Mwezi'Nuru crouched in the shallow water and kept her eyes open for anything not quite right. The last thing she needed was to find out there were crocs or something in the water she was washing herself off in. There had been no sign of such things and the water was fairly shallow, so she was at least willing to go into the water. She hated having something hiding in the water pop out at her.It had only happened once and she had gotten out of the way in time, but still. It was enough to make a lioness paranoid around water of any amount. This was fairly clear, no sign of any unnatural movements in it. She signed and washed herself off with some of the water, drank a bit more of it, and then got out to groom herself dry. She was not going to manually groom THAT much mud off herself. It would have taken forever.
It had rained for days and she had had such a thick goop of mud on her paws that when she'd finally gotten out of the mud to be able to groom them, it would have taken hours to remove. The watering hole had been a nice find, allowing her to clean nearly all the mud away easily. It made her feel better to know she was going to be completely mud free soon. That was one thing she hated about not being able to hide in a den from the rain, the mud.
Mwezi groomed herself and sunned herself on a rock at the same time. What the sun did not dry for her, she would groom out of her fur carefully. Other than the rain and mud issues of the last few days, she was enjoying her time in the roguelands. There was a freedom to being the only dancer for miles that she did not expect to appreciate. She wasn't likely to have that change even when she found Aziz and his pride. It was going to be nice there too she was sure.
A pride where nobody danced, or at least not where Aziz had seen. It seemed to be such an odd concept to be without dancing and music for dancing. She hoped that they at least had music there. Although, if they did not, Mwezi would do her best to bring that to the pride as well. She was sure they must need such things to bring them joy. Even if they had their own joy already, a little more would not harm anyone. It might just help them too! She would enjoy bringing joy to others if she could.
Her mother would be proud of her taking dancing and music to others. Her mother understood what it was like to grow up without such things and find them later in life. Mwezi was sure her mother would approve. Her mother had been sad that Mwezi was leaving, but the lioness was supportive none the less of the choice. Mwezi thought her mother to be one of the greatest dancers, and a wonderful lioness otherwise. She could not imagine what it would be like to disappoint her mother.
Mwezi worked on her paws carefully, drying them and hoping for the best. She could not believe how much mud she had had caked on her from the walking she had done in the rain. She should have found somewhere to hide from the rain and mud days ago, but she had not seen anything and really had not wanted to stop other than to sleep. It was just so messy she wanted to keep moving and get away from it if possible. Unfortunately that had not worked out as well as she would have liked.
The worst part of the storm really had to be the fact that she had not been able to sleep well when she did stop. Every time she found a spot to sleep she found herself woken within a short time by either being very chilly due to the wet fur, or being very annoyed do to the pattering of the rain drops on the overhangs she would hide under. It had been a very tiring and rather on edge few days. The grooming was helping to ease her nerves at least. That was something she had not really counted on when she had stopped to wash herself off.
With her paws done, Mwezi moved on to other places that needed a little extra cleaning or just needed dried off further. She hated being damp, but at least she was clean. She tried to keep her mind on the fact that she would be dry soon even though she was damp now. With that in mind, she kept grooming as quickly and carefully as she could. She wanted to be dry and warm and not damn and chilly. A shiver passed through her and she redoubled her efforts to get dry. She did not need to catch a chill yet on top of everything else!
She did not have anyone out here to help her recover if she caught a chill. She hated to think of the idea of what would happen should she get sick. She knew she would never make it back to her mother and her old pride if she got sick, and she did not know how long it would take to find Aziz. To catch a chill, or even a sniffle, could likely be fatal. She shivered again, but this time it was at the idea of dying before she achieved her goal and had cubs of her own.
She could not very well be dying without having cubs. That just would not do. Mwezi got herself dried off and found a nice warm rock to sun herself on. Her dark fur would help her to absorb the warmth. That should help keep her from getting sick, and also would allow her to nap in comfort. A bit of sleep would do her a world of good after so long. Clean and dry, the lioness curled up on her chosen sunning spot and went to sleep. One day spent resting her weary bones would not kill her, or so she thought.
