Bones and Termites

[mwezi]

((Scar: This thread is taking place in the future, after the Outlanders are exiled and Simba is King over Priderock, having overthrown Scar.))

Mahari gnawed at her skin, impatiently tearing at the fiery itch that became almost impossible to stop. It didn’t take long to find the hidden termite biting into her hide. Once her teeth sank in, ending the miserable life of the insect, she sighed as her stomach growled for the third time in a row. Munching on termites had become an unfortunate habit that was rarely called a meal. The lioness snapped her jaw shut, and turned her maw to the tower of mounds, imagining of the thousands of termites in side waiting to be eaten. While she might not have been the only predator sinking low to the delectable and crunchy vermin, Mahari was an expert at catching them.

Struggling with a great effort, pawing at the scattered bones around her, the desert colored lioness soon began to drag a large skeleton close to her favorite spot. The savannah was unquestionable hot, so to keep the coolest she could, Mahari took shade under a lone and died out tree. A threatening growl was released from her throat as she looked at the pathetic skeleton, long since alive. It was barren of any meat and taste, but the crunchiness somehow eased the hunger pains in her stomach. Realizing someone had meddled with it, desperately hidden in attempts to keep it for herself, Mahari narrowed her eyes with lack of patience.

"If Scar is king, why doesn’t he feed his pride once in awhile?" Mahari scowled, slightly angered by hunger. She would never speak of treason in the pride-lands and rarely cared for male lions. While she might have been more comfortable around lionesses, like herself, the dark cat was partially fond of the dead. Dead meant meat and because she often smelt of death, the yearning for an entire meal to herself was hard to escape.

Chewing on the measly bones in front of her, Mahari laid in the hot sand, wishing rain would come to this dry place.

[Rox]

(ooc: Scar if you dont want me posting as Kovu in this thread I'd be happy to delete the post ))

The sun peered in through the cracks of the termite mound where Scar's new pride had chosen to reside. Picking up his head and looking around sleepily, Kovu, who was hand chosen by Scar himself to become the next king, blinked, his emerald eyes trying to adjust to the morning light.

The young cub rose up and stretched while standing in his bed which was an overturned old tree stump. Wanting to get down, the chocolate brown cub padded towards the edge and looked at the ground. It looked like a very very long drop, at least to him.
Taking a few steps back he then took a few steps forward and tumbled down onto the hard ground, but didn't cry.

Shaking off the feeling of the impact he looked around for something to do. Sure there were termites to chase and on occasion a bone to chew but today...well today he wanted to do something different. Slowly he made his way to the cave entrance and toddled somewhat unsteadily towards the outside.

[mwezi]

Mahari turned to the source of a tiny sound, noticing she was no longer alone. It was easy to see why she preferred being alone; with everything to herself, there was no one else to share it with. But as her darken gold eyes focused on a mound nearby; the lioness noticed a little bundle stalking out of a cave as if he were sleep walking. The brown and fluffy figure belonged to the pipsqueak, Kovu, Scar’s brat. Tenderly, jabbing the bones back in her mouth, Mahari watched the small ball of fur stagger in all his cuteness.

"Shouldn’t you be with your daddy, hun?" Mahari asked, short and simple. She had better things to do than babysit, but the thought of something happening to the future heir stopped the lioness from leaving. She hasn’t actually spoken with the cub Kovu before, in fact forgot how long ago he was born, but she could definitely tell he was the offspring of Scar. Staring at him, knowing exactly the trouble cubs can get into, Mahari eventually sat up and walked closer to the prince.

[Rox]

The tiny cub stared up at the female and looked around. Where WAS his dad anyway? Padding off he decided to wander around and look for himself. Kovu spotted Nuka nearby and padded close to him and began to paw at his elder brother. "Where Daddy?"

[Scar]

Then a dusty brown furball emerged from a hole in the ground. It was Aberash, an arrogant little cub (of about the same age as Kovu) which the Pride had found abandoned. Hyenas had separated her from her family and she never saw them again; but instead of admitting she missed them and often cried in the night, she claimed she "didn't need them anyway", and hid behind a tough mask. Aberash wasn't well-liked, but at least the Pride seemed to tolerate her presence.

She greeted Dotty with a nod before going towards the Prince.

"What is this?" The cub demanded.

"The Prince goes out of his cave to play with the lowly commoners?" She teased him.

