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Isa's golden eyes narrowed as her gaze fixed on a lioness whose pelt was much the same color as her own, beneath the stripes. She blinked slowly, doing her best to make it clear that she considered it beneath her to acknowledge the pale lioness before her.

"I have yet to meet any to prove me wrong," she countered with a self-assured inflection. "You are, of course, welcome to attempt to persuade me otherwise." The look on her face and the set of her body made it clear that she did not expect to be proven wrong by this particular rogue, either.

The sheltered upbringing she'd had and the limited interactions with others since then meant that she was completely unaware of the way her words might have been interpreted by a certain kind of person. Fortunately for her, she was not dealing with that kind of person.

At least, Ela wasn't that kind of person in that she was not interested in other females' charms, and so she only smirked and said nothing at first, allowing the moment to pass. Had the other lioness been a lion instead, she would have responded differently, with more teasing.

Instead of continuing to tease, Ela studied the other lioness. Obviously she was a pridal lioness, given the statement she had just made about rogues, but there had to be a story in there somewhere. After all, lionesses who hated rogues didn't tend to venture into the rogue lands if they had a pride to call home.

"I could. Or I could ask you what's wrong. Are you lost? Are you looking for someone?" She tried to sound solicitous, but a hint of humor remained in her tone. She couldn't help it.

Isa settled into a prim seated position which would have pleased her father and her missing half-brother. Only once she was comfortably situated did she begin to speak. Curiosity had been her burden as a cub, but she had learned to contain it and express it more subtly, per the preferences of the males in her family.

"My brother's name is Khozar, and mine is Isarmaq," she began. "He's a smaller lion, with a mane the color of my stripes and eyes that are a much brighter gold than mine, almost orange colored. Most of his body's a deep brown, fading to gold at his paws, and he has black stripes. He's very handsome and intelligent, but he might seem domineering to somebody who doesn't know him well, particularly a female, but that's because he was raised to protect females."

Isa didn't realize it, but when she spoke of her brother, her stiff poise softened a little bit. She truly was fond of him - adored him, really - and his departure had crushed her. Her father had only permitted her to search for Khozar because of how devastated his loss had left her. And a little bit because his mate convinced him, Isa supposed.

Ela didn't even have to pause to conjure a memory of a lion that fit that description. Well, most of it anyway. She hadn't interacted with that lion enough to really say whether he was intelligent or not. He was certainly domineering, though, and frighteningly brutal in his defense of females. And handsome. Thinking of him, Ela could not deny that the lion in her thoughts had been handsome.

"I actually think that I may have encountered him, Isarmaq, although he did not give me his name." She realized that Isarmaq had not asked for her name and she tried not to be annoyed by that lapse in manners. The way she carried herself, Isarmaq seemed to be the kind of lioness who would do something like that on purpose to remind someone else of their relative unimportance.

"I left before I saw which direction he went in, but that would give you a place to start your search. Something better than wandering aimlessly, anyway."