Post by Mythri on Dec 8, 2010 6:19:41 GMT -5
Cast:
Mythri, adult female cougar
Relm, female cougar cub
Scene:
It could be due to her own impatience. It could equally be due to the way days are flying past with all of the hunting, watching, sleeping, and caring. Mythri hasn't decided on which reason she believes to be the correct one, but she can't deny that the cubs do seem to be growing and developing at a faster pace than she had originally anticipated. Not that she minds in the slightest; the sooner they're able to move and talk on their own, the sooner she can begin their training and teaching. The sooner she'll be able to rest a little easier without having to worry about something happening to them. At least, they won't be quite so vulnerable as they are now. For the time being she's still keeping them sequestered amongst the flowers, using the natural camouflage to mask their sleeping forms. For herself, she alternates between curling around them and staying a short distance away to where she can watch from a more secluded vantage point. It might seem odd to another, given their relative safety on the mountain top, but some habits and beliefs are too firmly entrenched to give up now.
"Aa-- rrrn." It's not much of a noise but it is certainly an annoyed one. As to the cause of the annoyance no one could really say for sure, but one this is clear is that one of Mythri's children is awake and clearly displeased at something. A groggy caterpillar makes its way through her belly fluff and Relm will have none of this. She takes one large forepaw and swats at it, menacingly, of course, her tiny muzzle squeaking in irritation. Once the offending creature tucks and rolls away through the grass, she is fumbling to stand and thud after it, nose twitching and eyes wide as she searches for the fuzzy creature. To teach it a lesson, of course. "Rrrn."
How early is too early to begin teaching important lessons? No doubt there is not a simple or easy answer to that question--what works for one might not work for another. Seeing one of her daughters apparently waging war on an offending insect, Mythri decides that now is as good a time as any to begin teaching. If Relm is still too young to comprehend, then.. well.. the lesson can always be repeated at a later point in time. Rising from her observation point, the cougaress pads silently over toward her daughter, watching the young cub trying to follow whatever it was that bothered her. Or, now, apparently find whatever it was. The girl seems to have lost it, and knowing just how many insects and bugs are among the flowers, finding the exact one again could be nigh impossible. Sooner or later the girl is going to turn around, and when she does, Mythri is going to be as close behind her as possible, crouched and silent. The importance of stealth, and perhaps her daughter will realize that things can happen even if she doesn't hear them. Not to mention that were whatever offending insect a real prey creature, giving vocalization while hunting it is a quick way to ensure failure. An important lesson, and hopefully one that Relm will learn quickly, whether today or at some point in the near future.
Well. Relm stares at one spot in the grass, underneath a bent clump and a few broken flower stalks, waiting... Impatience gets the better of her though and with less annoyance and more curiosity she leans closer, poking at the dark soil with her paw. Poke, pokepoke, THUD. She slams her toes down on nothing at all, waits, and then shuffles a half-step back. In doing so, her rearend hits her mother's paw and she turns in surprise, ears ballooning forward on her skull. Except that is exactly what she wanted to do, of course. Despite Mythri's silence and less than playful expression, the girl bounds clumsily for her mother's toes, "Rrrnraaaam!"
Mythri stares at her daughter, at a loss for how to respond. She can almost hear her father's words, berating her for a similar kind of failure. The painful echoes of a heavy paw, striking her again and again until she learned something, until she was able to perform to his satisfaction--she can almost feel the blows even now as she watches Relm, trying not to feel disappointed in her. Did she really expect that the young girl would understand what she was trying to teach her? With a grimace, Mythri has to admit that she really did. Maybe it really is her impatience. Forcing a smile, she nudges at her daughter with her other paw, trying to be playful. Relm will learn, eventually, as will her brother and sister. One day.
Ah HA! Target engaged. Relm, for a time, is fully focused on Mythri's paw even as disinterested as her quarry seems to be. Tiny ivory teeth chew on her for a few seconds when she manages to fall on her mother's paw but for the most part the slow and clumsy swipes of the young cub don't often connect and if they do there's not much behind it. Still, her eyes are bright and focused, irises wide to make sure she doesn't miss anything. Then something catches her attention for a moment and she looks up at her mother's face pointedly, her expression strange and difficult to pinpoint. Then with a sigh through her nose the girl licks her whiskers and works through her teeth, "Rrn, maaaah?" Blinkblink.
