I put my armor on

show you how strong I am

It hadn't been too long since she'd chosen the Mire as her home. Yet she still felt an unease washing over her every so often. No, not quite an unease. Yes, the other pride members were strangers and time would tell if they could trust each other. But she couldn't quite find the words to describe the feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought about leaving the den she'd chosen for herself. She'd been in it since her arrival, resting, thinking. And still, that odd feeling remained.

Another day had come and the pale patterned lioness was pacing at the entrance of her den, growling to herself. Briefly, she paused, a paw lifted to cross the threshold, only to resume pacing. Was this feeling holding her back or was it what was driving her to leave the den? She didn't know, didn't understand. Or was it just the thought of truly starting over, not knowing if there was any family beyond those she'd left behind?

With a muttered curse as she practically tripped over her own paw, she faceplanted into the ground. Very graceful. But at least no one saw, right? And it seemed to have gotten her out of the den. Huffing a little she sat up, shaking out her mane and rubbing a paw over her nose as she looked around. Yep, in front of her den but no longer inside it. Progress.

code by corvus

Well, it went mostly unseen. As it happened, the young albino boy Emory had been walking through the area, meandering among the shadows as he was prone to during the daylight hours. His rosy eyes were squinted, head down, avoiding any glint of light that might momentarily blind him. It might have been wiser for him to simply be napping or at least laying low during this time—it certainly would have been a more comfortable alternative—but he had hopes that maybe, just maybe, he’d come across one of his siblings who kept conventional hours.

He wasn’t sure if it was loneliness exactly or simply a desire to figure out where they were mentally, how they were feeling, that made him want to find them, but the unlabeled feeling was there all the same. Only neither he nor it knew exactly where his siblings could be found, or if they even still resided in the Mire or had absconded as their parents had—presuming they hadn’t died and been claimed by the swamp. Instead, he found someone else entirely.

Someone who, it appeared, lacked a general sense of balance. Emory stopped as he watched the maned lioness stumble onto her face and promptly get her footing again, and knew on some level that it ought to be funny. It was, wasn’t it? He was sure his siblings would have been sniggering if they’d been there beside him, making rude and derisive comments at her expense. Hm. Maybe it was because they weren’t there that he didn’t feel anything.

Mercifully, he wasn’t the type to say anything about what he’d seen; he had to live with these individuals, after all, and the last thing he wanted was to get on someone else’s radar in a negative light. But he still had a goal in this moment, and he hoped by “forgetting” what had just happened that he might receive a more welcome and positive response from the stranger. He stepped out of the shade—his sensitive face immediately scrunched against the brightness of the day even the fog couldn’t obscure—and approached her.

“Hey.” His youthful voice came out a little gruff, carrying a slight undercurrent of discomfort, as he looked at the lioness more closely. She reminded him a little bit of Runa, or how he suspected Runa would look once her little shock of mane grew in more fully. That, of course, was where the resemblances ended; it was clear this wasn’t another member of the Stärke-Rike line he hadn’t met yet. “Have you seen anyone around my age?” Em paused, his cloud-tufted tail swaying with an uncertain hope.

@Cerridwen

Image by J Lee - Table by Mouser

I put my armor on

show you how strong I am

They were all searching for something. Some sought family, others sought simply a home. And she sought an answer to this feeling that she couldn't understand. But as much as she wanted to hide away in the den and never meet anyone, it hadn't gotten her anywhere. For some things could only be found if you went out.

She certainly hadn't been graceful in her exit of her den. And definitely not in her fall. Perhaps it would have been amusing to quite a few. At least back home they'd have made fun of her for it and she'd have responded with hostility. But she didn't really want to look for a fight with anyone that she was going to live with. Not really a good look.

