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This will only take a moment and I wanted to do it for my friend for a holiday gift. She makes 100% glass jewelry along with steam punk necklaces from scratch and I believe that she deserves more credit then she is currently receiving. If you could I would love it for her to get more traffic on her site if only for the season. You can find her glass jewelry at [www.fusedelegance.com](%5C) and her steam punk work at http://www.etsy.com/shop/threecraftygirls. For the price they are wonderful and thank you for your time.

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The years passed quickly, six to those counting, and the nature of the savannah remained much undisturbed, meerkats were still twitchy, hyenas were still picking all the wrong fights and lions still had gazelle on the menu. Under the shade of the great tree of brown leaves, Cheli was pacing back and forth and curious as to how she should approach her next goal in life. She had decided that now was the best time to bring it up to the chief, that she wanted child and she would gladly be available to, what she hoped would be, studly male gazelles.

"Alright..." She assured herself as her hands darted from her head to in front of her straight as arrows as she rehearsed. "Filom, I believe I have demonstrated a keen understanding of our younger kind and would like to partake in the arrival of a new child to strengthen our herd." She said, hand gestures sort of just thrown in there was her will. "I have behaved myself well over the years and know that I can bring pride to our herd in the raising of my kin." She continued on as she seemed a bit flustered, "No, pride sounds too lion doesn't it?" She asked herself, it being strokes of brilliant luck that she wasn't picked off by the prides of lions in the area. As she itched the base of her brown chin, she felt a rough slap to the rear that caused her to yelp out.

"BAM!" Laughed Tin'lok as he wiggled his hand in front of her with a proud sense of accomplishment smeared on his face.

"TIN!" She yelled at him as she rubbed her ass tenderly. "What have I told you about doing that?" She stated, though Tin taking it as a question.

"That you love my burly hands on your butt and would love to scream my name at night?" He asked with a greasy laugh through his teeth, his sexual prowess piss poor as no one would really look to him as a mate from his attitude, including Cheli.

"No, that you keep your mitts to yourself mister." She answered quickly and with a shake of her head and a uncomfortable grumble.

"What are you doing anyhow Chel?" He asked, over the years her nick name getting shorter for reasons she couldn't hope to comprehend. "Thinking of me?" He smirked from ear to ear, blaring his stubble teeth, a quiet snicker under his voice.

She laughed back, in the mocking tone of her voice with a scrunched face. "No, I'm going over how to ask Filom if I can bear child." She responded, though still massaging her rump from the unseen redness.

"Uhhh, he's gonna shut you down you know that right?" Tin said as he folded his arms, a know-it-all stance he seemed to don often despite him knowing next to nothing.

"Oh thanks for being there for me Tin, real friend." Cheli sarcastically sneered as she stretched her back, the years only making her white furred bosom larger and more appealing to any species that didn't pride themselves on booking it as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

"I'm just telling you what's going to happen..." He defended, closing his eyes and raising his nose like a snobby prude. "You'll be thanking me for telling the truth one of these days Chel."

"Can't you just call me Cheli like you used to?" She asked with a look of disappointment.

"No, Chel is my new name for you and you will like it." He laughed out as he unfolded his arms from his chest and put them back to his sides. She moaned at his childish behavior and walked past him, pushing at his chest and into the tree, "Hey, watch the goods!" He said wiping the aged dust off his shoulders.

"Is that what the girls are calling that now a days?" She asked looking back to him with a devious grin, "I could of sworn they called you Tin'tuck" She giggled, it being a name the women gave him as they thought he tucked his penis between his legs, when really it was barely noticeable.

"Hey hey whoaaaa." He said holding up his hands and shaking them in an X pattern. "It's Tin'fuck thank you very much." He said, though no one but himself called him that. She rolled her eyes as she walked on through the shade, small waves of sun forming a beautiful pattern on the dirt clouded ground. She felt a hand pull her back to face him, looking him in the eyes as he said, "They won't do it Chel...you are wasting your time and happiness..." He warned, a more serious tone.

