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 Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 1:17 pm
Tara was grateful for the slowing of the pace, but she did her best to keep relief out of her voice and off her face. Her breathing eased though, and it helped. She was able to think better too.
"You make a blanket statement about your whole people?" She shook her head, a grim smile on her face. "I think that's a little presumptious. Not everyone is like you, I'm sure."
A little arrogant too. Geesh! Saying that everyone had your--
Wait.
"Did you say... you tried to kidnap Nyu?" Brown eyes narrowed to slits. Tara felt a growl rising in her throat. What the hell was this leopard trying to prove, anyways? What the HELL did she want? "If you're looking for a little lacky or something, I'll give you more than a scratch on your nose. I wish Nyu had done more!"
Punctuated by gasps for breath, Tara's tirade didn't have quite the affect she had hoped it would. And she still needed water. Her throat worked as she fought to push words past the dryness in her mouth. Her voice crackled and the growl was somewhat less than fierce. Thankfully, her expression wasn't.
Think a minute. Do you still care about your family?
YES!
Do you want this leopard to know?
Yes, DAMNIT! I -- .... no.
Alright.
"But I don't give a s**t what you do to my family anymore." Tara inwardly winced away from the harsh words. If this leopardess dared to touch any of them...! "So just show me the water and leave me alone."
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 1:27 pm
"Well, I can't speak for all of them. They aren't my people, anyway." She didn't have people. They were leopards. They worked alone.
Alone. Damnit. Alone.
"That's what I said, yes," she continued to mumble, clearly not noting any distaste in Tara's voice. "The leopard's, they were going to turn her against you, thought it would be a pretty funny sight. I was younger then, and quite frankly, I didn't know what else to do. A group of males, yes, they sent me about retrieving things for them, and if I didn't do it, something bad would come of it. Youthful minds don't think rationally. I thought if I took Nyumbani all my problems would be solved."
She stopped, and turned to look at Tarajia, who was clearly angry with her now. "If I was looking for a lacky, I wouldn't waste my time with you." She paused and peered about. "No, I'm looking for a . . . body guard? Could you call it that?" Lies, she was so good with lies.
"You seem tough enough, I mean, unless its all a fake." She grinned. "Leopard's trade," she repeated, and broke into a trot again, watching as gazelle bounced away from the water as they approached the glittlering silver pool.
"I don't know about the rest of your family. You're all rather strange. Lions. Funny. Trees are much better. They don't talk back and get angry." She slowed now as she reached the waters edge, her eyes scanning, watching anything that might be lurking in the water. Shivers ran down her spine. Pure fear of what could be lying just underneath. She hated the plains.
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:05 pm
"Whatever."
What she had been planning didn't matter. It was what Tayhira was going to do that mattered now. Tara wasn't particularily inclined to believe that this leopard had been acting out of fear, but she supposed it was possible. In any case, the plot hadn't worked, and Tara'd done a fine job of turning Nyu against her herself.
"A body guard." Yeah, right. Tara would be the worst body guard for this leopard possible. After she'd confessed to attempted kidnapping? The young lioness would follow her to the waterhole, but that was it. Attacking would just take too much effort today. But she was curious...
"What do you need a body guard for?"
Flattery wouldn't get her anywhere. Tara didn't need anyone to tell her what she was, she knew it herself. Tough, sure, but not too much so - she couldn't hold off Rune if he decided to attack, that was for sure. And she shouldn't be the first choice for bodyguard anyways.
Following the leopard's example, Tara knelt down by the pool and lapped greedily at the water. It tasted so good!
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:19 pm
Tayhira paused in mid-lap. You've got to be kidding me, she thought, keeping her body tensed as though she saw something out on the water.
"If it didn't hit you already. I don't make a very good leopard." That much, was true. Whether Tayhira was weaving a plan now or not, it really didn't matter. The fact was, she'd ruined so many lives in her life, that all the rest of the leopard's wanted her head. After her failure with Nyumbani she'd succeeded in pissing of the brothers, and she'd run like hell after that. From then, it was a trickster life. Even leopard's knew you kept to the deal's you made, and Hira did not.
One lion was enough to twist things around.
"You may not be a good body guard, but you have a family," a smirk came to her lips. "And as long as you don't give a damn about them. . . well they still give a huge hoot about you, and believe me, the world won't touch a family of lions."
Her ears pinned as she saw something spout in the water not to far away. Damn hippos. "Besides, you have to get to the river, and I know the way, unlike you and your companion." The hippo was moving their direction, and she decided it best to vacate the area.
"I'll just be over in that tree," she called back, taking off at a dead sprint. Oh how she hated the water.
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:48 pm
Tara continued sucking up water like it was the last pool she would ever see. Who cared if some old hippo was coming close? She'd avoided the crocodiles in the jungle rivers before, she could avoid the hippo too.
