Mananakbo stood several dozen yards away from a clearing which afforded him a view of a dark cheetah and several cubs. The cheetah wore something purple on her head which made her look ridiculous, but didn't detract from the fact that she was relatively good-looking. Probably more than relatively, but the aura of innocence she exuded didn't really appeal to Mana. He much preferred women of experience. But he wasn't out looking for tail today.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tomkrie saw a dark shadow that wasn't hers and certainly didn't belong to any of the cubs she was minding that afternoon. She turned her blue eyes toward the figure, trying to study him unobtrusively, but gave no other indication that she was aware of his peripheral presence.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen the dark cheetah. Indeed, she'd seen him many times, and even mentioned it once to her father once. When she'd done so his expression had become very serious and he demanded that she keep herself and the cubs very close to home for a time. Tomkrie had wondered at the time what had upset him so badly, and he'd simply told her that dark cheetahs from the outside only meant trouble.
When she was allowed to roam once more, her shadow appeared again, but she kept him to herself. Tomkrie never tried to speak to him, because whenever she looked in his direction he seemed to melt away, but she desperately wanted to know who he was and why he kept appearing. Nevertheless, Tomkrie had accepted her father's explanation for why she must avoid dark cheetahs, but with his recent death she had found herself questioning many of the things he had told her.
It had always bothered her that he felt dark-pelted cheetahs were trouble, since both she and her mother had dark coats. True, they had been part of the group for several generations, but she still wondered, and now that he was dead she had no one to ask. Her mother had passed on some time ago. The others she lived with did not share her father's prejudice, and didn't know what to do with her as she mourned, except to firmly request that she stay close to home because there were dangers out there.
Actually, they kept her very close to home, physically preventing her from wandering around, and offering explanations that bordered on threats for why she shouldn't go out. One even suggested that her father's death had not been an accident. For the first time in her life, Tomkrie began to question not only her father, but the tenets she'd been raised with, and particularly what her relation was to the cheetahs she dwelt with, since she had believed them to be friends and family. She still believed them to be such, but they weren't really acting like it with their aggressively enforced desire that she stay close to home.
Staying close to home meant that Tomkrie was able to spend as much time as she wanted to with her best friend's cubs, who were cheerful distractions from her mourning. It was also beginning to make her a little crazy from boredom. When the dark cheetah returned she was pushing the borders of her confinement by playing with the cubs. She had never seen him so close to the group before, and his being there stilled her breath, making her pause in the game she was playing with the cubs, for which she wore a rabbit's pelt on her head to signify that she was a rabbit. The cubs were pretending to be her babies, and enjoying hopping around and wiggling their noses.
Aware that she was being watched, Tomkrie was suddenly self-conscious about the pelt on her head, but there was no way to remove it without it seeming awkward. Then she got an idea and bent down to whisper to her "bunnies" that there was a dangerous predator, and so her bunnies had to hide while she drew its pursuit. The cubs were gleeful about hiding, and did so with great alacrity. Meanwhile, she darted this way and that, seemingly without direction, but actually drawing closer to her voyeur.
Mana was not at all fooled by Tomkrie's pretense, and yet he didn't make any effort to evade her. Not at first. He needed her to get closer to him before he could turn tail and dart away. That way she would be near enough to him to think she had a chance of catching him - which she never would if he ran at full speed - and as she pursued him, he could draw her away from the group of cheetahs she dwelt with. He was tensed and ready to run when she lost patience with her game, however. He could sense that she would soon do something drastic.
At last she dropped all pretenses and raced directly toward him. He realized her intention and turned tail, but she had the advantage of having already been running, and so after a time she caught up to him. For the first time she noticed the fiery colors running up his legs and the dreadful scarring on one front paw, but that didn't deter her from asking who he was and why he had been following her.
"Call me Mana," he said with a quick, wicked grin that was intended to make her heart race. "I've been following you because I was sent to see what you were like."
"Sent?" she asked. "By whom?"
"I can't tell you that unless you will swear yourself to silence and allow me to blindfold you. Then I will show you what I mean and everything will make sense."
He really couldn't tell her that, because he hadn't exactly been sent. He had predicted a need in the pride for nannies with the recent increase in children, and decided that he should probably go find a nanny or two. He wasn't exactly sanctioned to do so, but he hoped Nyoka would understand. Certainly he could explain the need for someone like her to satisfaction, but he would need a little more time to come up with an explanation for the cheetah he was stealing away.
Intrigued and more than a little infatuated, Tomkrie consented and allowed herself to be led to a series of caves in a crater. It wasn't until they arrived that she realized she had abandoned her charges and began to panic. Mana assured her they would be safe, and he spoke so earnestly that she believed him and relaxed. She heard him out, listening to the tale of her own history as she'd never heard it before.
Mana couldn't believe how quickly and how easily she had agreed to come with him. He certainly had nothing in mind for keeping her cubs safe. As far as he was concerned, they weren't really his problem. He'd just said something to assuage her concerns, and she'd believed him...why? Because she wanted to, he supposed.
In the end, she agreed to stay in the Kuroi'Nera, partly because he had convinced her that was where she belonged, but mostly because she was smitten with the charming cheetah who had brought her, and who, she was convinced, had been protecting her from a distance for the past several months. He wasn't. That had been someone else, but it would have been hard to convince her of that.
