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 Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 1:50 am
Early that morning, as with most other mornings, Raziela had awakened with nothing in particular to do. Life as a Noble, she had come to realize, could be quite uneventful when she wasn't busy entertaining other Nobles - not a task she particularly enjoyed, but one she did all the same because she understood that it was a gesture her mother would appreciate. But even socializing with other purple-pelted lions couldn't take up as much of her time as she would have liked, and more often than not, she found herself sitting aimlessly about in her den.
She would have liked to go down to the theater to pay Derasan a visit, but she had been only the day before and she had also been aware that he was busy that morning. She wanted neither to rouse the suspicions of the pride's lions nor to intrude on his rehearsals, so when Pan had suggested she pay her parents' den a visit, she had been more than willing to take his advice.
After all, the new litter of cubs had only been born recently, and she was eager to spend some time with her younger siblings. Eight cubs no doubt took much of her parents' time and energy, and quite enjoyed the prospect of showering the little ones with the attention that her tired parents may or may not have been able to give them. So she made the short trek to her childhood home, humming lightly to herself as the sun made its way higher into the sky.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 2:00 pm
 Damisi was playing just outside the family den, by herself. The others were...well, wherever they had run off to, or else sleeping in a big pile of snoring fur, but Damisi wasn't in the mood to socialize with them just now. She was, at that precise moment, very deep in thought, though if asked exactly what it was she was thinking about, she wouldn't be able to say.
She half-heartedly stalked a large grasshopper that had somehow found itself here outside her home. She didn't really want to hurt it, and so she never fully pounced -- only batted at it, from time to time, swatting it with one small paw. The game wasn't as fun as it should have been, however, and when she heard the sound of an approaching lioness, she perked up and allowed the grasshopper to flee without any notice.
Was it Pur'Jed? She'd only recently met her older sister and was now intrigued and hopeful that perhaps she had come back to visit her. But it wasn't Pur'Jed, it was another of Damisi's numerous other relatives, and she squinted at her trying to recognize her before she came close enough to properly see.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:33 pm
It didn't take very long at all before Raziela spotted a cub that was undoubtedly one of her new sisters - that one sister, in fact, that she had been hearing quite a bit about. The non-purple sister. Raziela was struck by how much the little lioness resembled her mother. She look almost just like Maua, save for her coloring. It was a terrible shame. Raziela had nothing but good to say about her mother, but no doubt, she paid this cub the least attention of all.
She didn't suppose Maua could be blamed for such actions - after all, they all knew how hard she had worked to build her family's reputation, and if sometimes it seemed she put that before her family's happiness...Raziela thought that perhaps she understood why. But that didn't mean this cub didn't have the same needs are her siblings, the same desires for love and attention.
The dark lioness padded forward. She didn't imagine that the cub would remember her. The last time she had seen them, they had all been so much smaller, and she herself had yet to learn to differentiate them with ease. "Good morning, little one," she said with a smile, noting suddenly that they had the same green eyes as their father. "My name is Raziela Liron. I am one of your older sisters."
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 10:07 pm
The grasshopper long gone and forgotten, Damisi scampered over to her big sister, craning her neck back to get a good look at her. "I thought you would be!" she said, her rump giving a little wiggle of enthusiasm. "I met another sister a little while ago. I have lots."
It hadn't quite occurred to her, of course, that if she had lots of sisters, that so would, well, her sisters. She was still very caught up on the notion, self-absorbed as all cubs are.
"I'm Damisi," she announced, as though of course Raziela wouldn't have known this. "Did you come to play with me?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 6:05 pm
Raziela smiled and nodded. "I know you do," she said with a light laugh, recognizing in her younger sister the same self-absorption as she had had as a child - and, indeed, as all cubs seemed to have. It wasn't by any means a phenomenon unique to the two of them, but it did feel as though there was something there that bonded them together.
