When he first came to live among the Stormborn, Fon Youn had made it his mission to learn his way around the pride quickly enough that he wouldn’t act so much like an outsider, even though he still looked and spoke like one. For the most part, he had been successful. No longer new to the pride, Fon Youn had continued his practice of strolling through the lands. He was a social beast by nature, and doing so allowed him to converse with a great many people as he kept his eyes open for a good time.

This evening he had not had much luck in finding a good time, however. While there were always people around in a pride this size – so much larger than the Pepo`porojo! – all of them were engaged in activities that looked undeniably like work, which was a thing Fon Youn had always done his very best to avoid. Mostly at this time of night he saw thralls dragging carcasses back to their masters’ dens, which reminded him he ought to find something to eat soon.

There was a moment of hope when he heard a number of voices raised in what was clearly inebriated song, but when he drew nearer Fon Youn observed the large lions’ scarred hides and elaborately braided manes and recognized that they were reavers. It had been his experience that reavers had little time for males who were not of their rank, even if they were congenial, clever sorts like Fon Youn fancied himself to be. He withdrew before he could attract their notice. He had no desire to end up the butt of their drunken joking, which wasn’t an impossibility, given his smaller build and minimal fighting ability.

He was about to give it up as a lost cause for the evening when he noticed a slim, feminine figure huddled into a pool of shadow, clearly doing her best to be unobtrusive. It didn’t cross his mind to carry on as if he hadn’t seen her, despite her obvious desire not to be seen. Throughout his youth Fon Youn had only felt the urge to hide when there was work to be avoided or pranks to be played, and despite his experiences since then, it was always his first instinct to assume that a hidden lion was doing one of those two things. That being the case, Fon Youn wanted in on it.

“Hey,” he said softly to the lioness, adding the traditional Stormborn greeting, “It’s a good day to die.”

Spoken in his lilting, sort of sing-song accent, the phrase was almost laughable sounding, but the lioness he addressed didn’t even crack a smile. Instead, her dark eyes widened until he could see white around the edges and he realized she was not hiding in order to have a good time, but because she was afraid, at which point his instincts finally told him to leave her alone. He wanted none of whatever she’d gotten herself into.

“You’re not from here,” the lioness observed in a soft voice. Although her build had been a good indicator, her accent confirmed that she wasn’t a native Stormborn either.

“I’m not,” he agreed. There was absolutely no point in pretending otherwise. “And neither are you. So how did you end up here?”

The lioness cast a furtive glance around and her shoulders hunched before she answered, as though dragging forth the answers, “I was captured. By a lioness named Aarre. The warlord’s daughter. But she didn’t want to keep me as her…thrall once she got me here. She just showed me off to her father, then dropped me off with the others.”

Although he typically preferred not to have anything to do with sad things – and this lioness’s tale definitely seemed like it would be sad – Fon Youn didn’t leave as he might have done in his youth. He stayed, although he couldn’t have said why, exactly. It was a mark of maturity that he would not have recognized in himself, the ability to recognize another person’s needs and act to fill them even though it promised no particular reward for him.

“How long ago was that?” he asked. He had moved closer to better hear her soft-pitched speech, and at this distance he could smell blood on her, but he didn’t know if it was hers. If she was living as a thrall among the other unclaimed thralls, it might well be. His mind instinctively shied away from thoughts of how and why she might have ended up bloody, as it usually did when he encountered unpleasantness.

“Four…no, five days ago,” was her answer.

A chill gust of wind blew past the pair and they both shivered in its wake. Wherever she’d come from, Fon Youn guessed, it had been a warm place, just as his home had been. Without thinking about it, Fon Youn moved to crouch beside the lioness to share warmth, but as soon as his side touched hers she flinched and Fon Youn smelled blood once more, this time fresh.

“You’ve had a hard time here, haven’t you?” Fon Youn remarked mildly as he automatically shifted and began carefully to groom her side, working gently around the sluggishly bleeding slashes there. “I’m sorry.”

Whether it was his casual intimacy or his easy kindness was unclear, but the lioness began to relax, which gave Fon Youn a sense of gratification he had rarely felt. Her chin dropped to her paws and the tension left her shoulders, but she still didn’t seem to be completely at ease.

"Does it ever get any better?" the lioness asked, turning her dark eyes toward Fon Youn.

It was clear she was trying not to sound plaintive, but failing. He remembered how out of place he had felt when he first came to the pride, how difficult the adjustment had been, and he sympathized - which would have amazed anyone who had known him as a young lion. Well, maybe it wasn't entirely sympathy. In the twilight she seemed like an attractive lioness, and Fon Youn was an incorrigible flirt.

“It will,” he promised her blithely, giving no thought whatsoever to the very real fact that he could not make that promise with any kind of certainty. He’d apparently been bitten by some weird compassion bug. “Tell you what. This is not a comfortable place to sleep, and it’s full dark now. You can have my spot tonight and I’ll keep watch. Does that sound like an okay plan?”

The lioness nodded, then made a face. “I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Fon Youn,” he told her. “Now come on. Up you get. We still have to have dinner, after all, even though the good stuff will be long gone by now.”

At this she finally cracked a smile as she stood up with careful regard for her slashed side. “It’s nice to meet you, Fon Youn. I’m Alia.”

Word Count: 1,162