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 Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 2:40 am
 The pride was alight with cubs, many tumbling over each other and playing. Even the elusive Athena had bore a litter of cubs! While they didn't look like the father that was raising them, Irmak could understand why - The male who was raising them was incapable of siring cubs of his own, caught between the two worlds of a lion and a leopard and unable to sire progeny as a result. So they'd gone with the next best thing, finding a surrogate sire.
Confusingly, the surrogate was also named Athena.
She knew she wouldn't have that problem - It'd be pretty much impossible to find a male also named Irmak bint Melek, considering the 'bint' that united the two parts of her name was only for females. Irmak sim Melek, maybe... But instead, if she had cubs... They'd probably have names like Razmik sim Gabedi or Hatoon bint Irmak.
The thought made her pause, as she walked through the trees close to the grasslands, at the thought. Well, if that wasn't admitting it... The lioness let out a hum, allowing herself a smile, before one ear shifted. Her mind returned to the present, instead of dwelling on cubs currently or potentially in the pride, to take in her surroundings. Favorable winds, the sun was out... It would appear that all was clear.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:20 am
 She was up to no good again... This seemed to be the running theme with the lioness who had been chased away from the borders by her father again. Short of shackling her to the den, it seemed that it took her family considerable effort to keep her safe, and secure, in one spot. It wasn't that they didn't appreciate that she was an adult, but they were also aware that she made considerably naive and foolish decisions... Thus going anywhere near that border was completely out of the question.
...Not without an escort anyway.
Thus the lioness found herself kicking up stones with her paw as she strode through the grasslands. It would have been accurate to assume she was in a bit of a huff. However, this mood was soon to lift as she caught sight of Irmak. The lioness seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, admiring the view as most of the pride seemed to enjoy, but in Solenn's little world she was the ideal distraction.
"Goooood morning!" She announced, not one to be around others in silence for long.
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:08 pm
As she had started to step out, Irmak stopped, staring at the approaching lioness. Old ways from an old pride surfaced as she greeted, "Hello, Solenn bint Afina. What brings you out near the border?" Near, she said, but it was still some distance away yet. There had to still be a long distance of grassland, between the edge of the jungle and the border, filled with residential and migratory prey. It was a great distance with little to no shelter, nowhere to hide. It was every bit unlike the jungle or the beach, yet every bit as humid and hot. "Hoping to go rogue-spotting?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 2:36 pm
Solenn wrinkled her nose in confusion as the lioness greeted her; it wasn't something she had ever heard before. Given that Solenn hadn't acquainted herself with this lioness before (she rarely did with anyone), she hadn't quite come to realise that she was an outsider... Or at least she hadn't until now. One might have found her widening eyes to be rude, but it was something akin to delight as realisation dawned on her that this lioness wasn't quite like the others.
"Am I near?" Solenn paused and glanced around her. Perhaps she was far enough in so that no one came chasing after her...bonus!
"I wasn't really looking for rogues," she replied and then grinned. "Are there any?" she asked curiously and tilted her head to the side. However she didn't eventually remember herself and regarded Irmak curiously again.
"What brings you out here, the same thing...?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 4:26 pm
"A bit, yes..." She started to walk, heading for the border. It was somewhere in the distance, marked by the many lions who patrolled it. Out there, at the moment, was Gabedi, make his own rounds. He was seasoned at it, patrolling a territory and defending it from dangerous outsiders, by his time in his birth pride. To her knowledge, though, he'd never sired cubs there. Taking in a breath of the open air, she glanced at the lioness. The wrinkle of her nose hadn't, of course, been missed. One did not miss things in the Qyrhyeshti lands, after all. "You wrinkle your nose. Why is that?" She hadn't missed it, but that didn't mean she knew why it had happened.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 1:25 am
Yessssss, she had an 'escort', take that dad!
Solenn merrily fell in to step with the lioness and flashed a warm smile, her wrinkled nose long forgotten as she approached the borders again. Oh she certainly wouldn't leave, not yet anyway. If she tried that now she knew that the fires of hell would rain down on her as her father came after her. She'd have to wait until there was a better opening and then she would embrace the opportunity.
...For now though.
"Oh," she cleared her throat. "It's just that I don't really know what 'bint Afina' is," she explained. "My name is Solenn but you added all of that," she shook her head. "Is it something from where you came from? It sounds a little peculiar," she confessed. She wasn't the crayon in the box and therefore hadn't realised that it was a reference to her mother.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:02 pm
At the clarification, Irmak's ears went up in surprise. "Oh! Yes, that's how cubs were named and lions addressed back in the Qyrhyeshti and Burkuteshti lands. It means Solenn, Daughter of Afina. Boys had sim instead of bint in their name, so it would be..." She wracked her brain, thinking of an example. "Tagd sim Natsu - Tagd, Son of Natsu." She paused, watching a giraffe walk by. They were an unusual sight at best, out in the lands she'd come from, and while she'd gotten used to seeing them the further east they'd traveled, they were still unusual. "How does something get that tall..."
