The moonless sky had only barely begun to brighten with the arrival of a new dawn as the desert daughter made her way home. Léonie moved with ease across the desert, leaving behind nothing more than shallow paw prints that were immediately blown away by the dry wind. She may as well have been a phantom with how fleeting her presence was that night — her preferred time to travel now. It was simply too risky to be out during the heat of the day.

Soon, before the sun had even breached the horizon, Léonie briefly appeared on the peak of one of the many dunes that overlooked the Oasis. The heavy shadows that the dunes pitched across the heart of the territory took her back into their dark embrace as she descended, her paws quiet across the sand as they carried her to what had once been the rim of their spring. She knew its dimensions by memory alone, but to further stress the loss were the scorched plants that had grown on the perimeter of the oasis, when it had been full. They now served as a marker, revealing exactly how far the pool had shrunken in from its original size …

Wordlessly, Léonie passed through the foliage border and into the parched oasis. She stopped near the center and lowered her head to sniff at the sand, before reaching out to shovel some of it away, wondering if a little digging would reveal a new spring of water …

	+5 BWP - Nature's Wrath (Sleuth)
	+10 Pass along information that might be important (Firnen Rainforest)
	+10 Pass along information that might be important (Ecrosia Mire)

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It's just one hurdle after another for Seneca, isn't it? It seems a never-ending revolving door of one struggle after the next, a pendulum of nature's wrath and loss and heartbreak. If he had guessed that this is what his life would be in Amaryllis, would he have come? Or would he have turned tail and made for higher grounds? It doesn't much matter now. He is here, for better or worse, and he knows that one way or another, his grave will be here in the end. It's too late to turn back — there is only forward, through, out. This night is dead quiet, a reminder of the strife that his home is suffering through, and he trails across the dusty sands in pursuit of @Léonie's recent path. The wellspring is dry, the plants dead — their home, a wasteland. He fears that there may come a point where they must abandon it for brighter horizons, lest they all starve to death here. A low chuff rumbles out for his daughter, concern etched into his tone as he seeks her out in the darkness.

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She’d managed to dig down to her wrist before a chuff caused her to pause and peer back over her shoulder. She recognized the voice, but nevertheless sought to confirm it was who she believed it to be — and it was. Léonie saw her dad in the dim glow of the approaching dawn and fell back into her haunches with an audible “Hmph.” Her digging had been in vain.

“This bites,” she sighed out once the king had come enough to listen to her grumbling. “You think it’ll end soon?” the daughter asked her father. “Kind of worried with summer heating up.” It seemed impossible that the desert could get any hotter, but she knew that with summer on the horizon, there was a chance that things could turn out worse before they got better …

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Léonie, as ever, with her questions — questions that he does not have the answers to. He knows that he is supposed infallible in a child's eyes, the answer to all things, but he has no more an explanation for this than he did for the storm that had taken her from him for all that time. If he has learned anything on this wretched island, it is that nothing is ever certain. "I don't know," he admits with a slight frown, padding up behind her and peering over her shoulder at her attempt at a well, desperate for some source of water, "I hope so." And what else can they do but hope? They cannot very well change the weather, much as he wishes he held that power. "There are other ways to get water, though. Come on," Seneca ushers, shrugging past his daughter and heading for the outskirts of their home, where he knows there is a clump of cacti. It is high time she learns some of the more unique ways in which they can adapt to the cruelty of living in the desert.

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@Seneca may not have been omniscient, but Léonie fully trusted him even in his moments of uncertainty. She believed in him to guide her, even when he himself could not see the path ahead.

There may not have been an immediate escape from the weather, but there were ways to cope with it — her dad explained that there was water to be found, causing the youth’s eyebrow to arch in surprise and interest. She was always ready to take in information should it prove useful, and knowledge pertaining to water in the desert — and especially during a drought — was invaluable. Her curiosity roused, Léonie eagerly sprang up to shadow her dad.

But when they came to the fringes of the Oasis territory and she saw nothing but the cluster of cacti, she looked to the elder Miroslav for an explanation.

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He can sense her confusion as they approach the prickly plants; Seneca had not known them to be of any use before he'd found his home in such a sandy waste, but he is a creature of adaptation, and trial and error have taught him the most necessary things in a world like this. He meets Léonie's questioning gaze with a wry quirk of his lips, and then makes his way nearer to the cactus, careful to avoid the thorns that adorn it. From its branches, he plucks one of the bright pink fruits free with his claws, turning towards his daughter and offering her the plant with an outstretched paw. "Eat it," he encourages, allowing Léonie the opportunity to learn for herself just how valuable the cactus fruit is. In addition to being particularly good at quenching thirst, it comes with the added benefit of a surprisingly sweet and pleasant taste.

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Léonie had observed camels munching on cacti before, but she’d never imagined that SHE would need to. She assumed that was what her dad had in mind — so when he plucked one of the fruits from it instead, she immediately sighed in relief. “Geez, I thought you were going to tell me I need to eat the CACTUS,” the youth snorted and accepted his offering without hesitation. Compared to the prickly cactus, it looked much more appetizing. And, to her surprise, it was.

The desert daughter plucked the fruit from her dad’s paw with her teeth and rolled it back to chomp down. From its broken skin, flavorful juice washed over her tongue and with it came a look of pleasant delight. “Hey, that’s good!” she piped as she pushed the fruit into her cheek, making it bulge comically as she asked with genuine awe and curiosity, “Where’d you learn that?”

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He smirks, a low snort of amusement rumbling from the sovereign's nose when Léonie expresses her concern for his intentions. "Only if you're bad," he teases with a little glint of his teeth, though his humor fades quickly enough for a tidbit of necessary information. "Never eat the cactus. Prey animals are accustomed to it, but we are not." And whilst there is a plentiful liquid hidden beneath the spiky green thorns, it comes with a catch, and one that could leave a lion ill for days. "An old friend," he answers somewhat ambiguously, tilting his head idly at the somewhat comical state of his daughter. "No one you know," Seneca clarifies with a shrug, hoping that it is enough to sate the girl's curiosity. "If we are lucky, the cacti will tide us over until the rain comes." And if not? Well, he'd rather not consider the alternative.

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Only if she was bad, he joked. Luckily, Léonie was an angel, totally sweet and innocent. Of course, she nodded when he cautioned to never eat the cactus, because duh. The needles were a very effective deterrent, and she was not desperate enough for a drink to bother trying.

“‘Old’, huh?” she teased her dad, as children often did. The patriarch was in his prime, but that mattered little to Léonie, who enjoyed poking fun. She continued to roll the fruit in her mouth, transferring it from one cheek to the other and gradually wearing it down with her teeth. She was savoring it, careful to squeeze every ounce of juice from its skin while she listened to her dad say that the fruit would hopefully be enough to see them through the drought.

Swallowing the pulp down, the youth finished her snack with a lick of her muzzle. “I think we’re doing better than some of the other prides,” she remarked. “The eastern territories are struggling a bit from what I’ve seen.” Léonie could’ve explained in detail what she’d witnessed, but she waited to see if her dad would ask for it, or comment that he’d already heard — meaning her information was useless to him.

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"Not too old to put you in your place, dear daughter," he quips back, amusement glinting in his eyes and flashing across the length of his face. If circumstances were not so dire, energy so needing to be preserved, he might have engaged her in a tussle to prove his point. As it is, his threats will remain empty for now. Léonie, then, offers an inkling of information he does not have, and a brow quirks. "Oh?" he hums with a slight tilt of his head, studying her curiously. "What have you seen?" Seneca has been a slave to Andal, as always, and the woes of the rest of Amaryllis are not his problem. He has enough to think about here.

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