Bones and Termites

[Bendari]

Nuka groans before opening his eyes and looking at the cub. "No, I there isn't really anything to do here anyway. It's all rocks and termites out here!" He says, looking around the barren wasteland that they now live in, using a paw to point to point at the termite mounds all over the area. "Besides I'm too old to play with you." The teen says, looking back down at his adoptive brother, not really amused.

[mwezi]

The temptation must have been too sweet because after a short run, the lanky female pounced with a determination in her eyes. The bony lioness merely blinked at the cub’s measly assault, her golden eyes unaccustomed to a young lion munching on the tip of her claw. Dotty raised her paw to eye level, taking the cub with it, most likely dangling there by the skin of her tiny teeth.

"If I was an ant, I might have died." Dotty spoke with very little praise. Her ears were pushed against her skull, but her 'you can’t do better than that?' look said something else.

"You're not going to eat termites for the rest of your life," Mahari exclaimed with a nice juicy zebra leg in mind. The pride can't live in the desert forever, they'd die if they did. Some day Dotty will be feasting on game and until then if she needed to train the best huntress, so be it.

"So next time, think before you leap. You're going to scare away your meal if you keep doing that." The lioness warned.

Shaking her paw to get Aberash to release, Dotty pushed away a small bone from her collection a few feet away. "Try not to break your teeth." She offered, insisting the cub earned her reward. "And you should share it with that boyfriend of yours."

The playful Kovu was out of her sight, but she knew the toddling prince could not have gone far. Shaking the dust from he pelt, the huntress took a few steps to search for Kovu. By the way, staring at the lazy Nuka, Dotty briefly wondered why he wasn't crown prince and his younger brother was.

[Scar]

The giant paw shook and Aberash was sent rolling across the dust. The small cub landed upside down besides the arched root of a dead tree. Snarling, and with her four paws held up in the air, she looked ready to continue the hopeless fight. However, she was surprised by the bone pushed in her direction. She quickly rolled on her feet, her eyes widening, and a smile appearing on her face in response to the the delicious meal before her.

But then...

"My boyfriend?" Aberash choked.

"I wouldn't marry Kovu if he was the last lion in the world!" She protested. Honestly, she didn't get along well with the other cubs, but it was the same with everyone else; she felt like she still was in enemy territory and had to watch her back.

That said and she began chewing on the corners of the hard bone. She accomplished nothing but wetting the surface of it with spit, her jaws too weak to split it and get to the only source of nutrients there may be left, the marrow. But its earthy taste was like victory today. Hopefully, she would be allowed to be a guard and a warrior, maybe a cubsitter too, but not a hunter. Because what might appear as a cub's lack of experience would soon grow to become the worst huntress in the whole world.

[Rox]

"Aw come on Nuka..." Kovu replied flopping down on top of the elder male's side. "Why not?" he asked. It was odd to the cub. When he was younger, he remembered Nuka playing with him a little bit but for some strange reason as he grew, the teen seemed to practically ignore the young cub. All Vitani wanted to do was play fight, which he certainly didn't mind from time to time and Aberash who was currently busy fighting another lioness for her portion of a meal. "Please?"

[Bendari]

Nuka growls somewhat before sighing, giving in to the cub. "Ok, fine, we'll play." The teen says in an annoyed voice, sitting up and looking down at the cub. Ever since that day he heard his father was planning on Kovu being king instead of him, his hopes were crushed, there wouldn't be a memorial for Shujaa, and he was losing his rightful place as king. Both of these facts had make the once playful Nuka dark and brooding.

[Rox]

"Alright!" Kovu exclaimed as he looked around for something nearby. "We could play 'tug the stick' or um...'squash the bug'.." the cub droned on and on about all the possibilities that they could play. Shrugging, the cub decided that maybe they could do each of those things starting with 'tug the stick'.
Padding over to an old tree root, Kovu trotted back over to Nuka gingerly and bent down in a play pose as he flicked his tail back and forth, waiting for Nuka to take the other end.

[Bendari]

Nuka goes to the other side of the stick and gets low, watching his "brother" carefully, not entirely sure how tough it will be to hold Kovu back when they begin tugging on the stick, though he's sure he'll win due to him being older.

[Rox]

Having seen that Nuka took hold of the other side of the branch, Kovu backed up and began to tug and shake his head back and forth with all his might, trying his best to loosen the other male's grip on the stick, figuring that he'd possibly let him win due to him being younger. Trying his best to maintain his hold, he unsheathed his claws and dug them into the ground as deep as they would go, trying to ground himself.

[Bendari]

Nuka at first tugs gently, but a few minutes in he begins to tug more, not too hard at first to yank the stick out, but hard enough to make Kovu have to work with the stick. "You won't win this time!" He says between his teeth.

[Rox]

Sensing that Nuka was starting to pull harder, Kovu suddenly rolled onto his back and tried writhing his body around, causing some slight dust to pick up as he did so. "You won't win this time!" Nuka had replied. "Oh yeah I will!" he boasted while a slight growl emitted from his throat. "I'm not giving up THAT easy..." he thought as he continued to twist and turn his body causing even more dust than before to pick up.

[Bendari]

Nuka continues tugging until he notices how hard Kovu's tugging, a smirk crosses his face before he lets go, expecting the cub to go tumbling. "This'll be great!"

[Rox]

Still continuing to tug as hard as he possibly could, Kovu suddenly lost his grip as Nuka released his grip on the stick, which caused the cub to, as expected, go tumbling backwards. Unable to really pull himself out of the backwards roll, the young cub slammed into a nearby rock, his tail tip hanging in front of him as he laid there on the ground on his back, trying to register what had just happened that caused him to lose his tight grip. Rolling back over onto his stomach, Kovu shook his head trying to regain his sense of state. He rose up, staggering somewhat, as he walked back towards Nuka and sitting down. "You did that on purpose.." he muttered while looking upwards at his older brother.

[Bendari]

"What if I did?" The teen says looking back down at the cub with a smirk before breaking out in a laugh from seeing the cub tumble after he let go. "You should've seen your face when you stopped rolling!" Nuka says while laughing.

[Rox]

That teared it...Kovu's face contorted into a pout as he backed up and ran full speed at Nuka, his intention to knock the teen over and basically let him have it for pulling such a trick on him.

[Bendari]

The teen watches the cub rush into him, trying to knock him over. This didn't really work due to size differences, and Nuka begins to laugh even more. He found it highly amusing that his younger "brother" believed he could topple him with a charge. "You're killing me!" He says in mid laughter.