When Hira took off like a streak though, Tara got nervous. What the hell had gotten into her? Raising her head, jowls dripping with water, she cast a look around and resumed drinking. When she was done, she strolled over to Hira's tree and cast a faintly amused glance up at the leopard.
"You don't need to take me to the river. Just give me directions."
If they were wrong, she would find out, but at least she'd have somewhere to start. It couldn't be too hard anyways! And already she was feeling a ton better. The headache and drowsiness was fading, and her mind was clearing too. Just in case though, she kept a stumble in her step and her eyes squinted as though in pain.
"Besides, even if we did travel to the river together, I'd leave you as soon as I knew the way. Not much protection."
Tara smirked. If something attacked them, she wouldn't defend Tayhira anyways. The leopardess would be on her own in that case. Tara wouldn't save the one who'd tried to cause her family grief!
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:57 pm
The leopard smacked her lips together.
"You really are a leopard, you know? Just out for yourself, don't give a damn about anybody else." She sat perched in her tree, looking out into the horizon.
She avoided any questions about the river. She didn't approve of lions trying to sneak their way around her. It just wouldn't work.
"And since you are so leopard-like, I'll strike you a deal." She watched this one carefully, ready to leap from her perch the moment this one tried anything silly.
"What would you give me for telling you where the river is?"
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:08 pm
Tara didn't reply right away. Instead she stopped a little ways away from the base of the tree and sat back on her haunches. Tayhira acted like being called a leopard was an honor. This lioness didn't think it was quite as presigious a title as Hira seemed to consider it. She wrinkled her nose and muttered to herself before replying.
"I can't offer you anything in return. I have nothing," Tara stated bluntly, "and I have no idea what you would want anyways. Offer me a whole deal, and I'll tell you what I think."
What she THOUGHT was that Tayhira wasn't the only one at all who knew the way to the river. Tara THOUGHT it would be a lot easier to find a willing lion to tell her the way, or a preybeast she could... get the information out of. A LOT easier than this stupidity.
Besides, she wasn't out for only herself. She'd protect the ones she loved, she'd DIE for them. She just wouldn't die for a mangy leopard who worked in ways that Tara frankly didn't care for.
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:19 pm
With quite the contrary, Tayhira was trying to voice being a leopard as a bad thing. It was only Tara's mind that would put on this condradictive twist. Perhaps it was because everyone Tayhira met found a loathing to her. Leopards.
"You don't have anything yet," the leopard practically purred. "But someday you will. Shall we call a rain-check?"
She rose from her perch in the tree and dragged outstretched claws down its bark. Once she'd left her mark, a small plunk announced she had landed on the ground.
"The river. . . " she began, her head turned towards no direction in particular.
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Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:35 pm
Tara grimaced. She didn't like being in debt to anyone, much less to this leopard. Who knew what she would ask for in the future? Her first born son, or something? Boundaries needed to be set. She couldn't just agree!
"... yeah, alright. Rain-check. But that doesn't mean you can ask me for anything! It has to be of equal value." She studied the leopard through narrowed sable eyes. "What do -you- consider equal?"
After all, finding the river wasn't a matter of life or death - Tayhira's directions would only speed them along their way. Eventually they WOULD stumble upon it on their own without her. But that could be a long time coming, and Tara frankly didn't want to spend her life searching for something she wasn't certain she really wanted to find.
Too bad she hadn't thought to learn more geography from her parents. If they knew, that is.
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Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:01 pm
"There is no value in time," the leopard told her simply, leaving her no options. She wasn't sure what was equal, or even what she wanted, but she knew that if she asked for it now, and came back later, she wouldn't get it. She needed to drive it into this others conscious until she thought about it for every aching minute. The only way to do that was never to let her know what it was.
"I would say I save you around a week of wandering. That's a week of your life, and time that I've given to you. Not to mention, the dangers. You owe me a favor, small, but like the one I am giving you." It was simple enough, and she could tweak it how she liked later on. It wouldn't amount to anything huge, but it was no small thing.
"The river is two days journey from here, if you travel quickly. Follow the path where the trees seem to be stripped, and few and far between. Avoid the rock outcroppings. Nothing but hyenas and other, less hospitable, creatures live there. And keep far from the water," a nasty grin came to her face, the first sign of any true malice the leopard contained.
"Good day," she said, turning her attention back to the world at large, as though the lion had suddenly vanished from her view.
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Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:39 pm
Tara stayed motionless where she was, narrowed eyes fixed on the leopardess. She didn't like this. Not one bit. It was bad enough to owe someone a debt, but to not know what it was, or when it would be called in?
Humph. She didn't have a choice.
"Fine. Yeah, good day." The dark lioness turned and started to pick her slow way back towards Rune. "And thanks for the directions." I'll use them to get as far away from -you- as possible. If she never met the leopardess again, she would never have to repay the debt.
Slowly, burdened beneath the heavy savanah heat, she plodded back to Rune's resting spot. Time to get moving.
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