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 Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:39 pm
The trees had dissapeared. Slowly thinned out and then dissapeared from sight altogether. Odd things were happening. Very odd.
Shu's sky colored eyes peered out at the savannah in confusion. Trees were all around her every day, to imagine a place or a time without them was almost a stretch for her mind, blinded as it was by the need to be of some use to her family. The little lioness had no imagination, had no will to learn aything other than how to be of more use and more use every time.
This was beyond the reaches of her little mind.
And all of it was so dirty. Leaves and dried sticks and rocks and... it was all a mess! One giant mess! What lioness in her right mind had let this area get so bad?
Taking a tenative step out from among the trees, Shusui grabbed a stick and sat it down in a rather dirty spot and began to work through the grasses from there. Grabbing stones and sticks and leaves and shoving them over towards her pile with an efficiancy that would have disturbed the average cub.
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Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:31 pm
 Boy, he was far from home. But now that they were all getting a little bit older it was starting to become more common-place in his life. Exploring. He still didn’t appreciate it very much. Mostly he only left the den because the place was starting to feel crowded and he didn’t like being forced to stay around all the others so often. Even if the outside world was a terrifying place full of dangerous and creepy things, it was still slightly better than being stuck in a den with brothers and sisters who looked down on him.
Even if they didn’t say it, he knew it was true.
So a-venturing he went, roaming the lands for hours in search of something, anything, that might make him feel a little better about himself. Perhaps he could find something to do that he could take back and brag about. Though it seemed each time he did have a small adventure, one of the others came home with something more entertaining. More worth-while. He was always the one in last place. So that was why he had roamed so far from home this day. Why he was looking about for something to do in spite of the horrible fears churning in the pit of his stomach.
If he could get past the feeling of throwing up, he might even have himself a bit of fun. So far, though, all he felt was sick.
Then he spotted her.
The cute little white, orange and black cub doing… something with a bunch of debris. Ashiki found himself bewildered. Was she collecting it all? For what purpose? Perhaps she was a witch, and they were all ingredients for her wicked potions. Gulping, he fought the urge to run, slowly inching his way towards her. “Wh-what are you doing?” he asked, his voice a squeak in his cowardice.
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Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 10:24 pm
Given the small sound to the voice that had hailed her, Shusui nearly missed what the larger white, pink and black cub had asked her. Almost.
Shu lifted her head up, a rather large stick between her teeth and her sky colored eyes sparkling in shock. No one really spoke to her, as she wasn't often in want to respond. Being as shy as she was and as unsure of her station and use in life.
Glancing back at the male and then to her pile once more, Shu slid sideways and dropped her stick upon her gaining pile and looked back at him with a quiet look in her eye. Shy, very very shy.
"Everything's so dirty. I just wanted to clean it up." the voice that escaped from the small white muzzle sounded like the noise a bird's wing might make, like fog rolling over the grasslands during monsoon season, like a ghostly soft wind that whispered in the ears of those listening so softly that they wondered if it was a ghost. It was almost inaudiable, so gentle and soft that it was like it was never spoken. "Is that... bad?"
Maybe the lions out here liked it to be this dirty? Surely her mother never complained when Shu cleaned up their living area.
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Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:10 pm
The beauty in her eyes, that might have captivated another, perhaps older cub, only managed to frighten Ashiki all the more. Never had he met someone with such vibrant eyes in his entire, admittedly brief, life. Still, throughout ALL of it he had never been in the company of such a lioness.
The only other lioness he knew were his sisters, which he would sooner choose to forget for the most part. But this little girl seemed different from them. And not just because she was cleaning for no apparent reason other than some kind of weird innate inclination to do so; she seemed shy.
His sisters were by no means shy.
“No,” countered the fretful male softly, downing his own volume simply because her voice had been so quiet. Enough so that he was impressed and surprised with himself for having managed to understand what she had said. “It’s not bad at all…. I was just wondering about it, that’s all… I didn’t mean to upset you… I’m sorry… I can go…” the more he spoke, the more frantic he seemed to become, now desperate to make amends for his wronging of her. “I really didn’t mean anything by it… honest! I’m not mean… I’m… well..”
Where was he going with this again?
“I’m Ashiki. What’s your name?”
