Yasmin’s tail twitched as she lay on her belly on a dark, dry rock, well away from the shallow pools full of smelly sea water. She couldn’t help the way her lilac-barred nose wrinkled at the scent, or the way it drew her youthful features into a mild sneer. The unpleasant smell was all over the place, and even more pronounced now on her wet paws—the product of a successful, albeit simple, hunt. Lying feet away from them, in a crumpled heap on the stone, were the crushed remains of an unlucky crab: a tempting offering for the stupid seabirds who infested the place.

Or so she hoped.

Truth be told, she longed to be inland, and her impatience was apparent in the steady, consistent way her tail tip snapped. But her eyes were not on the bait placed before her; they were cast skyward. There, on the horizon, she watched the series of dark clouds looming over the sea, gliding ever closer with a menacing presence, blotting out the evening sunset and casting the tidepools in shadow. Their storm would reach land by midnight, Yasmin felt certain, and by then it would be too late. If she wished to appease the one who brought the rain, the young Skygazer needed to do it now.

Which meant dragging one of these stupid, whiny birds into a pool and making sure it stayed there overnight. She wasn’t thrilled about it—she already felt gross enough having to stick her feet in the water the first time to fish out the crab—but if it meant possibly heading off a terrible storm then she would make the sacrifice.

For the sacrifice.

+5 Meditate or pray on your own or with someone else
+5 Sacrifice an NPC creature
+5 Study the weather or an astronomical phenomena

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

She had been to the tidepools before, when she met Fish Friend Adrien, but the loon found herself back at them today... seeking something else this time. A sign, a promise from her silent God that things would be okay. She wandered the beach, the stagnant ocean water smell, making her pause on occasion to sniff at a tide-pool- and she found the oddest little thing, as she did so.

It had a hard feeling shell and two very big painful pinchers- that much she learned as she leapt backwards, snarling as the damned thing grabbed her nose! Marja darted backwards and forwards, her tail lashing in the air as the very persistent creature refused to let her go. Batting at it with her paws, she yowled out loudly, trying to bash the stupid creature off.

So, Marja whipped and danced around the beach, yowling in Russian, the curses leaving her jaws as she slapped at the creature- finally, managing to throw it off her nose. It skittered and fell across the sand right into a rock and then didn't move. "ЕБАТЬ!"

Of course, she didn't note that she wasn't alone, that another was present at the tide-pools until stood there panting and breathing hard, glaring around her only to find... someone else.

Oh well, that was a pleasant distraction.

Ignoring the dying creature for a moment, she stared, her eyes bugging a bit as she studied the young lioness, finally blurting out a question. "Doing?" She asked, her voice thick with her native russian accent, her brow furrowing- trying to figure them out. Waiting, for a moment- before approaching.

@Yasmin

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

The young Skygazer split her attention between the crab remains on the rock and the storm clouds on the horizon until she heard the loud, startled cries that utterly broke the stillness. Yasmin flinched and made a face, her frown becoming more pronounced. She needed quiet if this plan of hers was going to work. What stupid bird would come down and take the bait if there was all this noise going on nearby?

She didn’t have to look far. It was impossible to miss the leaping, shouting figure of another darkly colored lioness making an absolute scene amid the tidepools—until something fell off of her face. Mina couldn’t see what it was, but she could make a guess, and though it was amusing to think this woman had been caught by a crab it still wasn’t helping her catch a bird.

Her eyes fell briefly to the bait on her rock before darting upward into the face of the woman, who had approached and asked a single word question. Yasmin tensed slightly where she lay still upon her stomach on the rock and eyed the odd woman up and down critically before answering in a similarly simple yet cryptic manner. “...hunting.”

@Marja

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

Only the blundering idiot that Marja was could be completely attacked by a crab and then totally derailed moments later by the "sudden" appearance of a stranger. Her question, single worded, and broken is answered with one word. 'Hunting.' Marja frowns, and squints at the stranger.

"No." She says, deciding simply that the young lioness cannot be hunting, that isn't how this works. Hunting required movement and chasing. Marja had been in three or four hunts now and clearly was an expert. "Hunt require move. You still." She says.

"You lay. Me hunted by crab." She explains, frowning over to the rocks where the strange beast laid still yet. Marja's eyes narrowed, taking in the scene, and her head turned to take in the looming clouds. "You no safe on beach. Storm come. Gromm send storm." She said explaining, or at least, in her mind explaining that this storm had to be a product of Gromm's gift or ire. She wasn't sure if he was angry or happy- honestly, she wasn't sure about much of anything in regards to her god at this point.

@Yasmin

always alone and unwanted

I don't mean to be so crass about the situation -- But it's easier than breaking down -- The reasoning your loose interpretation --
In a sea of motherfuckers, man, you were no salvation

code by corvus| art by riot

No. Yasmin blinked, astonished that this stranger would contradict her, and then frowned in deeper annoyance. Shouldn’t she, better than anyone, know what it was she was doing at that moment? She wasn’t wrong simply because this woman couldn’t see it, and she pursed her lips and folded her ears moodily. “Hunting,” she repeated again, stubbornly, with a little lash of her tail, “unless the birds find you offensive.” Like she was beginning to.

