any pride and any claims welcome // absence returning post

All she remembered about this place was the feeling of light sand kicking under her heels. Cub Toblerone had strode triumphantly through. This memory made the pink lioness perk up and steel her resolve to be just as on-top-of-the-world several years later, less cute but no wiser. This... pathetic sandbar... was surely beneath her, and it was too stupid to react as she crinkled her nose at its general existence. Clusters of withered, huddled gulls cackled and uplift as she sauntered by. Once she was past, they fluttered back down, barely a sodden feather begrudged.

She stopped at the middle of the passage and slowly, glamorously, craned her body around, squinting upward against the shrouded dawn like a movie maiden quite astonished by a fantasy world. To the north: deep green, sparkling with snow, and granite strands of mountain dusted with ice. To the south: a whole bunch of boring shit. She'd kicked out of there long ago. And look, she had survived! She grinned and stretched her little toes out slowly to lengthen the appearance of her body, and then sunk gradually to her stomach. Survived and thrived. She didn't have a pride or anything fun to do, but she hadn't lost her mojo. One of these scents would come along soon enough and then - a pride, and fun! She smiled gently to herself as her own body heat warmed the sand beneath her. Eyelids slackened, lapsed. Life was easy when you didn't care.

+5 Sunbathe or take a nap (beatnik)
+5 Study the landscape of an area (sleuth)

Since his newest victory, Adeodatus felt that it was here that he should flaunt it. He was still healing, the claw marks that were on his left cheek were still healing, surely going to leave scars but it happened - everyone liked messing up his handsome face it would seem. Even his right front paw still hurt from where Livyatan had dug his claws into them, a small limp had formed while he walked but nothing of permanent damage of course only scars left over in the end of the healing process. But that never stopped him as he would come to the Passage, the snow was beginning to melt as spring came in and Adeodatus was content with that. Moving through the passage, bloodied jewels scanning the area he would soon spot another - a female sunbathing in the sands and he would move towards her letting out a call to let his presence be known. Enjoying a nap in the vipers pit? She seemed relaxed enough to him. @Toblerone

Art and Code by Cloudy

Anticipation kept her from fully dozing off. She enjoyed the sensation of potential and intrigue swirling around her while she herself was calm. The eye of the storm. Her ears had grown slack but they perked to the crunchcrunch and call of someone rather large approaching. She figured if someone was trying to sneak up on her, they'd make more irregular sounds. So, figuring that there was no pressing danger, she took her precious time in sullenly prying her eyelids open and quirking a brow at him and finally, smoothly lifting her head with the wrinkles of a smothered yawn showing an inch of white but benevolent fangs.

Enjoying a nap? the brute seemed calm with a sliver of threatened knifeplay in the viper pit. AH AH AH a pique of excitement dashed around her brain DANGER delicious she craved, but her detached mien would not be so easily unsettled. She did have her pride. "The secret is not to flinch," she explained sweetly, experimenting with tilting her pitch up a bit. A thin, unreadable smile and watchful eyes.

@Adeodatus

+5 Sunbathe or take a nap (beatnik)

She hardly moved as he got closer but her words caused a smirk to sketch itself on his jaws and a chuckle to vibrate from his chest. She was no danger to him, and he would not put her in danger either so Adeodatus would find himself sitting his ass on the cold ground and regretting it but he was going to sit and be comfortable damn it. Some vipers attack even when you don't flinch. He would state bluntly. There was many lions out there - vipers alike - that would attack for no reason and he was included in that section. If for a brief moment at least, there were times now that he had learned his patience but there were still times that he had to fight the urge to smack the shit out of some lions. @Toblerone

Art and Code by Cloudy

He chuckled, rumbling. She could not help comparing him to Roan, though she soured to think of how little that enemy had been worth her attention. Roan was older and more muscled, but kinder. Even after he fought he was always so unperturbable. She was beginning to dislike unperturbable. But she had only just met this lion, hardly long enough to find any sensitive points let alone cast around doubt and rust.

He sat. She felt the reverberation through the drenched sand. One seagull interrupted its song. She looked up at him as he spoke now, attentive despite herself and with a slackened jaw that she forgot to put any expression on. For a moment she was away in thought. And then back to reality, her tuft twitching and the corners of her mouth pulling into a saintly frown. "But that's not as fun."

