Glacia

Came into our clan on 3/29/2017!
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Glacia played hide 'n' pounce with some younger cubs. With the last one cornered, she pounced wide and missed, allowing the youngster to win.
Glacia wants to show off how tough they are. You hide your laughter as they practice their best roars and snarls. It's so cute, you can't handle it.
You saw Glacia leap up to grab a bird yesterday - cool! You ask her how she did it, and she is quite happy to show you and help you practice!
You notice another pride mate was feeling down. Before you could think of what to say, Glacia came in to comfort them with a pretty little flower gift. You wish you were that thoughtful.
You accidentally stepped on a pride mate's tail, and they seemed angry. You decided to ask Glacia for advice on how to best apologize - she always knows what to say!
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Ḍrīma Vōkara had been in this particular trance for nearly a full day, and it was worrying his wives. They milled about him, careful to not touch him but still trying to provide a comforting presence about his lifeless body. His eyes were glazed over, his monstrous paws curled under his hefty mane and his heavy head laid like a shag carpet on the den floor.

Eithna, normally jubilant, was quietly resting on her back near Ḍrīma's massive head. She was the first to notice the shallow breaths emanating from her King now seemed to be coming out like freezing clouds, frosting her fur. She flipped herself over and began pacing in front of Ḍrīma, seriously contemplating rousing him from his trance. In fact, she was the only one who had ever accomplished such. He was not himself when ripped from a trance, so she knew she should only attempt to do so in the direst of situations. After all, it was rousing her King to warn him of an approaching brush fire that granted her the scars adorned across her face.

Eithna turned to Yahara with a pensive expression on her face. Yahara's green eyes glinted with calm knowing as she sat with her paws crossed over one another, her tail flicking smoothly across the ground. She never spoke, but the pride understood that she was Ḍrīma's guide through his trances from what Ḍrīma had explained to them. So long as Yahara was not panicking, Ḍrīma's wives stayed calm.

Silence hung heavily in the den. The ground in front of Ḍrīma had become like an ice sheet from where his chilled breath touched the stone floor of the cave. Even the many cubs milling about the head brood mother, Nana, were unusually somber. That is until a small "mew" was heard from where the King lay. The kits then started on their way towards the mew, curious as to who had evaded Nana's watchful gaze and gotten so close to Ḍrīma. Nana, of course, kept the cubs at bay and quickly counted the lot of them. She was not missing a single one, but there was no possible way Ḍrīma produced such an adorable mew himself.

Thankfully in that moment, the glaze over Ḍrīma's eyes lifted and he let out a massive yawn, unfurling his paws in a stretch that spanned nearly the full length of the den. Hidden underneath where his paws had been, there lay a tiny blue and black cub on the frozen floor. This cub was smaller than any of the wives had seen before- they turned to Nana for her cub expertise and she too drew a blank. The tiny cub raised itself on it's stubby legs and mewled for milk, a sound Nana was all to familiar with. Without thinking, she went to the cub and picked it up from the ice then began to nurse it.

Ḍrīma himself could not explain exactly how the cub had come to be laying underneath him, but he did remember exploring through icy wastelands in his trance. Perhaps this cub had felt his warmth and followed him back from his dreams?

