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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:08 pm
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Jackal regarded his fellow predators the way most thought of the stars: Curious things destined to never be fully understood, some dimmer than others and all due to one day flicker out. He'd watched them since he was cub, memorizing their patterns, appreciating them in ways not all could. Oh, routine was an awful burden that dulled the mind and the senses — not just those like sight and touch, but that of awe. So many in the world had stifled their ability to simply marvel at things.
He was grateful to his pride if only for fostering a mindset that dared to dream. To him, it seemed nothing if not utterly ridiculous to band together pilferers, fighters, and outcasts, then expect them to live in assiduous harmony forever. To him, it was jarring and amusing to have his thievery and deceit celebrated, yet risk being ostracized for the mere crime of courting another male. That's what made them such an interesting bunch.
But he was becoming a hypocrite himself. For all his belittling pity these poor souls could never be truly content, lately he'd been no less restless, spending more time away from his home than in it.
Rogue air did well to clear the mind. He breathed it heavy enough to taste and the flavor was that of freedom. Faint and far away, he could sense grand adventure calling to him. Day after day, night after night, there was nothing but this. The only difference between Now and Then was Jackal's decision to pursue fate. If change would not come to him, then he would go and find it.
So he bid farewell to his beloved mother and walked for two days and three nights. On the third night, he crossed a small stream, passed through a copse of trees, and literally bumped right into Jhulsa.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:54 pm
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![User Image](https://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c163/Meepfeather/SoAs/certjhulsaadult.png)
Jhulsa did not like to sleep. Sleep was wasted time and missed opportunities. The world moved on without her while she slept, and that was unacceptable. She had a finite amount of time to live, to be, to seek and find everything that she was looking for, and she didn't want to spend a moment of it with her eyes closed. Unfortunately, biology disagreed with her assertion that sleep was unnecessary, and now matter how strong her will, she had to sleep now and then. And so she did, in fits and starts and not quite often enough.
It had become a sort of game, a challenge, to see just how long she could manage to stay awake, and the longer she went, the more interesting it became. It had started simply enough, a stubborn unwillingness to shut her eyes, but it was beginning to become more than that. The effects had been aggravating at first, a nuisance, but she soon became fascinated by them.
Almost two days in to her first intentional trial, she had certainly felt - and looked - better, but it was tolerable. Though usually one to go at a slow and deliberate pace anyway, she found herself having to move more slowly than usual, as her coordination was lacking, to say the least. It didn't help that her vision would go blurry occasionally, or that she was starting to see things out of the corner of her eye. She'd stopped turning to try to get a better look at them after she'd run into a tree.
Which explained why she didn't notice Jackal until he'd bumped right into her...and why, after staggering and having to sit gracelessly in order to avoid falling over, she stared at him with narrowed, skeptical eyes.
That lion was probably real, but she wasn't entirely sure. At the risk of talking to thin air (in which case, no one would be around to know, so it was safe enough), she offered a flat "Hello."
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:57 pm
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Had Jhulsa thought her impromptu experiment through a bit further before undertaking it, she might have postponed until after she got home and could conduct it in relative safety. Depriving herself of sleep while alone in rogue lands was, admittedly, not one of her better ideas to get carried away by. But she had wanted to know, and that was a desire she had always been prone to obsession with. Wisdom and good judgement had yet to catch up with the physically adult lioness.
He was speaking. So. Real. Good. Except maybe not, because this was hardly a fitting state to meet someone in. Jhulsa canted her head to the side and blinked at the stranger, clearing bothersome spots from her vision so that she could get a better look at him. Once she had, she was able to determine, "So're you."
Not a statement she would ordinarily have chosen to make, but it was the first that came to mind, and the wait for another to form would have been long. It was better than a blank stare.
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Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2014 6:42 pm
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This disorientated state of hers was increasingly alarming. The way she floundered about was suspect to insanity, something a born Kizi had witnessed once or twice, to put it mildly. But Jackal had also seen exhaustion.
Occasionally, he preferred to hunt for himself. Kept the claws sharp and the mind sharper. There had been one particular zebra who had bucked him, kicked him in the side hard enough it cracked then and ached to this day. Through the haze of pain, Jackal's temper flared, and he hunted that creature by strength of will and resentment.
He remembered the way it moved on the day before he'd killed it, and it looked very much the same. So for now, he would return to his first assumption: She was harried by lack of sleep, not lack of sense.
"Thank you." Jackal's reply, sincere and condescendingly amused all at once, came swift on the heels of her reflected compliment. Self-defense mechanisms came in many forms; his donned the cloak of superiority. He was worried for her and himself, worried that she could lash out if he encroached too far on her personal space.
"What's your name?" he queried, one metaphorical step closer to appeasing unspoken curiosities, and one physical step closer to her.
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Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 5:37 pm
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"You're not a jackal," Jhulsa observed in a moment of shining, brilliant obviousness that she would likely find embarrassing later, assuming she remembered the details of this conversation. Even then, assuming that she did, the male would probably be long gone, back to whatever journey he was on (or maybe he was just a wanderer?), and they would both more or less forget this encounter as just another conversation with another passing stranger. That was what life in the rogue lands seemed to be thus far: just a series of random, usually meaningless encounters.
And usually with the same questions, or variations of them. It made them easy to answer, even half-asleep. "Jini-msemi." There was a more pronounced, slightly drawn-out 'mmm' in the middle than there should have been when she said it. She paused then, looked around, and vaguely indicated what may or may not have actually been the correct direction. "That way."
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 6:45 pm
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:57 am
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:11 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 5:04 pm
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"That is...not incorrect," she decided after taking a long moment to consider, a moment during which she also realized she was looking at him at a rather odd angle due to the fact that she was leaning, and straightened up into a proper sit again. He was interested, and that was actually quite exciting! Enough to bring her a little more alertness, at least.
"Coordination and balance go-" there was another word she wanted, but 'go' worked well enough, "Faster than I expected. Started seeing things, awhile ago. Hard to tell if I've been hearing things, I haven't been going to check."
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