[PRP] Run and Hide Little One (Haruma and Mittere)

[mouselet]

PINK

Another day like any other. Another boring, tedious, endless day. The pink lioness looked forward to a time when she had recovered enough strength to walk outside the den (she refused to think of it as hers) and lay in the sun. Granted she could do that now...if she asked for help. Mittere ground her teeth in annoyance. There was nothing - absolutely nothing! - good about being laid up by injuries.

Well, maybe being alive to be annoyed by them was good. But she'd be more appreciative once she had the strength to stand on her own again. It was utterly humiliating to be laid so very low - she who had been on such a high peak! Hrm. Maybe one of the gods was punishing her for her pride. The pink lioness' lips moved in something that might be called a smile, showing sharp canines. If she hadn't been so strong there was no way in hell she would have survived, so there went that lesson out the cavemouth.

Suddenly she paused in her thoughts, ears twitching. Was that the sound of footfalls just outside? Perhaps she would have a temporary relief from boredom...  

[Talencia]

The more she'd learned, the more she realized that she really wasn't in any more danger from those who were sick than she was if she stayed away. She either was already infected or she wasn't. Nothing would change that now. So she had found a somewhat central spot one day and watched as Gerda had gone about to different dens, tending the ill. Father was off on the first mission he'd been sent on since they had adopted each other, and the cub was feeling quite honestly lonely. For once, there was something her sibs could not replace.

To escape this, she had come back to this spot and considered the various dens visited by the Healer. Choosing one at random, she rose and padded towards it. Reaching the mouth of the small den, she paused. It was simple when one was a Healer and expected, but how should a mere cub enter? She shuffled her paws as she considered.

Finally she cleared her throat, stood up straighter, and called out. "Excuse me, may I enter?" Politeness always seemed the best course of action to the young female. The worst that could happen at this point, after all, was to be told to go away. Simple enough, easily done, for there were other dens that held the sick that might need comforting. Surely at least one would welcome her company.  

[mouselet]

The pink lioness blinked in surprise at the high-pitched and unknown voice that hailed her from the entrance. What in the world was a cub doing here? And how should she respond to this cub?

Mittere did not care for cubs. They were too small for real work, though some of them were capable of intelligence. They were much more likely to be as naive as the unfortunate Gerda than any other age group. She couldn't even remember the last time she spent any amount of time around one or more cubs.

However...cubs often knew more than their elders gave them credit for. It was entirely possible that her unexpected visitor might give her some of the insights and information she lacked and was unable to gather for herself.

Which meant that she should encourage the cub to come in. "Go ahead," she answered, voice pitched to go only as far as the den entrance and layered with a trace of amusement at the cub's boldness. Or was it curiosity? She would have to wait and see in order to determine the child's motivation...  

[Talencia]

She waited dutifully for the answer before she set paw into the den. She padded forward, her expression grave as she came into sight of the grown lioness. She moved close enough for soft talking, but took care not to sit so close as to impinge on the pink female's space. "Greetings ma'am," she began, her cubby voice solemn. "I have come to check on you and see if there is anything you need that I can help with."

She was slightly bothered by implying that her visit was official, but it was what Haruma wanted to do with her life for the pride, so why not? It wasn't as if she were here to play a trick instead. Her heart was in the right place, and these pride members might actually need a bit of cheering up, or some small favor done.

She gazed consideringly at the lioness, eyes wide and assessing. She tried to notice details that might tell her about what troubled her 'patient'. "How are you feeling?" she asked sincerely, tail primly curled about her paws.  

[mouselet]

Another brown lioness, though this one was much lighter than the last, and of course much younger. Too old to be one of Gerda's kids, if she'd had them already. And what was the kid playing at anyway? Mittere might not have had much to do with cubs since she herself was one, but she knew that no Healer would allow an apprentice so young - if it was even allowed for a cub that young to be an apprentice - to tend to a patient by herself.

Which meant that the cub wasn't supposed to be here and that the chances were good no one responsible for her knew where she was. Even if she was an orphan, Mittere doubted she was without a caretake of some kind.

All of this made for some interesting thoughts on how to respond to the child's playacting as a Healer. The pink lioness had a feeling that someone else like Gerda might play along that the cub was a real Healer. But Mittere had never been one for make-believe. When she'd fought as a cub, she'd fought in earnest, against other cubs, against older juveniles. And when she hadn't had an opponent she'd practiced, trying to perfect the forms and movements for next time. She hadn't imagined opponents for herself - why waste the time when the world had plenty of real ones?

So Mittere decided to sidestep the questions asked by her would-be Healer. "Where are you supposed to be?" Her voice was soft, but there was a biting undertone that filled the words with unspoken threat. But the cub, with her lack of experience, might not have noted the lack of movement on the pink lioness' part revealing that she too weak to stand on her own. The scars criss-crossing her body were much more obvious and distracting to the untrained eye.  

[Talencia]

Haruma was no fool. She and her siblings had hidden from people with voices like that. Her eyes narrowed and she took two wide steps back, wary but not yet actually afraid. Surely her father would have mentioned if a cruel lion had become a prisoner here. No, something was off here. She just didn't know what. So instead of fleeing or cringing, she stood nearer the den's exit, eyeing the pink lioness, and answered the question directly and honestly. It never occured to her to lie.

