Due to some odd quirk of fate, young human trader Luca has been chosen as the new patriarch for a pride of leonin, the lion people. Thankfully, Aditi, the sweet and motherly matriarch of the pride has a plan to help him settle into his new marital duties, and has even recruited some help to do so.
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Thank you and I hope you enjoy the story.
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Luca tried his best to relax in his room, though so far not having much success. He had tried his best to be productive by fastidiously washing and perfuming himself so fastidiously that if he were to do it one more time, he'd probably peel his skin off.
The lovely aroma of the incense burner tickled his nostrils, helping him with the tension of his muscles as he laid on the silken sheets and soft mattress of his woven bed, but his mind couldn't slow down and going over and over again how he had ended in this odd, yet exciting, situation.
His family had been traders for generations, it seemed, Luca having learned the ropes of the family business from both his father and grandfather; trading silks, spices and other wonderful items from the far east.
Most of this trade happened through intermediaries, the distances being so vast that products often needed to change hands before reaching their destination. Many merchant houses had taken to using magical aides in this process, with minor sending spells to maintain communication and perhaps even hiring wizards and sorcerers to move things faster or even teleport them.
But ultimately, most of this trade still happened the old fashioned way, with long carefully arranged caravans that crossed seas, plains, deserts, jungles and whatever was necessary to make their goods reach those who desired them and were willing to pay the price.
For the longest time, Luca's grandfather had been planning a long expedition to the east, to carefully map the route the goods they were purchasing were taking, and perhaps hire some trustworthy people to ensure things run smoothly every step of the way.
As fate would have it, preparations for this massive trip were finished around the time Luca came of age, and the young trader, tired of his city and hungry to see the world, decided to join the voyage, much to the delight of his grandfather who had hoped several of his grandchildren would join and perhaps take positions along the route, for who better to leave in charge than family. Or at least, so did his grandfather think.
It had been an arduous yet spectacular adventure, with their caravan witnessing many wonders they could have never experienced back home. And not just that, but as they crossed rivers and mountains Luca became more and more fascinated with the culture and peoples, human or otherwise, that lay beyond their small world back home.
Their months-long trip had finally taken them past a mighty river that seemed to cut a gigantic mountain range in twain, and on the other side of it they had been confronted by shrublands and savanna-like forests.
Here, in this far away land they found the city of Dhola, an important stepping stone in their routes, for it overlooked both a vital mountain pass to its north and a busy riverport to its south, making the city rich with exotic goods and information to be shared.
Despite humans normally being the major species of anywhere they went, Dhola had not been founded or was even populated by a big contingent of humans, though they were still the biggest minority. The main people inhabiting it were the local leonin, which as the name given to them by humans implied, shared many similarities with the lions in the nearby forests and shrublands, but they walked on two legs and talked just like humans and most other sapient species did.
The same way there wasn't a single type of human, there wasn't a single type of leonin, and those local to Dhola had developed their own traditions and customs.
While Luca had never had the chance to check this first hand, from the books he had gathered it seemed that leonin from Dhola were smaller than their cousins from other latitudes, making them comparable in size to humans, though from personal experience Luca could tell they were usually bulkier and more muscular.
Society in Dhola was formed around prides, which was the leonin's common family unit. It normally involved a single male leonin, that was to be the father and patriarch of the pride, and an unspecified number of females, some having as little as just two while some others had up to eight or even more. Regardless, the most common number of females in a pride was about five from what he had seen.
While most prides just existed during the lifespan of their members, and formed for the same reason marriages usually happened in all species, that is to say, their members had fallen in love... some had stood the test of time and become almost like noble families in the city. When a member of one of these prides passed away, a young promising leonin was adopted into the family, this potentially keeping them going for centuries in some cases.
Like in most societies, the people of Dhola were strict in trying to avoid consanguinity though, tradition and law dictating that the patriarch and his wives could not be related by blood, even going so far to specify by how many familial degrees they had to be separated at the very least.
But since established prides were very much families, and they wanted to keep their influence and history within their family tree, what had ended up happening is that the patriarch more often than not was the one with no relation to any of the women in the pride.
It made sense, while the patriarch was alive and virile enough to sire children, he would do so with his wives, and once he passed, the surviving women of the pride would adopt their daughters or granddaughters into it while bringing in an outsider male with no blood relation to them whatsoever.