"Relm, what was bothering you a moment ago?" Mythri asks, more as a rhetorical question than anything she is expecting an answer to. She allows herself to slump into a more comfortable resting position, still watching her daughter in front of her. So small, yet so full of potential. Cael would be proud. Even her father would be proud, though he no doubt would never speak those words. She knows better. "Did you find it and catch it?" Can her daughter recognize the subtle distraction in her voice? She's trying not to be impatient or disappointed, and perhaps with time it will come more naturally. It's no small amount of irony that Mythri realizes that she has as much to learn as to teach.
Relm's eyes pinch together in an obvious moment of stillness and thought, her ears twisting forward only briefly before they slump from the effort. Her whiskers splay as she opens her maw, a half-yawn and semi-groaned response, wordless yet full of attitude. She's not wholly sure what her mother is asking of her yet she turns back to... looking around a moment, confused; what was it she had been doing and where? The girl eyes all of the flowers around her suspiciously-- that one and those ones over there... "Rrrneeeer!" she points, in the opposite direction where her quarry escaped. There, that way! The word doesn't form properly and that bothers her a little, but only for a short span of time, and then she turns back to her mother. There, see?
Does she really understand the question? Whether she can actually vocalize her thoughts yet isn't as much of a concern for Mythri; she's more interested in the cognitive process than the words themselves. Even though her attention is entirely on her daughter, she still looks interested in where Relm is pointing, and even raises her own paw to point in the same direction. "You caught it over there? Or did it escape over there?" A divergent question, and one that will test whether her daughter really can understand her. At least, that's the intent. Mythri is fast learning that her cubs don't always seem to want to give easy answers--intentional or not.
It is obvious to her daughter what she meant but apparently Relm's mother isn't quite getting it. She will have a lot more to teach her mother if she's ever going to get anywhere in this forest of flowers. She sighs again, paws fumbling a couple steps as she stretches out her neck and scents for something that isn't dirt or fragrance. A large and startled grasshopper buzzes away from Relm's intrusion and without a second thought about it the girl twists, clumsily, and jumps to her full (albeit tiny) extension landing half on a large petaled flower and half on her mother's foreleg. "Rr, thisssar!" Get it, mooooooooooom!
Oh, was that it? Mythri is rather surprised to see her daughter find the grasshopper so quickly and easily, but then again, it's just as likely that it was something else entirely from what had bothered her earlier. With a casual and almost lazy effort, Mythri claw-snags the grasshopper with her unencumbered forepaw and pulls it around to where Relm can do whatever she sees fit to her adversary. It'll be a moment of choice for her, and a moment of insight for Mythri.
It's like magic, or something. It must be. Relm watches the creature now suddenly between her mother's claws, its wings trapped but it's feet running in useless panic. It's fascinating, really. She examines it, her nose flaring and maw parting just a little as her tongue peeks out and tastes the air. One tiny paw reaches out, toes spread wide, and hooks at her mother's. Closer! She tugs a little, unable to budge Mythri's leg and so uses it as an anchor to hoist herself closer. Sniffsniff. Then with a sudden flurry she bats at the bug, bambambam, and then retreats, tucking her leg against her chest and looks up at Mythri. "Thaaa?" Good, yes?
Mythri smiles, and it's genuine this time. Her daughter seems to at least be learning something, if not exactly what had been planned. "That's it," she says encouragingly. The grasshopper is released, and stumbles away in a completely disoriented state. "Watch this," mother whispers to daughter, and although the hopper is still within reach, Mythri gathers her paws underneath of her into a readied crouch, and suddenly leaps--all of a few inches--forward in as best a pounce as she can manage with the short distance, both forepaws landing heavily on the insect with claws extended. Game over. "That, Relm, is a pounce." She looks at her daughter again, crouches down, and mimes springing up and forward. "Pounce."
Relm's answer is only to blink once or twice, rolling away from her mother as Mythri gets up. The girl squints, her head following the short and quick movements both times. "Rrr?" she asks. That? She pauses in her thought long enough to groom her bib then, as if remembering her schooling, backs up into the ready position. Almost. Her fore paws are tucked far underneath her chest and as she takes a moment, she lifts her hind end and wriggles, impatient, and when she hops like her mother hand shown her it is less than successful. She takes a digger into the flowers as he too tucked front legs don't extend like they should. As she tumbles, that enticing tail tip flashes by her eyes and she is after it again, upside down and looking for fight. "Rrroouns!" Yes. Pounce.