"You think you could be supportive of me Tin...I was always supportive of you when you were always getting into those heaps of trouble." she defended, swatting his hand away. He was always like this, shutting her down when she had an idea by calling it stupid, slapping her rear and then never saying how he liked it and always putting her down to his level while she only tried to cheer him up in his down times.

"I am supportive, just...not right now and well, alright I'll have your back on this one." He said to her, walking with her towards the ledge of rock that the gazelles playfully dubbed 'Royal Rock' as Filom as his mate, the one who was so keen on faking injuries, was already on her third child.

"Yes Chelice...what did you want of me today?" Filom asked, reclined against the cool stone in the shade, hands behind his head. He always intimidated her, regardless of how nicely he said things he had this look of disapproval in his stare that always rattled at her bones and stomach.

"Well I...Chief Filom." She said with a bit of hesitation in her voice before puffing out her chest and taking the dominant stance she had been working on. "I believe I have demonstrated a keen understanding of our younger kind and would like to partake in the arrival of a new child..."

"No." He said simply to her as he closed his eyes and rested back into the rock.

"Why not if you don't mind me asking?" She asked, hoping to get some sort of answer.

"You're too big...heavy set." He answered simply, not seeming like he cared. "I've told you this before, you'll weaken us as a whole if you are allowed to have our kids." He said as his mate nodded at his side.

"Try to think of it this way Chelice," She started to go on, the matter-of-fact voice she mastered so effortlessly. "If you see a faster gazelle but heavy with child, you can slow down and save two lives." She stated, the idea not hurting her as much as the leader of their herds nodding to it.

"Fine idea...you can preserve one of them so that you can grace us with children." Filom said, still with his eyes closed, lazily answered. "That's better than giving birth in my opinion."

"Oh trust me it is Chelice." His mate agreed nodding to every word, it could have been kill everyone and she still would of bobbed her head like a lemming to it. "It hurts really bad and they just scream and scream." She rolled her eyes, though she was noted as being neglectful to talk about other things with her friends.

"But I have wide hips, I can bare the burden better than anyone." She said, one of the practiced responses to just this sort of thing.

"Does that make you any faster?" He asked opening one eye, "Would you want to be slow and tasty looking to all the lions in the savannah?" he asked again.

"Well no, but we aren't even sure my child will come out being like me."

"Doesn't matter, it's in the genes and it'll find its way around somehow." He responded, it sounding polite and knowledgeable to anyone watching in on what essentially was the two spitting in her face.

"I have gotten faster though..." She said, it being the truth as she had been running more, though only enough to run past the elderly in their escapes from ambushes. "I can make them eat healthy...take them for runs early on..." She continued.

"Well what do you think Tin'lok...is this a good idea to you?" He asked, both eyes looking at him with the same rattling glare he gave everyone he wasn't particularly fond of.

"Awful idea chief." Tin said to him with a nod, the same brainiac without a brain shining through. She wanted to punch him across the face, send him to his ass for being such a resentful piece of work. "In fact, we should keep her from children so they don't see it as being alright to do." He said.

"To do?" The chief asked, raising one of his white eyebrows to him.

"Well, that it's not acceptable to be so fat." He continued, even the chief hadn't used that word, but it came out of her closest companions mouth like the word was anything less than a knife through her heart. "Though I agree when you say she should be on the lookout for mothers to be." He nodded, not smiling as if it were the most valid point in the world, and his idea.

"Then it's settled...Chelice you can not have a child, but you can protect a fallen mother if you so chose it." He offered, she just stared at him blankly as his mate put a grape into his mouth and he chewed down on it with a happy 'Mmm'. She didn't know what to say to this, well, shit, as she would never say. She just turned around and walked off, Tin having the nerve to follow her.

"Well..." He said behind her back, snapping at his lips with a light hiss as if he was waiting to say it, "I would hate to say I told you so but...it's looking that way." She didn't have a response, she simply walked on with her so called 'friend', ignoring the fact that enemies didn't seem to be much worse at the moment. She went out into the fields, heading anywhere but the damn 'life tree' as they had dubbed it. The tree sure didn't feel like it was brimming with life for everyone at the moment, felt cold and dry like a liar's tongue.

