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11/09
Riolo was spending his adolescent days lazing away as a sub-male when his half brother, Makari, became king after their father's sudden death. Makari was not as benevolent as their father had been and immediately drove out any all males from the pride, threatening death.
Riolo was on his own now. He was hoping he could find a pride to crash with soon, but it was currently the dry season, and the lack of food around there are was making lions crack. No male in the area would take any extra mouths to feed, especially not a lazy male teen.
Riolo found had found a safe place to sleep by chance after desperately needing a hiding place when sniffing a little too far into a MUCH bigger male lion's territory! No other large lions have claimed a huge gnarly patch of vegetation in between a particularly lush copse of trees. They never travel through here. There's an overabundance of thorny vines snaking around between trees like a mass of green living cobwebs.. They can get horrifically tangled into thick manes, in worst cases further entangling around a lion's neck, tangling tighter as they try to kick free. That's only happened like, once or twice though. Allegedly.
Riolo, not being from around here, was not familiar with the local folklore and was completely unfazed diving head first into the brambles. The big male who was hot on his tail considered trying to follow, but sighed and decided it's really not worth it.
Riolo had no problem weaving through the hazardous vegetation. He hardly had enough fur for the brambles to take hold of. In addition to that, his slender, flexible build allows him to squeeze between particularly bad knots in the thicket.
He simply wasn't blessed in the hair and fur department at all really, with a drab thin looking coat and a few uneven tufts of a slightly darker mane. Riolo wasn't much to look at, but a wandering lioness in heat decided, "eh. good enough".
As a fresh bachelor, Riolo thinks with the wrong head, and unsurprisingly the 4 year old lioness falls pregnant.
Young Riolo now has to consider the consequences of unwittingly starting a new pride, unsure if he could ever be ready for such a role. He had expected he'd be a sub-male in some other male lion's pride for the rest of his days.
The lioness tells Riolo about cotton wood bark, seeing his apprehension in the idea of raising cubs.
"I've seen this kind of thing before," she sniffs, "males who don't want to raise cubs will usually.. get rid of them. Don't worry. I understand why it must happen, if that's what you must do with this litter...But please let us consider the use of cotton root bark instead of allowing them to be born into that kind of fate."
Riolo agreed that cotton wood bark is a great idea, and the pair set out foraging for it. For days they looked, but alas it was the dry season. Much of the vegetation was dry, and smelled different than usual. Riolo didn't even know how to differentiate any herbs in the first place! The two of them agreed to meet back in the same meeting place, nightly to see if either have them had found the root. It was also a safe place for both of them to sleep, as their location was currently boxed in at all sides by other lions' territories. Days became weeks as they shared each other's company deep in the center of the overgrown thicket.
They had no luck finding cotton root bark.
Although he was scared and not sure if he even wanted to be a king. Now he has no choice, unless he was willing to kill the cubs himself as soon as they are born. He doesn't have the heart to drive the pregnant lioness out, either. Their cubs would surely are quickly meet death in the jaws of a rival male.
Riolo's heart is far to soft to even consider hurting a cub. All the same, Riolo isn't sure if he knows how to provide for all the potential hungry mouths either.
Luckily he has Serenity, a lioness with 10 years of life experience to help show him and the younger lionesses the way of survival.
Meanwhile, Riolo has not yet grown out of his adolescent ways. He would much rather play with grubs and wrestle than learn about serious things like maintaining territories and hunting.
11/16
Riolo has been king for 7 months. Serenity's kept a tight leash on him, and it shows. His lazy sub-male attitude has been gradually replaced by the strong demeanor of a strong leader. Lionesses have been taking note of his growing confidence.. and his growing mane!
12/11
Poor Riolo has been struggling with his self confidence lately. He is almost 5 years old now, and rather quite impressive. He attracts many beautiful lionesses to his pride, and when they go into heat they are more than willing to mate with him... however Riolo feels he is not worthy of their affections. He encourages what he deems as "high quality" lionesses to mate with other "high quality" males. Perhaps this is the result of Riolo meeting males with primal mutations. Those giants tower over him and Riolo feels he cannot compete with them. The best he can hope for is that one of his females comes back carrying the cubs of such a lion so Riolo might raise one as his heir..
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