Post by Therdde on Nov 30, 2010 22:12:00 GMT -5
Characters:
Mythri - Female Cougar
Relm - Female Cougar Cub
Maul - Female Cougar
- Wildflower Drop -
The massive variety of flowers growing now in the spring would, for most other creatures, provide a beautiful place to relax and enjoy the beautiful colors. But for Mythri, it's once again a matter of function over appearance. The dazzling array of colors provides an excellent place to hide her cubs from any wandering eyes. Recovering from the actual birthing itself took longer than she expected, but to be free of the extra weight and in normal balance has made hunting so much easier--something that she appreciates now that she has to leave her cubs alone during those periods of feeding herself. It's a critical time window that she strives to keep as small as possible, and so far it hasn't been as bad as she had feared. Just the same, Mythri has done her best to limit her hunting to just what she needs to keep her energy up. Feeding and watching over her newborn litter isn't particularly easy, but it's not as tiresome as she had initially thought. Granted, the cubs still can't roam about yet. Or talk. The tiresome part will come before too much longer. For now, she's content to be here with her two daughters and son, grooming them and wondering how much they'll be like their mother or father. Or not at all like them.
There is something incredibly important out there, something that captured the girl's eyes and mind and her full, rapt attention was on a single point in the distance. It was difficult to tell with her little eyes if she was looking high up at the clouds or through the long stalks of grass and flowers that surrounded her. Even as her mother groomed her fur, something that might break that concentration, she remains intent on whatever it is that she had seen. Eventually, the young cub closes her eyes as a wide, breathy yawn escapes her muzzle that breaks her communion with whatever it was, and then she stretches out a tiny paw, toes splaying as far as they will go, reaching for that point impossibly far away.
Maul has kept to herself in recent weeks. Recent months, really, but more so in the past few weeks. Even with as much as she has sought out solitude, though, she is not ignorant of her newest relatives. She knows that both Nyssa and Mythri have given birth. It just hasn't been a large priority for her to seek out her newest siblings or nieces or nephew. Until now. While what drives her is as invisible to her as it has ever been, she has no doubt about what she is approaching as she travels through the area, and she walks with all of the caution that approaching a new mother requires. Especially one with whom she has a somewhat less than pleasant history.
Not for the first time, Mythri wonders what her father must have thought, looking at her when she was just a cub. Obviously, she had been a bit older when he took her away from her mother, but it was tempting to wonder if he saw her as nothing more than potential, or if he felt any sort of fatherly love. She knows that despite the training she is going to put her cubs through, to honor her father, she is going to do her best to temper it with love, to honor her mate. Cael would be proud to see what the two of them brought forth into the world, and she is sure that he would want them raised in Amaranth. Mythri finishes grooming the three, studies them, and allows herself a rare smile. Even as newborns, each of them displays the perfection she expects from their species. Cougars truly are superior; her father was always right about that. For all that her father did, she still remembers that much, at least. She may not have had a pleasant history, but she certainly intends to have a better future.
A small frown of concentration begins to curl the girl's features, trying to find what it was she had just lost but not even wholly sure what it was she had seen to begin with. She picks up her head as high as she can, small ears rounding forward and then without the control to keep them there they fall away to the sides, as though bored. Tucked against her still sleeping brother, Relm extracts her paws from the bundle, kicking a little at his side before rolling away, bending and catching a short flower that anoints her with pollen. Immediately she is attacking it, the white petals at the mercy of her milk teeth. Omnomnom.
Though she was never walking terribly fast, Maul slows her pace further when she spots a hint of fur and movement in the flowers up ahead. The girl, still thin from the winter and worn from her own activities, has absolutely no desire to fight with Mythri. Not now. As such, before she gets too much closer, she lets out a chuff to announce herself before continuing to approach them.
Watching one of her daughters engage in battle with a small flower, Mythri is immediately thinking of how to begin teaching them to fight for real. How long should she wait before starting such training? She was quite young when her father began her own training, but... it was perhaps too young. She wasn't ready, mentally or emotionally. It will remain to be seen, then, how long she'll have to wait. Her own ears perk up as she hears the chuff, and immediately her guard is up. More instinctual than anything, as she recognizes Maul by sight and sound, and although she wouldn't stake her newborn cubs' life on it, she is fairly certain that she can trust her mate's sister. "Maul," she greets in her usual simplistic manner, standing up and eying the other female with equal parts curiosity and wariness.
