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 Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:41 am
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Dust and small stones scattered from under hurrying paws as Svana scaled the rocky slope. A sense of urgency gripped her, and had done so ever since one of her siblings had sent word for her. There had been no details, such matters were too private for anyone other than family to possess, so the message had been vague enough to be troubling. All she knew was that her family needed her, and nothing was more important to her than that. Having dropped everything she had headed directly towards home, half-jogging as she crossed the breadth of the pride's home range.
She had no idea what the summons was over, whether or not it was even urgent, but she refused to take that chance. Within a short time she arrived at her parents place, head up and ears forward as she sought to get some kind of idea as to what was going on. "Mom?" She called out as she walked forwards, rather expecting at least one or two siblings to be here alongside her parents. "Dad?" |
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:14 am
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 "Hsst!" Kekäle hissed at his sister. Warlord she may be, but Svana was still his sister and viking training partner and friend. She'd receive no special treatment for her position from him.
"Out here," he said in an undertone, drawing his sister away from their parents' den before she could go in and get the unpleasant shock he had received. Soja had not been so considerate in letting him know about the problem, and had allowed him to discover for himself the state their mother was in. He did not want to upset Svana like that.
"Believe me, you'll want to wait before going in there," Kekäle said once they'd reached a decent distance for speaking. He was still not speaking at full volume, trying to avoid letting their mother hear them. He didn't think she was listening, really, but it was better, in his opinion, to be safe than sorry. |
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:13 am
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"Okay, ja, sorry," Kekäle said. "Every reason to worry, it looks like, but we'll fix it."
That probably hadn't helped clarify things much, so Kekäle backtracked and elaborated. (What had Txuratan said to Svana to get her over here, he wondered?)
"Mum's not hurt or sick or anything physical, but she's in bad shape. Very, very bad. It seems our arsehole of a brother - Njal - turns out to have flowers in his blood after all. He's leaving the pride, and somehow didn't foresee that he'd completely break Mum's heart in the process, or else doesn't give a s**t."
He didn't mean to, but as he spoke Kekäle began to growl and his fur stood on end along his spine. The lashing of his tail sent small pebbles scattering in an arch from his seated bum to the reach of its tufted tip.
"So we need to do something. Personally, I'm leaning toward death or dismemberment, but I'm willing to be flexible. By the way, if you need ideas, you ought to hear Soja's thoughts on the subject."
He frowned and glanced around. He'd expected their creepy sister to be here, but apparently she'd blown him off. What else was new.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 11:41 am
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Svana only reluctantly followed her brother's lead, settling back on her haunches slowly, almost as if she expected to have to spring back up again at a moment's notice. So ething she almost did as Kekale spoke.
"WHAT?" She hissed sharply before forcefully lowering her tone back down to somehing more private, though the mix of fury and shock in her tone was painfully clear. "He's left?!" She whisper-snarled, lips lifting to reveal glistening white fangs as she clearly struggled to keep both her volume and temper in check. Svana was usually a fairly laid back lion, not much truly got under her skin, but a family betrayal was evidently beyond even her patience to bear.
Launching herself to her paws she snapped her head about, as if expecting to lay eyes, and fangs, on their brother right then and there. She didn't even register Kekale's anger, her own all-emcompasing. It wasn't even that he had left, though that was appauling enough, but the fact that he had hurt their mother, that was what she could not forgive. Jerking back to Kekale she snarled low and savage. "We will drag him back by his flowery tail! Alive or dead!" She raged, barely remembering to keep her voice low though it was clearly a loosing battle. Spinning back to face the den of their parents, her heart broke for their mother. How must Lyti feel? Svana could only imagine and it made her want to hurt Njal even more.
"Where are the rest!?" She demanded, meaning their siblings. "We go after him now!" A moment ago Svana had been a worried daughter, now she was truly an enraged Warlord. "We can choose what to do to him after.." She added in a low and menacing hiss.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:02 pm
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Having had more time to get used to the idea than Svana - albeit, not significantly more - Kekäle was able to observe her incensed reaction to his news with a sort of wry fury that shouldn't have been a possible emotional combination, but was absolutely what he was feeling.
"He has," he confirmed. "I'm not one hundred percent clear on the details why. What I know, I heard from Soja, who heard it from Da, who heard it from Ma, who was the one the b*****d actually told, and she apparently was in even worse shape when telling him than she is now."
He should probably stop bringing up the terrible condition their mother was in. Without having seen her, Svana was only going to get more worried and worked up each time he did it, and that wasn't his intention. Obviously she had to go see their mother, but she would need to be as calm and not-murderous as she could manage.
