[LOG] Learning About You (Kipenzi/Drury)

[Painted Moose]

Moose
There wasn't anything in the world quite like running.

Kipenzi raced across the flatlands as fast as any cheetah and twice as determined. She was aging, and some days she felt it, but not when she was running. Even when she turned, the spotted lioness seemed to automatically shift into the turn and she was off once more.

Living first in the swamps and then in the mountains hadn't given her much chance to practice her hobby. Kipenzi had sorely missed being able to feel the air slicing through her fur. The feathers on her bracelet fluttered about wildly as she sailed through the very wind itself.

Nessi
Drury had settled quite well into the rogue life. He had always thought it would be hard, it would be a change he couldn't handle. The only thing he had known was life in a pride. He could swear the air was fresher out here in the rouge lands though. Plus there was the added bonus of not having to live in a place that had killed your mother, and was trying to kill your daughter. No Drury was sure of it he had made the right decision. Now he just hopped he could help Ummi turn around her life as well.

As Drury sat thinking of his life he spotted Kip running by. She was moving so fast that her spots were a blur. He couldn't help but smile. He had known Kip pretty well her whole life. He had never thought of her in a romantic way, first she was a close family friend, then his brothers mate.... but now now he was beginning to see her with a romantic sort of view. The one thing though he didn't know how she felt about him.

Moose
Kipenzi was running so fast that she barely saw Drury at all. He was nothing more than a dusky blur on her path, and if she stopped now she would only hurt herself. Instead, she pushed herself harder, aiming straight for a tree. As soon as she was within range she leapt out, turned on her side and kicked off the trunk with enough force to propel her several feet. With little momentum lost, she was able to make a round about trip to Drury's side.

By the time she reached him she was panting and walking much slower. "Do you...do...Goddess, I can't breath." She wheezed, lifting her head back with a huff. Maybe I really am getting old. "Is something wrong? Do you need me to help with Ummi?"

Nessi
Drury jaw litterally dropped open as he watched the female he was falling love with preform feets that surely would have killed him. Frankly he couldn't run that fast to begin with, and if he had ran at a tree like that he would have just colided with it giving him self a sore head and a concusion.

When she came back over to him through he managed to pick his jaw up from the ground and place a smile back on his lips. He waited for her to catch her breath a little. At the mention of his daughter his smile slipped a little. Kip had a special understanding of what Ummi was going through being deaf her self, but Ummi just wasn't ready to get the help she could. It made Drury endlessly frustrated but he was learning he couldn't push her into accepting her limitations.

"No no, Ummi is okay today. Giving her a day to herself, I think she needs the space." Drury said, he spoke slow and over pronounced each word making it easier for Kip to read his lips. At first he had trouble with this, he would either speak to fast or turn his head when he was talking and she'd be unable to see his lips, but now he was getting the hang of things.

Moose
"Probably for the best. She'll come around one day." Kipenzi nodded sagely. Once she accepted her new life, she would see that there wasn't any other way of going about it. Ummi would have to learn or she would be forever in the dark.

She responded so quickly that Kip had to pause and really think about Drury's words. Had he...had he adjusted to her needs? It was so easy to talk with him now that she barely needed to concentrate. This male was truly considerate beyond words. She knew he had been trying for his daughter, but it was obvious now he was taking pains to make it easier for Kip as well. You really are too good to me, Drury.

"So...did you know I'm part cheetah? Like, literally part cheetah?" Kipenzi grinned.

Nessi
Drury brows furrowed trying to follow what she had said and he didn't even have a hearing problem. "Kip you are a lion." he said still uterrly confused. As far as he knew there was no way a lion could ever have a cheetah in her blood line. After all only two lions could make a lion, and if a cheetah and a lion bread they would make a infertile hybrid. Not to mention their old home had strict rules about cross breeding.

"Are you trying to pull one over on me Kip?" he asked giving the female a silly little smirk. He wouldn't put it past her to pull a fast on on him. Drury was only just now learning to lighten up and have a laugh. The life in the pride had made him so depressed and dark he rarely laughed in his life... not till now anyways.
just now

Moose
"I know I'm a lion," she chuckled. He was reacting exactly as she thought he would, and it was beyond amusing. "Drury!" She reached out and playfully punched him on the shoulder. "As if I would ever do that. I'm being serious. I was a rogue a long time before I joined the pride, and the rules are a lot different out here."

