Eli didn't need excitement in her life. Didn't go chasing adventure. Was perfectly fine staying in one place and focusing all her energy on surviving, now that her pride was gone. But there was one thing in her life she didn't want to do without and that was family. For Eli was a new mother, for the third time in her life, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Maybe it was just her maternal instincts that kept her reproducing. Nothing else in her life was as satisfying as raising a new generation of offspring. Teaching them the ways of the world and how to take care of themselves if they choose to go their own way once reaching adulthood. It was a very satisfying accomplishment and one she, if she may boost, was very good at.
Not that she'd seen some of her children, again, once they'd left to know if they'd retained anything she'd taught them. Of the ones who stayed, she could see they did. They all made fine hunters and protectors. And she had no doubt also fine teachers if the time came for them to also bear their own young. It was their job as parents to prepare the youths for what life may throw at them, after all. It was the best way of achieving immortality.
Her children had given her a bit of space during and after the birthing, to bond with her new litter and regain her energy. If she needed something, her children were in easy hearing of any distressed calls she could make and they would sprint to her aid. Though she was without a pride, Eli wasn't lacking in having other lions around her to support her and help her. Not that she was very good still at asking for help from others, having been raised in the roguelands by just her mother and than wandering them as an adult for so many years before joining the Sikukuu. Sometimes she wondered when the roguelands was enough adventure and she should find a new pride to settle down in. Maybe in her older age. She was still a young lioness. She could handle whatever the world threw at her.
Unbeknownst to her, a challenge was coming closer already.
Anastasiya was also a loner in the roguelands, having never felt the comfort or protection of a pack even once in her life. She'd been raised by a small family group, let by her mother as was common in hyena society. Unlike lions, who seemed to prefer a patriarchy. She guessed she could understand why. Females were the larger in her species, whereas males seemed the largest in others. Still. Size didn't always matter, nor did your gender.
Walking aimlessly in one direction, she almost didn't see the very obviously red lioness laying in the grass until she was just over 20 feet away. Ana stopped at once and held her ground, knowing the tensions that were sometimes between lions and hyenas. A tension that went on for so many generations as to be almost forgotten by every surviving member of each species.
And nor did the lioness notice her until Ana had been stopped for too long a while. When Eli did notice, she reared up, standing protectively over her seven cubs, still too young to have eyes or ears open. She was poised to send that distress call at the slightest wrong move by this hyena. Memories of her first litter and the attack by the small hyena troop was still too fresh in her memory.
"You are in the wrong territory, hyena!" Eli growled out, emphasizing the last word to really drive home how unwelcomed the other creature was. Up until that attack on her family, Eli had been more neutral towards them. Not enjoying their company, but not disliking it, either. After the attack, well...She didn't want a repeat of that moment. Even one was too many.
Anastasiya backed up, fear gripping her spine at the hostile reaction of the lion. She didn't dare take her green eyes off the red lioness, not even to look at the squirming bodies underneath her. Oh, well. This situation was really bad, wasn't it? Those were obviously cubs down there. One thing you never wanted to do was get on the bad side of a mother with a fresh litter. Maybe she should just back away slowly? She felt a nervous laugh bubbling in her throat and tried her best to swallow it down, taking a step back from the angry mother.
"Are there more of you? You rarely seem to travel without a few of you." Keeping one ear pinned to the stranger, Eli rotating the other all around her, searching for the sounds of grass shifting as others got closer. Though she couldn't hear anything, that didn't mean they weren't there, crouched very carefully.
"No! Just me! I swear." And a nervous laugh did erupt at that moment, one Ana quickly stifled by clamping her muzzle shut tight. She'd always had a nervous laugh. She couldn't help it. It was so obnoxious and certainly wasn't helping her species be rid of the goofy stigma it had on it already.
"I don't take kindly to hyenas. And neither will my family if they catch you so near the newborns."
Her family? Oh, no, that was worse! Lions did enjoy being in prides and family groups, didn't they? She didn't want more angry lions on her. She doubted she could fend off even one! It was time to split!
Tucking her tail beneath her, Anastasiya turned around and quickly ran back the way she had come, vowing to never come this way ever again. Eli, feeling a job well done, settled back down with her litter, curling her body around them and pushing any strays closer to her stomach with her nose. In a little bit, one of her children should be by with something for her to eat. Though the children were still too young to introduce properly to the rest of the family, Eli felt it was time to put aside the ritual of leaving the mother alone with the babies. She was feeling very vulnerable right now.
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