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"Awesome," she breathed, quite impressed, "you must be really, really strong then!" From any other lioness this might have been idle flirtation, but Ukene actually meant it. And probably didn't even know what 'flirty' was or how one went about it.

"But if there's fewer of you, that just means that the ones that are are even more awesome, yeah?" She nodded, happy that the conversation seemed to be going better now. "I mean, since if you're so few and we're still safe, that obviously means that you guys are capable, right?" She was imagining a small, elite band of lions, proud and battle-weary, but each lion capable of taking out an elephant on their own! Or maybe not an elephant. A hippo? Waaait, hippos were worse, weren't they? Damn it, now she'd gotten herself confused again. What were they talking about, again? Ohhh, right..

She thought for a bit, sure she knew a proper phrase for what she meant, but not quite remembering it: "Oh! I know! Like, quality over quantity? Or was it the other way around? Noo, I'm pretty sure I got it right.."

"They're apprentices, like me. Or Utunzo is. Upenzi used to be. She's a Hostess too, and Utunzo is going to be a Historian like my Mom! Our Mom. Whatever." She beamed proudly.

"And that's a lot of siblings! I don't think I'd be able to remember them all if I had that many.." That might have been a bit of an exaggeration, though. "Why didn't any of them choose to be guards with you?" She cocked her head to the side; how odd it was! Ukene would have loved to have worked alongside her siblings, even if they'd probably have tired of her after a while.
"Weren't they good enough?" Maybe they'd wanted to, but they hadn't been able to slay the hippo! Or elephant. Or spar. What was it guards fought? Right, enemies. The enemies, then! Though, she couldn't do that either. Could she? Naaah, probably not - she wasn't an elite fighter like Badiri obviously was, obviously.

"Yeah, that makes sense." She nodded, thoughtful. "Though I don't think I'm very good at midwifing stuff - Mitsuki's been teaching me loads of stuff, but I still forget a lot of it. She's very nice though, and I'll keep doing my best so one day it'll all stick and I'll be the awesomest midwife the Great Lion ever saw!" Probably the most enthusiastic, in any case.

To be honest, the prospect of being alone with a lioness giving birth sort of worried her, but on the other hand, Ukene had always been very keen on being nice to people and making them happy. And everyone was very nice and said she was still just an apprentice and would eventually learn, so she totally would, right?

"So like.. did you always know you wanted to be a guard?" She could imagine that - he looked very guard-ish. To her, at least, but then again, she hadn't seen that many guards up close, had she? But he was certainly bigger than her, and he looked very capable of smashing up bad guys, which had to be a plus in his career.

[Sorry this took forever, I'm so bad at remembering stuff. Dx Give me a slap if it ever happens again! <33]

Ukene nodded; she was learning some stuff about the class ranks from Mitsuki, so she quickly decided that Badiri was lower rank than her. But that wasn't so bad, was it? He seemed to like his job very much in either case, and there wasn't all that many nasty lions in the pride who took advantage of rank.
None that she knew of, in any case. She'd have to ask her sister later, Upenzi was sure to know stuff like that.

"Well, Utunzo and Upenzi did, and I guess I sort of knew too, but it wasn't really decided until recently because I was still too young. Which was probably a good idea, because my attention span was even shorter when I was younger, and yeah." She cocked her head to the side. "Do you mind, though? Not having more of a choice, I mean."

"About what?" Ukene's radar of things that were supposed to be rude or hurtful was rather flawed, and had he laughed she probably would have laughed right along.

"Oooh, that's great then!" She nodded energetically along to his words, beaming happily. How awesome! She couldn't imagine anything more awful than getting stuck doing something you hated day after day after day after-- right, well, you get the idea.
"Being a slave doesn't sound very nice, but I think if I had to be a slave somewhere, I'd rather be a slave here. Everyone I've met so far are very nice, and I haven't seen anyone being mean to slaves yet." She wrinkled her brow, looking a bit concerned: "There aren't any people like that here, right? People that mean, I mean."

"True, but that doesn't mean that there aren't lions out there who wouldn't take advantage of it! Mom knows loads of things, and she tells me lots of stories and there's always some nasty person who'd be mean to someone just for the sake of being mean and it's so stupid, isn't it? I'd like to give them a good walloping on the head and give them a piece of my mind." She scowled at nothing in particular, incensed at the imaginary fouls swimming around in her mind. People were so dumb.

A lot of things went over Ukene's head, really, and social differences were one of them - but she was learning, and so she only nodded awkwardly to Badiri's words, even if she didn't get his more subtle meaning.

"Oh! Alright." Ukene was a bit disappointed to lose a conversation partner, but it was getting kind of late and she should probably be getting back to the pride, anyway. "I should be getting back, too." It suddenly dawned on her that she was quite a bit of way away from most of the pride, and she looked around with comical confusion on her face. How did she miss this?!

"Thanks for talking with me! Byeeeee!" She grinned at him before running off, conscious of the fact that Mitsuki was probably waiting on her and that she'd forgotten the time and place yet again.

But at least she'd made a new friend!