[PRP] Knowledge is Power [Isifo x Udipti]

[Kaelyndra]

Muscles ached. Isifo's tongue lulled out from his mouth as he panted away the heat. The soldier shuffled his feet slowly to the water source. There, he dipped his paws and used their wet tips to cool his face.

By now, he knew many of the most important Firekin words. No. Yes. Sir (for both genders). Order. Run. Water. Desert. Wound. Blood. Of course, fire. There were many others, but these he knew as more than just translations. He knew what they meant.

Gradually, he'd begun to understand in what order those words were used. But grammar was something he still had great difficulty with and there was no established school for learning foreign languages. No one knew how to teach him.

Instead of creating conversation, he lapped up his cool drink in silence. Isifo's eyes wandered. He was still trying to get comfortable in this strange land with its odd cultures.  

[Dulcea]

Udipti was still hesitant to approach her elders, fearing reproach or worse, being completely ignored. She was big enough for her age, but she was never going to be a bold soldier like her mother or a master of the duel. That much had been clear to her early on, but she could learn. With time and dedication, both which she had in abundance, she could learn just about anything.

That was, if she could find someone willing to teach her. In truth she was sure there were plenty of available prospects more than happy to take on a pupil, but for the most part they taught the pugilistic arts. While those were useful and she didn't doubt she would need to learn them sooner or later, it wasn't all she wanted.

She wanted the world, preferably from the mouth of someone who wouldn't treat her like a cub. It was for that reason that she had set about a vigil around the water, watching and waiting for someone to come along who might suit her purposes.

Her ears went back when she spotted Isifo at the water's edge. She'd heard rumors around the pride of outsiders, refugees who had joined to combat the Nergui, and while she would be the first to admit she had little tutelage on the bloodlines and histories of the prominent families she knew enough to realize he looked different than most. Still she hesitated, staring out at him with pale ghastly eyes and the sort of face only a dejected cub could muster.  

[Kaelyndra]

Dulcea

Isifo spotted eyes on him early. His head raised briefly, his red eyes curiously watching her. There was a noteable shrug from the lion as he decided she would get bored with him. Most were alarmed by the bone markings, and further by the black in his eye. They grey tired of the game of staring and often looked away.

Only the small cub did not.

Isifo's head was up again, and his ears went forward.

"Cub," he said, not yet knowing the word for juvenille. "You stare."

Isifo stared back.  

[Dulcea]

"I do not stare," she said softly, a curious look on her face, "I watch. There's a difference. I watch and I learn." What she was learning, she wasn't quite sure yet. The way he spoke was odd, that seemed to confirm her suspicions but she still couldn't be sure. Perhaps he was just quiet.

"You aren't from here," she ventured, the phrase posed more as a statement than a question. Inwardly she smacked herself for being so blunt, hoping that it wouldn't offend him. Many she knew were very defensive of their origins, and more so against questioning from youths. Her ears pinned back against her head. It would be a shame if she'd blown it already. "I just meant, you're different I think. I like it."  

[Kaelyndra]

From the words, he knew that she was denying staring. The second word translated to an identical word, but it was not the same. One ear went back in frustration.

Then, a set of words he could easily understand.

"No," Isifo agreed as he shook out his dark mane. "Not born here." The Hongshan had separate words for where you were raised, where you were born, and where you now lived. The Firekin seemed to group these all into one.

The Honshan's mouth broke into a smile. He understood different and like. Those were both very good words in one sentence.

"Yai aeuo aerta b'ggouork. Yaiu ovot aeuo tkuaerso, r'xo d'ro." The more talkative part of him let his foreign language escape. The accent had thinned at its edges, starting to take on the Firekin tone, but it was thick as he spoke in his native tongue.

"Why?" He encouraged her to keep speaking. Listening was a highly prized trait as was learning.

Dulcea

 

[Dulcea]

Her ears pinned back in confusion as spoke the foreign tongue. It was unlike anything she'd ever heard before, and while she couldn't make out a single word she figured from his tone it was probably nothing bad. But there was the common tongue again, that she understood. Why what exactly. She thought for a moment, scratching an ear with her paw before she decided what to say.

"I just mean, you must know a lot about other places. And the Nergui. The grown ups won't tell me much, they say I'm too little," she said as she watched him with wide eyes, "But everyone needs to know as much as they can, right? Like you and your people, they're learning our ways. That must be hard."  

