growing in the sandstone

a final daughter of the acacia line, growing in the sandstone always felt alone. she had a half brother, pastel sand, but he was much older and they were never close. as a male, he felt no pressure to continue their line, but as a female, she did, despite not being particularly maternal. she did have cubs, although most died young. her surviving cub, a son named desert isle, was like her; quiet, kind, and solitary. when he became an adolescent, shortly after her half brother’s death (having passed in his sleep from old age), she decided he would be her last and only cub. she would not try to bear daughters to continue her family line, the acacia line, and put the pressure she inherited onto them, instead enjoying her life of relative leisure, hunting occasionally and otherwise simply enjoying her own company, while her son hung around the pride doing his own thing and occasionally visiting her with a gerbil or dikdik. Just past her fourteenth birthday, she became very sick, retiring to the grandmaw den a bit earlier than she normally would have. Thankfully, her best friend since birth, celestial seer, joined her so she wouldn’t be alone. One night during a bad storm a boulder fell on the two, cuddling together for warmth. While they survived their initial injuries, both eventually passed from their injuries with each other and their cubs by their sides. They wait for their cubs in the afterlife, grooming one another for eternity.