"So, "
Zumaridi perked an ear, blinking one eye open to look for the source of the voice. Hm, she hadn't seen this one before. A leopard. A blue and purple leoaprd. Thats interesting. "What are you doing here? " The lioness raised her head, blinking sleepily and yawning, taking her time. Perhaps a bit rude of her, but its not like this leopard had been polite, waking her up like that.
"Taking a nap. Is this place important to you? " She grumbled slightly, flicking her tail. Still, she wasn't downright unpleasant, this leopard was probably a member of the pride, if he was this deep into the territory. "Yes! " Zumaridi frowned, glancing down at a ratel who's popped up next to the leopard, which looked downright unhappy, while the other just looked somewhat impatient. "How so? " She perked her ears, raising her eyebrows quizzically. Honestly, it was just a little cave, near a stream, what was the big deal? She hadn't even gone deep into it.
"You better not have messed with anything, " The ratel went on, ignoring her question, then promptly trotted past her, fur prickled. The leopard glanced at the creature, sighing and sitting down. "Its our cave. " He twitched his tail, and she eyed him suspiciously. So what if it was his cave? They were in the highlands. There were plenty caves here. Well, maybe she was just overreacting. "We keep.. stuff here. " This made Zuma tilt her head. Stuff?
The leopard obviously sensed her confusion, and shrugged, going on. "I work for the emperor and empress. Um.. its hard to explain. " He hesitated a bit. "Well, look at my fur. " Wow, that was a strange request. But having nothing better to do, and she supposed she had invaded his den, Zuma sat up, scrutinizing the leopard quietly. His fur did look.. really nice and soft, actually. She liked to think her own was nice, but for a brief moment she felt some envy. But how exactly did this serve the emperor and empress? "What about it? "
The blue leopard seemed somewhat pleased by her reaction, and she supposed she may have made a face, but fortunately he didn't brag. Though she could tell he wanted to. "I do this. Mixing things together. Fur gets way nicer. " She still didn't understand, and he pondered a bit. Finally, he shrugged. "Look, I'll show you. " The leopard trotted into the cave, and Zuma wasn't sure about following for a bit, because this was a strange encounter so far. But she sighed, she might as well. Getting to her paws and stretching lazily, the chocolate lioness moved to follow the leopard into the cave.
Toward the end of it, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw strange, bowl-like stones, one or two looked like they'd been made by a lot of ramming rocks together, a few looked.. strange, unnatural, and one or two looked kind of like a god had stuck their paw through them and pulled out a chunk. Scattered around the cave were.. fruit peelings? And eggshells. And what could be the remains of beehives. "What is all this stuff? "
She looked around to find the ratel from before, huddled before one of those 'bowls' with what she was sure was a beehive. and he was dumping.. honey in it? "Okay.. I don't get it. " The leopard appeare dout of nowhere again, smiling widely. "These are my things. They're good for your fur. " He stuck a paw in one of those strange shapes, and brought it out again, causing the lioness to blink at the weird substance that came out. Zuma, who wasn't done, managed to put two and two together. "So you.. smush all these things together. And its good for your fur? " She wrinkled her nose as he brought his paw closer, allowing her to smell it. It didn't smell good. "Yeah. As you can see it doesn't smell great. So you throw this other one on. " He indicated to another bowl-thing, which she sniffed at as well. Yeah, that one was good.
This was crazy. "I see.. " Though skeptical, Zuma would be lying if she said she wasn't intrigued by this leopard and his ratel. "And what does this have to do with the emperor and empress? " She flicked her tail. She could guess a bit.
The leopard paused a bit. "Well, not so much emperor. Apparently he doesn't care about this stuff. " The leopards tone was almost sarcastic, like he found it so silly that Ahali'bagawa didn't care about looks. "But.. The princes and princesses, have you ever noticed how nice their fur is? " She blinked, and nodded. "Well, yeah. that was me. " The leopard said proudly, causing Zuma to smile somewhat. He really liked what he did. But it was still a little silly. "So you're like a fancy official groomer? " Zuma was incapable of keeping some mirth out of her voice, which made the leopard frown somewhat, and she dipped her head in apology. "Well, yes. " He shrugged, and Zumaridi figured she'd made him feel a bit silly. A subject change would be nice.
"So, ah.. what's your name? " She asked, glancing at the badger who'd turn to stare at her a bit, then focusing again on the much more pleasant leopard. "I'm Xian Poo, and my proper name is Quan. He's just Dongo. How about you? " He motioned to the ratel, and now she actually understood why they hung out together. Ratels could get honey, right? He probably used that.
"My name is Zumaridi, or Mingyu. " She nodded, quietly recalling that she had another name now. "Well, I guess I should get going now, and let you work. " She said, feeling somewhat awkward now that there wasn't much else to say. This was silly, she felt like a silly adolescent again. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Quan! " She nodded, then practically hurried out of the cave. She felt like the whole encounter had started off on the wrong foot, so maybe some other day she should pass by and try and make friends. He did seem nice, after all. But the ratel didn't. She paused at the entrance, looking back into the cave. "It was nice meeting you! " She called back, flicking her tail and hearing a muffled 'yeah, you too!' coming from inside, followed by a 'good riddance!' which had probably come from the unpolite ratel.
Rolling her eyes, Zuma hurried off. Time to finish her nap.
