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Kovu awoke from a deep slumber to an overweight female prodding him in the back with a paw. "...Kovu?" she asked unsurely and jabbed him again.

Kovu rolled over lazily, flattening more grass under him. He groaned burry eyed and looked up at Mipa who stood over him. His pupils narrowed to slits; the sun was still shining brightly. "W-hy're we gettin' up now?" he slurred. Normally he wasn't this groggy, but in the last night he'd run across a desert, tore through a jungle, broke free of a snare and had to subdue lioness who outweighed him by perhaps as much as 50%.

"I can't see my traps as well at night." said Mipa, already turning. "Now hurry up or I won't be able to check them all."

Kovu was almost tempted to tell the lioness to go check her devil contraptions by herself, but he caught the hesitant glint in her eye as well as the twist in her words. She wasn't about to let him out of her sight. She still didn't trust him. So, with a grunt, Kovu lifted himself up and followed the rather chubby lioness as she lead the way back down the side of the mountain.

"Hold this, Kovu." said Mipa.

Kovu rounded the trunk of a wide tree to see the rotund lion with her paws placed together on the ground before her. When he got closer he saw that she was holding down some sort of vine. Lifting an eyebrow, Kovu moved next to her, copying the gesture. "Like this?"

"No, other side. That's where the tension is." said Mipa in a businesslike tone.

Befuddled, Kovu nevertheless did as she bid. With his paws down, Mipa got up and energetically trotted away to inspect something near the trunk of the tree he just past. "Mipa, what is this f-"

"Don't let go of that rope!" shouted the lioness.

As soon as Kovu had let up, the rope had begun to pull away past his paws. Overhead, he saw a large weight move, a concealed rock hoisted into the canopy and supported by more woven cord. Immediately, he put his weight back down and the rock stopped moving. It seemed fascinating that the large weight was somehow connected to the little rope he held in his paws.

Mipa was not amused by Kovu's lack of prescience. She tied something off quickly using a dexterity in her forepaws that was admirable. Growling softly, she trotted over and took the rope from Kovu. "Normally I'd tie this off before making adjustments. I just thought that since you were tagging along, you'd make yourself useful..."

Kovu's eyes widened. Not so much from the scolding, but from seeing Mipa like this. All of a sudden she was quite knowledgeable and sure of herself, officious even. And he had no idea on Earth what she was doing with these vines and these knots and loops and twigs. "This is another sort of trap I suppose..." he ventured.

"Yes." Mipa breathed. She held the rope in her mouth and tugged it down to another tree so that it bisected the game trail they were currently standing in. She grunted with the effort it took to lift the rock high above.

"Can I help you with-" started Kovu.

"Go' i'" Mipa mumbled, bringing the rope to the other tree. There she tied and adjusted it. Kovu observed how she made it so that the rope was strung tightly just a little above ankle level across the trail; about knee level for a warthog. She breathed a sigh of relief when it was done, sitting back on her haunches. She plucked the rope with a single claw; it went *twang*

"This one's all set again, although the stone cradle is starting to look rotted, I'll have to make a new one." Mipa explained, half to herself. Kovu got the feeling that she spoke aloud to herself often.

The dark maned lion had had enough. He'd been polite so far, but Mipa acted as if he knew exactly what she was doing and why or that it was so obvious that it didn't need an explanation. He went to her and put a paw on her shoulder to keep her from getting up.

She flinched again, looking at him with wide eyes, her lips a tight line.

Kovu chuffed and took a seat beside her. Mipa, will you please tell me what's going on? What are we doing?"

"Well... we're checking the traps." She said, obviously confused as to the nature of his question.

"I get that much, but why are there traps in the first place? Why do you build these things?"

She snorted in amusement, "Well, to hunt of course."