[Kaelyndra]

Dulcea

Nergui.

Isifo gave a displeased grunt. His head bobbed and he shook himself down. These were not happy subjects. Had she heard something of them? The other Hongshan had reported that most things were still calm. They held one Nergui prisoner and there had been a potentially related attack, but nothing more.

"Learning, yes," he agreed. It was hard to follow the cubs chattering tongue, but he had gotten very good at picking out the important words.

"I can help you learn." About Nergui. Perhaps about other things. "I know some."

They Hongshan had told the Firekin everything they knew, and the Firekin shared their information with the Hongshan.

"What to learn?" Isifo surveyed her quietly.  

[Dulcea]

Kaelyndra

Her eyes flickered, betraying a bit of the fierce spirit behind them. "I want to learn everything," she told him, rocking back on her haunches so she could lift her paws in a dramatic flair, "I want to learn why the sun travels across the sky, why some lions fight and others cower, why the Nergui are the way that they are, and how the world began."

She paused, taking a few breaths as she calmed herself. "I want to learn so much that I begin to feel like my mind will pop out of my head if I learn even just a little bit more." It was an ambitious thought for one so young, but she had accepted early on that her mind was her most significant advantage in this world. Preconceived notions and judgements be damned, she would make herself open to anything and anyone.  

[Kaelyndra]

Everything.

The big male grunted, ears flicking about his head as though waiting for footsteps to come save him. No one came.

The young lion rocked and rolled and gestured. Isifo watched her, titled head. He was talking with such speed he could not even capture the words he knew. Perhaps there had been a sun in there. What about the sun?

"I do not know this," he tried. It could have been a lie, he did not know.

"Know Nergui, Fight, Water, Hongshan." The lion's ears went forwards and his eyes focused directly on the cub's. "Which one?"

Dulcea

 

[Dulcea]

Kaelyndra

Hongshan. That was a word she had heard spoken among the older members of the pride many times in the preceding weeks, but no one would talk to her about them. She only knew that they came from somewhere else, and that those like Isifo were among their numbers. For reasons she did not fully comprehend, it was not always in a tone of tolerance, often tinged with underpinnings of what she would eventually learn to be xenophobia. "I want to know more about your kind, about the Hongshan," she told him, scaling back her enthusiasm to a level she hoped wouldn't be so overwhelming. She was often told that she needed to take a breath once in a while, which had not made sense to her before. If she wasn't breathing she'd be dead. But that wasn't what it meant, she had learned, it meant that she could be too much for some others to handle.  

[Kaelyndra]

Isifo had heard Hongshan and no other word that he had given.

Behind him, his tail flicked away a fly which had landed on his back. A small quiet developed between them and then he nodded.

Moving completely upright, so that he was no longer on her level, the large male started up the embankment with sure, sturdy paws. Even when part of the cemented sand gave way, he seemed not to have issue.

"We go to Hongshan," he told her. "I show you. Then, you are learning."

Dulcea

 

[Dulcea]

Kaelyndra

It was a place? Or at least that's what it sounded like. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if it was safe to follow him alone. Well, she had trusted him this far, and he seemed genuine in his decision to help her. She'd heard horror stories of cubs being kidnapped but he was a kinsman now, regardless of where he'd begun his life he had proven himself worthy to remain. Shrugging her shoulders slightly she hurried after him. Her shorter limbs made ascending the loose sands more complicated, her motions were exaggerated as she tried to keep pace with him but she did her best to maintain some degree of decorum as sand flashed down the hill in her wake.  

[Kaelyndra]

His young learner would be disappointed. There was no Hongshan left to go to, and if it somehow still functioned in a dilapidated mess, it was too far a distance to traverse.

Instead, they passed over the water source and headed towards the Firekin's center. Several Hongshan refugees glanced up as Isifo entered their designated area. Even after becoming Firekin, they still preferred to stay together.

"L'iar," he began to speak, bobbing his head at a soldier on his way out of the Red Quarter.

"Larott." Isifo looked back at the cub, to make sure she was following, gestured towards a mother washing her cubs. "And daklou." The Hongshan began to move again, some members of the Red Quarter friendly in their acknowledgement of him and others notably confused about the presence of a cub.

"Ouaekro." This was directed at a female speaking in heated tones with another male. Other than hair weaved into a braid, she appeared no different from the other.

"You repeat, now."

Dulcea