Post by Rynoah on Oct 19, 2006 0:59:42 GMT -5
Setting: Pride Rock
Characters:
Talmaleki, ghostly apparition.
Zazu, son of the majordomo (briefly).
Mthunzi, panther.
Uru, Queen of the Pridelands.
----
A spurt of gray-green miasma erupts from the ground and billows with a sudden noise into the air. The noise dissipates and then everything is as it was. No mark is left.
Uru lifts her head curiously at the sound, her ears perked forward and an eyebrow arched. The lioness rests on one of the boulders here, enjoying the last few rays of daylight before the descent of night. She catches just the faintest glimpse of the miasma before it disappears, along with the sound. A chill runs down her spine. What /was/ that?
Zazu, flying overhead, has a similar experience, though he sees it rushing upward. From his point of view, the flash of a face is noticeable...but only for an instant. Terrified, the youth speeds back toward Pride Rock without hesitation.
Uru slowly creeps down from her boulder and begins to move towards the phenomenon, her inquisitive nature urging her forward while her instincts tell her to fall back. She'd never seen anything like it in the Pridelands.
But the phenomenon is gone. All that remains is a chilly spot that soon dissipates, and an acrid taste on the air.
Uru shakes her head. Maybe it was just an odd turn of the wind and a trick of the twilight. Another shiver courses down her spine, causing her to tremble slightly. The taste on the air is unpleasant, but she continues to investigate. Finding nothing tangible, she turns and saunters back to her rock, brow knit ponderously.
Zazu vanishes into Pride Rock, and all is still again.
Where it lurks amongst the long grasses, a shadow halts with a shudder, the fur on his neck bristling. What in all hell? Mthunzi crouches low, tense and apprehensive, his small rounded triangular ears pinning back. Pale eyes, usually narrowed to mere sickles, are now held wide open, staring wildly towards the apparition. Was he going mad? For a long moment he remains as still as the shade in which he's hiding. Then, slowly, he begins to creep forward towards his assumed hallucination, his tail twitching violently. In the eerie silence he stops again, still some distance away.
The queen clambers up onto a boulder and shifts around so that she's facing the site of the odd event, still trying to make sense of it. It seems too trivial to speak to Ahadi about it, but at the same time, she can't shake the idea that this is /very/ troublesome.
Heard only to himself (or so he presumes) the shadowcat mutters darkly under his breath, head held low, eyes still locked onto the dead air where once was... something else. "You're losing your mind..." With that, Mthunzi turns away sharply, as if being pulled against his will. With considerable haste he stalks off northward, tail still writhing with trepidation.
Out in the twilit grasses, Uru spots movement near the area of the manifestation. Immediately, she's on her feet, ears on end. There it is again! With a loud cry--"Wait!"--she charges forward to intercept it. Maybe the shadow has an idea of what that was--perhaps the shadow is the cause itself.
The voice, unexpected, brings the panther to another halt. An ear twists back, his sallow-eyed gaze quickly following. He bristles again slightly as he turns to face the lioness who is barreling towards him, but holds his ground, posture lowered defensively. Silently he curses himself for abandoning stealth in his hurry to go. This does not bode well at all. Not sure what to expect, Mthunzi doesn't speak, waiting for the lioness to make her intentions clear.
Uru soon sees that her quarry is, in fact, a panther and not some creature from the Beyond. She recognizes him from the waterhole, when she had met up with Rozi. This disappoints her a little, but her search for answers does not lose its resolve. "Who are you?" she interrogates, pulling herself up regally.
"Mthunzi." The panther answers without pretense, still looking wary and wild, though the words running through his mind at that moment are 'no one'. He tries to subdue his tail's wild lashing, which only succeeds in slowing the movement to occasional sharp jerks interspersed with slightly less violent jitters. "I'm just on my way through." He adds tersely, obviously wishing to depart, though unwilling to turn his back on the stranger just yet. If he recognizes the lioness, he shows no sign of it.
"Did you see the . . . the cloud?" Uru inquires, trying not to seem too eager in her hope that she hasn't gone mad. Surely the panther saw it too. It was hard to miss.
At this Mthunzi's eyes narrow sharply, ghostly-pale gaze scrutinizing the lioness for a moment. When he answers, it's in a slightly strained, hushed tone "I did." There's a faint relief in the sudden realization that he's perhaps not mad after all; yet, at the same time, a blood-curdling anxiety about the implications of such a thing actually appearing. Once again the shadow falls silent, obviously still quite disturbed by the unsettling event.
Uru heaves a soft sigh of relief, and she seems to deflate slightly. So she isn't the only one. At least she has that assurance. But, like Mthunzi, the implications of the event that was mutually witnessed stir unease within her. "What does it mean?" she asks quietly, more to herself than the panther. Her head lifts and her eyes search the grasses for some sort of clue, but there is again nothing.
The panther just shakes his head. He lets his posture slump even lower, again to a crouch. Mthunzi probably could not be considered an optimist in the first place, but some intuition tells him quite unmistakably that whatever the cause and meaning of what they saw, it was not a good omen. Still clearly on edge, the dark feline takes a few slow, creeping steps backwards away from the queen and in the direction that he'd been going.
Uru doesn't seem to notice. She's gone back into deep thought, trying to make sense of it all. The eerie feeling of foreboding is thick in her mind and heart, and it burdens her with worry--not only for her sons and her adopted daughter, but also the entire pride and all the creatures in the Pridelands. Something is not right here.
A moment of distraction is all Mthunzi needs to slip away. With silent stealth, he too vanishes into the grass, fleeing the monolith like a bat out of hell.
