+ Ligeia +

Game Notification
Sent On: 2016-12-27 02:14:32
Your lioness gave birth to Cub, a slightly deformed baby. She's unsure if it will survive but it seems to crawl for milk like all others.
-----------------
Game Notification
Sent On: 2016-12-28 02:13:03
Sirenomelia (F) Obsidian 4m crawls around using its front legs only. The merged hind legs don't seem to bother it, and it seems to be able to poop just fine.
------------------

When the night had brought new cubs born, Khavi did the usual 'rounds', congratulating the mothers, and welcoming the tiny squirming babies... and looking to see which ones might remain in the pride while others might be walked to the big Game Reserve nearby...

There was quite the commotion that drew him to the nest where one of the wilder lionesses had bedded down for her litter- she was roaring at some cheeky bird who was pestering her. This isn't unusual, he thought, except... there was an edge of desperation to her tone. He worried, and so he went to her side- cautiously.

At first he was met with snarls and growls- but once he'd seen the cub... once the mother realized he is NOT the sort of king to kill helpless cubs- she sidled just enough away for him to lay eyes on the little Siren for the first time.

He wasn't sure what was 'wrong' with the tiny cub... and he offered a warmer, safer lair for her to nest in with it, and the help of more experienced, older Lionesses to help protect it. ...but he went away worried indeed. This little cub was never going to be able to run, or chase or... anything the other cubs could do. Would it be an outcast? Would it even live?

The next day brought a warm and sunny morning, with the 'snuh' falling from the sky in soft fluffy drifts. Khavi brought a fat goose and a little bird for the mother and cub, along with a few chunks of meat for it to chew on. It played, it was alert, it had such a lovely pelt and beautiful eyes... but the little girl-cub's legs had not improved. Still fused, as if they might be so forever... He laid down a safe distance from the cranky, worried Mother, and began to inquire about it. The conversation would not last long. She LOVED her cub! She was not going to let him take it /anywhere/ thank you very much, be gone!!

Khavi had to go out again, leaving his sub-queen and the other elder females to calm and assure the Lioness her baby was safe. SAFE. And despite his silly talk of the help the two-legs could give... Khavi was a KIND king, and posed no threat to the deformed cub. Maybe... she should /consider/ his words, they counseled. She could go WITH the baby- she could raise it near enough to the two-legged men called 'vets'... they would tend to the cub, and at worst, fit it with a tag or collar so they would KNOW if it needed help. Khavi himself wore one, yes? They were KIND at the reserve, and she need not live /there/ to obtain their help! Just... in a pride close enough to them that the cub had... help... if it needed it.

She was not convinced. She was a newcomer to this pride, and she had it in her mind, as she coiled protectively around her cub, that she might find a place in which her baby might be seen for what it WAS... an amazing act of nature, unique in it's creation... it was not monstrous, and it was not SICKLY... she refused to think so. Even... if it might be true.