There is another noise, one that doesn't come from her mother's immediate vicinity, and for a moment it could have even been the flower. Relm swipes at the offending plant, a dull 'thwack' that causes a single petal to fall to the grass below. That's right. The girl thuds her paw on her quarry as she flips to her belly, rising on unstable paws and legs to see over the forest of color. The top of a head, the tip of black ears, that's all she catches before her back legs topple underneath her. Bright blue eyes glare unamused at the offending appendages, and then immediately dilate as she lunges for her tiny tail, causing her to spin and tumble head over rear-end back into the grass. Exactly what she wanted to do, of course.
Perhaps if Maul could read minds, she would not feel the need to be here now. She has no such ability, though, so she continues walking until she is close enough to see all three cubs clearly. Her eyes are on them only briefly, though, as she much prefers for Mythri, being as close as she is, to not be out of her sight. "Mythri. I have come to check on my brother's children." Not that she seems to have any particular desire to do so. Maul, perhaps for her own youth, simply has no desire to be surrounded by cubs, no matter how cute they are behaving. No, thank you.
And where a different mother might have felt offended or even threatened by such a statement, Mythri only nods her head, as if such a declaration makes perfect sense to her. "You will be pleased to know," she says with no small amount of pride in her voice, "that the cubs have been born strong and healthy, and I fully expect them to become cunning and formidable like their..." She hesitates, remembering who she's talking to. "..their /father/." That should be enough to satisfy Maul. A quick glance down at the active daughter reaffirms what she's just said. Perhaps now the newborn cub will struggle with basic movement, but constant practice will quickly lead to agility and stealth, speed and deftness.
This noise. All this noise. A steady and level gaze is given to both of the noise makers, though in particular the one she has not associated with before. For a long time the girl stares at Maul, analyzing her, similar to her previous study of the unknown. A half shuffle-stumble is all she manages for an approach, her muzzle dropping open with a tiny squeak of affirmation and Relm is satisfied with that, just as the other two should be, as well.
Maul's tail twitches behind her, betraying her mood, no matter how civil she attempts to keep her voice. And while, of course, she really has no say in how these cubs are raised, while it shouldn't much matter to her, given how little she intends to be involved with them... she quickly speaks up again, all but ignoring her small niece as she does. "I imagine it was too much to hope for that you would want to raise cubs who could be happy. Who could have some chance at forming their own values, their own priorities."
Mythri is quite taken aback, not so much at what Maul seems to be accusing her of, but rather by the simple fact that Maul seems to completely miss the irony of what she's just said. "You're afraid that they will turn out to be like my father? Yet.. isn't what he did exactly what you're hoping for my own cubs? I am quite happy, and I think I have demonstrated my own values and priorities that were quite different from those of my father." She still has the scars from where he punished her for deviating from how he thought she should live her life. And then there was Cael. By that point, her father had gradually come to recognize that she was independent in every sense of the word. Her eyes narrow as she studies the other female. Is there any jealousy in the other, which might have prompted such a remark from Cael's sister?
Still having been studying her aunt intently, Relm, left to her own device this afternoon, continues to approach Maul, her face one of intense concentration on the other cougar's own. Her legs protest this cruel and unusual torture though and she falls back with an annoyed gurgle. There, again, that tantalizing tail makes her jump and whirl around in an attempt to catch it in her paws but it only serves to spin her in a tight and dizzying circle. Flattened ears and eyes are again turned to Maul and the girl blinks, staring in half-awe, obviously struck by something on the other's face.
"I couldn't care less if they turn out like your father, Mythri. Or like you. Or Cael. What I worry about... what you should worry about... is that they'll turn out like /me/." Maul, after all, is none to fond of the cougaress who handled perhaps too much of her discipline when she was young, both at her father's request and on her own. And while the girl has long since recovered from the trauma she experienced from Mythri, forgiveness, happiness... those things remain well beyond her grasp. "Maybe I do have a weaker heritage than you, but they're my brother's children too. Don't make them hate you." After speaking to the other adult, Maul glances to the young cub nearby, and somehow manages a thin smile. They /are/ cute, and she can almost imagine she sees some traits from her brother in them.
