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 Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:26 pm
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Things had gone wrong. Dreadfully wrong in the Pridelands. The sky had rained fire, a great beast of shadows had caused death and destruction, hyenas nipped at the heels of many of a pridemember and many were choosing to get out - Asubuhi hadn't made this choice but her mother had insisted on her eldest finding herself a safe haven whilst she and her father protected their pride-loyal youngers.
It was a difficult decision and one that caused her enough grief, more so because she didn't know much of the outside world...
Other than one place.
The days had atleast treated Asubuhi kinder than it had the Pridelands, like most of the lions there she had grown strong and bulky with hunting muscles, yet all hidden beneath a healthy bronze coat that made her stick out amidst her golden family. Not to say the Pridelands didn't have its variety, but she was an oddity in her family - not by a stretch, but enough to be noticeable. It's why even now she found solace in the strange dusty red lands she had once not long ago visited as a youth to practice her stalking.
Amidst her travels she'd felt the ground itself rumble and crack, spurring her even deeper into the territory as her instincts guided her. If there was anywhere she felt she'd suit - it might've been this place. The problem was finding the right connection, the right entry way and not being seen as an intruder or worse a threat to the pride and being killed on sight. She only knew one member and didn't know how their social hierarchy or attitude to strangers would stretch...all she could do was wander, keep an eye on her surroundings and wait.
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Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 3:06 pm
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Life was slowly returning to a sort of 'normal' after all the events that had befallen them as a pride in the weeks past. Of course, normal was all relative. For the royal family there was no normal to be found even now and, perhaps, there might never be again; after the attack by the Stormborn there were some things about their life, and life in the Outlands as a whole, that would never be able to return to how it had once been. He was not immune to that knowledge. None of them were. The only thing he could do to help was to carry the reminder in his heart and try to pull the weight of those that mourned. He was not important enough to be needed in the Queen's inner council but he could fill the gaps where others had left them open.
Telal had returned to scouting the borders and keeping track of the herds that moved freely through their lands, though he did practice his skills now with a bit more apprehension and was doubly tasked with making note of any tracks or outsiders that might be lingering. A long swiping scar across the bridge of his nose had healed, leaving behind the shiny, pink-tinged trace of a Stormborn's claw where it parted his fur. The thick of his left shoulder was in worse condition, sporting a full imprint of teeth that had punctured the muscle. It was at least healed over by now, though the skin that peeked through was bright and angry. Every step he took along the border reminded him even now that it was his weak side - the muscle did not feel quite right any longer and the skin was too taught, almost itchy. Yet he held his head high as he prowled, knowing he had fared better than many others; he had not lost life or sight or limb. No, he'd tasted his first battle and he would wear the badges with pride for the rest of his life.
Others would not return to battle or life with half so much grace.
A sigh fluttered past his jowls as he tried to push the thoughts away, rounding the edge of a sandstone outcropping and making a sharp left - only to see an unfamiliar form. Immediately, he lowered and pulled a snarl across his jowls so that he might make the most of a first impression. A few plodding, heavy steps forward brought him within sight of her and his jaws cracked to demand an explanation -
"Who - wait," his voice broke and his eyebrows shot up quickly as he let his mask falter. She was.. bigger, thicker but this was that girl wasn't it? "Asubuhi of the Pridelands, is that you?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:02 pm
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"Aye," he spoke around a laugh, letting it rumble through his chest. His voice had dropped to a deeper tone that matched his girth and full mane but the smirk remained the same, plastered upon his mug with a lopsided tilt. "Although that sounds like it might have been a bit of fun."
Ever the proud warrior, he was certain he could have bested her, bum shoulder or not.
"I'm glad I found you first, this is.. a bad time to be in the lands without an escort." His smirk faded and a troubled expression overtook his face, pulling his brilliant emerald eyes at the corners as they cast sidelong to inspect the area around them. The smell of blood was everywhere and no matter how long he had spent cloaked in the smell of iron and salt, it never diminished. As proud of a huntress as she had seemed when they first met, he had to assume that she must have smelled the aftermath of the blood bath by now and yet, here she was. It made him wonder.