@Adeodatus

Her words caused a smirk to form on his silver features. So you like dancing in the viper's pit? He would question her, entirely forgetting that perhaps he should be inviting her to the Mire instead of sitting here having idle chit chat. But sometimes that just wasn't how things worked and so he was trying a different way of getting someone to join the Mire. And she didn't seem like she was in a rush to even go anywhere, Adeodatus had taken note that she had been sun bathing when he arrived so the Devorre would only assume that perhaps she was just taking her time here. @Toblerone

Art and Code by Cloudy

She attempted to focus through the whirr of cotton haze that tugged at the edges of her vision. Ever since she had been lost in the mist, this happened sometimes. It came back. She felt like she might slip away again, might lose her mind and dissolve into the wind. Her claws tensed, seeking vain purchase on the crunchy sand. Beneath its sun-warmed crust the grains were soggy and cold. A little quibble of annoyance wrought her upper lip. That was cold.

Focus. Focus focus focus - she whipped her skull sideways into a sudden expression of nope. They were talking about vipers and dancing. Dancing might make one aloof and fey, but snakes were of the earth and their bite might make one comatose. "No - that is - I've never had the chance." She blinked and relented in her slacking to lift one paw to clean behind one ear. "You would think Obsidian Hollow would have tons of vipers, viper-lions, cold and dark and secret. But the Hodari were the kindest, blandest, most absolutely mundane lions. Took an earthquake to get them to move." She half shrugged. She forgot that after so long there would be no trace of the Hollows on her fur. She was used to not smelling it on her fur, since after so long she had gotten used to it. "I don't want to live where the ceiling might cave in, and I'm sick of following at their heels. So, I'm here." He hadn't asked, and she felt strange about volunteering so much information (that she could have withheld, juicy and tantalizing), but she needed to reassure herself that she had a past to stay grounded. Her yellow eyes struggled to focus on his without blinking. Sincerity was difficult to portray.

@Adeodatus

So it seemed that she had never been in a proper vipers pit and it was rather amusing, especially when she mentions the Hollow. He had never met the Hodari's so he had no clue on how they were but if they were kind ( obnoxiously so ) then he was grateful to have never met them. They would have surely caused his nerves to fry. Well, there is no ceiling in the Mire and I'm sure there are vipers there just wanting for a challenge. He would muse to her, a dark gleam in his jewels as he gave her an offer in a sense. Though he was the first ( and only one ) here and Alaric would have probably claimed her right on the spot, that wasn't him unless it was for a good reason. @Toblerone

Art and Code by Cloudy

She supposed they had needed to broach the pride subject eventually. Otherwise her journey out here would have been a total waste. There were better places to sunbathe if that was all she wanted. Hedonistic though she was, she usually had a future motive in mind. She finally planted both front paws and lifted her shoulders, shivering with a suppressed stretch. Sand clung along her undersides and hung in a strand under her chin. She rose just enough to confirm that she was taller than him, though she wouldn't do herself the obvious indignity of noting he could still beat her in a fight. "No ceiling for... ambition?" She quirked a deliberate brow. Her manipulations were not yet as subtle as her mother's had been. Time and experience told one how much to be bold. "What's your rank? I suppose I could seek out a seat one level under." This seemed intuitively right. Not to potentially get herself potentially placed with too much responsibility before she had properly assessed the benefits. She eyed him for a moment seeming much younger than she was, simply a wide eyed youth seeking knowledge.

@Adeodatus

She seemed to finally push herself up, with sand clinging to places in her fur and along her chin. Ears twisting as he took note that she was bigger than him and due to him sitting down where she had been laying down, their size difference hadn't been noticed by him until now. He had fought one bigger than him and lost so he wasn't going to push his luck here unless it was necessary. Her words caused him to chuckle, You misunderstand my words. There is plenty of ambition in the Mire for you to challenge, but there are no caves to fall and crush you. He would state before her next question caused an eyebrow to raise. I am a Noble. @Toblerone

Art and Code by Cloudy