Finallly. Kizuka looked out at the forest, for once staring eye-level at the branches and leaves rather than the base of the trunk and finally felt as if she were really home. Living on the border had been nice, but it wasn't entirely the same. Now that she had her family settled nearer the rest of the group, though Momo had elected to stay on the forest floor, she could relax a bit more than she had been. Here there was still some yellow-green left, rather than the deteriorated state of the borderlands, thanks to the slow pulse of water still flowing over the side of the cliffs.
As a child she'd known how to block out that sound from everything else, push the roar back until it became nothing more than a sweet whisper compared to the call of a bird or the snap of a branch. That ability had faded in time, but Kizuka thought she could relearn it easily, especially now as the waterfall was far from being in full-force.
She rose enough from her cliff-side perch to stretch, not even blinking at the slight moss stains in the white portion of her fur. There wasn't much moss left and what there was had a tendency to break and rub off more easily than a paw could slide on ice; though the knowledge that the lichen should have been a thick carpet up here bothered her, it was only a temporary darkness on the happy that had flooded Kizuka's system for the first time in a long time. She was back with her pride. She had her mate and her daughter and her friends with her. There was water, if there was nothing else.... and there wasn't much anyone could do to make her snappish or upset right now.
Though she'd thought to go and walk the area, or make a patrol on the borders again, the lioness found herself slipping right back down onto the rocks and giving a great yawn. Her reserves were long since burned out and despite the joy of her heart, her body was know aching for rest and sleep and food to replenish itself. Ushaufu was insisting on providing the last of these needs, and she had to admit that he was more capable than she was to do it. With that in mind, as well the consideration of his insistence that she regain the health she'd lost (his worry of losing her was written all over his face), Kizuka let herself stay where she was. The waterfall nearby still kicked up some stray droplets that splattered in her fur and added to the content smile upon her maw.