Mythri nods, thoughtfully. "You have my word that they will be raised and trained to the best of my abilities." That probably doesn't ease the other's fears, but it's the best that she has to offer. Another glance is given toward the tiny girl, and it's probably a measure of Mythri's trust in her mate's sister that she doesn't immediately retrieve the wayward cub. Will she always trust the other cougaress? Perhaps not. It's an unusual relationship that they have, but then again the same could be said for most--if not all--of Mythri's relationships in general.
Apparently done with Maul's scrutiny, the girl cub drops her eyes with a sigh, either bored or tired or a mixture of both. Feeling something in the air that makes her fur stand on end, she turns and half stumbles closer to her mother and still sleeping siblings, pausing once to tousle with a blade of grass that looked at her the wrong way, rr! Once close enough, Relm semi-collapses against her mother's side, turning herself half upside down and watches Maul from underneath one paw throw over her head.
Maul is not there to study for much longer. The answer far from satisfies the young adult, but she can be certain she won't get much better than that. Her smile takes on a bitter edge and she shakes her head before saying, simply, "Goodbye, Mythri." Maul does not hesitate in turning around to leave the mother and her cubs, though she does listen closely behind her. No matter how much or how little trust Mythri has for her, Maul cannot much return it.
She is silent for a long while, watching the other cougaress disappear into the distance. Perhaps it is wrong assumptions, or perhaps it is simply miscommunication. Whichever the case, Mythri knows that there is still more to say between she and her mate's sister. Sooner or later, there will need to be a reckoning of sorts, though at present she's not sure what else she can say to convince Maul that she is not her father, nor does she intend to raise her cubs as he raised her. It seems simple enough to her, but perhaps she is not simple for others to understand. Except for Cael. Or at least she likes to think that he understood her, to some degree. Finally, with somewhat of a sigh, Mythri glances down at her daughter, and with a shake of her head at the little one's antics, steps over to her and gives her a quick nuzzle.
Mythri - Female Cougar
Relm - Female Cougar Cub
Maul - Female Cougar
- Wildflower Drop -
The massive variety of flowers growing now in the spring would, for most other creatures, provide a beautiful place to relax and enjoy the beautiful colors. But for Mythri, it's once again a matter of function over appearance. The dazzling array of colors provides an excellent place to hide her cubs from any wandering eyes. Recovering from the actual birthing itself took longer than she expected, but to be free of the extra weight and in normal balance has made hunting so much easier--something that she appreciates now that she has to leave her cubs alone during those periods of feeding herself. It's a critical time window that she strives to keep as small as possible, and so far it hasn't been as bad as she had feared. Just the same, Mythri has done her best to limit her hunting to just what she needs to keep her energy up. Feeding and watching over her newborn litter isn't particularly easy, but it's not as tiresome as she had initially thought. Granted, the cubs still can't roam about yet. Or talk. The tiresome part will come before too much longer. For now, she's content to be here with her two daughters and son, grooming them and wondering how much they'll be like their mother or father. Or not at all like them.
There is something incredibly important out there, something that captured the girl's eyes and mind and her full, rapt attention was on a single point in the distance. It was difficult to tell with her little eyes if she was looking high up at the clouds or through the long stalks of grass and flowers that surrounded her. Even as her mother groomed her fur, something that might break that concentration, she remains intent on whatever it is that she had seen. Eventually, the young cub closes her eyes as a wide, breathy yawn escapes her muzzle that breaks her communion with whatever it was, and then she stretches out a tiny paw, toes splaying as far as they will go, reaching for that point impossibly far away.
Maul has kept to herself in recent weeks. Recent months, really, but more so in the past few weeks. Even with as much as she has sought out solitude, though, she is not ignorant of her newest relatives. She knows that both Nyssa and Mythri have given birth. It just hasn't been a large priority for her to seek out her newest siblings or nieces or nephew. Until now. While what drives her is as invisible to her as it has ever been, she has no doubt about what she is approaching as she travels through the area, and she walks with all of the caution that approaching a new mother requires. Especially one with whom she has a somewhat less than pleasant history.
