The morning light was grey over the horizon, a fog rolled in to add a chill to the lingering coolness of the night. Though it wasn’t his wont to be awake so early in the morning, the dark lion had risen to follow his eldest son out into the morning light. Today, he’d decided to take Tau out on his own. It was important to him to have one-on-one time with all of his children, of course, but the two boys were being watched with a much closer eye. This wasn’t any sort of intentional favoritism—indeed, that word could barely be applied to this sort of watching—but rather, he was watching for his successor. It would have to be one of the boys, of course; not that he didn’t think Radi could handle it, but that males were preferred for Ngaolinda. Perhaps unfortunately, there was a choice to make since they both fit requirements of Goddess-touched eyes, but for the pride it was a good thing. While he thought he’d have years to make a choice, his grandfather had impressed upon him the need to make a preliminary decision, at least, early on. There was training involved, and lots of it.
Still, he saw no reason why he couldn’t train both sons together…
Today was about Tau, however. Hadithi gave pause at the entrance to the den, shaking himself free of further morning sleep. It wasn’t easy, and his mouth stretched in a wide yawn. The sound was echoed in smaller proportion behind him. Hadithi turned slightly to greet his son with a fatherly lick to his mane. Tau gave an aggravated little noise and leaned away from the invasive tongue. “Daaaad,” He whined a little and gave a soft, harmless swat at Hadithi’s muzzle.
The elder lion laughed a little and put his teeth around the paw. He let Tau tug at it a few times before he gave it back. “No hitting,” Hadithi reminded gently, “Not even mockingly.”
“But dad—“ Tau rolled his eyes, then choked off his protest. There was no use in it, after all. Instead, he just sighed, “yes sir…” The cub sighed then padded out of the cave and into the meadow behind. Predawn was always the coolest part of the day, for while it was light enough to see outside it was still cool enough that even through his mane Hadithi felt some chill. He followed Tau out, and nodded his head towards the cliff behind him. As soon as he was sure the cub was following him, the elder lion lead the way up the treacherous path to the top.
He knew that Tau had been there before with his siblings. The pink male was the adventurous one where his brother, Nili was… well… More of a homebody, to put things nicely. Hadithi didn’t mind that that about the boy, not at all. In fact, that might have been one of the purple boy’s best qualities. In fact, the two boys were almost perfect foils of one another. Nili was flamboyant and fastidious, Tau was rambunctious and dirty; the younger brother was sharp witted and sassy, Tau was blunt but open minded. Each had his strengths and weaknesses
