Post by Adetukunbo on Jul 6, 2009 20:39:39 GMT -5
Name: Adetukunbo
Meaning: "the crown came from over the sea" in Yoruba.
Parents: Emeka x Yejide
Siblings: Ondile, Atieno, Zuri
Half-Siblings: Lerato, Kirabo
Species: African Lion
Gender: Female
Age: Adult
Description: Adetukunbo is average in height and weight for a lioness, evenly muscled for a huntress who has spent time chasing after and helping to pull down countless prey beasts. Legs are thick and somewhat stocky, ending in large paws full of black claws that are usually sheathed. She has a rounded face and a relatively short muzzle framed by light whiskers.
Her coat is dark, tan with the tips touched with shades of darker brown. A lighter cream splashes against muzzle and throat, spills down her chest and onto her belly. Belly fur is softer to the touch than the rest of her and also lightly spotted. Cream coloring also faintly encircles each deep brown eye, above which two dark flecks stand out from the faded spots of cubhood that still linger faintly atop her head. Rounded ears are dark, though each is marked by a single white spot on the back.
The dark flow of her coat is marred only on her left flank, where the fur has grown in lighter (but only slightly) over an old hunting scar. At the end of her long tail resides a tuft of short brown fuzz.
Personality/Traits: Ade' is friendly and outgoing to a fault, at times being almost overly so. She easily qualifies as an extrovert, and loves to chat and gossip and talk. In fact, her mouth seems to work a bit ahead of her brain and the result is that she will say what she thinks, when she thinks it, without thinking much of the consequences of her words. Given that she's also fond of joking and sarcasm, it's easy to see how she might be seen as insulting, inappropriate and/or rude.
However, Ade' is not immature or stupid. She knows better than to chat and carry on during a hunt (knowing that your family starving depends on your ability to be absolutely quiet helped to drill that lesson home when she was an adolescent) and though she may joke and tease even her Kings she still respects them and their leadership greatly. She is steadfastly loyal to her Kings, her pridesisters and the pride as a whole.
All in all, Adetukunbo has a positive outlook on life. She is cheerful and easy-going and usually quite hard to rile up. There is nothing she loves more than sunbathing belly up on some sun-warmed rock. The only things she claims to dislike: the stench of hyena ("Just what do they roll in to smell like that?!") and warthogs ("They taste worse than hyena smell. And that's saying a lot!").
History:
Adetukunbo was one of the many born in the time of prosperity for Mnara. Her uncle, King Sizwe, had brought his small pride to the region and claimed the kingdom as his own. Ade's father, Emeka (Sizwe's brother) was allowed mating rights with a few of the lionesses and so Ade' and her siblings were conceived from the union of Emeka and Yejide, one of the lionesses in Sizwe's original pride.
Ade' was a boisterous cub; bold, adventurous and impulsive. She had a nearly endless supply of energy, as well as great curiosity. Such a combination often had her in trouble. If she wasn't venturing off away from her mother and getting herself lost, she was bouncing around and waking up the other cubs when she was supposed to be taking a nap. And if she wasn't doing any of that she was annoying the heck out of everyone because she just. would not. shut. up. ever.
As a result of her boldness and curiosity, as a juvenile Ade' once climbed a tree to investigate a wasp nest. Poking at it several times with her paw brought about the obvious result: angry wasps. She fell from the tree in her haste to get away from the annoyed insects and suffered several stings, injured her shoulder in the fall and having run in a blind panic to get away managed to get herself lost. She was luckily found by her uncle Sizwe and taken home. Despite hovering near death for a couple hours, she survived her meeting with the wasps and only had to put up being slowed down by a limp for a couple weeks. Lesson learned: do not climb trees.
Learning to hunt was an exercise in patience, both for Adetukunbo and the lionesses trying to teach her. She didn't have the self-control to wait for the right opportunity to attack her prey or to wait for her pridesisters' help. Continual failure did not suit Ade' at all; she would only get more impatient, more impulsive and more cranky. It took a very hard learned lesson to knock some impulse control into her head. Adetukunbo went out hunting on her own one day during a light rainstorm, figuring to catch any prey off guard. And she did, a herd of impala had hunkered down on the grasslands to wait out the rain. Ade' fixed her sights on a female who was resting apart from the rest and charged without thought, failing to see the nearby male impala. Ade' was upon them before they had much time to run and the male went on the offensive in defense of his mate. She noticed him only at the last second and with an odd twisting jump managed to avoid being stabbed by his horns, though she didn't escape injury all together. One horn caught her left flank and tore open a large gash. Injured and without even a catch to show for it, Adetukunbo had limped home where she received a thorough chewing-out and lecture from her mother. Her time recovering gave Ade' ample time to think things through. When she was fit enough to hunt again success may not have come immediately, but her impulse control improved and it wasn't long until she made her first kill. The injury healed fully, new fur grew in (a shade or two lighter than the rest, but grow in it did) and the lesson was learned.
But easily the one event that has been forever etched into Adetukuno's mind, and the one that has had the biggest effect on her, was the earthquake that felled what was once known as Pride Rock. Ade' had been nearby at the time, not quite at the rock itself, but heading there to seek shelter. She had never felt the earth tremble like that and in fear had started to race towards the great rock, wanting a place to curl up and wait it out. And then? The rocks fell. Just.. fell, with loud snaps and pops of stone grinding against one another. Adekutunbo had stopped, wide-eyed. Had crouched as close to the earth as she could, claws digging into the soil as if to root herself to the spot. Instinct told her to approach no further while the shaking of the ground continued, and even that fear had been pushed aside for the astonishment at what she had witnessed. And when it was over, when the dead and injured were found, it wasn't only the new Kings who had to step up. There might've been fewer mouths to feed in the pride, but that left more work for those remaining. Hunts still needed to be done, young ones still needed looking after. Adetukunbo had to grow up.
So she has. Though Ade's personality hasn't changed drastically from when she was young, though she has learned some lessons the hard way, she has been strong enough, been smart enough, to learn those lessons and to accept responsibility she has gained with age.
Let me know if there's anything else you think should be in there; I just stole from the application and rearranged it a bit. XD