Sliabh gently ushered his tired daughter into the family den, nosing her forwards when she hesitated in the doorway. Quietly he watched as she padded further into the shadowed safety of their home and flopped down, a bundle of dusty blue and white fur. She clearly thought she was in trouble for starting a fight with a juvenile, but Sliabh had spoken to the minders who had been watching the cubs and knew that the older boy had been teasing a very sick adolescent. It actually made him rather proud that his daughter, young as she was, had stood up to the bully and given him a piece of her mind as well as a few scratches to remember her by. Though he never would condone fighting among the pride’s many members, he was even less accepting of the strong picking on the weak. Watching as his eldest settled herself amid the dry grasses of the den, he settled near the front, knowing he had to be firm in his discipline despite how he really felt. Only once she understood why what she had done was wrong, would he explain to her why, on this occasion, it had actually been the right thing to do.
It had not been an easy start in life for her Sliabh knew, having been rogue-born and brought up knowing she would be leaving her mother behind, then the actual journey to her new home which had been far longer than Sliabh had first estimated. For cubs could not move as fast nor as far as an adult. The long trek had finally come to its conclusion when they reached the pride’s boarders several weeks after setting out from Maile’s temporary family den. The parting had been fine for the two of them, but the cubs hadn’t been so certain and at the last minute, had balked at such a startling change to what they knew. However Sliabh loved them and they returned it, so after a tearful goodbye all three had climbed abroad his wide back and they had started the long walk back to their ancestral home.
Now, several months later, the cubs were all growing well and starting to return to their original personalities, though they were understandably subdued by the atmosphere of the pride. After all, death and disease did not constitute a happy and warm atmosphere, but the pride members themselves were so loving and caring towards one another, the cubs had not lacked for friendly faces and eager playmates. Sliabh had needed to warn them about being too rough with the sicker cubs, but it had been a precaution only, for all three seemed all too aware of their own robust health compared to most of the pride. So far, everything had gone as well as he could have hoped, for he had always known this venture of his, given to him by the Queen herself, would never be easy... But there was an even greater hurdle just around the corner, that of explaining just why the pride was like it was and that the cubs, young as they were, could very well get sick now they were in their new home. It had never been an easy decision, to subject such young lives to the dangers of the Sickness that ruled his homeland, but the survival of his pride depended on them and in the end, he could not deny his pride nor his Queen.
Looking over at his eldest daughter, curled up in the back of his and his mate’s den, he couldn’t help the heaviness in his heart. As a father, he longed to take them somewhere safe, where they wouldn’t be subjected to the pain and illness that would likely befall them, but he was a Kitwana male, this was his home and he loved his pride. Padding over he nudged her with his muzzle, pulling a reluctant giggle from the tiny bundle. Carefully laying his massive frame out along the ground he caught her up in his maw and settled her across his forelegs. His huge liger-sized body dwarfed even the full grown adults in the pride, so his juvenile daughter looked like a newborn cub cradled against his broad chest.
Just as he was about to try and start the difficult conversation, Caoilainn shocked him by rolling over and peering up at him with those vivid green eyes of hers, a gift from her birth-mother. “I know papa... we need to be here to help the pride... ‘cos so many die each year an’ the rest need someone to help ‘em.” She smiled in that innocent yet ageless way of the young. “It’s ok. I like it here really.. it’s just hard sometimes, you know? With so many ill and so many adults all laying round helpless as cubs. Makes me wonder if I’m next to be ill like that.” She sighed softly, though she didn’t seem to hold her situation against her father. Unable to help himself, Sliabh leaned down and huffed warm, grateful breaths over her pale fur. “Why..?” He barely had the courage to ask but the word slipped out under his breath anyway, despite the fast pace of his beating heart. She smiled up at him, batting at his nose with one tiny paw. “Cos... without you, me and Sorcha and Beags wouldn’t ha’ been born, would we.” She replied in simple cub-styled logic, crystal clear eyes settled on her father unerringly.
For a moment Sliabh stumbled over what to say but finally huffed a softly relieved chuckle and groomed her belly. “Well.. I guess you are right about that. And no matter what happens, you will always be the most precious gifts. Not only for the pride, but to me. “ For a long time the pair of them chattered about everyday things, the pride members under Eva’s care, what her siblings had been up to that day, when and where Sliabh’s guard route would take him on the morrow. But finally the older lion turned serious eyes on the young cub and she quieted. “About today... you know why it was bad to attack that boy?” She winced, nodding quietly, then yelped when her father’s warm tongue soaked her face. “But just this once, it was a good thing you did... protecting that other girl. I know her dam and Kassiel has been sick a very long time. She would not have been able to stand up to that young male. Her father wishes to thank you for keeping her safe.” Giving his daughter a long like the pair played together for a little while until Sliabh knew his daughter was growing sleepy. Finally tucking her to bed Sliabh curled his large body between her and the den’s entrance, keeping the draft from her tiny body. And slowly he watched her fall asleep.