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 Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:33 pm
 Aristo had spotted her sister with a new lioness. Ever since they're little family had been split up she'd longed for the comfort and family that she had lost as a cub. She'd followed the two back to their pride lands and had somehow weaseled her way in. Now she was spending time observing all the goings on and customs. That was one of the lessons she'd learned on her own. Knowledge was power, and the more one knew, the more one knew how to protect one's self.
This is the pride her Mother had wanted to join. She was positive. There were so many strong lions. Aristo couldn't wait to learn how to fight properly. Aristo knew she had much to learn but she also had the time to do it. When she did approach her sister, she wanted to do it going in knowing things.
She settled down for her daily observation time somewhere out of the way but with a good view, there was no reason to be under paw. That usually ended up in pain. She curled her tail around her haunches and peered through her blue eyes. So many good fighters. Maybe she could apprentice to one of them some day.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:48 pm
 Voldemaras was not a Reaver who often bothered with the young of the pride, although he had taken an adolescent outlander named Ruzanski under his wing, so to speak, and trained him to Stormborn fighting quality. He still needed more experience, but the green-eyed boy had done well on his first viking. However, Ru had been an aberration, and generally speaking Vol did not pay attention to anyone too young to tussle or tumble with him.
There were always a few exceptions to every rule, however, and today would prove to be one. Vol had come to watch Ru spar but found the much-younger lion missing, and so he had decided to take part in a few matches himself. He won two and lost one because of a poorly-placed paw. It was a stupid mistake to make, but he could live with it and would take more care in the future to avoid it. Carelessness cost lives.
As he stepped out of the sparring arena he probably should have been paying more attention to his surroundings than to reviewing his last fight, because he found himself treading nearly on top of an unfamiliar red cub. The unexpected misstep made him snarl, though it was a general snarl not directed specifically at her. He couldn't name her or her parents, but he thought he might have seen her around before. His frown deepened as he tried to call her family to mind.
"Didn't your parents teach you to keep out from underfoot?" he grumbled.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:13 pm
Aristo was a generally quiet girl, prone to thought, not prone to trouble (that she didn't know she could handle), but there were limits. Her personal space was one of them. At the huge male's snarl she swiped a claw filled paw out at him, purposefully missing. "Didn't yours teach you to pay attention to where you're going?" The nerve. She was out from under paws, he was just going out of his way to step on people.
She momentarily thought about commenting on his careless paws, but that would be careless considering he was so much bigger and a better fighter. She was ready to flee if necessary as it was. Aristo shifted so that she had a clear escape route but didn't run just yet.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:20 pm
Vol bared his teeth at the girl's insolence. It didn't make much difference to him at that exact moment whether or not she had a point, which she did. If she'd been there watching, she should have seen that he wasn't paying attention and that he was coming her way. This was her fault.
"Don't start fights you can't win, flower-child," he said. An outlander might not recognize the phrase flower-child as an insult, but it was a derogatory term for a shy cub, a cub with flowers in their blood. In other words, it didn't fit this girl at all, but it was the first insult that came to mind.
Thinking of the unsuitability of his insult and the ridiculousness of getting into an argument with a cub that could make a two- or maybe three-bite meal for him suddenly brought laughter roaring from Vol's gut. If she did try to start a fight with him it would be both very brave and very stupid, and could easily be turned into a cautionary tale or rhyme for young Stormborn to warn them off bothering Reavers.
"Do you have a name?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:52 pm
Her ears went back at the barred teeth but the male's body language wasn't screaming that he'd attack so she held her ground. "I could have started a fight if I'd wanted one. Which I don't because I wouldn't win and you'd eat me, which would be more stupid then brave." She didn't recognize the phrase "flower-child" but by the way he'd said it, it was clearly an insult. But then he laughed.
Laughing was usually good. She wasn't angry per se, more irritated that this male was trying to make something out of nothing so she let a little smile crack through as well. "I'm new here. I don't know why flower-child is an insult, other then the fact that flowers are mostly useless. But this situation is kinda ridiculous. I'm Aristo'Mache. It means excellent battle. My mother and my father were both warriors and when I grow up, I will be as well." She held up her head in pride. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:08 pm
"Hah. I would have to be a lot hungrier to eat you. There's not nearly enough flesh on you to make the effort of skinning you worthwhile. Though your pelt would make a fine decoration, and the blood would hardly even show." He grinned in a way which was not meant to be reassuring at all. There were a number of reasons why Vol didn't have any children.
The cub was correct that the situation was ridiculous, and Vol was willing to let it go. After all, she had not yet done anything to further rouse his wrath, and simply being underfoot was not really enough to earn her more than a hard cuff as far as Vol was concerned. The fact that she'd moved without getting stepped on or causing him to trip meant that even that wasn't really necessary. Yet.
"They're useless, that about sums it up," he acknowledged. "Some outlanders place all sorts of value on the things though, prizing them for their color or their scent, rather than any sort of useful properties they might actually have."
