against her toes.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:24 am
A snort is the only response that Kidondo gets at first, and when the lithe lioness turns her head to look away from her, turning her gaze to the lions that go about their business bellow... it pretty much feels like she is dismissing the red lioness. Or trying to anyhow. Her plan isn't really working very well, seeing as how Kidondo not only persists on staying there, perched upon what Miako plain feels is HER rock, but she also insists on talking to her.
It only as Kidondo settled on the ground beside her and spoke about how they would be 'stuck' together that Miako finally deemed her worthy of attention, though it was brief, for her eyes swiftly traveled to look down at the pinned scorpion, "You should put that poor beast out of it's misery," she said matter-of-factly, "And possibly me out of mine, by leaving."
Apparently, she didn't seem all too threatened by the words, though... at the same time, the way the red lioness had spoken hadn't really sounded like a threat. In fact, it had sounded as if she knew something Miako didn't, and that bothered the white lioness quite a bit. A lot, in fact.
Despite her previous claim of wanting to be left alone, she raised her red eyes to watch Kidondo before snorting again, her attention directed towards the lions bellow once more, "Everything," she said, though this time the disdain and snort were not directed towards her 'companion' of sorts, "They roll around in the dirt and claw at each other needlessly. Brutes. Needless violence that spawns nothing but more needless violence. Fighting for the sense of fighting; no strategy behind it, no purpose, no goal," there was disdain dripping from her very words, "It's vulgar."
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:34 am
While Miako speaks, Kidondo continues to inspect the scorpion. And at first it seems almost as if she's going to listen to the 'order' to dispose of it - she raises one claw, poised over its head. But then the claw descends near the tip of the tail, and is dragged through the chitin with deliberate slowness. If a scorpion could scream in pain it undoubtedly would. As it is, the hapless creature flails while she opens it from tail to thorax, and its struggles begin to die down while she peels the fractured carapace aside to reveal the tender innards.
"Isn't it interesting? We are soft on the outside, and hard inside. But they are hard on the outside, and soft inside."
She continues to poke around inside the scorpion until it finally succumbs to the damage and dies, then sighs in disappointment. Each time she does that she hopes to find the heart before it stops pumping, and each time she has failed. It has to have a heart, doesn't it? Everything else does, but it doesn't have any blood so maybe... but now is not the time or place for these musings, so she files them away and flings the tiny corpse off the rocks.
"Heh," she smirks, amused to know that her prissy little companion has probably watched Kidondo fighting down there on more than one occasion. "All the strategy in the world is useless if you don't have the muscle to back it up; even the best general needs some mindless brutes to fight for him." She's not disagreeing with Miako, not exactly, but it's obvious that the larger lioness does see some value in learning how to fight herself.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:10 am
At end of her rant, the lioness looked over to see Kidondo was still very much entertained by the scorpion she'd captured earlier, and the smaller female had to refrain from rolling her eyes. It wasn't till the red lioness lowered a claw and literally pealed the scorpion's shell away that she finally decided this an extremely... strange, albeit morbidly interesting situation she'd found herself in.
It wasn't the scorpion's insides that fascinated her (in fact, she thought it was horribly disgusting and wouldn't have been caught dead doing such a thing), but rather, the lioness that was performing the sort of biopsy on the small critter. Miako wanted to know what Kidondo was thinking at that very moment; she wanted the power to be able to peek inside the other female's mind, even if only for just a second.
Unlike the so called 'brutes' bellow, this female was acting with method, and seemed to have a purpose, a goal, even if her path was violent. Even the way she flung the scorpion aside, disappointed, spoke volumes and lord help her, Miako was curious.
"It doesn't matter how much muscle you have, or bulk, if your opponent can outsmart you with a flick of a paw," she retorted, before she turned to look on the battling lions, "They have no purpose but to get stronger, be betters, more violent, and that... is chaos. Not that I don't appreciate chaos - it's very entertaining to watch, but still. What do they fight for? What is the purpose of the fight when you do not win anything, when your enemy is not your enemy."
