[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[DGFone]

Umeme sighed. "I don't know, Muroki," she answered, "the only thing we can do for now is to help each other." She leaned back away from him so that she can look straight into Muroki's eyes. "Promise me that you won't leave us tomorrow," Umeme whispered, "Don't go anywhere without us... we need you. Kasi needs you. You and Delano, you are family to us now. Stay with us until things settle down. Please."

She leaned back against Muroki's warm mane. "Things are so hazy now, the most you can do to help is to be here for us. You don't have to find all the answers right away. I know you want to... I want to... But right now, there's just too much."

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki found himself calming down a little as he looked into Umeme's eyes. Her brilliant, deep and understanding eyes. He couldn't even express how lucky he was to have her by his side. "I promise." he said, managing to smile before she was already leaning back against him. He held her close and nuzzled her, not wanting to ever have her taken away from him. If that ever happened, he will probably not be able to find the power to continue with his life. His tiredness was soon all over him again, and soon he fell asleep.

[DGFone]

The next morning, Delano woke up. He was rather surprised that he was able to fall asleep at all, but he wasn't complaining. Still didn't prevent his eyes from stinging from the lack of sleep he had yet to make up. Slowly making his way to Muroki, he shook his brother awake. "Come on, I need you to wake up, Muroki," Delano muttered, "the earlier we leave the better."

While waiting for his brother to wake up, Delano looked around the den. Lina was still asleep where Delano had left her, and he felt bad that he had to leave her again today. He didn't want to, but it was necessary. Not bearing to tell her that he had to leave again was another reason why Delano wanted Muroki up so soon. Off at the deep end of the den, Kasi lay with his parents, easily showing signs of a rough night. They all had a rough night.

Turning back to Muroki, who was just beginning to stir, Delano nudged slightly harder. "I don't want to do this either, but we need to go. Right now!"

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki at first tried to ignore his brother, but as some point his attempts took all the sleepiness away from him. Muroki frowned, looking up at his brother, "Go where exactly?" maybe Delano planned something during the night? It didn't matter though, since Muroki promised Umeme that he would stay with everyone today, and since going to the police caves again was pointless, he was going to keep that promise. Beside it was unsafe to leave the den in such an early hour of the morning.

[DGFone]

Delano was slightly taken back by Muroki's question. It was Muroki himself that said that they will return to the police every day until they get answers. "Why... We need answers," Delano replied, "you yourself said that we'll return every day until we find out what we need..." He nudged Muroki again, this time more urgently. "Come on! We need to go!"

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki frowned, realizing that he really did say that. "Look, we both know that we won't be getting any answers, especially not from that trainer who's the only one we get to talk to there. Beside, I promised Umeme I would stay here today. They need us here." he hoped that his brother wouldn't have trouble understanding why Muroki wasn't going to go anywhere.

[DGFone]

Delano opened his mouth to reply, but didn't say anything, leaving his jaw hanging as he thought. Eventually, he closed it. What Muroki said was true: they won't really get any news from the police, and the trainer was worse than useless. And if Umeme already had Muroki promise to stay, he won't just do so by himself, then it meant that she really wanted him to stay. "Alright," Delano said, "we'll stay."

He looked out at the entrance of the den. "It's just that we've tried to run from this," he said, "try to ignore it. To live as though it doesn't effect us. And as soon as we let our guard down, the mess grew bigger right in front of us..." He looked at the ground, "First our parents. Then Tango. And now almost our aunt and uncle..." He shook his head. "How many more deaths will we have to go through? I don't want to come across another body!"

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki sighed, knowing that he and his brother were sharing the exact same opinion. "I just..." he let out another sigh. "It's so horrible that she lost her cubs who weren't even born yet..." he wondered how Kasi was feeling about the fact that his unborn sibling / siblings died. "And even worse, she might never be able to have cubs again... It's just horrible..." Who could be so cruel? Do not all lions have a conscious somewhere inside their minds? Did not all lions have a heart?

[DGFone]

"I know it's horrible," Delano sighed, "which is why I feel like I need to do something... I feel like... when we decided not to continue with the training, I was hoping that we made the right choice. But now, now I feel like we gave up. Went to live our own lives before we should have." Delano looked up at Muroki, his expression grave, "I feel like because we gave up, that... Tango died because we didn't do enough." As he said this, Delano's body shook. His rational mind knew that what happened wasn't in their control, but he still couldn't stop himself like feeling as such.

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki said, "The police are just as clueless as we are Delano. Even if we had stayed there probably wouldn't have been any difference. I don't think that us being there would have helped them come to a solution to this. If we had stayed there we would be running around inside the tunnels like everybody else right now." That's why they should be going there every once in a while to check for new information. Once the police did come up with some idea on how to deal with this, then Muroki wouldn't mind joining them and helping put an end to this.