It took all of her will to resist barking at him like this earlier, but out in the field she could, "What the HELL Tin?!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, birds scattering in a implosion like formation and making themselves scarce. "I thought you said you had my back and here you are being the little cheeky liar you always are!" She smacked at her thighs in anger, loudly, before he could answer she snapped at him again in a tone that never seemed to curl at her lips before. "Always putting me down, making fun of me and slapping my ass like you own it, get out of my sight."

"Chel don't be mad that I tell the truth and what everyone wants to hear." He growled back in a non-threatening tone, "We don't need another FAT gazelle running around and making us look more pathetic, more stupid." He squinted, never taking the tone as well.

"Oh well now it all comes out, guess you're the one I'm the one in the wrong here too because it came out of your mouth that you would be a decent gazelle for once in your life." She retorted with a glare into his eyes, one which he didn't return and just looked away grimacing.

"Fuck you Chel...your always raising fits," He said as he folded his arms, "being a bitch to me when I am so nice to a charity case like you." He continued as he pointed to his chest, like he was everything she needed in a friend and more. As if.

"Oh yes, so nice how you..." Her ears perked up as she heard a snapping of a branch as she looked around, the look just like a deer in headlights as Tin'lok heard it as well, turning around and looking through the tall grass that littered the field. "What was that?" She whispered nervously, her hand shaking with her shins, rattling a root bead bracelet on her wrist.

"I don't know..." He said back to her as he kept looking around, shaking more than her as he didn't want to run until he was sure it would be away from where it came from. They got their answer soon enough as from a brush of brown grass ,that seemed to explode to the sides as if making an entrance for it, pounced the largest and strongest lion they had ever seen in either of their lifetimes. His mane flowing behind him as he had his eyes set to the two, blue like a morning mist on the pinnacle of the day, as Tin and Chelice quickly turned and rushed off at full speed, both panting uncontrollably as the ground seemed to rumble like an earthquake with each step made by the mammoth feline. She panted out and thanked everything that he was so far away from them when disaster struck.

Tin had ran his foot against a tangled root and fell to his face as he shouted out for help, "CHELICE!" He cried out as he held his hand out, Chelice looking back to him with a pant, then to the lion as she knew she wouldn't of done it for her, but she had to help in someway. She stamped over to him quickly, pulling his foot loose as she felt his hand gripped her wrist and while pulling himself up to his feet, tugging her down to the hard earth.

"TIN!" She yelled out, a crackle in her voice from both fear and surprise, as she saw him running off without her, using her as a sacrifice so that he may live. She couldn't find the words, there was none for such a betrayal as she pushed herself up to her knees before she felt a heavy, padded foot that had to be at least half the size of her back push her down into the dirt with a small cloud of defeated dust. "Oh god..." She said to herself with closed eyes, tears flowing down to the earth and providing the last bit of life she could of supplied the planet.

"Don't move and I'll make it quick my sister." He said in a tone that was softer then it looked like it should have been. "I have more respect for your kind then you would think." He assured as he reached down to her head, looking to shoot a claw through her temple to kill her instantly and painlessly as when she shifted her head to the side to avoid it, he moved his hand as she shifted again back to the other side to avoid the paw. "Make this difficult and it will just be that much worse." He warned as she motioned away from his claw again, a soft whimper from her mouth as she knew there was no way out of this, her lips shuddering as her nose was running into her usually flawless white fur. She shifted her head again, he growled out with a ferocity that would likely kill a meerkat with it's intensity.

