[JRP] Said the spider to the fly (Pur & Kal)

[Princess_Feylin]

The rogue lands weren't as scary to Pur as they used to be. She no longer worried that she would be attacked or accosted by rogues bent on murder, mayhem, and other horrible things. She had a personal guard to deal with those nuisances now, although he scared the bejeezus out of her so she instructed him to keep out of her sight. If she needed him, she'd call.

Pur was thinking about flowers and jewelry as she walked because she didn't have much to occupy her mind and it was slowly beginning to revert to that sort of uselessness that comes of being unchallenged. Her days were routinely dull without any responsibilities to fulfill. Well, except one. She had yet to find herself a mate. Her tainted past of having a litter with a rogue had made it difficult for her to find a suitably noble suitor. People were stupid sometimes.

She was wondering why flowers weren't green when she thought she heard something a short distance away and went to investigate.  

[Cajanic]

Kal didn't mind spending time in the rogue lands- it was the only place he had ever come to know as his home. He loved the way things were, really, with only one complaint- he never felt like he could stay in one particular area for long. Being the kind who didn't like to fight, he didn't always get on well with the other rogues in the area. They were always... too rough for him.

Such was life. He really needed to find a place he could settle down and enjoy without anyone giving him crap about it. Some place... nice.

He turned his head when a female appeared, smiling fainting before nodding a hello. "Well, it's nice to see someone else in these parts," he offered, "I'm Kal. And you are?"  

[Princess_Feylin]

"I'm Pur'Jed," she answered, startled to have been spotted so quickly.

"It's nice to see you, too, Kal," she lied. She supposed she didn't much mind him being there, but she'd expected to have this time alone to think and do silly girly things like picking flowers and singing songs with clever lyrics like "fa la la la" and "too-ra-loo-ra-lay."

Meeting people was nice, too, she supposed. Particularly when they were purple and not related to her. Between her parents and her siblings it seemed like she was related to more than two thirds of the nobles in the pride. That was probably a contributing factor to her continued unmarried state.

"Do you live around here?" she asked. She was positive he wasn't a member of the Suka'Fumo. She knew all the nobles. He was not one of them. But he could be. He was plenty purple.

Pur realized that she'd wrinkled her nose when she asked if he lived around here and hastened to add, "It's very natural. Some people work very hard to achieve that look."

Cajanic

 

[Cajanic]

Kal smiled. "I don't really live anywhere," the male hummed, "I'm just a wandering. But I don't mean to intrude if I'm not supposed to be here. This area just seemed pretty... cool, if I'm honest. Cooler than anywhere else I've been recently." He chuckled lightly to himself, though it seemed like she wasn't that interested in being nice.

She said something that confused him a little, the male tilting his head to one side as he looked her over. "Achieve what look, my dear? I'm not really sure what you're talking about." Maybe she was commenting on his rogue-like look? If she was, then he imagined it was more of an insult than a compliment.

Which he didn't really like the thought of.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"I'm not sure it's really possible to intrude on the rogue lands. They don't belong to anyone," Pur mused. "But if you walk about a league or so that way you'll be in the Suka'Fumo, where I'm from."

As she spoke she indicated the direction she had just come from with a ladylike flick of her tail. It was so dainty and ladylike an unobservant person might have missed it. Like she was tapping dew off a flower petal while trying not to make the flower move. Like she was petting a fly without mucking up its wings. Like she was...well...really flipping dainty and ladylike.

"Horticulture. Plants. Never mind. It's just something some people do because they have too much time and not enough to fill it with. I can't say I understand the hobby, myself," she explained. A part of her mind was aware that she sounded like a moron but couldn't seem to connect with the speaking parts of her and so could only rage impotently against how stupid she had apparently grown.

"I'm not making a very good impression, I'm afraid. Let me try again." She gave a little self-deprecating smile that she had spent days practicing when she was young. "I'm Pur'Jed and it is so nice to see a new face in these parts. Do you know anybody here?"

Cajanic

 

[Cajanic]

Kal laughed. "Well, just you," He replied lightly, "and it's a pleasure to meet you, too. So what about this pride of yours?" He wasn't really used to hearing about prides, but hey, the rogue lands weren't working out.

"Gotta say, I like the color scheme," he added with a bit of a chuckle, acknowledging the common color among their coats. Purple was not something he saw a lot of in his travels.

It was nice to know he wasn't the only one with the color.

"And, for the record, I think plants are a bit boring."  

[Princess_Feylin]

Pur turned her dazzling 364,583,954,451.78-watt smile on at his light-hearted response. Then she realized that might be a bit excessive and dimmed it down to a more normal 100-watt smile. Ye gods she was out of practice. If her mother was here to see this, Pur knew she would be enduring a long but oh-so-polite lecture on the finer points of social interaction.

"It's a good place. The people are mostly clever and talented and there are lots of artists. We tell stories by acting them out with costumes and paint and everything." She had never had to describe her pride to someone before.

She glanced at her largely purple pelt and her expression was fleetingly self-satisfied as if she'd had something to do with the color she was born. "I think you'd find the color scheme to your liking. Most of the most important lions in the pride have purple coats."