It's progress. A very small step forward, but a step nonetheless. Mythri once again can't help but think that Cael would be proud if he could see this here and now, and the thought turns her smile a bit regretful. If only. "That's right. Pounce." She backs up several pawsteps, crouches down in the flowers, and then suddenly leaps toward her daughter. This time, of course, her paws are velveted and grasp toward her daughter with the gentlest of force. It's tempting to make some kind of playful noise as well, but she maintains as much silence as possible. If Relm is going to learn to pounce, she needs to learn it properly.
Mythri suddenly goes both silent and still, ears straining as she's fairly certain she just heard someone nearby. One of her forepaws presses her daughter down into the cover of the flowers, also attempting to keep any protests silent, if Relm should decide to complain about the less-than-playful treatment. Mythri swivels her head from side to side, searching, listening, smelling... but after several long and tense moments, decides that it was nothing after all. Letting the tension drain out of her, she releases her paw from her daughter and gives her a serious look. "Danger," she says softly, trying to impart some sense of dread and foreboding into that word. The faster her daughter understands that concept above all others, the better.
Something else, something other than the heavy paw pressing down on her tells the girl to lay still, even though she would love to protest the treatment. Only when Mythri's tenseness leaves does Relm squirm, ears and eyes distinctly flattened though the tone of her mother's voice quells the instinct to fight back-- a little. She rolls to her belly and headbutts Mythri's chest, falling against her a second later and curling into a ball that doesn't really look comfortable but she doesn't bother moving after she's settled. Danger? "Mraaa." Mother.
Now that she's convinced that the danger has passed--if there really had been any danger in the first place--Mythri scoops a paw around her daughter and holds her close, giving the top of Relm's head a long swipe of her tongue. A soft purring begins, and the cougaress suddenly wonders if her own mother ever held her close like this. Before she was taken away. "I won't let that happen to you," she murmurs, though the concern does seem a bit foolish at first. Cael, the cubs' father, would hardly take Relm or either of the other two away--even if he were still alive in the first place. And who else in Amaranth would resort to cubnapping? Yet as insignificant as the concern might seem, Mythri means every word she says. Purrpurr. And, for good measure, another tongue swipe.
Staring off a particular flower bending the breeze, Relm pays little head to her mother's grooming save the occasional head bob from the force of it. Bright blue eyes blink once or twice before she rests her chin on Mythri's leg, chewing absently on her own front paw. Whatever it is in those flowers is captivating and her only response to her mother's worried musings is to shuffle into a more comfortable position, still noming on her toes. "Sshaaa."
Mythri, adult female cougar
Relm, female cougar cub
Scene:
It could be due to her own impatience. It could equally be due to the way days are flying past with all of the hunting, watching, sleeping, and caring. Mythri hasn't decided on which reason she believes to be the correct one, but she can't deny that the cubs do seem to be growing and developing at a faster pace than she had originally anticipated. Not that she minds in the slightest; the sooner they're able to move and talk on their own, the sooner she can begin their training and teaching. The sooner she'll be able to rest a little easier without having to worry about something happening to them. At least, they won't be quite so vulnerable as they are now. For the time being she's still keeping them sequestered amongst the flowers, using the natural camouflage to mask their sleeping forms. For herself, she alternates between curling around them and staying a short distance away to where she can watch from a more secluded vantage point. It might seem odd to another, given their relative safety on the mountain top, but some habits and beliefs are too firmly entrenched to give up now.
"Aa-- rrrn." It's not much of a noise but it is certainly an annoyed one. As to the cause of the annoyance no one could really say for sure, but one this is clear is that one of Mythri's children is awake and clearly displeased at something. A groggy caterpillar makes its way through her belly fluff and Relm will have none of this. She takes one large forepaw and swats at it, menacingly, of course, her tiny muzzle squeaking in irritation. Once the offending creature tucks and rolls away through the grass, she is fumbling to stand and thud after it, nose twitching and eyes wide as she searches for the fuzzy creature. To teach it a lesson, of course. "Rrrn."
How early is too early to begin teaching important lessons? No doubt there is not a simple or easy answer to that question--what works for one might not work for another. Seeing one of her daughters apparently waging war on an offending insect, Mythri decides that now is as good a time as any to begin teaching. If Relm is still too young to comprehend, then.. well.. the lesson can always be repeated at a later point in time. Rising from her observation point, the cougaress pads silently over toward her daughter, watching the young cub trying to follow whatever it was that bothered her. Or, now, apparently find whatever it was. The girl seems to have lost it, and knowing just how many insects and bugs are among the flowers, finding the exact one again could be nigh impossible. Sooner or later the girl is going to turn around, and when she does, Mythri is going to be as close behind her as possible, crouched and silent. The importance of stealth, and perhaps her daughter will realize that things can happen even if she doesn't hear them. Not to mention that were whatever offending insect a real prey creature, giving vocalization while hunting it is a quick way to ensure failure. An important lesson, and hopefully one that Relm will learn quickly, whether today or at some point in the near future.
