It's cloudy, a little humid and the air was cloying past a pelt that had yet to shed to summer suitability. Leila seeks the shade of the tall, red-earth mountains and cliffs as she pads through the badlands. She felt much more suited to forest living, admittedly, but she had so wanted to see what the big stony towers were made of.

Now entering the afternoon blue shade, she could get a better look at the smooth, marbled rock. Streaks of gold and black ran through it like a sunset on the horizon, like tiger stripes. With a soft wind buffeting her striped back bringing much-needed relief from the humidity, Leila drops to sit in the cool sand. She craned back her head to see if she could see the very top of the rugged mountains, but found the sun too bright to make out any detail.

— for Hector @Poe

There isn't much left for Hector to explore nowadays. He spends so much of his time out and about that it seems all his wanderlust has been sated, or maybe he's simply just bored of Amaryllis as a whole. It's a finite piece of land nonsensically tossed into the middle of an ocean, stuck onto the mainland like a hangnail. He isn't sure why anyone chooses to stay sequestered on the plot of dirt when there is a vast world beyond, but then he reminds himself that he has chosen to stick around as well and his judgment quickly dries up. Somewhat, anyway. There is always the underlying threat of Hector being a judgemental asshole, and besides, who is there to stop him from being just that?

Another goddamn tiger, that's who.

His jaw drops when he sees the woman, her physique an anomaly among the lions. She isn't one of the smelly, hairy-necked beasts at all – no, she's the downright most beautiful thing he's seen since his mother's passing. Hector pauses in his stupor, a bit dumbfounded, and simply stares like a fool as he tries to come to terms with the fact he's finally found another one of his kind.

Leila lowered her head to shake away the bright spots that danced in her vision. In the shadow of the tall stone towers, it was hard to see anything until her eyes adjusted once again. She expected to see the same sun-burnt landscape of sand, stone and scrub trees hanging in there, and mostly she did. There was the trail of paw prints she had left, destined to be eroded by the warm wind, the same lizard sunning itself on a rock.

The sound of paws on packed sand prematurely dragged her gaze to the left and she is just as shocked to see another tiger as the startled-looking creature peering at her. Leila rose to her paws with nervously flattened ears. "I'm sorry!" she blurted out, "Is this your territory? I didn't realise!" Since leaving her mother and sisters, every single (but admittedly rare) encounter with their kind had ended poorly and she had quickly learnt to be wary.

@Hector

It's inappropriate to stare and he knows that, but he can't help it; or maybe he doesn't want to. Hector only knows that she's a tigress, she's standing in front of him, she's very small, and additionally, she's a tigress. One of his kind. One of his own. He's not the emotional sort (yes he is), but he thinks this might bring tears to his eyes if he's not careful. Fortunately, she doesn't rush to him and throw her arms around his neck and make things even sappier. No, she seems almost just as shocked as him – and a bit timid, actually.

Is this his territory? Hector has to pause and look around, forgetting where they even were. He doesn't have a home, though, and quickly shakes his head. No, no, not at all. I just haven't met another tiger here before and I was beginning to think I was the only one." Raised by wolves, so to speak, Hector had given up hope of reuniting with his own species. I'm Hector and it is so good to meet you, miss..? he dips his muzzle, hoping she's not too put off to give him her name.

@Leila

Now Leila was able to get a better look at him, she realised he was younger, despite having a good couple paws of height above her. He was unlike the orange and black striped tigers she had met in her travels, with a pelt like snow. His stripes though, were unmistakably tiger. Well, that was about the level of eye-contact she could manage for one day. Leila has a brief moment of paw-staring to soothe herself before the pale tiger's quick explanation changes her perspective of the situation.

Wait, this wasn't his territory? So the staring wasn't a sort of 'gtfo my lawn'. Leila's shoulders sag in relief, tension filtering from her body. "Oh." she says, blinking. "I thought you were here to chase me out." She doesn't really want to dash his expectations of their species if this was truly his first time meeting another tiger, but in her experience they were not the chatty or the patient sort.