The only flowers Vol knew were those that could be used to heal and the flowers of the mint he and most other Stormborn enjoyed so much. People who knew more than that, as far as the Reaver was concerned, could only be sissies and useless, particularly if they were males. Females were granted a little more leeway because they were silly by nature and couldn't help caring about stupid things like flowers.
"Good name," Vol said. "Who are your parents?"
It had not escaped his notice that she used the past tense to refer to her parents, but Stormborn culture placed enough importance on ancestors that it wasn't anything unusual for him to refer to them in the present even if he had known for certain that they were dead, which he did not.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:20 pm
"Flowers are only useful if they're for healing or poisons. My mother's name is Isuke'Boon and my father is Xennek, my mother saw him fighting one day and chased him down to make him give her strong babies." She said this in present tense. "We were separated in a storm... I don't know if they're alive and I never met my father. But they were.... are strong. And I won't let anyone say otherwise."
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:41 pm
Vol laughed again. "And what do you know of healing or poisons, cub?"
He hadn't called her flower-child again, but knowing that her name meant "excellent warrior" meant that he wasn't likely to call her by it until or unless she proved herself worthy of it. He knew a lot of cubs who had been given similar names by hopeful parents, but relatively few of them were females whose parents had wanted them to be warriors, even in the new generation of Stormborn, which had an annoyingly high number of Reaver-girls, as he and a friend of his had discussed in the not-too-distant past.
"I've never heard of them," he told her. Which didn't necessarily mean they weren't of the pride, but did imply that they were both outlander born rather than lions of Stormborn lineage. To Vol it made a difference who a lion's parents were and where they came from. "But I guess I wouldn't have, would I?"
He found a certain amount of poetry in the fact that she'd been separated from her warrior parents by a storm and then found her way to the Myrsky Syntynyt. "In a way you really are born of a storm. That's something to be proud of, particularly in this pride. If people do speak against your parents, who are outlanders and so likely to earn a certain amount of scorn, you might remind them of that."
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:55 pm
Aristo grinned unrepentantly. "Very little." She didn't care if he called her by name as long as what he did call her wasn't insulting. "I think my Mother was on her way here. She's a biiiiig lioness and purple! She has a lot of my markings." It was something she was proud of, looking like her lovely mother. "And I'll remind them and if they keep doing it, I'll remind them with my claws!" She unsheathed them and held them out for his inspection. They were properly sharpened and ready to cause wicked damage. She had been on her own for a while after all.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:09 pm
"Poison's a coward's tool," Vol remarked. "Some of the stories have clever tricksters using it, but it's still a coward's tool. Or a woman's, but theyre much the same."
No, he didn't care if he gave offense by equating women and cowards. They were both weak creatures in Vol's judgmental eyes and unless an individual proved herself otherwise, Vol was content with his generalisation. Even the best lionesses he knew (in his estimation) were not the equal of a male. You couldn't be friends with a female, or rely on them as you would a male. They weren't up to it, and doing so would only get a lion killed. Vol had little use for females except as den warmers.
At Aristo's vehemence Vol was torn between the urge to grin and roll his eyes. Being the sort of lion he was, he went with the latter. It wasn't that Vol didn't have a sense of humor. He just didn't usually choose to share his mirth with girl children, who were barely worth noticing unless they were likely to grow up pretty. And even then, he was perfectly happy to ignore them until they were old enough to be considered proper women. Proper women also didn't want to grow up to be fighters, though they would fight in defense of their home and their families.
Vol wondered who Aristo was staying with, if not her parents, but he feared asking would somehow make him responsible for the girl child and he didn't want that. Parenthood was not something he felt ready for, even though he was old enough to have fully grown cubs by now. Too much responsibility and not enough reward, no matter what his friend Erl said about how satisfying it was to have his daughter well-placed as a Priestess.
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:21 pm
"Those who don't have the strength of muscle must use their wits to compensate." Aristo said. She'd never use poison unless there was no other way to protect her family. "I don't have any desire to use it."
She narrowed her eyes when he rolled his at her claws. Very well Big Guy, roll your eyes and underestimate me. One day if my claws should have reason to go against you, then you'll know...
"Sure roll your eyes at my claws. I'm only a cub, as you keep reminding me, One who's name has not been given."
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Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:29 pm
"Voldemaras," Vol supplied when prompted. "Son of Brisingr, son of Halstaf."
Both of his parents had been Freeborn crafters rather than Reavers, but they were both born Stormborn and his grandfather had been a Reaver. It was a good family line, and went back farther than just his grandparents, but there was really no need to go back any farther with just an introduction. Legal proceedings, a lion would list as many ancestors as he could, but that would be completely unnecessary in this situation.
"And I'm leaving now, cub. Enjoy watching the fights. Maybe you'll learn something useful." He was hoping she'd learn to stay out from underfoot in the future. He didn't mind having an audience that stayed out of the way, but once they got in the way he had no qualms about bringing them into the fray, whether they were ready or not.
He walked on past her and began to make his way toward his den, which had been his parents before him, and was too big for a single lion but he was unwilling to give it up. It was his and he liked it.
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