"I want a cub."
That was what Sauca had told him, and Iaceo had considered the demand as carefully as he did any suggestion. The pale yellow lioness had never before evinced any sort of inclination towards motherhood, but far be it for him to argue. And, considering that in the years they'd been together Sauca had never once been pregnant, a cub would have to come form somewhere else.
He certainly had no objection to that. After all, other lions had a tendency to let their cubs wander...how foolish. They trusted the little furballs to come back for food or sleep. It seemed simple enough to...appropriate one. If only a person knew where to look...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Annunziu was crying as she ran out from the center of the pride. She'd just wanted to wear the beautiful necklace her father kept in the back of the den! And Mom had caught her at it. The look on her face was bad enough but the unexpected slap had shocked Annunziu and the words that followed...! Few enough in the pride had any sort of real adornment and the adolescent had wanted to just...feel valued. In a way that Slaves didn't always. And Mom had taken that away from her!
There'd been words about Shangyue, the amalgamation of everything the pride hated, and Tyfu, the pride's boogeylion, and Annunziu had refused to sit there and listen to the spew. Of course the next words had been orders for her to come back, but she'd been past listening by that point. All the young lioness wanted was to get away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Iaceo was pondering how to best acquire a cub when he heard the pounding of paws against the ground. Prudently, the brown male withdrew into the undergrowth as the footsteps came closer. They were decelerating - one could hear the exhaustion of their owner in the inverval, the gravity of each paw hitting the earth. Soon enough, they would have to rest.
As luck would have it, said individual stopped not too far from where he himself sat concealed, and orange eyes narrowed in pleasure. It was a lioness. Young, although certainly not a cub, but still young enough for Sauca's purposes he thought. Not unattractive either, with a distinctive long build that spoke of pridal breeding. Someone who was likely to have precious little knowledge or experience of the vast world.
Absolutely perfect.
Now, the question was how to...bring the little one back? Oh sure, he was more than capable of grabbing the white lioness by the grey scruff of her neck and hauling her away, but that method was so...crude. He would continue to watch as he pondered potential scenarios.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Annunziu was finally forced to stop running and gasp for breath. Her legs wobbled under her weight, muscles still quivering as if she was running even now. She'd never run for so long before and would probably run farther still once she got her second wind. Glancing around between gulping lungfuls of air, the lioness wasn't even certain how far she'd come. Nothing out here looked familiar. She was probably still on Mwezi'Johari lands...but that meant little to a young Slave who'd barely been out past the pride's heartland before.
An expression of worry crossed her face as she realized that she only knew which way was home purely because of the direction she faced. She should probably get back. Even if it meant returning to Mom's lecture...and punishment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You seem lost," Iaceo commented to the younger lion as he finally exited his concealment. The brown lion had missed little of his new companion's movements, and began circling her widdershins as he spoke. "You also seem...upset...care to talk about it?"
Oh yes, this would be quite entertaining.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Annunziu gasped as the male appeared out of nowhere and started talking to her. As he circled her, she instinctively turned with him, trying to always see his face.
"I...I'm fine!" she snapped, not at all ready to let some other lion tell her what to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He chuckled at the adoescent's insistence on the opposite of everything she conveyed. Only a chuckle though, because he didn't want to scare her off with how funny it really was. Iaceo was disinclined to chase at the moment.
"Oh sure. I can read tear tracks on your cheek as easily as I can read antelope tracks on the dirt," he told her mildly, ceasing his pacing and sitting himself next to the young lioness.
"Now, what say you tell old Iaceo about it? He won't judge." Or at least, not aloud. Not yet. This was the time for pads of velvet softness. The claws could come out later.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was something about the lion and his insistence on hearing her side of the story that broke something inside Annunziu and she flopped down on the ground beside him, pouring out everything that had happened. Not just today, but for much of her life. How she'd been born a Slave, how her parents were high class, how she'd wanted to be special, how she'd found the old pendant, how her mother had reacted...everything. It felt good to say it all aloud, and Iaceo just listened to her, nodding and reacting the right way to every word.
It felt good to sit there, with an adult who understood how she felt, who treated her like an adult herself and not as some silly cub. She had quite forgotten that, in all the turning around before, she no longer had any idea which way was home. And if other lions might have had a frission of unease run down their spine at the calculating look that she sometimes surprised in Iaceo's eyes, Annunziu did not have the experience to recognize it.
So when he offered to bring her back to meet his mate, who would assuredly have something delicious to eat for dinner - the sun was already going down and the adolescent only now realized how hungry she was - it seemed perfectly logical to go with him. After all, anyone who was as nice as Iaceo would assuredly have an equally wonderful mate.
It was only much, much later that Annunziu realized her mistakes. Her stupidity. But by then it was far too late. She had been born without the Great Lion's blessing, and now she knew why the pride needed to protect the low class.