=--------------------------------------------------------------------------= ___ _ _ ___ ' | ` |__| |__` oooo | | | |__, .ooooo. o 88 ---------------------------------------------------- o8" `"o8 88 ooo oo888oo ooo ooo ooo oo ooo ooo ooo d8' " 88 8 ,8' `8. 8"8 8 8 o8' 8 8"8 8 d8 88 8 88 88 8 8 8 8o' 8 8 8 8 88 oooo 88 8 88 88 8 8 8 88o 8 8 8 8 88 di 88 ,o 8 `8. ,8' 8 8.8 8 `8. 8 8 8.8 `88. ,8i o88ooooo'o8o `"ooooo"' o8o o8o o8o `8o o8o o8oo o8 (c)"88oood' =--------------------------------------------------------------------------= The Lion King is copyright 1994 by the Walt Disney Company. This MUCK in no way constitutes a challenge to this copyright. =--------------------------------------------------------------------------= [ June 24, 2005 ] Somewhere Grassy The grass here is mostly weathered to tawny, but there are green patches as well, and places nearly devoid of vegetation that have only pathetically small tufts growing from the dusty ground. You can see... [IC ] Royathi Itikadi This Serval is true to form, long curves of neck and body atop stick-thin long legs. Despite her gracile build, Itikadi has a solidity to her stance, and a certain look of arrogance in her greenish-yellow eyes. Dark smudges trail from around her eyes up to the narrow space between her large ears. The near-black markings on her tawny pelt form long streaks on either side of her supple spine, blotching on her shoulders and legs, and more scattered spots on her flanks. The looser fur of her underside and throat is white, albeit a little greyed by dust and shadow. There's a faint stripe of white on the lower side of Itikadi's ringed tail as well. Short as it is, her tail moves quite sharply from side to side. Servals are among the smaller cats, but this one of them has attitude to belie her size. Royathi Royathi is a young natural serval, standing around twice the size of a big housecat and reaching above knee height. As a serval she's fairly tall, but especially lithe/thin, her body is covered completely in a short, but thick and plush, layer of fur; Mostly a soft sandy brown in color, though its covered in little black speckled dots all over her body. In particular a series of black marks are dotted close together just under neck, creating the impression she's wearing a necklace of natural markings. As she's nonmorphic she walks around on all fours in a digitigrade stance, all four of her limbs ending in a neat set of toes with heavy but soft padding underneath them. Her Legs are long and slender though surprisingly lean looking despite some inherit strength, the rear legs are longer then the front legs meaning her thin rear stands about the same height as the tip of her head whilst both sets of legs contain a sharp set of sheathable claws. Behind her body is her tail, a fairly long one as it trails near the floor, also being round and fairly thin it spends most of it's time in the air to some degree, either held aloft or curled upwards since it's agile enough; The end of it ends in a black tip with extra fluffy fur. Being a healthy female serval her body is slender though a little lanky looking, her rear hips thicker set then her front limbs, while underneath her lower underside hangs trimly with her soft fur covering it up. Her neck is fairly short, ending in a surprisingly small, almost dainty, looking head. Atop of it, and easily one of her most noticable features, are her ears as they are twice the size of a normal cats, being especially long and rounded; They also twitch and swivel about to pinpoint sound and are filled with a plush layer of fur to keep them warm, often giving them a cute effect. Her muzzle is fairly short and flat, though the sides of the bridge of her nose have thin lines of black markings defining her face. Her eyes are suitably feline, an odd pale gold with a black pupil that contracts or the reverse due to the light; Each eye is also lined with black. Her mouth, joined to her nose by a thin line like any felines, is soft, almost always mirthfull looking. Her nose is flat and rounded, almost 'buttony' and cute in a way, while the sides of her muzzle and face are covered in extremely long, fluffy white whiskers. Itikadi flops herself down next to Royathi and proceeds to lip at her ears, raising herself somewhat on one angled foreleg to do so with reasonable comfort. She is humming under her breath, almost a purr but just a little more musical a sound. Royathi tiptips her ears at the feeling of her ears being lipped at, causing her to mrowl and twist about in protest towards the ground so that her forepaws area pushed up into the air, "Aaaaay..." Yeah, she's awake at least. Itikadi draws off, more-or-less politely, although probably not for long. It's barely morning, the light still pink-tinged from the sunrise, so she hasn't started off by waiting for a slower waking or any such thing. "Morning," Itikadi says. Then, bluntly, "We're losing the river." Royathi still seems a little bleary and reluctant to open her eyes. Her tail flicks in showing more consciousness though even as she pushes a forelimb out gingerly against her partner in finding her and murmurs, "Then sit on it so it doesn't get away." Itikadi sits back on her haunches with a gusty sigh, and waits for Royathi to get to enough alertness to have a sensible conversation. She takes another few, slow breaths before deciding to bring up a serious point; if Royathi is still half-dreaming, Itikadi will just have to repeat it further into the sharper morning. "It's blocked higher up, I think." Royathi doesn't even remember the first part of the conversation by time her senses are back, just blinking slowly as she opens her eyes to focus upon Itikadi. ".. What? Blocked .. up?" Itikadi leans over to rub her cheek against Royathi's, and no doubt the other can feel her sighing (again). Still, when she sits back upright it's with a patient look, and she begins again. "The river's level is going down. It must be blocked nearer the source. Rockfall, probably." Royathi murrs at the cheek rub and feels rather content at the rub but confused at the topic as it takes her a few moments to recover from it. ".. Figure it's ... okay .. Well.. Possible to fix?" Itikadi shakes her head. "I don't see how. Maybe the blockage will crumble out on its own." This is only supposition, as Itikadi didn't travel far enough upstream to see the situation for herself, and that situation might be a heavy enough rockfall for the blockage to be essentially permanent. "But I don't want to wait around without a decent watersource," she