Welcome to Gaia! ::

Her mother had been right. The world was a horrible place, and Laanfa wished that she had never, ever left home. It might have meant remaining a child in the eyes of her pride forever, but that would have been better than this. Anything would have been better than this. Her life was no longer her own, stolen from her by these filthy, wretched hyenas. The pair who'd captured her had had an easy enough time of it; she'd not done well out in the rogue lands, on her own for the first time in her life, and had been having a difficult time keeping herself fed even before she'd become pregnant courtesy of an...adolescent misadventure with a very handsome young male. Once she'd realized, she'd started to head for home in spite of not having found her name - surely she would find it on the way, or if she truly had to, just make something up! - but the hyenas had found her, and here she was. The young lioness' pale coat was dingy and gray, laid over visible ribs and a belly round with cubs. Poor, pitiful things - what would become of them here, if they even survived? If she even survived having them? Half of her was afraid she wouldn't, the other half...hoped for it.

Laanfa didn't move much these days unless she was made to, which was why she was on her feet now, slinking through the graveyard to find Tambol because Hafifu wanted to tell him something and was too lazy to do it for himself. The pair was still delighted by their new toy, and would find the most ridiculous and trivial of things for her to do, just because they could. She hated them, and was too fixed on that hate and her own misery to pay much attention to her surroundings, and the bump from the equally-oblivious gray hyena set her staggering a few steps to the side with a startled gasp.

Within a moment she'd scuttled several steps further until she was pressed against one of the dark rocks of the graveyard, staring at the hyena with wide eyes.

She hadn't been in the graveyard long, but she had been around just long enough that an apology was the very last thing she expected from the hyena who'd bumped into her. Perhaps not everyone was as cruel, as vehemently anti-lion, as the two who had captured her. Or perhaps some of them simply didn't wear it for everyone to see, or had better taste or manners, or more restraint. Much as she craved kindness, she no longer hoped for it, nor did she trust it.

Laanfa watched the hyena before her warily, never looking directly at him but assessing him nonetheless. "S-sorry," she mumbled in turn. "I should have been paying better attention to where I was going."

Even if she hadn't been the one to do the bumping, and even if he was being civil, it was safer to assume some of the blame and apologize as well.

Not only an apology, but a stubborn insistence that she need not assume blame or apologize at all. That just- that didn't make any sense at all! It wasn't unwelcome, far from it, but it was quite the opposite of what she'd come to expect from the hyenas of the Mava'Bunda in her short time with them. Not that every single one she had encountered thus far had been physically or even verbally abusive, or that the ones who were were relentless about it, but it had been made abundantly clear that her life was theirs, and she subject to their will and whims. Assuming fault seemed a wise course of action, in the interest of self-preservation.

Blue eyes cast uncomfortably this way and that, and she assumed a hunched sit. What did she do now? If he'd been unkind, as she had expected him to be, she'd have scuttled off in short order after apologizing and receiving whatever reprimand he deemed necessary, but he was being...nice. It would have been rude to scamper away, errand or no. "I...I suppose," she replied cautiously. She didn't want to contradict him, but agreeing with him would mean confirming that he was at fault, which would be both impolite and a possible misstep. "I haven't been here long, I don't...everyone expects different things."