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:53 am
Now that the corpse has been disposed of, Kidondo sets about cleaning herself up. She works in an oddly ritualistic fashion, meticulously scraping her claws clean of the scorpion's remains before she sets to grooming. Each claw is bathed individually with her tongue, then each toe, then between each toe. Soon enough every part of her body that had touched the scorpion is spotless.
"It doesn't matter how many smarts you have, or how good your strategy is, if your opponent can flatten you with one lucky swipe," she shrugs, then steps forward to re-settle next to the smaller female. Keen eyes watch the brawlers below, and a pleased grin creeps across her muzzle. "The purpose of that fight IS to grow stronger, be better, more violent. But see?"
One paw extends to point towards an adolescent male, matched up against an adult. And then at a young female going against a much larger male. And then again, at a pair who seem evenly matched. "There, and there. And there. They fight to hone their minds as well as their bodies. Watch. Some day they will be leading the rest of the brutes to victory."
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:07 am
She wouldn't have been caught dead telling Kidondo this, but Miako found the way the red lioness bathed herself just as fascinating as she'd found the way she'd offed the scorpion. It was mostly the way the other lioness' every movement had a purpose, it was meticulously planned before it was executed. Everything about her companion seemed to be carefully calculated and Miako found she approved of this. She rarely saw lions with such a keen understanding or intelligence about them. Not that she'd ever tell her though.
"Hmmm..." she said slowly as her red gaze settled on the battling lions, "Perhaps, but at the same time, I see no need to fight when there is no enemy to fight. What victory do you speak of? Is there anyone out there to fight, to challenge?" a pause as she pondered her own words, and then continued, "I want someone to challenge. I want a challenge. Something that will have a goal, a purpose. I want to escape this vulgar life without a purpose. I want something... more."
Always something more. She was sure she'd been born for something other than this mundane... fighting she saw bellow, "I want a reason to be that's something other than... that," she motioned towards the lions bellow.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:15 am
"And again, ignorance." Kidondo huffs haughtily, lifting her head - and with her advantage in size, there's no way Miako can stop the larger lioness from looking down her nose at her white-pelted companion. "You really don't see it? There is no enemy to fight now, but what would happen if an enemy presented itself tomorrow and we were untrained?"
She rolls her eyes, mouthing the word 'kids' in a painfully blatant manner, and then looks back down at the practice yard. "I'll be one of them some day," the red lioness intones, clearly meaning the promising few she'd pointed out earlier, "but you're too small to be a fighter. If you stick near me I'll protect you, though." Her voice rings with youthful bravado, but again it has that eerie sense of certainty.
"I'm Kidondo," she introduces herself, belatedly, as if she'd expected that the other lioness would already know who she is. But then it's like they've known -- will know -- each other forever, even if she doesn't know the other girl's name at all. It's an odd feeling, but it's something that she's grown used to over time.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:32 am
In all honesty, Miako didn't think there were lions stupid enough to challenge the Firekin. Not really, anyhow (but then that was her still childish innocence talking there), plus, she thought there were quite a few better ways to 'train' than rolling around the dirt mindlessly as those brutes down there were. Alas, for once, she kept her mouth shut and instead turned to glare up at her larger companion. There was heat in her gaze, a spark that betrayed her heritague, that even underneath all that calm, the white lioness was indeed true to her lineage and that the fight called to her in some baser, instinctual way (even if at the moment it wasn't calling her in any physical way).
"Miako'moto," she spoke in response to the other lioness' name, her eyes still fixed on her form. The sense of certainty that she felt from the other's words were pulling, something familliar. It was like when she looked over the fights and could predict whom would win... it was like this lioness knew something she did not, and at the same time did.
Kidondo may not have been one of the generals, or one of the brawling soldiers down on the training fields, but she was important somehow. Though Miako had no way to understand or even figure out how she knew that, she was used to following her instincts, and they were telling her that this could very well be the challenge she'd been looking for, "Well," she murmured as she turned to gaze back at the brawling lion, "At least it will be interesting."
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