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Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:45 pm
Her eyes watched him with a certain degree of uncertainty and fear. He was much larger than she was, but he seemed.... he seemed so soft and gentle. Certainly his words were of no threat to Shusui's body at all, he wouldn't hurt her, or so he seemed to be saying.
Thanks to the pride she'd been growing up in and the mother who ranked even higher than most females, Shusui had been taught from the day she was born that males were below her. Yet she didn't believe a word of it. Once she'd spied a group of young males playing around in the leaves on their side of the pride, they seemed so happy and so carefree. Like they were lots of fun.
Deep inside Shu wished she could be so outgoing, wished she could make a friend that she could play with. However she wasn't sure of what use she would be to them, as tiny and frail as she was always told she was. Certainly tiny.
However, for all that the male in front of her was larger and was male... he seemed just as shy as she was deep inside, even his voice was quiet, a nice thing amidst her family who used their voices often and loudly.
"Please... don't go. My name's Shusui. I didn't mean to upset you." Her eyebrows pulled together in sorrow as she spoke in her soft voice, watching him with the hopes that he wouldn't just run away from her.
The loneliness in her heart wanted her to make a friend even though she was so scared it was making her legs shake a little. Her mother had told her horror stories about lions that liked to hurt others, that was why her mother was a warrior, that was why they needed them. But Ashiki didn't seem mean at all, didn't seem like he would hurt her.
"A... Ashiki." Shu tried his name out though it was foreign to her tongue, it still made her think of a soft creature. "What's that mean?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:41 am
Against every protest in his mind, Ashiki was planted to the ground. The animal couldn’t leave her when she seemed so displaced. Maybe cleaning was some kind of expression of concern? Like she was worried or maybe lost or something and cleaning was all she knew to keep herself from going into a panic. Or maybe he was, once again, thinking too much about things. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Nor the last.
“Shushi?” he repeated, the name surprisingly fun to say. It sounded different to him, somehow, than any of the names he had heard before. Not better, as that would be unfair to other names, just different. He enjoyed the way it flowed from his mouth, his growing fangs not distorting the hiss of the ‘s’es’.
“We don’t both have to be sorry,” he commented after a moment, “I mean… neither of us have to be sorry. Alright? We can pretend that bit didn’t happen… so no one has to feel upset about anything.” She seemed too small for guilt. If there was a road he could take to ensure her feelings remained a bit lighter, he would take it. If she was in some kind of trouble, he wasn’t about to make things worse for her if it could be helped.
He sat away from her, staring in dumb fear. As innocent as she seemed, she was still a stranger to him. Thus was he prevented from coming closer for the moment. Only when he really felt secure would he draw himself any nearer.
Their distance would be a test of character for the both of them.
“Uh… it means…” he blushed mildly under his white fur, feeling the heat run to his ears, probably turning them a brighter shade of pink. His name was anything but manly. Saying it would no doubt amuse her. But she had asked and he couldn’t well lie to the little lady, now could he?
“Desire,” he finished with a one-sided grin, “what about your name? Does it mean something?”
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:34 am
A soft smile, nearly as soft as her voice, settled over Shusui's face, her sky colored eyes dancing as he tried to pronounce her name with only one error. It was a good start, as she'd nearly slaughtered his own name, it was only fair.
"You shouldn't feel sorry, it was my fault for cleaning... I wasn't sure of what the world was like out here.. if they cleaned at all or if they didn't." Shu told him quietly, her eyes looking at her paws as she sat. Slowly she batted a tiny pebble around in a circle in front of her opposite paw.
The shyness steeped through her soul once more. So desperately she wanted to be able to reach out and ask him blatantly to be her friend. He lived out here presumebly, that made him a rouge and her mother had warned her off of those. Yet she wanted to trust him, if only because he seemed to suffer from the same affliction of shyness that shusui herself felt deep within her heart.
Maybe.... maybe he understood her?
Unlikely, even her mother and sister didn't understand her. This thought made her shoulders slump a bit and her heart ache. Surely she shouldn't feel thsi way as a cub but... what else was there to feel?
"Shu-sui." She broke it down, correcting the 'h' he'd added in place of the 'u' in her name, it was gentle and not meant to be rude in the least bit as it was said with a shy smile, "It means Autumn Water, I wish I knew what the meaning meant though."
