A Cub At Play (Open)

The sun was high and bright as it watched over the earth below, Awiti had missed feelings about this. She was pleased to be watched over by the leader of the Pride of Souls but was also rather resentful as the light scorched the sandy earth burning her paws. Awiti with an angry determination skipped and leaped in the air the way she’d seen lizards do when they tried to cool their feet. Her anger diminished however, and nearly subsided all together as she begun to enjoy herself. It wasn’t long before her tawny coat was covered in great wads of dust and sand as she leaped and rolled about.

The cub began to laugh as she sprinted in her stumbling manner up a large sandy slope. Her interest was piqued when she, slipping, reached top. The earth was now dotted with little stones and the farther north she looked the larger and more frequently they appeared. The area looked like it needed much exploring as she set off in a race against herself, a cloud of dust kicking up behind her.

Giggling she was forced to slow as the rocks now everywhere pricked her paws with their sharpness. Then her eye alighted on something wonderful, a large rock which stood high above all the others. Suddenly aware of her unfamiliar surroundings and self-conscious about what she was doing she glanced quickly about to be sure no one was watching. Satisfied she crouched low to the ground paws kneading the earth and shoulder blades shifting beneath her fur.

“Awiti the mighty warrior has found claim to her kingdom!” the cub whispered to herself as she imagined that she was growing large and powerful, the twist in her leg long gone and an army of her sisters behind her. “Only now she had to vanquish the lousy black-mane who so rudely took her territory while she was away on a hunt!” she said inching closer and closer to the patch of large rocks. Her amber eyes could see it all, the grass, the large herds of prey, a strong and intimidating male sitting at the top of her mountain. But Awiti was a queen she was strong an unafraid, nothing could stop her! “Now my sisters charge now!” she roared fiercely as she led the incredible army to slay the wrong doer.

Awiti in truth stumbled and fell picking herself up again and again as she tried to transverse the rocky terrain. “No, you will not get me this day!” she shouted fighting off one of the black-mane’s underlings setting his jaw to ruins. She was the queen, this was her land and she was going to win it back or die trying!

Giza was not the type of cub who played. She used to enjoying getting her siblings into trouble, but her enjoyment was playful so much as it was mean. But now, her old life seemed very far away. She had given up on searching for the Pridelands, after deciding it was no longer worth it, but with her new-found sense of freedom, she slipped away from the Lowlands at every chance. They always welcomed her back in again with their pleas to think safely promptly ignored, and Giza found this suited her well enough. None of the jungle cats bothered to punish her, so she kept at it.

That day, she had wandered farther than ever before. There was no real purpose for her wanderings, she was simply bored and pushing her limits. It was the sight of huge boulders that first caught her attention. From a distance, a trick of the eye seemed to suggest that they were actually much larger, and for a split second, Giza wondered if she had accidentally rediscovered her home. But the air was surprisingly arid in this new place, and while the Pridelands had been slowing dying for years, it was nothing like the desert. Having never heard of the desert before, Giza didn't know what to call the place she had happened upon, but the neutral territories of the savanna had melted into dunes and rock formations.

The russet cub stepped gingerly over various boulders, but she was cautious not to stray too far. This definitely wasn't Pride Rock. If she were to get lost here, there would be no one to come looking for her... Not that anyone had bothered back home when she disappeared. But the sound of another voice caught her attention. She realized immediately it was another cub, though she didn't see anyone. Her ears set back as she began to backtrack carefully, already regretting her decision to satisfy her curiosity and explore the boulders.

Without warning, a golden brown female cub, unsteady on her feet, came hurrying through the rocks, nearly running headlong into Giza. The darker cub froze in her tracks, giving Awiti a quizzical look, as if she was the one intruding, and not Giza. "Hey, watch out! Are you crazy?" She backed away from Awiti, still eyeing her with uncertainty. While confident in her fighting abilities when it came to other cubs, Giza was still rather small, and not looking for a fight at all. Her brash manner was too hard to hide though, and she couldn't wipe the sour look from her face. The black tip of her tail twitched behind the cub nervously.

Awiti, charging after a coward with a shaggy blond mane her sisters, battered though they may be raced victoriously behind her. Next, next would be the vile cur who was so arrogant and wicked in his ways as to lay claim to the queen's land! Awiti felt a low rumble rising within as she prepared to call forth a mighty and defiant roar! So lost in her play however, the possibilities of a cub lying hidden among the rocks hadn't eve occurred to her.

The cub's voice cut clear through he fantasy and Awiti the crooked legged cub in a stumbling gate ran alone among the stones. She tried her best to halt her forward momentum pushing all her weight down onto her paws, it hurt. After she stopped she turned abruptly and sat down wanting to look at the stranger while hiding her fatal handicap. Awiti's eyes swept over the cub, she was clearly a she with bright shinning blue eyes which seemed both questioning and alert as they examined her as well.