"If you're going to be like that then so be it." He said, pulling up his foot, grabbing her shoulders as she quickly tried to scamper away and flipping her over to her front. She noticed the body that looked to be chiseled from the finest gold. Abs that looked like squares of farmland as seen from above, leading to the obliques that mimed the hilly countryside and above them all the sky like pectorals that breathed life into his entirety. His shoulders were so broad that it looked like he could easily tackle a tree and leave unscathed, his arms looking like they could crush a head if he were to merely flex with one in a headlock, this was no normal lion, and she noted that his eyes were wide and open as he gazed down at her. She had no idea what he was gazing at, she assumed her chest like most other species, but the gaze was not one of perversion, one of astonishment; which...rightfully could come from her bosom given a certain type of person.

"I...please don't eat me mister lion." She said, pushing her large breasts together, her hands shaking above them, clearly still scared silly. The whole cleavage thing she was working was her only hope at the moment, and she hoped to flaunt it to try and make him forget he was hungry. It was then she noticed that he looked familiar, not from a watering hole, but from somewhere else, the parting of fur at the middle of his brow line was a dead giveaway. "Romi, oh goodness how you have grown."

"Shelly..." He said down to her as his hands still locked her in place, looking into her eyes as it had to be a good minute of silence as she finally spoke up.

"It's Cheli hun..." She said though still nervous as the grip didn't lighten up, if anything it grew tighter around her.

"It has been a while since..." He was hefting his chest in and out as if thinking about something, his eyes never looking so feral but Cheli still able to see the scared little kitten she saw years ago in them.

"It's alright honey...I...I don't have much more to live for in this world anymore..." She said with a sigh up to him, accepting her fate as his meal now, her arms stopped shaking but she looked away from him. "Just make it quick okay sweetie." She said in a normal, sweet tone and forcing a dim smile that reassured him.

"Why...what have they done to you Cheli?" He asked her as she felt his hands loosen around her shoulders, his eyes fidgeting before his pupils switched back to a more natural and calm round state. She took a bit to respond as she swallowed hard before bearing the truth out to him.

"They won't let me have children dear." She answered though the smile leaving her face, "They say I'm too fat and a disgrace to our kind..." She looked down at herself, the more they told her that, the more it seemed to stick in her mind like a prickle ball you pull off your pants the first few times before just waiting to get out of the field. For Chelice it seemed that the field just kept getting longer and longer by the day.

"You...they do not hold the right to deny you children." He said to her as his grip tightened, shaking her somewhat, "Find another pack...there is plenty in the area." He nodded with a sort of reassuring smile, his large fangs not helping, but his long dark brown mane that looked more like silk than fluff was wonderfully soft against her, almost tickling.

"They wouldn't want me, if anything they want fast gazelles." She explained.

"This is nonsense."

"Tell me about it hun, been trying for the past few years and the best they tell me I can do is save a pregnant woman from being eaten...to be fodder." She sighed, sort of making peace with it.

"They are monsters..." Romi said as she heard his stomach growl, looking down to the gold brick abs and seeing his large tan sash as she looked back up to see his pupils slitting again. His breathing picked up again, looking down to her, "M-monsters...they....urrrrrARGH!" He yelled as his open palm rose and blocked out the light of the sun before she covered her eyes and awaited the crushing blow that would put her out of this terror. She felt a huge whiff of air rush past her and onto her face and a crumbling of earth next to her as she parted her hands to look up to him again, his breathing not slowing down as he was gritting his teeth. "I'm so...so sorry Cheli...just...it's that....I'm so hungry." He gasped out in a roar as he gripped her arm and rose her to her feet as he quickly tossed her over his shoulder like a potato sack and began to run briskly through the grass.

'Oh no...he's taking me to his den to eat me...' She thought, now the bones wouldn't even be discovered, but at the same time who would even care about that. She looked down to his back, each trifle through the grass moved it, like cliff sides rubbing against each other silently under the perfectly soft fur as his long and thin tail swayed behind him with the dark brown useless tuft that cut through the wind. She found the run to be short though, clearing through the grass and to an opening to what looked to be an abandoned cave as she was dragged into the darkness, a small fire illuminating the inner chambers, a small mat bed and a few neatly folded sashes with some art on the walls likely from milled flowers as a small bowl laid to left of an unfinished hyena. He flopped her down onto the mat and snarled as he blared his fangs.

