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 Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:11 pm
Things had changed. Life was calm and happy in the eyes of the once abandoned cheetah. She and Hasidi had a family, more cubs, they had exactly what they wanted. Every once in a while Chuakari enjoyed to remind herself just how lucky she was, how lucky she felt and how silly she used to be. She had every hope and belief that such happiness would find her cubs when their time came as well. With young cubs about once again, Kari was not far from their den so that she was easy to find. She stared off in the distance thoughtfully, thinking momentarily about her adoptive father Uri and how the last time they met he had found out he was going to be a father. A real one. And now she herself had more. She did not expect a visit anymore, but she hoped he was well, that they all were.
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:21 pm
"Mom!" Bounding happily out of the den, Aziza tackled her mother with youthful vigor. Still a cub, she couldn't do much, but she growled playfully, happy to pretend she was a fierce hunter. "Whatcha doooooin?" she chirped curiously, climbing up Chuakari's back to peer down at her face.
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:27 pm
The pink cheetah was startled out of her daydreams when she was pounced unexpectedly by her daughter, jumping just a bit and rolling defensively- though not so that Aziza fell off of her and she climbed up, forcing the cub more onto her mother's side instead of just her back.
"Aziza," she breathed, smiling. Already Aziza seemed a much better huntress than her mother, but her target had been distracted. Which was a good choice, if she truly thought the cub paid attention to that.
"I was just thinking," she answered and added with a wink, "What are you doing sneaking up on your poor mother like that?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:35 pm
"Practicing," Aziza answered promptly, puffing out her chest in the self-confident manner that the very young so often seem to have. "You looked kinda like you were thinking, so I thought it would be good practice. Was it something important?" At this thought, her ears flattened a little in the beginnings of chagrin. She didn't want her mother to lose important thoughts!
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:39 pm
So Aziza had been paying attention.
"You're already a much better huntress than me!" she exclaimed, beaming proudly at her daughter. Chuakari had always been too excitable to hunt well, and her colors made it especially important to be calm and practiced. She'd never had the ambition, hadn't been on her own long enough to realize how important a skill it would be.
"Oh no," she assured Aziza, "Don't you worry about that. I was thinking about when I was little like you."
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:58 pm
"You were little like me?" The cheeton cub echoed, dark brown eyes opening wide in surprise and a tinytinytiny amount of doubt. Very tiny amount...for who could really doubt their own mother? "When was that?! And does that mean that I'll be as big as you one day?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:14 pm
"I was," Kari confirmed with a grin at Aziza's reaction to the remark, "Actually I might have been a bit smaller than you since you're part lion." She paused thoughtfully, smiling.
"It seems like it was a long time ago," she said finally, "You'll grow up too, just like your older brothers and sister. They were your size not so long ago."
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:25 pm
Aziza's eyes widened still more at the thought that her mom, who was so tall and leggy in her eyes, could have been smaller than herself at any point in time. Was it true? Did this mean that she'd grow up to be bigger than Chuakari too? "It seems very strange," she admitted. "I bet it was a long time ago, you're so big that it had to have been!"
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Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:34 pm
She laughed. This was not an unusual conversation to have with cubs, and it was always funny. "I'm actually pretty small for a cheetah," she said, "And daddy is small for a lion, too. We could have been even bigger. Have you seen any lions around here bigger than us?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:39 pm
Aziza scrunched up her face in thought. "...Yeah," she replied after a moment. "But you're still big. It doesn't matter if you're not as big, right?" Pleased with her conclusion, the cub grinned broadly, rolling onto her side to bat at her mother playfully.
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