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 Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:29 pm
It was midday and there was no particular need for him at the time, but he wandered anyway. If he had nothing else to do with his time, there was no reason he couldn't offer a little extra help. Occasionally there were rogues that came too close to the pride's land and that needed addressing, many of them ended up joining. Badiri had yet to actually notice one himself, he had yet to actually find anything unusual. But he was keeping his eyes open!
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 9:48 pm
 Ukene hadn't had much free time after starting her apprenticeship with Mitsuki, and it was probably for the best. She'd been slowly but surely practising keeping her attention in one place, and although it didn't always pan out the way she and her mentor wanted it to, she was making a serious effort. Which was why she so appreciated the rare days when she did free time and wasn't too sleepy to do anything. And this was one of those days. The lioness was currently bumbling around and smelling the flowers. Or well, mostly the leaves, but it was all the same to her - and besides, who says leaves can't smell nice? Not Ukene, that was for sure. She was happy and it showed in her big grin and the joy her uncoordinated movements showed. She was doing something useful, something important and it was a fantastic feeling.
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:02 pm
Badiri was far from recognizing the entire pride, but he generally knew who was and wasn't a pride member. When he spotted the silver lioness in the distance, he knew she was a pride member and she looked just a bit younger than he was. He glanced around where he was, he wasn't too far out from the central lands but where the silver lioness was was quite close to the borders. And she looked somewhere between lost and.. like she'd found something? It was hard to tell from the distance, so he decided there was no harm in taking a closer look and he walked towards her.
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:09 pm
It took a while for Ukene to notice the advancing lion, but when she did it was with a comical expression of surprise on her face. He.. he just stepped on her favorite patch of grass! She'd spent hours -- okay, more along the lines of minutes, but whatever! -- finding a patch that smelled that nice out here and now it was ruined.
"You killed it." She was staring mournfully at his feet as she uttered the dramatic statement. "Why did you do that?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:18 pm
He stopped immediately when he saw the look on her face and she yelled at him. He.. killed it? What? He looked around him, looking by his feet- even lifting them up one at a time and looking beneath them. He hadn't stepped on any bugs this time- it had happened to him before with that stupid yellow girl. He looked up, his expression somewhere between puzzled and frustrated.
"What?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:26 pm
"It!" She gestured towards the now-flat patch at his feet. "My grass!"
She turned huge, sorrowful eyes to meet his and whispered: "It was the best ever and now it's gone. You've killed it."
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:32 pm
Badiri gave Ukene a look that said exactly what he thought, and that was that she was insane. He narrowed his eyes, looked from Ukene to the grass and back again. And then back to the grass. It wasn't gone, it wasn't dead and it certainly wasn't his fault for .. walking on grass. Were girls all insane or..?
"It's not dead," he said blankly, unamused and confused, "It's still right there. Are you ok?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 10:53 pm
Ukene garnered rather a few looks like that and had become a pro at ignoring them. Honestly, if people wanted to walk around with funny looks on their faces, that was none of her business.
"It's not?" She looked quizzical, now. Wasn't stuff you trod on supposed to die? Or was that just flowers..?
"I'm fine. Well, except for the grass thing, but other than that I'm great! So not fine, but great. Did that make sense? It didn't to me. I think it was supposed to, though. Are you sure it's not dead?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:06 pm
Badiri stared at Ukene, just stared.
Were there any normal lionesses his age in this pride? Any at all? He had no idea how to react to her, she was so very confusing- even if what she said made perfect sense in its own way. He looked back at the grass, then took two giant steps back so he was no longer standing where he was when he 'killed' the grass.
"We walk on grass all the time, it's not all dead is it?" he said carefully, trying to reason his way out of another murder accusation, "I'm sure it's not dead." He was afraid to ask any other questions, what kind of crazy answers would he get if he did that?
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:21 pm
The younger lioness blinked and gaped at her companion. He was.. he was right! Well, now she felt slightly stupid - wasn't this the sort of thing she had to stop doing if she wanted to be a good priestess? She threw another mournful gaze at the grass before straightening up and looking Badiri in the eye, determination shining out of every pore.
"I'm sorry! I was being stupid again." She wanted to add more to that, but consciously held her tongue. "I'm an apprentice now, I shouldn't be dumb anymore." She added the last bit mostly to herself, but it was hearable all the same.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 12:01 am
He blinked. And then he blinked again. She was acknowledging her own foolishness? And she was an apprentice to something- he couldn't help but hope it wasn't the historian one. Though she did rather look like that silver one.. Badiri shook his head.
"It's.. ok?" he offered, though he sounded about as convinced as he was- and he wasn't, "What are you an apprentice of? What's your name?" They seemed like obvious questions, but he didn't even think of it until that moment.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:32 am
He didn't sound as though it was OK, but Ukene decided, in a rare fit of clarity, to let it be.
"I'm Mitsuki's apprentice! It's awesome, too!" She did a one-eighty and beamed proudly at her own words. "She's the midwife you know, or now you do if you didn't before.. She's really, really great -" this was a bit of biased opinion, but whatever, "- and she's teaching me all sorts of stuff about the Great Lion and helping pregnant ladies out and stuff. Lots of stuff. Looooads!"
As an afterthought she added; "Oh, I'm Ukene. Who're you, anyway?" He seemed slightly familiar, so she'd probably seen him around the pride.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:11 am
She was.. enthusiastic, he would give her that. But her over-excited and bubbly attitude made him wonder just how comfortable the pregnant lionesses were with her attending births- though of course, he didn't know if many lionesses were pregnant right now. But.. it wasn't up to him to decide what was and was not appropriate, he'd only ever know one pregnant lioness and that was his own mother.
"I'm Badiri," he introduced himself, still seeming puzzled and keeping a bit of a distance between them, "I'm a guard."
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 12:47 pm
"Really?" Her eyes lit up at his words; guards were like -- like heroes, right? It certainly seemed like a very heroic profession! "So, do you like.. save people?"
Someone had said that the guards kept the pride safe, which Ukene naturally equated to regular fights with invading hordes. In slowmotion. And with lots of unneccessarily fancy moves.
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:58 pm
OK, this was a much better turn in the conversation. He was more than happy to brag about his position, already it sounded better than it might have if he were a hunter. Everybody hunted, this was like an extra or unique responsibility. Kind of. Badiri really played it up to be more important in his mind.
"Sure," he agreed, but added carefully, "I haven't run into any trouble yet but I'm ready for it!"
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