A Feast to Remember

((February 27th. Nuka and Scruffy))

Scruffy had walked away like she was leaving the scene of the crime without a worry or care for any consequences that were to come after. And there would be no consequences. She had grown up in these lands and they were only favorable to the strong. This was something that had never changed, and even during her time away had still not changed. It was unforgiving to the weak, a lesson Dotty had learned time and time again, but a harsh one that had quickly become an evident reality as far as her child went. Nia, the daughter of Nuka and a grandaughter to the queen. The very same queen who had coldly watched Scruffy murder. Zira was the same a she had always remembered, so if Dotty had thought Scruffy wouldn't simply get away with her 'crime' then she didn't know Zira nearly as well as Scruffy did.

The great beast was merely allowed to walk away with the corpse of the child in her maw. Though she had been growing, in Scruffy's maw she was nothing but a tiny morsel. Though not even morsels would be wasted. Not by someone like Scruffy who grew up in lands where food was scarce and sought after. Something as silly as morals and standards would not keep her from eating, especially not after she had just finished her journey to return here.

The lioness lowered the small body of the cub to the earth near the base of a termite mound, dragging it a small distance before her frame too lowered. The limp creature sat between her massive pillar like legs, paws encasing the tiny body. So weak, so much like her parents. Too much like her parents. If it wasn't Scruffy then it would have been someone else. That much the lioness was sure of, but this thought wasn't in any sort of remorse. With her maw and paws bathed in the blood of the creature, how could it be?

The monster lowered her neck, jaws closing around the mid of the small child before she gnawed on it and released a chunk, swallowing it back with a grunt. The blood had cooled, but it was still warm enough having come from the center. Most of the fluids had been drained across the outlands after she'd walked her catch in a bit. Who could say what fool would follow it in after her? The results would be a grim find.

Rustling, shrieking, cries of terror. Nuka awoke to those. He had to stop sleeping, he thought to himself, he was missing everything. He arose, stretching first his spine then his legs after hearing his morbid alarm clock. Those voices were far enough away that Nuka didn’t recognize who they belonged to. He opened his mouth in a combination roar-yawn before cracking his spine once again. He lept off the ledge where he’d been sleeping and headed in the direction of the screams.

His hair stood on end. His golden and crimson eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

The hulking mass of a creature that walked by him…Scruffy…she was ALIVE?!

Nuka gasped and watched as she carried a little brown frame of flesh and blood in her mouth. He quietly followed her in an almost cartoon-like manner, ducking behind rocks and prickly bushes to see if what he was seeing was real. He’d seen her die! He’d seen her break down! What was…

…what was she eating?

His eyes grew larger. He couldn’t believe it. She was…eating…a cub. And not just ANY cub. “…Nia?” His mouth quivered as he watched the flesh be stripped from her bones. There was no running towards the shape. He just shuffled forward, mouth wide open as if he was trying to catch flies. He collapsed his rear on the ground almost a few feet from her. He just stared, saying nothing, mouth agape.

The great brute snorted, a tongue running over the front of her maw as she tilted her gaze upwards after hearing a voice. It was one word, timid and quiet against the darkness that they sat in. But enough to bring Scruffy's attention from her morsel that she was tearing apart piece by piece. The bones on the child's ribs were protruding, now that Scruffy had ripped clean into her guts. Crimson eyes, bright and sharp looked upon the lion who had approached. It was Nuka, looking ragged as ever. A moment of silence as the monster straightened her neck upwards and squinted, sneering at the young male with scrutiny. And then she finally spoke.

"Will I have to kill you too?" she pondered dully, "Will the father want to play hero as badly as dear mother did?" she rumbled in the most brutally thoughtful way she could. Callous creature held no remorse for what she had done even in the face of Nuka who seemed to be numb to what he was witnessing.

"Perhaps you'd like to hear what happened..." she suggested. Though it didn't sound although Scruffy was going to kindly recall the story play by play for Nuka to bring him closure. Bringing a massive paw up, she turned it over and ran her tongue along the pad. It had been holding Nia in place while she gnawed on her, so the blood was slick there. Although why she was bothering to clean at all at the present remained a mystery, there was already such a mess.