Slowly her head tilted to one side, eyes watching him as he spoke the meaning to his name. Had he blushed? A name was a name, no one chose their own name, their parents chose their name, whether because they enjoyed the name or because it held a meaning to them.
"Desire? That's a beautiful meaning to a name. Like the feeling you get in your heart when there's something you want or someone you care about." Shu said at last, almost softer than she'd spoken before then simply because she didn't want to mess it up and come across as being insulting. To her, his name was cute, something that she would imagine would be a very sweet name to tell someone you loved in the future, though she couldn't see that far just yet, no cub could.
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:47 pm
Awkward, Ashiki smiled. “Well, that’s okay. Cleaning, I mean,” he offered, “and wow! At least you came out to see things. It took me a really long time to start looking around… and I haven’t been to other lands. Just the places around here I know I can stay in… so you’re much braver than I am!” He hoped by “out here” she meant she wasn’t from around, as otherwise he was making a fool of himself again. “I don’t think we clean much around here,” he hummed, “only our bodies.”
“Oh!” Giggled the male, unconcerned that he had managed to say her name wrong. It was still a fun thing to say. Smiling still, he nodded. “Sorry!” he laughed, “It’s harder to say than I thought, but it’s a really nice name, I hope you don’t think I was teasing you about it or anything like that. Accidents happened. Accidentally hurting someone’s feelings included in that. So he needed to make sure that hadn’t just happened.
He’d be damned before his idiocy offended another.
“Autumn Winter?” he repeated, “wow, that’s a really nice name! I like the meaning, even though I really don’t understand it either…” He knew what winter was, but what was autumn? Only fall came before winter.
The thoughts of the young.
“Yeah… but males shouldn’t have ‘beautiful’ names,” he tried to explain. It seemed like a trivial thing to worry about, but what were males if not trivial creatures? Besides, it wasn’t like he had the world’s burdens on his shoulders to muse over. To him, it was a big deal. He ended up giving a light giggle, tail jumping about like a fish out of water behind him, “it doesn’t matter, I guess, I just can’t help but feel a little embarrassed by the meaning, that’s all. I really do like the name, though. It makes me feel warm when I say it. I mean… my mom must have really thought I was special to name me it when I was young! Or my dad… I don’t know which named me…” he was rambling. There had to be something more interesting to talk about than his name.
“So you like to clean… but what else do you like to do?” he asked softly after a long, thoughtful pause. It upset him that this was all he could come up with to talk about when he had been thinking for so long, but he was still very unsure about things. If she ended up not being a sweet and innocent as he felt she was, he needed to get the hell out of there like a lightening bolt.
Those thoughts kept his mind of conversation topics.
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:52 pm
Hanging her head once more to hide the embarrassment that tinged her white and orange cheeks, Shusui looked around and tried not to cough. He was praising her for a mistake she'd gone and made.
"A... actually I just... got lost. The trees just dissapeared and I was here... I hadn't meant to end up out here." Her eyes filled up with tears for her own stupidity at getting herself lost. Sure she knew that she was useless for a great many things... but she hadn't believed that she would go and get herself so... so lost. How had she ended up so lost?
Shocked out of her tears by his giggling, Shu lifted her head up and peered at him once more. She almost felt like giggling herself. "Autumn 'water'", she said carefully. Once more afraid she would offend him with correcting him. He was nice and he hadn't tried to hurt her yet or yell at her.
Maybe males were better than females in that respect. So far the males she'd seen didn't yell, they didn't seem to mind where they were even though females had shoved them there unrightfully. Though her mother had explained to her that it was rightful. It felt odd to think that though... how was something like belittiling someone right?
A sigh passed from her muzzle, soft as down, and she smiled at him quietly. He was kind and for that she wouldn't run away from him like her heart wanted her to. Maybe... maybe he could be a new friend that she could play with? She didn't have any of those, a friend would be a blessing. Though she loved her sister and mother, just them all her life.... Melu at least had friends but Shu didn't.
"But beautiful names are so kind. At least she didn't give you a mean name or try to give you one? Your mother and father must be very nice to pick such nice names for their kids." Shu said at last, not minding what they were talking about at all. She wasn't used to talking to others so this was the nicest conversation she'd ever had. "I.... well my sister likes to tackle me and try to wrestle. I'm not so good.... she says that I'm very hard to play with. So I just clean and listen so I can learn more."