Awiti's heart began to pound sharply against her ribs. She was quite sure she shouldn't be here and since first arriving in this sea of sand and rocks she hadn't seen a single form a live, save for a occasional lizard. The sandy furred cub glanced nervously about fearing a mother or father close behind. Thinking it better to be 'making nice' when they got here than to be eying their daughter with suspicion she, trying to control her voice asked, "Who are you?" she paused and licked a fore-paw apprehensively. "Do you live here?"

Giza didn't seem to notice the limp in the other's step, or her injured hind leg. Surviving with any type of handicap was difficult in the harsh lands, but Giza was not the sympathic sort. A weakness was a weakness, no matter the cause or the excuse. This was something she had learned subconsciously from her father, Scar himself. No pity. She could, however, tell that the other cub was equally nervous, which gave Giza a moment of false confidence. Her glaring expression was replaced with a sort of amused smirk, now certain Awiti had no intentions of attacking.

Her head raised up with importance when Awiti asked who she was. It was impossible for this cub to know who she really was, the lost princess of the Pridelands, which was probably for the best. "My name is Giza. What's yours?" She quickly shook her head 'no' when asked if she the boulders were her residence. From the cub's second question, it was clear that the russet stranger was not the only one trespassing on someone else's land, and that this place was not home to Awiti, either. This was only vaguely comforting for Giza though. There was no telling how close the cub's family was, and so the darker female remained cautious. She was ready to run in a moment's notice, if something went awry.

"Does your pride live near here? Or are you lost?" Indeed, it would be too easy to lose oneself in such a rocky landscape, and Giza peered over her shoulder, back in the direction she had come, just to be certain she remembered. But her attention quickly shifted back to the unknown cub, who sat, trying to act as if she wasn't wary. Giza instantly adopted a similar nonchalant attitude, tail now thumping against the ground gently as she sat, as well. She shook a paw free of sand that had blown into the area on the hot desert winds. This other cub didn't appear lost, but then, why was she on her own? Nevermind the fact that Giza was near the same age and similarly alone.

“Oh,” Awiti said dumbly, she couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed in the other’s name. Never before had she seen someone with so shocking a pelt before, all the other lions she had known including the rouges who over threw her prides king had the same sandy fur. She cocked her head a bit to the side feeling her name should have reflected her red coloration or the beauty of it. She paused to think, maybe it did. “I’m Awiti.” She smiled politely, she was being cautious but at the same time she wanted very much to sit closer and be friendly.

Awiti’s eyes feel to her paws when Giza asked about her pride. She shook her head slightly trying to make the memories go away. Her life had been so perfect with her family, dotting with tragedy as it was, with the buffalo, and the drought, but it had been a happy life. That was all changed however when her dream ended bloodily, becoming a nightmare. In the back her mind she felt a small buzz, a fleeting hope that if she had found her way here and so too had Giza that perhaps her brother Farai would too. “I, I don’t have a pride.” She said somberly, forgetting the remnants of her fear, so over whelmed by her other emotions. Sadly she lie down and watched an ant walk before her nose.

Her eyes flitting back up to Giza, Awiti realized how lonely she was and that she could be passing up the opportunity for a friend. “Are you lost?” she asked lifting her head. A fly buzzed annoyingly about one of her ears, she flicked it inerrably. When this didn’t work she sat and shook her head vigorously back and forth. She stopped and watched Giza, desperately wanting companionship, and childishly even to herself, someone to play with.

Even though the other cub was not moving around now, Giza could sense there was something a bit off about her. It was the way Awiti shifted her weight to her left side as she sat, or perhaps Giza's own intuition was growing along with her russet body, but the former Pridelander just had a feeling something wasn't right. When the other female admitted that she was without a pride, a faint frown crossed Giza's muzzle. She felt the stirrings of concern for someone other than herself, rare indeed. Maybe Upendo's influence was already doing some good for the dark cub. "I used to have a pride, but they're gone now." The words were not emotional though, indicating that Giza's own home life had not been as happy as the other's. It was not something Giza longed for or even missed, as the weeks passed.

"I'm not really lost, though. Now I live not far from here." The Lowlanders had taken in the cub, but Giza couldn't just turn up again in the jungle with an unknown cub in tow, could she? She would briefly entertain the idea of bringing Awiti back with her, but once she discovered the truth about the other cub's disability, it would be quite impossible to cross the terrain. Both cubs were practically helpless out there, and now Giza seemed to realize that being mean to Awiti would do her no good. Besides, watching Awiti's entire demeanor turn to despair seemed to affect the russet daughter of Scar.

The sudden urge to cheer up the cub was surprising even to Giza, but before she could stop herself, the tone of her voice lightened considerably and she offered a genuine grin. "Wouldn't it be nice if there was a pride just for us cubs? Where all the lost ones can go?" Of course, Giza was not fanciful enough to believe this idea would actually work, for who would feed all the hungry, orphaned or otherwise unwanted little ones? But she laughed despite herself. "At least then they'd have somewhere to go and a pride not filled with mean grown-ups." It wasn't that Giza hated adults, she simply didn't trust them, and her sky blue eyes peered around the area one last time for unwanted company before she seemed to relax, finally.