"You're not seriously considering Zuki's offer, are you?" Disani questioned Tala as they stalked back towards the pride rock. Tala snorted in disgust.

     "After what she did to Mirlu? Of course not!" From her other side, the lion cub let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, Tala," Mirlu said gratefully, "not a lot of cubs in the Pride are nice to us, you know. In fact, you, Kiara, and Kopa are the only ones that are." Tala winced.

"But Zuki is the worst!" Disani cut in sharply, anger lining her voice. Coming upon a rock, she kicked it and it went flying into some grass and caused a few birds to retreat into the air with squawks of protest. She mumbled something angrily and then took off ahead of them.

"Hey, wait up!" Tala called after her, picking up her pace with Mirlu close behind.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tala waited on the shore of the watering hole. The sun was high in the sky and beating down comfortably on her fur. She was the first one to have arrived for the scheduled meeting with Zuki. A rustling in the bushes behind her alerted her of the presence of another lion cub. Disani and Mirlu came stalking out, followed by an exited Kopa and a slightly perturbed Kiara.

"You guys made it!" Tala said, bouncing towards her friends.

"Of course I did," Kopa said proudly, "there's no way I'm gonna miss this."

"Well it's good to finally be let out of the den," Kiara grumbled, looking at her surroundings, "I almost forgot what the watering hole looked like."

"We were only inside for one day, you big baby," Kopa sneered. Kiara rolled her eyes at him. Disani cleared her throat rather loudly, then gestured with her head to something in front of Tala. Tala turned around to see Zuki casually approaching them, confidence shining in her eyes.

"Uh oh, butt-wipe three o' clock," Kopa muttered under his breath.

"So, Princess," Zuki sneered in an annoyingly high pitched voice, "what'll it be, me, the soon-to-be leader of the huntresses, or these"-she turned her head specifically to Mirlu- "losers." A low growl sounded, coming from Disani's direction. Tala glanced behind her to see her friend's muscles tensing, she was obviously preparing to pounce.

"Don't," Kiara said softly, apparently having noticed this as well. Disani relaxed her muscles, but her eyes were still fixed angrily on Zuki. Tala turned back to Zuki, who was smiling slyly at the group.

"Why," Tala began calmly, "would I want to hang out with someone who bullies my friends?" Zuki looked taken aback, as if she had been sure that Tala would choose her.

"Yeah?" Zuki said, apparently having gotten over her initial shock, "well your 'friends' are cowards. They've never been to the outlands like me." She got up and slowly stalked around the group like a vulture honing in on its prey.

"What are—" Kopa began, but Tala cut him off.

"Still a no." Zuki stopped her pacing to look Tala straight in the eye.

"You'll regret this, princess," She growled after a moment, flicking her tail angrily before sulking off into the grasslands.

"Who does that good for nothing spoiled furball think she is!?" Disani growled after Zuki had left, making a very clear effort to not run after the rude lioness and attack her.

     "What are the outlands?" Kopa asked with a glare at Tala, who had interrupted him the first time he tried to ask this question.

     "Your parents seriously haven't told you?" Disani inquired. Kopa shook his head.

     "No," Kiara responded, sounding a bit irritated, "Dad always just tells us to"- her voice shifted to a bad imitation of Simba's voice-"'not go past the grasslands'" Disani blinked in surprise.

     "Well, I've heard it's really cool!" Disani said, then began pacing around her friends dramatically, "with lions that will eat you up in one bite"-her face was straight in Mirlu's as she said this.He gave an audible gulp-"and fire ants that will crawl under your skin, and Vultures that will eat your insides—"

     "That's enough!" Tala declared, biting back her gag reflex, "stop trying to creep us out, Disani. Anyways, it can't be all bad, It's where my mom met my dad, after all!"

     "Ya," said Kopa, "and look what that got us." He stared at Tala with a humorous expression. Tala stuck her tongue out at him. Just then, another cub walked through the grasses that Zuki had disappeared to, his eyes as wide as saucers.

     "Woah," he commented as he approached the group, auburn tail lashing back and forth, "who was that?" Disani, seeing a chance to throw some shade on her least favorite cub in the pridelands, answered his question without hesitation.

     "Only the worst cub to ever exist." She grinned widely at the new cub.

     "What made her run away like that?" Mystery cub asked with an amused expression, "I've never seen anyone so angry!"

     "Tala showed her who's boss, that's what happened!" Kopa exclaimed proudly, walking up and resting his tail across his cousin's shoulders. Rolling her eyes, Tala shoved it away. Kiara brushed past them, walking right up to the new cub and sniffing him.

     "You're not from here, are you?" She said skeptically as she drew away. The new cub looked around nervously at the group.

        "No, I-I'm not," he said nervously, scraping the ground with one paw, "but don't attack me! Please..." He was shrinking back away from the other cubs now, "My-my mother is sick and she needs water, and...well." He turned his head to towards the watering hole. Kiara looked back and exchanged glances with her friends.

     "Sure!" Kopa spoke up, "take as much as you need! There's plenty to go around, I mean, it's not exactly dry season yet." Kiara nodded at him gratefully, and then shrunk back into the group. The cub grabbed a fallen leaf from one of the trees surrounding the watering hole and dipped it in the water. Once he had gotten a satisfactory amount of water, he backed away.

     "Wait!" Tala said stepping forward, "what's your name?" The cub halted and turned to look her in the eyes, deep brown meeting icy blue.

     "Asdier," he said through a mouthful of leaf, then nodded sharply at Tala and continued on his way.

~~~~~~~~~
Aaaaay I'm not dead! Sorry for the long wait, I just lost motivation for such a long time. However, this hopefully won't happen in the future, because I have a couple new methods to help combat this:
A) even when I don't feel like writing, I'm going to go an wattpad, count down from six, and then force myself to do it
B) I'm going to just start writing a sentence and see where it goes, not thinking too much about it or questioning where it's going. That's how I came up with Asdier's character!
This chapter was my first time trying these methods, and so far they work like a charm!

Question of the day(yes I'm doing this now):
Where do you think I'm headed with the next chapter?

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Word count: 1195(including the bold)