At this she puffed her tiny chest up a little. She loved to learn. Maybe she could learn things from the male before her! She hadn't thought of that until just then but it made her tiny heart soar as high as it could. Ashiki was from outside her pride, if she knew more about the outside of her pride then imagine how much she would be appreciated by her mother then!
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:21 pm
Ashiki was sure he was glowing now. What an idiot he was! Mistaking her name not once, but twice now. Why was he so nervous? Yes, he was used to being a coward and a spaz, but this was way beyond what he was used to. He hadn’t been so awkward when meeting the other couple of cubs he had stumbled across. Even adults had gotten less fear out of him with their large claws and ready fangs. This, this was completely different. A brand new fear he had never encountered before.
Maybe it was only something that popped up in conversation with new lion cubs.
“I’m so sorry,” he sputtered helplessly, “I swear I normally listen to others a lot better than this… I… maybe I have water in my ears or something. Not that I’m saying that just because of your name! I… oh..” he gave up, looking at the ground a moment to re-group. This was turning into a disaster for the poor thing.
Watching her sit down made him feel a bit better. At least he hadn’t offended her so much that she just had to get away from him. Though he was starting to feel that he had hit his quota for embarrassment for one meeting and might soon have to flee with his tail between his legs. It was the only thing that would save him from making any more mistakes.
Even though running would probably be a mistake in and of itself.
Following suit, he planted his butt against the earth, keeping his eyes on her not because he was worried that she would attack, but to make sure she didn’t run from him before he knew that she accepted his apologies.
“They are,” Ashiki assured her, “I love my parents very much. I never really thought about it that way before. Sometimes, when I don’t think it’s because I’m special, I can’t help but think they might have thought I was a girl and named me wrong or something,” to that, he smiled, “your thoughts are much better!” sitting contently, feeling better about his previous mishaps, he listened to her talk about her sister.
“I don’t like to wrestle either,” he said after a thoughtful moment, “I don’t think you have to wrestle to be fun to play with! I’m sure you just don’t play how she likes it and that’s why she says that. If we played, I’d probably have a lot of fun with you. I like to learn too! And dream. My mom thinks I spend too much time day-dreaming, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I don’t enjoy the things my other siblings like… I try to explore and hunt and stuff… but I’m not very good at any of it.”
He hoped he hadn’t mistaken anything she had said this time around.
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Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:37 pm
Shusui was about to launch into an explination of how much she loved to learn, what she'd seen and how she liked to bring knowledge back to overshow her sister that always seemed so intelligent in the ways of hunting and fighting, but he mentioned his ears. Her white paws moved and suddenly she was beside him, her sky colored eyes sad and worried as she looked into first one ear and then the other. His ears didn't seem to have water in them, but oh it would hurt the poor thing if it was in there.
Only once in her life she'd had water get caught in her ears and she'd suffered for it badly. Her hearing was back to normal but every once in a while her ears would pop and it would sound like all the noise was coming through an annoying waterfall and every time she breathed she could hear it and feel it in that ear. Shu didn't want her new friend to have to feel that same thing all the time.
"Are you sure there's water in your ears? Maybe you should lean your head to the side and shake it, does it hurt?" her eyes shimmered in worry for him for a long moment before she turned bright red at how close she was to him and leaped backwards. "I-I-I-I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"
Instantly she smashed her face into the ground in the deepest bow she'd ever been taught, her chest fluttering in embarassment. How could she have gotten that close to someone? Her, the cub that was lower than low on the totem pole of her pride. Oooh..... she was such a fool. Now he would run away from her and she'd never see him again.
Tears slid down her cheeks into the dust and mixed with it, making a nice wet concoction. This was why she would never be able to have friends like all the little males over in their area of her pride. Because she was such a fool and overdid it when she heard of pain.
Now her little body was shaking with fear that he would either run away or hurt her. Sure, he seemed nice, but she hadn't made him angry yet to see if he was mean or not.
