K'aah was a hyena who had been around for a long, long time: longer than he could remember, not that his memory had ever been very good. He had a mind that flitted here and there and everywhere from moment to moment, never quiet and rarely focused, and so a great deal of information that others might deem important simply failed to stay with him for any length of time. And so it was that he was fairly old, by mortal standards, but remained blissfully oblivious to that fact. Did he have some aches now and then? Well, yeah, sure. Did he have some graying fur? ...maybe? No one had mentioned it, at least not that he could have recalled, and he wasn't one to gaze at his reflection in still water (because hello, crocodiles!), so as to whether or not there were outward signs of age on his countenance, he didn't know. Not that he would have cared, or found it significant, or even connected it to 'oh, I'm getting old.' His appearance had never been of any concern or note to him, so even if he was graying out and even if he noticed, it wouldn't have dawned on him that the lightened fur was something new, something he hadn't always had. He was just K'aah, nothing more and nothing less.
And this was just another dusky evening, complete with chirping bugs to sing to him, but it was a chorus that, unlike some, he was not falling aasleep to. He'd only been awake for an hour or so, not that he was persistently nocturnal; his sleeping schedule was as erratic as he was, and he was just as likely to be up and about during the day as he was after dark, or to stay up for two days straight, or sleep for the same. He had a poor sense of time, to say the least, and was either up or not as he pleased. His sense of place wasn't much better than his sense of time, and he had spent his life wandering about from here to there and back again, and didn't always recall where he had or had not been yet. He didn't remember what direction was what, half the time, or whose territory was where, although he could of course sniff out marked borders. He usually heeded them, but not always, as sometimes something just happened to catch his eye (or his nose or his large ears), but he wasn't so totally without sense as to ignore and blunder over boundaries that were kept up.
The hyena had, in fact, just veered away from one, one that was exceedingly strong and lion-y, so he had therefore deemed it best to bop off in another direction on his quest for something to munch on. Whether that something was fresh or not was of no real importance to him, although carrion was certainly easier than doing the work of hunting himself. But chasing hares was fun, sometimes! The way they zipped and zig-zagged about so quickly was utterly fascinating, even if it did make catching them quite a task. If he'd been more aware of himself, he would have noted that they were a bit harder to catch these days than they once had been, but he remained happily ignorant of that fact.
He put his nose to the air and sniffed, head bobbing as he hummed tunelessly to himself for entertainment while he walked, and was quite surprised when he smelled lion! Hadn't he gone the other way just before, when he'd smelled all the lion-ness? Or had he not? Huh. Bemused, he stopped and turned this way and that, trying to suss out where he might be and whether or not he'd turned himself the wrong way 'round. And oh, look, there was a lion! A blue one! Hello! He chortled at this discovery, pink tail swishing busily behind him. "Hello, lion!" he called out. "Did I go the wrong way? I thought I went away from the lion smell!"
'Lion' was considerably less amused, caught between fear and offense, and stared at the hyena with wide green eyes, taking a pawstep backwards. What was a hyena doing here? She wasn't anywhere near the Graveyard! This was the southern border, the safe one, and a hyena was the last thing she'd expected to encounter. She was only out this way because she'd been having difficult sleeping, and had gone for a walk to clear her head and settle her mind. Stepping a bit over the border had seemed perfectly harmless... "The- The wrong way?" she questioned, drawing herself up and trying to look and sound more confident than she felt. "I...I don't know. What way were you trying to go?"
"Away from the lion smell, of course!" K'aah chuckled. Hadn't he said so just now? What a silly blue lion! "You lions can be so grumpy, it's better to stay away from those big groups of yours. What do you call them again? Not packs, it's some other word, I always forget..."
"Prides," she supplied warily, studying the odd creature. He seemed more strange than dangerous, but she didn't intend to take any chances. Nor did she want to turn and leave outright, for fear that that might further capture his attention and incite pursuit. "We call the prides. I...I don't think you went the wrong way, if you're trying to stay away from the Pridelands. They're just to the north, so as long as you stay south, you should be okay."
"North? Hmm, north..." The hyena looked all around, attempting to remember where 'north' was, before coming out and asking, "Remind me which way is north? I always lose it, somehow..."
This was a very strange creature indeed, Kamili decided, but answered his question regardless, pointing behind her to where the Pridelands' lay. "That way."
"That way!" he echoed with a nod. "That way, that way...so I will not go that way for awhile! Thank you, lion! You are very not grumpy, for a lion."
"I'll, uh, take that as a compliment, I guess," the huntress decided. "Have a- a nice evening then, hyena."
"I will! Probably! Maybe! Maybe you will, too!" K'aah replied, and proceeded to bounce off not-north, back in search of something to eat.
Kamili was left to stare after him as he faded into the growing dark, puzzling at his odd manner. Rather than clearing her head, her stroll past the border had only served to confuse and worry her. In the future, maybe she'd just stick to staying within the territory...with a shake of her head, she turned north to head home, away from any further potential dangers.