"I wish...that...I wasn't so..." He near choked out, his hunger getting the better of him as she saw his muscles pushing his skin out to an impossible limit through his hungering pain as she squeaked out.

"It's alright hun...just...please..." She closed her eyes, thinking he knew what she meant by the shortened plead. She didn't hear anything though, well a clamp of a wooden barred cell shutting and locking her into the clean 'room'. "What?" She asked as she noticed him rush off out of the cave and leaving her to the warmth of the fire as she stared vacantly towards him leaving. Her mind racing over the possibilities, he protected her from himself, he went to go get more firewood and the most absurd of which being that he went to go get another leaf stuffed pillow for her to sleep on. She rose to her feet and walked over to the closed gate, trying to force it open but only managing to wiggle it as she looked to see a small hole in the locking mechanism. It was clearly designed for a lion to open and only a lion to open, they used their claws to pick it rather easily, other predators could but they didn't know the secret.

She examined the thick vines from the neighboring jungles that held the hardwood in place as she kicked it with a grunt, followed quickly by a yelp as she pulled back her foot and gripped it in pain as she hopped around on one foot four times before moping out and looking to the fire. "Ah haa..." She agreed to herself over the great idea as she walked two steps over to pit of sorts that contained the wood and the fire. She looked around it, looking for a stray piece of wood to help burn down the gate as she noticed nothing that she could grab without setting herself on fire. Pouting out and looking back, she noticed the bed he used and grinned as she got to a knee and tore off a long segment of it, turning it to the fire as a single touch caused it to ignite and rush up to her in a brief second as she yelped out and dropped it to the floor, quickly raising her hand and sucking on her burnt index finger.

"Darn it." She cursed, if it could even be called that, to herself as she flopped down onto the mat, it was soft, though flat and she still felt the cold stone floor well through the fabric and the hours of the fire. It felt like an eternity, sitting in a jail cell and waiting for the execution that her chief would say was honorable or some stupid shit to make his ego bigger. She buried her head into her knees and curled up best she could into a ball as it was hours in the rock before she heard the pitter patter of claws against the stalagmite as she looked up, though wishing she hadn't as she saw the golden brute of a man unlocking the 'cell' with his claw and stepping in. She looked away.

"Romi, please, if you are going to eat me then make it quick." She pleaded to him, her eyes shut and expecting a slight pain to her temples followed by a reunion with her ancestors. She didn't feel any such thing though, only hearing his soft breath as she felt a wooden curve pushing against her leg, she opened her eyes to see a bowl, full of grass, leaves and generally things she would eat. "Romi?" She questioned, looking up at the goliath of muscle and the yellow fields of softness in his fur.

"I won't eat you Cheli." He said through a breathe, though it sounded more from the hike than the perseverance to not digest her.

"Why?" She asked, quickly adding, "Not that I am disappointed in the least, but what...hun?" She asked again, her ears draping back as she looked worriedly at him.

"The lions, I am not one of them." He said to her simply, "They made that abundantly clear when those hyenas blabbered off who I was traveling with to get back home." He continued, "They outcasted me, called me weak, a gazelle lover."

"Hun did you ever take a look at yourself, you're like the biggest lion ever." Chelice said, trying to cheer him up, oddly enough as she still likely looked like a full belly and a good night's rest for him.

"Not in that respect, I could never bring myself to kill what they wanted me too." He said down to her, being an eye strain to her but in all the right ways.

"What did they want you to kill?" She asked through the momentary silence, feeling as if the question would be better left unanswered, but hell what did she have to lose.

"What the gazelles wanted me to kill." He said simply as she looked a bit bewildered by the answer.

"Wait what?!" She asked in a shout, her eyes going wide as she rose to her feet, the lumbering giant still stories above her as she barely came to the bottom of his zeppelin like pectorals.

