[PRP] There's a Rumble Down Below (Uovu/Mishenka)

[LadyPipen]

However odd recent developments had felt-dancing with rhinos, flirting with cheetahs, intense debate on the proper uses of tongues, loss of memory... There was a certain amount of comfort to discover that it was not she alone who was the victim of calamity and very strange misfortune, however well it turned out.

And really, she didn't think she'd trade the results of the recent disasters. She got off relatively easy- all five limbs intact, even if the noggin' was left a bit cracked, and a very strange cheetah that seemed more than content to indulge her general confused flailing for the time being, and really- she was growing rather fond of his sassing, strange as that was. Mishenka did not know much, but she was rather certain that sassing was not necessarily supposed to be a positive attribute, and yet, here she was.

How she convinced him to go examine the strange lake that had opened up not far from the crack that swallowed her up- puppy dog eyes were a dark and terrible power indeed, and invented to be abused- an evil necessity, to be sure. But the lioness was curious, and she wanted to know if there was any sort of link at all... And she wasn't yet ready to leave her opportune companion, if she ever would be. He was a stubborn burr- the longer he stuck around, the closer he wormed.

Though now, at the edge of the maw, she could see why he had been reluctant to explore. Mishenka's nose wrinkled as she craned her neck over the rim, examining the lake below. It certainly felt... Off. It stank, it was black as tar and inherently wrong, but the strange voices that rolled off the 'water'- just barely heard- were interesting. Last she checked, they were the only two there.

"Well," she glanced over her shoulder at Uovu, "It is a hole, I can verify as an expert on holes. I don't think that water is anything near normal, though...." Even without memory, she could figure that one out- it certainly wasn't anything she'd be trying to drink, no matter how thirsty she was, but that much was obvious to anyone with eyes... And poisoned resources happened, she was sure. She was more concerned with the strange buzzing whispers in the air, really, and shook her head out before she continued, "Do you hear that? It's starting to drive me crazy, it is..." Even more concerning, it made it difficult to focus on the sound of rocks crumbling from the cliff edge...

Daffupanda

 

[Daffupanda]

Uovu felt... well, torn really. On one hand, he was no longer alone, and by the gods, was that a blessing indeed; it'd been so long since he'd heard a voice not his own echoing back at him, and 'lo and behold, the company came with benefits, which was needless to say as surprising as it was intriguing. On the other hand, the recent changes to the land brought his mind back to Ananna. Somewhere in the darker sections of his mind, sanity and realism insisted the girl was dead, or he'd have stumbled upon her by now for sure, but the other part of him, the one that still held hopes and dreams insisted he'd just not looked for her hard enough and that she was alive, kicking and being relatively obnoxious somewhere, no doubt.

He watched from a relatively safe distance as Mishenka peered over the edge of the hole and down into the lake below, before he wrinkled his nose, "S'unholy, is what that s**t is," what he didn't say, however, was that when he'd come lurking to explore earlier, and he'd ventured closer... he'd heard sounds that were very clearly 'not of this world'. He thought he'd heard his mother, and at some point, Annana herself and gods, he'd booked it out of there stat. He'd argued against this trip over several times, but the lioness had promptly aimed a look at him and he'd rolled his eyes and rolled right on over, because apparently, it wasn't just a thing Ana could do. It was a female thing. witchcraft, Uovu was sure of it.

"Since when are you a verified expert on holes, anyways? And besides, let me tell you..." he did slink on closer to her, peering his head down into the water below before snorting, "Not all holes are nearly as fun as the ones we explored last night. This one being a ******** prime example, look at it, it has anxiety. And voices. Can't be good."

His ears twitched then, as a certain voice seemed to sound over the others, luring the cheetah closer until he was leaning much too far over the edge to be safe, but... he could have sworn he saw something down there. Something or someone. He opened his maw to respond to Mishenka when his right paw slipped and the cheetah found himself slipping down the side of the lake, hissing, "s**t!"

LadyPipen

Will roll to see what happens in the next post

 

[LadyPipen]

Mishenka snorted a laugh- in light of all things unnatural and unholy, and the snarky cheetah could do nothing but poke at it. She enjoyed the lightheartedness- it was a wonderful distraction from the urge to devolve into a fretting mess of what-ifs and why-fors and.... A long list of other things to fret and worry over that fretting and worrying over would not help in the least. Terrible creature that he was, she was quickly becoming downright fond of him, and not simply because he was so kind as to point her to a safe place to sit for the night.

"I crawled out of one, didn't I? And I do think we had a rather through education..." She replied, stepping back as he stepped forward- she still didn't trust the grace of her own four paws and the very last thing the pair needed was either of them falling in- or, more aptly, her accidentally knocking him in. That would be rather counter-productive in the pursuit of further lessons later, wouldn't it?

"And with this degree in hole expertise, I'd like to say.... I don't think holes can have anxiety, sorry to say," She watched Uovu from a short distance- a few steps away, the voices quieted, and she didn't have the overwhelming urge to shake voices both familiar and strange from her head quite so much... It was easier to watch and easier to see the moment Uovu's front half began to dip lower than his back, and that- that was definitely not supposed to be happening.

She halfway registered that Uovu had said something- but in her sudden panic, only barely- she didn't realize what he had said and it was lucky he wasn't barking orders or direction because Mishenka leaped forward in reflex, jaws closing around that fluffy tail before her paws flew out to try and catch anything else that could stop his slipping as her hindpaws planted firmly to tug, panic rising in her throat just as quickly as she had leapt instinctively into action.

Daffupanda

 

[Daffupanda]

rollin'