Gemma took the time to leisurely stroll out of the meeting area with an intent to meet up with the High Sovereign. She recognized even before she said a word in his meeting that her style wasn't easily understood. Gemma was not someone who did things by the book and often went about things the wrong way. Crossing into someone's territory even with the reasons that she had? Not smart but as had been briefly touched upon, the Rainforest was a pride she had wanted to join for a while now and kept missing the mark. This was her way of putting herself in the middle and taking charge.

So once she was an ample distance away from the grounds by which everyone had seated themselves within, she took a seat. One that was cautious of her boundaries and borders, keeping herself tight as her tail swept around her hind leg as she waited for @Roan to be done with whomever he needed to talk to before coming to her. He was a busy male, surely, and would have plenty of folks to say things to before he left and as of this moment she was nothing but a peasant. So whenever he had time for her, she would be here waiting.

_{© LARS}

Now that all was said and done, Roan walked away from the meeting as the newest High Sovereign of Firnen Rainforest. He instantly felt different, but was it a good feeling? While there were several names at the top of the mauve lion's list on who he needed talk to both in and outside of the pride, he knew he had the speckled lioness waiting for him as well. It would make no sense to keep her waiting while he wandered off to other prides or set out in search of those he knew were still rogues. No, the Satoshi was right here, so he might as well have that chat with her first before anything else.

The appaloosa's scent brought Roan just a little ways away from the meeting area. Truth be told, the mauve lion wasn't even thinking much about just how the spotted woman had infiltrated the pride meeting. It wasn't like she was the only rogue to show up either, and the Hodari didn't even know everyone who lived here in the first place, so why wouldn't he expect unfamiliar faces? Had she not stepped forward with her intentions to join, he may not have even noticed her rogue scent among the rest of the group. With a chuff, he called to her as the socked lion made his way through the foliage, stopping just a few feet from the woman. "So... Miss Gemma," the masked lion started off awkwardly. Did he really need a whole conversation just to ask her about her Satoshi heritage? Eh, maybe he'd learn a little more than just that. "You're a Satoshi?" There was obvious recognition surrounding the name, not that he could put much reason to it yet.

@Gemma

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Seeing as she had wandered away from the meeting only a minute or two prior to the High Sovereign's, he made it to her swiftly. Barely enough time to take a seat but she managed to plant it anyways, eagerly watching the mauve male settle himself in front of her as her name dripped. At least he hadn't forgotten that just yet. That was a good sign!

Even so, he seemed even more interested in her last name which was quite surprising given that rarely anyone knew the name anymore. It caused her brows to furrow and her lip to pull up as though wondering what he knew and how he knew. I am... she trailed off, wondering if @Roan knew the name of Satoshi by good means or bad because it really could go one way or the other. What does the name mean to you, if you don't mind my asking? Even when she had lived in her last pride, no one had found any relation to this name and yet she had stumbled across one that seemed to recognized it. Oh no, what had her brother done? came to mind.

_{© LARS}

Roan allowed his haunches to fold beneath him as he leaned his weight back in a relaxed manner. The name hardly meant a thing to him, if he was being honest, but there was recognition all the same. While watching the spotted woman carefully, the Hodari couldn't help but notice her reaction to his recalling her name. She had every right to question his reasoning for zeroing in on her surname, and, thankfully, the mauve lion had nothing to hide. "Uh, not much..." the High Sovereign began honestly, almost awkwardly. "I just, um, I think I have some Satoshi family or something..... somewhere." Having never met his two Satoshi aunt, Roan struggled a little to think about his family tree on the Hodari side. It was sometimes easier to remember the Tolkien when he grew up around them, but for the longest time, his father was the only link he had to the Hodari side of things. "Aunts... I think. Never met 'em, though." With his father and aunt being his grandmother's youngest children, Roan wondered if the Satoshi aunts were even still alive at this point. Would @Gemma even know them? Know of them?

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While she was content to have the last name of Satoshi and to give it out where necessary, she wasn't quite as well-versed in the history. Not as interested in their past as her brother usually was and it was him who had more information on it. Gemma just never remembered names very well. Oh? Eyes lit up in wild surprise that he mentioned potentially being linked to some Satoshi's down the line. I'll be honest with you, my knowledge of family is limited. My brother, Dravite, he's the one who knows them pretty well. I only got two Aunts, which are Annabelle and Adaline. Strangely enough, Gemma had uncles galore and very few females to speak of. It was when it came down to the males within the family that she found her distaste. Jakobe and Rancor, if she remembered correctly, that left a bad taste. It was him who didn't like who diluted their bloodline had become and she was the perfect example of everything he hated. Spots of all kinds, different colors blending together, wild looks, etc but Gemma loved herself all the more for it. Was that why she was accepted? Because her name meant something? Surely not. I can't say I remember a whole lot of female Satoshi's. At least @Roan was nice enough to have let her join at all. A part of her was a little disappointed that someone knew some fraction about her already but it didn't seem he knew enough to truly weigh her down.