"You're a lot deeper into our borders than when we met, is everything.. alright at home?" Truthfully, he had only heard whispers before they became preoccupied with their own troubles but thinking about something other than the pride's mourning and despair was appealing. He could get his mind off of things for just a moment.
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Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:59 pm
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The look on her face, the way her eyes fell and her playfulness dampened, made his heart ache. There was a melancholy to her voice that tainted her words with so much emotion that he would have been heartless not to have felt moved by it, to not want to have helped somehow. He was an Eye, a watchful guardian. Even if she was technically born of an enemy's lands he knew none of what had befallen her could be her own fault. After all, none of their warriors that had fallen had done anything to earn the ire of the Stormborn.
None, of course, but the Monarch's Soul herself and she had paid that blood debt and been sent back to them. Something huge with wings? It made him think of their Earthbound ancestor and he wondered if, perhaps, the two were related. Had an ancestor returned to punish them? He couldn't make assumptions. The only thing he could do was offer her a safe place to rest.
"What is done is done, we are recovering," he would not shrug off such a battle, not with the magnitude and consequences it had carried for them, but neither would he linger. It was not his, or his pride's, style. "There are others from your pride, I think, that have taken refuge. The Prince Amachwane said that the Queen has ordered us to open our borders to any who are seeking safety inside them."
The words were so mechanical, rehearsed, that it made him frown at himself. He didn't think a warrior's callousness was going to be much comfort here. He raised a paw, hesitated mid-air, then gently placed it on the round of her shoulder.
"If you want to stay a while, you would be welcome here."
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 10:40 am
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Telal had honestly not been sure how she would take the offer. It was true that the dispute between the two prides had been so long ago that there was scarce a soul alive that could have witnessed it first hand but it was enough of a sore spot that his leaders remembered and his elders told stories. From what little he had been able to gather of Asubuhi in the brief time they had spent with one another, she seemed entirely unaware that there was an issue at all. It was both a blessing and a curse, he thought.
"I know that you will, I have no doubt," he offered her a smile but the tone of his words carried a distinct tone of but that he could not bite back. He lowered his paw from touching her and shifted on his feet for a moment, hesitating on how best to bring it up. "Just, you might receive a little animosity. The Queen declaring that we should open our borders to protect you has been met with some mixed feelings. You won't come to harm, of that I can assure you, because they would rather die than cross our Queen but.."
This time he managed to say the word before he paused but he couldn't get the rest of it without sighing and looking away from her, back to the termite spires that rose in the distance.
"But if someone declares that Tahka is the true king or tells you that Mufasa was a traitor, just try not to argue about it? I don't know if you even care, but they, we, really do here." He turned back to her with a weak smile, trying to suggest that it was just one of those things. He felt like a child complaining about his grandparents being crazy and truthfully, even this much of a warning was enough to earn him a cuff from his mother no doubt.
Lightning Shadow X Your avatar is terrifying 
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:05 pm
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:36 pm
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The headbutt coupled with her reassuring words was enough to make his weak smile break in honesty and, ultimately, he released a breathy laugh from between teeth he didn't recall clenching so tightly. He wasn't entirely sure who he was more worried of disappointing - his pride over her or her over his pride? She proved in the space of a breath that it was a pointless concern and that he had not been wrong in his very first impression of her. That made him glad.
"I don't know why I ever doubted you," his tone was amused, now, and all trace of his worries seemed lost for the moment. There were so many things he would need to tell her. Well, not him, he supposed. It didn't have to be him. He just felt responsible after inviting her into the fold of their pride. Anyone could have told her that to join she would have to test her fighting skills, that she might have to serve in their military for a time, even the cubs that were green around the ears with no idea of what that truly meant.
He didn't want to overwhelm her, though, so he simply nodded his head and turned toward the direction he had been coming from.
"Let's get going then, Asu." Then, with a lazy smile, he glanced back at her. "As long as its okay to call you that."
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:19 pm
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