Being pregnant was... well frankly, it wasn't much fun at all. Very much the opposite, actually.
"Oh, bother..." Safi muttered as she stumbled in the deep sand of the coastline, struggling to bumble her way up from the water to the forested land above. With her stomach swollen and round, it was hard to move about as she was used to and her energy levels ran out far faster. Not to mention she looked like a landed hippo... something her feminine pride refused to let her think about. At least it was sunny out, the deep blue sky carrying not a hint of cloud from horizon to horizon.
Safi'kidege had been the flower of the savannah, before. She had flirted and played and led all the males by their noses... but now? They hardly looked at her, with her grossly huge body. (Some would point that was partly because half the time the males here were busy talking to their Muses) It just wasn't fair... she hadn't asked to get pregnant, hadn't asked for cubs and responsibility. It had just been a little fun with a handsome male, nothing that had been meant to go beyond that night... but so much for that.
So lost in her thoughts and her struggles up the strand of pale sand, Safi failed to noticed at first the sound that teased at her hearing. When it finally pierced through her fugue of frustration, she stopped and lifted her brightly colored head, ears perking and coral eyes going wide.
Such lovely singing... The sound was entrancing, calling to her like a siren and drawing her up the beach without further mishap. In fact, the yellow lioness seemed to float, to dance like before... straight up to the palm tree that spread broad leaves to cast a cooling shade, and the spot of shining color amid the green. It was... a little bird, a handsome, fiesty male, who sang with all his might... And before Safi knew it, she was grinning as she looked up and listened, quite taken with the beauty he put forth. What did her trouble matter, when such a pretty voice existed in the world?
"Oh! Pardon me, fair lady. I didn't see you there, being so engrossed in my song." A burbling laugh broke off the song, followed by a duck of the head as the song bird took a look at his audience. For no reason he could explain, he was as much taken with the lioness as she was with him... it wasn't often he found someone who so obviously enjoyed listening to him. "Did you... like it?" He said tentatively, cocking his head at her as a soft little breeze stirred the leaves he sat amongst.
"Oh, yes! Please, would you sing some more for me?" Safi said, her voice a tad breathless. She had known, from talking with Sewti, that she would eventually meet her Muse, but for it to be this lovely little male... it was just too perfect. He seemed to feel the same as he fluttered down to land on her shoulder, watching her from one bright purple eye as she looked back at him with one of her own pink ones.
"I will sing for you as long as you wish me to." He said gravely, and unspoken words passed between them, a sort of agreement that neither really had to voice. A bright smile spread across Safi's face as some of her old bubbly personality reasserted itself and she stepped out smoothly to the sound of rolling waves and sweet birdsong. It was time to get to know her muse better and see how well fate had matched them.