“…no…thank you…”

Dear mother? Oh now this one was completely Dotty’s fault, wasn’t it? It was true. Nia had never really liked him, not since Mauko’s death at least. But still seeing one of his remaining two cubs ripped apart like a small gazelle at the jaws of a monster because her mother did something to piss it off…rage filled his chest but not at Scruffy. This was a beast of pure instinct. Dotty had more sense! Didn’t she?

His shoulders slumped as he watched her eat his cub.

“What did she do?” As if it was somehow Nia’s fault…

She grunted in response to Nuka's lack of enthusiasm, as if he should be excited to be killed. She leaned down, tearing another piece from the bones of her meal, chucking it back and swallowing gruffly as Nuka asked his next question. She sneered, rolling her eyes. What did she do? It's what she didn't do- she didn't play it smart, she didn't leave when she should have. She prodded the beast is what she did.

"Dotty." she almost spat the name in the dullest way. Considering Scruffy had contempt and annoyance to everyone, it really came as no surprise that Dotty was hardly any more interesting to her than the average lion crossing her path. Dotty just provoked her more, every bad thing that had happened to Dotty regarding Scruffy had happened because she didn't know when to keep quiet.

"Thought she'd come over and chat..." she began, obviously referring to that Scruffy had just returned and had been greeted by Dotty of all people, "Little idiot. Thinks we have some kind of rivalry, but rivalry implies that there's an equality. Which we don't have..." those red eyes turned darker, staring down Nuka as if to remind him that he too was beneath her. Last time they spoke, Nuka showed an alarming amount of interest in Scruffy, an interest that was highly misplaced.

"She thought she'd talk down to me." Scruffy summed up. Yeah, Dotty had done a hell of a job welcoming Scruffy back into the outlands. In in return, Scruffy's arrival had been greeted with instant death. How fitting.

"May want to talk to the fool if you want that last child to survive." she growled lowly. Although it wouldn't be mistaken that this was out of any real concern for Nuka's children. It was a threat. A reminder that Scruffy knew one last morsel of his offspring with Dotty remained.

“Advice taken.” Oh he’d have a word with Dotty. This time she couldn’t call him cruel for saying it was her fault. This time? This time it WAS her fault. His ears flicked forward, his claws digging on the dirt. This was the only thing that signified his anger. He’d lost another cub. ANOTHER one. Killed by another outlander lion.

Everyone should know not to poke at you at this point.” His voice was solid, devoid of any emotion. Gruff, raspy. He looked away from the female as she chewed on his daughter’s body. No. His daughter she was no longer. Now she was just a meal. A slab of meat with his eyes.

“Where…were…you?” The monster, this shape, she was dead before. He’d seen it. She’d just…given up. Too much power packed in the thick frame. How was she alive?

Scruffy snorted deeply. If that was an agreement or a queue for Nuka to piss off and leave her with her the slab of flesh she had remaining though it was impossible to leave. The stare she gave him, void of anything but annoyance as it often was, should prove as something almost nostalgic. It was certainly the same as it always was; creased brow in a heavy scowl, maw wrinkled as if threatening to pull her lips back and bare her threatening ivories at any second, jowls twitched downwards in utter disapproval at everything she laid eyes on. But oh those eyes. Glowing orange with that spine shivering red center. It wasn't even the color so much as it was the way they slightly squinted that made one feel although they'd screwed up just by looking at her.

"Where was I..." she grunted back. It was the equivalent of her mimicking him without a childish whiny tone. It was growled back, her vocals deeper than his only because of her rasp despite also having a feminine ring. But it was rough.

"After your failure of an escapade and lack of construction in this army," she gave a gesture to around where they stood with a rear of her head, "I went rogue. Simple as that. Didn't die, but made you believe I was. Rogue life has its' perks but this place offers more battle." she admitted. And that's what it had always been about, hadn't it? The good battle.