"I'm Leila." she answered finally with a twitch of her whiskers, "It's good to meet you too, @Hector. Have you really never met another tiger before?" That alone is very interesting to her - though she was quite curious about him too.

Seeing her makes him wonder about Kian. He hasn't been to see his friend(?) since Ghyslaine had informed them they were leaving, and now he considers whether or not the lion is aware of how his father oh-so-gingerly booted them all out. Hector has never liked the man and the way he thinks tigers are beneath him, especially considering the king himself has proven time and time again to have the brain capacity of a dead seal. His son, though, is okay. He wonders if Kian has even noticed his absence, then he wonders why he cares.

"Not at all!" Even if he could chase her out, would he? Probably not. He's too interested in her story to simply shoo her on like she's a nobody when, in fact, she is very much a somebody to him. Hector cocks his head off to the side as he studies her, waiting for the moment when she dissipates and proves to be nothing more than a figment of his imagination. She remains. She even asks a follow up question. "Not since my mom died, no. I was barely six months old at the time." He shrugs. "It's nice to know there's more of us out there stuck living with lions."

@Leila

It was different and new and interesting to have such a positive interaction with another tiger, and Leila was a fan of it. This was how she'd hoped her tenative approaches would go when she was @Hector's age, and the thought of that made her only more determined to be friendly, even if it was not always her gut instinct.

"Sorry about you mom." she echoed because it felt like the polite thing to say. Leila wasn't sure if her own mother was alive, admittedly. She wasn't sure she cared. "So wait, were you by yourself that whole time?" Leila had only struck out by herself around Hector's age now, if she was guessing right. And that hadn't been because she had wanted to - Mother had firmly said she couldn't stay purely because the small patch of forest couldn't sustain four grown tigresses. Back then she had been bitter, wishing her sisters would just leave so Leila could stay a little while longer in the safety of home.

The mention of lions made her nose crinkle in amusement. "Lions are a bit weird, aren't they. I don't understand them yet." Leila dips her head consipiringly. She hadn't realised how badly she had wanted to confide with someone about it until now! After all, you couldn't just say that to a lion...

He's used to condolences about his mom. Not that folks often gave them to him, but that he had become so numb to her death that he didn't really bat an eye whenever it was brought up. Sure, it would have been nice if he was able to just completely forget it all, but life was life and the memory of his mother is not something he will ever forget. S'fine, he replies with a hesitant smile.

No, a lioness took me in. I lived in a pride until recently and apparently something happened and we got kicked out? I dunno, I barely slept there anyway. I don't get the need to sleep in a group. It isn't his style. Hector is a man of solitude, a lone wolf emo boy from every anime.

Hector grinned. They're so weird, and imagine needing others to hunt for food? Like damn, can't you all take care of yourselves or do you suck at hunting so badly you can't do it on your own? He laughed, happy to share in the liony shit talk.

Leila was not so wise that she felt confident taking @Hector at his word, but she dropped the topic all the same. She didn’t blame him. Talking about her blood family was one of the last things she’d want to do either. Her sisters had always kind of been bitches.

Her ears cupped forward with interest as the pale tiger went on to explain his experiences, her brows quirked with mild surprise. ”They can just kick you out?” she said dismayed, wondering if that would happen to her. It’d be quite disruptive, she was after all, only just starting to settle in at the bluffs.

”I understand though.” she mused, ”I like my personal space.” She had only slept close to others when she had been very young - bundled up with her mother and sisters. It had been years since then, but the memory dips forward, fleeting and warm. One of the few rosy-glassed ones of her kin she had.

But kindred spirits they were and Leila was starting to relax, muzzle twitching into a smile. ”Right!” she huffed, ”If I can take down something literally two times as big as me all by myself, why do they need to hunt in a group? Especially the big guys with manes. I bet they could take down a water buffalo easy all by themselves if they didn’t like to nap as much!” She liked hunting, her demeanour immediately changing to engaged and open as the topic had shifted. She shook her striped head exasperatedly ”I don’t get them sometimes.”