IV

Mud and Trouble

When the cubs were older, they would be found outside much of the time; playing and pouncing each other and the rest of the little lions, and taking naps, being groomed and watched over by anyone who was at the nersery at the time. Soon they were nearly twice the size than they were when first introduced to the outside world.

Meersha was a small puff ball, but a wild and strong one at that. She had a beautiful golden coat, the same as Simba - if anything, she looked like a girl Simba. Brave and mischievous as him, too. Her eyes were still a baby blue and developing a perminant color, but she - more like Nala - was the best at wrestling, and so easily pinned her brothers and other cubs. Usually, her playfullness ended her in trouble, having pounced someone while one of the elders were telling a story, or having been discovered rolling about in a near puddle of mud.

Kasha, the oldest, looked much like his mother. Like her, he was slim and tall, especially for a male cub. His eyes had already turned an unusual crimson-brown, and the tuff of his tail was the same mixture. This little one, blanketed in thin, golden fur, could always be seen as the leader of the trio. He was the one to hault a fight in its tracks. To stop an argument before it started. Of course, most of the time one could and would easily spot the blanket of his presumptions that so wrapped him up at the thought of being the future leader of the White-Feather Pride.

Banjija was a brownish gold, but resembled his father in many other ways. The most distinct feature of his physical form were his ears; both circlular, but instead, ending in a strange point where a few red strands would stick up in the air, making him look similar to a bob cat or lynx. Indeed his personality was different than that of a normal lion's. Like his sister, he caused much of his own trouble. Unlike Meersha, though, he was keen to getting his own way, even if that meant cracking the rules of his parents, and the pride itself. A troublemaker, but one who loved it, and was generally not sorry as his sister usually was.

Normally, the siblings would be found together in a game of tag or a fun wrestle, but all three had made friends with the other cubs as well.

"How far d' ya think it goes?" asked Pashi, who had become one of Meersha's best friends.

Lusala shook her head and suggested, "Why don't you stick your paw in and find out?"

Squealing, the little cub leapt back replying, "Ah, no!"

Lusala as well, had been a great friend of Meersha's. If Meersha wasn't with her brothers, then she was most likely with the twins. In fact, it was that day that Banjija and Kasha were off with their mother and another cub named Bondu, at a water hole in the south. Meersha decided to stay with her friends, scrambling around in play, just a few yards north of the Great Knoll. A lioness called Kuda was watching them, while the twins' mother kept at her spot in the nersery. It was a rare moment for any of the cubs to move from that nersery actually, even with a protector, and just for a temporary time.

"Please," Lusala had begged her mother.

"Yeah, please? We won't go far," Pashi had gone on.

Meersha had said to her own mother, "And Kuda said she would watch over us."

Bayna sighed as Kinara looked curiously at her.

"Weeell..." Bayna had finally thought aloud.

"I think it'd be all right, don't you? Then I could take the boys out to the water hole they've been wanting to go to." Kinara had replied to the word.

Having overheard the conversation, Banjija and Kasha scrambled to the edge of the nersery where their mother stood, Banjija pushing over a cub as they did so.

"Yeah!" he had cried. "Please? And Bondu gets t' come, too!"

The parents had given in, but that was then. Now the females were romping in the savannah's overgrown yellow and gold blades, laughing and meowing, before stopping yet again at the mud puddle they had been at before.

"C'mon, let's roll around in it!" Meersha then suggested.

"Oh no," Pashi said. "I don't want to get-"

But she was interrupted as a big ball of wet dirt had splattered in her face. As her sister sputtered and coughed it out, Lusala just laughed, rolling onto her back and sweeping the air with her paws. Meersha smirked at what she had done.

"Pff! Yuk!" the cub cried, managing to shake the rest off her face. "Why'd ya do that?" she growled.

"Because," Meersha simply said as she shrugged, looking to the puddle again.

"Now let's see how far it goes," Lusala then exclaimed, sitting up, the laughter now absent.

As she glared playfully, Pashi aburptly took a paw to splash the mud up at Meersha's face.

"Take that!" she yelled, and Lusala was howling with laughter once more.

"Ah!" Meersha cried, before leaping into the puddle completely.

"What are you three doing?" they heard a voice call, jerking their heads up.

Kinara was walking over to them with Bondu and her two sons trailing behind her. Kuda had lifted her skull as her gaze fell heavily on the lioness, and her face looked worried as she stood.

"Mud!" screeched Meersha's mother after a loud gasp, and the explanation caused Kuda to flinch, her expression now hurt as she padded over to her friend and half-sister.

"I am sorry," she uttered, ears low. "I had been dozing off when..."

"It's all right," Kinara quickly replied, shaking her head, before she looked up at Meersha. "She knows she's not supposed to be getting dirty anyway."

Meersha looked almost the same as Kuda, before she slowly walked over to Kinara, auds, tail and cranium lowered. "Aww, c'mon, Mama. It was nothin'." she said, cheekily.

Banjija and Bondu just snickered at her, and she returned them with a glare. Kasha sat down, a look of strong pride on his face as he curled his tail around himself. Why pride? Perhaps because he was the one following the rules, and his younger sister had not.

Kinara raised an unseen brow as her daughter looked up at her, baby blue eyes showing innocence, except of course, the muddied coat.

"All right. Lusala, Pashi, come. We'll take you back to your mother for a bath and you, too, Meersha...Let's get back to the nersery," she stated, nodding to the south where the Great Knoll was, and the nersery itself.

As Bondu and Banjija followed, they seemed disappointed that Kinara had let Meersha go off so easily.

Kind of a boring chapter, I know, but I had to add someting to their cubhood.