Ice Heart

Kuubi's paws made a soft sound against the earth as her muscles rippled to propel herself at a speed fast enough to keep up with her imaginary prey. She suddenly flipped her weight, startling the animal and her paws lashed out, claws drawn as she sunk them deep into the imaginary zebra. It let out a cry of agony that refused to pierce the ice which had begun to form around Kuubi's heart in the years of agonising memories of her sister and how she'd abandoned her. She grit her teeth as she thought about it, and now her imaginary slashes into the animal became violent, until she was ripping up the earth as she pretended to destroy it. The cries of pain that rang inside her head brought on a wave of grief as she pictured her sister, alone, being clawed at by her cruel, bastard parents. She'd roared in outrage at the images in her head and stopped her wild slashing at the earth, muscles tensed, body heaving with deep breaths as her eyes narrowed in anger, a fire burning whilst her ears lay flat against her head. Kuubi was normally a very reserved, but kind and calm lion, however she'd found herself becoming bitter.

The hunting lessons had at first, been a welcome relief to the nightmares that haunted her whilst she tried to sleep, and the daydreams that tortured her mind and drove her near insanity. When Ni and his son had first found them, she'd been relieved. A home, a family, a fresh start, she'd even hoped for all of that. She'd been a foolish, young cub to believe that she could find happiness. Instead, as she grew she began to dwell on the past even more to the point that staring into the muddy waters and seeing her reflection made her sick. The hunting lessons had turned gruesome, had made her have more violent daydreams. At first, a distraction to the pain, now they only re-enforced the daydreams and made them worse. Whilst herself and the others trained, they had slowly distanced themselves from the others of their once very close little group.

And yet, she still felt the need to completely become dis-attached. Whilst they spent every free moment with one another, she would wander off to here as she always did, where she neared the Coldlands. The icy waters helped numb her from the pain, and she supposed that was the closest she would get to being happy without the company of her childhood companions. But she refused to let them see her like this, see the bitter, angry monster she had become all because as a cub she'd fled in fear and left her sister behind. She had been a selfish, horrible cub and she felt a deep self-loathing building up as each day went by. And then, Kuubi was off once more, flying across the earth as fast as she could push herself, ears flat against her head. She didn't stop as she reached the waters, but rather went crashing into them and was slowed by the water itself. The ice lapped up at her and soon she felt numb from everything once more. She sighed and felt her body shiver, but did not move out of the lake. She would rather die from the cold than have to feel the pain.

Kiasi had been glad the day that he and his father had found the group of cubs on their own, most of them were younger than he was or his age while their leader had been a little bit older than himself at the time. He couldn't say he was fond of Maliki, the lion had a stick up his butt and he was always so darn quiet and boring but at the same time Kiasi found he knew things about being a leader and he had sought him out a few times for conversation. The two were usually tense with each other but they at least were civil. As for the rest of the group Maliki hadn't gotten to really spend much time with them, they were usually busy or with one another, it was weird...like they had their own little Pride inside of the Pride or something.

Ni had reassured him that they were just adjusting but Kiasi often found himself wondering if he should say something, make them feel more welcome, they'd have plenty of time to adjust hadn't they? In the end he'd kept his nose out of their business openly, preferring to just keep a wary eye on them, especially the males just in case they got any ideas but so far they seemed peaceable. The girls were...something else, some of them were pretty, he knew that girls were pretty now. Where he had thought them gross in the past he now saw cuteness, or beauty and grace but he didn't dare say anything. He wasn't a ladies man to say the least but he didn't really have experience with girls either, probably because of his lack of them as a cub.

When he'd spotted the one called Kuubi heading out on her own he'd decided it was time to follow her, she'd looked upset, he'd noticed it for a while but today was just particularly bad. He'd followed her as quietly as possible until she'd started flat out sprinting and startled him, he pushed himself fast across the Earth and reached the edge of the lake just as she crashed into it and swam strongly for the middle. Was she crazy?! Ice lapped at her head and he wondered if she might just sink, she looked like she wanted to and he knew he had to make his presence known before she decided to just stop struggling. "You know you could have just rolled in the snow to cool off, getting soaked seems kind of stupid" he called out and mentally winced, girls probably didn't like being called stupid but maybe it'd egg her out of the water.

He raised a brow at her and strutted slightly around the bank, maybe goading would work, if she thought she looked silly then naturally she would stop...or so he thought. He would have done it so why not her? Not exactly tactful was he?

