Now she didn't just have Kimaji to worry about, there was a half dead lioness tucked into the situation. ... as if Kizuka herself weren't half-dead already.

The splotched lioness plopped down into the dust and wilted grass, barely wincing as her bone scraped the ground without the slightest amount of fat padding. Her stomach had given up complaining months ago, but it didn't stop the fact that she was more than a little aware of the state her body was in. Though she told herself a thousand times that it didn't matter as long as Kimaji was still healthy, Kizuka knew it did. She didn't want to die... and she didn't want her daughter to witness it. Kimaji wasn't ready to love on her own--no matter that the girl was nearly grown in body. Her continuing naivity would have been find in the Umandem'funi of old, but this waste land wasn't the place that Kizuka knew from her childhood.

Turning her head, Kizuka ran her tongue over her fur in an attempt to regain some hint of her former beauty. She doubted it worked, but it didn't hurt to try. Combing her paw over her mane-tuft, she gave a gentle sigh and let her tired eyes gaze over the land before her, but she didn't really see anything. She was so tired....

A few minutes later, Kizuka shook herself all over as she woke up. Had she passed out? How long had it been? For one frightening moment, Kizuka found that she wasn't sure of anything anymore. That passed quickly enough, and she let her head sink down into her paws as her tail and body wilted against the ground. Finally, after months, she was beginning to break--right when she couldn't afford it at all. What was worse, she hadn't a soul in the world to talk to about it. To bother Kimaji or Mo'onasai with it would be the lowest of the low--the former was too sweet, the latter had too many problems of her own.