Well. Relm stares at one spot in the grass, underneath a bent clump and a few broken flower stalks, waiting... Impatience gets the better of her though and with less annoyance and more curiosity she leans closer, poking at the dark soil with her paw. Poke, pokepoke, THUD. She slams her toes down on nothing at all, waits, and then shuffles a half-step back. In doing so, her rearend hits her mother's paw and she turns in surprise, ears ballooning forward on her skull. Except that is exactly what she wanted to do, of course. Despite Mythri's silence and less than playful expression, the girl bounds clumsily for her mother's toes, "Rrrnraaaam!"
Mythri stares at her daughter, at a loss for how to respond. She can almost hear her father's words, berating her for a similar kind of failure. The painful echoes of a heavy paw, striking her again and again until she learned something, until she was able to perform to his satisfaction--she can almost feel the blows even now as she watches Relm, trying not to feel disappointed in her. Did she really expect that the young girl would understand what she was trying to teach her? With a grimace, Mythri has to admit that she really did. Maybe it really is her impatience. Forcing a smile, she nudges at her daughter with her other paw, trying to be playful. Relm will learn, eventually, as will her brother and sister. One day.
Ah HA! Target engaged. Relm, for a time, is fully focused on Mythri's paw even as disinterested as her quarry seems to be. Tiny ivory teeth chew on her for a few seconds when she manages to fall on her mother's paw but for the most part the slow and clumsy swipes of the young cub don't often connect and if they do there's not much behind it. Still, her eyes are bright and focused, irises wide to make sure she doesn't miss anything. Then something catches her attention for a moment and she looks up at her mother's face pointedly, her expression strange and difficult to pinpoint. Then with a sigh through her nose the girl licks her whiskers and works through her teeth, "Rrn, maaaah?" Blinkblink.
"Relm, what was bothering you a moment ago?" Mythri asks, more as a rhetorical question than anything she is expecting an answer to. She allows herself to slump into a more comfortable resting position, still watching her daughter in front of her. So small, yet so full of potential. Cael would be proud. Even her father would be proud, though he no doubt would never speak those words. She knows better. "Did you find it and catch it?" Can her daughter recognize the subtle distraction in her voice? She's trying not to be impatient or disappointed, and perhaps with time it will come more naturally. It's no small amount of irony that Mythri realizes that she has as much to learn as to teach.
Relm's eyes pinch together in an obvious moment of stillness and thought, her ears twisting forward only briefly before they slump from the effort. Her whiskers splay as she opens her maw, a half-yawn and semi-groaned response, wordless yet full of attitude. She's not wholly sure what her mother is asking of her yet she turns back to... looking around a moment, confused; what was it she had been doing and where? The girl eyes all of the flowers around her suspiciously-- that one and those ones over there... "Rrrneeeer!" she points, in the opposite direction where her quarry escaped. There, that way! The word doesn't form properly and that bothers her a little, but only for a short span of time, and then she turns back to her mother. There, see?
Does she really understand the question? Whether she can actually vocalize her thoughts yet isn't as much of a concern for Mythri; she's more interested in the cognitive process than the words themselves. Even though her attention is entirely on her daughter, she still looks interested in where Relm is pointing, and even raises her own paw to point in the same direction. "You caught it over there? Or did it escape over there?" A divergent question, and one that will test whether her daughter really can understand her. At least, that's the intent. Mythri is fast learning that her cubs don't always seem to want to give easy answers--intentional or not.
It is obvious to her daughter what she meant but apparently Relm's mother isn't quite getting it. She will have a lot more to teach her mother if she's ever going to get anywhere in this forest of flowers. She sighs again, paws fumbling a couple steps as she stretches out her neck and scents for something that isn't dirt or fragrance. A large and startled grasshopper buzzes away from Relm's intrusion and without a second thought about it the girl twists, clumsily, and jumps to her full (albeit tiny) extension landing half on a large petaled flower and half on her mother's foreleg. "Rr, thisssar!" Get it, mooooooooooom!
Oh, was that it? Mythri is rather surprised to see her daughter find the grasshopper so quickly and easily, but then again, it's just as likely that it was something else entirely from what had bothered her earlier. With a casual and almost lazy effort, Mythri claw-snags the grasshopper with her unencumbered forepaw and pulls it around to where Relm can do whatever she sees fit to her adversary. It'll be a moment of choice for her, and a moment of insight for Mythri.
