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 Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 11:43 am
Nyota still knew her way around the Pridelands and it really showed. She had wasted no time getting her and her sister to Pride Rock to get the OK to stay, now she was eager to see if she could locate her mother and announce her happy return. She had no second thoughts about bringing Alienor with her, extended family of this sort was no big secret or taboo around here. And Angavu was hardly the type to have a problem with it, Nyota would be very surprised if she wasn't coming home to even more siblings.
"Now we've seen a nice portion of the Pridelands, what do you think?" she asked, smiling at Alienor as they walked slowly away from Pride Rock, "Still happy with your decision?"
Nyota had no regrets, she found what she wanted out in the Roguelands and with the Tuait'tekem .. but she missed the Pridelands too much. Hopefully it wouldn't be a disappointment to the lioness she brought back with her.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 11:52 am
 "It's very...green." It was the first thing that popped into her mind and oh how true that was! No sand. No sand anywhere. The ground was soft with the greenery but beneath that covering the ground was hard and her paws felt almost bruised from the travelling they had done. She had spent so much time gaping at everything around her that she was only now realising how tired she was. Long treks were certainly not something she had embarked on before now.
Aliénor was sad to be leaving the Tuait'tekam. That much had to have been said. But it also saddened her to see how the pride was fragmenting and breaking. It was not how it had been and that was sadder still. She'd attempted convincing some of her relatives to come with her but they had seemed hesitant. Still, she fully expected to see one or two of them at some point, perhaps even her father. Since everything that had happened with Hala, Alié got the impression that he didn't feel as comfortable as he once had there.
"Happy." She agreed. "And sad." She wasn't one to hold back her thoughts. "But this is right. We only live once on this world and if I spend my whole life in the same place I'll be wasting an opportunity. My mother and father both travelled when they were younger. Now it's my turn."
Besides, she had family here, too.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:01 pm
"I know that feeling," she said, smiling sadly and remembering the beginning of her journey away from home. She was as stubborn as her mother but even if her determination overshadowed her sadness for so long, it was ultimately impossible not to notice. She wanted to say Alie could go home later, like Nyota did now, but she had witnessed the same fracturing Alienor did. Hopefully if she did decide to go home, there was a home to go to.
"This is a good place to start," she suggested, "It was gigantic when I left and it doesn't look like it has gotten any smaller, lots of very different lions around to get involved with or hear stories from."
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:13 pm
The black cat nodded and glanced around again as if to confirm that they had arrived. "It seems very big. Much bigger than the Dawnwalker territory." And so many lions, too. Her head was spinning from all the new scents. She felt as if she could spend a lifetime here and never get to know half of the lions that lived here. A quarter even.
"Do you think you mum will be surprised to see you back?" She asked. "What do you think she'll make of me turning up out of the blue?" She wriggled, not quite as nervous as one might think. She didn't think Nyota's mother would be the unreasonable sort judging from the daughter that she had raised.
And it was quite exciting to know that she had extended family, even if only Nyota and her siblings were the ones tied by blood.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:19 pm
"I don't know," Nyota confessed, beaming at the thought of her mother, "I don't imagine she's been really waiting around for me to just suddenly reappear but I don't know if it'll be a surprise. And she'll be very happy to meet you, I'm sure!"
Angavu was always very respectful of Altair's privacy, Nyota had no reason to expect she would be upset or hurt by the appearance of another daughter of his. She had other cubs before Nyota left and the attitude she had about it then made Nyota suspect there could be more now, many more even.
"She's our best bet at finding Nkiruka, Dhuriyana and Usiku quickly, too," she said, sounding particularly excited about finding her sisters.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:40 pm
Aliénor smiled. "That would be amazing! I can't wait to meet all of them. And you have younger siblings, too, right? Wow I bet they must be all grown up by now, huh? Cubs never seem to stay cubs for long." She remembered the little ones all dashing around in the Tuiat'tekam. And then suddenly their manes would be growing in and she'd be looking up at them instead.
"So your family all stick close to home? Were you the only one of them to ever leave the Pridelands?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:47 pm
"I do," she responded about her younger siblings, sounding nearly as excited about seeing them as her littermates, "Honestly, I'll be surprised if it doesn't turn out mom had more since then, too. I've been gone long enough there could be like.. two litters more of them."