"It's play time. I don't like to play, and the nannies know that." She rarely played, and never with anyone but her siblings. But her brother had been growing tired easily, and often her sister seemed to like playing with others, so Haruma usually kept watch, or found something else to do, like approach Gerda. But all these details didn't seem worth telling this stranger. "I just came to see if I could be of any help to you. Fetch something, carry a message. Even keep you company."

Still her expressoin was suspicious and somewhat judgmental. It was an odd situation, one that left her both curious, duty bound, and indignant. She kept most of this to herself, however, and instincitvely gathered her dignity about herself. "If you do not want me here, I can find someone else to go see." She lacked the flighty, imaginative, silly tendancies most cubs were known by and eventualy grew out of. Life had guarenteed this old soul in a young body never had the chance at such frivolities. For her, life and death both were serious realities.  

[mouselet]

Mittere watched the cub move closer to the entrance and further from her. Now, was that an example of the child's instincts being keen because she had less experience with complex motivations...or was it because of experience? She listened quietly to the bluntly honest response. The kid was...intriguing, to say the least. She was calm and stable, a direct contrast to what Mittere usually thought of cubs being, and honest. Honest was always good.

And there was something about those jade green eyes that spoke of more experience than a cub should ever have. It was entirely likely that this cub would be able to provide the information she wanted - needed!

But she needed to understand the girl first, if she was going to trust the kid's words. So she asked a simple question. "Why?" Why didn't she like to play, why would she rather spend her time among the sick and the injured, why would she dare enter the den in which Mittere lay?  

[Talencia]

Haruma blinked. Why what? She did not relax her more wary stance, but she looked closer at the big pink form of the lioness before her. She frowned in thought, and finally replied with a bluntness that did not answer the older female's question.

"You are very rude," she stated sternly. She lifted her small chin and managed somehow to look down her nose, even though she had to look upwards into the blue eyes. "That's not very nice, when I am trying to help." Her view on kindness and proper manners, while still very child-like, was firm and unmovable. You simply should not treat someone who helps you like an enemy.

Since no move had been made towards her, she sat down where she was, choosing to say more. "I think you are very angry. I don't know why, but maybe if you tell me, you'll feel better." She knew this was true of her own dark feelings. She confided most in her brother, and now also in her father. Neither judged her harshly for how she felt. Perhaps that was what this lioness needed. She was in here alone, after all.  

[mouselet]

Blue eyes widened slightly in surprise and appreciation. Well well well, the cub had spunk! Mittere smiled inwardly at the kid's childish insistence on politeness. Sure, the pink lioness knew what manners were and how to use them, but she rarely bothered. Manners were an excellent way to waste time and accomplish nothing and therefore they were useless for her purposes.

The blue eyes narrowed again as the cub went on about anger and confiding. The day she opened up to some wet-behind-the-ears cub was the day she died. Mittere didn't often speak about her past, and never to anyone she didn't trust absolutely. The cub might have spark, but there was no reason to believe her trustworthy at this point.

"I doubt a snot-nosed kid is enough of a Healer to do anything useful here," the pink lioness replied flatly.  

[Talencia]

Her ears canted to either side in ire. Very rude indeed. She rose to her paws again, chin still high. "An ill lioness calls a healthy cub snot-nosed. I know there is a word for that, but I don't know what it is." Her meaning, of course, was irony. But her little cubbie feelings stung with the scorn that dripped from every word spoken by this churlish lioness. She strove not to show how much the words hurt, swallowing tears instead of letting them come. She was not as sensitive as some cubs might be, but even the serious striped girlie had her limits.

Maybe it had been a bad idea to come try to help the sick lions of the pride. She determined to ask Gerda directly next time which ones could use their day brightened, or could use a little helping paw. But she needed to make one more point, which she felt was important. "And I didn't say I was a Healer. I know I'm not. I will be someday, but right now I just wanted to help anyone who needed it." Her little jaw clenched, and she sucked a quick breath for a last sentiment.

"I hope someone else is able to help you," she said somberly. "And I hope you don't make it so hard for them to." With that she turned and marched from the den, unable to keep the quivers of hurt and unhappiness from her tail. It would be a long while before she would willingly come to this den of her own initiative, to be sure.  

[mouselet]

The pink lioness gave a mental snort at the cub's words. Of course the kid thought she was stuck in this den because of the disease and not because of injury. The difference of course was that Mittere was going to recover from her wounds and the majority of lions kept in this central part of the pridelands wouldn't ever recover.

And of course she'd known the kid was no Healer, but if she hadn't had an interest she wouldn't have come here in the first place. It was a nice idea, the pink lioness supposed, but it would have worked better with just about any other lion. "Rude" was probably an accurate description of Mittere, but that didn't mean she was going to go out of her way to try and change who she was.

As for someone else helping her...the pink lioness had serious doubts that anyone could "help her" the way the cub meant. But if there was anyone like that, she knew they'd be older than a mere child.

The last of the cub's footsteps were fading away as another thought occurred to her. If the kid reall did start training as a Healer soon, it was fairly likely she'd end up here again as a lesson in how to treat something other than the disease. And wouldn't that be interesting.