_{© LARS}

Did her surname really make any difference to the mauve king? Not really. It was just something he recognized and thus had gleaned his interest. It might have meant more if his father was around or someone who actually knew the family that he questioned for. Ademt... there. That's who it might matter to, since he had actually seen the aunts grow up in the old lands.

When Gemma started off about her lack of knowledge about the Satoshi, Roan was already not expecting much. Again, not that it changed anything if she actually knew the aunts in question or not, the Hodari just didn't want to get his hopes up on anything. Little would he anticipate that the only names the appaloosa remembered were the exact names he was looking for. "That's them!" the sovereign exclaimed in recognition as his minty gaze shot wide. "Annabelle and Adeline Satoshi-Hodari. At least.... that's how they were born. I don't know if they ever dropped the Hodari side of things." He supposed they must have if @Gemma hadn't been asking him the very same questions regarding his own last name. "Their dad was... uh... Dev-something?" Roan couldn't even pretend to know that much about his grandmother's former mates, or whatever Devante had been to her. Much like Dravite was better equipped with the Satoshi family history, so too was Dero instead of Roan. It didn't help that both sides of the masked lion's family were rather extensive, and thus hard to manage when trying to remember it all.

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The sudden lightbulb that went off in Gemma's own brain was electrifying. The name of Hodari traveling at light speed through several different courses until finally something clicked and he realized that his Aunts did have the last name of Hodari along with the Satoshi name. It's been several years since I've seen them. I'm not sure what they go by. Dravite had been the last to see them, she thinks, as he went with Anyway to see family at some point in their travels. The question that Gemma couldn't think to answer herself was if they were now related, miraculously, then what did that make @Roan to her? A cousin? Devante. My great grandfather. Last she had seen him had been in the great tree of old along with Jakobe. I guess this makes us cousins... or something? Gemma had wanted to come to the Rainforest but she had never realized that she would actually find some semblance of family here. Actually, she was surprised that any family existed in Amaryllis outside of her brother. Not that she wasn't appreciative, of course, just quite surprised.

_{© LARS}

Roan just smirked to himself when @Gemma went on. Several years? Frankly, the mauve lion wondered if they were even still alive. They were supposed to be several years older than his father, he thought, so they'd be pretty old by now, maybe? It was hard to remember things about lions he had never met in the first place. Either way, it was nice to just hear anything about family he had in far away places. It made it seem like the Hodari were something larger than just his immediate family.

A shrug was all he could offer in regards to whatever his aunts might go by in their last name usage. It didn't really matter anyway if they weren't around Amaryllis. At the name Devante, though, another spark of recognition occurred, though not nearly as powerful as it had been to hear his aunts' names. "Yeah, that sounds right. He and my grandmother, Kito, were their parents," the king would go on to elaborate the connection. Did that make him and Gemma related, though? No, not really. They were just both related to Annabelle and Adeline, but not to each other. Roan thought over the question for a moment, mentally tracing the family tree before coming to the logical conclusion. "Nah, I'm not related to the Satoshi through blood, just to my aunts through the Hodari side. You and me? We're not related," he offered the information, but in the most respectful manner possible. "Not unless you wanna be," said with a toothy snicker. Roan couldn't help to tease the offer. Was she looking for more family?

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To Gemma, she saw it that they were very distantly related. Not close but through some twists and turns they were somehow connected and that was about as good as it got sometimes in the Satoshi family. In a way, Gemma felt a little sorry that @Roan was suddenly in the midst of all this Satoshi nonsense and hoped that none of them had ever really engaged with outside of their shared Aunts. Kito rang a far distant bell and she remembered her quite vaguely; stories, more or less, as she had never met the maned lioness. To the gray and white woman, they were considered relate even if it was a far reach but she wasn't going to pressure him into suddenly adopting a new cousin. Nah. I'm pretty full on family. Also said in the most respectful manner possible; she didn't exactly seek to please anyone by being anything less than herself. At least by being here in the Rainforest now, it was a little less of a random pick and she had an even better reason for choosing it.

_{© LARS}

He'd take no offense on being declined in adopting the term cousins for one another. "Fair enough. I've already got like a dozen siblings as it is, probably too many unknown cousins out there to even count anyway," the king would chuckle in good humor. In that case, though, what would one more cousin hurt anything? It would hurt absolutely nothing, but like @Gemma, Roan wasn't interested in pushing anything. He had only just met the appaloosa woman in the first place, and knew next to nothing about her as a lioness aside from her name and family connection. If he ever took non-blood related lions into his 'family circle,' it was always for a good reason and with a good relationship created. Maybe down the line, they might get to that point, where cousins wouldn't be such a weird thing to consider, but for now, the Hodari would settle for pridemates.

So now what? Was that all the king wanted to know was about her connection to the Satoshi, or did he want to know more about the fresh new recruit? "So, now that that's all cleared up," he'd refer to the Satoshi connection. "I should probably tell you about the pride a bit since that wasn't exactly a pride meeting geared on recruiting." Roan had basically just taken in a complete stranger without even asking her any questions that might allow him to evaluate Gemma's value to Firnen as a whole. In the same breath, she didn't know anything about the pride's rules or expectations. That probably wouldn't bode well for a new recruit if she didn't know what to do around the pride.

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