((AIM RP between Mzuka (dragonfire_kaen) and Posca (ferrets).))

The sun has just risen over the trees, coating everything with a warm redish glow. A chill hung in the air with the coming winter, cold dew clinging to the leaves. Posca walked threw the damp follage, her eyes half lidded contently. The trees around her wilted slightly as she moved, but she did her best not to touch them. If she did not touch them, they would grow healthy again after she left. Only the grass on the ground turned a sickly brown color, leaving paw prints in her wake. The goddess tried her best to step on earth instead of living plants...

She grimaced slightly when a few rabbits ran away from the bushes closest to her, fleeing the smell of rot and decay. Posca was used to it... But it still made her heart sink a bit each time. With a sigh she continued on, unknowingly moving closer to the dens of her long lost family...


It was early morning, a time when most of the pride would be settling down to sleep after a cool night's hunting. Most were doing just that, and the litter of a particular white-splashed lioness and her heavyset corpse-green mate were no exception. Save for one: Mzuka'erevu, errant explorer.

Stealthily he'd squeezed out from between the huddled forms of his siblings, barely daring to breathe lest his parents hear it, and softly crept to the mouth of the cave and beyond. Now he was roaming far afield - or at least, what to the cub's mind seemed like huge distances, even if he was barely out of sight of the caves. The heady scents of the reviving jungle were ripe on his tongue, and he blinked slowly, wondering what it must have been like in the days of drought and rot.

Suddenly a rabbit burst out through the brush beside him, legs pumping rapidly. Before he knew what was happening, Mzuka's paws were off by instinct, sending him hurtling after the animal. For a few strides he was actually able to keep pace, too - then an ill-timed lunge missed its haunches by mere inches and sent him crashing off-balance into the dirt.
He was still getting to his feet, breathing a little heavily and cursing his big-footed clumsiness, when another, more important thought struck him: Its eyes had been wide, the whites showing in terror.

What was it fleeing from, to be running so quickly?

Or who?