The north border seemed so far away... And yet it seemed so close. In a daring move, Kosuke had taken up a spot that, while it overlooked the north desert... It also overlooked the den where Kimeti's body lay at rest. The crimson lion lay slightly on his side, paws crossed one over the other, eyes narrow as he looked into the distance. A frown was upon his maw, his tail lashing every once in a while, at random like the puffs of wind across the desert sand. A growl was low in his throat as he pondered these... Nergui... This quiet threat in the distance. He wondered... What were they up to?
It hadn't taken her long to find her mate. She said nothing as she walked up to him, laying down and tucking her body against his. "You seem to be pensive, love..." She looked up at him. "Have you had visions of the future?" It felt like it had been a while since he'd had anything more meaningful than where to find water in the sands, or some lost lion. In fact... It felt like everything was at a stalemate. Their very lives were at a stalemate.
He let out a sound low in his throat, before grooming Shula's ears. "I am pensive, aren't I?" He let out a sigh, keeping his gold eyes on the horizon. "These... Nergui... These lions that are such a threat to everything... They've done nothing lately. I don't like it... And I don't like that the pride is simply sitting around growing fat on our asses." When he heard a laugh, he lifted his chin up. "You laugh now, but you know it's true. My mother told my brother, sisters, and I stories of the past glories of the pride. We would go outside our desert and conquer other prides, steal princesses away to make slaves of them... Now.. What do we do? We sit around, we practice at war, but we MAKE no war. We are all teeth and no bite."
She gave a shrug, looking at the stone under them and playing with a small rock. "War seems to no longer be about who has more bite, though... It seems to be a show, a dance..." She found another rock, carefully balancing it on top of the first. "We gnash our teeth at them and they gnash theirs right back. Neither side moves, though. It is a balancing act, as both sides desire to lose as few lives as possible..." She found and placed a third rock on top of the other two, forming a small tower of stones. "What we can only do, is gather information on them. My father told me that, in the past, that was the sort of thing done. The Firekin of old didn't charge in blindly. The Nergui are a threat mostly because we barely know anything about them, so if we charge in blindly..." She tapped the bottom rock, shifting it slightly, and caused the others to topple. "We will lose."
Kosuke watched the rocks, still frowning. "But that's part of the problem. Nobody wants to go gather information from them. We have nobody playing the spy to get in and find out about them, nobody to discover their secrets... There is nobody we can trust to send in, and nobody willing to depart the pride to infiltrate." He sighed, then shifted his gaze right back to the horizon. "Instead... Kidondo has us continuing to play war with each other, when we already know everybody else's weaknesses within the pride. We grow no stronger... And at the same time, few cubs are born. We do not grow stronger in numbers."
The blood-red lioness was contemplative, tilting her head in thought while staring at the horizon with her mate. After a moment, she crossed her own paws, a mimicry of what Kosuke was doing. "And what would YOU have us do, if YOU were the one in charge?" She looked up at him. "Your aunts and uncles have either fled the lands or grown complacent with what they have in life, and your father is not of his right mind... Which means YOU are the oldest descendant of the Safi throne, if they still have one. Which means, for all you know, the Safi, what few there may still be... Will look at YOU for some form of guidance."
He closed his eyes, thoughts running through his head. He couldn't just charge in head-first... Even knowing the lions around him. Loyalties were very strongly with Kidondo, after all... He opened his eyes. Kidondo... Yes... "I would have to look at this diplomatically... As sour a taste as that puts in my mouth. The pride can't change back to what it once was, probably never will... But we metaphorically sit on our asses far too much. So..." He reached up a paw, stroking his chin. "We need a spy within the Nergui... Somebody who can learn their joke of a language, and bring back information to us... But it would have to be somebody in close with the pride. Somebody... Within the family..." He rose to his paws. "I think I may need to have a chat with my cousin... Lion to lion..." When he noticed the look Shula gave him, he bumped his forehead against hers reassuringly. "No claws, minimal teeth. The only biting will hopefully just be WORDS."
"Good... Kidondo is like an uncle to me, so I would never forgive you if you hurt him or got into a physical fight with him." She reached up and gave him a pat on the cheek, before standing herself. "A spy would be a real challenge, though. They would have to be somebody raised specifically to infiltrate the pride and sneak back to us. Somebody who wouldn't rouse suspicion..." Somebody who wouldn't stand out amid the Nergui. This left out... A few families.
"A Huria, perhaps..." Huria that didn't have particularly eye-catching markings could easily pass for just another rogue. Generic markings... There were plenty of those in the pride. There were, of course, also families that had distinct markings. Like the shoulder mark his brother, father, and grandfather bore, as well as mulitple aunts, uncles, cousins... A few children... There, too, were some half-siblings of Shula that had spider marks, and others with a spider mark on their chest... Also distinct... "Well, what will be appropriate will be determined yet." He gave his mate a smile. "Wish me luck. I promise to behave." He walked off, picking his way down the cliffs.
As she watched him go, Shula let out a quiet sigh. She hoped things went well... She was growing tired of this stalemate, and this gnashing of teeth, a show of force and nothing more. There'd been that one skirmish with the Nergui, which had killed one of them... But that felt like a fluke, a chance rain during a drought in the desert. She picked her own way down from the cliffs, careful of every step while keeping an eye on the shrinking form of Kosuke's red pelt. He could be hard-headed, but then all Firekin could be. And she still loved him despite his particular brand of hard-headedness. Now to figure a way to bring up the matter of the boy that was watching one of their oldest daughters...