Run, Little Warrior

[Kiara]

March 20th, open to Hikaru

---

Run. Just run. Don't think about anything else -- just keep moving.

Snow crunched and squeaked beneath hurried paws as Kiara bounded her way through the pines. Beneath the trees snow hadn't accumulated as much as it did on the slopes -- it made for faster running. She could get herself worked up into a good rhythm this way before plowing through drifts, letting the resistance force her muscles to work harder. It was a decent workout, she could explain if seen, meant to temper a body she'd never trained for combat and increase her endurance.

In truth she was very much acting the child. Running let her escape her problems for a time. No one was there to look at her with expectations of leadership or failure.

(or a combination of both, even)

It was just her and the cold.

The lioness came to the edge of the treeline and leapt, throwing herself into the crest of a drift. Without a coat to protect her hide the snow came like a dull burn, frigid and numbing against her fur. Hissing through chattering teeth Kiara plunged forward. Her steps were more like swimming strokes as she navigated along the bottom edge of a ravine filled with wind-tossed snowfall.

She'd been at this for over an hour already. Each lunge was becoming more desperate now. Air was sucked as though through a straw, burning in a throat made raw by the chill. Halfway through the ravine saw Kiara struggling to move forward. Like a statue half-broken from the marble she laid with her upper body resting in the crust of the snowbank. Her back legs shuffled in the powder, pushing for purchase... Only succeeding in shoving her face farther into the snow.

Kiara had succeeded in one thing, however.

Thoughts weren't coming anymore. All she wanted to do was sleep.

[Hikaru]

Normally the forest was quiet. The snow absorbed sound, and all the creatures of the wood knew how to take advantage of it. Kiara's reckless crashes through the ice and snow may as well have been a thunder storm. It was calamitous and alerted everything near by to stay away. It wasn't hard to find her.

Hikaru moved in slow and wide steps. She had roughly made snow shoes strapped to her boots, and she needed to move with a broad stride to avoid having the frames crash against each other. It gave her steps through the snow a soft sound. A low susurrant sound. Carefully she picked her way towards the half buried lioness. She knelt, giving Kiara a quick look through.

Hikaru seemed to say something but her normally soft voice was further muffled by the thick red scarf she was wearing. A gloved hand reached up and tugged it out of the way of her mouth, and her words came out more clearly with a puff of frozen breath, "Are you alright? Can you move?"

[Kiara]

The void was peaceful. A welcome change to everything that filled waking moments with dread and grief.

In it Kiara could float endlessly, never tiring. Never hurt.

Never really living. Was it a fair trade-off? She could give up on a true life if she could trade away pain... But the burden of pain had become such a heavy thing to bear.

Rafiki might know...

A voice drifted through the lioness' consciousness and streamed about her like a distant song. Her awareness shifted towards the sound imperceptibly. Had that whisper been for her?

A dreamy groan answered Hikaru, a half-hearted 'hmm' muffled by the snow.

Just let me rest... I want to sleep.

[Hikaru]

Hikaru cocked her head slightly, as if she was trying to hear the muffled response better, or see the lioness more clearly. Then, when no further response came, she began to dig, clearing out the snow around her so that Hikaru could get to her more easily. It took her a bit to recognize Kiara. Even though the number of lions in the army had been obliterated to a mere fraction of what it once was, it was still a little bit hard for Hikaru to tell some of the lionesses apart.

Hikaru paused after she had uncovered a decent amount of Kiara's body.

"Kiara, can you hear me? Say something," Hikaru smoothed some more snow from Kiara's face, her eyes searching the lionesses face for sign of acknowledgement.

How long had she been here? It couldn't have been more than an hour or so, but even that would still be dangerous. Hikaru couldn't risk that. IF Kiara was asleep she was most likely in dangerous territory. Hikaru nodded to herself, decision made, and then shifted arranging solid footing beneath her. She was going to need it. Hikaru took on of Kiara's large, in comparison to a human's, arms and slung it over her own shoulder. Hikaru hefted up the other arm, and with Kiara lying slumped over her back Hikaru took a deep and steadying breath. Using her legs to push herself to standing, she lifted the upper half of Kiara's body, testing her weight.

Hikaru grunted quietly in exertion.

"Wake up, Kiara," Hikaru gasped as she stepped forward in a slow trudge...