"The gazelles and lions are in agreements with each other," He started, looking down into her eyes, they seemed to delve deep into her soul and make her feel weak. "We don't raid their homes and we only kill what they want us to." He told. "Whom do you think they wanted dead Cheli?" He asked.

"It's me isn't it." She said with a sigh, looking down and not needing to see his nod. "Doesn't really surprise me but it still hurts the same."

"The pride always showed me how to hunt, take out only who they deemed unsatisfactory." He continued, "They always nudged to you, but I knew you, you were kind and caring to an enemy. Compassionate to a lost child in the face of death." He told with a smile to her, the fierceness of his being seeming to diminish as his cheeks raised and whiskers bobbed.

"I would do it for any child hun, not just you." She said to him, though she was still not smiling. The lingering fear of being chocked over the fire still looming in the back of her mind.

"I believe that is what makes you worthy of life Cheli, your love of life and all the beings that inhabit it." He explained, her finally looking up to him with a smile.

"It's nothing, just, well, you know I like to be happy and making others happy seems to do the trick for me too." She denounced, making it seem worse like many of the gazelles often did.

"And that is a negative trait?"

"Well it makes me gullible and too trusting."

"You give anyone a chance."

"Not exactly, it makes me succectable to attack and weak as a parent."

"How is that going to kill you, it seems to have worked out so far."

She looked back up at him with a smile, "Well yeah, but just because I helped you...and..." She looked down quickly, her hands gripping, "You're the reason they didn't kill me those last four years weren't you?"

"I was." He answered, not moving an inch. "They always nudged us to you, I knew you from afar and could always shake my head with enough presence to make them choose another." He continued, "Eventually they think that I have a thing for gazelles and after ruining a few hunts, and the rest is history."

"Oh honey I appreciate it and all but you...wait." She paused looking back up to him, "How did you know who I was from far away?" She asked inquisitively.

"Well uhh..." He spat out as he rubbed the back of his head nervously.

"Huh what, just say it I won't be mad." She said with a smile.

"Well you aren't exactly, umm, well as plains like as your sisters." He tried to clarify, but she still looked lost.

"What?"

"You are hilly."

"Honey you aren't making the damnedest of sense here and...oh!" She said looking down before she rose her hand to cover her exposed nipples feeling an embarrassment flush over her even though she walked around naked all day anyhow. The fact someone was staring at them from afar maybe.

"It's not an insult Cheli, they are quite..." He paused as he thought about it, "mighty." He finally said, her raising a brow to this.

"Mighty?" she asked him with sass as thick as his biceps, "What, like you?"

"Well no, umm, they are just appealing is all." He explained further, "Hard to miss."

"Oh, well yeah, I was sort of cursed with them." She stated simply as she looked down to her pillowy white chest.

"Cursed?!" He asked with a sense of dread in his voice, "Those are no curse."

"Yes they are, men like flat chested women." She pouted out, gazelle culture being a bit backwards in that regard. "Who would want a chest like mine." Romi had to fight the urge to say 'me' here.

"I don't think most of the savannah thinks the same way about them Cheli." He retorted back to her with a nod.

"What so you like them then?" She asked looking up to him, but still keeping her arm covering the heavenly bosom.

"I'm just saying they are not a curse is all." He stated simply, through a gulp in the back of his throat. Despite his rock hard body and towering height, he was still young at heart.

"If you say so, don't see a real benefit to them though." She said with a shrug, Romi thinking of many wonderful uses next to immediately. She looked back down to the bowl of assorted leaves and grass and sat back down on the bed spread and began to eat them. "Thanks for the food by the way sweetie."

"It wasn't a problem, I found a zebra out there soon enough and had enough spare time to make sure you didn't go hungry." He assured.

"I'm confused though." She said looking up to him as she was munching on the wonderful 'greens' of the area. "Why are you keeping me here if you have no intentions of eating me?" She asked, swallowing a mouthful.

"I'll explain later, please finish your meal." He quickly answered, moving over to the bars and opening them again.

