All painted using wacom intuos3 and Photoshop CS4 THE WATER HOLE ... She stood sniffing the air, her every instinct on the alert, she had travelled far for the sake of her precious baby. Most of the journey she had gently carried him in her soft mouth, through the mountain pass. She was near exhaustion, but then she looked down from the mountain and saw the water hole. She ploughed onward, wanting to quench her thirst before dark hit the valley, knowing that soon the water hole would be full of beast's drinking life's ale, some of which would not think twice before devouring the small cub for dessert. She had her fill of water and it was time to move on to safer ground. She trusted her instincts and needed to get her now crying baby to safer territory. 'There was a new king who had won her pride over from the once powerful and strong old king. He defeated him in a bloody battle to the death. Death was welcome to the feeble, weak, and aged lion, he knew it was time for a new male to bring hybrid strength back into the pride, that was full of fertile lionesses'. The mother knew the new king would kill her offspring, so he could pregnate her with his strong genes. He would not want any other male lion's offspring in his pride, so the lioness's journey was literally a matter of life or death, depending on how far the young king would be willing to follow. She nervously looked about her and sniffed the air before she picked her cub up and drove her tired body onward to find a safe place, far away from her pride she loved, but her maternal love was stronger, driving her onward to ensure that her boy cub would one day hold onto his own pride. If that could be then the mother had done her duty in ensuring her lineage had a chance of surviving for years to come .... THE END Hi All, Sadly the story above is not true, because in real life the mother would not save her cub and the new leader of her pride would kill him, that is the more cruel side of mother nature. It upsets me to know that many of these amazing wild cats are in danger of dieing out completely, I sincerely hope that day never comes. Thank you so much for all your support of my fun Halloween pic, you are all so kind, I hope that today finds you feeling good my friends, take care. Before I go I want to let you know that soon I hope to open up my store here on Renderosity, and have been busy tubing all the large cat digital paints to be the first in the store. I have been asked to do this, so I do hope that they might be useful to some of you, keep safe guys, hugs Jane xx Please zoom for detail - thanks :o) PLEASE NOTE ... Lioness and her cub are part of the painted pack JaneEden'sBigCats to be found at YURdigital store