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 Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:04 pm
All things considered, being Queen was turning out to be rather a boring endeavor for Parisa. She was so slowly building up practice interacting with the pride in her new rank that she didn't get out so much, and for that she partially blamed her King-- though never out loud. Shangyue was happy to keep to himself and do what he liked until he felt he was needed.. truthfully, he didn't seem to have a worry at all. Parisa, however, had a few.
She had long thought about the need for a personal visit with the Shaman. Shangyue had put her into her position and entrusted his, ah, problem child to her.. and then nothing. She did not follow her mate everywhere he went so she might be mistaken but she did know that he tended to ignore Antara- and while she wanted to do the same, she felt it was better not to. For now.
So, like a good stepmother, she was seeking out the child's mentor to discuss her progress.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:10 pm
 Between her own children - thankfully now adults - and her apprentices, Lailah was certain that Shaman was a bigger job now than it had ever been before. Of course part of that was her own fault, after all, no Shaman in living memory had actually had children... So it was a nice breather to be able to dismiss the Apprentices for a few moon-widths to run errands and generally get out of her fur. However, it seemed that the white lioness wasn't going to be quite alone in that stretch of time. The dark-furred lioness approaching her made that perfectly clear. Shaman she might be, but she couldn't simply refuse to see the Queen. "Good evening, my lady," she offered to the other female.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:17 pm
It was surprisingly easy to find the Shaman-- though she was not in her usual haunts, surrounded by her usual crowd, she was a very pale lady and she was a very familiar figure in the pride. It made it rather simple to pick her out in a crowd, or in the distance. She looked distracted, but she did not try to avoid the interaction.
"Good evening, Lailah," Parisa replied with a smile, "Have the night off, do you?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:21 pm
"An entire night? Never!" the older lioness replied with a laugh. "A mere portion of the evening is all I can claim, else who knows what my Apprentices will decide to do without me?" It wasn't that she didn't trust her students, but she knew well how much of a pawful she'd been for Stellaluna.
And Stellaluna had only had one Apprentice.
"What brings you over here?" To be honest, Parisa was far from her favorite pridemember. One of Firaga's children, it wasn't entirely surprising Shangyue had chosen her for his Queen. In fact, the best thing Lailah could say about the other lioness was that she was nowhere near as destructive as the King, her father, or Tyfu and her family.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:48 pm
Parisa laughed at the reply she got, sounding more genuinely good-natured than anybody might expect from her. Normally, she might not envy how busy the Shaman was with so much work to do and so many apprentices- and her own children- but until Parisa had children of her own, she really had nothing to put time and energy into.
"I hope they don't cause you too much trouble," she said, "I was just hoping to ask how Antara is doing in her training. She doesn't talk very much about it when she gets home, and Shangyue seems reluctant to inquire but I am getting, ah.. worried about her."
She couldn't help but hesitate. Though she looked perfectly at ease and expectant of a 'good' answer, perfect sincerity was impossible on the rather sensitive subject.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:57 pm
"Antara?" Lailah couldn't say that she was surprised by the Queen's choice of focus. The lioness was the Heir-Presumptive given Parisa's own lack of children. Of course, she had reservations of her own given the circumstances.
"She's a good Apprentice overall," the white lioness replied. "But she tends to be quiet and keeps to herself. I try not to press her too hard. After all, I'm her teacher, not her mother." Unspoken - that Kamia or Parisa should be the one to try and wriggle out whatever troubled the young female.
Of course, if Lailah had any say in her successor, which she rather hoped to but couldn't guarantee as long as Shangyue was in charge, it wouldn't be Antara. Not until she was able to get into her Apprentice's head better than she could now.
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Posted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 7:25 pm
"I haven't had much practice at being a mother yet. Or rather, stepmother," Parisa said with a sigh, "Perhaps this would be easy for the both of us if she hadn't already been so old when her father married. I expect cubs will be easier."
It was easy not to get defensive but it was impossible not to suggest that she would be an excellent mother once she had her own cubs to mother. Despite the fact that it was the reason Shangyue had married and it was expected of her (and hadn't happened yet).. Parisa had become very attached to the idea. She would be a great mother to the next princes and princesses of the Mwezi'Johari.. it was too bad she only had an adolescent stepchild to practice on, especially when the ultimate goal was to undermine her claim.
Not that Antara had any, really, while she remained under Lailah.
"You have one other apprentice, correct?" she asked, "How is she faring?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:12 pm
"It's hard to say when children are involved," Lailah reflected. "They're surprisingly resilient, though still vulnerable in the ways you least expect." She didn't know the other lioness that well, so she couldn't accurately judge what kind of mother Parisa would be.
And if she didn't oppose Shangyue, she was no sycophant to fawn over the monarchs.
So she fastened on the Queen's query happily.
"Alkina? She's doing quite well! Really, I'm quite glad to have two Apprentices, and not simply because of how...vulnerable...my position has been in the past." Stellaluna might still be alive, but the Shaman and Apprentice before her had both gone missing, presumed dead.
"If either of them were here, I'd attempt to get them to talk to you, but even if you aren't a mother, you might remember how adolescents love to talk to adults they don't know." The sarcasm was thick in Lailah's voice as she smiled. She too remembered that age.
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Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:27 pm
Alkina, she repeated to herself mentally. She would need to know that name, it was embarrassing that she had not bothered to learn it sooner. Antara never really talked about her companion, either.
"Yes," Parisa said thoughtfully, "I've heard it's quite rare to have more than two shamans in living memory of the pride and we're up to four now. Though I suppose the same can be said for the monarchy."
Her tone was very matter-of-fact. It was hardly a secret that the pride had undergone many shifts in power and strange tragedies in recent times. While Parisa had never really had a reason to pay attention to those history lessons before, she knew it would have mattered a great deal to someone raised from a young age to be one of those important lions.
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Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 4:16 pm
The small smile on on Lailah's face faded as Parisa turned the subject to more...serious ground. Sure, there was one former Shaman, herself, and her two Apprentices now, but no one had ever determined what had become of her and Stellaluna's predecessors. And as for the living monarchs and former monarchs as opposed to the deceased ones...well, Parisa may have been a baby but Lailah had been a full adult when Shangyue took over.
"I suppose..." the white lioness replied. "The Shaman and Apprentice before myself and Stellaluna vanished so long ago now, and I doubt we'll ever know what happened." It had been just before she was born, making Lailah, as the first lioness born to the high class afterwards, the new Apprentice by default.
She didn't even know their names. How awful was that?
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:36 pm
"No, we likely won't," Parisa agreed. The Queen knew her history but it didn't mean she worried too much about it. She kept in mind the parts she deemed crucial in getting the pride to where it was now and keeping it there.. but the shaman was not a cause for concern so long as Stellaluna remained quiet and Lailah K'chol remained loyal.
She considered pointing out that Shangyue had brought peace and stability to the pride but she expected Lailah knew as well as her that his peace depended so much on intimidation that they really couldn't get too comfortable. And the Shaman was in a better position since she could be considered entirely separate from the monarchy despite how she ended up there.
"I should be on my way," she said finally, "I will check in another time."
That was enough pretending to mother for one night.
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Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:47 pm
"Of course," Lailah replied with a graceful nod as Parisa took her leave. The new Queen was...interesting. And not necessarily in a good way. There was much the King had done that the Shaman supported, but some stains would never wash away. And Firaga, Parisa's father, had been at Shangyue's right paw the whole way. The white lioness could never be completely certain what the black lion had taught his children.
But as long as Parisa was civil and polite, so would Lailah be and keep her doubts to herself.
Fin.
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