[PRP] Cubbie Musings (Haruma, Cor)

[Princess_Feylin]

"She couldn't possibly leave," Cor pointed out, frowning at Haruma's defeatist attitude about her mother. And couldn't resist correcting her. While it was entirely possible that her mother might want to leave again, if she came back, she surely wouldn't be allowed to. No one was allowed to leave the pride. Especially not if they had the illness which plagued its members, often from birth.

The new topic was one she seized on readily enough. She didn't have any siblings that she knew of, but she didn't mind that. She thought it more dramatic and exciting to say that they had died in some tragic way which didn't involve the pride's illness at all. Everyone she knew who had died - which was a very small number of people at this point in her life - had died because they'd succumbed to illness. It was a fairly boring way to die, as far as Cor was concerned.

"I had siblings. Two, actually. A brother and a sister like you, though mine were older than me. But they're both dead now." She didn't even have to try hard to come up with ways for them to meet their ends, and it didn't occur to her that the story she'd woven about her parents wouldn't really allow for older siblings.

"My brother died before I was born, during a spring mudslide, and my sister died just a few moons ago defending me from a pack of hyenas. I ran to get help, but by the time I came back, it was too late." She shook her head sadly. "She was a really good sister. She was always nice to me, and showed me how to do lots of cool stuff, like how to climb trees like a leopard."

Haruma's inquiry about other cubs was dismissed with a brief, "Oh, I know everyone. At least, everyone worth knowing."  

[Talencia]

Haruma would have asked in puzzlement what she and her sister were doing out beyond the pride's borders, when Cor's last sentence struck a jarring chord.

For once, she responded as you would expect a young cub to. She suddenly glared at her new friend and jutted her lower lip. "My siblings and I are not worth knowing?" she demanded in minor outrage. After all, they had only just met, so Haruma had been one of those Cor had not known just minutes before. And her brother and sister remained in that unknown catagory.

She rose to her paws, posture stiff and tense with upset. Something still chimed wrong with this other cub, though Haruma was too young to catch on to the lies and posturing. To her, there was no reason to be anything but who and what you were. To do otherwise would have made no sense to her, so in her innocence she was unable to grasp why Cor would have such a hurtful thing.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Utterly bemused, Cor protested, "I didn't say that! I mean, I made the effort to get to know you, didn't I? Obviously that means you're worth knowing."

She hadn't made any sort of effort to get to know Haruma's siblings, of course, but as far as she was concerned it was good enough to know one person in a family. Particularly if dealing with siblings. How different could they really be, anyway? True, one was a boy, but Cor knew boys, and she knew the difference between girls and boys and found it old, uninteresting news.

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything, but if you're going to be like that about it, then fine," Cor said, pretending she wasn't as confused by Haruma's reaction as she really was.

She had gotten in trouble once or twice before for saying things which weren't the truth, but she'd never had anyone react like Haruma had, thinking she'd said something she hadn't. Usually when people accused her of saying something, even if it was outlandish, it was something she'd actually said. And she didn't often say things which were deliberately hurtful. Her confusion made her defensive, and soon she, too, was standing up in stiff posture.  

[Talencia]

She was terribly tired of this game, whatever it was. The haughty way Cor had responded further put off Haruma. Her head was now aching, and she was heartily sick of trying to figure this odd cub out. She rubbed a boaw across her forehead and mussed up her headfur. If this is what all other cubs were like, she could do just as well without them. She sighed and shook her head, letting all the anger flow out of her body.

"Nevermind. I want to go home," she said to the other cub, turning her back. Things were still strange here, and meeting Cor had not helped her become adjusted at all. More confused than ever, and feeling lonely for her familiar and amiable siblings, she padded towards the den they shared with their adoptive mother. Still was such an odd idea to think of that as home. With slumped shoulders, she moved off, too unhappy to say anything else to Cor. Who knew how their next meeting would go.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Cor felt sorry for Haruma suddenly. She didn't really know what it was like to miss a mother. The only person in her life who really mattered to her was her father, and she missed him whenever he was away scouting, but she knew he would always come back, even if it took a while. Not knowing, like Haruma, would probably be pretty awful.

Even though she felt sorry for her, she didn't feel sorry enough that she offered to help her home or anything like that. Haruma had turned her back on Cor, and that was one of those actions which the brown cub simply found inexcusably rude. There was no other way to interpret it except that the person was deliberately ignoring her, and Cor hated to be ignored. Thus, Cor's final impression of Haruma was not a particularly favorable one, and she let the other cub go without any further effort to stop her or protest that she hadn't meant to hurt her feeligns.

She watched her departure for a little bit, pressed flat to the ground in hopes of avoiding adult notice. Then she grew bored and went her own way. There were plenty of other cubs for her to play with. She didn't need to have anything more to do with this touchy outsider.