Accompanied Patrols

The sun had just risen on the horizon and it was time for Kiume to go on his patrols, but instead of going alone he awoke his son Kavu early with a request to be accompanied by him. Kiume didn't have any true one on one time with his carbon copy of a child and today would have to be the day. It was considered almost an honor to accompany a king on his patrols in Kiume's days as a cub, but this was now some father-son bonding time. Kiume had told his son to spruce himself up and to meet him at the crocodile swamp at the edge of the territory, but yet it was so close to the dens that it wasn't a far walk. So for now, Kiume sat at the border and upon the ledge above the swamp, safe from any crocodile threats, eyeing the Pridelands just within his reach. It disgusted the male to see his old homelands in the state they were now, a shade of grey had tinted the lands and almost no grass seemed to grace the lands. The sun shone on the lands with a fiery blaze, but there was no beauty, just a sickly land and a lone, adolescent, wildebeest escaping the lands.

The herbivore eyed the king as it made it's way into the Outlands and Kiume only nodded. "Save travels young one, for my pride does not hunt this early, safety will be with you until high noon," The hoofed creature snorted softly as a thanking before departing, running widely through the heart of Kiume's barren territory. It pained Kiume to know that he easily could have gotten a meal for his pride, that if rationed correctly would have lasted for three days, but it wasn't his turn to hunt. He did however hunt the other day and brought back a larger hyena that had strayed too far from it's pack. The look on Tama's face was priceless, but she still ate it anyways. Food was food in the Outlands, and to give that up was almost outrageous. The cubs ended up with more food, Kiume's own, young Zivia included, with slightly more than that. They needed the extra food, they needed the strength. If they were going to protect -or lead a kingdom- in the future then they needed their strength and the best way to get that was as cubs. Nutrients were limited, and that meant that the cub's growth could possibly be stunted if a large input of food was cut off.

Kiume thought to his son, the one that was joining him on his patrols. He was his carbon copy, almost to an exact replica. But his mother had some influence on him in the gene pool, both his mane and nose had a silver tint to them, letting him have a more mixed appearance. Kavu was adventurous, something Kiume was never like in his cub years, so that trait must have been given to him by his mother. Oh Ilani, how Kiume missed her so. He knew that Kavu would probably be her favorite out of all of them, even if by only a smidgen. The boy was also the only one to inherit Kiume's blazing orange eyes, and he wore those eyes well. Although Kiume would have loved to see all three of his cubs with their mother's eyes, it was almost soothing to see another of his traits passed down. The only thing that Kiume disliked about his family was that the cub's mother was lost to the ages, and he sighed every time he thought about her. But for now, Kiume would have to wait to mourn again, it was bonding time with his son.