Rumi was exhausted. She had been able to take down another boar on her own, but she was definitely nursing some minor wounds from the damn beast. She always asked around to see if someone wanted to help her, but that was rare. Everyone mostly just rolled their eyes at the vivacious lioness and carried on their own business. Rumi knew she had friends, but no one ever wanted to go boar hunting with her. Where was the fun with ibex? They were boring and dumb, and half the time just knocking their horns would topple them over (well, maybe less often than that). Boar were a challenge, and there was no better thrill than victory.
She was dragging the heavy boar back home when a guard came across her. She'd seen him before, and knew that Nyneve even had a crush on him. He was kind of old, but she supposed that Nyneve was older than her, so it made sense.
"I see you've bagged quite the dinner," Hraban acknowledged. He went hunting once in a while, more as a way to keep his skills up than for meals. He was close to being enrolled as a soldier, and he knew that only then would he have all the access to the training yards and skilled trainers. Then he could really test his own strength to its limits.
"Oh! Hello Huo Wuya," Rumi said brightly as she took a breather. "Yes, nothing beats boar."
"Really? The meat is usually so tough to chew..." He eyed her curiously, wondering if the meat was for her or for someone else in the North.
"You may be correct on that, but nothing is as delicious as boar meat." She bobbed her head and nudged the carcass, a small trail of blood beginning to taper off from where she had been dragging it from. "I'm certain that Lian Baozuo and her growing litter will be happy enough with this gift." Penden always called her crazy, but Rumi had been able to prove herself to the bitter old lioness a few times. Now they had a strange companionship, though Rumi still hadn't been able to find out why she wasn't a soldier, or even a captain with her experience!
He watched her silently for a moment as she readjusted her grip on the boar. She began dragging it again, and he followed along beside her, his duty as a guard clear in his mind. Still...with a lioness as strong as her, and equally as headstrong, foolish, and proven...
"Why aren't you a guard? Or even a soldier, Lingchen?"
"Mmph?" Rumi hadn't expected that question, and she wondered if she heard him correctly. She stubbornly didn't let go of the boar until it was time for another break.
"Why? Well...perhaps I hadn't thought of it," she replied with a bit of a huff. "You have to admit that with so few female guards and zero female soldiers the idea never came across my mind."
Hraban didn't have a response for that. He ignored her confrontational glares, and watched her as she grabbed at the boar again and dragged it along. He continued to follow, wanting to make sure that she made it back safely, but also trying to think of a reply to her. He had always known strong females, as his mother had terrified him when he was young (that grew into a healthy respect for what she did for her kids), so the concept of not seeing one didn't faze him much.
"You should be the first, then," he replied. She continued to drag the boar on, and he followed her again in silence.
The first? Rumi had never thought about that. She barely remembered a time before coming here. She had been picked up as a lost and starving juvenile, and named for the time of day she had been found. She had dutifully been a successful hunter to help feed the North, never really considering what she wanted. Sure, she wanted to have fun, and challenge herself, but she never considered what she might want beyond what the North requested of her. Could she really take a step that felt so selfish?
The more she thought about it, the more it terrified and thrilled her.
She finally made it to where she was to drop off the boar. She could see Penden a bit off, that bronze-yellow coat impossible to mistake. With a bit of stretching and rotating her jaw, she turned to the guard that had clearly been waiting for an answer.
"The first?" She echoed, starting at Huo Wuya. "I'm not sure..." A bit of doubt seized her at that moment. Could she really do something other than hunting? It was all she knew, beyond the North being her home.
"Perhaps..." she finally added on. "I will have to think on it."
Hraban shrugged. "A thought is a seed planted, its up to you to see if it grows or not." He bowed to her slightly before taking his leave, returning from whence he came to continue his patrol.
Rumi exchanged greetings with Penden, and noticed just how large her litter was getting. Soon they would be enrolling to be guards and soldiers, something that Penden chased them into. Two girls...so it was possible?
The brown lioness knew that she had a lot of thinking to do. With a heavy sigh, she slinked off in between the brush, intent on finding some alone time to really thing about what the black guard had said. Should she consider this? Perhaps she should even try to watch some of the other soldiers. She didn't have the nerves to ask any of the ranking officials, but she would watch, wait, and see if perhaps this was a possible path she could take.
As long as no one went hungry, anyway... She'd check with Penden and Nyneve, see if they figured that they could do well enough without her for a while. Forever? Ugh, this was all so complicated and stresful! Instead of a slink, she ended up taking off at a run through the mountains, intent on running until she could think clearly.
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