"P-pl-please don't hurt me. I promise I won't get that close to you again. I-I didn't mean it." She spluttered, voice broken up by her tears just enough to make her seem smaller than she was.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:50 am
Ashiki, panic spreading over him like wild fire, dug his claws into the dirt as she got herself closer to him. Never had he been so close to someone outside of his family. The only other female cub he had gotten close to was his sister, and she was never that fond of the quality time. Normally such encounters ended with him getting clawed or shoved into water. Was his new little friend going to start pushing him around as well?
Listening, he was startled again to see her recoil in the same manner he was more than ready to use himself. She had reacted before he could! What he failed to understand, though, was why she would be the one to get closer, then also be the one to leap away.
She was apologizing. Was it his fault she was now so frightened?
“Don’t be sorry!” he gasped, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry you’re sorry! Oh! I didn’t mean to make you upset. What happened? Did I do something to make you scared?” The fact that she had been upset with her own actions and not his didn’t occur- all he knew was she was frightened and it was in his company. Clearly he had to be the culprit.
Watching her bow, Ashiki, took a quick look around the area to make sure no one really important had snuck up on him while he had his back turned. Finding nothing, his eyes returned to the lady, the young cub completely perplexed. There was something weird going on and he just couldn’t figure it out. And here he was supposedly the smart one in the family.
What kind of smart was he, then, that he couldn’t figure out what had this little female so tweaked?
Then, she explained everything. “Oh!” he gasped, lying down on the ground to get more even with the bowing creature, “no no! Don’t be upset! Please! I don’t mind, really. I would never, ever hurt you! Stop crying, please? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you think I was mean… I’m not! I’m really not! I don’t always hear what others tell me, but I’m a nice guy!”
He wanted her to look happy again. Seeing her look happy made his stomach feel warm and happy too, prompting a smile of his own. But now his friend was sad.
It was all his fault.
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:40 pm
Still Shusui kept her face against the ground, tears streaming down her face. She'd been trying to make a friend and she'd gone and insulted him and now Ashiki sounded as though he were frantically worried over her odd beheavior. To him she must look as though she was such a weak lioness that didn't deserve his time. Another sob shook her tiny frame and she gazed up at him with her sky colored eyes overflowing with tears she would continue shedding at her own idiotic expense.
"Y-y-you wo-won't hurt me?" Her eyes suddenly got wider with hope as she finally understood that she wouldn't be physically punished for being so close to him. The tears dried a bit but still shimmered in her eyes, unshed and ready to overflow any second. "I... we're.. we're not supposed... to get that close to others. I didn't even... I didn't..."
A single tear slide down her cheek as she looked down at her paws again, her words choked by subdued sobs. Shu didn't want to lose a new friend thanks to breaking a taboo her mother had told her about. Maybe it was true or not, but she'd seen the males in the other section of the pride wrestling, but rarely any of the adult females. Only the young females could tackle one another and play and such, but even they didn't do that so often.
"It's not your fault... we aren't supposed to be so close to others. In my pride it's supposed to be disrespectful. I didn't want to make you mad and make you want to leave." Shu explained, her voice shivering as she kept her blue eyes locked on the sight of her shaking paws. "I... I don't make friends easily and... and I wanted to be friends with you."
There... she'd admitted it at last. She admitted that she was shy and wanted to be friends with him. Maybe he would run away and leave her alone, but at least she admitted the weaknesses of her heart to someone that might have had a chance of understanding her. Ashiki seemed as shy as she was after all. Maybe there was a hope that he would see that she was just frightened of what she didn't know and that she loved to help others?
Maybe... but likely not, no one else understood. Even her mother and sister.
Oh it was all her fault, she'd gotten so focused on the thought that he might have been in pain that she'd gone and lost a friend before she'd even gained one. Her face buried down into her paws again and she shivered, feeling a bit forlorn and lost even in the company of someone else. Her heart was ready to admit it's failings but no one was ready to listen and understand it.
Silent tears rolled from her eyes once more, lost amid her snowy colored fur on her paws. Her sides shivered a tad and she listened for the words he must be ready to say, the words that would mean he was leaving and didn't want to be friends with someone so worthless.
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 10:11 pm
Ashiki, at a complete loss towards what to do, watched her hide away in her paws again, his own breathing growing sharper as panic took over his small frame. What was he supposed to say that would help her feel better? What could he possibly say? The words weren’t coming to him. Despite his deepest desires to say that one thing that would make her smile again, he could come up with nothing.
