Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Oh ho!" Xenon's maw flooded with a smile as he took into account Kinacha's quick response. He'd known the child would always grow up to be witty but it always helped to have proof in the pudding. Fortunately Xenon was the type of individual to have a sense of humour and it was with a chuckle that he nudged the younger male back in appreciation. There was nothing like young blood and a new generation to give the place a breath of fresh air... Even if it was slow progress to create said new generation.

...Although admittedly Afina was proving a exception to that rule.

"Mmm, fire in the belly maybe, but I highly doubt she's chilling me out," Xenon replied to Kota and flicked his gaze briefly to his mate who had elected to take care of her cubs. He could see three of them in plain sight at the moment, though the others wouldn't be fair behind. "She provides me with an ever present headache on some days due to her stubbornness," he pointed out and then shook his head slowly.

"But I wouldn't change her, or my crazy kids, for the world."

Tulio's maw began moving as he quietly counted out the members he could see. There were plenty of adults here, some larger than others. There was a clear distinction in the locals from the rogues. The rogues were typically larger, more solid, and seemed to favor a variety of coat colors. The natives, however, or what he could assume were the natives, had curled, nappy manes and their pelts shared the cool hues of the sea itself... for the most part. They all decorated themselves with the ocean's treasures... interesting. Not too unlike his own pride but the Kizi also appreciated shining found objects, scraps of fabric, and a variety of other trinkets to make themselves stand out.

Narrowing his eyes, he turned his attention to the cubs. Ah... so they did have young ones. Not too many, from what he could see. Perhaps there were more further in towards the denning area.

--

Elki chuckled as the cubs were dismissed, denied their 'warrior stories'. What a pity. He would have enjoyed a story or two. He'd not been outside of the pride and while the locals had endured the shared grief and chaos of the storm, he'd never had the excitement of an actual 'adventure'. Perhaps he never would. He rather enjoyed hearing about the adventures of others more than he liked entertaining the idea of finding one for himself.

"Ahh come on, one story couldn't hurt anyone." He urged. "It'll pass the time at least."

Moving a bit closer to his friend, Miguel grinned, keeping his voice low enough hopefully only Tulio would hear it. "So, should we grab any while we're here, or just take a head count for the moment?" He stopped suddenly, dropping down as a new lioness entered the area with her cubs. Her coloring reminded him of Tulio's mother's descriptions of a long-eared hyena-lion with a black mane running down his back, but that could easily be attributed to the days of insanity that once gripped their pride. Miguel remembered them, and he'd never really let go of his muse, since he found all sorts of inspiration from gold.... And their pride's new life suited this VERY well.

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Since the birth of her cubs, Dimbwi had been all smiles. Confused that she'd produced two sets of twins, but all smiles. Of course, her curiosity had been settled by Mahatma - He had many sets of twins back through his family line. Now, she brought at least two of her boys out to play. She gave her oldest son a nudge with her paw, ushering him to play with the other cubs. "Va jouer avec les autres, Ganesha." She then ushered her other present son. "Vous aussi, Dhiren!" If anybody heard her, they'd look at her like she had two heads. Thanks to her mother, she had a strong use of the French language, not something the average lion really DID. She was extending this to her children, though she hoped with a common-tongue speaking father... They'd come out with plenty less accent and trouble with words than she did.



"Oui, Mère." Ever the dutiful son, Ganesha had taken to their mother's strange language, though only around her. When he got around other cubs, it was back to the common tongue. He hurried over to the other cubs, before pouncing on Nuzhah. "I gotcha this time, Nuzhah!" He felt like he was always trying to pounce her, for no other reason than to do it. As he flopped in the sand, he grinned up at her. "What's goin' on tonight?" His gaze turned to Kota, eyes shining with curiosity and wonder. "Is it a story?!" Thanks to his father, he LOVED hearing stories! He didn't think he could be a story teller like him, but that was to be determined still.

Xenon wrinkled his nose somewhat to prevent himself from laughing at the innuendo his relative was laying down rather thick. As much as he wanted to agree with Kota in the most raucous of fashions he would wait until Kinacha had wandered off to another area. It wasn't that Kinacha was too young to hear it, but until he had found himself a female to moon over it was probably for the best that the elder lions didn't corrupt his mind...especially when they were both former rogues and had the potential to be more graphic than most!

"That's certainly one way of putting it," Xenon agreed with a mild smile, motioning with his paw towards the lions that had all, for once, begun to cluster into groups within the same place. It had been quite some time (according to the elder lions) that such groups had formed. By the sounds of it, social interaction on this scale between guards and otherwise had been rare since the tsunami.

