Taima Lyall was still taken by the "heiress bootcamp" that Mapplethorpe had dragged her through. Her days since coming home had been very preoccupied with not just tending to Datura and showering him with affection among other things (like avoiding Naira and minding Aponi and Nova whenever she was asked to look after them), but she had also been brooding upon something that had been embedded in her psyche from the time she had finally figured out what it meant to be dominant. In the hours since she had woken up for the day, her mindset was already honed in, focused, and hellbent. If the grizzled man wanted her to behave as an heiress, then she would do so... and then some. Maybe her beloved prince would finally see just how far she had come...
Morning and twilight duties for the yearling Lyall consisted of the usual breakfast- or dinner-ritual (finding a cache and filling her stomach in solitude), trailing along the slope that led down from the Pass, then continuing on her merry way in hopes of spending the days' last hours walking along her superiors' trails and markers. This evening, however, she had a different idea. After making a snack of what was left of one-third of a rabbit corpse, Taima gracefully brought herself out of sight from the communal den and far enough away from Mapplethorpe's dead tree as possible before she ran into a tree marked with his urine.
A rather devious and unbecoming grin spread across her face and in a matter of moments, the heiress of the Pass was on her hind limbs, scratching at the scrub pine tree bark with her nails and scraping away its outer layer. Seconds later, in the impending cover of darkness, she angled her body, raised her feathery tail, and lifted her leg...