[FIN] Fading (Eppie & Hashiel)

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He felt old.

No, his body felt old. Older than his children, who had grown up and begun their own lives. Older than his mate, was always there to support him, though he concealed much of his difficulty from her. Older than either of his parents, who were still fully capable of anything they set their minds to.

This was the curse of the disease.

He was not yet in his final days, but they were coming, surely and inexorably. The only ones he had confided in, in secrecy, were Healers, and only a few of those. He couldn't be certain how many others suspected, but Adivyta, thank the Goddess, wasn't one of them.

Yet.

Today he still had duties as a Nanny, and if his peers had noticed how his preference had shifted over the years to one who sat and watched over the children, entertaining them with voice instead of action, they hadn't spoken. It had, after all, been a shift of years. And while he concealed the depth of his symptoms, it was known that Hashiel had had the disease from the time he was a cub. That he had lived to adulthood, when so many died young, was in and of itself a surprise and a blessing.  

[hibi-tea]

Eppie found her body betraying her these days. The trace symptoms that had indicated her suffering her pride's disease had grow into noticeable signs. The occasional paleness of her skin, her difficulty breathing when she ran around too long with the children. Even her hips ached her at the end of the day and would not dissipate their dull sting till morning. She was old, and slowly she was waning.

Eppie had overexerted herself again today, and lay resting in a cool patch of earth as she watched cubs skitter too and fro. The other Nannies were doing their best to keep the gaggle of children at bay and well watched. Although, Eppie's friend Njeve seemed to be the one best rounding up the cubs today. She had the advantage of not being a lion on her side. It made Eppie envious of her at times.  

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It seemed much more natural to watch the lioness suffer the ravages of the disease than himself. After all, Eppie had been a mother when he'd been born. So age had almost certainly taken its toll. Though again, his mother seemed quite fine...

"It's probably a good thing we aren't the only Nannies here," he offered to the lioness who sat not too far off. They couldn't, and wouldn't, sit next to each other, if only because containing cubs worked best when the caretakers created a rough and unspoken circle. Not that it was completely effective, but it worked for the most part.

The rest was what younger and less disabled Nannies were for.  

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Eppie heard the male's voice and her head flicked in his direction and a smile spread across her face upon seeing him. It was another one of the Nannies, come to join the fray of underdeveloped roars and wiggling bottoms.

"If we were, they would overtake us and the pride easily," Eppie joked, looking back out at the cubs before peering back over to her male counterpart.

Eppie knew this male from when he was a cub himself. She had taken her turn watching him, as she had taken her turn watching everyone's children at some point or another. There was rarely a cub she never had in her care, unless that cub was very sickly from birth. That was usually when a Healer spent its days with the child.

"How're you today?" Eppie asked, with her usual polite smile. "And your family. Are they good?"  

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Hashiel snorted his response to children taking over the pride. "But they do, of course. Once they're grown." It was true in its fashion, after all. However the Kitwana'antara had never been so overly blessed with cubs that they had been in danger of outnumbering the adults.

"Today is a good day, and my kin are well. My mother-in-law and my mate's out-pride siblings are visiting," he answered with some pride. It generally pleased everyone that there was no awkwardness between himself and his mate's relatives. Of course, the vast majority of them did live in the pride anyway, given her father...

"And yourself and your own?" the leopon turned the question back on the lioness.  

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Eppie chuckled at Hashiel's snort and his response. It was too true how one day all these cubs would inherit the pride, albeit much quicker than in any normal pride. One day they'd all be just memories to these cubs, and one day they'd be memories to their own cubs. It was how their lives would always be. At some point over the years, Eppie had made peace with that.

The tan lioness tried her best to hide some of her sadness when Hashiel talked of him and his mate's family from the outside. She had grandchildren on the outside, and she would never see them, never meet them, and she didn't know a single thing about their father or how to find him. She had their sibling, Lippo, and that was all she knew of them.

"I'm glad to hear your family is well. It must be exciting to hear about the stories from the outside," Eppie commented, before offering Hashiel a response to his question, "My family is restless. Josepi tells fantastic stories, but can't seem to talk himself a mate, Veena does not visit me enough, and Lippo is just... she hasn't been well lately. She's always been prone to random sickness, but it's mostly her spirit lately that's ill."  

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"I suppose it is," the leopon admitted. "I've never really thought about it that way. My father is a rogue, and my mother met him on one of her journeys." Saskiranel, as one of the immune Guards, was often called upon to accompany any members of the Kitwana'antara who needed to leave the pride's lands for some reason. This was usually Apothecaries and the like, seeking things or plants necessary that simply weren't found at home.

So stories from beyond the boundaries were commonplace to Hashiel. If not on one of his father's infrequent visits, then sometimes his mother would share stories of her travels.

"It seems your family either needs some distance, or more closeness," he observed.  

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Eppie thought on the leopon's words for a few moments, before giving him a sad smile and returning her attention back to the cubs they were tasked with watching.

"Perhaps you're right," Eppie replied, resting her head atop her paws as she watched healthy cubs play, and sickly cubs try to keep up. "I guess the real question is which one?"

With their lives what they were, family ultimately meant everything. You had such a limited time to know your children or you parents, that there was always some sort of pressure to be close and to be involved. Sometimes that was what was needed, and at other times it wasn't what was needed at all.

Eppie had spent so much of her life with her children, tending to her children, trying to be involved with her children... Perhaps what she needed was to distance herself from her children. To let go a little.

"Life should not be this complicated," She chuckled.  

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"Only your family can answer that," he replied simply. And there was no guarantee such an answer would be found. Families were, as Eppie implied, quite complicated. Even his. It had become much more complicated when he'd married into Sliabh's family, but even before that there had been difficulties. He remembered how strange it had been to meet his father for the first time, this leopard whom he hadn't known and who hadn't stayed long enough to become truly significant to Hashiel.

"But if it wasn't complicated, life wouldn't be worth living," the leopon replied at last. Instead of dwelling on the inevitable ending of life such a statement usually referred to, he focused instead on setting his paws so that he could rise to his feet once more. It was, by the sun's low height, just about time to send the cubs back to their own families, complex or not.  

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Eppie looked over to the younger male with a wide smile on her face, "You know, for someone so much younger than me you sure are much wiser."

The sun's low height meant the end of Eppie's duties for the day. Soon the parents would return, or she would have to return the cubs to their parents. Taking in a deep breath, Eppie dragged herself up off the cool dirt patch with minute amount of difficulty. Her paws were still sore from her romp around the lands with the cubs, but she wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

"Looks like it's time to round 'em up," Eppie smiled, stretching a bit before she headed towards the rest of the Nannies.  

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"I wouldn't know that," Hashiel told the lioness. "I guess it's all a matter of viewpoint. If I sound wise to you, I guess you find meaning in my words."

"But," he continued, heading towards the cubs, "I'm sure all they hear is noise!" Cubs, after all, were much more focused on the immediate needs, and not interested at all in philosophy and musing.

It could wait until they grew up.

As long as they were allowed to grow up.