Softheart the Kindly (bio)

Softheart could smell the sharp tang of blood on the wind. Not lion blood, but it definitely didn't smell like prey either... It smelled sour, like rot was not far off either. Nonetheless, it was undoubtedly cause for concern. She was patrolling her pride's territory and though this was near their borders, in an area they barely ever went to to hunt, it was still worth checking out.

Softheart was disheartened at the mere smell of it. She would never senselessly kill or hurt another living being without reason, that much she knew. If she killed, it was merely to survive, but the act itself gave her no pleasure. (And she had personally sworn that she would absolutely never purposely separate a mother and her young.)
Softheart began tracking the scent, hoping to aid help any surviving creatures that she could, or to swiftly put them out of their misery, if nothing else.
When she finally reached her destination, needless to say, she was horrified.

The corpses of an entire pack of hyenas lay splayed across a clearing in the center of some hills. They were all ripped apart brutally too, like they hadn't stood a chance in the slightest against whatever had perpetrated this massacre. Blood covered many a blade of grass in their vicinity and the stench of death had grown to be almost unbearable. Their carcasses had been there for a moment already it seemed and in the setting sun, flies buzzed about them. She knew the vultures would be here soon to pick their torn bodies clean.

Softheart wanted to leave. Her paws were telling her to run away from this place and to never look back, but she knew in her heart that she could never do that. She needed to make absolute sure that there were no signs of life... Even if the loud drone of the flies made it seem obvious already.

Softheart took one shaky pawstep after another down the hill. With a deep breath of the fetid air, she began to scour and inspect the bodies one by one. Her very paws felt wrong walking on the dried blood of these poor creatures. All of senses were being overloaded by everything around her. Her sight, smell, hearing, touch... they all felt tainted right now.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate, telling herself there were more important things to focus on than panic. Her rescue efforts could still make a difference as far as she knew. Lives were at stake here.

Suddenly, she heard a sound that made her eyes snap open and head flick to the side. She had heard a small whimper coming from one of the hyenas. She gently made her approach in that general direction... and what she saw gathered at a large female hyena's belly made her gasp in shock.

Three hyena cubs lay huddled in fear. They started at her petrified, with huge eyes and began to whine loudly in fear... that was when she noticed it. Lion fur was caught in the mother hyena's fur...A neighboring pride must have..... How could they be this cruel?..

She knew the poor babies were terrified of her, so she settled down next to them slowly and looked at them with the calmest, most gentle expression she could muster. Then, she closed her eyes and began to sing softly to them. The lullaby she had sung for her own two cubs, born half a moon ago, both stillborn.

"My dear cubs, do not dismay,
come and go as our lives may,
I will remember you...
and my love for you...will stay true..."

She continued singing, even in the midst of all the horror and destruction surrounding them. Soon, the tiny hyena cubs stopped crying out in fear and instead stared at her with wide, sparkling eyes, too young to speak, but a sense of understanding passing through to them.

She soothed them and told them that their mother was gone, but she had protected them to the end for a reason...and that she would be there now to do the same.

Gently, she lifted up and carried the cubs back to her pride's camp on her back. She didn't know how the others would react to her wanting to raise these three hyena cubs to maturity...probably not too well. But she had just lost her own litter and was still lactating, so she had a duty to see these newborn cubs fed and cared for, regardless of species...and she trusted King Yule's judgement. Surely he would be understanding, his own mother having died after birthing him and father having passed more recently. He may be a little awkward and distant of a smilus, but she could tell he had a kind heart.

Epilogue: Softheart was an outstanding mother to the orphaned hyena cubs for many years to come. She named them Leo (so he could always be proud of his origins in a pride), Ash (for his gray tinted pelt) and Tiffany (because it sounded cute and girly).
Even when they went off and joined their own respective packs (the female, Tiff, becoming a mighty pack alpha/matriarch), they always made sure to pay their adoptive mother visits from time to time and remained close, becoming a family regardless of species differences. Softheart and her adoptive cubs' efforts brought forth peace to the hyenas and lions of Yule's territory (at the very least).
In the future, she even adopted other orphaned hyena cubs, especially when she was having a biological litter of her own. Her body's milk production doesn't discriminate based on species, after all.