The voice that suddenly rang out drew out her attention. Of course there would be others. She really should have expected someone to wander by at some point. With a small snort she straightened her posture a little and lowered the paw that had been rubbing her nose. "Hey." Cerridwen shifted ever so slightly in her spot, ears twitching in her mess of a mane. "Cannae say I have. Haven't met a'body yit." It probably still wasn't too easy to understand her with her accent, but she was trying to at least sort of make sense. Though it would take time for her to figure out who had an easier time understanding her and who needed he to try harder to be understood. "Ye kin uise mah den fur shadow, if ye lik'. Cannae be comfy lik' this."

@Emory

code by corvus

Instinct was a difficult thing to ignore. When Cerridwen spoke, her voice thick with an accent, Emory couldn't help the little shift of his brow, the small furrow that started between them. It wasn't that he'd never heard anyone with this accent before—there were quite a few within the Mire who spoke with some sort of accent or another—but he wasn’t as familiar either. Still, repeating the words back to himself, the child thought he understood. No. She hadn’t seen his siblings.

He sighed quietly to himself, a little discouraged but understanding it only meant he had to keep looking. He refused to believe they had gone the way of their parents, no matter how little he interacted with them directly day-to-day.

As it was such a natural habit for him, he’d forgotten he was squinting until the lioness brought attention to it in a roundabout way, gesturing and offering him the use of her den if he needed some shade. Em blinked at her, surprised by the generous offer and simultaneously put off by it. For starters, this was his burden to bear; it wasn’t her responsibility to ease things for him. But also there was that voice in the back of his head, the one that whispered little phrases of doubt. His father looked for strength in all of them. If he couldn’t even stand out in the sun, then how strong could he truly be?

He’s not here. The thought shouldn’t have come about as quickly as it did, but there was a sudden surge of freedom that accompanied it, a feeling that bolstered the albino boy into drawing in a quick, steeling breath before he nodded and ventured just inside the lioness’ den.

Immediately, he felt relief. His eyes no longer felt like they were being blinded, and he was able to relax as he turned around in the space to look back at Cerridwen curiously. “Thanks,” he murmured, his gratitude colored by his lingering uncertainty and growing intrigue. “I don’t usually get offers like that,” he said by way of making small talk, though a rogue thought made him quickly clarify, “to hide out from the sun, I mean.” Not visiting a stranger’s den—though this was admittedly a first time for that too.

Hoping to change the subject, he asked, “You’re new?”

@Cerridwen

Image by J Lee - Table by Mouser

I put my armor on

show you how strong I am

Strength. Sought by so many and expected by ore than just a few parental figures. She certainly would understand that thought, that need to be strong all the time. But what harm was there in seeking comforts? After all there were some things they had no choice in and not all of it was immediate weakness. To her, there could be strength in accepting an offer of help or in seeking out something that made a physical condition a little easier to bear.

It did make her smile a little when @Emory accepted her offer of finding comfort in the shade. Though she didn't share his condition, she understood the discomfort it must bring and at least this way she could help someone she now shared the land with. "Ye'r welcome." Well, at least she was trying a little more to be somewhat easier to understand.

At his question she went quiet for a while, paws kneading the ground a little, ears quivering. "Aye. Big grey guy invited me tae come 'ere. How long hae ye bin 'ere?"

code by corvus

She didn’t answer immediately, and Emory didn’t rush. It did strike him as a little puzzling that she didn’t have the answer right there, ready to go, but maybe she didn’t want to tell him or was nervous of sharing the information for whatever reason. But in the end she did, and he did his best to piece together who she meant by the simple description. Big grey guy? Maybe Adeodatus. He certainly fit the bill.

“All my life,” Em answered back. In fact, he couldn’t imagine how his life might have been different if he’d been born anywhere else, even if he’d arrived here in the Mire at a later point in life. This was everything he knew, everyone he knew. Being separate from it, even temporarily felt…strange to even think about. “Haven’t felt a reason to leave.” Not that he was old enough to or inclined to do so, but it felt like witty banter. He hoped his sister, Eris, would approve.

To be polite, he ventured another tentative question of his own. “How’s it going so far?” Of course meaning her settling in.

@Cerridwen

Image by J Lee - Table by Mouser