"Quite the gathering," he observed and tilted his head to the side. "Although I suspect some of my other offspring are thoroughly terrorising the Pombuka and Pomiki as they aren't here," he mused with pursed lips. He wasn't worried of course, the Pombuka and Pomiki protected the children well and fortunately for him, his children also knew what they absolutely must not do!

Kinacha'bahari grinned widely, proud of his quick thinking retort to his uncle, who seemed to be quite pleased with it himself. He allowed himself a small chuckle as the two older lions spoke of his aunt Afina. She had been a lot of fun to hang around in the nursery, always making him and his siblings laugh. His mother was so lucky to have had a friend like her in the nursery.

When 'Kota's attentions turned to him, Kinacha'bahari tilted his head slightly. Although he wasn't exactly repulsed by the idea of finding a mate of his own, it wasn't exactly his first priority either. Although his mother expected grandcubs from all of her children at some point, he doubted that he would be the first one to form a family of his own.

"Maybe someday." He replied, rather sheepishly. "Just not yet." At that point, his cheeky grin reappeared. "I don't think I'm ready to have my belly set on fire."

Kicheko watched her family from the bushes, a little grin on her grey face. Her siblings, mother, and father were all talking and distracted with the other lions in the pride. Oh ho ho, she was going to get them! They didn't even know she was right behind them. At least, she was pretty sure they didn't know she was there. Sure, she had come over with her mother and brothers and sisters, but everyone was so talkative that she doubted they noticed she was gone.

She snickered to herself as she prepared to pounce on her mother's tail. This was too fun! Pretending to be like dad was fun, hunting and stalking and...oh...a butterfly! Distracted for a moment, she watched the little bug until it fluttered out of sight. That done, she turned her gaze back to the blue tail resting on the ground a few feet in front of her. Wiggling her behind and shifting her weight on her shoulders, she gained her balance before launching herself out of the bushes.

"Ha!" she crowed as she landed on Afina's tail. "Gotcha!" She chewed happily on her prize, making sure to keep it light and playful. She didn't want to hurt her mom, after all. Just surprise her. "You're my dinner for tonight!"

"If your luck is anything like mine..." Xenon trailed off briefly as more of his offspring bounded onto the scene. Evidently the vast majority of them had escaped the 'clutches' of the Pombuka and Pomiki to set about terrorising the members of the pride who had found themselves upon the beach. Not that he minded of course, it meant he could also keep an eye on them and with a mother like Afina it was unlikely they would get away with anything. "Then you won't have any choice in the matter," he said at last, leaning his weight against Kinacha's shoulder with a smug smile.

"I never told you how Afina and I met, did I?" he mused and then shook his head. "More interestingly, I never really got round to telling anyone how we ended up in this state of affairs either," he continued. His smile soon developed into an impish and mischievous grin, a twinkle catching the corner of his eye. "Let me put it this way m'boy... I never had a choice, that crazy lioness shackled me to her before I could make any formal introductions."

He paused.

"True story," he added with a wink before turning his attention to Kota, his brow lifting as the elder lion made reference to the otherwise absent and current 'leader' of the pride. "Festival of the sea?" he enquired curiously, still unfamiliar with some of the customs and traditions of the pride.

Tulio grumbled under his breath and brought a paw up to his forehead. Miguel was great at a many of things, but listening and remembering were not among them. Bearing down on his impatience towards the other male, he slowly turned his head towards the blonde and gave him a long, hard stare. Miguel’s attention was elsewhere. Following his line of sight to the nearby females Tulio inwardly groaned. Okay… there were a lot of cute ladies out there but there was a time and a place for everything. The time for grabbing a peek at tail was not during an assignment and the place for it was certainly not behind the lines of a rival pride.

He reached out and flicked Miguel’s shoulder then shot a look to their more quiet companion to his other side. He made sure to catch both their eyes before whispering.

“We are here to look, not to touch. There’s three of us- and nearly a dozen of them. If we tried to make off with a cub, here and now, we would be caught.”

He glanced back out to the pride and began taking a careful tally of those he saw out in the field. There were several cubs, certainly, but this was close to the border.

“Let’s try to get in a little further. The dens wouldn’t be this close to the border markers.”

He froze and rolled an ear forward as one of the pride members spoke up, eluding to the existence of more cubs. Excellent… that bit of information he could use. Stories and small talk were of little importance. But cubs? That‘s what they were here to look into. The pride had a good many bloodlines but they could always use more, and they certainly could use a few more young ones to bring up into the new way of life. If the crazies continued to match their numbers, or worse- if they dwarfed them -their new, more sane way of life would be in danger. He would be in danger. He quite liked having his wit about him.