Neither Borrower nor Lender Be [CLOSED]

[Kunto]

Subject: Neither Borrower nor Lender Be [OPEN]
Time: Sunrise
Weather: Partially Cloudy, cooler due to the time of morning.
Participants: Kunto, Amara

[Kunto]

Being soaked up past the legs would have been more gratifying had the sun been high up overhead. Instead, the sun is barely peeking up past the clouds and the water was cold, cold, cold. Though, on the bright side, Kunto imagined it counted as having bathed.

"Nyeheheh. I can already hear the jokes. 'Kunto isn't filthy? Surely a miracle has occurred', 'oh sorry there, Kun, I didn't recognize you without the stench'. Eheheh," the scrawny hyena speaks under his breath, words punctuated by the occasional gleeful chuckle.

He clambers up onto north shore of the crossing and shakes out his fur. Drops of water splatter around, not that it matters. No one here to hit.

"Now for... some... food," he mumbles. It was a dangerous play, to take his hunting to the lion's side of the river, but it meant more here. Anything he caught here wouldn't belong, in essence, to his clanmates. He slunk up from the riverbank and began his search for breakfast in the twilight touched lands.

[Amara]

Clanmates. There were somewhere else. Still sleeping from a late night hunt deep in the scrub lands to the northwest of here. It hadn't been a great hunt, a small and scraggly kill of an old impala female that probably wouldn't have lived through the height of the dry, anyway. Not that the hyenas would have felt bad in the first place; it is about survival, after all. Dumisani's litter tended to get priority, assuming they could fight for it, and even now after sleeping for an hour or so, a grin of satisfaction still rested on Mar's muzzle. Her teeth had found their way deep into the neck scruff of one of the older males, and she could still feel the clench of satisfaction in her jaw and the pressure of living skin underneath her teeth. The stupid male backed off, wisely, and Mar had taken a few choice bites out of the slim carcass.

Pink still stained the edges of her creamy muzzle as she followed an obvious scent southeast into the valley. As she approached the river and strangely lost the trail, Mar sat and began to painstakingly wash her face and forelimbs, every so often lifting her head to glance up and down the line of the steadily disappearing river bed; surely he wouldn't have been so stupid as to drown in such shallow water? Mar shrugs, issuing a low burr of laughter from deep within her chest. She doubted it to be true, but the thought was funny, anyway. As the breeze picks up from the north side of the river, ruffling her thick scruff at the back of her neck, the adolescent's ears perk as she peers across the slow moving water.

Kunto... is in Mnara? A wry look spreads her lips wide and in an instant she is padding through the mud of the bank and following the scent with a small splash through the river. She paddles furiously, detesting the feeling of being so covered by the water, and carefully emerges on a grassier bank soaked through her midsection. Mar's muzzle downturns, snorting as she spends even longer trying to rid herself of the clinging cold in the early morning. A furious shake explodes water left and right before she catches the male's thick scent, and is once again intrigued. Mar bursts into a quick but steady run, brain on fire.

"What's his plan?" she puffs through clenched teeth, breath puffing in misty clouds around her head.

[Kunto]

Ah yes, that hunt. Kunto was 'mysteriously' missing for that one. It isn't that he's an incapable hunter. He's just lazy. Besides, with the slim pickings the dry season is bringing to Uchawi lands, what would have been left to him but bones?

No, no. Better to sneak about as a thief than go hungry. Lions be damned.

Kunto is visible from the bank for only a moment longer after Amara reaches the Mnara-side shore. The splish-splashing of another coming out of the river isn't an easy thing to miss with such large ears, even his torn and fly-bitten ones. Ah ha ha. A guest for breakfast, is it? Now, which dear clanmate would bother following poor little Kunto? Someone clearly in a hurry.

One turn is all it takes and he vanishes amongst the brush, grasses, and scrubby trees that poke up erratically around the riverside. He settles down to sit behind one spidery branched tree on the side of his own trail, one ear angled towards the river. A grin stretches up along his toothy maw. He counts the thumps of paws hitting the dirt, waiting for them to get closer... closer... closer...

Oh, he certainly hopes this doesn't turn out to be a lion. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Eheheheh.

Closer... closer... and... now.

"BRAAAARGH!" Kunto barks out horribly, a high-pitched, grating noise, when he leaps from behind the low-growing tree at Mar. "BOOGAHBOOGAHBOOGAH!"

