The goddess had been right, the desert was such a barren place. And yet... Styxx took a deep breath of the cooling evening air, still harsh and dry in his lungs. It was one of the freshest breaths he'd ever taken.
He had adapted well to this land, despite the goddess' apprehension. He'd taken to wearing a portion of a wildebeest's pelt over his back to protect his scars from burning, a strip of worn cloth around his head to help protect his eyes and nose from the wind-tossed sand. Adding the Dal'ek bracers he couldn't seem to let go of and he no doubt cut a rather fearsome sight. The goddess had given him a coin from her bracelet; it hung from a leather cord around his neck.
The temperature was dropping as the light faded from the sky. He would need to take shelter soon. The weather had been steadily growing colder, the days shorter, so the nights were long and frigid. He had maybe an hour, two at tops before the sun would be gone completely.
Seemed just enough time to investigate the copse of shrub and trees ahead of him.
Blaise's eyes narrowed into slits as he watched the lion invade his home. He was safe, for the moment, tucked high up in a tree. The other cat wouldn't be able to get to him, especially not with that limp. Still, he didn't much care for someone invading his space like this. It was his oasis and for all that strangers came looking for him for assistance, this one didn't look like he had a purpose in coming here. The way he moved and looked around said that this lion hadn't expected to find a place like this and was curious.
The lion was curious, and Blaise was in no mood to play.
"Who the hell are you?" Styxx stiffened at the sound of a growled voice somewhere overhead. So he had smelled a leopard after all. But he hadn't had any visions, so he'd thought... maybe whomever it was had gone. He'd only met two creatures in his entire life that he hadn't heard something from their pasts, and that included preybeasts. To find another one...
"Something wrong with your hearing?" Unable to help himself, his maw quirked at one side in the makings of a rather sardonic smile.
"Ask me again to my face and when you have a better tone." There was a shift in one of the trees, though when Styxx looked, he still couldn't make out the source of the voice. This was quickly followed by a hiss as if in pain and a string of words that sounded like curses but were unfamiliar to him.
"After what I've seen, I think I'll stay up here for now," the phantom leopard replied, the strain in his voice causing Styxx to pause as he made his way towards the water, his half-smirk quickly fading away. After what he's seen? The scars? Was that really all it took? He'd been used to the slaves cringing away from him, but he hadn't met a rogue yet, hadn't expected... Well, he should have expected it.
"No wonder you're all scarred up. Merde, I won't be looking into that dark hole again." He puzzled over the words for a moment before realizing... The leopard had looked into his past? Another god-cursed?
How strange, that he should meet another seer and not have any visions of his own. Maybe that was part of it. He wasn't sure that he'd ever met one in the past before, so maybe his visions just didn't work with other seers. Still, Styxx felt his jaw clench. He wasn't all that sure that he liked someone else digging into his past like that, especially when he didn't have that advantage in return.
Blaise watched the young lion stop just near the water's edge. He couldn't see too well, couldn't quite tell just where the stranger was looking, but he could see how stiff his posture was. The boy wasn't afraid, he could tell that for damn sure, but somehow he'd struck a nerve. Should have kept his mouth shut, not everyone liked seers. He was just so used to people seeking him out, knowing full well what he was, that he didn't bother to hide it anymore.Still, what little he'd Seen...
Knowing better, he moved from his perch and carefully picked his way down to the ground.
"You make me regret my decision and I'll return the favor," he grumbled when his paws hit dirt. The boy, for his mane didn't look much more than half grown-in, watched him carefully, as if he expected an attack. "Relax. I may be a pain in the a**, but I'm one that would rather keep that pain figurative. On my hide, especially."
Blaise sat down at the base of his tree, watching the lion. The boy seemed t think for a moment before turning to drink again, but he angled his body so that his back wasn't completely to Blaise. He was ready to turn and face an attack if need be. Poor kid.
"You live here?" The tone was inquisitive, yet empty. Someone had clearly broken him at some point. By the color of some of his scars... It had been a long breaking. Blaise had only Seen something recent, snatches of the boy fighting in some kind of war between prides. He'd never seen fighting like that before, methodically and with nothing to lose. He'd been leading, in a snatch he'd pulled one of his warriors out of the fray and had been struck for it. He'd had to growl that a dead Dal'ek - whatever that was - was a useless Dal'ek before the other lion backed down and let him return to the battle. Another short bit had him in a deep, dark hole, bleeding and beaten, one paw limp and useless.