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4/21/2017
Glacia has grown into a beautiful young lioness, she runs with Eithna in the African plains chasing gazelle as fast as her short legs will carry her. Much to her fellow pridemates surprise, she has a knack for being a rather good diversion for prey. They don't seem afraid around her, and as she distracts them with her quick pitter pattering about while Eithna's crew sneaks up behind their unassuming target.
As soon as Glacia turned 2, she was fed a zebra heart and bred to her king, Ḍrīma Vōkara. He had feasted upon buffalo scrotum earlier, to give her three cubs. Glacia was fed lion balls to hopefully provide Ḍrīma with beautiful dwarf children.
Unable to contain his excitement, Ḍrīma had Eithna use an instant birth feather so that he could see his children. Two young lions with beautiful markings were born but otherwise looked normal. Her last cub born, however, was tiny compared to it's siblings. A dwarf, Glacia's first heat had sired a dwarf!
Unfortunately, Ḍrīma was not pleased with it's markings. He said this was not his heir, and that he desired to sell the precious cub on the market. One of Ḍrīma's close friends, Marbas, came by to check out the newborn and decided that she would make an excellent addition to his clan. Glacia tearfully said farewell to her first dwarf child, and fervently hoped that her next litter would produce a dwarf that Ḍrīma would be pleased with.
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5/10/2017
Ḍrīma's rage was palpable. This was the second litter of fails she'd birthed him. Four cubs the first time, three the second. Valuable lion and buffalo balls- wasted. Ḍrīma could not be more furious. Glacia spent the majority of her time hiding her cubs from Ḍrīma so not to enact his rage. She wished and wished she could please him, but without birthing a dwarf of sufficient caliber, he would never be pleased.
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6/2/2017
Glacia gave birth in a quiet corner of the den, dreading having more cubs Ḍrīma would scoff at and toss out for adoption... or worse... tree them to an uncertain fate. She turned her head with pain in her heart to see the three little cubs. Among them, a pelt of blue! A GLACIAL based dwarf! Glacia screeched happily at the top of her lungs for Ḍrīma's attention, and he came running in with concern drawn upon his face. That is, until he beheld the beautiful baby nestled in his mother's fur.
Ḍrīma beamed with pride, and shot an incredibly elated look at Glacia that gave her flutters in her stomach. She had done it, she had given birth to the perfect cub. Now Ḍrīma was pleased and Glacia could rest easy knowing she had done her great task of producing a worthy dwarf.
Once her son had turned 10 months old, she saw Ḍrīma making a deal with another lion pride who wanted to make her precious Negan their king! In exchange for two buffalo balls, Negan made his way to his new pride with the adoring gazes of his father and mother trailing him.
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7/13/2017
It was a particularly lazy day for the aging Ḍrīma. He yawned as he batted some civet bones across the den for his cubs, tail lightly flicking dust off from the ground. Yahara padded over to Ḍrīma and then looked across to the nesting areas under a large overhanging rock.
Ḍrīma rose to his feet with a huff, dust freeing itself from his shaggy fur and dousing the small cubs under him in a shower of dirt. He chuckles at the small sneezing fits coming from the cubs around his hefty paws before leans heavily on Yahara. Her lithe body somehow manages to support his weight and her own, and the two of them pad over to little Glacia curled up fast asleep in her nest.
Yahara nudges Glacia awake with her nose, lightly rolling her to the side. Curled up next to her belly were two small non-dwarf cubs, both fast asleep. Ḍrīma paused for a moment, thinking. Hadn't he used buffalo balls on the stud he so graciously allowed into his kingdom to breed to his prized wife? Did he make off with the balls without having used them, or worse- did he steal the third cub while Glacia was sleeping? While these thoughts swirled in Ḍrīma's aging mind, Yahara brought him back down to earth by nudging his head to look in the far corner of the nest.
Underneath feathers and dried grass there hid a small, spotted, blue flank. Ḍrīma's heavy paw flipped over the nesting material that was obscuring the front end of the baby and gasped. She was the most beautiful dwarf he'd ever seen! Far more impressive than any other that he'd come across in his nearly 16 year life. Her cheetah spots overlapped each other in a beautiful bouquet of colors, five different colors that he could see.
In his awe, he lowered himself to the ground next to the cub who'd tried to hide itself and nudged the tiny blue baby between his paws. He then began to clean her of the nesting debris, his huge tongue nearly entirely encircling the cub. Yahara smiled as Glacia looked on in disbelief, happy tears welling up in her eyes. Glacia had hardly seen Ḍrīma pay any attention to anyone that wasn't in his trances, much less give a bath to a cub he'd only just met. She'd not only made him proud, she'd given him happiness. It was all she had ever wanted to do.