It's like magic, or something. It must be. Relm watches the creature now suddenly between her mother's claws, its wings trapped but it's feet running in useless panic. It's fascinating, really. She examines it, her nose flaring and maw parting just a little as her tongue peeks out and tastes the air. One tiny paw reaches out, toes spread wide, and hooks at her mother's. Closer! She tugs a little, unable to budge Mythri's leg and so uses it as an anchor to hoist herself closer. Sniffsniff. Then with a sudden flurry she bats at the bug, bambambam, and then retreats, tucking her leg against her chest and looks up at Mythri. "Thaaa?" Good, yes?
Mythri smiles, and it's genuine this time. Her daughter seems to at least be learning something, if not exactly what had been planned. "That's it," she says encouragingly. The grasshopper is released, and stumbles away in a completely disoriented state. "Watch this," mother whispers to daughter, and although the hopper is still within reach, Mythri gathers her paws underneath of her into a readied crouch, and suddenly leaps--all of a few inches--forward in as best a pounce as she can manage with the short distance, both forepaws landing heavily on the insect with claws extended. Game over. "That, Relm, is a pounce." She looks at her daughter again, crouches down, and mimes springing up and forward. "Pounce."
Relm's answer is only to blink once or twice, rolling away from her mother as Mythri gets up. The girl squints, her head following the short and quick movements both times. "Rrr?" she asks. That? She pauses in her thought long enough to groom her bib then, as if remembering her schooling, backs up into the ready position. Almost. Her fore paws are tucked far underneath her chest and as she takes a moment, she lifts her hind end and wriggles, impatient, and when she hops like her mother hand shown her it is less than successful. She takes a digger into the flowers as he too tucked front legs don't extend like they should. As she tumbles, that enticing tail tip flashes by her eyes and she is after it again, upside down and looking for fight. "Rrroouns!" Yes. Pounce.
It's progress. A very small step forward, but a step nonetheless. Mythri once again can't help but think that Cael would be proud if he could see this here and now, and the thought turns her smile a bit regretful. If only. "That's right. Pounce." She backs up several pawsteps, crouches down in the flowers, and then suddenly leaps toward her daughter. This time, of course, her paws are velveted and grasp toward her daughter with the gentlest of force. It's tempting to make some kind of playful noise as well, but she maintains as much silence as possible. If Relm is going to learn to pounce, she needs to learn it properly.
Mythri suddenly goes both silent and still, ears straining as she's fairly certain she just heard someone nearby. One of her forepaws presses her daughter down into the cover of the flowers, also attempting to keep any protests silent, if Relm should decide to complain about the less-than-playful treatment. Mythri swivels her head from side to side, searching, listening, smelling... but after several long and tense moments, decides that it was nothing after all. Letting the tension drain out of her, she releases her paw from her daughter and gives her a serious look. "Danger," she says softly, trying to impart some sense of dread and foreboding into that word. The faster her daughter understands that concept above all others, the better.
Something else, something other than the heavy paw pressing down on her tells the girl to lay still, even though she would love to protest the treatment. Only when Mythri's tenseness leaves does Relm squirm, ears and eyes distinctly flattened though the tone of her mother's voice quells the instinct to fight back-- a little. She rolls to her belly and headbutts Mythri's chest, falling against her a second later and curling into a ball that doesn't really look comfortable but she doesn't bother moving after she's settled. Danger? "Mraaa." Mother.
Now that she's convinced that the danger has passed--if there really had been any danger in the first place--Mythri scoops a paw around her daughter and holds her close, giving the top of Relm's head a long swipe of her tongue. A soft purring begins, and the cougaress suddenly wonders if her own mother ever held her close like this. Before she was taken away. "I won't let that happen to you," she murmurs, though the concern does seem a bit foolish at first. Cael, the cubs' father, would hardly take Relm or either of the other two away--even if he were still alive in the first place. And who else in Amaranth would resort to cubnapping? Yet as insignificant as the concern might seem, Mythri means every word she says. Purrpurr. And, for good measure, another tongue swipe.
Staring off a particular flower bending the breeze, Relm pays little head to her mother's grooming save the occasional head bob from the force of it. Bright blue eyes blink once or twice before she rests her chin on Mythri's leg, chewing absently on her own front paw. Whatever it is in those flowers is captivating and her only response to her mother's worried musings is to shuffle into a more comfortable position, still noming on her toes. "Sshaaa."