Looking both sides, she smirked at Vitani's current absence. The Princess would always mop the ground with her fur, but she was confident of that she could handle Kovu. Baring her little teeth, she lowered herself in preparation for a pounce.

After all, play fighting was the only game they played in this place.

[Bendari]

Nuka grumbles when his younger brother pokes him, ever since Shujaa's death, he was less social and colder. "I don't know where he is." He says quickly before rolling over onto his other side, planning on sleeping longer.

[mwezi]

Not one cub, but two showed up from the dirt as if they were popping out like the termites. Mahari discarded the prince and his groupies, returning to the snack she had been munching on. It was a wonder why these cubs were still alive beneath the hot desert sun and living on nothing but old bones and annoying termites. Ripping a piece of ivory white bone from a skeleton that looked oddly like an elephant, maybe male, Dotty darted her hunter eyes to the three younger lions.

"Why are you brats here? Isn't there another place you two can play." Dotty replied, ignoring the insult the female cub responded with. Mahari didn't exactly love cubs, but she wasn't stupid enough to abandon them when parents refuse to raise their own children.

[Scar]

The cub maintained her battle position a little longer, but eventually she had to accept she was being completely ignored.

"Dah!" Aberash dismissed the matter with a paw.

Then she just sat there in the dust, lashing her tail angrily, watching the dark cave mouth where the Prince had disappeared through. Her tail swatted the dry ground, rhythmically, like a clock. Tic, tac… but the seconds passed by and Kovu did not return.

Then she heard Dotty's voice. Aberash immediately shrank and turned around, worried that the annoyance in the lioness tone might have meant she had done something wrong. The Pride had never formally accepted her in, so she was naturally worried of that one day they might get sick of her games and attack her.

She tried to hide behind a terminate mound; a wiser cub would have probably left, but that skeleton appeared far too yummy like to ignore.

[Rox]

"Oh..." Kovu said as Nuka replied to him about their father. "Guess..I'll go look somewhere else then...". His words trailed off as the young cub continued his search.

[mistwolf]

The Outlands were desolate and dry. Ila hated it here. Though she would follow her queen and her king to the ends of the earth, she wished that they were still living in the Pridelands. She had seen them lately. They were returning to life, and it made her sick. The usurper had exiled them, and she hated it! He had run them out of their land! Ila did not know, of course, that Simba was the true king of the Pridelands. After all, the dark lioness was not a Pridelander. She was from a pride far away, and the idea that this King Simba was actually a true king had not been spread through the Outlands pride. So Ila hung to her ignorance, and hated that king of the Pridelands. She also knew that he would fall, and they would take over again one day.
She turned from where she had been watching the horizon, and leaped down the termite pile she'd been standing on. She glanced around, seeing the cubs. Ila distanced herself from them. Cubs had always been her life, but after Shujaa's death, and Kayani's refusal to leave the Pridelands, Ila had not returned to her original post as cubsitter. She still blamed that wretched lion Tojo for making it seem that it was her that had caused Shujaa's death. Fortunatly, he was now dead, so she had had her revenge. But it did not mean that her heart had been repaired.
Seeking shelter from the sun, the dark lioness went to lay in the shade of a termite mound.

[mwezi]

Kovu, the supposed future heir, staggered off towards destination unknown; probably completely oblivious to the dangers around him. Dotty couldn’t stop the prince from exploring to the heart’s content, but the news of a recent cub’s death had the lioness gambling between protecting him or letting the little rug-rat learn the hard way how cruel life could be.

"What does the King want. The entire clan to be whipped out?" She mumbled to herself. The choice was obvious, however, if she wanted to live. Dotty lived a relatively solitude life for a Pride member and was usually the last one to hear the current news. So if she allowed the future king to die by heat exhaustion or by something stupid like taking a nose-dive into a rapid infected mound and eaten by termites, it would be on her head.

Once more, her sleek and slender body rose from the ivory skeleton that continued to rest beneath a protective paw. While her feline jaw crunched on a tusk, Mahari didn’t want to take a chance at losing another precious cargo. But no one seemed slightly interested in her treasure aside from a cub practically foaming at the mouth and staring with desire at the bones.

This young cub was highly unlikely Scar's off-spring. Scar might have a dark heart, Dotty could hardly believed he would take another mate than Zira.

