It wasn't like Jun cared about who her parents were.
A mother was just the person who gave you life. A father was just the person who provided the other half. Biologically they were responsible for creating your life, but they were not necessarily responsible for you after that. Once you were born it was rather like a game of chance. Would your mother stay? Would your father stay? Would either of them die in the days after they welcomed to the world? Did they want you? Or would they willingly abandon you to the larger scavengers who would gladly take the life you had just been given? Some mothers stayed and raised their children. Others chose to let others raise their children for them. They either did or they didn't. It was their choice.
Jun's parents had made their choice. They didn't. Well, it was a little harsh to say that they had made their choice, seeing as they were both dead now. That was what she had been told by Binafsi, the lioness who raised her in the place of the biological mother she didn't remember. All she remembered was her scent, and even that was the faintest hint of a smell. She would not have been able to remember if even if she tried, much less track down the body by her memory alone. Shortly after the scent came the Cold, and then she was being carried away through the Dark, in the jaws of the young lioness she later came to know as Kitambi. The first time she opened her crimson eyes, she found herself staring up at the brown faces of Kitambi and her mother Nsundu. No mother in her memory.
The cub had long since given up on the notion that she could find her mother, and even longer that she could remember her. It was too long ago, and they had been separated when Jun was too young. After the Cold and the Dark came the Warm, when she had been deposited next to the leopon cubs born recently to the lioness Binafsi. From then on she had been considered Binafsi's, as though her biological mother had not given birth to her but this brown lioness had instead. The lioness had become her surrogate mother, and Jun had not questioned what she was told. Binafsi held no truth from her, even the death of her own parents, and for that Jun was grateful. It would have, however, been extremely hard to lie to her.
It was not that Jun was necessarily smart. She was strong-willed and independent, not exactly the type to spend her days thinking about why she was the only black and white cub in a pride full of earthy colours. From Nsundu and Binafsi came the brown cubs, from Isithunzi the reds and the yellows, from Juke and Muujiza greens and blues, and then finally from the pride's only other white lioness Vinya'nyota, greys and teals. Not one other cub was as stark white as her. Even Vinya's eldest son, who was perhaps the most white next to Vinya'nyota herself, was not black and white. He was white and teal. Nowhere in the pride could you find a black and white female, or even a black and white male. And as time passed, even Jun began to see it.
That was when she had come forward and asked. Binafsi had always treated her as though she were one of her own, despite the fact that she clearly did not share the same father as Binafsi's leopon cubs. They were bigger than her, stockier, with no manes and no tail fluff. Not to mention she was totally the wrong colour to belong to such a litter. Eventually, once she decided she had enough evidence to prove that she was most definitely not a cub of Binafsi's, she had approached her surrogate mother. The conversation had went... fairly well, as far as Jun was concerned. She had simply come forward and asked who in the pride her real parents were. Binafsi had replied that no one in this pride was her mother, nor did her father come from this pride. For a moment, Jun had been perplexed. If both her mother and father did not come from this pride, then why was she here of all places?
Binafsi had not let her think about it for very long. She simply asked Jun if she wanted to know where her parents were, and along with that information, why she was here and not with them. The lioness had told the cub that she would not withhold the information so long as Jun wanted to know. If she was old enough to understand that she was not one of Binafsi's children then she was old enough to understand. Though Jun believed herself to be smart enough to figure it out on her own, she had pressed her mother to tell her. She had gotten a whiff of the truth, and the cub wanted the whole thing. So Binafsi told her.
"You were found by Sen, the leader of our allied pride. Your parents were a pair of rogues, who were on their way out when they gave birth to you. Sen came upon them when they were both on their deathbeds. Your mother asked that Sen take you and make sure that you were raised well. In the weeks before you were born, Sen and Nsundu made a pact. In exchange for Nsundu's daughter Waseme, Sen would give Nsundu one of her own pride members. Seeing as you were born close enough to Sen's lands to be considered part of her pride, you were given to Kitambi and the pact was fulfilled."
With the story finished, Binafsi gave Jun a gentle nudge. "Your biological family may be dead, but that does not mean that you cannot find your family here." And then she had walked away, leaving the cub to think about what she had been told. Many would have considered Jun too young to hear such things; especially that she was an unwilling part of a trading pact between two pride leaders. What if she was meant to be in Sen's pride? What if she would have done better there, grown up to be a better lioness? Her mother had given her to Sen to raise, after all. No, her mother had asked Sen to make sure she was raised well. But would her mother have liked her to be raised here, in the Nchi'mahadhi lands? Or over with Sen, in the Mtaishi'miele lands?
In the end, Jun decided there was only one thing to do.
Usimuamshe alie lala. Let sleeping dogs lie.
And so she did.
