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 Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:20 pm
From AIM with Felyn-
Dinaledi looked out over the new homeland in amazement. Anywhere was better than their home, which was full of oppression. He left many horrible memories back there, including the death of his parents. This was a new start, a new place where he could become the person he wanted to become within the pride. There wasn't a day he didn't think about his parents, even though he was only a juve when they died the loss still effected him greatly.
He took in a deep breath and walked into the heart of the new area. He found a nice patch of grass to settle in, and began resting on the ground. He was bored since he wasn't able to find any of the members of the group he was traveling with. His eyes scanned the grounds looking for possibly someone new to meet since he had heard news of new members already joining the pride.
Malkia sighed softly as she broke free of the den, glad to fill her lungs with fresh air for once. It'd been a few days since she had been allowed the freedom of walking about the pride - not since the cubs were born, at least. Now that Mwezi had offered to watch them for a little while and allow her a walk, she was taking full of advantage of it.
She began to walk along a path when she felt a smaller figure bump into her legs. Little Fafnir, the male of her twins, and as brave and curious a cub as there came. It wasn't often he seperated from his sister, but she supposed he didn't feel comfortable with mommy leaving.
"Momma, where are you going?" he asked with a bit of a frown, coiling himself around one front leg. He didn't look pleased that she was leaving, and his eyes kept shifting back to the den where his twin slumbered.
"For a walk," she said softly, leaning down to nuzzle softly against the fluff of his head. "Do you want to come along?" at his nod, she simply began to walk, though careful of the cub that insisted on trotting almost on top of her own feet. It was then that she spotted the other out of the corner of her eyes, a smile turning in his direction. "Hello there," came the greeting with a dip of the head. They belonged to the pride now, which meant they needed to meet some of the members.
Dinaledi stood up and nodded his head, "Hello, I'm Tsebo'Dinaledi, apprentice to become a historian priest." He smiled at the lioness and noticed the young cub with her. Crouching down to get to the cub's level, he watched in amazement. Cubs seemed like such a foreign thing for so long, because he was pretty sure not many made it through the war, and there weren't any travelling to find the new homeland. The two had differing colors in their coats, but there was a resembelance in some of the markings. "I assume he's yours? The cub that is. His markings are interesting, especially those wings." After examining the exterior of the cub, he put his paw out and patted the cub's head with it.
"It's nice to meet you, Tsebo'Dinaledi," she said with a brief smile. She was the two kinder of the diplomatic lions that had joined the pride, though Mwezi wasn't exaclty unkind precisely. Just.. self-involved, she should say. "My name is Malkia, a lady of the pride, though newly come." As his attention shifted to the darker furball beneath her feet, she smiled, "Yes, he and seven others. His name is Fafnir." She was proud to show off the little cub, for she'd not had the chance to thus far. They weren't too old and Fafnir was truly the first to leave the den.
Fafnir himself grimaced at the pat, shuffling back a bit to stand beneath his mother. The first trip was a little intimidating and without his twin there, well, he certainly wasn't going to be trying to make many friends.
She couldn't help but laugh softly at him, moving to stroke a comforting paw across Fafnir's cheeks. At mention of his markings, however, she nodded and turned her attention back to the male. "A lot of my cubs inherited some form of wing marking, though my mate and I are not quite sure from whom."
Dinaledi grinned at the young cub, but was shocked to hear how many siblings he had. "Eight!? Wow." He took it all in for a moment. Eight precious, young lives that were now a part of the pride. One day they would grow into maturity and hold a job, and maybe even start a family of their own. Those eight cubs were a bigger part of the pride than they probably knew. They held so much potential to help the pride grow and develop into something that it once was. "Oh, it's nice to meet another high ranking member of the pride. I'm high class myself, you know." He didn't know exactly why he added the last bit to what he said. He guessed it was probably habit from his father's constant ingraining of how special it was that he was born into the high class. "That's very interesting about the wings. I really haven't seen it before, I'm sure it means there's something special about them."
