[PRP - East] Siblings In the Rain [FIN]

[Twiddle]

Kytora

Why did it have to rain? Rain caused the mud puddles that were littered everywhere in the pridelands, always in the way of Zenda Mila and the path she was trying to follow.

She had been on her way home from the watering hole (not too far away, of course, from the den) when she had encountered more mud puddles than she had been able to handle. It hadn’t been this bad on the way to the water, though she had taken a different route.

The cub grimaced as her clean, neat paws repeatedly slipped and splashed into the mud. She increased her slow walk to a trot, then a sprint, racing back towards her den so she wouldn’t encounter more puddles and dirty herself even more…
But it backfired on her.

By the time Zunda got back to her den, her poor paws were even a darker brown than her usual shade of lovely chocolate. She sat down and began to clean herself, comfortably situated with the sun on her back at the outside of the den.

 

[Twiddle]

Tarakazi had been napping, not in the overly crowded den but off on his own, where he could usually be found. He had been speaking to his rocks as he wandered back.

"No, no, no! You're wrong, Cowardly Rock! It's better to stand up for yourself than to take any kind of insult." The young cub nodded sagely, not noticing his sun-bathing sibling. He continued his conversation, "See, War Rock is correct. Sometimes." He laughed at something one of his friends (who were all in his head, although he believed deeply that they really spoke to him) said.

He almost stepped on Zunda before he noticed she was there. "Oh! Hello Zunda!" He said with a smile, sitting down. Although he usually preferred the company of his stone friends, there was never a reason to not be nice to his siblings. "How are you this lovely day?" His smile turned into a frown suddenly, "Shut up! I'm trying to talk!" The last part was spoken to the pouch that hung around his neck, which carried the rocks he had picked up and had deemed worthy of being his friends. "Sorry, anyway, how are you sis?"  

[Kytora]

For a moment, she thought she was imagining things when she heard a voice...seemingly talking to a rock. Zenda blinked, stopped her ministrations, and glanced around to find the source of the voice. And as soon as she had, her brother almost stepped on her.

She hopped backwards to avoid being hurt, and narrowed her eyes at Kazi. Why in the world would he be talking to rocks?

"Today is horrible. I was thirsty so I went out to get a drink but the entire pride lands are filled with mud puddles," she described woefully. "So I got incredibly dirty coming back home and now I just almost got stepped on by my brother."  

[Twiddle]

Kazi cocked his head to the side. "But, mud puddles are fun, Zen-zen!" He said with a grin, nodding enthusiastically. He had indeed been havng fun in the puddles, since his entire coat was coated in mud.

He frowned at the pouch around his neck, "Shhhh, you guys, I'm trying to talk to Zen-zen!" He said to it, then slung the pouch from around his neck and let it hit the ground softly. He sighed and pushed his friends away for the time being.

"And I'm sorry I almost stepped on you, when those two start going I can't really pay attention to anything else..." He said bashfully, sitting down he wrapped his tail around himself.  

[Kytora]

Zenda tilted her head to the opposite side when he called her something that was not her name. Zen-zen? What was that? Was that supposed to be a nickname? Oh no, that was not going to last.

She glared at him. "Don't call me that," she huffed.

"And why do you talk to rocks? They don't talk; nobody else hears them." Maybe she was just in a bad mood from being almost-stepped on. Maybe it was the mud puddles, and the icky weather outside right now. Maybe it was both.

Either way, Kazi wasn't helping matters, no matter how kind he tried to be to her. She sniffed, and continued on to wash her paws. They would not be perfect again until they were completely and utterly spotless of all the dirt and grime she had managed to pick up on her sprint home.

Stupid mud.  

[Twiddle]

The small tawny lion shrunk down into his shoulders, his ears flattening against his skull. He hadn't meant to make Zenda angry, that was the last thing he had hoped to do! He wondered why he was so weird, why he was cursed this way. Why could hear the rocks so perfectly, when no one else could? He had always thought it a gift, a sense no one else had. But the way his sister put it, it sounded more like he was a freak. And for the first time in his young life, he felt like a freak.

"I'm sorry, Zen-zen... I mean, Zenda." He corrected himself. He had given all his siblings nicknames in his head, and he supposed this was the first time she had heard it out loud. He didn't know why he did it, it was just natural to him. Just like speaking with stones was. He supposed his nicknaming made him even more of a freak.

In an attempt to cheer her up, he plopped down next to her, unknowingly sitting close and smearing the mud from his side onto hers. He began to clean the mud off the paw she wasn't working on, being very proud that he had thought up this unique way of apologizing.  

[Kytora]

Zenda frowned and turned away from the guilt that was gnawing at her on the inside. Just because she was angry didn't mean she had to take it out on Kazi. He didn't ask for it. He was just playing with his little rock friends, that was all.

She refused to turn back around and look at him, sure that he was leaving to go back inside the den and play with his rocks more. But she was surprised when she felt his paws gently scraping the mud from her other paw while she cleaned another. The cub glanced at Kazi then, and her lips twitched slightly.

"You can call me that if you really want to," she sighed finally. "And...just be careful of who you're around when you talk to the rocks. You don't know who will be there to make fun of you for it." She was stubborn, and as such, would not apologize unless he dragged it out of her. But she didn't think he'd even try.  

[Twiddle]

Zenda was right, Kazi didn't try to drag an apology out of her. Just the fact that she was okay with his nickname for her, and that she was speaking to him, was enough for the easily pleased young lion.

"Okay, Zen-zen!" He said with a smile as he continued to lick the mud from her.

