Imbra was growing into a leggy adolescent, but she was filling out, too. Muscles were developing from countless hours spent training, and while there wasn't an ounce of spare flesh anywhere on her she still possessed a certain spark that drew the eye. It had drawn the eyes of several males in the pride, but so far she had scorned them all. One of them had accused her recently of being too proud, but she had simply pointed out that she had standards and he didn't meet them. He hadn't liked hearing that.
Still, she did feel a certain anxiety, a need to do something new. She trained constantly, fighting both real and imaginary opponents and pushing herself to run farther and faster every day, pitting herself against her father. He was the only cheetah in the pride who could outrace her now, and she could beat him in a fight nearly every time, though he often pointed out that he wasn't a fighter truly and thus he was a poor standard of measurement for that activity.
Maybe what she needed was something different. A break in her routine, or an addition to it, or alteration or something. Maybe she could run in the afternoons, when the sun was hottest, and fight in the mornings, when she was less awake. That might be enough variation to serve. At least she hoped it would be.
But perhaps what she actually needed was not something different, but someone different. Someone new to occupy her time and thoughts when she wasn't training. It might be better if that someone was a person she could also train with though. Imbra couldn't decide. She would dearly love to meet someone new though. Someone handsome and exciting, who lived up to the standards she set for males who sought her attention.
Her brow wrinkled as an unpleasant thought occurred to her: What if such a cheetah appeared in her life, and she did not manage to measure up to his standards? She knew herself to be an attractive cheetah, talented in those areas she chose to train in, but there were certain areas and skill sets which she undeniably lacked. But only because she had never experienced them, she told herself.
Still, males cared about that sort of thing and so, Imbra realized, did she. She decided then and there that she wanted to be the sort of cheetah who males remembered long after she had left them. There were a few ways she could achieve that goal. The easiest would be to speak to her father's mate, the entertainer Abhishri, and ask for her advice. It might make matters between them more cordial and ease family relations, but Im couldn't quite make herself do it.
The other option was to find some stupid male to scare into secrecy and use him as practice until she was as confident in her sexual skills as she was in her fighting skills. Imbra leaned toward that one. Besides, with all the entertainers the pride boasted, trained to please, Imbra wasn't sure she wanted to be one of many. She didn't have it in her to submit and be pliant. She would undeniably be the aggressor in bed, as elsewhere, and that wasn't what females were taught to be in this pride.
Im had learned that she didn't have to fight with everyone over everything, but the fact remained that she was a fighter at heart and she was unlikely ever to be one of those cheetahs who submitted so docilely to the wishes and whims of a male, even if he was someone she loved very much. She could not imagine loving anyone so much that she would be willing to give up her independence and freedom for him. Not that she had too terribly much of either, living in the Kuroi'nera, but she had known no other life and was not particularly interested in any other.
Back to the matter at hand though!
Imbra finished stretching and began to walk aimlessly through the pride. She began with the area above where the crater dipped for it gave her a view no only of the main body of the pride but also of the rogue lands that surrounded it, where sometimes slaves and grunts labored to bring in prey. The idea of being with a slave sexually was vaguely repugnant to her, as she had been born a citizen and earned her current rank. But a grunt would not be completely beyond the realm of possibility.
Her blue eyes scanned the surrounding territory for as far as she could see, but either all the hunters were in deep stealth mode or they had gone beyond the extent of her vision, which she thought to be the far more likely explanation. That wasn't entirely surprising. It was late enough in the morning that they ought to be farther afield than she could see anyway. If they were hunting so close to the pride, she could not imagine that they were very bright, and even though she only intended to use the mystery cheetah for sex, she didn't want him to be a moron.
Imbra turned her attention to the crater bowl and sighed. She knew all the cats there too well to feel comfortable propositioning them for some casual practice sex. And they would all want something from her in return, being under the mistaken impression that her father's blood would make her more powerfully situated in the pride than she was. Not that Im had a problem with making promises she could not keep, but she preferred not to have to make promises of any sort.
She prowled through the pride's lands, surreptitiously inspecting the male specimens on display. Several were handsome enough to catch her attention and make her wonder if she could win them, but she still knew them too well because of her father's work. He had told her more of his work than he had even told his mate, and she knew more of the pride's secrets than she probably should, which made her search that much more difficult.
Should the news of her experiments reach her father's ears, she did not want him to disapprove of her choice. It was a shame she could not turn to him for advice, but that was as much out of the question as asking Abhi would be. Doubtless he would understand her curiosity and her urges, but that didn't mean he would be thrilled to know she was considering having meaningless sex with someone just so she could get better at the physical act. The pride did not really work like that for its female members.
As she made her way through the caverns below, where the river was cooler and swifter, Imbra stopped to refresh herself at the water. When she was younger the Boss Lady had tried to scare her down here. It had not gone as planned, Imbra suspected, because Imbra had refused to be properly terrified and had instead gotten the impression that Nyoka was a childish sort of creature, and a bully. Im was not as devoted to that regime as her father was, but she was devoted to her father.
She reflected on this memory as she drank, but she remained aware of her surroundings to the extent that when she saw a somewhat unfamiliar cheetah across the cavern dragging a carcass, she took note of his lean and muscular form with approval. It was too dark to see the color of his coat or even the color of his eyes, which glowed and reflected in the dark cavern just like everyone else's, but he did have a fine body. He would do.
