I made silly little head cannons for Gum-Gum and krubera mating rituals and how they treat their young and I need to get it out of my system so this is just a silly self indulgence post
- Krubera are actually pretty tame with their mating rituals, very non-violent when it comes to such things
- Usually when a krubera desire to mate with another, they go find and present a stone, kinda like penguins, the more impressive the stone, the better the chance
- Krubera are very Loving towards their mate/mates and will often already have an established relationship before actually doing the mating ritual
-They do have things similar to weddings though they aren't super common
- Krubera can and will mate with multiple people, on rare occasions
- Its more common in the upper class
- however no matter the amount of people in the relationship Krubera do not produce many offspring
- they are what is known as a K-selected species, meaning they have less offspring with large amounts of parental care
- Krubera are extremely protective of their young, the mothers especially, and in some cases the mother will even temporarily grow aggressive to their mate(s) during the early stages of development, granted the aggression towards the mate usually isn't as extreme as towards a friend or stranger
- Krubera carry their young in their mouths during the first few years while their very small, however as the whelp gets older and bigger they start to carry them on their backs instead
- Krubera whelps are very small compared to their adult counterparts, hence why the parents are so protective, usually a newly born whelp is at best no bigger than an adult Krubera's palm
- Krubera care deeply for their whelps and mates, if either are lost they have been known to mourn for very long periods of time, at times for hundreds of years other times until death
- Krubera have had a habit of staying protective of their whelps longer than other tribes. Due to their sensitivity to light, their whelps are more exposed in places like the surface or trollmarket. Their protective nature usually doesn't truly die down until the whelp has reached about the troll equivalent to a young adult
- Krubera whelps are taught to fight from an early age usually by their own parent(s). However, Krubera young may not enter the guard until they are considered adults, no matter their skill
- Gum-Gums can be a tad more violent during mating rituals, and have been known to battle for ones hand
- Gum-Gums do have weddings, but they are very rare and are more common amongst kings and generals
-the leader of the Gum-Gums at times also have consorts when desired, consorts are not usually as cared for as a mate in most scenarios when they are present
- Gum-Gums usually care deeply for their mate(s) , however they don't necessarily mourn as long as Krubera
- Gum-Gums are extremely protective of their young and their nests, only those they are mating with are meant to join them in the furs during the whelps early stages
- Gum-Gums do produce more offspring than Krubera, however they still provide a good amount of parental care to their young
- They carry their young on their tails and back, once their to big for that, the whelps aren't really carried anymore
- Gum-Gum whelps are bigger than most whelps from other tribes, however they are still arguably small compared to their adult counterparts, and usually when they are young their teeth are a bit dull
- once the whelps reach around the mental equivalent to 5, Gum-Gums will teach them how to hunt and kill, making them excellent hunters early on
- they aren't as hostile as Krubera are when it comes to their whelps, in the sense that they won't imidatally lunge at people until they are sure they are a genuine threat
- if they find that something or someone is a threat, they will kill them. If they find someone has harmed their whelps in the early stages it's usually the same story
- however, Gum-Gums do often become less protective as the whelp gets older, mostly under the belief that the whelp has to learn to fend for themselves. That does not mean they simply don't care, they do, but given what they are their whelps need to be able to fight off their own foes eventually
