[PRP] Strange (Kestven/Nagua)

[Excited Apathy]

It was a fine day. Bright, shining, and sunny, there was hardly a cloud in the sky to mar it. Kestven, who usually paid little attention to the weather outside of 'is it raining on me'...hated it. Ears laid back, he glared up at the cheerily nice weather as though it were a personal insult. One of his adopted mothers was gone and the weather was just...oblivious. It wasn't right.  

[mouselet]

So far, the Kitwana'antara didn't seem too different from the Jini-msemi. There were Hunters, there were others, there was a Queen. The only thing he knew of that made any real difference was the disease. Truth be told, he still wasn't certain how he'd ended up here or why he hadn't left. Day after day the teal lion went to sleep, intending to leave at first light. Day after day he awoke and found one reason or another not to depart. It was, among other things, annoying.

So here he was, walking around the pride, and then his eye fell on something...strange.

A blue youth. But...the boy didn't look like any lion Nagua had ever seen. His limbs were too long and light, and he wasn't big enough. The adolescent stopped and stared, totally confused.  

[Excited Apathy]

Eventually Kestven had to stop glaring at the sun--it hurt after a while, after all. Blinking rapidly as he brought his gaze down, he caught sight of something...blue. Almost his blue, really, if a few shades darker...and a little greener. Meh, close enough. What was more important was that the lion, who looked like none of the pridemembers he knew, was staring at him as though he'd sprouted a second head. It was an uncomfortable sensation, and made the juvenile's hackles raise slightly.

"Staring's rude," he said flatly, eyes narrowing as he met the stranger's eyes.  

[mouselet]

Okay, he did have to give the creature that one. He had been staring. But that didn't make the boy before him any less bizarre. Nagua simply couldn't figure out what exactly he was, other than not a lion.

"What in the world are you?" he asked aloud. He'd already been rude by staring. Might as well just get the biggest, most obvious question of them all out of the way.  

[Excited Apathy]

Now it was Kestven's turn to stare. How did someone not know what a hybrid was? The pride was full of them! "I'm...a hybrid," he said slowly. "I've been told I'm a cheeton. One of my parents was a lion, and the other one was a cheetah. So I'm both."  

[mouselet]

Nagua couldn't help but recoil as the boy revealed his true nature and a look of revulsion crossed his face. He knew that there were sick lions out there who...enjoyed keeping company with other races, such as cheetahs and leopards, but to have children with them? The notion was...disturbing. On so many levels.

He couldn't even formulate words as he fought his gag reflex.  

[Excited Apathy]

Kestven's expression became one of shock as the strange lion gave him a very strange look and then began...what was he doing? Was he choking? Should he get help? No, if the stranger was choking he needed help now. Dismayed, the juvenile rushed over to the stranger and reached up to attempt to thump him on the back as best he could.  

[mouselet]

Nagua was too focused on trying not to throw up to keep track of the bizarre creature. So he was totally surprised by the sudden weight on his back and collapsed onto the ground. The unexpected event did put paid to his gag reflex and the adolescent glared at the juvenile collapsed on top of him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Get off of me you weird little beast!"  

[Excited Apathy]

Sea green eyes rounded in shock and no small amount of hurt. He'd just been trying to help! But hurt feelings and wounded pride quickly flared into anger, and he tried to cuff the stranger as hard as he could. "You...you take that back! I was trying to help you, you stupid...stupid-head! And I'm not weird! Or a beast!" A deep breath later, "You're a beast! You're mean!"

Ears flattened, he glared at the adolescent. Take that, meanie!  

[mouselet]

Nagua raised a paw to block the blow as he glared back at the boy. This was not at all how he'd foreseen this day going. He sighed and got to his feet.

"You are the result of an unnatural liason between two creatures of totally different races which should never even had romantic thoughts about each other," he replied. "I don't see how stating the facts makes me mean or a beast." The adolescent's jaw firmed as he stared down at the creature before him.  

[Excited Apathy]

For a long moment, Kestven was silent and unmoving. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes bore into the stranger's with heated fury. How dare he. How dare this stranger come to his home and begin calling him names--not because he'd tried to help, the cheeton now realized, but simply because he existed. His lanky body began to tremble.

Suddenly tensing, the juvenile leapt at the stranger's face, hissing and spitting.  

[mouselet]

Hissing, angry juvenile applied to face was one of the more painful experiences in Nagua's life thus far. It topped anything he'd ever gotten up to with his siblings and, as for immediacy of pain, it definitely topped dying slowly of thirst.

Due to his larger size and higher strength, the adolescent was able to remove the boy from his face before any serious damage was inflicted, such as to his eyes. Still, the teal and black markings were criss-crossed by so many bleeding scratches that, at first glance, it seemed Nagua had acquired red markings as well.

"Now stop that!" he chided. "Even an unnatural creature such as you should know better!" He didn't know whether to be revolted by the boy or to treat him like any juvenile, so the teal lion settled on a somewhat in-between route.

"It's not like I tried to scratch or beat you."  

[Excited Apathy]

Once removed, Kestven backed up a few paces, hunching down in a defensive crouch with what seemed like every hair along his spine standing stiff. "I'm not unnatural," he spat, anger evident in every line, from his lashing tail to his flattened ears. "They wouldn't let me be here if I was. And I'm here. So are lots of other hybrids!" He did flinch at the mention of knowing better--if Mittere found out, he would probably be in Big Trouble.

Even if the mean stupid-head deserved it.  

[mouselet]

There were...other repulsively disgusting unnatural spawn in this pride? That was...very disturbing. On several levels. And yet that godsbedamned lion had contrived to send him here!

Nagua simply couldn't understand it. A diseased pride, with these hybrids, that he'd come to all unknowing and unwilling and yet he was still here!

The adolescent glared frostily at the boy before him before turning and stalking off. He'd think on this...elsewhere. Where he wasn't inclined to swat anyone.  

[Excited Apathy]

Once he was quite certain the stranger was gone, Kestven slowly straightened from his crouch. He was unsettled, for more than one reason--and all of them concerning this mean stranger with the yellow eyes. Glancing around furtively, he skittered off.