The red lioness lay in the dirt, her muzzle between her front paws as she watched the clan of Summer prepare for their time to shine. That meant it was almost time for her turn once again to come up with something new to bring to the table. Something different from last year. The baskets had been a good idea, if she could toot her own horn. It was a favorite among the cubs, anyway. The prospect to both beat something up and be rewarded with prizes was always too tantalizing for the youngsters to resist. Then she hosted the pumpkin game another time. That wasn't too bad, but she was more fond of last years idea.
This year...This year she had no ideas. None. At all. Now that she had no cubs to raise she should be able to concentrate on it. Strangely enough, she found she couldn't. Having grown daughters only made her think more. What would their futures hold? They all seemed content on staying within the pride, which made her happy. She had lost three already. She didn't want to lose any that were remaining. Hell, she wasn't even sure if her other three children lived. It had been a year. Anything could happen in a year. From what she had gathered from Lua he was from a very faraway pride that had sounded so much different than her own. More fighting. More wars. Wasn't much of a place for cubs to grow. At least she didn't want for hers what she had unfortunately been used to. Fighting. Separation. Death. It had been so long since she had thought about those three things. Her life in Sikukuu was so calm in comparison. It was a blessing after her youth.
Eli was not a planned birth. She was revenge, plain and simple. Her mother was mad at her mate and thus went out and found a random male to impregnate her. To show her mate how it was done because he failed to conceive with her for so long. Blamed it on her. Her mother, usually so docile, had simply snapped after the last accusation. Which had also been the last straw with her mate.
For reasons known, whether a show of compassion or cruelty-Eli always thought cruelty-he waited until the cubs were born before he turned on his mate. Before they could even open their eyes, before Eli had a chance to see her mother, he killed her. Then dragged her body to a lake and left it there. The cubs he ignored. The majority died. But a few were picked up days later, near death, by a passing lioness. Their should-have-been aunt, she recently had a litter of her own and provided the nutrients for the abandoned remaining cubs. Not wanting her brother to find her, she hid with the many cubs, moving them slowly across the land far away from the territory he guarded as 'his own.'
Things were good for a while. They escaped notice. The cubs were weaned and grew to juv. But fate, once again, intervened. The lioness messed up, leaving a scent trail that her brother followed to her.
Eli outwardly cringed as her thoughts trailed across her young life. That was the start of her solitary life in the roguelands. They were not all dead, no. That she knew. She had run away in childish fear and gotten separated by the time she felt she could stop running. No. She didn't want her children out in the roguelands. Nor her grandchildren or any descendant of hers. She wouldn't be able to live with herself, knowing they were out there. Facing lions like her mother's mate. Her step-father. He, at least, should be long gone by now. Eli was not old herself, but she wasn't young anymore. Seasoned. He had already been older than she was now at the time of her birth. If he was out there, waiting in the shadows for the cubs who got passed him, he would be a very old lion. The roguelands would eat him and spit him back out at the first sign of weakness.
Dwelling on the past, however, never got anyone anywhere. Straightening up and stretching out her front legs, the red lioness turned her back on the workers, not feeling like helping them today. What she did feel like was hunting down her girls. Now that they were grown, they weren't around her as often anymore. Eli never would have thought this would have made her lonely, but it did. No little paws trailing after her, looking up at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. Oh, they still loved her. She would always have a major place in their hearts. She was their mother, after all. The only one who raised them from blind infants. Two of them had decided to stay in her own clan, but one, the oldest of the three, had felt the clan of winter was a better fit. Eli couldn't disagree. Noe even looked the part with her silver fur and yellow eyes. The other two were like old leaves on the tree. Fading as the cold weather crawled around the corner. Vuli fit them in coloration just as much as it did their mother.
But that wasn't why Eli was a part of it. She always preferred the many colors of the trees during autumn. The cold, yet not too cold, weather. It was perfect for her pelt which soaked up a good amount of sunlight with the dark batches and deep red coloring.
Maybe she could use that as inspiration for a game? Like some sort of hide and seek version that involved animal hides? Or blind folded seekers who had to use their nose to find the lions hidden in mountains of furs and other smells. Yes. That was an idea. There was a lot of time until her season. She would keep the pelt from every kill made, clean them, and store them away. Cover them in other smells, like flowers or squashed bugs. Anything to distract the seeker from the actual smell of their pride mates which should be more familiar to them by now. The game would be harder for newer members, but they could always just hide under the pelts. Move around to throw the seeker off even more with their stranger smell. Yes. That was what she would do.
With a determined smile on her face, Eli set off for the roguelands to hunt down something she could test this theory out with. Maybe she could even coax her daughters into helping her. It was the duty of two, at least, to share in the Vuli preparations.
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