|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:40 pm
"Beru?" Amara padded around the rocky outcropping, following a faint trail of Beru's scent. She hadn't seen her Umama for quite a while, and figured it was high time she dropped by and at least said 'hi.' She was starting to get a little concerned, as it seemed like Beru had been keeping to herself a bit more, lately.
She hoped the dark-pelted lioness hadn't gone and fallen ill or something, but she told herself that she was just being paranoid. Since Pontan fell victim to the plague, she felt like she had been seeing disease everywhere.
"Are you here? Beru?"
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 10:12 am
 Beru hadn't wanted cubs. She hadn't even wanted to have sex. However, there wasn't a great deal she could have done about either one of those things, since she went into heat at an inconvenient time and was found by a younger lion whose enthusiasm combined with her hormones to render her completely incapable of protesting.
Since Beru discovered her pregnancy she had become scarce in the pride and removed herself to a remote outcropping of rocks where she thought she would be able to keep her condition a secret for as long as possible. She had even gone away and borne her girls alone to prevent anyone from finding out about them until she herself had come to terms with their existence.
That was taking longer than she had expected. So now she had a pair of daughters to care for, born of a rogue father, but fortunately during a period when lionesses were permitted to breed with rogue males. That was small consolation to Beru though, whose traditional upbringing had taught her to scorn and shun lionesses who took advantage of those periods. Now that she was one of them, it was difficult to live with herself, and even to feel any sort of real affection for her cubs.
Just the same, Beru did her best to provide for them, and that meant leaving them alone from time to time in order to hunt. They were still young enough to drink milk, but Beru needed meat to survive, and her infrequent hunting trips gave her the opportunity to see what was going on in the pride. She was on her way back with a pair of birds to eat later, a gift from a friend who was worried about her. Sekai didn't like when Mama went out without her. It wasn't like she was left alone or anything. There was her Esai-Sister, but Esai wasn't the same as Mama. She was just as small as Sekai was.
Mama wasn't here just now, and it seemed like she had been gone for a very long time. Hunting, she said. Esai wasn't worried, apparently. She had curled up and gone to sleep when Mama left and hadn't woken up since. Sekai could not rest though. Not with Mama away.
She toddled to the edge of the area Mama had marked as Allowed, looking all around her with wide purple eyes. There weren't a lot of dens that had coverings overhead, and Mama's wasn't one of those, so there was just open sky above and a few rocks behind her where Esai slept.
"Mama?" she squeaked. When there was no immediate response she became distressed and squealed, "Mama!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:14 am
Amara froze in her tracks, ears perking. A sound that made her heart race in way it hadn't done before she had had Pontan had suddenly broken the silence around the rocks. A cub's cry, asking for its mother.
And it sounded upset.
Moved on an instinctual level, Amara picked up her pace a little, moving in as straight a line as possible towards where the cub's cry had come from. It wasn't far at all, within a few paces she could already discern the child's scent, and she slowed down, lowering her head to appear less threatening as she trotted up and peeked around a jutting rock.
"Hello?"
For the moment, her thoughts of finding Beru had taken a back seat in her mind, although something deep inside her head seemed to find some sort of connection between the absent Umama and this unexpected cub's voice at a hidden place like this, but her somewhat deprived mommy brain was at the helm right now, and whatever suspicion any other part of her might be having was not a priority.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:06 am
Beru was not hurrying home. To be honest, she had enjoyed having time away from her two cubs. They were beautiful girls, undeniably, but their conception shamed her, even though it had been excusable by the pride's standards. The event was not excusable by her own standards, which were somewhat stricter than the pride's.
Still, she was close enough to hear Sekai - it had to be Sekai - calling for her, and that meant others could probably hear her too. That would not do. Frowning, she increased her pace until she was trotting toward home. Unfortunately, she would not arrive before Amara.
--
It wasn't that Sekai hadn't expected a response. She just hadn't expected a stranger to respond. And so when an unfamiliar head appeared around a rock and spoke, Sekai did the first thing that came to mind: she whimpered and then ran.
Her mother was always so emphatic that she and her sister keep to themselves and not attract attention. She hadn't thought anything would happen except maybe Beru might come back a little quicker. She hadn't expected anything like this. Mommy would be so angry. She'd broken the rules! She was a bad girl!
Before she took more than a few strides her less than active lifestyle caught up with her and she began to tire, which led to her collapsing in a quivering, crying heap.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:40 am
"Oh!" Amara was quite startled herself at the dark-pelted little girl's panicked reaction, but she came to her senses a lot quicker. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you-!"
She couldn't help but wince in sympathy as the little cub fell down and started weeping in the most heart-wrenching way possible. Meekly folding her ears down low, Amara gently padded up to the little cub, shushing softly in an attempt to quiet down the apparent fear and panic that racked the tiny body with sobs.
"There, there, darling," she murmured, not quite daring to touch the cub, but still trying to sniff it for injuries. She would probably need to get a little closer to get a proper picture, but she didn't want to upset the little one even more. "It's all right, it's okay... Did you hurt yourself? Are you lost?"
The cub seemed groomed and well-fed, at least, but it did seem a little weak. Amara took another step closer, a sudden pang of her not-too-distant loss quivering through her chest. Weak, like Pontan...
Her voice lowered to an honestly concerned almost-whisper. " Are you... Sick?"
That thing at the back of her mind was really poking at her now. There was something definitely familiar about the cub... Her hues, the pattern under her eyes... But still the mommy brain was too much involved in the smell of cub and the sound of cub weeping to allow this thought any proper form.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:10 pm
"No," Sekai wept. "You're not supposed to see me. No one is supposed to see me."