"Daddy took you back though, did he?" Scruffy growled. She was of course referring to Nuka's rebellion ending. She was of course not asking out of any real interest for how it ended, but probably more to rub it in his face. She'd joined him under the impression that there would be much bloodshed, but instead had been greeted with the whining of Dotty and the persistence of Nuka looking for a queen.

Perhaps things would have ended differently if Scruffy had stayed. She had no qualms with what had happened though.

Devoid of emotion. That’s what those eyes said as they stared back at him. The thick lioness didn’t care about anything. ANYTHING. His ears folded back, his jaw slack as he watched her and listened to her tell her story. She went rogue? Was she even smart enough to go rogue? Scruffy always had someone holding the leash. But he wouldn’t speak his thoughts. Unless he truly wanted to join Mauko and Nia.

"Daddy took you back though, did he?"

His chest rose and fell. “Yes,” he breathed, “Yes. He did. Willingly.” He didn’t say anything else. He could have explained what happened. “But I doubt you truly care why,” he added softly, scooting back in case Scruffy felt the remark was too snarky.

Scruffy fixed Nuka with a side glare as she leaned down and ripped another piece from the corpse. The pieces were getting fewer and fewer with each savage grip and pull. The blood pool had slowed, as the contents draining from the little body had begun to finally empty, or at least disperse into the dry earth. It was the tax of the outlands, demanding blood from the innocent and soaking it up as it desired. And Scruffy was the deliverer.

She grunted as Nuka threw what he seemed to believe was attitude her way. She chuckled as she went to down another piece of Nia.

"No-" she swallowed with a harsh laugh, "You're right. I don't." she admitted, followed by a deadly glare that advised him to choose his words differently. Perhaps he thought he was safe so long as she looked busy with Nia, but Nuka would find that not to be true if he continued. Scooting his rear back a small distance didn't make much of a difference. By the time he'd up and turn she'd be on his tail faster than he could snarl.

Keep this up, and she'd have the blood of the whole family on her paws. How tantalizing.

"I always find it interesting..." she remarked, red eyes turning down on the corpse darkly. It hardly looked like Nia anymore at this point, mangled and deranged, "Just how much blood pulses through these veins. Such a small thing and yet, she's covered half the outlands." Scruffy rasped, although she were truly a philosophical wonder. Though the grin she bore said she didn't think anything of the sort.

The amount of blood was truly alarming though.

He shuddered. This thing wasn’t a lion. It was a hulking monster of hell. Something the devil himself molded from clay and set loose on the world. No human with a gun, no trap of man could compare to this cannibal. And what did she do as he spat at her? She laughed.

He nodded as if he understood. If he was going to die it wouldn’t be because of her. He’d kill himself before he let himself become Scruffy’s meal. So he just said nothing as she offered her little philosophical speech. He offered a sheepish swallow. “Must have just been passionate about life…I guess…”

His eyes narrowed. “You know where her bitch mother went?” He asked coldly.

If Scruffy picked up on Nuka's absolute disgust of her in any way she certainly didn't show it. Instead she just continued to gnaw on the remains of Nia's body. A splitting moment in which one of the corpse's bones was snapped by the pull between her jaws and paws. The great beast snorted, leaning back up and licking some blood from her maw with her rough tongue. It did little to no good actually cleansing her fur though.

She returned her gaze to Nuka at his last question though, single brow cocked in mild interest. Perhaps it was the harsh words, or the callous way in which he spoke them. Had Nuka grown a pair? Not likely.

"How should I know..." she growled with a steady rumble. Her giantess form shuddered as she stretched her massive frontal limbs over the carcass of Nia. "Some pale little brawd leaped out from no-where... Whispered some sweet things and ushered her off..." Scruffy shrugged.

The silver lioness was of no interest to Scruffy, but the way in which she'd soothed Dotty and managed to convince her to turn tail and leave was commendable. Dotty was so stubborn and stupid it was a wonder anyone could talk her out of putting herself in more danger.

"What are you going to do? Beat some sense into her?" she chuckled dryly "Just like daddy would?"