At first she had been scarred to be back out here. It was a lot larger than it had been when she as younger, and ten times as frightening. Where had all of her bravery gone? Now it seemed all the brighter and just because of one winged male. "My grandmother was a Cheeton. My mother and her sister were the only cubs she ever had before passing on. So, I do indeed have a little bit of cheetah blood in me. I could never say anything about it back in the pride; they would have thrown me out."

It was a saddening fact to her. Kipenzi had loved her grandmother dearly right up until the day she passed. It was a shame the Swampies couldn't see past their superstitions to the real world. "Does that...bother you? That I'm part cheetah?"  

[Painted Moose]

Nessi
Drury listened closely, before she had finished her story he already thought up about half a million questions, but he waited ever so patiently to find out if perhaps his question were to be answered in his story. When she finished he remained silent and blinked a few times trying to access if he had fully understood everything she had said.

"So hybrids can breed?" he asked still hung up and confused on that one minor detail. He was glad that she had never mentioned it in the pride. He kind of frowned why had they lived so long in such a bad place. He sighed. When she asked if it bothered him he started to shake his head back and forth. That was the last thing he wanted her to think.

"No no Kip nothing like that would ever bother me." He said quickly "I will always love you no matter what." he said before he realized exactly what he was admitting.

Moose
"Some of them can, yes. It's rare." Growing up, it had been more strange to learn that most hybrids COULDN'T breed. Kipenzi had never really thought of it as something special until she had met Eku. He had been the only one in the pride to know of her origins; not even Kabusha had known that bit. I should have told her. It felt wrong now not to have said anything about it to the woman who had been a mother to her.

Kipenzi was easily flabbergasted. She gaped at him, her olive eyes as wide as the moon itself. "You...you love me?"

Nessi
Suddenly Drury's stomach was doing flips. What had he just done. He swallowed hard, wondering now what was the best to say... should he try to take back, should he say it was because he she was just like family. No no I can't say that if I say that then she will never see me romatically.

"I ummm, I do love you, though this is not the way I ever thought I would tell you." he said his eyes filled with worry that she would say she didn't feel that way for him.

"I've never felt like this before, you have made my life amazing, you care for my daughter as if she were your own. You have made my life complete." he stopped talking and just looked at her hoping that she would return some of the sentiments that he had just put out there for the world.

Moose
Kipenzi shifted from one paw to the next, averting her eyes to look at anything, but Drury. Her heart felt as if it were a little cricket singing a tune that only lighting itself could keep up with. For a moment she thought that he might say he loved her as a 'sister', since she had been mated to his brother, but this...

"Drury, I..." She paused for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Don't talk like that. Like you expect it all to end. 'Felt', 'made'...those are words for things that have passed." She gave him a soft smile and moved forward to put her paw on his. "I didn't think I would ever be able to trust another male again. I honestly thought my chance at love ended when I split from Eku, and then that mess in the rogue lands..." Kipenzi shook her head. "I love you too, Drury, and I would like...to try to make a new start with you."

Nessi
A rush of relief swam over Drury. He was overjoyed, he smiled, he rose to his feet. He couldn't believe it. He moved colser to her leaning in to nuzzle her. "I want a new start too." he told her with a soft voice. Before her burried his maw into her neck. He wanted nothing more than to be close to her.

He pulled back so that she could see his lips again. "Lets go back to the group. I want to tell Ummi the good news." he was sure that his daughter would want to hear this good news right away. Perhaps the happy news could lift her out of her funk. He hoped his nephew wouldn't mind. Drury made a not to talk to him, he would have to assure him that he would take amazing care of his mom.  

[Painted Moose]

It felt so odd to have him so close, but Kipenzi didn't shy away from his affections. She smiled, her cheeks as warm as her heart. The spotted lioness leaned against him, burrowing her face into his mane and relishing the scent of him.

She was a little saddened when he pulled away, but she knew why. "After you, love." Kipenzi fervently hoped that Ummi would be as pleased with the news as she was. And Uongo...Kipenzi worried for him. He was very attached to his father, so who knew how he would take it.

Regardless, he as a grown male with a family of his own. She knew he wouldn't begrudge her any chance at happiness and for that she loved him.

Her son, her grand-children, her niece (who was more like a daughter to her) and now...her mate.

Kipenzi couldn't have been happier.

nessiaing