Leboya had been spending the day entertaining herself with the little flurry of youth that was growing in the Pridelands, watching them as they romped joyously and played together, smiling to herself after some time, before sighing wistfully and going back on her merry little way to go towards the location of the den she’d raised her second litter in.
Her beautiful second litter.
Sometimes, however, she missed her first. Her beautiful first children and their beautiful father. Certainly they had never met their father, but there was something there that she wished for: That she hadn’t let him just walk out of her life. But she had allowed it.
And it had been in this very region as well…
…
Artemis hadn’t been able to understand why Namir was so antsy about being back in the Pridelands area, a frown on her face as he looked about with a certain degree of antsiness. He’d mentioned he’d been in the region before, but…
…
“Have we gone in a circle?” she asked, causing Namir to jump suddenly before looking to her with a slightly awkward expression, his ears flattening back into his mane. “No…well, yes… but..” he trailed off, a frown forming on his face. Artemis frowned a bit. Perhaps it was the sun that was out in the sky? They did have a history of traveling by moonlight.
But he didn’t seem to be evading the sun, so perhaps that wasn’t it.
Little did she know, she would soon be meeting the harbinger of her own doom as well as her own confusion.
Leboya had found one of her daughters out in the sun, lounging on a rock and enjoying the warmth, despite her dark coat, purring and climbing up onto it as well to nuzzle the child. Martirae frowned at the contact, opening one eye and looking at her mother with a smile of recognition.
“Oh, were you looking for me?” she inquired, Leboya shaking her head, “No, I just saw you so I thought I’d come join you.” She explained, oblivious to the frozen brown lion that stood in the distance of her and the dark lioness she called child.
But Artemis was, pausing as well to look at Namir as he stared across the way to the brightly colored lioness, before he slowly sunk into the grass. She followed suit, nudging his side and frowning.
“What is it?”
“I know her…” he replied. Artemis frowned again. What was his reason for not wanting to be ‘friends’ with her in this situation? Did something happen between them?
Little did she know….
Martirae, however, had seen the brightly colored lioness sink into the grass, automatically rolling back over onto her stomach and hissing lightly, slinking off of the rock to crawl through the grass herself. While Leboya was slightly concerned by the action, she didn’t jump to try and prevent her child from hiss-spitting all over some innocent wildebeest. It’d likely be dinner for them both.
But the pair the dark lioness was about to pounce on was no wildebeest. No, it was an Artemis and a Namir, the lioness looking up in time to see the dark lion descend from above, hissing and lunging back at her.
Namir froze, where was he supposed to go? Should he interfere with the two hissing lionesses who were currently swatting and rolling and hissing at each other?
No, that’d get him clawed to hell and back, but so would getting his pretty brown a** out of there. Oh yes, that would have got him clawed by Artemis once she got the hell over with the little female-battle going on.
But it seemed that other things were to be in order first. Such as the approach of the brightly colored Leboya, who stopped at the hisspitting pair and took a deep breath before coughing loudly, prompting the darker of the two to pause and pry herself away from the Indigo lioness, baring her teeth at her.
“MARTIRAE.”
It was that firm statement from the bright jellyfish lioness that caused her dark daughter to stop her hissing at the indigo lioness, who had sat pretty and brushed a paw over her fur to tame it from the mess it had been before, holding everything in to keep from making some snotty expression at the black and neon lioness.
If only to not make her mother think she deserved it.
….
……
If she’d even been paying attention.
Leboya had been glancing, or at least meaning to just glance, over the pair assaulted by her daughter when her eyes had settled on Namir, a slightly bittersweet expression painting itself over her face.
“I thought you were going home.” She said with a slight smile.
Namir winced.
“I got lost.” He admitted with a grim frown on his face, glancing over to Artemis who seemed confused as could be. Uuuugh, he didn’t want to say anything incriminating, but maybe it’d never come up.
Afterall, as far as he was concerned, there were no kids whatsoever from his and Leboya’s last meeting.
Ah ha ha…
Ha…
Haha..
“How have you been, ….. -…..” Ogreat, good time to be struck by ‘namefail’, eh?
But she seemed to understand quite well, Leboya settling down in the grass and giving her daughter another warning leer to not keep seething in Artemis’s general direction.
“Leboya.” She filled in, laughing a bit, before continuing on to answer his question, Namir’s face forming a look akin to ‘oh yeah…’ at her name. “And I’ve been hectic… eight children will take it out of you.”
Namir looked at Martirae. Well, she looked too young to be from when he and Leboya last met, so perhaps these ‘eight children’ weren’t his as he’d been fearing. Ah ha ha.
“I’ve yet to have considered children myself..” he admitted. Leboya frowned ever so slightly. Yeah, because he’d know a thing or two about that, wouldn’t he?
“You have four.” She replied, causing both Artemis and Namir to make a completely puzzled face. Wait what? What about four children? Artemis looked to Namir expectantly, and both Namir and Martirae were looking to Leboya with an odd look on their faces.
He choked slightly.
“Four?”
“Yes. Four. Nyemwela, Neoni’liga, Hlatswama, and Kijuvo.” She recited expertly, though if she had forgotten any of her first litter’s names it would have just made her feel all the more horrible about them.
However, the realization dawned on Artemis quite quickly.
Namir didn’t want to be here because he’d had a fling with this lioness! How horrible!
But it seemed that a very different idea had come to Martirae’s mind at hearing all of this, a frown deepening on her maw as she listened to the old couple awkwardly talk about the past, her head resting on her paws.
So this brown male had walked out on her mother because she wanted to go to the ocean and him to his old pride, which was far from. But then neither had ended up where they wanted to be.
One had gotten a second mate who had left them with more kids, and the other had obtained a horrid lady friend who was obviously just a replacement for her mother. So why weren’t they just getting back together? It was obvious to her that her mother still cared for him, despite the time and distance..
….
And the indigo lioness was nowhere near as pretty.
Perhaps if Martirae were to remove her from the picture. But there was no way for her to do that while her mother or the mate were around. No, she’d have to catch her by herself. But there was no way that was going to be possible until they parted.
Which after several hours of talking went by, the yawning of the male had brought Artemis to her paws, nudging him gently with her nose. “Alright, it’s off to bed for you.” She said, still ever so loyal, but still holding a certain….
…
Feeling of confusion on her part.
How was she to know that he wouldn’t leave her too? Well, it wasn’t like they were to be parents or anything, right?
….
…….
Right????
Well, there were many things to be contemplated as the two pairs went on their merry little ways.
For Martirae it was how to best get rid of Artemis and lure that brown male back to her mother.
For Artemis it was the likelihood of Namir actually caring for her.
For Leboya it was how nice it was to see her old beau happy with someone, even if it wasn’t her.
And for Namir…
…
It was how to best redeem himself in the eyes of Artemis.
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