Her cubs were free at least. Cor took solace in that, even though she was simultaneously terrified by it. A lioness could not grow up in the Kitwana'antara and be ignorant of the symptoms of its plague. Not if the lioness had even the tiniest smidgeon of brains in her head at any rate, and Cor was many things, but she was definitely not unintelligent. After a lifetime of denying that the stiffness and shortness of breath she had grown up with was anything but innocuous and excusable through a remarkable variety of excuses, Cor was finally unable to lie to herself any longer. She was sick.
All her life Cor had thought that she was immune. After all, her father had claimed to be immune before his death, and must have been or else he would not have been allowed to leave the pride as often as he had. Her mother had not even been a member of the pride, and so there was no way she could have been infected. The odds had all been in Cor's favor. She could not imagine how she could have come down with the disease. Not congenitally, at any rate. But she could have been infected through interactions with infected pride members. Believing that she was immune had prompted her to take all sorts of risks like sharing food, actions that would have exposed her to infection.
So she was infected. Sick. And now possibly dying. Not this very minute, of course, but someday and maybe even soon. And she had sent the cubs from her first litter out of the pride, having them sneaked out and taken...goodness knows where. Certainly Cor had no idea. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but now she was terrified by the possibility that she had sent infected cubs beyond the pride's borders and into the unsuspecting lands beyond where they might do untold damage unwittingly. The thought made her ill, but not as ill as the fact that she secretly hoped if the cubs were infected, they had succumbed to their illness very quickly and died before spreading it.
The situation was not good, but there was no one Cor could talk to about it. No one, that is, except for the slender lion she had met a few weeks back. He had been nearly starved when he came to Kitwana lands and she had saved him from accidentally becoming infected by eating the leftovers of an infected lion's meal. Of course, she had been unable to share her meal with him, but she had arranged for him to be given some safe food. He had not wanted to stay with the pride, which she understood completely, but he had been too weak to leave right away. During the time he spent regaining his strength she had unburdened herself to him, knowing he would never have the opportunity to tell anyone else about her mistakes.
And then there had been that night. She had not been unwilling, exactly, but she had been reluctant. He had encouraged her participation by pointing out that although he planned to leave soon, he could well tell someone on the way out how she had broken the pride's rules and endangered untold numbers of rogues and prides. She had been more compliant and enthusiastic after than, and very, very pleased to see him leave the next morning without speaking to anyone else. As he crossed the pride's borders she had breathed a sigh of relief and gone immediately to a guard and warned him that the lion who had just left was a danger to the pride.
It was not hugely likely that the guard would believe her, she realized. As a young thing Cor had been quite the compulsive liar and so there was a large portion of the pride who never believed a thing she said, no matter what it was. She had spoken to a guard who she thought would believe her, but there was no guarantee. He might think that she had made the whole thing up for some reason, but she hoped he would not. Even if he did, she hoped that he would still keep the lion out of the pride should he try to return. Cor did not want to risk the possibility that somebody would learn from him what she had done with her first litter, since as far as the rest of the pride was concerned they had been delivered stillborn.
Gods, how had she managed to mess everything up so royally? Cor could not believe she had been so stupid. The lying to herself about her illness had been bad enough, but then she had broken the most important rules in the pride, and after that she had told someone about the crime she had committed. And she had misjudged her confessor horribly. Being blackmailed had left her feeling even more sick than her illness was doing. Now she could only hope and pray to all the gods that she would not become pregnant from that unwanted union.
If she did conceive, she would care for the cubs and keep them within the pride no matter what, but to have the constant reminder of her failures around would be so wretched. Perhaps she would give the kitlings up to be raised by somebody else. Or maybe she would get lucky and die in the act of giving birth. She had certainly felt as if that was a possibility the first time around. In fact, it had been only after bearing those first two cubs that Cor's symptoms had become impossible to ignore and she had thenceforth been unable to convince herself any longer that she was healthy.
After all this, Cor had decided the best thing to do would be to isolate herself as much as possible and keep away from the rest of the pride. She had already been doing that to a certain extent, but she became positively reclusive later on. Sometimes it hurt that nobody seemed to notice or mind that she had withdrawn so completely from the pride, but Cor would remind herself that it was for the best and that this was the best way to protect herself. The lions who had known her as a cub would probably not recognize her now, wracked with guilt and wasted with sickness and self-neglect. Most of them were dead, however. Nearly all of them, in point of fact.
Cor wished she was dead, too.
Word Count: 1,093