"But it's certainly nice to meet you officially, Damisi." She added, her green eyes sweeping over the cub's coat once again. She wondered how to broach the subject. Depending on how much attention Maua had been giving Damisi, Raziela imagined that the cub's lack of purple could possibly be a bit of a sore subject. And yet.
Although her mother didn't seem to understand the fact that being purple was not the key to happiness in life, Raziela did - or at least, she imagined that she did. For the dark lioness, being purple was simply a fact of life, her lot in life, and for that, she accepted her way of life. But if she had been born without the same coat, if she had been gray or orange or red, she would have accepted that too. Color was a fact of life, something that couldn't be changed. But happiness was not.
"Well..." She hesitated, wondering how to go about things next. "Actually, I wanted to introduce you to a friend of mine, if you wanted to meet him."
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Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:27 am
She perked up. A friend? Why would anybody want to introduce her to their friend? Would he be her friend now, too? Oh, that was exciting! Damisi didn't have any friends. Just piles and piles of brothers and sisters and the occasional wayward grasshopper. "Oh! Okay!"
She scrambled paw-over-paw up to her side, bouncing excitedly alongside Raziela, her bright eyes gleaming with enthusiasm.
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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:32 am
Raziela couldn't help but chuckle at Damisi's enthusiasm. The fact that the little cub wasn't purple certainly didn't seem to have her to down in the dumps, and the dark lioness sincerely hoped that her younger sibling would be able to hold on to that sunny attitude toward life. In a pride like this and with a family like theirs, that didn't seem like such an easy thing to do.
"Well, come along then," she said, turning to head back down Elsinore. "We're going to the theater -- he's a Player, you know. Perhaps you've seen him in a play or two. He quite loves his life on the stage, and he's never said it to me explicitly, but I believe that he honestly would not trade his life for any Noble's." She hoped she wouldn't come off too preachy, but she thought perhaps it would be a worthwhile lesson for Damisi to learn, if she hadn't already.
Raziela couldn't quite help but keep a small, contented smile from spreading across her face at the mention of the pale lion, and she suspected that anybody who was paying much attention might have noticed her reaction - but it didn't feel like something she could control. Derasan had long become her best friend - and perhaps her only true friend, if she paused to seriously question how real any of her relationships with the pride's Nobles really were - and more, and always she felt as though they shared a special connection, as if he could read her mind and she was more than happy to let him.
They arrived at the clearing in which the theater was located, and the lioness jolted out of her reverie. "Oh, look, there he is," she told her younger sister, gazing in the direction of the stage. "Up there, in center. That pale blue one, do you see?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 12:34 pm
Damisi's ears perked up. A player? She'd never met a player before. Indeed, she'd never really seen that many performances -- for the most part she would sneak down to catch a glimpse whenever she could, but being on her own made her nervous and she tended to get scared and run back home within a few minutes, frightened by the crowd.
Still, the notion that you could actually befriend a player -- that, once they stepped off the stage, they were living, breathing lions -- had never actually occurred to her, and she followed Raziela with the sort of open-mouthed awe one would expect if the lioness had said she could talk to trees.
She stopped when she saw her sister pause, and she looked around eagerly, her eyes sliding over every lion in the vicinity. She took a double-take at the lion. "He's...his mane might be purple," she said, a little doubtfully, squinting. She wasn't sure what to call that color, actually. But she was eager to call it purple if it could be, because Raziela obviously thought highly of him and Damisi felt sorry for her being friends with someone inferior -- someone like herself. She glanced sidelong at her sister, a little nervously.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:43 am
Raziela managed to take her eyes off of her beloved friend to look down at Damisi with a smile. "It could," she agreed, glancing back up to regard the mane in question. "But if you were to ask him, he would refuse to acknowledge that. In his mind, there isn't a speck of him that's purple."