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:34 pm
"Huh..." Solenn seemed to absorb the information, even if it was clear it wouldn't be of much use to her. Or rather it wouldn't be unless she happened to stumble across an individual who happened to be from wherever Irmak heralded from. "So... You can't say you're the daughter of your father, it always has to be your mother?" she asked curiously. Somehow that seemed a little unfair, what if all the cubs were female and the father was outnumbered? He'd get no credit for all his hard work!
However as Irmak did make reference to the giraffe she pursed her lips.
"Maybe there's something in the water?" she hazarded and shook her head; she'd never been far out but perhaps if she was allowed she might be able to find that answer out for the lioness. "Or maybe just something they eat... I have no idea." She confessed, failing to realise that Irmak's question might have been completely rhetorical.
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Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2017 3:34 pm
Irmak gave a shrug, "It's just how things functioned out there. Lionesses trace their lines through their mothers, lions through their fathers." Was there some inbreeding? Probably. Did anybody care? Only if it was too close. Plus enough rogues wound up in the pride to keep things from getting too genetically choked. And now, they'd all scattered to the four winds, to find their own ways. Where, she wondered, had the other Qyrhyeshti wound up?
She stopped, blinking for a moment. Turning to Solenn, she couldn't help but quirking a small smile. "I meant it rhetorically, mostly. Giraffes are born long in the limb, so it's something far in the back." She looked back, nose twitching. The border was within close distance, now.
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 1:13 am
"Seems a little unfair if you end up with only girls in a litter," Solenn pointed out with a snort. "All that work and the father is forgotten, that's just mean," she stated. Evidently she had no appreciation for the tradition and given she lacked tact, she probably wouldn't have an issue pointing that out if she discovered any of Irmak's family followed it now they were here!
Credit to the female only? How rude, they lived in a society where both should be recognised. She would never understand those who felt otherwise, but then again she also failed to notice that there were those who also failed to understand why this pride operated as it did. "Actually it's just plain rude - congratulations you must be the parent to these bundles of fluff but you won't get any credit because they're all named after the mother!"
"They always will be too, now and forever, so when you both die no one will know who you were!"
She paused.
"Not very charming."
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:03 am
The lioness chuckled, looking down at the grass and dirt in front of her paws as she moved. "Same applies to sons, remember. The son is remembered by his father's name, not so much his mother's. I don't think any of us knew where the tradition started, but... Traditions are hard to break." Something she knew first-paw, having had to befriend the two Burkuteshti lions if she wanted to live. Her first instinct, even when sick and probably dying, was to fight them, but the lioness, Umut, had refused on the principal of not wanting to see more lions die pointlessly. Now her former enemy was one of Irmak's closest... She supposed she could say friend.
Abruptly, she stopped, head up and eyes scanning the horizon. The line was invisible to the naked eye, but it was there. The border. "Look at this all... It goes on forever, out there, you know... I don't know what's north and south, but I do know if you go far enough west, across swamps and plains, and through dense jungle, you reach a desert on the other side, rocky and hot. And beyond that, another sea, another big water... I wish I'd visited it for the sake of it when I was there, maybe a cub, to appreciate it properly, but it's too late now." The distant look in her eyes didn't leave right away. "I won't let the view go unappreciated by my own cubs."
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:13 am
"Oh you're pregnant?" Solenn chose to accept Irmak's response regarding the naming conventions of sons and daughters. True enough, if there was a lioness who only sired males then she would be in the same spot. It was equal in a paradoxical sense, but it would do!
"Congratulations, I would never have known," she added, taking a step back to admire the lioness's stomach. Suffice to say that Irmak didn't look fat at all, perhaps she wasn't that far along? Solenn was no healer, but if the lioness was already planning on what to teach her cubs then that obviously meant she must be expecting them!
...Ah, but if only Solenn had know that there were those in the world who did have plans for the future that didn't align with her own.
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:44 am
A surprised sound came from the brown lioness. "As far as I'm aware I'm not pregnant YET." First some things had to happen. "I'm just certain of my future as a mother, is all." Whether it was two cubs or many, she was very certain on what she'd do and how she'd do it. She looked at Solenn for a moment, then sat down and stared off into the distance. A small family of cheetahs went by beyond the border, giving the lions a wide berth.
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