Summer, Darky & I

[Shadowcat]

It wasn't often that this particular pair went out during the day, nor was it very often that they made time to venture out together every now and then. Noctem, the more soft-hearted of the two Nocturne Malii, had managed to convince her significant other, Minuit, out for a day outside today. Luring the dark male outside during a hot and sunny day such as this was never and easy task, but something told her that he enjoyed it...deep down, anyway.
"So darling, are you enjoying yourself yet?" the female murmured, a slight grin on her face as Minuit gave her a (very fake) glare.

"Oh, not even in the slightest!" Minuit replied with much sarcasm, "I couldn't imagine a more dreadful day to be out...actually, if you're really that curious...yes I will admit that it is a lovely day out, and yes. I am enjoying myself." he added in a lighter tone. Well, even if the sunlight was too bright for Minuit's taste, he had to admit that spending time with his mate was always a good time. Along with that, the scenery of this particular are was simply gorgeous. The grass was thick and plush, with a variety of wildflowers growing here and there, and the trees and shrubs that populated the area were growing with strange and aromatic smelling fruits and flowers that were a treat for both scent and sight.

[Darky]

Two pairs of ears flatted out against the fist-sized heads, one of which emitted a flash of a gleam from the round glasses on either side of the top of the head. Squinted, focused eyes observed their cornered target from behind an old man-made bench and a tall patch of grass. Two tails swished in desynchronization, claws of bird-kike feet digging into the earth as the wings were slightly unfolded to either's side.

"The wretched magi are cornered, warrior," one spoke low, grinding the beak halves against one another as the fleshy corner of the mouth twitched.

"Understood, councelor," the other answered situating himself ready for a pounce. "It has taken us years to finally flush them out of their Towers, beyond the protection of their living metal! Now's our chance for revenge.." and the un-goggled one sprung up from their hiding place, shrieking mightily, "For the Griffin Empire!"

The other quickly joined with, "For Haven!" before the two cat-sized gallor rushed over the hiding defenses, dashed across the small grassland beyond and both with all due grace of a gallor or any feline, leapt and tackled the clawed up log in the middle with a powerful growl. The log held no resistance, toppling over like dead weight and remaining sprawled, motionless.

Magus, adjusting the goggles, puffed out his chest, standing over their fallen 'enemy', chittering proudly, "All hail the Griffins, for we have the victory today!" to which Validus kicked up to his hind quarters, front feet flailing in the air, "Hail! Hail!" laughing all the while.

Ah, grown yet not entirely..

[Shadowcat]

"Well that's good, I was begining to think it was a waste of time trying to spend some quality time with you, after all it's not like we see much of the day world." Noctem murmured contently, blinking up at the sunny sky. She admitted that when she first ventured out today it had almost seemed too bright, but now that her nocturnal eyes were used to the sunlight it was much more pleasureable. The heat also felt wonderful on her wings, which were folded warmly at her sides.

"Oh, nothing is a waste of time!" Minuit started, stopping for a moment and tilting his head curiously at Noctem's responce, "it would have merely been...an unfit use for it." he fininished with laughter. Making subtle acts of wordplay was one of this couple's favorite things to do. For a moment, Minuit thought he'd heard the unmistakable sound of laughter (that was clearly not his own) but assumed it was just his head, that was untill Noctem asked him if he'd heard the sound as well.
"I thought I was just imagining it, but obviously it was another being's laugh..." Minuit mused, both he and Noctem turning their heads around to see where the sound had come from, or who had made it.
"Minuit, look!" Noctem murmured, her voice sounding very amused as she nodded her head to the distance. Two large green...birds? Cats? Bird-cats? Were romping in the field playfully. One of the two had something tantalizingly shiny on it's head, which seemed to have captured both of the Malii.
"It looks like their having quite the time, eh?"" Noctem murmured, glancing at her mate.
"Indeed...should we perhaps, see what all the fun is about?" Minuit suggested in responce, a sly grin on his face.
"I think that's in order." Noctem finished, smiling as she stood up and re-folded her wings before bounding off towards the bird-cats.
"Hey wait up!" Minuit called after her as he followed.

[Darky]

"I believe a celebration is in order," Magus romped about the fallen log, tail high and wings unfolded to the side, prideful in all aspects of his being. The posh voice continued, as he glanced over to his brother, "Tonight, we feast in honour of our kings!"

Validus paused in his own romp, let the thoughtful silence settle in for a moment and quirked up, "You mean in honour of Crathe?"

"No!" the cheeky frowned, stopping as his head swayed back, "That no-good orange-brown fluff with no-see-wings?" A snort of discontent, "We might just as well honour an amphadron while at it! No.. I meant Letitia."

Again Validus' mind seemed to peck away at the response, and eventually he sat down, looking somewhat lost on track, "Wouldn't she be more of a Queen, tho?" Magus shook his head, heaved a sigh and approached his brother, "She's the King and Queen, see? She ain' got a mate, so there's no King, and there has to be a King, so she's both, got it?"