Kuubi had never tried to make it obvious to the others in her little renegade Pride that she was not happy, that she was being tortured by the past. She had been quite happy around them, but as the months wore on she found herself slowly drifting away from them and becoming more of a loner than she had ever thought she might be. The Shadowlanders had made them all welcome, but still they tended to spend most of their time in a tight knit group. She hadn't really spoken to any of the Shadowlanders save for Makosa, who had accidentally ran into her whilst frolicking around as a cub. They'd had a short conversation where he'd enquired about her, and she'd responded with all politeness before she then avoided him at all costs. She wasn't one to come across as depressed, but it would be obvious to any who saw her now that something was bothering her. Even when she wasn't trying to drown herself in icy water, she had always been far less friendly than the others and kept to herself most of the time.

Kuubi had been unaware of a presence as she'd thrust herself at a quick speed across the Earth. She had heard the soft padding of something behind her, but presumed it was just her own paws and she was becoming paranoid. She didn't even see Kiasi as she rushed into the water, though to her credit she hadn't looked behind her. She often stood in the ice cold water, hoping to freeze to death but it wouldn't take long before the cold would become too much and she'd go off to curl up in a ball and warm up once more. It was a wonder she wasn't sick from how cold she allowed herself to get, but she supposed that basically raising yourself made you far more tolerant to un-pleasant situations. That, and her childhood hadn't been one of ease and peace, full of love and joy before some tragic accident took her parents away. Oh, how Kuubi wished.

Kuubi shut her eyes and was about to plunge under the water, prepared to stay under there as long as she could to feel the pain, to know the agony her sister was probably going through right now - if she wasn't dead - when she heard a familiar voice and she whipped around. Spying Kiasi, she growled in anger and dragged herself out of the water, shaking it off as she emerged from the lake. She sat back and frowned at him. "I think it's kind of stupid to use such a rude adjective to describe a lion when you don't even understand the reason behind their motives, wouldn't you agree?" She responded, though her voice did not drip with the irritation that she hoped it would. She dare not speak to a Prince in such a condescending manner, and so her tone was one of stiffness. She looked back over at the water for one last, lingering look before she sighed.

"Do you require something from me, Kiasi?" She asked, forcing politeness into her voice. She ought to treat him with respect as he had accepted her into his homelands, but she was still upset at being called 'stupid'. Mostly because it was the truth, she was a stupid and selfish lioness who had abandoned her sister for her own safety. Though his strut was pissing her off a little and it was hard not to snap at him or swipe him across the head with her paw.

The female lioness wasn't happy to see him if her growl was anything to go by, her growl was low but he still heard it. It didn't scare him off and instead he stopped his pacing around the water and came to stand close to where she emerged, he did't bother to dodge the flying droplets of cold water when she shook them off and instead enjoyed the coolness of them. She was frowning at him when she sat down but he only smirked lightly and sat on his own haunches, it was rare he got to meet someone who didn't treat him nice all because they had to, not that he always minded but it did get boring. He couldn't even barely get any of the other males to rough house with him, he had to get his dad to do it or Makosa if he wanted to play anymore.

He shrugged at her comment, "I think it was the right word, doesn't matter why you were in there, unless you were fishing whatever you were trying to do was probably silly" he said nonchalantly. There were only three possibilities for what he'd been doing in there, cooling off, fishing, or trying to freeze to death and all of those sounded stupid to him. She was acting tough now so whatever was bothering her shouldn't have been getting the better of her and he would impress that on her vehemently if she were ever yo share her problems. He wasn't extremely wise but he believed that you had to be strong and that meant taking your lickings sometimes and moving on, even if that was emotionally.

She was being polite again, if stiffly so, and he frowned to himself he hated this whole politeness thing. He stood and circled her for a moment before sitting himself close to the water, "I followed you, you looked upset and I figured it'd be a good idea to keep an eye on you when I saw you heading for the Coldlands, you never know what could happen up there. And besides a good King always watches what his subjects are doing, and I'm going to be just as good a King as my father so I might as well start looking after you all now" it was a longer explanation than she had probably asked for but it as the truth. Kiasi had never been the one to hide his intentions, he was honest and that was just who he was, the only time he had ever lied was over petty things but when it came to others he couldn't find himself lying about his own thoughts and intentions.

"So are you going to tell me why you were trying to freeze to death or do I have to keep following you around and interrupting you every time you try?" he asked flatly and fixed his burning orange gaze on her. Tactless as always but he had good intentions and he wasn't about to let a lioness hurt herself over some kind of silly issue if that was what it was, especially not one of the ones his father had worked so hard to find and bring back to them.