[Amara]

His heavy, rather repulsive male scent was growing stronger and stronger with each hasty step that Mar took into the lions' lands. Her nose crinkled with the effort of trailing him, and her unmarked ears pinned themselves against her skull. The female found herself wondering, as her head swayed rhythmically from side to side in a low sweeping motion, why she was following the ragged older male. Not that Kunto was old, sure, but certainly older than she. Harumph.

Then.

"HELLS TEETH!" Mar curses, shrieking as her quarry suddenly comes into view and scares all her wits right out of her. Slick ivory teeth bare in her defense, her golden hackles popping instantly, but only for a moment is she startled before she charges at him with a quick flash of teeth. Snap, snap, snap!! Mar lashes out at the air in front of her, closing the gap between the two of them that was made in her fearful retreat. "Damnit, Kun'! The hell?!" Mar flusters, angry eyes landing on the male but she is unable to hide the playful gleam behind that rage. She's not going to ask why he did that; she wouldn't get a straight answer out of him, anyway. Instead, she snorts.

"Poaching today?" stubby tail lashes twice... That could be fun.

[Kunto]

Snap, snap, snap, is it? It's just as well that Mar is biting at the air. Kunto has sprawled over onto his side, laughing hard. "AH HA HA HA! EhehehEHEHehehaha... heheh... heh..."

A final snort of giggling leaves the hyena and he rolls back to his feet. He shakes out his fur, but the dust he picked up from the fit of laughter clings to his still damp fur. No matter, he decides, and his lips draw back in a too wide grin. His smiles never did seem quite right. It's surprising that none of the others have gone far enough to knock a few of his teeth out yet!

"Poaching?" Kunto's grin turns into an over exaggerated look of dismay and he pouts. "Mar, Mar, Mar. Little Marrypoo. Amara. Dear," he tilts his head to one side, eyes narrowing a hint while watching the younger hyena. "You shouldn't be over here! I could never protect you from a lion. I am such a terrible coward, after all."

He flicks his ears back and looks thoughtful for a moment. It does cross his mind to forbid her to follow and tell her to go home, but who listens to poor Kunto! Certainly not hot-headed little females.

"Besides~," he chimes, "You'll get faaaat if you eat my meals on top of everyone else's~ eheheheh!"

[Amara]

Mar's ears flatten quickly against her skull, and though there is anger, true and hateful anger in her eyes, she doesn't out right attack the male. Kunto might be scrawny, but she's not fully grown woman, either. Instead, she settles for huffing at him, displeased at his taunting use of her name, though admittedly she shouldn't have expected any less from him.

"Stuff it, Kunie-poo." Snort. Her eyes narrow as she examines the now muddied, clinging patches of his pelt, and she issues yet another displeased noise but doesn't bother commenting. The adolescent sits herself down roughly on her haunches and scratches at her shoulder with a hind foot, letting Kunto's comment on her weight slide right off her back.

"Better to be fat than starving," she says matter-of-fact, though she makes a mental note to bite the male as hard as she can right on the most sensitive part of his hind end as soon as she gets that golden opportunity. It won't smell good, by any stretch, but it will feel terrific. For her, of course. "I wanna' see these fat lion lands, anyway."

[Kunto]

"Sorry, dear. I only take those orders from the grown ups," is Kunto's gleeful reply. He stretches his jaws in a yawn and abruptly turns, trotting off further into Mnara territory without much warning. If Mar wants to follow, he can't really stop her. He has wasted enough time playing around with the pup and any more of that was certainly not going to fill his stomach.

"Fine. Go. Look. See. Try not to die," he calls back, sounding ever so put upon. "Your mother will kill me just as well as a lion would. How terrible. Poor me, poor Kunto, always in danger. Alas, alas. Whatever shall he do?"

He mourns for himself out loud a bit longer, though the rest of it hardly makes any sense. But as the river begins to fade from sight behind him, he becomes silent. The scrawny beast stops. Listens, rounded ears set forward. He sniffs the air. Yes, yes, this is about the right spot.

There should be things living in the ground here. Holes. Burrows. Kunto puts his nose to the ground and begins skulking along. Each step is slow and deliberate, each shift of weight controlled, soundless.

