Utanzi was standing near a gnarled tree, looking out over the pridelands. He frowned thoughtfully, not sure what to do with his day now. It was basically the same problem every time he set out in the morning. There was a restlessness in him, a drive for adventure and trouble, though he was not actually as good at getting out of trouble as he was getting into it. And most of the time it was on accident. It had been that way since he was a cub, but now he was older and he had simply learned to take it in stride. Before it had been a curse, in its way, a thing he loathed and made him sad growing up, forcing him to ostracize himself from the other cubs. He felt like a failure, more often than not, without knowing the source of it.
Now? He still felt like a failure, and still didn’t know why, but he had accepted it as part of himself and was doing his best to own it as part of his personality. Why fight against something that was only natural? If this was how he was supposed to be, then he would not get in his own way by trying to correct the issue. Instead, he had to make it work for him.
So he developed a taste for adventure and trouble, for danger and thrill. It followed him everywhere anyway, and he quickly learned that he could have far more fun, even with others, if he just took the weird things that happened to him for granted and rolled with them. He had friends now, other lions he cared about, and he was happy. It had only taken him most of his cubhood to figure it out, but at least he had in the end. There was no point dwelling on lost time, either.
The future was his now.
Ygraine and Uther were walking slowly together, side by side, nearby. They hadn’t seen the young male in the distance, and had no idea where they were. They had been walking for some time, but neither could complain. Both had experienced far longer journeys, and had endured hardships. Now they had finally found one another, it was difficult to bring them down from how good it felt to be reunited. Their love had kept them going, miles apart, and had brought them back together again. It would take more than an earthquake, a plague, a flood, and every other natural disaster out there to tear them apart again now.
The large male lion looked at his companion, sensing her slowing down more than seeing it in her pace or body. She had a slightly lower body language, as if her fur was weighing down on her now. He nudged her tenderly, caressing her neck.
“You seem tired, my love,” he said, his voice a deep baritone that rumbled from his chest, power and grace following each syllable. She looked up at him in surprise, as if waking from a day dream. She smiled and give his nose a n**, making him pull his head back with a grunt. He smiled at her, though, slowing their pace to a full stop. She walked forward a few more steps, then glanced back at him, growing more tense on instinct without him directly at her side.
“I am fine, Uther, please. I can walk further than we have traveled today.”
“Just because you can does not mean you must,” he pointed out, “we should not push too hard. We will find a place to rest our paws, and I will find you a meal. We failed to catch anything yesterday. There, there is a tree to rest under.”
“There is someone already resting there, love,” she said, wondering if he had just chosen not to see the younger lion she now spotted in the shade of the twisted, but oddly pretty, tree. Uther grunted indignantly, dismissive as he often was of strangers. He could be a bit pompous at times, and had not learned the lessons Ygraine had learned the hard way out in the rogue lands. They were not royalty out here, just two lions with no names or reputations, and who certainly had not earned the respect they demanded. Ygraine had become more demure in her time away from her rank, as she had been before she was given it. She preferred peace and quiet to causing trouble or acting spoiled. Uther, however, was a lion who would not learn new tricks. Refused to, in fact. As he saw it, he was once a King and that demanded respect regardless of the fact that the pride had been destroyed.
It did not take away from the fact that he had once been royalty.
He moved away from Igraine and toward the male, who was sitting up now as the much larger, older lion drew nearer. Utanzi could sense tension in the air and knew immediately, just from the look on the older male’s face, that this was not going to go well. Trouble had found him again. And it was very large, did not look particularly happy or friendly, and had sharp, soul searing eyes. Trouble was frowning at him, bearing its teeth, and lifting a paw in warning. Utanzi recoiled away from it, but his posture was suddenly playful, tail high in the air, butt off the ground, front end lowered to a crouch.
Trouble, or rather Uther, stopped.
“Get away from the tree, boy,” Uther said imperiously, “my mate requires the shade for her rest. You may assist us in our hunt, if you do not argue, but if you wish to fight for your land, I will take your challenge.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Utanzi shook his head enthusiastically, straightening up like a shot. He really was not in the mood to have his posture taken as a threat of some kind: he had been trying to disarm the moment, not incite the guy to violence. He could tell just by looking that there was no way he would be able to beat the other lion. He was older, had scars under his fur, evidence of hard won battles. He was huge, legs as thick as trees in their own right and likely as powerful as elephants. His mane was thick and long, impressively daunting in its fullness and its color, his pelt a royal gold. Everything about the lion screamed ‘severe beating’.
Utazni was not about to sign up for one.
“I don’t want to fight, pal. I don’t want to help you hunt, either, really, but these lands aren’t mine. These are the Pridelands, and you’re actually trespassing.” Well, almost. But that was good enough, “unless you were coming to live here?”
Ygraine caught up at this point, looking at her mate and then the younger lion that was speaking. She smiled softly.
“We are wandering. Our home was destroyed, and we were separated for a long while. It has taken us some time to find each other, and now we are hoping to find a new place to live. You say this place would be a nice place to live? Would they allow us to-“
“Visit,” Uther grunted. Clearly, the old lion was not keen on living in a pride, under someone else’s rule, but the tired, peaceful look he got from Ygraine steeled him and he sighed. He was doing all this for her. Fighting his way through unwelcoming lands, searching day in and day out, until they finally reunited. If she wanted to live some place quiet and take up an existence as common folk, he would just have to get off his pedestal and join her. He sighed, “stay.”
Utanzi grinned at the duo. Mates, they had said, and they seemed to bounce off one another well. The way she was leaning against him gently, the way he was supporting her without having to be obvious about it, it all spoke to a deep love that the younger lion could barely fathom. He had never experienced love, however, so the very idea was beyond him. But he could at least recognize that these two had it, and that Uther had only started bullying him on his mate’s behalf. In that sense, it was kind of sweet.
Still rude, but sweet.
“I don’t see why not! I mean, unless you greet everyone like you did me, and try to take all of their comfy spots, but I don’t think you’d do that, right? I was just in the right place at the right time. Well, it works out in the end cause now we can explore the pride a bit, and get you all joined up. I mean, this place is old and serene, and I think you’d both like it. Especially if you’ve been traveling for as long as you say.”
Uther looked at Ygraine. She was watching Utanzi with a warm and excited smile. It was not an expression he had seen on her face very often in recent times, and the look made his muscles relax, his attitude fade. He sighed very softly, watching her as she nodded her head and listened intently to what they were being told. The young boy had a lot to say, and none of it was said very well, but that was fine. He was, in the end, offering them a stable home, and a chance to be comfortable and to rest. In the end, that was all Uther had wanted in the first place.
Maybe this was fate.
(Word count: 1600 in Word)