"If you're just doing this to fatten me up I swear I will kick the shit out of you and your golden rod butt!" She yelled out to him, through the delicious grass and what not as he moved out of yelling distance, at least she thought, she had a big mouth after all. The hours passed by slowly, she made due just looking over the small drawings he had done with what she hoped was red pigment from flowers and not what she thought it was. Simple paintings, of animals, trees and there was one of a gazelle she had noticed, taking interest in it but ultimately nothing really special. She laid down on the floor, rolling her fingers on her belly in the silent cave, all but the fire remaining quiet, nice for once, lonely yes but it wasn't often you get this sort of quiet and she learned to appreciate it after a while.

A tapping of nails heard again, she leaned up and looked towards the wooden bars with a smile. She was a captive of him, but someone was better than no one after waiting for so long in isolation. "Cheli!" He called out, though she couldn't see him just yet.

"Yes?" She called back as she drew herself up to her feet, wiggling her leg left and right to get rid of the rest that had settled in her.

"There is a spear...it's under some of those drawings...grab it and plug the hole to the lock..." He called out, though his voice was getting more sporadic, almost hurt sounding but not quite. It was the kind of voice you heard when someone did something bad, it was rare but everyone knew the panic induced tone.

"Why should I do that?" She asked back, her eyes looking worried, "Are you alright?"

"JUST DO IT!" He growled out, the foot steps seeming to pace back and forth, as they never got louder or softer to a good degree. Her ears shot up in shock, quickly rushing to the paintings and grabbing the simple wooden spear, likely used to slow down a faster gazelle and jammed the sharpened stick into the key hole, the other end into a small socket of rock that looked to be carved, a nice barrier if anything. The thing that troubled her was that why would he need to lock himself out, or anyone else. What was one so large and powerful scared of?

"O...Okay..." She called back to him as she backed away from the cage, hearing the snarls and growls echoing out, she looked worried, not for her safety but of what his would be locked away from his home. There was a roar, one which made her back hair stand on end and her tail flick in surprise as she saw Romi burst around the corner with his eyes slit, feral as the most awful of savages as her eyes went wide. "No no no no!" She called out to him before he slammed into the bars with a force that made the now burnt out fires left over sparks flush forward and draw orange. She fell back onto her butt, scooting away as fast as a gazelle could watching his mammoth arms crunch through the bamboo bars and reach for her, they never looked so big before, and certainly not as threatening. Even with the large gaps in the bars, his arm was a hard fit, each time he stretched out it flexed to her disliking as the bars actually burst out from the pressure his biceps and triceps were producing.

She saw the confusion in his eyes though, the same she had seen back when he was a kitten. The lost, scared look that didn't know what was happening as she gripped her palms into fists and walked over with a sense of courage that she felt more was fool hardiness. She approached the arm that threatened to destroy her with a single swipe, the bars showing their strain through it all as she reached out and put her hand on his. "It'll be okay Romi." She promised in a voice that could barely be called a whisper, looking into his feral eyes as his feet stopped thrashing and his arm stopped reaching. His eyes grew round again as he looked to her with a hint of dread and disappointment.

"I did it again didn't I?" He asked with his ears falling back, ashamed.

"Yes...but...it's not your fault Romi..." She said gripping his palm and holding it tightly, reassuringly. "It's just your instinct...you're hungry when you see me." She softly exuded, hoping to the goddess that he would be getting better at this.

"I...I don't want to hurt you Cheli." He said, though weakly and unlike before, his hand slouched behind the bars, he looked defeated. "And I can't let you out."

"Why can't you let me out hun?" She asked calmly, holding his hand in hers, barely able to encompass it with both of hers.

"Because without me to divert their aim...there is nothing preventing the lion prides from taking you next." He warned, though not looking at her. There was a certain hurt in his voice, like it was just a matter of who ate her at this point with his acting.

"I don't want to be locked up in a cage for the rest of my life though hun." She smiled at him and patted his hand as she kicked the spear away from the lock. She shook her head, "If you are hungry...and if there is no hope for me...well..." She gulped, "I would much rather it be with you then someone else hun."

