Disclaimer: THE MOUSE OWNS ALL.
Summary: The she-ape is a mother. So is she, but Sabor has never deceived herself into thinking that she is a good one.
.-.-.-.-
Sabor has roamed these jungles since time immemorial. She has known countless bodies, names, faces, but always has she kept the hunger. The rabid, gibbering hunger that claws at her insides and persuades her to hunt when she knows she should be sleeping, easing her bones in preparation for the night. It matters not that she has already eaten her fill; the hunger demands to be satisfied, it aches for reassurance that there will always be enough for the next meal, and the next, and the next.
She crouches in the hollows of the strange nest she has found. The upright things, with fire and smoke and blood blooming from their hands, have left something behind. Something she smelled, and heard, but did not pay much attention to otherwise.
Sabor has often suffered the birthing pains throughout her many lives, but she has never, in all her years, seen a cub as small and helpless as this one. It barely has the strength to grasp the she-ape's shoulder, instead dangling in her arms like a newborn. Its skin is bare of fur, a fresh coral pink like the African sunrise, and Sabor feels the hunger in the pit of her belly give a startling lurch. Her muscles tense, bright eyes glazed with pain from her clenching, too-full belly.
She does not feel for this she-ape, not at all. Sabor knows the birthing pains well, and she has weaned her own fair share of proud and lethal offspring, but the hunger demands that she hunt.
And even mothers need to eat.