Koba

Traded for 3 dwarf cubs

The storm in your territory made its arrival known by the hot wind sweeping through the savannah grass below. You watched grimly as dust gathered on the horizon from the desert nearby. The neighboring king ruling there was worse off than your pride, you thought to yourself. Your pride was safely nestled in the valley just over the lowest of the mountain ridge behind you. They were safe, but not you. Your eyes stayed trained on the swirling sands for a moment more as you tried to decide whether or not to take cover or try to return to your pride.

Eventually, as the storm ascends, you decide taking cover was the better option. Your claws grip into the mountainside soil as you scale up the wall with the storm now to your back. Vegetation dotted the hillside here and there, and the range was littered with caves and crevices--most of of them too small for your bulky frame. At last you find a suitable cave to take shelter from the storm. It had been hidden by shrubs and vines. It was a tight squeeze but it would do in a pinch. In you slink, quietly, scenting the air to ensure you're not a trespasser. You can tell this cave was very old; no animal had made a den out of it for a long time. As your feline eyes adjust to the light, your paw pad scrapes against something on the ground, sending it skittering across the stone floor.

You approach the something cautiously, tilting your head to get a better look. It's a bone. A dry, old bone. You look about the cave again and spot something tucked away into a corner near the entrance. You approach the pile with furrowed brows.

A few feathers are laid in the corner, in a pitiful excuse for a nest. Any self respecting lioness would never make such a disgraceful den. You sift through the feathers and find more bones.. and a skull. A tiny, lone skull, much too frail to belong to a lioness. It was a cub skull. Your chest ached as you touched your nose to the too small skull gently. Around the skull were more bones, and you noted morosely, that there were many more legs than there should have been. No other skulls? You looked about. Had a scavenger run off with them? No. The cave had been vacant for many years. So why so many limbs here?

An awful moment of realization. You sadly gathered the bone you'd kicked and placed it back in its nest. These were the remains of a single cub. The poor thing had had such an unfortunate birth, such a rough start that its own mother had abandoned it. It must have made the nest on its own. You try not to think about the cruelty of its last days, alone in an abandoned cave, awaiting a mother that would never return for it. You lay down beside the remains of the dejected cub, wrapping yourself around them protectively. You would stay here to provide warmth and company, if only for the night.

The next morning you buried the fragile skeleton outside in the sun, where the birds sang and the wind blew through the foliage and there was life everywhere you looked. It was so unlike that sad cave. You hoped it would be enough for the nameless cub, the cub who was alone.