Bleaker

Daughter of and Deputy to King Flotsam
Mother to King Jettsam
Murdered by King Lagan
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"Bleaker is playing in the river, trying her best to splash you as you get close. When you dunk her in the shallows, she just resurfaces, giggling."
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Born to a fiercely independent lioness, Bleaker has distant memories of nursing at her birth mother's side, in the cool sheltering caves of Floatsam's harbour.
However, Bleaker's mother found rule by Flotsam- and cooperation with the rest of the pride- at odds with her own, lonely childhood, and her preference for solitude. Once Bleaker was weaned, the lioness gave her a final lick between the ears, found she still had no affection for the little cub, and left her in the capable paws of her father.
Bleaker inherited her mother's eyes, if not her penchant for Independence. And while she doesn't miss her mother, precisely, she swears that sometimes, when she's on a dangerous hunt... she can feel someone watching over her. Keeping her safe from afar.
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The night before they were to officially- with pomp and ceremony and a great deal of embarrassing fretting from their parents- become adults, Bleaker and Loch sat the traditional vigil, atop the stone outcropping that overlooked their river basin. Flotsam's pride was young. It's traditions were young, too. But the cubs had never known anything different. And the watchstone, warmed from the sun, seemed to breathe with a life of its own. The territory- their whole world- below them seemed so vast, so alien, a place to be inheriting.
Bleaker hung her paws over the edge of the watchstone. Batted at a plant that was growing, scrappy, in a shallow crack in the cliff-face. She couldn't wait. To lead her own hunts, to be let in on pride meetings. She could feel it bursting out of her fur, practically, the /excitement of it.
Behind her, Loch paced, her feet her loud on the stone; no attempts to hide, not here. Not with Bleaker. She seemed...less excited.
"Sit down," Bleaker called back. Didn't take her eyes from the river below, but knew from long familiarity- knew like the instincts that told her how to hunt, to groom- that Loch's ears had swiveled towards her. The left one always turned a bit further than the right- it made her look always crooked, always a bit confused.
"I just," Loch said, voice a bit high. Tight. "Don't want to miss anything."
"It's a ceremonial watch." Bleaker shook her head. "The adults are probably all staying up anyway, just in case. Tetra will be, anyway."
Loch stopped pacing. Bleaker could sense her, her warm body just a leap away. "That's Tetra for you,"
she said. Huffed. "But I didn't mean- hyenas. Or something."
She paced forwards. Came to sit by Bleaker, and Bleaker scooted back away from the cliff's edge, so they could sit shoulder-to-shoulder without Loch getting nervous of the height.
Loch licked her between the ears, grateful, and a purr rumbled, irrepressible, in Bleaker's chest.
"What /did you mean, then?" she said.
Loch huffed, again. Leaned against Bleaker's side. Bleaker can't remember a time before her. Before Loch. Before they slept in the same den, trained together, ate together.
Flottsam had once told them this long, boring story about a cub he once knew, who was born with two heads and four front legs, but joined into one cub at the hips. "If I didn't know your mothers," he'd said, "I'd swear you two were born attached, too!"
The story had made Bleaker... uneasy. She didn't like that idea, not for her and Loch.
But in the present, Loch said, "I mean I don't want to miss... this. I don't want to forget--"
She sniffled. Bleaker huffed, turned to press her cheek to Loch's.
"if you forget," she said. "I'll just remind you, then."
"But," Loch said, "I mean." She stood, abruptly. Turned away from Bleaker. Bleaker's flank felt cold, in her absence. "I mean, you won't always be here."
Bleaker blinked. "Have you hired a.... a giant vulture to come carry me away? Or did you have a vision? Am I going to be eaten by Hyenas? Or-"
"No-" Loch laughed. It came out a bit watery-- she still sounded like she was about to cry. "I mean. If you meet someone, and want to have cubs, then you'll-"
"Oh." Bleaker stood, too. It seemed important, now. That feeling was back, like she was going to burst out of her fur. "You dummy," she said. "No one could make me abandon you."
Loch sniffled. Ducked her head. "You don't know that," she said. "You're so- lions will be lining up to be your mate, and I'm just-"
Bleaker growled, gently. She hadn't growled at Loch since they were cubs, playfighting; it had the intended effect. Loch's sentence stumbled to a halt, paws-over-tail, like a new cub.
"Loch," Bleaker said, and found the nerves catching in her, too. "Listen. The only lion I would ever want- I mean. I wouldn't leave you, to be someone's mate. Because-- if I wanted that--"
Loch looked up, slowly, at her. She had the most beautiful eyes, Bleaker thought. She'd /always had the most beautiful eyes. Like the plains at sunrise, gold forever and ever.
Bleaker swallowed. Could feel her hackles coming up, with the nerves of it all. "Do /you," she said. "Want to go meet some handsome king? Have his cubs?"
"No!" Loch looked startled-- like a meerkat, popping out from its hole. "I never wanted that."
Bleaker took a deep breath. Scented the river basin, on the wind. Mud and wind till the ends of the world. Loch's smell, familiar as her own paws. A scent she'd grown up with. That she couldn't remember a time without.
"Would you," she said. "Want it. With me?"
Loch's hackles came up, too. Completed the startled look of her. But she said, "Of course."
Of course. Like she'd known for so long. She probably /had, overthinker she was.
Bleaker blinked once, slowly. "Good." she said. "I mean, that's. Good."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Bleaker butted her head against Loch's; they rubbed cheek-to-cheek, mixing scents, and Bleaker found herself bubbling over, again, with joy. With anticipation.
"So come sit down, okay?" she said. "I promise, you're not gonna miss anything."