Fun fact; most quadrupeds move their legs in diagonal pairs for stability. When the front left leg moves forward, the back right leg follows, and vice versa. This creates a walking triangle of support that keeps them balanced while moving.
This was a new factor in the life of Tobey. His whole center of gravity had been rewritten! The first several days of his cubhood after awakening was invested in mastering the art of walking. Yes! Baby steps all over again! However, this didn't frustrate him in the slightest, he currently had all the time in the world, he was still a kitten. Despite the wild being a danger zone for anything under the body weight of 190kgs and an engine for a chest, Tobey wasn't the least bit worried.
Most of his confidence came from the sheer number of lionesses in the den alone! He knew his knowledge of this pride wasn't extensive, thus wasn't aware of the full scope of members within it, but having five mothers here alone was enough to not care about the immediate future.
Leopards? Hyenas? Wild dogs?
'They can kiss my ass, ain't getting through my momma~'
With a chirp, he lost his focus and fell on his side. Damn! And he'd gotten the hang of it. The playing cubs spared him a cautious glance and resumed their nonsense, the mothers however, watched him with admiration, they apparently thought him a genius. Perhaps dumb – he'd been playing with his claws every other hour as well as obsessing over his own tail – but a genius nonetheless?
For one, he wasn't childlike as the rest of the cubs, he appeared mature beyond his lifetime. His eyes held a burning curiosity on everything that garnered his attention. He marveled at stains on rocks, as if perceiving the colours with an in-built archive in his head to compare with. There was an intellectual gleam in his eye whenever he watched his fellow cubs, as if he were analyzing the choreography in their movements.
The most notable part in all the lionesses' study of the weird cub, is when he lay his amber yes on any one of them. It was a unique study to say the least. There was so much going on in his mind. At times, a lioness would rouse from a nap only to find the cub inches from her head...just staring. Sometimes, the lionesses broke eye contact first, and if one looked closely, they'd spot the corner of the cub's lips slightly upturn when that happened.
As Tobey rose from the dusty ground to attempt another session of catwalking, two of the liomesses within the den strode towards him and laid down. After a few minutes of watching him fail in basic limb coordination, one of them brought a paw over, securing and pulling him towards her chest in one smooth motion. Before Tobey could meow in annoyance, a wet tongue swept over his fur, and he went silent.
Not wanting to be left out, the other lioness also, began to groom him.
Between you and me (plus the whole den), we know who's the favourite cub. This was a common occurrence in this here den. While the others got groomed on specific circumstances, Tobey had a VIP subscription of the services, and not just by his mother, the mommas spoiled him!
Unlike the modern era, the realm of the wild had no WiFi, Internet, or any respectable source of entertainment. Tobey wouldn't be caught dead playing hide and seek with kitties! Thus, if he wasn't experimenting and mastering his body, Tobey would embrace the lazy gene within him and nap off the hours like a respectable member of the cat familia!
Mornings and evenings had no significance to Tobey yet, with a yawn, he woke up at the shy hours of dawn. First thing he did was take a deep inhale, he'd paid for this new nose, he was going to use it to the maximum!
The first hours of dawn carried a magic only the nose could read. While the horizon blushed with light, the air itself still clung to the cool dampness of night, trapping scents like secrets. To a lion, the savannah was not silent...it was alive with trails. The musk of zebra herds drifting miles away, the sharp tang of hyena dens, the faint sweetness of crushed grass where antelope had grazed before retreating. Each breath was a map.
The world unrolled in layers invisible to sight: cool currents whispered of waterholes, warm gusts bore the ghost of last night's kills, and even the dust spoke, laced with the passing prints of prey. The nose wove these fragments together into a living tapestry, a landscape richer and truer than the pale vision of the waking sun.
The seconds bled into an hour before Tobey came to himself, he glanced around him, surprisingly, the lionesses and fellow cubs had gathered close to him at time of slumber. He remained still for close to another hour, the only movement being the cocking of his ears.
'Good, they're still asleep.' He nodded to himself.
Ever so slowly, Tobey stalked one of the cubs, once he was close, he nudged him with his nose and waited, he was asleep.
'Good, very good!'
To any cat lover, a room full of feline was quite literally a haven! Tobey once again cursed at his paws, losing his petting privileges was one of his biggest loss in this reincarnation contract.
But what he couldn't do with his fingers, he compensated for with tongue, tail, paws and his head. He too, was in fact, a cat now, and he loved every moment of the early morning hours he had to himself with these dangerous but beautiful felines!
Unbeknownst to the weird cub, the lions and lionesses within the den were actually...not asleep! They felt him from the moment he woke up, he wasn't as stealthy with his yoga as he thought! But, having being subjected to his eccentrics on a daily basis, a majority of them returned to sleep and feigned ignorance when the weird one showered them with cuddles.
Well, apart from one particular cub who remained awake throughout Tobey's ritual. With a pair of grey eyes, she stalked his every move, from nibbling his fellow cubs' ears and tails, to licking the lionesses snouts...she herself, lay a bit further from the rest of the cubs –a silent agreement the others had had without her knowledge – patiently waiting for something.
After a handful of moments, the weird one started a sudden search, walking over to every cub and having a sniff at them before walking away. Her grey irises glimmered and her tail swayed lazily to her side. Suddenly, she chirped and Tobey froze. His ears twitched, his head snapped, and for a breath the whole den seemed to listen. Then, like a secret exchanged in the dark, he chirped back and awkwardly skipped towards her.
They held each other's gaze as the strange cub padded closer, each step deliberate, as though neither of them wished to break whatever unspoken thread tied their eyes together. Tobey halted only a paw's length away, his amber irises locked with her cool grey ones, and for a time they lingered in silence—far longer than any ordinary cubs should have managed. Then, at last, she gave a soft chirp, a sound sharp enough to cut the stillness. With quiet confidence, she rose and drifted to his side, her tail trailing like a ribbon in the air before brushing tenderly across his head. Tobey blinked once, his ears flicking, and in a clumsy mimicry of her grace, he attempted to coil his own tail around her paw, sealing the wordless exchange.
Of all the cubs that tumbled about the den, Tobey found himself favoring her the most. She lingered apart from the others, never quite welcomed into their games, and only a rare few dared to approach her. In that sense, she mirrored him—though his own estrangement came from… well, attempting to kill his sibling on day one. Hers was different, quieter, yet it branded her just the same. She, too, had earned the title of weird. The others kept their distance, and so she carried herself with a solitude far heavier than her small frame should have borne. Yet in her eyes – those pale grey depths – there flickered a maturity that did not belong to cubhood, a glimmer of wisdom carved from isolation. It was that quiet fire, that fathomless glint, that caught Tobey's attention again and again.
'Heh! And here I thought I wouldn't have to deal with the intellectual chess games since I'm no longer amongst humans. Guess every realm is linked somehow.'