Kuubi didn't want some stupid Prince to approach her and act like a smarmy bastard. She growled angrily at him, wishing he would just leave her to her self-pitying thoughts. She was certainly not in the mood to share her innermost secrets that not even her closest friends, the Renegade cubs as they named themselves, would ever know about if Kuubi could control herself. She opened her mouth to snap at him something that was rude and offensive before she shut it once more and sucked in a deep, long breath, hoping the air running through her nostrils and into her lungs would soothe her. It didn't soothe her completely, but it certainly helped calm the angry lioness down to the point that she didn't glare at him as if he were the last person she'd ever want to talk to on the earth. That was not at all true, but she didn't really want to talk to any at that moment.

Silly?! SILLY?! She wanted to shriek at him that she was not being silly, she was upset and she had good reason to be! She wanted to yell at him, ask him if he knew the pain she'd been through, if he knew what it was like to have abandoned your sister when they needed you most, if he knew what it felt like to see their best friend in the entire world lying on the ground with claw marks all over their body as fat tears rolled down their cheeks and mixed with the blood upon their fur. She was not being silly, and she could feel herself becoming angrier and angrier. She'd never gotten so angry at someone before, but Kiasi seemed to be able to rile her up with just one word. And that goddamn smirk drove her insane with irritation.

"Silly and stupid? Wow, aren't you a charmer young Prince, I can see all of the females just swooning over you and your lovely way of describing those that you know absolutely nothing about and will never know anything about." She snapped at him, turning her back away as she shook out her fur and stared at her reflection in the water. Luckily for her, the dirt only coated her paws and a few bits were stuck on the back of her neck but she could not see them. Slowly, she turned her body back to face Kiasi and sat down, sucking in another deep breath that calmed her burning rage once more. She didn't want to get so angry but when she was called silly and stupid by a Prince who was probably full of himself for his title, she did start to get angry. She found herself trying to be politer though because treating someone who had accepted her into his Pride so willingly - even if it had mostly been his father's decision - with venom was rude.

She sneered at Kiasi, all politeness gone. She didn't need to be looked after, she was quite capable of taking care of herself! Well, that wasn't exactly true considering her intention to freeze to death, but regardless. "I can take care of myself oh high and mighty King," she grumbled un-happily. She had to hold back a snort of laughter. "You're trying to be a good King like your father? You're doing a brilliant job aren't you, I don't see the King called me stupid or silly." She retorted, venom laced in her tone as she bared her teeth at him. With a slight roll of her eyes, Kuubi smirked at him with a smirk that was not unlike the one he had previously been wearing. "Actually, I don't really want to tell you of all people. If you wanted to know you could've asked nicely, but even then I probably wouldn't've told you." Her tone was softer, not filled with so much anger as she stared at him with clear annoyance on her features. "Any other names you'd like to call me? Because hurry up with it, I have better things to do than sit here all day."

He was really messing up, that or this lioness was normally abrasive but from what he knew of her she wasn't. He comment about lionesses swooning over him had him making a disgusted face, lionesses swooning over him wasn't something he yet completely desired. They were nice to look at but really if they all were like this, riled at a few mischosen words, then he was in no way ready to take any kind of mate in his life. These were of course the silly musings of a teenager, he in no way understood the opposite sex or how to speak to them, later he might realize what a jerk he'd been in his youth but that was the folly of youth wasn't it. Ignorance. He huffed silently, contemplating if he should bother answer that but decided to gloss over it, he didn't need to dignify it with an answer and merely shrugged instead.

Her sneer didn't particularly hurt his pride but her snide tone and jab at his ego did and he bared his own teeth in anger, he bit his tongue and let her continue. The thing that burned him most was that she was right, his father would have handled this much better than he was now but he had no idea what to say. Ni was always busy with his duties, or the smallest additions to their family, not that Kiasi was bitter over it but it did cut down on his time with his father. He growled himself finally, petulantly, and stared over at the girl with orange eyes burning with his own annoyed fire now. This was one female he knew he was definitely not going to like, but he need to at least appear to be the bigger lion by making his apologies for his name calling. He grit his teeth and turned his head from her, staring at nothing in particular, as long as it wasn't her smug face.

"I'm sorry all right, I didn't mean to call you names, ok?" he snapped it through a clenched jaw before glancing at her furtively from the corner of his eyes. His eyes jumped away again and he made a disgusted grumble, he hated apologizing so much, besides he'd been trying to help her out. So what he's said a few less than polite words, she was being impolite too just in a different way! He couldn't help himself when she said she had better things to do though and he glanced at her with a raised brow and a slightly sarcastic expression, "Like what, more swimming in freezing lakes?" well there went some of the effect of his apology but at least he'd made the effort. And he hadn't called her a name. This time.