Raziela herself had found the notion slightly disconcerting at first. Before she had met him, her world had consisted of nothing but the Noble lifestyle, in which every bit of purple counted, and lions fought tooth and nail to defend their color. And yet, here he was, denying the very possibility. Her eyes must have been tricking her, he had said the first time she had asked about his near-purple mane. There isn't a drop of Noble blood in my family, Lady, and that's the way I've always liked it. Those had been his very words, accompanied by a devilish smile and cheerful twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, look, he's finished," she added as she caught sight of the pale lion descending from the stage. "Derasan!"
Derasan was a large lion, more at home on the stage than anywhere else. Acting was his craft, his namesake, in fact, and it had always been more than simply a profession to him. He understood, like few others, that it was an art and a rare gift - though if he had been asked, he would have shrugged it off and called it nothing more than an inheritance from his parents. He was a traveler, a temporary resident of a thousand different worlds, and he wanted nothing more than to share them with an audience.
His ears pricked at the sound of Raziela's familiar voice, and he shifted his course toward her. By her side, he saw the little cub that looked rather like the dark lioness, and he realized that he had heard quite a bit about her already. Keeping track of the pride's gossip, which tended to spread like wildfire, was no easy feat, but one that Derasan had dedicated himself to. He knew the comings and goings of every member in the pride, as well as all the rumors surrounding them as well, and this cub... well, this cub had been a bit of a shock, as he understood it. An un-noble cub born to a family of Nobles. It was a shame, really, if they couldn't appreciate her for what she was, a terrible shame.
"Good morning, Ela," he greeted the dark lioness as he approached. "Beautiful day, isn't it? And always a pleasure to see you. And you, Miss...?" He turned to the cub with a bright smile. And it certainly was a pleasure. He had always been a fan of the underdog.
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:38 pm
Damisi blinked, thoroughly baffled by that notion. Who could like being plain? That made him suddenly both very exotic and a little strange, and she cowered a bit when he came down, ducking between her sister's paws to peer up at him curiously with bright eyes. She examined him -- though she had to crane her neck to see his face so she stared mostly at his paws and forelegs -- and tried to gather her thoughts.
She squeaked, then giggled nervously. "Damisi," she said, though it took some efforts to get the words out, then ducked back between her sister's legs and hid her face because she was so embarrassed. He was just so big! He hadn't seemed this big on stage. He had seemed just the right side. But now he seemed to take up a much larger part of her world than she was expecting, and that he seemed so kind and interested in her was positively mortifying though she couldn't really say why.
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Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:25 am
Raziela smiled at the cub's sudden nervousness, reminded of her first trip to the theater. Everything had seemed so grand, so magical, and although she hadn't met any players that day, it had been the start of a lifelong passion for theater and the shows that were put on for audiences of all kinds. Often, she wondered if the same thing would have happened if she had but visited the theater a week later or seen a different play or come with a different audience. She hoped not, hoped that her love of theater had not been a fluke, but she didn't suppose it was a question she would ever have answered.
"I think this is her first time meeting a player in person," she told Derasan, looking down at the cub hiding behind her leg. "Isn't it, Damisi? Don't worry, though, he won't bite." She glanced back up to exchange a knowing look with the pale lion. He was certainly a social lion, quite fond of just about everybody, young or old, and she couldn't imagine a better lion to give Damisi a good first impression of players in person. If there was anything she had learned from Derasan, it was that his lot was a cheerful bunch, more concerned with having fun and enjoying what little they had than anything else. It was that poverty, that powerlessness, Raziela imagined, that made what they did have seem all the more to be treasured - and treasure it they did. They were common folk, with little say in the workings of the pride, but they owned their lives, every little bit, and they weren't afraid to show it.
That Derasan enjoyed making new friends and acquaintances was most definitely true, and not a fact he ever thought to conceal. In his opinion, the world - more specifically, the pride - was filled with creatures of interest, no matter where they came from or what class they held. What mattered was what was inside, what was deeper than any color or physical feature anyone could have and that, perhaps, was why he so adamantly refused to acknowledge his possible purpleness.
