Welcome to Gaia! ::

At last the pups were old enough to leave the den. They'd been so small, so terribly helpless. They were still tiny, but they were up and mobile. Time for them to get out and see the world. Time for them to start meeting their family! Bahari hadn't told the other hyenas much about the litter. So far, all they knew was that it contained two girls and an unspecified number of less-important boys.

"Come on, kiddos, let's go meet your dad," Bahari said cheerfully, heading towards the entrance of the den.

Manyara trailed behind the little family, keeping an eye on all the pups. Bahari had told her to watch them, and watch them she would!

Kero was an extremely excited little pup - for the first time ever he was going to get to see the World Outside the Den! He's tried asking his mother about it, but there was no doubt that the girls were better and got more of her attention, although he now knew that the sky wasn't striped like he was - what a shame, that! He spotted the adult male hyena - their Dad, although he didn't know what a "Dad" was, exactly - and ran over to him with a happy yip.

"Hi! You're striped like me! But you're blue! Why are you blue? Did you wanna be blue, or would you rather be another color? Oh, your nose is pink; that's awesome! I want a pink nose, do you think I could switch mine?" Pausing for just a moment to take in a breath, the male pup started circling the striped adult, chattering away nonstop as he did so.

"The sky's blue too! But a different kind of blue than your fur; why is it blue? Why not green? Or - or purple or pink; why isn't it striped? It should be striped because stripes are amazing! Can we paint the sky? Ooooh, can we fly? I bet we can, I've just gotta get high enough to try! Can you fly? If you can, teach me, teach me!"

On and on he prattled, switching topics so fast an intelligent creature would have a hard time keeping up with him. To others with less intelligence, he was practically like a mosquito buzzing in your ear - a nonstop source of unintelligible noise.

Kibibi was the last to leave the den, but certainly not the last to be in line. She had managed to gear up her little pup legs and fly past her siblings in a rush of dirt and happy sounding yips. She was going to meet her Daddy today and she was far more excited than what was probably good for the little hyenas health.

Unlike her siblings, who were seemingly relying on sight and their mother to indicate who their father was, Kibibi relied on smell. Her nose was planted quickly to the ground once she was ahead of everyone and sniffed around quickly for the scent that she had decided was her father's. There had always been two distinctive scents inside the den, her mother's (which subsequently was her siblings as well, considering the amount of time they spent together) and a foreign one, which she deemed her father's.

Snorting up the dirt, almost as if she was a wild dog instead of related distantly to them, she came to a halt when she hit something furry. Looking up she noticed the blue fur of another hyena, a male like her brothers. Her eyes lit up and she yipped loudly, "DADDY.DADDY.DADDY.DADDY.DADDY."

Bekeli looked faint for a moment. He closed his eyes in order to gain composure before he was assaulted by his little son, Kero. Kero's mouth seemed to never stop, and he asked the most bizarre questions that Bekeli had ever heard; they never even made sense about anything, and Bekeli was never sure how to reply. Hell, he never had a chance to reply because the kid wouldn't shut up.

And then there was the weird one, the one that thought the slave-lion was his mother. That one was tolerable, at least, because it wasn't yapping at his heels or chewing on his ears.

His oldest daughter reminded him terribly of Dikeledi. 'Nuff said. Hell, his son Kepo reminded him terribly of Dikeledi. 'NUFF. SAID.

And then.. there was his other daughter. Kibibi. Out of all five, she would be the death of him. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. He was terrified of her instantly.

"Much more than five." His voice was that typical high-pitched whine, and he backed away from his pups. They were awful.


Zalika groaned softly and hissed at her sister, "Kibibi shuddup." Such an annoying sibling. Kepo wasn't much better, and Zalika could see where they'd gotten their stupidity. It came from daddy, obviously.

Igola tilted his head nodding slowly. He wasn't as stupid as they all believed, he just took his time processing new information before he made a judgment on it. Somewhere in that pea brain of his, he knew that Bahari was his mother because he had been told so, she was the one that nursed him and his siblings but in his mind that did not make her his mother.

Manyara was the one that cuddled him in the dark, who picked him up when he fell or sheltered him when the other pups got to rowdy. She loved him and that was all Igola needed to know. He sniffed curiously in the direction of his father, just to learn his scent, then leaned back into the warm side of Momma silently watching his siblings.

Bahari watched all of the goings-on with amusement. She had discovered a surprising depth of tolerance in herself, and she wasn't bothered by the pups. Someone unprepared, like their poor dimwitted father, could easily be overwhelmed by their antics. The grey hyena chuckled, watching Kibibi and Kero tussle over Bekeli's attention. Zalika and Kepo were predictably watching with scorn, and Igola was clinging to that miserable lioness.

Bahari would have rather seen Zalika and Kibibi together, but that was all right. The girls would take their place at the top of the heap soon enough. Not that that would take much effort ... unfortunately, probably due to Bekeli's defective ... contribution, the boys seemed to have come out half-baked. Both Igola and Kero had broken brains. She suspected that even Kepo, the least pathetic, had a notion that he was or should be a female.

Oh, well. Good thing they were only boys. "Let your father adjust, kids," Bahari said mildly, strolling over to greet the overwhelmed male. "You look scared, Bekeli." She grinned, highly amused by his discomfort. "They're not gonna bite. Well, actually, they probably will." Bahari laughed.

Kepo didn't mind being ignored by Zalika. In his mind, they were being aloof together, demonstrating their clear superiority over the rest of the hyena brood. He didn't add to her whispered command to Kibibi, but nodded briskly. If only all of the pups would shut up. The little brown male eyed Bekeli with distaste.

The adult male was smelly, grungy, and the hugest loser Kepo had yet seen in his young life. His siblings didn't have to be so excited. They should just greet this scummy hyena and go do more important things. Like meet his aunt Dikeledi. Kepo hadn't seen her, but he had heard of her, and she sounded wonderful.

"I don't wanna talk to this ugly ole hyena," Kepo whined. "I wanna see Auntie Dikeledi."

None of the hyenas were paying attention to her other than Igola, and Manyara was happy with that. She stood back with her little 'son', quietly observing the family as they met. Other than Igola, all of the pups were pretty terrible as far as she was concerned. Bekeli was mean to her, but she actually felt bad for him.

Cornered by all of those crazy pups, she would have been scared too. Manyara leaned down slightly to whisper to Igola. "Maybe you should go say hi." Bahari didn't seem to care that Manyara and Igola were staying out of the way, but she didn't want the mom hyena to get mad at her for keeping Igola back. "Your brother Kepo's right though," she said in the barest whisper. "Bekeli is kinda smelly."