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 Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:15 am
The young leopon glared into the watering hole as one paw fiddled with the beginnings of his mane. He wasn't, contrary to popular belief, trying to make it look nice to impress the girls.
He was trying to figure out how to cover it up with mud. The way he'd done with his tailtip as a cub. After all, wasn't switching places and confusing people the best part of being a twin? It wasn't fair that his mane was coming in white while Shu's was dark! Now they couldn't pretend to be each other!
Well, he couldn't pretend to be Shu. His brother seemed to have less of an interest in the game. Hashiel didn't know why, but okay, so they didn't have to be together every moment of every day. That was okay, mostly.
Sort of not.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:23 am
Shulinav was not very good at keeping himself entertained, as much as he tried to when he wound up by himself. Everything was just more fun with someone around to help guide your games.. or to tell you what to do, whatever. It didn't take him very long to get bored after wandering off by himself so he went off in search of Hashiel. His twin was always the most fun of his siblings to hang around with, mostly because he knew Hashiel always liked hanging around with him.
Having no idea where his twin might have gone after he'd stomped off to try to play by himself, Shu spent far longer than he would have liked trying to track him down. Too exhausted to be too excited, when he finally found his brother by the waterhole, he simply walked up and plopped himself down by the water's edge.
"What are you doing?"
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:29 am
"Trying to cover up this stupid mane," Hashiel grumbled. He wasn't surprised that Shu had turned up - his twin tended to do that. He was much more focused on the problem at hand. "I can't pretend to be you if I can't cover it up," he went on, leaving off the "obviously" part. Shu knew his games and his tricks, his brother couldn't possibly be surprised.
Hesitantly, Hashiel dipped one paw into the water and scooped up a bit of mud off the bottom. He was waiting for the ripples to still, so he could better apply it to his mane, when the coughing started.
SPLOOCH. The mud fell back into the water as the leopon hacked.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:36 am
"Oh, right."
Shu looked from his brother to the water, thinking about this problem. If mud had been convincing with just the tail, it had to work for the whole mane.. though it would be trickier since your mane was on your head and you couldn't really see it.
"I can help make sure you ge-"
He jumped when Hashiel suddenly started coughing and dropped the mud, inching back a bit subconsciously and frowning. He never liked when his brother was undeniably sick- but he never noticed that it was mainly when Hashiel was sick that he felt sick, too.
"I can help. Here!"
Ignoring Hashiel's coughing, Shulinav waded into the water and started squishing his paws in the mud trying to gather some up.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:40 am
Ugh, he hated being sick. Really really hated it. Mom said it was just part of life, that since they were half lion, they were vulnerable to the disease. Hashiel didn't think that was particularly fair since there were also half leopard and Mom was immune.
More to the point, being sick had a way of interfering with his games and plans. He didn't know what he'd do without Shu around to help out in times like this.
"Th-thanks Shu," he managed to get out around his coughing fit in the long minutes before it finally subsided. The leopon breathed slowly and deeply and took a drink of water.
"Thanks," he said again more normally. "Sorry about that."
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:00 am
Shu was shaking a bit as he splashed around in the water trying to get some mud to help decorate and disguise his brother, feeling his own sickness kicking in now that he was around Hashiel and Hashiel was coughing. But he wasn't so bad he couldn't keep going.
"Here," he said, leaning back onto his hind legs and lifting up his muddy paws, "Lower your head!"
Actually trying to help with this made a problem suddenly very clear- manes were thicker than tail fur, how was this going to get all of the white fur? Shu was going to need a lot more mud.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:04 am
Now that the fit had subsided Hashiel was better able to work with his twin to get the disguise in place. He obediently crouched down so that Shu could reach his head more easily. As he got lower down though, he could see that the other boy was shaking a little. Great. It never failed - every time Hashiel's sickness made itself known, so did Shu's. What a pair they made.
No wonder Mom looked at them with such concern. She must be afraid that they would both die soon or something.
"Are you sure you can get it all?" he asked nervously. Just because they were best friends didn't mean they were above pranking each other, and he wasn't sure he trusted Shu to have his bests interests in mind in this position.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:16 am
"Yes!" he said in a shaky voice that failed to convey the confidence he wanted, "Just wait." Shu dropped what mud would come off his paws onto Hashiel's head and, after a brief hesitation to consider how best to proceed, he started trying to brush the mud through his brother's little mane with his claws.
"Need more mud," he said, sitting back down and dipping his paws in the water, "Shake your head, Hashiel, it'll help!"
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:19 am
Obediently, Hashiel shook his head. Somehow, the further this went, the stupider he felt. When he'd been alone, staring at the water, this had seemed a lot more sensible than it did right now.
"Are you okay?" he asked, raising his own paws to try and pat the mud in while Shu got more of it. He was concerned by the shakiness in his twin's voice, as well as the fact that if his brother missed a spot, the whole game would be up.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:26 am
Shu got more mud up and out of the water, holding it there while Hashiel fixed up what he could of his mane without seeing and made sure he was OK. He never liked that question, it seemed so ridiculous when they were plagued and obviously OK as they were going to be.
"It's fine, let's get the rest of it," he said, "If we can't get it to work now, it won't work again, your mane will only get bigger now." He wasn't always in on Hashiel's games of pretending to be him, but he didn't hate them, especially since Hashiel enjoyed it. They could make it work just a little bit longer!
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:29 am
The leopon smiled as his brother brushed off the question. Okay, so it had been a stupid one. And he'd known Shu would act like that. But he'd had to ask anyway, else what kind of twin would he be?
"You're right," Hashiel conceded and tried to be still so that Shu would have an easier time with the mud. "I wonder why you were born with a dark mane and I with a light," he mused aloud for lack of anything better to say. It was a valid question, though he wasn't sure if it was an important one or not.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:35 am
Shu was quiet as he worked to try to finish covering Hashiel's mane in mud, though he thought about the question his twin put forward. He had no idea how genetics worked, he had no idea what made a mane dark or light.. it was weird that they were identical except for their manes and tails, but there was only really one explanation he could think of.
"You got your mane from dad, I got mine from mom," he said decisively, though he wasn't sure what it really meant either. With a sigh, he sat back down in the water. This was as good as the mane was going to get.
"It looks good, let's go see if mom can tell!"
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:38 am
"But mom's a girl and they don't have manes," Hashiel pointed out. "And dad's a leopard and they don't either!" It didn't make sense. How could they have manes from either parent when neither had them to begin with? He got up anyway on Shu's urging.
"Maybe we should find someone else first, you know mom can always tell," he added dispiritedly. That was what ruined the game every time. Mom always always always always knew.
But mom was hardly the only lion in the pride and the leopon's lips curled in a smile. "Come on, you know there's a lot of people we haven't even met yet!" he pointed out gleefully and started heading for the heartlands of the pride.
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Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:43 am
Hashiel had a very good point, why did they even have manes? He'd only been thinking about where the dark and light colors could be found, he didn't give the whole mane thing itself a thought. But now, could he forget how weird it was that they had manes?
"OK," he agreed, snapping back out of his pondering as Hashiel pointed out how mom always knew who was who. The idea of going to test it on other people was fun, so he nodded, getting up and out of the water.
He shook the water off of himself and bounded after his brother. Neither realized that even if they did trick strangers into thinking they were more identical than they were, they'd forgotten about Hashiel's tail and lost all chance of ever tricking mom, Shogahamaki or Ukwamukela.
Fin!
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