"Zen-zen, why do you think some people don't like it when I talk to the rocks? I can't help that they talk to me, I mean, I'm just standing there, minding my own business, and WHAM! They start bombarding me with conversation! Wherever I go, they're talking to me. I kinda like it, because I'll always have someone to talk to. But sometimes," here, he paused and looked over at his pouch, then whispered, "They get a little annoying." He grinned playfully.

He finished cleaning her paw, then stood and looked around. "Hey Zen-zen, wanna play?" He asked, smiling brightly. "I wanna play hide-and-seek!" He exclaimed as he slipped his pouch back around his neck.  

[Kytora]

Her lips twitched again into a slightly bigger smile as he accepted her not-apology with ease, and continued to help her clean herself. Maybe she wasn't so cold-hearted as she thought. Well, at least around Kazi, she would make an exception.

Zenda thought for a moment and tried to form the words that would properly explain how...odd her brother's 'hobby' was.

"Because I think you're the only lion in the pride (maybe the whole world) that can talk to rocks," she began. "And to us, who don't, it's weird." She shrugged. "Like how you think it's weird how I never like to be dirty? It's the same thing." Except she wasn't the only one in the world who hated dirt; she wasn't going to say that.

"Thank you," she murmured under her breath, and stood to shake the rest of her fur out before he responded. "Okay! Where do you wanna play?"  

[Twiddle]

Kazi thought for a few moments on her response. He wondered if he really was the only one in the world that could speak with rocks. For a fleeting moment he thought perhaps one day he would search out another creature that shared his gift.

But that thought didn't last long in Kazi's mind, as his sister got up to join him. Her thank you hadn't passed him by, it made him smile even brighter. He was glad he helped her, it was the only thing he had wanted to do.

"Umm..." He looked around their surroundings, there were a lot of places around their den to play hide and seek. He chose the area right next to their den, because he was a little afraid of getting lost. It was a wide, open expanse of land with lots of big and small boulders, and many kinds of vegetation.

"You go firs, okay? I'll count!" He smiled and placed his head against a rock, closing his eyes tight. "One, two, three, four, five..."  

[Kytora]

Great. She was hiding first?! She had no clue where to hide! With a grumble, Zenda skipped away from Kazi and hunted for a decent hiding place. Sure, there were lots of vegetation to pick from, along with boulders of all different sizes, but she had to have the best hiding spot possible.

And that came in the form of a dying bush.

Why did she pick that one? Because its brown leaves almost matched her brown coat, which would better conceal her than a bright-green-leafed bush. She'd stick out horribly.

So the cub wiggled into the bush from behind, angling her head so she could still watch her brother as he counted. Many of the crumpled leaves fell off at her movement, but some still stayed. Enough, anyway, to hide her for this round.  

[Twiddle]

"Seven, eight, nine, ten! I'm coming for ya, Zen-zen!" He grinned as he looked around, an intense look on his face. He was scanning the area, trying to think of a place that his sister would hide in. Kazi mumbled to himself as he took a few paces forward.

"Hmmm, now I if were Zen-zen, where would I hide?" He muttered as he passed his sister, oblivious to the fact she was only a few feet from where he now stood. He began to look under bushes and rocks, occasionally speaking to a stone for a moment before passing on.

The young lion passed his sister at least three more times before he flopped on the ground with a huff. He wondered if she had went further out, or perhaps was hiding in the den? But that hadn't been part of their hiding area, he didn't think...

Suddenly he saw a flash of blue inside the depths of a dead bush. Eyes? He knew those eyes! He grinned and bounded over to his sister, jumping in the air above the bush and aiming for a landing on top of her, as he shouted "FOUND YOU!"  

[Kytora]

It was hard not to giggle as Kazi passed her hiding spot once, twice, three times! It looked like she was going to finally win this game when his eyes glinted and he looked straight at her.

Her bright eyes gave her away.

And Zenda squealed, squirming backward to dodge the sudden attack of a brown cub onto an equally brown, dead bush. She emerged from it safe, only with a few scratches from blunt branches and leaves tangled in her hair tuft.

She blew them aside, giggled, then poked her brother. "Your turn!" Zenda skipped over to the side where he had counted, and began her countdown as well.

"One, two, three..."  

[Twiddle]

Kazi rolled out of the bush, laughing as he shook the dead leaves and other debris from his coat. "That was a good spot, Zen-zen!" He smiled brightly, but soon enough it was his own turn to do the hiding.

The small brown cub thought for a few moments as the seconds passed, counted by his sibling. He glanced around, then spotted where he wanted to hide.

Carefully he made his way over to a large group of many boulders. He made sure to be as silent as he could, so that she couldn't tell which way he had gone.

Kazi squeezed himself between two rocks, barely visible, aside form the top of his head. He remained still, grinning, and hoping his very small mane tuft would look like the brown grasses that surrounded the rocks.  

[Kytora]

"Eight, nine, ten! Ready or not, Kazi, I'm gonna get you!"

Zenda whirled around to grin at the surroundings. Surely it wouldn't be very hard to find her brother in all this green! He was too light to really blend in with much other than sand, and she was the same.

So the cub hunted, pacing around big and little rocks when she came to them, ducking inside bushes to search their secret spaces, and the like. She even looked down the side of a slope to check if he wasn't there!

She made her way around the area in a slow circle, coming upon a cluster of boulders last. Grinning, as this had to be the spot where he was hiding, she walked around the boulders and pounced. But he wasn't there. He wasn't behind them, in front of them, or on either side. Zenda frowned, and grumbled to herself about how he shouldn't be such a good hider.

She continued circling the cluster, for she was positive that that's where he was hiding.