[Amara]

Mar's ears splay flat against her skull, but the gesture is only noticed by Kunto's back as he is quickly off in another direction. Of course, she doesn't have the muscle to take on an adult, even one as scrawny as the male, though with a sick grin the adolescent thinks that she would put up one damn challenging fight, at the very least. That thought invades her mind for a moment or two, drowning out any more of Kunto's self pitying whine, but he cuts into her reverie a moment after.

Her grin only widens, his comment causing her twisted little sense of amusement to twine further, "Not if I kill her first," she spits out through her teeth, muttering at the fabulous back end view she's getting of the lowly little male. Pfeh. After a moment of consideration, and a wary glance across her shoulder back toward the relative safety of the river, Mar growls. Damn, she came here for some fun! Loosen up, girlie! With a shake of her pelt, and a quick scratch at her stomach with a hind leg, the adolescent is off at a brisk trot, following Kunto's incredibly obvious scent trail. Mm. Dirty male.

He's not gotten far, and as she approaches she narrows her eyes, watching the others' scavenging with an intense stare. Even if he is repulsive, she might learn a thing or two. Hm.

[Kunto]

"Not if I kill her first," Kunto mimics mockingly. That's the end of it, though. He says no more. Instead of expending more energy on tormenting the juvenile, he puts it to better use and starts tracking down a likely burrow entrance.

What he has led Mar to is a colony of ground squirrels, which she will soon find out. He picks a hole to lurk by and quietly lowers himself down to lay by it, his forepaws set on either side. The wait isn't long, not with the light from dawn finally picking up and better announcing the arrival of morning. A little brownish-gray head pops up to check the area from the hole Kunto has settled by and the last thing the poor little squirrel gets to see are a hyena's jaws snapping shot around it's head.

Kunto yanks the rodent out of the burrow entrance, bites down until he hears a little crack, and then gets up to sneak over to a different burrow hole. He'll set the first dead squirrel down next to him and then settle in to wait, hopefully to repeat the act on another curious squirrel.

It works, but only twice more before the rest of the colony wises up and keeps to the tunnels, safe and sound from the hyenas above. Kunto won't complain! Beggars cannot be so picky, and he considers three to be an excellent breakfast.

[Amara]

The girl's ears flatten briefly against her skull, and a sneer creeps across darkened lips; lips that mouth a silent and biting reply at the older male. Sure, Mar's a much stronger female, but Kunto is a much more... street-wise, older male. Both have their edges, and both know how to play with knives. Still, she watches him move away without confrontation, her eyes narrowing... much more keen on studying his movements, seeing if she can predict them or know his thoughts. Her paws bring her hesitantly forward, closer to the colony just as Kunto snaps his jaws around his first victim with a delicious crunch.

Once slicked ears spring to life on top of her head as she eyes the prize, and then splay to the sides as she returns her full attention to Kunto's hunting efforts.

Two.

Three.

Spit hangs in the corner of her mouth as she watches, and when the chittering of the colony reaches its maximum volume, and both hyenas know there will be no more victims this evening, Mar makes her move. As the male turns and heads back to his stash of two, the female makes a break for them both, gaping and hungry maw wide as she bends to snatch at least one of them away for a few quick bites.

[Kunto]

Aw bother.

Kunto should have seen this coming. The older hyena leaps forward and pins one of the two kills that Amara makes a break for under a paw. Specifically, the fatter one. He doesn't fight for the one the juvenile does manage to steal away. No, no. Let her dance away with her meager gain.

The male flops down to lay on the ground and drops the third ground squirrel from his jaws. It lands between his paws near the other dead critter crushed under his paw. Brown eyes regard Mar, lidded with boredom. What a droll look he has on his face now.

"Is that how you'll take over from your dear mother, Marmar~?" Kunto chimes, voice honey sweet. His words are punctured by the occasional giggle. "A bite here, a bite there? Then a quick retreat? Eheheheh. Looks more like you're aiming to topple me from my illustrious position. Heheheh."

[Amara]

Her back to him, Amara cannot see the look on the male's face, but she can certainly feel those eyes on her... Kunto's just... like that. But instead of letting it bother her, the young female quickly digs into the meager squirrel and devours the creature in a few bone crunching bites. There wasn't much to it, of course, but there is a juvenile sense of satisfaction in her mind that someone's meal became hers... even if it was just Kunto's.