"That's just the thing though Cheli...I'm not hungry in the least." He said to her, looking back up as she looked a bit confused.

"Wait...then why are you always pouncing at me when you see me then?" She asked, gripping his hand more tightly as she was slowly shaking hers. It was possible for him to have mental trauma, depression, or a case identity; she prayed in the back of her head that it was none of the above.

"I don't know at all...I left you the first time...ate a zebra..." He said looking to her, "The second time I left I felt it dwelling again so I went out and snapped at an alligator...I've never been so full." He continued, looking miserable, though who wouldn't be. "Yet when I get closer to the cave I just get hungry again...starving."

"Is there anything you think would help?" She asked sincerely.

"I don't know how you could."

"I could dress up in a costume of leaves and make you disgusted with my flavor." She said with a small smile, there was a silence as he chuckled once, then twice. He began to smile with her as he shook his head.

"That made me feel better at least...no need for you to do anything like that since I'm sure it would just look like a garnish eventually." He chuckled out, she laughed too.

"Hey now, put me up in a tree and I'll try to hitchhike down a giraffe's neck to safety to another gazelle pack." She giggled again, it was an odd sense of funny, she knew she was toying with her own existence here, knowing deep down that she would die in a matter of days. It was the strangest feeling though, she wasn't sad, not to far off from happy but not there either. She felt like she was consoling her son on an issue, cheering him up after a bad day. She never knew the feeling, and from the looks of it, this would likely be the only time she would. She was thankful for this, it was the second time she felt like a mother, both times by an animal that would likely be chowing her down. She wondered if that made her one of those weird mother bugs that let her children eat her as they were born, though not liking to be thought of as a bug, she dismissed the idea early on.

Romi laughed with her, then sighed, "You're too good for this world Cheli." He stated simply, she smiled at this and put her hand on his heart.

"And you are too big for this world but yet we stay right?" She laughed out with him again, he grabbed her hand and put it on his chest, flexing it as she felt her hand consumed with the god like muscle that laid underneath his golden fur.

"I may do a push up or two now and again." He chuckled, Chelice blushing under her fur at this and as he mocked, "What, nothing like this in that runt squad of runners you have?"

"Huh what?" She asked looking up to him and shaking her head to get the other thoughts out of her head. "Oh uhhh, yeah, the running squad we have is really fit." She answered, clearly missing the question entirely.

"Oh I'm sure that was the question." He chuckled out to her as he opened the gate up and stepped in, hitting the flint together with a rock to bring the fire up again.

"Thank goodness...it was getting chilly." She giggled, as she got close to it and knelt down, rubbing her hands together and blowing into them.

"I noticed." He said simply. She looked confused as she heard this before looking down and seeing her pink nipples erect, she slapped him upside the head through his silky dark brown mane. "Hey now." He laughed out with a wide grin as he shielded himself with his hands.

"If you have to think about boobs then just think of yourself for once, biggest boob I know." She giggled out again as he did.

"I WISH it was that easy." He smirked as he looked to her face, then yawning, "In any case...I need some sleep..." He said as he curled up on the floor, leaving her his mat.

"Oh you no don't hun, this is your cave you get the bed." She said as he looked back over.

"No no...you are my guest."

"Yeah and I'm a good guest so I see reason."

"Well still not sleeping on it."

"Yes you are, I can sleep on you, hell you're big enough."

"Sleep on me?"

"Yeah...you're huge...just sleep on your chest."

He looked baffled as he moved to the mat and rather uncomfortable mat, though still much better then the cold floor as he smiled, "Like this?" He asked as she crawled up onto his body and laid on his torso, her legs dangling off but his pecs proving very soft but hard, good neck support at least as she felt the monstrous heart beating underneath his skin.

"Yeah....if I kick you in the crotch at night I apologize in advance." She giggled as she closed her eyes, he did too as he put his arms on her to keep her warm, far warmer then she would of expected and far more than the fire.

"Apology accepted."