Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was midday in the graveyard and Ausha was out for a walk, meandering amidst the bones and rotted skin he knew more than he knew himself, the dust scattered stone that was the only ground his paws could remember, reassuring underfoot. His sleek tail waved at his heels as he walked, impeccably graceful despite the limp in his foreleg. This little area of the graveyard was his, it was his home and only here was he truly happy.

He moved into one of the open areas of the graveyard, places where the fog thinned slightly, where the oppressive darkness thinned just enough to let a few sparse beams of sunlight in. Ausha knew these places only as a result of Mchele coming into his life. The sun reminded him of other times, distant dreams and memories. Climbing up onto one of the scattered piles of bones, he sat down, his tail curled about his black paws, cold blue eyes fixed on the concealed sky. He always looked wraith-like in these lands, camoflaged against bone and shadow, thin and small, trapped as he was in perpetual adolecence, the un-natural stolen mane of another draped about his shoulders.

Stretching, Ausha looked about himself. He felt so much safer here in his domain now that Chomo had returned, bringing his family with him. He was no longer expected to be the strongest inhabitant here, merely the figurehead and that took a weight off of his shoulders. Of course, he had no idea that one of Chomo's sons had brought along a friend of their own to his lands, nor that she was lying nearby.

With a yawn he stated to himself. "Now all I have to do is find Mchele and I'll be in heaven."

He grinned at the mists, things really were looking up.

Ausha spotted the movement nearby with all the keenness of a lion raised in a land where hyena roamed. His eyebrow raised at the female, one who looked like a gravyard lion with her pale pelt, or would have, were it not for the intense red markings across her.

"Ahem." he said with a grin. "Can I help you?"

Ausha was somewhat stunned by the seeming coldness of this lioness, used to some kind of friendlyness or agression one way or the other. He raised an eyebrow. "Who am I? Darling, I am Kikausha, king of the Maziko pride." he didn't seem even slightly agressive, more resigned to his life than anything else, he sat in a way that made him seem older than he appeared, his bad leg held slightly off the ground, it's paw still scarred from the teeth of the young hyena which had showed it's true colours in the face of attempted friendship.

He looked very tired, blue eyes cold and jaded by what he'd seen.

"Who might you be?"

Ausha nodded, so she was a Firekin? "Ah, you must have come with Chomo and his family, Ra is one of his sons if I remember? Either way Chomo is one of my oldest friends, we grew up together here in the graveyard, any ally of his, however indirect, is welcome in my lands." He didn't comment on the fact that if he had grown up with Chomo that made him far older than both Naraka and Ra

He looked surprised at her statement about one of the sons disliking her. "You have nothing to fear from me telling Chomo's sons anything, they are wild lions with so much of the Firekin in them that I doubt they would listen to me if I even tried."

"Yes I know Chomo. I am much older than I appear. Not all of us get along with the gods I'm afraid. My curse was to never appear the king I am." he curled his tail, looking again out at the mists. "I knew Chomo when he was the age his sons are now."

He gave her an almost sad look at her comment, he knew what it felt like to be keeping out of the way of another creature that wanted you dead, he'd been doing it most of his life and it wasn't a very fulfilling existance. He didn't want to offend her but asked anyway.

"How do you get by here, there isn't much food or water for a younger lioness like yourself"