The wattage on her smile dimmed further as her expression shifted once again to a more confidential one. In a stage whisper she told him, "I think plants are boring, too. But if anyone asks you about their plants you should say something nice. Personally, I think of it as a game to come up with something both nice and true."

Cajanic

 

[Cajanic]

Princess_Feylin

“The most important huh? That would be a bit different from what I’m used to, I must admit.” He was the punching bag of the rogue lands, really, and he was getting a little annoyed by it. Hopefully this place wouldn’t enjoy kicking his a** around all day. It would diminish his growing interest in joining her.

“So what do they think of others coming in and joining up? Would they still treat me with respect if I came in out of the blue? Or would I have to work myself up?” Not that he would mind a little work- he just didn’t want to have to bleed for it anymore. She seemed nice enough, though he couldn’t quite figure her out. There was something… different about her. Something that almost made him wonder if he needed to be careful around her. She said the members of her pride were clever.

Did that include her?

“I guess that’s one way to think about it. I don’t know if I’m much good at being nice all the time. Sometimes I just can’t think of nice things to say,” he laughed lightly.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"Power hungry?" Pur asked with a playful grin. She refrained from adding that he'd fit right in because, really, most of the nobles in the pride were perfectly nice people. It was basically just the ones who were related to her that were conniving plotters.

She thought about his next question for a second, trying to remember how everyone else in the pride felt about newcomers to the pride becoming nobility automatically. Her own family tended to look down on them, but that wasn't the universal view for her class, she was relatively certain. If it had been, they'd be inbred and freakish within a few generations from refusing to marry outside the original families.

"As far as I know a coat like yours would win you entry to whatever rank you wanted, Kal. So if you are power hungry, we can accommodate that. Lots of minions to boss around as long as your fur's purple." She didn't get the feeling that he was the sort to go power mad or anything, and so she told him this with a cheerful smile.

The edges of her smile sharpened. "Believe me. If you can say things that are less than nice but in an amusing way you'll be popular and well-liked. And you'd be a novelty. But listen to me prattling away! Tell me about yourself.?"

Cajanic

 

[Cajanic]

Kal laughed. “No, I’m not power hungry! I didn’t mean to give that impression. I just… don’t want to be kicked around anymore, that’s all.” He chuckled lightly. It wasn’t like he was looking to be promoted to the bully, he just was tired of everyone treated him like dirt. If he could live in a place where lions were supposed to treat him with a little more respect, hey he wasn’t exactly going to turn the other cheek.

That would be silly.

She wanted to know about him, but he wasn’t sure what he could say that wouldn’t be very embarrassing. Still, he had already let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, so he supposed it didn’t really matter anyway. “Well, I’ve lived in the rogue lands all my life. My father kind of left me to live on my own when I was pretty young. As you may have guessed, I spend a lot of time getting picked on by the other rogues. I’m not what you would call ‘a fighter’. I prefer talking to others and that sort of thing, not using my claws.”  

[Princess_Feylin]

"You didn't. I was only teasing you. Apparently not very well." She sketched a figure in the air behind her with her tail to indicate good humor.

Her good breeding and upbringing made it completely impossible for her to ask for more details about him being kicked around. But she was curious. She had already pushed the boundaries of what her upbringing would allow her by asking him to tell her more about himself.

"That sounds very exciting," she said. It was a diplomatic answer, but also a truthful one. It did sound exciting to live as Kal had. She remembered the time she'd spent living in the rogue lands. It had been pretty terrifying and she'd been relieved to get home, even though leaving her cubs behind had been hard.

"I think you would fit in well here if you wanted to stay. But I know that's sort of an enormous decision to make on the spur of the moment. Maybe you should visit for a while."

Cajanic

 

[Cajanic]

Princess_Feylin

Kal smiled. She said it was exciting, and it had been, in a completely terrifying kind of way. Still, he supposed there had been good parts, albeit few and far between all the bad stuff. If he was honest, he was ready to move on with his life. But she told him not to rush. It was too easy to think something was nice and leap right into it.

“You’re right. I think I should take a look around. And I’d be happy to if you’d be willing to give me a bit of a guided tour. That is, if you have time. Don’t want to be making you hang around me if you got stuff to do.” Who knows? Maybe being a noble meant having duties. Somehow, though, he didn’t think so.

He smiled again, more to himself than to her, and followed her lead.  

[Princess_Feylin]

"Believe me. I have time," Pur said drily.

One of the disadvantages to being one of about a million of her parents' children was that there weren't enough important activities to allow them all to be occupied, even if some of them obligingly went off and impregnated someone or got impregnated themselves. By legitimate spouses, that is. Pur's own impregnation hadn't been so awesome, but it was still a secret as far as she knew.

With a good deal more pleasantness she said, "So I would be delighted to act as your guide while you're here."

She smiled and indicated that he ought to follow her. There wasn't much else for her to do out in the rogue lands and if she was going to play guide then it would make much more sense for her to play guide within the pride limits.

"Oh, you might see a lion that looks like his mother was a hippo. That's Greygor. He's my guard. Pay him no mind." That's what she tried to do, anyway.

"This is going to be fun!" she told him, hoping she was right.