[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[TheWhistlerify]

Laini looked at her son in the corner of her eye with a grin, "Stuff?" when he asked whether something happened, her grin faded and she tried to find the right words. "Your cousins came this morning." that was why she went hunting herself, just in case her mate decided to take his time. "Their parents got killed." she sighed, "They'll be staying here from now on." she was quiet for a moment, "Maybe you should go check on them, see how they're doing?" maybe seeing their cousin would somehow improve their mood.

[DGFone]

Kasi's face fell. "Dead?" He asked. His mother nodded. Kasi stood up. "Alright mom, I'll go check on them!" He sprinted off back to their den. Running as fast as he could, he didn't slow down until the den was in sight. Sure enough, he could vaguely make out two lions inside.

Kasi entered the den carefully and saw the two lions asleep. While he never met his cousins before, he believed that these lions were indeed them. Their scent was similar enough. Slowly approaching one, Kasi prodded one gently to see how deep they were asleep, and if asking them up would be a good idea or not.


While sleep for Delano came easily, the dreams that followed quickly turned into nightmares. He dreamt of meeting two large lions who told him that they were the murderers. He immediately attacked, but was quickly overwhelmed and the lions closed in for the kill. One of them reached out and prodded him, toying around.

With a loud roar, Delano lunged up and swung at his attacker, knocking him aside. At the same time, he woke up and saw that he indeed hit somebody, and it wasn't his attacker. "S-sorry!" He stammered. "Who are you?" He asked when he didn't recognize this lion.


Kasi stood up painfully, rubbing his muzzle where he was hit. "No, it's my fault," he said, "I shouldn't have woken you up. I'm Kasi... You're cousin."

Delano looked at the ground ashamed. "Oh. I'm Delano. This is my brother, Muroki." He said. "Sorry for hitting you." Next to him, Muroki looked like he was waking up from the commotion.

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki opened his eyes slowly. He didn't really manage to fall asleep, so there wasn't anything to complain about. He looked up at the new lion, who appeared to be their cousin. "Hey Kasi." he said, having heard the conversation that went on. "It's nice to finally meet you." he said with a weak smile. Too bad their parents had to die for them to meet their cousin.

[DGFone]

Kasi smiled at Muroki. "Hey," he greeted back, also smiling weakly. "I heard about your parents," he said, "I'm sorry." He looked over them. "How are you guys feeling?" He asked. "You don't look like much. In fact, you look like you've been in a lot of trouble."

Delano laughed bitterly. "That we have." He said. "Haven't been able to get some rest in ages." He said. "Walked almost non-stop over here."

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki nodded at what his brother said, "Yeah, it's quite a walk from here to where we used to live." he could never imagine himself going back to that place, not after seeing his parents dead like that. Not feeling like he could fall asleep any time soon and eager to change the subject, Muroki asked, "So uh, what is it like living here?"

[DGFone]

Kasi thought about it. "Well it's okay, I guess," he said finally, "there are many lions here. More than I can remember. Of course, it's mostly families living together, but there is some mixing about. Such as the border patrol, did you guys see it?" Delano and Muroki nodded. "Yeah, that's a joint project. This place is too big for families to patrol it, so an organization was made for lions to patrol it in shifts. Soon I'll start doing that too." Kasi said. "So how is living alone?" He asked them.

Delano sighed. "It's rather nice. There's nobody around much to bother you, and you mostly do whatever you feel like without having someone else telling you to do some other thing. We never had to patrol our lands..." He gulped from sadness as he thought about what would have happened if they had patrolled instead, "... It wouldn't have made a difference." He concluded.

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki decided not to make such a comment that would remind him of their dead parents. "We mostly hanged around and played with each other." he enjoyed his life with his family, but his life would never be the same from now on. "You don't have any siblings right?" his cousin said that the pride was made up of other families, so there were probably others their age that Kasi was friends with.

[DGFone]

Kasi shook his head. "Nah. I'm alone. But because there are so many lions here, I spend my time with them." He said. "So really, I am not alone."

Next to him, Delano felt like he had enough talking and lay down to try and sleep again.

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki covered his mouth as he yawned once more. "I hope you wouldn't mind, but we're really tired. We barely slept last night." he put his head back down on his paws, "I think it's better if we both rested for a while." it wasn't like napping during the day back in his old life and leaving his brother to die out of boredom. Muroki was pretty sure that Kasi could find something to do in the mean time.

[DGFone]

Kasi nodded. "I understand." He said, and let the two brothers get some more sleep. He went outside and sat down at the entrance of the den, and waited for his parents to arrive.