[PRP] Bah, Titles (Tam & Vormund)

[Princess_Feylin]

Vormund looked over his shoulder at where his mother waited anxiously. He was too young to appreciate how nerve-wracking it must be for her to have a cub who saw things that weren't and yet insisted that the were - or would be, at any rate. And then to have the cub insist on meeting the people who appeared in his visions so that he could tell them what he'd seen, well. An older lion would be better able to understand how little she might like him going all over the pride, and how much it probably cost her to help him figure out who he had seen.

Figuring out Tam Linn had not been very difficult, actually. He had a noble's coloration, but he didn't live as a noble, and so that had narrowed down the choices drastically, and then another noble was able to recall having met such a lion on her way back from visiting her sister in the rogue lands and they had their answer. So now Vormund was down in the groundlings' lands going to meet with the lion who bore a purple rose on his hindquarters.

"I'll be okay, Mum," he promised before he set off to greet the white lion.  

[Lorne_Sionn]

Tam Linn had taken the morning off. Meaning, he had crept passed pool and the gaggle of sleeping females that always seemed to be around Nuala as playmates and, consequently, as headaches for him. Not that he minded the company, most times it was rather pleasant, but today he would like just a little peace.

So to that end, the large white male, had slipped into the tunnel that the thicket the rose's thorns created and into blessed freedom and most importantly...quiet.

Now, about a mark or so later, he was laying atop his favorite rock in the dappled morning light, overlooking the solitude of the quintessential babbling brook, his violet eyes slitted in a half doze as he contemplated nothing at all.

Perfect, absolutely perfect...  

[Princess_Feylin]

Still young enough that uneven ground was a challenge for him, and the trek down the mountain had been exhausting, and perhaps a little bit nervous about approaching the subject of one of his visions, Vormund was a little unsteady as he made his way forward, away from his mum. He had insisted that she not be there when he told people what he'd seen because it just seemed like a sort of private thing, but now he wished he had taken a different stance on the matter. He was a little afraid to meet this strange lion who could be a noble but chose not to be.

The scent of the roses he passed through was very pleasant though, and he was too small to be in any danger from their grasping thorns, so it wasn't difficult for him to follow the older lion's path through the rose thicket and to a brook. His visions didn't usually tell him where their subject was, but since he had passed into the groundlings' forest he had felt sort of inexorably drawn toward Tam, instinctively knowing where he was. Which was a good thing, since keeping tabs on groundlings was apparently nigh impossible.

"Excuse me sir," he said, his youthful voice high and piping. "You are Tam Lin?"  

[Lorne_Sionn]

Tam opened one eye at the disturbance to his silent solitude, a frown pulling at his regal barring. If Nuala had sent someone to fetch him he was going to be very, very vexed, and he was less then pleasant when he was vexed.

No one liked him vexed.

Turning his well groomed countenance toward the direction of the disturbance, his expression one of cold calm, the white lion showed no surprise when the owner of youngling's voice turned out not to be that of a Groundling, but by his coloring, that of the Pride.

How very interesting...

" I am, and to what do I owe the honor of such noble a visitor?" he asked in his deep, rich voice that seemed to hold the forest captive in its tones.  

[Princess_Feylin]

One thing Vormund was not, was intimidated by this not-noble's coldly calm expression. He and his mother and siblings lived among nobles. He was used to people wearing their faces like that, hiding whatever their thoughts were behind a mask they hoped was unreadable. He couldn't tell what they were thinking, but he was at least used to the lack of expression expression and not unnerved by it. Someday he would have to learn to do the same, but for now he was spared that particular burden of adulthood.

"I had a dream of you. A vision," Vormund said. "I didn't know it was you at first, but my mum helped me figure it out."

He was talking too much, saying things that didn't need to be said, probably, but he was still learning. The only reason it occurred to him to worry about how long it took him to say what he had to say to Tam at all was his mother was waiting on the other end of that tunnel of thorns, and she had urged him to be quick and careful.

Truth be told, Vormund didn't see much about Tam that would cause him to have to be careful. He looked more or less like any of the nobles Vormund might have encountered up the mountain, and so far he behaved like them, too. Nothing new, different, or dangerous there.

"I'm Schatz Vormund, sir," he said, starting over and answering the actual question he had been asked. "And I came to tell you what I saw."  

[Lorne_Sionn]

A vision...now that was interesting... raising an eyebrow, Tam Linn stood up from his rock and jumped down, so that he wasn't lording over the cub, seeing that the youngling hadn't yet developed the higher-then-thou-tail-in-a-twist attitude that most of the Pride past the forest had. There might be hope for him yet.

" Forgive my rudeness young Master, it is not often I receive visitors from past the forest that respond to anything save what they know. I think you might be the first noble I've met who has bothered to even called me sir." He chuckled with the same rich tone, " I started looking for Oberon."

The white lion waved a paw toward a small outcropping of rock on the other side of the brook, it was in the shade and had a soft carpet of moss under it, and what look like the remains of breakfast. " Come, we can talk there. I still have some ibex left and the brook is clean and cold."

Looking at how young his unexpected guest was, Tam frowned a little, " I can carry you across if you are unsure of your footing."  

[Princess_Feylin]

While there were many aspects of nobility that Vormund did not understand and was not expected to take part in just yet, good manners had been impressed on him from the beginning, though not in the militant drilling some noble cubs dealt with. His mother was loving and affectionate, and so it wasn't a chore to learn to behave properly. Of course, it also meant he didn't know what to do in every possible situation, since he received no formal lessons, but that was all right he guessed.

"Oberon is the leader of the groundlings, isn't he?" Vormund asked. He thought he was, but nobles and groundlings didn't do a great deal of interacting and the subject had never really come up before. It was more a fact he had learned through osmosis. "Is he also a noble?"

