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In recent moons, Mittere's life had been turned upside down. She'd found herself with a lioness for a mate...and then said mate had become pregnant without the pink lioness' knowledge or permission. Now there were cubs. Three of them. The Warrior was relieved of duty for the time being, her responsibility to her unexpected family until Tarafa had recovered and the cubs were old enough to be on their own or in the care of someone other than their mothers.

That day couldn't come soon enough for Mittere. Right now she was lying down in the warm sunshine outside the den, away from the so-called family. Tarafa was likely sleeping, still recovering. It hadn't been the easiest thing for her, as the blue lioness wasn't nearly as young as Mittere. The cubs were...well, they were quiet and that was good. They weren't utterly dependent on their mothers anymore, but they were still too young to stray far.

And they'd have to get past Mittere in order to stray at all.

Mittere snorted at the direction of her thoughts and reminder herself - again - that her claws had to be sheathed when dealing with the little furballs. A pity, but there it was.

The pink lioness was not so lost in thought that she failed to note the sound of very small footsteps coming up behind her. Not to mention that the cub was far to young to have learned the concept of walking quietly. Mittere reflected that it was a good thing there'd been so much time between when she...joined...the pride and now. Before she'd been hair-triggered, and they might've accidentally lost another cub.

The lioness' lips twitched slightly, but even in her mind the joke fell flat. Losing a cub was no laughing matter, and not only had it hurt to watch Tarafa frantically trying to lick life into her younger son, it had hurt that he hadn't even gotten to take a single breath of life. Mittere had railed against the unfairness at the time - why bother carrying a cub in your womb if it was just going to be born dead?

The footsteps were closer now, almost even with Mittere. The lioness wrenched her mind back to the present and laid a foreleg down in front of - a glance brought her Tarafa's coloring entirely - Nyesha. Given their relative sizes, the pink lioness judged that a sufficient barrier.

Blue eyes blinked as she felt an unexpected impact on the leg that she had decided to use as a deterrent barrier. Mittere looked down at the blue cub. Only someone intimately familiar with her expressions, like Tarafa, would have noticed the slightly change in her lips, indicating an unwilling smile.

Cubs were so simple, it was no wonder all adults fell for them. Their straightforwardness was a relief from the convolutions and politics of adult conversation and interaction.

And they were cute.

The pink lioness turned her head from the cub to her own leg, and back again. Slowly, so that the child couldn't mistake what she was doing.

"So it did," she remarked, amused and wondering what Nyesha would do next.

The lioness watched the cub. There was no predicting what a young and utterly untrained child would do. She might be able to accurately guess what a fighter would do, but that was because she knew a great deal of what went into that cat's training and how it would influence their thought process.

Cubs didn't really have a developed process of any kind. And they had an awful lot to learn. Apparently today would be colors.

"Your toes are blue," she answered, not entirely certain if Tarafa had taught the kids what their own colors were called. "My toes are pink."

Fortunately, the kids were far too young to associate pink with girls and blue with boys the way far too many of their elders tended to. This was better for everyone in Mittere's immediate vicinity.

The lioness blinked a few times as the cub circled around. She had absolutely no idea what the kid was up to. No doubt it made sense to Nyesha, but that didn't exactly help Mittere.

"Your eyes are yellow," she replied. The pink lioness supposed she should count her blessings that all the questions today revolved around colors. It could be so much worse - Nyesha could be asking 'why.' Not that Mittere had ever actually been around a cub asking 'why.' Not even when she was that age.

But all parents everywhere seemed to despise that phase and Mittere had no doubt that she wanted to avoid it if at all possible.

"Your brother's eyes are also yellow," Mittere answered, suppressing the urge to sigh in aggravation. It wasn't Nyesha's fault that she didn't yet have enough of a vocabulary - or experience - to imagine things she hadn't seen. To be fair, the pink lioness knew a great many adults that were incapable of such a feat. She usually called them hidebound, conservative and a few other words that should not be in her mind or on her lips anywhere near a cub.

And damnit, she was not going to say that the sun was yellow. The sun appeared to be many different colors depending on the weather, season, time of day and the perception of the lion in question.

Mittere watched the cub watching her. Now what was she supposed to do? Obviously Nyesha wasn't inclined to go back into the den and, from the sound of snores, the pink lioness wasn't inclined to send her back inside either.

She studied the situation. She didn't want the child wandering any further away, but she wasn't really interested in answering more cub-logic questions.

The lioness sighed and gently picked up Nyesha and plopped the cub in a place that was much easier to reach. Then she did the only motherly thing she could think of and started giving the cub a bath.

It was soothing, relaxing and a good way to keep the kid from straying farther.

Plus, the blue cub was mystically dirty, even though she'd only just come from inside the den.