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Jun Shien lounged in the sun, enjoying how the warmth was drawn into her dark fur. The growing female had little to worry her as usual and – truth be told – was just a little bored of that. But what were you gonna do? The Pridelands was a peaceful place and she was hardly going to waltz into the Outlands or the Graveyard or beyond /looking/ for trouble. She was bored but not an idiot.

*

Sado slinked through the tall grasses, keeping himself away from his family for the moment. It was odd, how his mother's gene for solitude seemed to stick into so many of her children. Sado knew it, and because of that he didn't try to change it. A hello here, and nod there. He made sure to be sociable to everyone he passed by, but never took the chance to really make friends.

His ear twitched from a bug, irritated at the sudden intteruption in his thoughts. He paused for a moment, shaking his head to get rid of the blasted thing. He didn't speak, only let out a discontent growl as he let the shaking grow to the tip of his tail, shaking out some dirt that had been hiding in his coat. At least he was too old for his mother to give him a bath.

*

Jun opened her eyes when she heard the growl – too deep a rumble to be another youngster looking for a playfight, she was mildly curious. Her dark jade eyes soon spotted what had caused the nearby male to growl. One of those small shiny beetles, perhaps, or another such insect buzzed away from him. Despite expecting such a thing, she felt oddly let down. How dull.

“I wouldn’t go too much futher into the grass this way, mister. Its full of those bugs.” She spoke loud enough for the nearby stranger to hear, bluntly giving her advice as always.

*

Sado hadn't realized that there was someone else nearby, especially a cub. He...wasn't good with cubs. It wasn't that he didn't like them, he just didn't know how to treat them. They were so young, and small, and...young. He paused for a moment, thinking about how to reply to this advice of hers.

"No where else to go," he said quietly. "As long as they don't go in my ear I don't mind." Beetles and bugs are not something that he was too content with. He looked over towards the direction he was going in, noticing the shiney coats of the beetles hovering around. Maaaybe he'd decide to go a different direction. Once he decided just where he wanted to go.

*

“You could always head down more towards the rock if you want to head in that direction. Grass is shorter, so less bugs.” She sat up, for now she was out of her doze she didn’t much feel like drifting off again. Her fur felt too hot now and her mind was too awake to put up with this – with this - .this /boredom/. Atleast she had someone to chat to in passing to occupy he for a minute or two while she formulated a plan. Else her head might have exploded with boredom.

“But then if you don’t mind them…” She waved a paw airily, as if to suggest ‘well who cares then, right?’

*

"The rock? Pride Rock?" the lion asked, equally as quietly as he had spoken before. He shook his head. "There's too many lions there. I don't like being in the middle of crowds."
He didn't like to assume anything, but wouldn't it make sense for him to be walking more away from the Pride Rock to show that he didn't really want to be there? He could always pull out the hunting card just in case she tried to challenge that. She seemed to not be quite so much as a cub as Sado had first though.

*

“That’s fair enough. Sometimes it’s nice to spend some time alone.” She said pleasantly.

“I only meant by a little way though. Probably only as far as that acacia.” Jun surveyed the tree in question with quite baneful eyes. She still had kitten-sharp claws and it was stooped. Maybe she could climb it….but what’s the point in that? You go up, you try not to fall, you come back down. What she needed was a challenge. Hmm.

*

Sado hadn't noticed the tree, but then he didn't really notice anything that wasn't right in front of him. He looked at it for a small moment, shrugging it off as something not important. As he turned back to look at the young lion, it was apparent that she had a little more interest in it than he did.

"Less bugs over there? I guess I could go check it out." He thought that by acting like he was going to go over there would get the youngster to as well, even though he had no idea what he was going to do with her. Was he...watching her now? He'd have to take a page from his mother's book and watch over her for the moment to make sure that she was all right for the time being.

*

“If you want. But I’ve already been over there so I could save you a ‘just finding out walk’ and tell you straight – shorter grass, less bugs.” Confidence and amusement were evident. She’d just /said/ there were less bugs.

She scratched behind her ear with a foreleg a few times and shook out her own fur. Not too far beyond her the bug-grass (as she so eloquently called it ) started and she’d come to sit near-ish it because only cubs play hunting ever came here and most cubs she knew’d been headed down the waterhole. Better to have a nap you see. And she’d walked past that tree on the way here so she knew she was right.

Jun didn’t realize her tone was kind of rude as usual. She had yet to learn that just blurting out the truth of the matter as according to Jun wasn’t always the best way to go about things.

"Well, yeah -it'd be kinda sad if I'd lived here my whole life and I didn't know my way about. S'not that big."

Jun didn't think so away. You could see all of it from the top of the big Rock and once you'd seen everything within the borders, that was kind of that. And with guards at those borders and a LOT of nice families about, it was pretty much safe to roam all that land too. She'd personally explored as much as she could without going out of range of her own family - had t be back for meals and bed time after all.

"You must have explored a lot as a cub too, yeah? Seems to be what cubs do." She joked but thought it true. Play, learn lessons, do a coupla chores and explore seemed to be pretty much all cubs did.

"Really? That's interesting. Seems everyone I know whose my age gets to explore. You must have learnt a lot from them if you were always with them." Jun didn't mind her assumption had prooved incorrect and just came up with another one in its place, because to her it made sense that if you spent more time with your teachers you'd have learnt more. She rushed from one idea to another quite quickly and thought she knew enough to get it right most of the time anyway.

"Our ranges vary though. Mine is pretty much as far as I can get so long as I can get home by bedtime. So, I can cover a lot of ground."

"I have scouts in my family..." Jun said proudly. "Do you? Are you a scout?I want to be a scout when I'm older. "

"Then I could explore a way outside our borders too! Is it different over the borders? It looks the same mostly, from the top of the rock and when you look over the border on the ground." She babbled happily.

"My mother is Ausi, I don't know if you'd know her then." Jun explained. "I'd love to be a scout like her." Jun was very very proud of her mother. It seemed like Ausi had done so much in her life and their family was massive and she was a great scout. And she'd had a secret love affair with Jun's father across the Pridelands-Outlands border...which, the tom-boy cub, would only admit under pain of death....was just such a romantic idea!

But never mind that girly stuff now, she was talkin' scouts with someone else who knew about scouts. Lots of lions didn't even seem to realise scouts existed. It wasn't like they wee hunters, who brought you food or royalty who ruled and made wise choices. Scouts being scouts lived on the edge of things and Jun thought they often got overlooked.

"Thanks! I'm sure you're a good hunter but I bet you'd be a great scout if your parents taught ya all they know! Besides, its in your blood like its in mine."