says firmly. Royathi nods and shakes her head to clear it. Again she rolls, just to twist about onto all four of her legs and raise up gingerly, "I guess we should go have a look?" "Yes," Itikadi says, and even while on this serious topic her reply is accompanied with a faint almost-smile at watching Royathi twist around to rise. "I'll show you the place where I first saw it was lower, and then we can see beyond." One more soft rub of the side of her face against Royathi's before they move. Royathi nods again, giving another toss of her head before starting a well meaning stagger towards the exit. Only pausing for that rub and to return one towards the feline in question, "..Maybe it'll have been fixed up some? Else... I guess we see how good we can fix it." Itikadi makes a skeptical noise, being far from convinced that there is anything they can do, let alone something that's worth the effort. Not when they've been talking about finding a den; without enough water nearby, this area won't be worth more time spent looking. "We'll see," she says at last, and they walk. Royathi smiles sheepishly for her slow awakening. She does chuckle though and glances back at the skeptical noise, misunderstanding it's purpose, "I thought I was the slow awakener!" Still, with some walking she picks up, letting her body bump into yours on the mere pretense of leaning. "You see where the water's level has fallen," Itikadi says, once they're standing on the band of their familiar river. She steps out onto a jut of rock, indicating with a twist of her upper-body how far the surface has dropped, leaving some distance of wet rock above the water's rippled surface. Then she looks over her shoulder to watch Royathi's reaction. Royathi walks towards the water's edge to investigate the claim herself, pondering it for a moment before realising what's going on. She follows though, springing gingerly up onto the rock for sharing the limited space. "Does .. it get any better?" Itikadi answers, with slow thoughtfulness, "Not particularly. It looks higher in some spots, but then the bank and the riverbed aren't smooth, of course." She quirks her mouth as she looks to Royathi for a steady moment, starting to feel anxious about what the other Serval is thinking. "Why I think we'll lose this river is how still the water is getting--I think it's blocked enough that it's draining instead of flowing properly. Somewhere up there," she ends. Royathi's brows furrow in thought as she confesses, "I'm not ... Well.. I doubt I could fix a river! Or either of us! But let's go look?" Ducking down slightly in tensing up, prepping another bound towards a second rock a bit higher up. Itikadi nods twice in answer to Royathi's first few words, then simply angles herself, ready to follow. She has a feeling the rockfall or what have-you is far enough up to not be worth the travelling, but they can start upwards, at least, and see how far they want to go, as well as what they find. With her short tail lashing, and not touched by water-spray as it usually is at this point, Itikadi is ready to follow. Royathi still seems determined to move upwards as best she can over the surface in question. Moving gingerly from rock to rock. Even making small nnfs for all the effort. Glancing back over her shoulder gingerly, ".. This could be tiring?" Itikadi stays one perch behind Royathi, rather than trying to balance along with her on each of them. "It could," she agrees. "But easier going on the other bank?" They haven't visited the far side much, more from the sheer effort of picking the way across than because of the river itself, as it isn't particularly wide or even fast. Royathi pauses at that thought, even going to reply in a negative manner before she stills and glances towards the other side, one forepaw raised up towards her chest gingerly. "Well, I guess /now/ it is a bit easier then other.." Itikadi takes advantage of a larger rock, jutting out high from the water and actually almost entirely dry, to jump to a place level with Royathi, and then onwards past her. A few more steps will put her on the bank. "Easier than turning back," she confirms. Royathi lets out a thoughtful mm as she meanders to the river's edge. Gingerly coming after before she bursts into a chuckle, ".. How odd. It kinda makes me curious to get to the other side, but the river would be nicer.." Itikadi steps on to the bank, where she shifts from paw to paw, abruptly impatient for Royathi to actually cross the river completely and join her. "You can see what's left of the river from over here, too," she says, her words a little clipped. Royathi realises some of the impatience and redoubles her speed to mimic Itikadi's movements and follow her up. "I guess we have to follow it?" "If we're going to investigate it," Itikadi says, sounding slightly put out. She did a bit of nosing around when she first noticed the water-level dropping, and thus the prospect of going over the same ground isn't too exciting. Equally, she's over on the far bank now, and when Royathi joins her will have company: not a bad prospect. Royathi pauses, but soon covers the rest of the distance, her tail flicking to either side as she hmms and glances along the bank, ".. This feels too literal." Itikadi makes a questioning sound, tipping her head in an accompanying gesture of query. She doesn't follow what Royathi means, but waits for her to elaborate, standing more-or-less patiently on the rocky bank, just over from where Royathi will step. Royathi flashes a grin, "Well, everyone always says 'we'll cross that river when we get to it'." Itikadi gives the other Serval a look indicative of long suffering at her paws. That is a distressingly obvious pun. "We've crossed it now," she says, rather cooly, though there is the edge of a smile on her face. "Time to see how it looks further up." Royathi's grin only gets 'worse' as she lets it linger, then eventually nods and steps up beside Itikadi, for the moment, "Upwards and onwards." Itikadi gives Royathi a quick nuzzle, grin and all. It seems she can forgive the pun. "Onwards," she confirms, with a roll of her shoulders before she sets off, trying not to go too far ahead of the other Serval. Keeping a consistent pace isn't easy when areas of drying ground are cut with cracks and rock. Still, it's not a difficult trail, even if it does take some concentration: the Servals have their own footing to consider, as well as the slow-moving river beside them to observe. =--------------------------------------------------------------------------=