"..Oooh!" revelation dawned on the cheeky like a slow, murky sunrise. Validus was not slow by nature nor was he particularly thick, it was simply that Magus had learned of these concepts rather freshly and the gallor had a problem trying to accommodate them with more animalistic terms. Thus far, a King and Queen = leaders of packs. Only.. you know, different.

[Shadowcat]

The two Malii had their ears pointed with intrest at the bid-cat's conversation. They were speaking of...kings and quees? Or a being that was both a king and a queen? How bizzare.
"I wonder if they're soldiers..." Noctem murmured, glancing over at Minuit, her head cocked to the side. He was about to give her remark a chuckle but quickly wiped the grin on his face, relizing she was saying that genuinely. Noctem had a very vivid imagination that sometimes interfered with reality. But...what if she was right? What if there was a real King, and the two bird-cats were the king's soldiers?

"Well, let's ask them, then!" Minuit chirped, trotting ahead of his mate to the bird-cats. "Excuse me...are you two soldiers?" he said, stopping about ten feet away from the two of them. If they really were soldiers...then what if this expance of land was under their kings jurestiction? What if he and Noctem were trespassers? Minuit certainly didn't want to spoil this day by fighting, so at least if the two 'soldiers' did attack...they could try and run (or possibly...fly?) away. The two creatures didn't seem particularily harmful, with their bright colors and smaller frames, but Minuit was fairly sure they could be nasty fighters if provoked. Since he'd never seen anything like these things before, it was best to take only the highest level of caution.

[Darky]

Hopping onto the log, the goggle-adorned struck a mighty pose (or as mighty as it got with something that was two of the three base colours and one of the three secondary colours while the size of a house cat), chest puffed, "And for our loyalty she would no doubt reward us greatly!"

A padding of more feet and a vague snap of an old twig and there was a surprised chirp, two vague blurs of blue-ish green and the cheekies were gone from sight. Near by, the bushes shed a few leaves in their wake as frightful emerald pairs of eyes peeked out between them.

"What in the world are those!" Magus whispered to his brother, the whisper more than audible despite his intentions, and was only met with a confused face on Validus' part.

"I dunno.. Ambassadors?" he offered absent-mindedly. The fact that their 'tactical retreat' wasn't part of the game any longer didn't reach his reasoning.. It was either this or the large malii not appearing nearly as imposing as they had to the other one. Before Magus managed a reply, he happily chirped, "I'll go ask!" and hopped out of the bush.

With an almost royal air, Validus lightly trotted towards Noctem and Minuit, stopping several feet short and fixed on a distinctly overly acted expression of seriousness, "Greetings, lions from the neighbouring kingdoms!" In the bush, Magus silently hid his face, unable to watch should things get worse. "What manner of state business brings you about to our lands?"

[Shadowcat]

Both of the Malii stopped briefly, ears flattening as though they'd done something wrong. They'd never meant to intrude or offend the two bird-cats. Soon, one of the two creatures came out from their hiding place and puffed out his chest in a commanding manner, asking what their buisness was at this place.
"See Min, they really must be from a kingdom or something!" Noctem whispered excitedly to her mate. She invisioned many other creatures like them, soaring high around a large foretress of some sort. Inside the highest tower was a large golden creature like them, who clearly was the King. Next to him, she imagined a dark purple female (slightly smaller, of course) with silver flecks on her wings that gave her an air of royalty as well. But as with most of Noctem's visions, this one probably was just in her imagination and nothing more.

What kingdom were they from...? Lions??

"Um...er...well..." Minuit started, at a complete loss of what to say.
"We're from the Sky Kingdom!!" Noctem blurted out excitedly, unfolding her wings in the typical show-off fashion. "And we just came here for a little stroll, that's all." she added with a sincere grin. To be honest, she hadn't even dreamed of running into anybody out here. It was a fairly secluded place that they'd been visiting for small outings like this, but it shouldn't be a surprise that others knew about it too. After all, they didn't own this land.
"And we're Malii, not lions." Minuit added as-a-matter-of-factly. He cocked his head to the side looking at the bird-cat again. "And what exactly are you, bird-cat?" he asked curiously, Noctem probably just as anxious as he for their reply.

[Darky]

"Malii?" the fleshy top of Validus' beak twitched. Yet another term he had not head in use before, though was certain that somewhere in the roots of his brain, it fit a previously heard word in passing. In any case, the question was redundant as it was obvious 'malii' were both of them, there, standing right in front of him.

"Well, I'll have ya know I am a gallor!" he rose his head, perhaps only managing to reach to the shoulder of these two dark ones, and added following some thought, "From the Griffin Haven kingdom!" A rustle of bushes and the brother hopped out in a mad dash to the other one's side, fur and feathers bristled and the goggles down. The wings were unfolded in a last ditch attempt in appearing larger.

Magus only managed to look more child-like.

"Careful, Validus!" he warned, tail lashing, and added in a side-winded whisper, "It's not a game anymore..!"

"Well they seem eager to play along," the cheeky looked confusedly at his brother. "They seem safe enough.." a turn to both malii and a smirk, "Right?" There was a fair amount of optimism in that statement, true enough, seeing as harmless as Noctem came off appearing, their actual appearance was something quite frightening to see on a moonlit night, for example. They could easily have gobbled both of them up without a trance and no-one would know.