Not for the first time, Mythri wonders what her father must have thought, looking at her when she was just a cub. Obviously, she had been a bit older when he took her away from her mother, but it was tempting to wonder if he saw her as nothing more than potential, or if he felt any sort of fatherly love. She knows that despite the training she is going to put her cubs through, to honor her father, she is going to do her best to temper it with love, to honor her mate. Cael would be proud to see what the two of them brought forth into the world, and she is sure that he would want them raised in Amaranth. Mythri finishes grooming the three, studies them, and allows herself a rare smile. Even as newborns, each of them displays the perfection she expects from their species. Cougars truly are superior; her father was always right about that. For all that her father did, she still remembers that much, at least. She may not have had a pleasant history, but she certainly intends to have a better future.
A small frown of concentration begins to curl the girl's features, trying to find what it was she had just lost but not even wholly sure what it was she had seen to begin with. She picks up her head as high as she can, small ears rounding forward and then without the control to keep them there they fall away to the sides, as though bored. Tucked against her still sleeping brother, Relm extracts her paws from the bundle, kicking a little at his side before rolling away, bending and catching a short flower that anoints her with pollen. Immediately she is attacking it, the white petals at the mercy of her milk teeth. Omnomnom.
Though she was never walking terribly fast, Maul slows her pace further when she spots a hint of fur and movement in the flowers up ahead. The girl, still thin from the winter and worn from her own activities, has absolutely no desire to fight with Mythri. Not now. As such, before she gets too much closer, she lets out a chuff to announce herself before continuing to approach them.
Watching one of her daughters engage in battle with a small flower, Mythri is immediately thinking of how to begin teaching them to fight for real. How long should she wait before starting such training? She was quite young when her father began her own training, but... it was perhaps too young. She wasn't ready, mentally or emotionally. It will remain to be seen, then, how long she'll have to wait. Her own ears perk up as she hears the chuff, and immediately her guard is up. More instinctual than anything, as she recognizes Maul by sight and sound, and although she wouldn't stake her newborn cubs' life on it, she is fairly certain that she can trust her mate's sister. "Maul," she greets in her usual simplistic manner, standing up and eying the other female with equal parts curiosity and wariness.
There is another noise, one that doesn't come from her mother's immediate vicinity, and for a moment it could have even been the flower. Relm swipes at the offending plant, a dull 'thwack' that causes a single petal to fall to the grass below. That's right. The girl thuds her paw on her quarry as she flips to her belly, rising on unstable paws and legs to see over the forest of color. The top of a head, the tip of black ears, that's all she catches before her back legs topple underneath her. Bright blue eyes glare unamused at the offending appendages, and then immediately dilate as she lunges for her tiny tail, causing her to spin and tumble head over rear-end back into the grass. Exactly what she wanted to do, of course.
Perhaps if Maul could read minds, she would not feel the need to be here now. She has no such ability, though, so she continues walking until she is close enough to see all three cubs clearly. Her eyes are on them only briefly, though, as she much prefers for Mythri, being as close as she is, to not be out of her sight. "Mythri. I have come to check on my brother's children." Not that she seems to have any particular desire to do so. Maul, perhaps for her own youth, simply has no desire to be surrounded by cubs, no matter how cute they are behaving. No, thank you.
And where a different mother might have felt offended or even threatened by such a statement, Mythri only nods her head, as if such a declaration makes perfect sense to her. "You will be pleased to know," she says with no small amount of pride in her voice, "that the cubs have been born strong and healthy, and I fully expect them to become cunning and formidable like their..." She hesitates, remembering who she's talking to. "..their /father/." That should be enough to satisfy Maul. A quick glance down at the active daughter reaffirms what she's just said. Perhaps now the newborn cub will struggle with basic movement, but constant practice will quickly lead to agility and stealth, speed and deftness.
This noise. All this noise. A steady and level gaze is given to both of the noise makers, though in particular the one she has not associated with before. For a long time the girl stares at Maul, analyzing her, similar to her previous study of the unknown. A half shuffle-stumble is all she manages for an approach, her muzzle dropping open with a tiny squeak of affirmation and Relm is satisfied with that, just as the other two should be, as well.