Kovu's mouth hung slightly agape. Hunting was a very specific, sacrosanct aspect of a lion's life. It was a serious matter, literally taking life and death in your hands (both for yourself and your prey) and it was also a passion. Plus racing, blood roaring in your ears, paws darting lightly over the surface of the earth, the rich spray of blood, the last struggles of a living being in your jaws as you choke or bleed the life out of it... so it can be your own. That was hunting. This... This seemed more like homework.

Dumfounded as he was, Kovu stuttered, "I-I still don't understand."

Mipa sighed raggedly and rolled her eyes. She seemed in danger of piling Kovu again into the category of lions who'd tormented her in the past.

He spoke quickly, "Maybe I'd understand better if you told me when you started doing this."

Mipa breathed out a sigh and looked at Kovu, her shoulder relaxing. "Well, to be honest, it's hard to remember it seems like I've always been building traps and hunting this way."

Again, that word, "hunting" Didn't Mipa know the thrill of chasing down a breathing, snorting animal, snuffing it's life with your claws and teeth? Honoring it's sacrifice as death embraced it, you its usher? Kovu tried to be openminded, keeping his opinions to himself for now. "Do you remember the first time you build a trap?"

Now she smiled. Kovu liked it when she smiled, he liked seeing her thick cheeks dimple. "I was young, really young." she said. "I must have been a little different right from the start. When my siblings and littermates were all out wrestling with each other and mock hunting, I was usually in the grass, looking at bugs and stacking rocks and twigs into little sculptures. I didn't like to play rough, you see and I cried whenever they knocked down what I was building." Mipa's eyes were glossy, distant. Her whiskered twitched and she continued, "One day, I went out to see something that I'd piled together out of rocks and stick and saw that it'd fallen down. I was picking it apart, but as I did, I saw that a mouse was trapped inside those sticks and rocks. How it twisted and squirmed! It was marvelous." Mipa breathed another sigh. "I ate the mouse and it was delicious. And better yet, I'd caught something before any of my brothers or sisters had managed to catch anything bigger than a grasshopper. I told my mother, but she didn't believe me. She just told me to go on and play with the other cubs like a normal girl." Mipa changed her pitch, her voice becoming sharp. "But I didn't I tried to catch a mouse again. I tried and tried, so many different ways, but I finally figured out how to make a simple box trap. After that, I could have mice pretty much any time I wanted. But did anyone care? No, and by that time, my mom was showing me off to the Alpha male, trying to buy more status for herself with me. I didn't want anything to do with him. The lout couldn't even be bothered to remember my name!"

Mipa closed her mouth with a click of teeth slamming together. Kovu guessed that she'd said more than she meant to. Kovu had been brought up with cuffs, scuffles and hunger. Respect was something that you had to take for yourself. Signs of awkwardness or weakness were preyed upon instantly back home. Kovu felt that Mipa was weak, she complained about how others were treating her, but she didn't talk much about what she did to change that! Still, Kovu felt that she deserved better than endless exile. The problem was that no one but her was capable of making a better future. There'd be time to address that later though... Kovu was determined to start out his new life helping people. And Mipa clearly needed help.

After a time of silence, Kovu rose and Mipa as well. The male lion could hear Mipa's spine creak a bit as she got up. Kovu let the lioness begin leading the way to the next trap. "So, these trap things work well then? You're able to support yourself without chasing anything?"

Mipa chuckled. She paused and turned to the side a bit. Reaching up with a paw she stroked and then patted her curved, distended flank. "If anything it works too well!" She laughed. Then she frowned and let out a breath, her paw continued rubbing up and down her swollen tummy, "I... I've put on a lot of weight since coming here; I can see that now." She shook her head and then started padding forward again. It was a few minutes before she spoke again. "At first it seemed like a good thing, despite all the teasing back home. It meant that my way worked better... but... well..." She hesitated, but seemed more comfortable talking with him following behind her. "You can see I've gone all doughy."

Kovu shrugged to himself. "Doughy" was putting it mildly in his opinion. The lioness literally waddled. With her woven cloak now in tatters, he could see the way her flanks bounced and wobbled with each step. He should say something.