Porpel

Clean
Descendant of First King Vance
Descendant of Third King Sonis
Fourth Pride Princess

Porpel considers herself a “pseudo-goddess of the flowers” due to the floral coloration of her coat. Her “godly” actions are mostly benign, mainly consisting of her lounging gloriously amongst her beloved flowers with her wildcat bestie, but may an actual god help anyone who picks a flower in her presence. She will rain her flowery wrath down upon those who “murder her precious petal babies.”

(She is an exception to this rule, of course. As the Flower Goddess, Porpel is permitted to pick as many flowers as she wants.)

Stories from the Life of Porpel:
~~~~~~~~~~
At Saia's signal, Porpel rushed to prone herself gloriously in the center of her favored bed of flowers. A moment later, the recently-crowned Ruler Kelaus walked by, unaware of the Princess' lookout following close behind. 

"Why hello, Ruler Kelaus," Porpel purred, fluttering her lashes as she peered up at the pride leader seductively.

Kelaus seemed startled by the purple lioness' acknowledgement. "Um, good morning, Porpel."

The princess rolled over onto her back and stretched lavishly, still blinking at Kelaus in an enticing manner. "Pride gossip is that you and Tahyi are becoming a thing," she uttered disinterestedly, pretending to lazily examine her claws. Suddenly flipping back over into a more composed position, she continued, "Don't you think you should look into a more...ROYAL option for a prospective mate?" She fluttered her lashes some more, beaming beautifully up at Kelaus.

Now Kelaus was REALLY startled. "We--! We aren't...." They took a deep breath and looked down at Porpel with a stern expression. "The relationship between Tahyi and I is none of your concern. If you are interested in the prospect of you and I doing 'reproductive business' at some time in the future, we can discuss that at a later time during a proper meeting in my den." After saying their piece, the ruler abruptly walked away before the sense of humiliation could consume them.

Porpel pouted as her crush left. Saia, now sitting beside her and grooming her paw, spoke up when the object of Porpel's affections was out of earshot. 

"I don't really get what the big deal with seeing them is. It's not like you'd be exclusive."

Now Porpel aimed her pout at her best friend. "You just don't understand. You're not a lion." The courting habits of their respective species had become a frequent topic of discussion between the two ever since Porpel had developed her crush on the Pride's Ruler. African wildcats weren't exactly monogamous either, but they were closer to it than the average lion.

"You're right, I'm not," Saia conceded. "But you should cheer up anyway. Any way you look at it, you DID technically get invited to their den." She smirked teasingly.

"Only for the purpose of cub-making. Which I DO want to do with them, but I want more than that." The princess huffed sadly. "Whatever. I'll earn Kelaus' love one day," Porpel said, flipping her "mane" of colorful flowers she'd woven into her neck fur.

~~~~~~~~~~
"After greeting each other, Porpel feels offended you did not give her enough attention and doesn't seem to be interested in you for the rest of the day."
~~~~~~~~~~
(Also in Stories from the Life of Igiswa)

The Temple of the Slithering God echoed with the ranting of an infuriated "flower goddess." Igiswa listened patiently, her snakes leisurely winding their way around her paws and ears. 

"I've had their cubs! THEIR CUBS! And they STILL can't see that our union is special! That ungrateful idiot is even treating our cubs the same as all the others! The offspring of a ruler and a princess should be treated like what they are: ROYALTY! Not just the same as any reject from the Giving Tree!!!"

"Now, Porpel," Igiswa interjected, gazing sternly at her acquaintance, "you know that our ruler values equality above all else. Giving your cubs preferential treatment would not be fair to the other cubs. Nobody can control the circumstances of their birth."

Porpel huffed. "As a fellow princess, I thought you'd understand," she whined petulantly. Since Igiswa was also a Pride Princess close to her own age, Porpel had thought that they should be compatible as friends. It only made sense that they should lie gossiping together for hours each day, exchanging their mutual woes of holding high status. But Igiswa was just bizarre. She was so weirdly calm and polite, never speaking an ill word about anybody, and she spent most of her days making the strangest offerings to idols of snakes. 

"That cult has ruined you," Porpel muttered bitterly.

The other princess startled her by standing up sharply. "My religion is of no concern to you," Igiswa stated flatly. After glaring for a moment at Porpel, she left the temple, still draped in snakes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kelaus was surprised one evening to hear a light knock on the inner wall of their den, and even more surprised to look up and see Saia in the rocky doorway. While there were a good many non-lions living amongst their pride, it was uncommon for them to concern themselves with lion politics by visiting the Ruler.


Kelaus stood to greet her. "Good evening. Saia, is it?" They'd never spoken, but Kelaus recognized the wildcat as the one who was always hanging around Porpel. Come to think of it, she'd even helped name their cubs when Porpel gave birth.

"Hello, Kelaus." She didn't bother with their title, both because she wasn't a lion and because she knew they wouldn't care anyway. "I need to talk to you about Porpel."

Kelaus blinked. Oh, dear. "Um. Okay." They sat down to match Saia's posture. "What's going on?"

"She's all depressed because she thinks you don't care about her enough."

Oh boy. Kelaus was not oblivious to Porpel's very obvious crush on them, but they had always been too awkward to really do anything about it. They'd had cubs together; they had hoped that would be enough for the princess.

"Now, I'm not expecting you to just give her what she wants, but you have to do something. She's been going around trying to get sympathy from everybody, but she hasn't found it. If you don't go and give her some form of closure, she's just going to keep being depressed and mope around forever."

"...I see," Kelaus said, brow creased. "I understand. I will talk to her."

"Thank you," Saia said, and then she left immediately. She hated the smell of a lion's den.