Wow, she hadn't really thought that part through. That could mean more than a dozen more siblings. This could get very confusing very quickly, hopefully they wouldn't be bombarded with new family members all at once. It was going to be hard enough.
"Well, kind of," she said when the subject changed, "My great-grandmother was born here but she left when she had my grandmother, they both eventually came back here and pretty much everybody since has stayed here."
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:56 pm
"That's so nice. You have so much family here. It must be wonderful to have that - to know you could come back and see them at any time and they would all still be here." She wasn't sure she'd be able to stay the same but then again her parents did know where she was. They wouldn't have to go all that far to find her if they wanted to see how she was doing.
"Your mother must really love cubs to have so many of them!" And, in truth, Alie couldn't blame her. Despite not having found a mate yet she was looking forward to the day when she could raise children and see them grow and flourish and make her proud. It was a simple desire, perhaps, but something that she was - in a sense - aspiring to.
"Do a lot of the Pridelands lions have large families?" Perhaps it was a traditional thing here.
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 1:10 pm
"It would be pretty hard to come here and not find relatives," she said with a nod and a laugh, "I don't know if you could get rid of all of us. We're even related to the royal family- but pretty far back and, I suppose, that family is so big it's not that uncommon, either. We're just related from the other side."
Most lions in the pride related to the royal family were related to both Mufasa and Sarabi, being descended from them. Her family was related only to Sarabi through her sister.. though there were some only related to Mufasa through his brother, too.
"I think so," she said, thinking about how common large families were here, "Some families are so big that they manage to creep into even the smaller families so it's kind of hard not to."
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 1:16 pm
"It sounds like keeping track of families here in the Pridelands could get quite tricky." Alie laughed. Still, common or not, it did seem pretty awesome to be related to the royal family, even if the line had been spread through the ranks. But it sounded, from what Nyota was saying, that one might pass by a cousin and not even realise it.
Rogue blood was probably welcomed here. Maybe this was her chance to find a nice male.
"It's nice that there are such big families, though. I don't think it could ever get lonely here. And it seems peaceful here, too, for such a large pride. It has...a nice energy."
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Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 1:21 pm
"The only blood-relatives you have here are female, at least," Nyota said thoughtfully, smiling, "So you shouldn't have any problems unless our sisters have all had a bunch of cubs since I left."
She nearly stumbled as she spoke, realizing her mother wasn't the only one that could have added new members to the family. Nyota had a ton of family members, she'd thought about all of them having cubs except for her own siblings. Something about missing her sisters having cubs felt worse than the possibility of having siblings she never met before. And something about the siblings she knew only as cubs having cubs was strange.
"I guess I never thought of that," she murmured before shaking her head and putting on a smile again, "It is very nice here, I bet you'll love it."
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Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 11:42 am
Alienor picked up on Nyota's body language and offered her a sheepish smile. Cubs everywhere. Or...potential cubs anyway. The family could be even bigger than Nyota had thought and to Alienor the very thought of it seemed crazy (but completely possible!). "It sounds to me like I'm never going to remember all the names of the lions and lionesses from your side of the family." She admitted.
And she sorely hoped that this land would give her the sort of life she wanted. A place buzzing with life and unity. Everything that her old home was not...
She scrapped that thought quickly and looked across the landscape, almost expectantly.
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Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:02 pm
"That's OK," Nyota said with a snicker, "Sometimes I couldn't keep track of everybody, I don't know that anybody can except grandma." She smiled at the thought of her grandmother and great-grandmother, eager to see them, too. She had to bite her tongue to keep herself from letting her mind wander over all the other family she hadn't seen in so long. Kafara was her age and had cubs before Nyota even left, she could have many more, too. That seemed a certainty compared to all the other possibilities. Her mother and Kafara.
"I'm so excited!" she said, stumbling to keep herself from running off suddenly, "Let's hurry, I bet I know where to find someone, at least!"
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Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:06 pm
"Lead the way. I'll follow." Alie replied enthusiastically, hastening to give chase. Running suddenly felt invigorating and she threw her head back and gave a delighted laugh before putting on more speed and closing the gap between them. It surprised her to think about how bright her future was looking already. This place was a home away from home. She had family here already - despite not knowing them. But soon she would and it would be better than before.
Much better.
Realising she was lagging behind again, she put on an extra burst of speed, drawing alongside her sister. They were to become Pridelanders.
It was a good feeling.
/fin
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