Maul's tail twitches behind her, betraying her mood, no matter how civil she attempts to keep her voice. And while, of course, she really has no say in how these cubs are raised, while it shouldn't much matter to her, given how little she intends to be involved with them... she quickly speaks up again, all but ignoring her small niece as she does. "I imagine it was too much to hope for that you would want to raise cubs who could be happy. Who could have some chance at forming their own values, their own priorities."
Mythri is quite taken aback, not so much at what Maul seems to be accusing her of, but rather by the simple fact that Maul seems to completely miss the irony of what she's just said. "You're afraid that they will turn out to be like my father? Yet.. isn't what he did exactly what you're hoping for my own cubs? I am quite happy, and I think I have demonstrated my own values and priorities that were quite different from those of my father." She still has the scars from where he punished her for deviating from how he thought she should live her life. And then there was Cael. By that point, her father had gradually come to recognize that she was independent in every sense of the word. Her eyes narrow as she studies the other female. Is there any jealousy in the other, which might have prompted such a remark from Cael's sister?
Still having been studying her aunt intently, Relm, left to her own device this afternoon, continues to approach Maul, her face one of intense concentration on the other cougar's own. Her legs protest this cruel and unusual torture though and she falls back with an annoyed gurgle. There, again, that tantalizing tail makes her jump and whirl around in an attempt to catch it in her paws but it only serves to spin her in a tight and dizzying circle. Flattened ears and eyes are again turned to Maul and the girl blinks, staring in half-awe, obviously struck by something on the other's face.
"I couldn't care less if they turn out like your father, Mythri. Or like you. Or Cael. What I worry about... what you should worry about... is that they'll turn out like /me/." Maul, after all, is none to fond of the cougaress who handled perhaps too much of her discipline when she was young, both at her father's request and on her own. And while the girl has long since recovered from the trauma she experienced from Mythri, forgiveness, happiness... those things remain well beyond her grasp. "Maybe I do have a weaker heritage than you, but they're my brother's children too. Don't make them hate you." After speaking to the other adult, Maul glances to the young cub nearby, and somehow manages a thin smile. They /are/ cute, and she can almost imagine she sees some traits from her brother in them.
Mythri nods, thoughtfully. "You have my word that they will be raised and trained to the best of my abilities." That probably doesn't ease the other's fears, but it's the best that she has to offer. Another glance is given toward the tiny girl, and it's probably a measure of Mythri's trust in her mate's sister that she doesn't immediately retrieve the wayward cub. Will she always trust the other cougaress? Perhaps not. It's an unusual relationship that they have, but then again the same could be said for most--if not all--of Mythri's relationships in general.
Apparently done with Maul's scrutiny, the girl cub drops her eyes with a sigh, either bored or tired or a mixture of both. Feeling something in the air that makes her fur stand on end, she turns and half stumbles closer to her mother and still sleeping siblings, pausing once to tousle with a blade of grass that looked at her the wrong way, rr! Once close enough, Relm semi-collapses against her mother's side, turning herself half upside down and watches Maul from underneath one paw throw over her head.
Maul is not there to study for much longer. The answer far from satisfies the young adult, but she can be certain she won't get much better than that. Her smile takes on a bitter edge and she shakes her head before saying, simply, "Goodbye, Mythri." Maul does not hesitate in turning around to leave the mother and her cubs, though she does listen closely behind her. No matter how much or how little trust Mythri has for her, Maul cannot much return it.
She is silent for a long while, watching the other cougaress disappear into the distance. Perhaps it is wrong assumptions, or perhaps it is simply miscommunication. Whichever the case, Mythri knows that there is still more to say between she and her mate's sister. Sooner or later, there will need to be a reckoning of sorts, though at present she's not sure what else she can say to convince Maul that she is not her father, nor does she intend to raise her cubs as he raised her. It seems simple enough to her, but perhaps she is not simple for others to understand. Except for Cael. Or at least she likes to think that he understood her, to some degree. Finally, with somewhat of a sigh, Mythri glances down at her daughter, and with a shake of her head at the little one's antics, steps over to her and gives her a quick nuzzle.