She followed the stranger’s gaze to the storm on the water and felt her irritation spike yet again at being told the shoreline would be too dangerous soon—as if she didn’t already know—but the annoyance faltered and was nearly forgotten with the utterance of a foreign name. Gromm? Who in the world was that?

Gromm send storm. No. No, that was definitely not true. “Zenebe,” Yasmin sternly corrected her, at last getting to her feet and drawing herself up with authority. “Zenebe sends the storms. He lives in the clouds, and He will spare me if I leave Him an offering.” Her voice was impatient, frustrated, as she looked again at the crab bits on the rock and then the still darkening skies. Could she still catch a bird before nightfall?

@Marja

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

'Hunting.' The other repeats, and Marja adamantly shakes her head. No, no, no- you couldn't lie to an expert hunter. Marja had helped take down an elephant once, so clearly she knew everything about hunting. "Me no offend bird. Me eat bird." She says, completely not understanding the point of what the younger lioness was saying. "Bird no brain to offend." Uh... that was right, right? Birds didn't have brains.

The stranger says a name she doesn't understand. Zenebe. What was that? Then the lioness said Zenebe sent the storms. No no no. "Gromm God of Storms." Marja corrected. "Gromm send for reward or punish his devoted." She said adamantly. "Marja devoted." She said with a slight stomp of her foot. "Other god Maua live here. No Zenebe." She said, and certainly not that Kivuli. He was bad news, yeah.

"Gromm send storms- life for swamp." She said simply. "Gromm god of storms. He no like birds." Exasperation. "Blow you away for bird." She added.

@Yasmin

always alone and unwanted

I don't mean to be so crass about the situation -- But it's easier than breaking down -- The reasoning your loose interpretation --
In a sea of motherfuckers, man, you were no salvation

code by corvus| art by riot

The girl gritted her teeth, tension visible in her jaw, and caught herself beginning to dig her claws into the rock beneath her in frustration. There was no getting through to this woman, Yasmin was beginning to see it clearly. Her beliefs in this “Gromm”—ridiculous as they were—appeared to be as strong as the Skygazer’s in her pantheon, and the threat or perhaps warning in the final statement further rubbed her the wrong way.

Her uncovered eye narrowed and her ears folded with a toothy sneer as she lifted her head to look down her nose at the stranger. “Your false idols have no power over me.” There was full confidence in her voice, conviction in her stare. Let this “Gromm” get angry, let his believer spout her threats and warnings. It wasn’t like it would have any impact on her once the storm came.

“The bird is not for Gromm anyway.” But as she listened, tilted her gaze skyward, Yasmin couldn’t see the birds in the immediate vicinity anymore. She could still hear them, further down the tidepools, but obviously the noise had deterred them. With a snap of her tail, she dropped her gaze back to the green-eyed zealot with contempt. “You’re scaring them away.”

@Marja

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser

Marja was not a creature prone to ire. She truly was rather flippant and jolly about life, but when someone implied or spoke that Gromm was a false idol?

She puffed up like an angry ostrich, taking in a deep breath as she drew herself up. "Gromm no false idol. You false!" She snaps, at the younger lioness. No Gromm was the only real idol. Maybe Maua too- because Maua had nice voice.

"What god would want bird? Bird god?" She growls. "You make no sense, щенок. Translation:Cub

Perhaps Marja should forgive ignorance in the face of such youth but the ire that bubbles within her at the notion of gromm being false? Nope, she's past being rational about this. Those were fighting words those were.

"Gromm is only god, except for Maua but Maua no eat birds." A slam of her paw into the sand. Makes no sense, she thinks. No sense at all!

village idiot reporting for duty

code by corvus

Yasmin wished she could have taken any kind of pleasure in the green-eyed lioness losing her cool, but the feeling was unfortunately mutual. She gritted her teeth as she watched the seabirds further along the coast, swooping over more tidepools and even landing on the ground with no noisy chatter to drive them away. If only this woman hadn’t shown up; surely one of them would have taken the bait and presented itself as an offering for her to take for Zenebe?

She growled below her breath, her frustration growing the longer the stranger continued to talk in the background. Gromm this, Gromm that—couldn’t she see the name, this deity of hers, meant nothing to the young Skygazer? Would continue to mean nothing? She might as well have been shouting at the crabs in the tidepools for all the effect it was having on her intended recipient.

None of it was making Mina reconsider her deific allegiances, but it was certainly making her reconsider her plans here. “Fine!” she snarled, shouted, at her wit’s end with little to no patience remaining. “Ruin my offering! If this storm floods the island, it’s your fault!” If only the words would land; she highly doubted the lioness would consider her actions possessing any negative impact. With another growl, Yasmin stepped over the crushed remains of the crab and continued on down the tidepools.

Maybe if she got far enough away from the crazy woman, she could try again…

@Marja

Image by Silas van Overeem - Table by Mouser