~~~~~~~~~~

Up on an isolated hilltop, beneath the setting sun, a once-glorious flower was wilting. She had forgone her usual floral haven in the center of the Pride’s territory, something she never did, but right now she wanted nothing more than to be away from everybody. Even Saia had chosen to clear off after seeing how inconsolable she was.

Soft pawsteps crunched across the semi-dry grass. Porpel almost snapped at Saia to just fuck off again already, but then she registered that the sound was just a smidge too loud to be caused by a wildcat. She turned to face the intruder, and was exceptionally disgusted to see that it was Tahyi.

“What do YOU want?!” she spat, so disgruntled that she didn’t even care to restrain the ugly expression she directed at the other lioness.

“I just want to talk to you,” the Ruler’s mate spoke softly. Without invitation, she laid down gingerly a short distance away from the moody princess.

Porpel was too enraged to speak. She merely intensified her scowl, struggling to even see her wretched rival through all the red.

“It isn’t personal, you know,” Tahyi began, totally ignoring Porpel’s intense warning signals. “My relationship, I mean. With Kelaus.”

“As if that wasn’t obvious,” Porpel snapped, meaning which relationship she was talking about, but she realized her sentence could be misconstrued. She didn’t bother to clarify her meaning. What was there left to save, anyway?

Tahyi was just looking at her with the most irritating air of sympathy. Porpel scoffed and looked away, but the other still continued.

“It isn’t personal for Kelaus, either. We do care for each other greatly, of course, but their role as leader of this pride as well as a stud means that there are always going to be others. And for the record, you ARE one of those others to me, just as I am ‘another’ to you.”

Porpel was giving her the silent treatment. She continued on. “I want you to understand that our relationships are fluid, Porpel. There often aren’t strict labels. Lately I have been called Kelaus’ mate, yes, but what does that really mean? Not much, to be honest. We spend time together, we make love, we have and raise cubs together. But Kelaus does the same with many other lionesses. It isn’t as exclusive of a position as you think.”

Porpel’s blood boiled as Tahyi’s last sentence reminded her of Saia making the same point, so many months ago. She hadn’t wanted to hear it then, and she still didn’t want to hear it now. She flexed her claws into the dirt.

“And it’s not like I only mess around with Kelaus, either,” Tahyi continued somewhat obliviously. Porpel’s claws retreated speedily into their sheaths in her shock.

“What?! Who else could you possibly want?!” Porpel cried out in hopeless confusion, well past the point of caring how desperate she looked and sounded.

Tahyi smirked at her, satisfied to have finally caught her attention. “I assure you I do feel quite fulfilled with Kelaus in my life. But it’s just about equality, y’know? It wouldn’t be fair for only them to be allowed to flirt with others. Plus, their constant duties mean they often aren’t around when I have my own needs—especially this time of year,” she chuckled. “We both understand that we have a very open relationship.”

Porpel could only gape at her. None of this had ever occurred to her. In her mind, it had always been Kelaus or nothing.

Sensing that the princess had nothing more to say for the moment, Tahyi turned to gaze thoughtfully into the distance. Porpel noticed how the early February breeze caressed her plentiful neck fur when she faced into the wind. Between this scruffy fur that looked almost like the beginnings of a mane and her unusually small and slender stature, Tahyi could almost be mistaken for a young male adolescent. This tomboyish appearance had not been evident when they all were younger, but now Porpel wondered if she and Kelaus had been drawn together subconsciously due to both being non-gender conforming.

“You’re not as bad as I thought,” she found herself whispering. Tahyi turned back to look at her in mild surprise, but she was smiling. She had sensed Porpel’s breakthrough.

“I’m glad to have improved your opinion of me. But what’s more important is your opinion on what a little romance can bring into your life. Now’s a great time to explore it—aphrodisia and all. You can go out there and find all kinds of lions to hang out with—lionesses too, if that tickles your fancy.” The smaller lioness gave a wink. “Hell, you can easily find some tigers and leopards out there too, if you’re open to that. You don’t have to go all-or-nothing on just one cat. We’re lions, after all.”

With that, Tahyi left her to ruminate, wandering off slowly in the now-moonlight. As Porpel watched her go, she decided she only had one regret: she wished she had listened to Saia much sooner.