Characters:
Talmaleki, ghostly apparition.
Zazu, son of the majordomo (briefly).
Mthunzi, panther.
Uru, Queen of the Pridelands.
----
A spurt of gray-green miasma erupts from the ground and billows with a sudden noise into the air. The noise dissipates and then everything is as it was. No mark is left.
Uru lifts her head curiously at the sound, her ears perked forward and an eyebrow arched. The lioness rests on one of the boulders here, enjoying the last few rays of daylight before the descent of night. She catches just the faintest glimpse of the miasma before it disappears, along with the sound. A chill runs down her spine. What /was/ that?
Zazu, flying overhead, has a similar experience, though he sees it rushing upward. From his point of view, the flash of a face is noticeable...but only for an instant. Terrified, the youth speeds back toward Pride Rock without hesitation.
Uru slowly creeps down from her boulder and begins to move towards the phenomenon, her inquisitive nature urging her forward while her instincts tell her to fall back. She'd never seen anything like it in the Pridelands.
But the phenomenon is gone. All that remains is a chilly spot that soon dissipates, and an acrid taste on the air.
Uru shakes her head. Maybe it was just an odd turn of the wind and a trick of the twilight. Another shiver courses down her spine, causing her to tremble slightly. The taste on the air is unpleasant, but she continues to investigate. Finding nothing tangible, she turns and saunters back to her rock, brow knit ponderously.
Zazu vanishes into Pride Rock, and all is still again.
Where it lurks amongst the long grasses, a shadow halts with a shudder, the fur on his neck bristling. What in all hell? Mthunzi crouches low, tense and apprehensive, his small rounded triangular ears pinning back. Pale eyes, usually narrowed to mere sickles, are now held wide open, staring wildly towards the apparition. Was he going mad? For a long moment he remains as still as the shade in which he's hiding. Then, slowly, he begins to creep forward towards his assumed hallucination, his tail twitching violently. In the eerie silence he stops again, still some distance away.
The queen clambers up onto a boulder and shifts around so that she's facing the site of the odd event, still trying to make sense of it. It seems too trivial to speak to Ahadi about it, but at the same time, she can't shake the idea that this is /very/ troublesome.
Heard only to himself (or so he presumes) the shadowcat mutters darkly under his breath, head held low, eyes still locked onto the dead air where once was... something else. "You're losing your mind..." With that, Mthunzi turns away sharply, as if being pulled against his will. With considerable haste he stalks off northward, tail still writhing with trepidation.
Out in the twilit grasses, Uru spots movement near the area of the manifestation. Immediately, she's on her feet, ears on end. There it is again! With a loud cry--"Wait!"--she charges forward to intercept it. Maybe the shadow has an idea of what that was--perhaps the shadow is the cause itself.
The voice, unexpected, brings the panther to another halt. An ear twists back, his sallow-eyed gaze quickly following. He bristles again slightly as he turns to face the lioness who is barreling towards him, but holds his ground, posture lowered defensively. Silently he curses himself for abandoning stealth in his hurry to go. This does not bode well at all. Not sure what to expect, Mthunzi doesn't speak, waiting for the lioness to make her intentions clear.
Uru soon sees that her quarry is, in fact, a panther and not some creature from the Beyond. She recognizes him from the waterhole, when she had met up with Rozi. This disappoints her a little, but her search for answers does not lose its resolve. "Who are you?" she interrogates, pulling herself up regally.
"Mthunzi." The panther answers without pretense, still looking wary and wild, though the words running through his mind at that moment are 'no one'. He tries to subdue his tail's wild lashing, which only succeeds in slowing the movement to occasional sharp jerks interspersed with slightly less violent jitters. "I'm just on my way through." He adds tersely, obviously wishing to depart, though unwilling to turn his back on the stranger just yet. If he recognizes the lioness, he shows no sign of it.
"Did you see the . . . the cloud?" Uru inquires, trying not to seem too eager in her hope that she hasn't gone mad. Surely the panther saw it too. It was hard to miss.
At this Mthunzi's eyes narrow sharply, ghostly-pale gaze scrutinizing the lioness for a moment. When he answers, it's in a slightly strained, hushed tone "I did." There's a faint relief in the sudden realization that he's perhaps not mad after all; yet, at the same time, a blood-curdling anxiety about the implications of such a thing actually appearing. Once again the shadow falls silent, obviously still quite disturbed by the unsettling event.
Uru heaves a soft sigh of relief, and she seems to deflate slightly. So she isn't the only one. At least she has that assurance. But, like Mthunzi, the implications of the event that was mutually witnessed stir unease within her. "What does it mean?" she asks quietly, more to herself than the panther. Her head lifts and her eyes search the grasses for some sort of clue, but there is again nothing.
The panther just shakes his head. He lets his posture slump even lower, again to a crouch. Mthunzi probably could not be considered an optimist in the first place, but some intuition tells him quite unmistakably that whatever the cause and meaning of what they saw, it was not a good omen. Still clearly on edge, the dark feline takes a few slow, creeping steps backwards away from the queen and in the direction that he'd been going.
Uru doesn't seem to notice. She's gone back into deep thought, trying to make sense of it all. The eerie feeling of foreboding is thick in her mind and heart, and it burdens her with worry--not only for her sons and her adopted daughter, but also the entire pride and all the creatures in the Pridelands. Something is not right here.
A moment of distraction is all Mthunzi needs to slip away. With silent stealth, he too vanishes into the grass, fleeing the monolith like a bat out of hell.