Sprawling out in the grass, Njozi was feeling a little strange lately. It was mostly due to the fact that she was spending a lot of time by herself, going off away from her two companions for fairly lengthy periods, just to keep her mind completely blank. She wanted to separate herself from the sad discussions that were being held, and she really wanted to escape from the fact that her pride was dead. Somewhere in her mind, all of this gallivanting out in the rogue lands was just one extended trip away from the pridal lands – though she knew she could never return.
Letting out a deep sigh, Njozi looked up at the sky, as it started to turn pink. The sun was falling down behind the horizon, but for once Njozi didn’t feel excited that the stars were going to come out soon. It was a bit of a mental slump for her; she was actually starting to think that maybe she had been stargazing too much as of late, and it’s glamor had faded a bit.
At this point in the evening, she was just lonely; normally, she’d wander away from Vayu and Mzuka in the early afternoon, and generally return when the moon came up. She hadn’t ever felt quite this…lonely without anyone around, though. But she knew it was probably for the best that she was away; she wouldn’t be able to take thoughts of her future right now. Her mind was still a little crushed from the decision she had to make to leave the Arba in the first place. How on earth would she be able to think about going anywhere away from the rogue lands? She had a hard enough time even wandering a good distance away from her previous pride lands. She had been so attached to her beloved pride that it felt like someone was ripping out a piece of her soul when she realized that she had to up and leave it – otherwise, she probably would’ve led a very lonely life there as she was forced to watch the life in the pride slowly fade away.
How did it ever come to that? The former High Priestess couldn’t quite understand how a pride that had been so full of life and thriving – even with multiple species within its boundaries – could ever start do just die off like that. Thinking back, Njozi really should have seen it sooner. Everyone else noticed it soon after it began to happen, but who knows how long it went on without her even recognizing it. It was a fairly sobering moment, waking up one morning and staring out at your beloved home only to realize that it’s dying. If Vayu hadn’t come up to her that day, what would she have done? Would she have just sat there, feeling a hole in her chest start to grow and sink, only to fall back asleep, pushing it to the back of her mind. If Njozi was determined enough, or loved something enough, she’d ignore anything to make it remain perfect. Which was probably what happened, for the longest time. If Vayu hadn’t come to her when he did, the three of them would probably all still be sitting there, just smiling and ignoring the truth that was right in front of them.
Njozi knew that Vayu or Mzuka wouldn’t have left without her saying it needed to be done. They were both such strong individuals that they would’ve survived just fine all throughout the downhill slide or the Arba; Njozi, however, would have been much more in pieces than she was right now. They were both of rogue-birth, but Njozi had known nothing else her entire life.
Curling up a bit, Njozi could feel the bad feeling start to build up in her again. She had purposefully isolated herself to try and overcome it – that, and she didn’t want to hear what Vayu or Mzuka had to say about their next plan of action. For all she knew, they’d want to all split up and go their separate ways fairly soon. Though, she was fairly certain that at least Vayu would always stick by her. Mzuka was such an independent female, and she was able to have cubs although she was a hybrid. She assumed that the light brown cheeton had gotten her strength from their father – a cheetah Njozi had never known. Part of her wanted to take this opportunity to go and find him, since Mzuka would most likely know where he was. But that would all be too much of a shock for her, right now. She was still adjusting to the rogue lands, which were really no different from her pride lands. She had more freedom, if anything, but the mere thought that she was out on her own like this for good scared the blue cheetah. In the past, no matter how far she wandered, there was always a home to go back to.
Speaking of which, if they did decide to all try and find a new home, where would that be? Njozi hadn’t found another pride that accepted all sorts of species like hers did; though, she probably just hadn’t gotten out much. The Savannah was such a vast place, there could have been so many prides that she hadn’t even dreamed of before; maybe there was even a place that took cheetahs as slaves, and made them do their bidding.
Shaking her head, she tried to knock all of her doubts and worries away, if only for a little while. As she glanced up, she could see that the sky was darkening, taking on its usually lovely pitch-dark blue hue. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself, so she could enjoy this night without thinking about the worries of tomorrow, or the fact that she was a homeless cheetah. When she was just a cub, Vayu had always used the stars to try and calm her during the night, so she wouldn’t be up and about bothering her sleeping siblings. So now, more than ever, she really just needed to calm down and lose herself in the big, beautiful sky.