No one would be surprised that a past like that could break someone.
"I do. You been in the desert long?"
"Several days." Styxx watched the movement of water as fish swam beneath the surface for a moment before turning away and moving back towards the sands, always keeping the leopard in the corner of his eye.
"Leaving?" Styxx paused and tilted his head slightly. He was hungry and frustrated, but he wouldn't show it. He needed to leave to find shelter before dark and if he was lucky maybe something to eat. It was easier to hunt during the day.
"I need to find somewhere to pass the night." The honest truth was out before he could stop it. The leopard tilted his head and shrugged.
"You're welcome to stay as long as you keep those claws to yourself," the leopard replied, causing Styxx to frown slightly in confusion. Why was a stranger offering him a place to stay? What did he want? The leopard chuckled as if he could read minds and added, "I'm used to beasts coming here to bother me for their futures, or females hoping it runs in my blood. Wouldn't mind some normal company for once."
This place wasn't bad, the leopard didn't seem a threat, and even if he wanted to be, he wouldn't, not against Styxx. And the chance to talk to another seer... Styxx couldn't stop himself from turning back around.
"I'm Styxx."
"Blaise. Want something to eat? You look like you haven't been properly fed in a moon."
"Gods, yes, I-" Styxx's mouth snapped shut on the overly enthusiastic response and he cleared his throat. "Yeah, I would."
Blaise chuckled as he moved to another tree, a far more pungent and prickly one than the one he tended to hide in, and carefully scaled into the branches. Practice made perfect, he could get a good kill up into that tree without scratching it, or himself, all that much.
The gazelle carcass landed on the ground with a muffled thud and he soon followed.
"Probably not enough for the both of us, but have your fill. I had a big meal earlier." Thanks to the wild dog who'd wanted to know so desperately to know if he would ever have his lady love. Desperation always meant large rewards. He watched Styxx consider it for a few moments before the boy gave a small nod and started to slowly and carefully eat at the kill. What would he have had otherwise? Lizards? Even Blaise, for all his terrible hunting skills, tended to take down something more substantial. But Styxx was new, he wouldn't know where to look. Sure, he could probably find it, but... For some reason and for probably one of the first times in his life, he really wanted to help someone. And not for any sort of gain, just because.
"What makes a seer?" That question brought Blaise out of his thoughts as he sat down and watched the young lion.
"If I knew that, I imagine I could rule the lands if I wanted," Blaise replied with a bit of a chuckle.
"Ruling isn't as great as people assume." He tilted his head, his smile fading as he considered Styxx.
"Your family?"
"My father. And I led his army. It's hell."
"I can imagine... No, I don't know how I was born a seer. Some say if a god breeds with a mortal, the child will be a seer, but I'm no demigod. I don't even remember when I first started having my visions."
"I do."
"What?"
"My mother had just weaned me. I heard her speak, but her mouth wasn't moving. I figured out it was something she'd said sometime before," Styxx replied, this words soft and pensive. He still remembered what she had said, after all this time. I wish they'd never been born. I never should have let him breed his bastards into me. It was then that Styxx began the understanding that his mother didn't love him. It wasn't until just before he'd been sent to be purged by the physicians, when she'd nearly killed him when he'd tried to find comfort in her arms like the slaves' cubs did, that he realized just how much she hated and wanted him dead.
"You're a seer?"
"I can't figure out what else it'd be. Usually it's almost constant. You're quiet, though. That doesn't happen often."
"Is that why you came here? No one else around?"
"I have a few other reasons, but that's one of them." Blaise seemed to study him for a while, the look in those faded purple eyes a little unnerving as the heartbeats passed. But finally the leopard nodded and settled down at the base of the tree he'd been in.
"Rest easy, my friend. You can stay here as long as you want." Unsure of how to respond to such an offer, Styxx just nodded once and went back to his meal, eating more than he had in a very long time.
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