Tough Front, Sweet Centre, 4Rinja

Character design for Rinjapine , to use and/or change as she sees fit.
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Asali: "Sweet Syrup” or ”Honey"
Pride Affiliation: Royal Pride (birth), Bone Warriors (adoption)
VA: [Suggestion] Selma Blair [‘Liz’, the “Hellboy film series]
Relations: Daughter of Shahida, Umboli; sister to Uawa, Kula, Adhumita, Dureva

Asali is as sweet as her name is, the sort of cub the word “adorable” was invented for. Not as confident as her more outgoing sister Kula, Asali is content to wait to participate and follow the crowd, and even then she is more than happy to spend the day at her mother’s side. She is often affectionately referred to as “Shahida’s Little Shadow”.

Asali develops an unrequited affection for the Crown Prince Simba when they are very young, not that anyone would notice, as she soon starts to vanish whenever he's around. Just being near him makes her very, very shy. Asali is most upset when Simba returns from his first lesson about his future Kingdom, pompous and self-absorbed in his aspirations, little to nothing like the cub she (sort of) knew. Disheartened further, she settles to pine from afar.

Asali is devastated the day Simba and Mufasa are declared dead and Scar takes over as King. She is soon convinced Scar is to blame for everything going wrong. Even Simba couldn't have turned out this bad! Now it just always feels dark and scary… The years pass quietly - or they would, if not for the endless giggling of the many, many hyenas – until the crash happens. Asali is meandering along the outskirts of her family’s tiny patch when she hears the frenzy; roaring, screaming and something about her Aunty Badriya and then Kula is right by her side telling her to run.

“B-but Kula…”

“Run for it Asali, as fast as you can! Devai’s already on up ahead!”

“D-Devai? Bu-but what about you and Mama-“

“I have to help Chumvi and the others, I’ll look after Mama, don’t worry about anything ‘sissy. Head north and just go, before it too late!”

Kula always had the best ideas. It had felt like that at the time.

It feels like she’s been running for hours, but finally, finally she finds lion tracks, getting less and less hidden as she follows them, something Asali is quick to fix. Seeing Devai dusty and bedraggled in the sands fills her with a mad joy. At least there’s still a friend in all this lunacy! Devai doesn’t talk, but she understands. They’re both exhausted and still have a lot more running to do.

It hasn’t been a day’s travel through the desert when Asali realizes something is… off with Devai. Her friend has never been this silent before, and appears increasingly distracted from her. Not ignoring her, but zoning out completely, and its only getting worse by each sun. Asali has a horrible feeling she knows exactly why, but she won’t say it now. It hurts enough without Kula and Mama already.

In one blessed stroke of luck one night, Asali catches the scent of a carcass nearby, but her news doesn’t rouse Devai who is still staring listlessly at his paws. She leaves him sitting behind in the dust. Food was food and damned if she’d miss this chance. By the time she returns with as much as she could carry – gazelle, dried out and nearly rotting, but oh so good right now! – Devai is lying curled up in the sand and for a wrenching, heart-stopping moment Asali thinks he’s dead. He isn’t, thank the Stars, he’s not dead, but he won’t move. Even if she screams her lungs out at him he won’t react, won’t make a sound. He just won’t move.

The situation quickly shifts from totally weird to frightening. Asali may have been a lonely cub at times, but she was never alone. The very thought of it is so alien that it terrifies her, it takes so much of her not to have a full on panic attack. They can’t stay here, it’s too open and bare and Stars know if Scar has sent his pack after them or not and Devai could die here like this and what is she supposed to do now? She isn’t strong like Kula, or any of the others. She can’t hunt that well. She can’t do anything all that well. They’re stuck high and dry in the bloody desert with only the barest recollection of some local-ish place of supposed safety and no help coming and no clear answer ahead of them!

So what now?

…

Fine. Fine. If she has to be the tough one here to get them through this, then that was just fine! She was not going to die in some stupid dry dusty desert and she was not going lose any more stupid friends either! If just being… herself wasn’t going to get them anywhere, then she would be someone else, someone stronger, like Kula and Nala and Kecha and… any lioness worth their salt! There was shelter around here somewhere and she was going to get herself and Devai there, even if she had to drag him by his stupid, stupid mane-tuft!

If they were going to die, then they could damn well die trying. She just had to figure out which way was north.

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So here’s Asali! Ain’t she a sweetie?

Or she usually is, but her experiences have left her with some pretty thick armor, making her seem walled off and not too friendly at first, but she looks out for the well-being of the ones she cares for, a lot. Like with Devai and his demons.
Still, if you can earn her trust, you’ll soon get to see what a sweetheart she really is.

Asali can also seem very focused towards Pride matters too. Living under Scar’s reign has left her sensitive to any dangers a Pride can face, both from outside and within. Again, it’s genuinely all out of wanting the best for everyone’s safety, but she can get scary about it sometimes.
You can bet she wouldn’t put up with any of Manoni’s B.S. if she found out what happened at Simba’s coronation!

Asali is based on ‘Cub E’ from this pic [link]
It’s one of those marvelous cases when you have to tweak the heck out of a scan to get even remotely natural looking colors, and even then I had to fix it up with Umboli’s orange to make it acceptable.
_{Times like this, ya just wanna find whoever okayed such a weird color scheme and kick ‘em in the teeth. She was just so PAAAANNNNNK. DX}


Kula (c) Disney
Asali (name), Shahida, Umboli (c) Rinjapine
Asali (design, mini-story) (c) Me


_{YOU HAPPY NOW, WEREBS? 8D}