She peered at the strange lioness and decided that no matter how nice she seemed, mommy hadn't said she could talk to her, and so the only thing to do was to get away from her. Which meant more running. She needed to get better at running.
She got to her feet and darted past the sympathetic lioness, this time running in the direction she'd just come from. She was afraid to venture too far from home, in case she couldn't find her way back. She had never broken her mother's rules about where she couldn't go, and so she didn't know the pride at all.
--
Beru reached home too late to see Sekai's initial flight or Amara's pursuit, but she did note that Esai was sleeping contentedly. Surely nothing could be too badly wrong if that was the case, although Esai could sleep like one dead. So that didn't mean too much, really.
She dropped the birds beside her slumbering daughter and followed the pair of tracks a short ways before Sekai came running toward her full speed. That explained the tracks she recognized, but not the larger ones. Beru was not thrilled about those. The larger tracks meant that she and her cubs had been discovered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 7:48 am
"What?" Amara blinked in confusion, but didn't have time to say anything else before the little cub scrambled to her feet and took off again.
"Wha- Wait!" She wasn't really sure what instinct made her follow the fleeing cub, but she didn't have to run very fast to keep up with the little one's short legs. She stopped dead in her tracks the moment the other grown lioness came into view, however, as suddenly everything clicked all at once in her head.
She had been so blind. It was so obvious. From the hues and subtle pattern on the cub's pelt to the Umama's prolonged abscense. Amara could only stand there, in plain sight,, staring dumbfounded at the mother and child.
"Beru..." She'd found her, but not in any way, shape or form as she had expected to. Just what was going on here, anyway? Umama Beru having cubs away from the pride, and hiding them in such a remote place? It didn't make sense.
Unless... Amara blinked once and took half a step forward, frowning slightly at her own thoughts. No. It couldn't be. That was just absurd.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 5:22 am
Sekai winced when she nearly barreled into her mother's front legs. She was relieved to see her mother, but more than that she was a little afraid of what her mother might say to her since she had been discovered. Sekai just knew she would be in trouble, and more than anything she didn't want her mother to be angry with her.
When Beru got angry, she didn't shout or get violent or anything. Instead she got quiet and whatever or whoever had made her angry was suddenly subjected to the worst sort of silent treatment imaginable. She wouldn't talk to you or look at you or acknowledge anything you said. It was like not existing, and Sekai would have done anything never to have her mother angry at her like that again.
"I'm sorry," she said meekly as she slunk behind her mother, hoping that Beru would realize her apology encompassed everything about this afternoon, and not just running into her.
---
"Good afternoon, Amara," Beru said with her chin held high.
She had no idea what the other lioness might be thinking and that made her nervous. It was only with a great deal of effort that she managed not to sound as out of sorts as being nervous made her. After all, she knew instinctively that snapping at Amara was not going to solve anything, even if her first inclination was to growl and tell her to get away and mind her own business.
"Was there something you wanted?"
Perhaps if she just pretended nothing had happened and that nothing was amiss, it would be so. Later she would get the story out of Sekai and take Eisa to task for not stopping Sekai from committing whatever act of foolishness had caught Amara's attention, but that could certainly wait until later.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:04 pm
Being greeted in such a calm, normal manner snapped Amara out of her temporary daze a little, and she found herself with a polite smile on her face, ears forward, though her tail kept swishing confusedly from side to side.
"Well, yes, I... We haven't seen much of you for a while now so I thought I should... just see that everything was all right..." She trailed off, unable to keep her immediate insight to herself any longer, and perhaps wishing to get a good reason to dismiss that crazy thought that kept dancing like flames at the back of her mind.
"You've had cubs!" She said, putting all the happy, congratulatory sentiment into those words that should reasonably be there, as if there was nothing strange or suspicious about it at all. She took a few more steps closer to her Umama, unable to keep the twitches out of her tail even though she tried to look as natural as possible when she posed the unavoidable question:
"Why haven't you said anything?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:14 am
It didn't occur to Sekai to be insulted at her apology going unremarked upon. She hoped that it meant her infraction would go similarly unpunished, and not that the punishment would simply be delayed until this other lioness left. If it was to be that way, Sekai hoped Amara stayed for a long time, so that her mum would have time to cool off.
She slinked behind her mother and plopped her butt down firmly, intending to remain exactly where she was unless directed to do otherwise. She hoped that being out of sight would equate to also being out of mind, but it didn't seem like the conversation was going that direction. Too bad.
From behind her mother, Sekai sneaked peeks at the visitor, who looked so very different from her mother and sister, being incredibly pale. Her coat was so light, it seemed to Sekai she almost glowed. Amara, the cub decided, was the most beautiful lioness she had ever seen.
---
"It's good of you to have worried," Beru said smoothly. "But as you can see, I'm in the peak of good health."
Inwardly she winced when she realized that she wasn't sounding at all like herself. Placating, calm, and reasonable, yes, but not particularly like herself. It wasn't a very flattering realization to come to. Did that mean she wasn't usually those things? Something she would have to ponder at another time.
Her wince became external when Amara stated the obvious with such apparent joy. It was too late to turn the expression into a smile, but the purple-eyed lioness made the attempt anyway. Wincing was definitely not the appropriate reaction to congratulations on having cubs.
"Oh, well. You know how vain I can be. I didn't want anyone to see me when I was all bloated and pregnant," she lied. It was a lie she'd been practicing since she discovered that she was pregnant. Thank goodness the cubs both looked mostly like her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