And he wanted to be the best lion in the world.
Whimpering, he started to jump about on his paws, his eagerness to assist displaying itself as he bounced and looked about for something that might help him out. Finally, he just decided to go for it, moving a little closer to her and putting a gently, trembling paw against one of hers. It was only for a moment, barely enough to be felt, but there was still no denying that it had really happened.
“There! There!” he cried, sinking his body low against the ground so he could be even with her, “did you feel it? I touched you a little bit! I did! I got close to you. It wasn’t disrespectful! And if it was then… then… well then we both did it now so we’re even! Okay? Please don’t cry… I want to be your friend too! I got close to you now so we both did the same thing.” He was pleading with her, trying every tactic he could think of to make her relax. His fear, perhaps, was guiding him to do things a little too quickly, but he didn’t care. Rushed or not, he wanted them to work. So she understood he wasn’t going to harm.
Great lions did not hurt girls.
“We can still be friends,” he offered, rolling onto his side in a last-ditch effort to show her how much he didn’t want to hurt her. He put himself in a defenseless position, his aim to assure her that she was the one who held the cards. He would not do anything to harm her. The male didn’t ever care that he was getting himself dirty lying on his back. His white fur was in second place when compared to her feelings. There would be plenty of time to clean once she was smiling again.
“Really, I promise,” he insisted, “I’m not going to leave or be angry with you. Not ever! And I’m not upset with you, I swear. Where I come from getting close isn’t a bad thing at all! So how could I be upset with you for something I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do? Right? I won’t tell anyone. No one will know. We can be friends!”
This was getting spooky for him; his little heart beating a million times a minute. He felt like it was going to come flying out of his chest. Which wouldn’t be good, since then it would slam into Shu and she wouldn’t want to stick around. That would probably make her cry harder.
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Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2008 1:04 pm
Her fur stood on end for a moment as she was touched. It was foreign but it didn't feel bad like she imagined it might have. Sure her mother and sister occaisionally touched her but no one outside of her family had ever laid a paw on her. Never, until now that was. For all that Shusui had believed it would hurt or that it would stain someone to be touched and lose their honor, it actually was a warm thing to feel Ashiki's touch on her white fur.
Definetly not honorless or painful at all.
Slowly Shu's large sky colored eyes lifted to look up at him in a kind of shock. He was rolled over on his side, with it bared to her like it was something any male might do. In fact she was told that they were often submissive to the larger and often meaner females of her pride, but to Shu it was a horrifying thing. To be submissive to another simply because they were mean, sure she did it but had to be awful for the males to have to do to females.
"W-we can st-st-still be friends?" Her eyes shimmered again with unshed tears as she let a shy smile spread over her muzzle for him. Hope shined in her eyes as she thought of finally being able to play with someone and dance around and learn and sing songs. All the things that she could learn from him filled her heart up a bit and the tears nearly spilled over again. Though this time it was with the joy of knowing that someone might be able to teach her more than she knew.
"I was afraid you would think I was t-too worthless, like all the others." Shu whispered out.
Slowly she reached out a tiny paw to the larger male and tried to brush away some of the dirt off his pretty fur without actually touching him. It was obviously impossible, but maybe she could bring his attention to it all the same even if she didn't touch him. His fur was so snowy colored like her own that it was sad to see it get all dirty because of how she had been acting. Ashiki had only been trying to cheer her up and she certainly didn't want him to be dirty for someone like her.
"I-I'm sorry... you got all dirty... because of me." There were no more tears to shed but she felt terrible for making him get dirty all the same. It didn't occur to her to be afraid of him anymore, Ashiki had proven he was a nice male, a male that wouldn't hurt her for all that she deserved to be in her own opinion.
A slow thumping feeling brought the tiny lioness cub's attention to her heart that was slowly but heavily beating at her ribs. She'd been so worried that she'd gotten herself all worked up. Even more than she'd thought actually. What a fool she felt. Maybe one day Ashiki would forgive her for her tears, maybe if they became the best of friends she would make it up to him by never crying again in front of him.
That in mind, Shusui tried to promise herself in vain that she would become a strong lioness for her new friend, that she would never cry again and see him so sad and upset at her expense. She would become the strongest lioness in their pride.
That was all hot air, but she knew she wanted to be stronger.
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