Tanga shook his head at Makali's insistence that he had to stay behind. "Nonsense. If one of us can escape, we all can. There's no way I'd leave you behind in here alone, anyway."
he then sighed as he heard the cub's screams of pain nearby. He wanted to rush over and see what was causing him so much pain, but refrained from doing so...he knew the cub would not welcome his presence right now. "I do hope he'll be okay," he said sadly.
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Kulinda held fast as Daxis attempted to pull his paw away, pushing the leaf against the wound a little harder to try and stop the bleeding. The cubs screams of pain tore at her heart, and she paw her free paw on his shoulder comfortingly. "Shh...it's okay, Daxis...you're doing fine. The pain will go away soon, just keep strong for a little longer."
She kept the leaf against his wounded claw, finally succeeding in halting the blood flow for now, although she knew she would have to hold the leaf in place for a couple more minutes before she could remove it. She hated herself for causing him so much pain, but knew that, once the pain of the claw's removal faded, he would feel a lot better without the damaged claw than he had with it.
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Tyson watched as the lioness kept tending to the cub, even placing a paw on his shoulder in what appeared to be a comforting gesture. "I've never seen such behaviour from these creatures before. Not only do most of these lions have strange colour patterns, but they seem to be far more intelligent than any we've seen or even heard of before!"
Tyson had been studying the two males for the six months they had been in the enclosure, and the cub for the short time he had been in, but never, in that time, had they shown as much social complexity and intelligence as they had in the last several minutes. It left the young man mind-blown, not even bothering to put anything in his computer as he watched, completely fixated on the scene before him.