"I'm not sure where the others are. Soja was supposed to be here, but she was the one who told me to come. I assume she's probably telling the others. I'm not sure that it's really the best idea to leave rallying them to her. She'll probably convince them to do something positively gruesome to him before bringing him back." Not that he was in any way opposed to gruesome things happening to Njal .Not at all. But he wanted to be in on the planning if that was going to happen.
"You should probably see Mum before we go off after Njal," Kekäle pointed out, able to be the voice of reason only because Svana deserved to be irate in this moment, so he defaulted to the reasonable one. "She's been...different. Da says she reacts badly to talk of any more of the family leaving the pride, for any reason. Even to bring Njal back."
He'd been chewed out by Brenning for promising Lyti they'd bring Njal back, actually, because she'd only heard the part about him leaving and begun to weep and shake silently, like she was having the politest seizure ever.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 1:12 pm
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The more she learned of what had happened, the more enraged she got. How could anyone, let alone one of the family, ever hurt their mother that way? She wanted to rip him apart and skin him at the same time, though the idea of a throw rug made out of her brother was rapidly becoming the more appealing option, then their mom could wipe her paws on him every day. The fact that there didn't even seem to be some grand compelling reason for him to leave only made the anger and hurt worse. Why would he leave his family? His oride? Where was he going? What on this great land could be more important than what was right here?
She had been unconsiously pacing a tight circle as her thoughts whirled through her mind, muttering a string of ever more greusome threats and dire promises to her runaway sibling as she went. She was still lsitening to Kekale, but at this point her fury couldn't truly get any hotter. It was Kekale's words that forced her to drag herself back off the edge of beserker mode and into a slightly more focused frame of mind. Not that murder didn't seem like a particularly good idea right then, but her brother was right, she had to see their mother first and get the rest of their siblings together before they went and hunted down Njal.
Still hissing furiously under her breath she paced back and forth, two sharp, jerky steps one way, spin round, two steps the other. A small cloud of dust was starting to swirl about their legs as Svana finally whirled back to face Kekale, ears pinned and fire in her eyes.
"Gruesome would be good." She replied, her voice now cold and deadly as she briefly considered all the things they could do to Njal. But first things first... Forcing herself to take a deep, steadying breath she looked back at the den's entrance. "Do you know where any of them are?" She asked, refering to their remaining siblings. She needed to see Ma, and she needed the gang gathered up... but she rather wanted Kekale at her side when she went in there. Since he was slightly more stable of mind than herself right now.
Princess_Feylin The 'politest seizure ever' bit amused me.
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 7:06 am
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Kekäle considered the question. The easy answer was that he didn't know where their siblings were, but he was certain he could find them. Or Txur could. That thrall was uncanny in his ability to find members of the family, though he hadn't been looking too good himself, last time Kekäle saw him. Probably out of worry for Lyti. Txur was so flower-blooded.
"I can find them," he said decisively. "Do you want me to do that while you're in with Mum?"
It wasn't that he was flower-blooded, but Kekäle didn't particularly want to go in and see his mother right away, or until he could bring her good news, Njal's hide, or both. So rounding up his siblings seemed like a good way to avoid that painful meeting for the time being.
There was also a part of him that hoped along those same selfish lines that if he came back with the others, it would fall to Svana or Soja to fill them in on what Njal had done to their mother, rather than him. He and Svana had always been close, so reading her and gauging how he ought to deliver information had been relatively automatic, but with the others he would have to be more present.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2017 7:19 am
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"I'll take Txur, so we can split up and find them more quickly," Kekäle said, looking around for their white-maned thrall, whose ability to appear when his name was mentioned bordered on fey. There he was.
He nodded to Txur, but before the pair of them set off in search of Brenning and Lyti's other cubs Kekäle moved to position himself directly in front of the warlord, making sure he caught and held her gaze.
"We will fix this," he told her firmly. "Even if your duties as the warlord keep you here, I will make sure this is taken care of, ja?"
He hoped that by giving her that assurance, it would make it easier on Svana to see the fragile shell their mother had turned into upon Njal's betrayal. Kekäle, after all, had few doubts in his ability to accomplish anything he set his mind to. If Svana hadn't defeated Ruzski, he was confident that his challenge, which would have followed hers, would have been successful.
Maybe, he reasoned, it was because the gods knew Njal would defect like this, and it was because of that he had not been given the opportunity to try for the rank of warlord. Perhaps there would be more to this hunt then he'd previously supposed.
"See you soon," he said to Svana before jerking his head to let Txur know it was time to be off.
Tanakako Fin? Do you want me to actually try to round up all the other siblings' owners and get a group RP started?
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