[Kiara]

Cocooned in her mind Kiara found herself slipping to a memory faded with time. Her limbs felt short and awkward as she tried to toddle about on her stomach the best she could, dragging towards a warmth she could sense just beyond her blind eyes. A warm tongue smoothed back her furred face, bathing her in a sweet scent tinged with spice. The cub rattled a weak purr and rolled to her back, reaching up with clumsy paws towards the presence she knew only as the center of her entire world.

Her life-giver. Her shield and sustenance. Mom.

Slipping between past and present Kiara was barely aware of being lifted. A voice repeating her name slipped through more easily, making the confused lioness sigh out in slumping relief. With her body slung over Hikaru's Kiara's muzzle rested quite close to her ear, making the weak murmur just audible enough for the words to be understood.

"_{Mom...? You came back...}"

[Hikaru]

"Mom...? You came back..."

The young lioness called for her mother. Hikaru grunted quietly as she shifted Kiara's weight on her back. Of course she missed her mother. The politics of this war be damned, she was still a child that lost her mother. Hikaru understood... she still missed her father at times. He may have been harsh, and strict. He may have beaten her and put her through a difficult life of combat. But he had been her father one and the same. No matter what Nala did, she'd always be Kiara's mother.

"No, Kiara... It's Hikaru," Hikaru's breath puffed heavily, "You need to wake up..."

There was no way in hell Hikaru would be able to take Kiara back to camp. Hikaru was strong, but she wasn't that strong. Nor did she had the stamina. No, her best hope would be to take Kiara to a more sheltered area, and try to warm her up with a fire. So Hikaru dragged the lion closer towards a rocky wall where she could brace the two of them against it. Then she could set about a fire to warm up Kiara.

"Kiara, wake up..."

[Kiara]

Only dimly was Kiara aware that she was being shifted, her body settling with a gentle crunch in the snow against the press of a cliff wall. Consciousness flickered in and out -- but gradually as flint hit stone and sparks rose the little lioness' gaze sharpened enough to return to the present. To the cold and the solitude and the harsh reality that she was well and truly an orphan.

Sorrow was too painful a shard in her chest to confront directly. Kiara turned instead to its warmer sibling; bitter rage. It was easier to be angry than to be hurt -- and Kiara had many reasons to feel both. Tears pricked at her eyes with a sharp chill as she attempted to curl her sore and shivering body, forelimbs hugging each other. She recognized the name of the human, though she couldn't see their form as clearly wrapped in scores of fabric.

"Y- y ou. You were J- jasper's... Accomplice." Kiara's jaws chattered together as she spoke, giving a sharp stutter to her words. "Why help m-me?"

[Hikaru]

Hikaru shifted the woods of the fire to optimize the heat and efficiency of the burn. This would be enough to ensure Kiara would be warmed up enough. She didn't look up from the task as Kiara asked her shivering question. 

"I don't see how the two are connected..." Hikaru's response was simple and quiet. What does being Jasper's accomplice have to do with finding a person freezing out in the snow and helping them?? Yes, she had known of Jasper's sin. And in her mind, that made her an accomplice by not telling the truth to the other warriors.

But none of this had anything to do with the fact that Kiara would have frozen to death out in that bleak snow.

Satisfied with the flames Hikaru settled back on ground that had been scraped away with as much snow as possible. She wanted to avoid having snow and slush soak into the seat of her pants if possible. No matter how weather resistant, the damp always found a way. 

"Can you feel your fingers... Ah. Hm..." she paused, then looked downward in thought before looking back at Kiara and corrected herself, "Paws... Can you feel your paws??"

In the case of hypothermia, the extremities were the first to go. Especially when in direct contact with the snow, as the pads of Kiara's paws had been.

[Kiara]

Kiara's stare was perhaps as cold and empty as her paws themselves felt, fixated as it was on Hikaru. Did her ire make sense? No. Was her grip upon it relinquished? Certainly not. She was a child seeking an outlet for her pain -- and Hikaru, who for all she knew had helped kill her father, was right in front of her.

Grumbling a little sigh the lioness attempted to flex her paws one by one. Numbed by the cold they were halting and twitched in movement a bit, but refused to immediately close as she had intended. Kiara tried to pretend that didn't perturb her, though her brows twitched together. "... Little bit."