"Where your parents, kid?" Dotty singled out, snapping at the lone female that Kovu totally blew off. Her features soften only because she saw females as a higher ranked than any male.

Kovu, on the other paw, showed little regard for his personal safety; but an enormous loyalty for his father. The male cub couldn’t have been very old, thus this lack of intelligent comprehension. Under her watchful eye, although Mahari could sense another lioness nearby, she continued to keep an eye on Kovu’s bouncing hind-quarters as he clumsily searched for his father.

[Scar]

Aberash cringed when the lioness, menacing and enormous from her point of view, directed her attention towards her. Her bright yellow-green eyes watched Dotty tearfully from behind the mound.

Seeing as the lioness was also keeping an eye on Kovu, she could not be quite sure of towards who that question had been directed at. Not wanting to take any risks of provoking her anger, she responded right after Kovu did.

"Parents? Ha.... I don't have ant parents -- I-I don't need them." The dusty cub intended to sound strong and confident as always, but this time she failed and her voice was only a puny squeak.

Noticing how pitiful she had sounded, the cub cleared her throat. She was scared, but she was also hungry, and that skeleton wouldn't steal itself. Besides, if Abreash had learned anything of this pride it was that if you wanted something you had to go get it yourself, nobody would fetch it for you. Nothing like the overly fortunate Pridelanders they so much envied.

Although unrelated to the political drama that had taken the Outlanders where they were, the cub also shared their dislike for the other Pride. Maybe she had adopted it only to feel like she belonged, but in truth she also envied them.

So, driven by hunger, she boldly approached the Outlander and sat at a prudent distance from the skeleton, which she could not help but look at with hunger. She had to rip her gaze off the meal, closing her eyes and then looking at Dotty.

"My name is Aberash." She introduced herself. "And I'll be a brave and strong warrior when I grow up."

[mwezi]

The cub lack ferocity, but in the end finally grew a backbone. Dotty could tell by the skin and bones the kid was less fortunate than her, without a parent to provide food when needed. Lying there, the lioness blinked away any sympathy for the young female. If the cub needed food, she was going to work for it; Mahari wasn't a charity case and giving it away was never her style.

"The skeleton isn't going to magically walk over there beside you." Mahari snarled, lifting her massive paw from protecting the once identified animal. The harshness in her tone was far from patient, but there was a lesson to this conversation.

Mahari whipped her tail into the air and around her dark body, pushing away the pesky termites with her tassel. The sun was harsh and the heat of the sand increase to a scorching level, but the sour look in Dotty's eyes remained hostile. Something about her seemed fiendish, and yet made no move to run the cubs away.

"If you want what is mine, come and get it." The outlander challenged the one name Aberash. The cat child would never grow strong if there was no one to teach her. It was the fiesty nature of the girl that captured the huntress' heart. Locking her golden feline eyes into the young one, Mahari growled sarcastically.

"Or are you all words, and no actions?"

The taunt was to push the cub into attacking to earn her portion. If they pride was to stay alive, they would need hard-working lionesses so they wouldn't have to rely on the crippling hyenas.

[Scar]

Sweet Girl did not win the elephant, but nobody could call the outcome a failure. Could it be that a Pride member would finally accept her? She didn't expect adoption, but only to be considered "one more" in the bunch. It seemed like it had finally happened. Aberash couldn't believe it, and scared as she might be, couldn't back down.

'True bravery is when you do what you must even when you're scared out of your mind', in her mind, her mother's words echoed. The cub flattened her ears against her head, and lowered herself against the ground, stalking. Her yellow-green eyes were narrow.

She took the boldest steps she ever took towards this lioness, then she swallowed, and leaped.

'You were dead, anyway.' Her mind stated in midair.

She tried to latch onto Dotty's paw and bite it. The lioness would not even feel her needle-like teeth through her thick, short fur, but that did not matter to Aberash. What the girl lacked in beauty, she had in bravery.

[Rox]

Having searched to what seemed like forever to the young cub, Kovu eventually gave up on looking for Scar. Feeling rather bored he padded back to Nuka and sat down. "Nuka? Will you play with me?" he asked standing in front of him and staring down at him. Sure Kovu would probably already know the answer to his question, which would probably be 'no', but he figured it was better for him to at least try. If his older brother declined there was that other lioness cub that he passed by earlier that he could probably play with, at least he hoped so.