She laughed at his surprise over the number of cubs, though she was quite used to it by now. Everyone that had come by to see them had reacted in much the same manner. She, herself, had been quite surprised afterwards to boot. "Yes, eight. We've got our paws full with them. This one, actually, has a perfectly identical twin sister." She smiled down upon Fafnir affectionately, and he beamed at the mention of Uruloki.
She knew, in a way, what her cubs meant to the pride. They had suffered a loss of numbers from the misfortunes in the past, and eight cubs meant a lot. Not only were they the next generation, but they too would grow up to have families, more cubs. They were important to the continuation and the fact that there was so many was quite promising. Perhaps it had been some form of fate that had led she and Mwezi to these lands that night.
"Are you?" she said with a smile, careful not to seem too amused with him. It was cute, in a way, that he felt the need to tell her so, but she simply passed it off as the fancies of a young male. Of course, she also had listened to Mwezi brag about their class before - so it was truly nothing new. "I'm sure it does," she said finally, looking down upon Fafnir to stare at his wings, "moons and wings - I'm sure it's a good sign."
"Yes, the moon marking must mean something imporant, because I have one myself." Dinaledi joked with Malkia, he certainly didn't know what the meaning behind the moon marking meant, but he had always liked his. It made him feel like he was a part of the pride even more as a cub. Dinaledi was born with the pridal colors and a marking of the cresecent moon, too. "Twins, really? I guess in a litter that big it would be hard to avoid something like that happening. Surely is interesting. I don't think I've ever seen twins before. " Dinaledi began to take it all in again. He wondered if he was doing the right thing becoming a priest. This cub, or this litter really, was making him feel very passionate towards protecting the future. Sure, being a priest was important, but the very future of the pride rested with these cubs. He'd have to talk to Yezi about it some time to see what he thought. The young king was surely wise for his age.
She laughed again at his words, finding that he was quite interesting in fact. "I've seen many moons on some of your pride members. His moon marking actually comes from his father though." Four of the cubs had inherited the moon, and many more had inherited her scaley markings. As different as they seemed from their parents, there were still many similarities in them.
"Yes, I suppose that's true," she said, nodding at his statement. With so many, it really wasn't that much of a surprise that there was at least one set of twins. "I've seen some before, but never a male and female that were identical." She shrugged, turning her eyes away from her cub and back up to him instead. "They certainly are bonded, I think, though. I'm surprise little Fafnir even came out here with me - he usually won't stray from Uruloki's side for more than a few moments."
She really did appreciate the interest of the male, though she wondered why he found cubs so interesting. It was sweet, to see a male that was so curious, but he had alrady stated that his duties lay elsewhere within the pride. Ah, well, she supposed it truly wasn't that important.
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Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:28 am
Dinaledi nodded when the lioness spoke. "Oh, really? Their bond is that close that he doesn't even like to leave her side?" He paused for a moment, bewildered by the bond that such young lions were able to form. "That's truly fascinating." He looked down at the young cub, Fafnir again to see if he was upset. "Well, I don't want to be keeping you away from any of your motherly duties," he crouched down and looked at the young dark colored cub, "and I certainly don't want to keep you from your sister." Dineldi chuckled, and thought to pop in one more thing. "Oh, you're probably curious as to why I'm so interested in cubs. My mother, who died in the war, was once the royal nanny for the pride. I supposed it's in my genes to look out for the little ones."
Malkia laughed softly, nodding as she did so. It really was a fascinating thing, the bond between twins, and she'd not had the fortune of witnessing it until now. Though she had heard of it in stories. "It is fascinating indeed. I think, however, Fafnir has had enough excitement for one day and I've gotten the fresh air I needed." She looked down at her son, nudging him lightly with a paw.
Fafnir recoiled against his mother's legs, but there was a soft smile on his face as he glanced up at the darker male. He really did want to go back to his sister.
Malkia half turned, bringing her son with her, then paused at his next words. "My Nanny always told me to follow your heart," she said softly, pausing to consider him with her deep, black eyes, "perhaps it's not just in your genes?" She offered him a gentle smile, though her eyes danced with a glimmer of amusement, and she turned away to head back to her den - her little dark son in tow.
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