Derasan grinned, nodding his agreement. "I do very much like your name, little miss," he added as the cub ducked behind Raziela's foreleg. "Damisi. It has a nice ring to it - and it starts with a D. I think that makes us partners."
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Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:44 am
"You're right!" She said, with another nervous little squeak. Her emerald eyes widened hugely in her black-and-white face and her gold-tipped ears perked up. "Derasan." She said, trying it out. It had the same number of syllables as her name, too. Recognizing that delighted her and she crept out from under her sister, though didn't stray far in case she needed to bolt back into the safety of her legs.
"You're so big," she blurted out, and then looked down, not sure if she was supposed to have said that. "...Do you think I'd ever be big like you?" It seemed very unlikely, but she asked because it occurred to her that maybe such largeness was a facet of acting -- that somehow, the act of projecting oneself on stage made the player itself grow.
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:31 am
Raziela stood rather still as she watched her younger sister slowly emerge from the protective barrier of her forelegs. She was glad to see that Damisi wasn't overly intimidated by Derasan, who she knew could seem intimidating to youngsters. That was a downside to being as big as he was, but his casual, open attitude toward everyone and everything more than made up for any unintended intimidation.
"Well," the dark lioness said with an air of feigned indignance as the Player and the cub verbally joined forces. "I suppose that leaves me out, then, with no Ds in my name."
The pale lion sat himself down comfortably. "But of course," he told Damisi reassuringly. "Anyone can grow big. It just takes some effort, see? What you have to do is think about growing just before going to bed every night. If you think hard enough, you'll be all big in no time." He glanced over at Raziela, a cheeky twinkle glinting in his amber eyes. "Course, you've got to keep up with it every night to get as big as me. See your sister, she wasn't such a good girl. She forgot some nights, and look at her now. Not very big at all, is she? Compared to me, anyway." He added, though if he had to admit the truth, he would have acknowledged that any size difference between the two of them had really more to do than natural gender differences than anything. Still, it never hurt to toot his own horn.
The speckled lion shot Damisi a conspiratorial glance. "I don't know, Damisi," he said hesitantly, as if seriously considering Raziela's words. "Ela's name just doesn't quite fit, does it? She's a bit... the odd one out here, is what I think."
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Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:43 am
Her eyes widened. You could grow big....just by thinking about it? How awesome was that! She filed away this nugget of thought and resolved to start practicing immediately.
She giggled. Deresan had managed to completely charm her in a manner of seconds. "We could add a D," she said, casting a sly sideways look up at the female. "Or just make up a new name for you."
That would be.... a little bit like playing a part, wouldn't it? Suddenly swept up by the possibility of this make-believe, she perked up substantially.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:12 pm
Watching the interaction between lion and cub, Raziela became more and more convinced that this had been a wonderful idea. Already Damisi seemed to be coming out of her shell, and they had all relaxed considerably. There was nothing like an casual, unpretentious meeting to take away some of the stress of being a Noble (or, in Damisi's case, the daughter of a Noble), and Derasan always seemed to be just the lion to seek out for a dose of good cheer and unbiased friendliness.
"Dela... Elad... D..." She frowned in concentration, trying her best to make a good combination out of the letter D and her name. There didn't seem to be one that fit quite as well as either Damisi or Derasan, so she shook her head with a light laugh. "I guess it'll have to be a new name." She said finally, admitting defeat.
Derasan chuckled, exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Damisi. The little cub wasn't the only one to have perked up at the thought of playing a part. More than anything, Derasan knew, Ela loved theater and the idea of inhabiting a character. It had something to do with cheating fate, of being in control for a brief moment, even if it wasn't her own life.
He could see the twinkle that came alive in her eyes at the mention of a new identity, and the way her smile widened. This was as exciting to her as it was for Damisi, and for that, he was glad. The enthusiasm that he saw now, in the both of them, reminded him of the power of theater.
"A name starting with D, hm?" He said thoughtfully. "Who has ideas?
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