Which was why Magus was so on edge about these.. strangers..

[Shadowcat]

Minuit cocked his head to the side in a confused fashion, not sure why the second bird-ca, er, Gallor, was still wary of them.
"Oh no, we don't like to get in fights. The closed thing to a fight we get into is making a fuss if we can't eat when we want." Noctem snickered. "...Is that guy in the bushes okay? He looks like we might have gave him quite a scare." Noctem murmured, beating Minuit to asking.
"I know we don't look like normal Malii, so I suppose it's only natural for him to be wary...but really now, we don't like bird to eat anyway." Minuit chimed with a sly grin. "We prefer fish, actually." he added, tails swaying in unison. He was clearly amused by Magus, who wasn't showing any signs of trusting Noctem or himself.

"Griffin Haven, huh?" Noctem mused, sitting down and blinking, clearly interested in Validus' musings. "We're from...well, a kennel..." she said, starting off confidently before flattening her ears in embarassment, relizing that she or her mate didn't belong to any special force. "I bet that's really neat, being part of a kingdom and all." she spoke up again, regaining her former intrest. Minuit couldn't help but roll his eyes (which was something a thing like him could do without offending others, not having visible pupils and all) and sigh at Noctem's amusement. Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was faking, or truely believing things like what the Gallor had spoke of.

[Darky]

What little mane Magus had, was ruffled up to it's fullest roots and, in an attempt to improve the look further, his neck was winded closer to the shoulders. In effect, he wasn't far off from looking like a very colourful, very cold little owl baby.. with a scowl. The gesture perhaps unnecessary after the malii had made their pledge of coming in peace, but up until he had solid reason to believe this, it wasn't up for debate.

..Except in Validus' mind.

The cheeky non-goggled brother looked odd at his sibling, then back to the other two, tail idly moving at the tip, "Well.. we ain't really from there. We just sometimes pretend we are, makes being outside a whole lot more fun, ya see?" Of course, they probably already knew that (or one half of their present part of two did, anyway), though it never hurt to set facts straight.

"When we ain't playing, we're in the place some folks call a.. um.. erm.." a frown formed as he strained his mind to recall the term. A tat-lung had explained this several times already, but each and every time it was difficult to recall.

"Hideout.." Magus peeped in a grunt from the puffball of a feather collar he was wearing. At times his brother really did manage to make him wonder, if not for some less than subtle facts such as Validus' ability to ram through anything in his way, whether successfully or not.

"Right! Hideout! That's the word," the cheeky chittered happily on the remembrance.

[Shadowcat]

Minuit couldn't help but wonder how much of his body was actually...well, body. It was like he was almost entirely made out of feathers by how fluffy he looked at the moment.
Thank goodness they were just playing around...maybe now Noc will return from la-la land. Minuit thought, amused. Noctem didn't seem the slightest bit crushed about the Gallor's bit of fun being a game though, in fact, she seemed just as (if not more) intrested then before. She was quite the chatterbox when she could meet new "friends."

"Oh, really?" she said, "Our home is called Anomaly. Dunno why, apparently it used to be something else before we started living there, but it's a nice place way."

Hideout was also a fairly intresting name for a kennel...owners were so strange about these things. "So, is your home a place for things to hide then?"

Minuit couldn't help but ask the Gallor. Well, Anomaly...meant...ah, what did it mean? It was a very strange word that he rarely heard except when people talked about the kennel. "I think our kennel means weird or odd or something...which would make sense since there's alot of really different things there, like us for instance." Minuit murmured, turning his head to glance at his wings again. Sure, they were diffrent, but any other Malii couldn't expirience the true gift of flight after all. Noctem and he actually had to move their wings when they flew, opposed to just floating around like some little bug.

[Darky]

Strain your retinas well enough and one could almost see the thought processes in both gallors' mind idly and very methodically spelling out this new odd word, more than likely going something along the lines of: a.. no.. ma..ly?

A bit more further thinking and one very simple word could obtain a whole volley of different meaning to it, starting from 'a no', to indicate something shouldn't be, and ending with all manner of possible interpretations to 'maly'. The identical siblings weren't in the least dim-witted, despite their creativity often getting the better of their common sense, and the almost eerily thoughtful silence that followed the malii's words proved this perfectly.

The saving grace was a follow-up question that made Magus quietly and slowly unfold from his poof-state and Validus to first tilt his head and then laugh heartily, "Oh no! It's just a name, 'cause you gotta call it something, don't ya? I'm sure 'a-no-m'ly' is only meant as indication of a place as well and it isn't what the word means." The fact that almost none of the four present seemed to have any idea what that meaning actually was, was a topic he carefully and fluidly swooped over of.

"It's a name place," Magus now finally spoke up directly, goggled risen to the top of his forehead. "Just like I'm sure the two of you have being names, no-one goes around calling you 'strange malii' or 'dark malii', now don't they.."
It was still a question. One, perhaps, served with a certain degree of cautious and not a whole lot of politeness, but one still.