And then he starts talking, again. Very slightly does her head tilt as she listens, though as his rather droll, idiotic prattling goes on, a mask of heated anger begins to contort her face. Her brow furrows deeply and her maw drops open to suck in a quick breath, in an instant deciding what she should to about the older male's lack of disrespect for her, the clan, and in a strange twist of logic, himself. Mar knows that Kunto is the scape goat; it's easier to blame a weakling than it is to challenge the strong, and though at times the weak seem to have their place on this plain, well, they can be the point at which an enemy destroys them.

As Mar releases her tightly held breath, it is accompanied by a great gusting growl from her chest as the air whooshes from deep within her, up her throat and through her teeth into the warming morning air around them. In that instant she turns, maw flecked with spit, and races toward the prone male. Of course there is a size different, of course there is an age difference, and with that comes the experience difference. Whatever it was in Kunto's words that possessed the girl to charge at the male, teeth bared and eyes wild, is lost on her. Her only goal now is hurting him, and coming away with something proven.

[Kunto]

It's almost like Kunto had predicted this. He's shuffled forward enough so he's laying on top the two squirrels still in his possession. As far as the fool is concerned, getting beaten up is something he gets a full meal of every day; squirrels, however, are a treat. He'd much rather defend those. So in some perverse way, Kunto stands his ground. Only without standing, mind, and not with much resistance to boot.

The older male buries his eyes under his forepaws when Amara turns about and charges, enraged, at him. Internally, he knows, there's a part of him screaming to knock the little idiot around a bit, but that little voice had always been considered insane. Knock a daughter of the current clan leader around? Tear her up a bit? Asking for trouble, that is, the rest of him decides.

He'll weather this storm. That way he'll live longer! Though in the end, he won't be able to help the grin that stretches up his muzzle and the bursts of laughter that will come up every so often between the impending whines and whimpers.

Do your worst, brat, Kunto laughs inwardly, to himself, there ain't no victory against something that won't fight back. Eheheh.

[Amara]

There is an instant, a split moment in time, for the girl to decide what to do. As she turned, there was no decision; there was only that feeling of complete and total rage for the older male that sent her whirling, spitting, her mind silently demanding his blood on her tongue. Her charge... powerful, but brief. Amara skids as she approaches, forepaws spreading to either side of Kunto's head and shoulders as he ducks from her. She's not stupid; she knows that he's not frightened of her. He certainly will be, one day.

Above him, another instant, a moment of decisiveness. It wouldn't be much of an accomplishment to come home and tell the tale of how she followed Kunto across the river and then tried to beat him up, would it? She'd get more grief for simply crossing the river. Little blame would fall on the male, unless she spun it so artfully to make the clan believe that he coerced her here for some other purpose. Instead of a snarl, a mocking little grin curls her lips and flashes her teeth at him, and rather than digging into his stinking flesh, Mar turns away.

She snorts, clicking her tongue, "Tch, come find me if you ever get a spine," and she punctuates her words with a few short kicks of her hind legs, scratching up dust and dirt and sending them toward Kunto's face. Squirrel, ala dirt. "Enjoy, weasel," Mar sends back acidly, pointing her body back in the direction of the river, paws carrying her at a stately pace toward the lands that the clan resides more safely in. The lion presence here stinks, and Kunto isn't helping much with that quality. At least with the numbers of her family, Mar can bully and push and shove and make others do what she wants, most of the time. The male that she's leaving behind, however, confuses, bothers, and ticks her off way too much for her to handle, especially alone.

[Kunto]

Well, that went better than Kunto had hoped! A new layer of dirt and dust over his fur is hardly a punishment for the often dirty matted fur he usually parades about in. One eyelid cracks open to watch Amara trot back towards the river.

"Ahaha," he laughs quietly. The scrawny male pushes himself back up off the ground and sits back on his haunches. The two saved squirrels are given a knowing grin. "When I grow a spine... heheheh. Poor girl, not a thing between those ears of hers, eh?"

No answer comes from his two dead rodents. He wrinkles his nose at them. "Holding your tongues, huh? Good idea. Well, cheers!"

Breakfast has been served.

[Akua]

OOC: That was a pretty good scene to watch. I'm not sure if it's considered 'done' or not, but I was getting that impression otherwise I would have joined.

Not that I'm saying 'continue it so I can RP!' I can always jump in the next scene, or if this continues, insert myself somewhere.

But it is/was a good one to read.

[Kunto]

(( Pretty certain we're done here. X3 But start a new scene and we'll no doubt hop in to play with you! ))