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Your paws carry you up a sandy, crumbling dune. The ground is uncertain beneath your feet, and force you to slow down, moving carefully, to avoid sliding all the way back down the slope.
There is a cold breeze blowing off the ocean, carrying an even colder mist. The air is sharp with salt, and though you've heard tell of a pride here, there is no sound of lions - no laughter, chatter, not even the noise of footsteps, except for your own. If you were a less attentive creature, you would have missed them entirely.
Huddled in the scare shadow made by a dip in the sand, a litter of cubs stare up at you with wide eyes- still blue, and very large in their kittenish faces. You study them a little more closely- perhaps not a litter. The cubs don't resemble one another very closely, and some are perhaps a little older than the others; starting to grow in to their chubby paws. As you're about to speak, a lioness comes up, back over the ridge, with a fish wriggling in her jaws.
She drops it, at the sight of you- and drops her eyes, as well, ducking her head to you submissively. Only a little darker than the sand surrounding you, she would blend right in to the dip where the cubs are hiding. Her voice, when she speaks, is soft, and trembling a little. "I'm sorry- did the young ones bother you?" she slinks forwards, crouching, to stand over the cubs, who huddle at once around her legs. "We'll find ourselves another place to rest- come, little ones. The king will want to deal with this visitor himself, I'm sure."
You don't even have time to reassure her- she picks the smallest cub up by the scruff, and the others bundle after, following her down the dune with clumsy paws- and leaving you alone, again, on the silent, windswept coast.
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Urchin is one of the rare lionesses who joined Lagan's pride as an adult. A quiet, soft-spoken creature, she manages to fade into the background, even in the relatively tiny pride. She's especially good at keeping Lagan's cubs out from underfoot when he doesn't have the time for them - but always appears with whichever cub Lagan wants to see, before he even has to ask.
She doesn't speak much about her life before The Pride at Harbour, deflecting gently away from the subject if she's asked. Whether a product of this clouded past, or of her life with Lagan, Urchin carries herself in a fearful, slinking way, only trying her best to keep out of everybody's way, and carry out her duties as a cubsitter. Trying to anticipate Lagan's moods and desires has made her even jumpier; Urchin knows how precarious her position is in the volatile king's pride, and seems terrified of being forced out on her own again. This is the only reason Lagan lets her stay; he sees her as a somewhat pitiable creature- cringing and deferential. The furthest thing from a threat he can imagine. Urchin dedicates every waking hour to keeping things that way.
However, for the cubs she watches over, Urchin is a rare bright spot in a somewhat cold, unhappy place. Her fearfulness tends to rub off, and make for nervous cubs, but she is genuinely good-natured and kind to them; the closest thing most have to a mother. But Urchin is careful not to let Lagan see her doting on his offspring; she worries what he might do, to put an end to such softness.
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