He was becoming distracted, he realized with a small frown, and yet he followed Tam, too polite to do otherwise. He wasn't too polite to refuse a meal though, knowing how long that could take based on past experiences eating in others' dens. That there would probably be less ceremony in this part of the pride didn't really occur to him.

"You don't have to carry me. I really can't stay long enough to eat anything. My mum will be worried if I do." He smiled. "She's on the other side of the roses, waiting. I told her I was supposed to do this on my own."  

[Lorne_Sionn]

" You're very clever, yes he is the appointed leader of the Groundlings, as much as we have one anyway." Tam chuckled and sat down, his tail curling around his paws as he regarded the cub in front of him, a amused smile on his muzzle.

" Ah, well we shouldn't worry your mother, she is more then likely fretting that I am going to trade you for a changling, or turn you into a toad, or some other silly nonsense the rest of your Pride seems to think us Groundlings do all the time."

Tam gave the youngling a conspiratorial wink, " Now don't go telling her we don't do those kind of things, you'll ruin out reputation. You can say I tried to keep you trapped in the Groundling forest by offering you food and drink, but you were to clever to fall for it, and take me up on the offer for lunch later. You're always welcome here at the roses."

Chuckling, Tam smiled and nodded his head, " Now young Sooth Sayer, I believe you had a message for me from the Gods, let's hear it."  

[Princess_Feylin]

"Thank you," he said, good manners automatically asserting themselves.

"I don't think so," Vormund said, though the thought of being turned into a toad was pretty amusing and made him smile. "But maybe she does. She didn't really want to bring me down here. She said it'd be safer to make you come up to us, but I thought that might be sort of rude."

Tam's wink delighted Vormund, who never got to do anything conspiratorial, but had heard stories about them and seen one play where there was a conspiracy and it was excellent. He nodded enthusiastically and promised Tam that he would tell his mother just exactly that. It would make it sound like a grand adventure. The fact that his mum might not want him to come down to the groundlings ever again after hearing such a tale didn't occur to him. It would later on that night.

"Well, I don't know if it's from the Gods, but I saw you were somewhere else. Not here with your roses. You had been running a while to reach the place, and when you got there a lioness with dark markings around her eyes was waiting for you. She thought you were handsome and wanted to wrestle with you."

Though he told his tale in the past tense, Vormund was pretty sure it hadn't happened yet. He didn't know how he knew, but he just did. If it had already happened, he wouldn't have bothered to mention it to anyone, because that would be like gossiping, and Vormund's family didn't really hold with that.  

[Lorne_Sionn]

Disclaimer: Due to serious pain because of kidney stones this post got erased. These are the approved cliffnotes of it.

1. Tam teases the cub by saying such a vision is one from the gods.
2. Tam is looking forward to his wrestling match with the lioness.
3. Tam tells the cub he is a treasure.
4. Tam tells the cub his mother is kind for letting him come.
5. Tam gives the cub a big *&*^%$# snowy white rose as a gift to the mom for letting him come.
6. Tam invites cub to come anytime for lunch.

All the while messing up the cub's mane tuff.  

[Princess_Feylin]

Vormund tried unsuccessfully to duck out from under the white lion's paw. He was mussing his mane! Now his mum would have to wash him all over again, and he'd just had a bath yesterday. Ugh! At least his coat wasn't white like Tam's. His coat must get dirty all the time. Especially if he did a lot of wrestling.

"That's my sister you're thinking of," Vormund said, thinking of his sister whose name meant Guarded Treasure. "I'm kind of her guardian, sort of. I mean, I want to be. I have bad dreams about her sometimes, but so far they're only dreams."

He made a face when he realized he'd once more said too much and was lingering too long. The story about nearly being abducted and all was a good one, but if he took too long in returning his mum would absolutely come in after him, and that would spoil his story and his fun, and then she probably wouldn't trust him to go looking for the people on his visions any more either.

At first Vormund thought Tam was talking about his sister when he offered him the white rose, but then he realized he meant his mother. He thought that was very nice of Tam, though he wasn't sure he'd be able to carry it all the way back to her without crushing it a little. Well, he'd just have to be careful, he decided, carefully taking it in his mouth and only then realizing it was very difficult to talk with a rose in his mouth.

"Hank yoo," he said, doing his best to enunciate. "Gut ahtahnoo."  

[Lorne_Sionn]

Now Tam was as smart as he was handsome and so he had caught what the little Seer had said, and he filed it away for further investigation later. Yes this little cub should be kept an eye on. He would have to try and do just that.

" Good afternoon to you to young Master." He said with all the charm and good grace he'd ever learned, " due come and visit again!"

Smiling at the youngster he patted him on the head on last time and held back the first layer of branches and thorns so he didn't have to struggle so much getting through.

As the cub moved away, Tam's violet eyes narrowed, calculating what he'd heard and not heard as the case might be.

Yes..interesting...very..very..interesting...  

[Princess_Feylin]

Vormund nodded, very conscious of the flower blocking most of his field of vision on one side, and then turned carefully to make his way back to his mum. He was glad Tam had held back the first few branches, since they would have been difficult to navigate with the rose sticking out of his mouth.

The tunnel was still something of a challenge, but he was small enough that he didn't get scratched even once and the rose made it through unscathed. At the other end his mother was pacing and fussing, obviously trying to decide whether to come in after him or not.

"Hlawah ho yoo," he said, dropping it at her feet. "Flower for you. Tam Lin said to give it to you. And I had all sorts of adventures!"

He planned to tell her about them on their way back up to the den. While she carried the flower, so she couldn't talk and scold. It was a most excellent plan.