|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:01 pm
Mvuatuliva had been looking forward to training her cubs to hunt for some time. Even before she had been shouldered with the responsibility of raising six children on her own, she had dreamt of her cubs first hunting lesson when she was no older than an adolescent herself. Now was the perfect time to introduce the cubs to their first live prey - her own skin was tingling with excitement. Of course, because it was their first time, she was speaking to them individually first. It would be too exhaustingly confusing with the whole litter tumbled out on the savannah. This way, Tuli remained in control at least to some minute degree. Besides, it was a lovely thing to look forward to: alone time with each individual cub.
Laying down the frightened gazelle foal she'd caught just for this purpose, she pressed it into the dirt so that it couldn't run away as she called her cub from the bushes, "Noti! Come along, now. Let's get started."
The pink cub picked up her head, peering over the top of the brush she had hidden behind to watch her mother hunt. She wanted to learn to move so gracefully, for her own pleasure and to help out Tuli with feeding her and her sisters. It didn't look too difficult, but she knew better. Besides, she couldn't even run that fast ye -- ooo! What did Mama have under her paw?
Leaping across the savannah, she ignored the whipping blades of grass as they slid or smacked past her, her eyes firmly on the prize. Her instinctive prey drive was triggered by the movement of the flailing and vulnerable prey. Her mother had successfully caught her full and undivided attention.
The cheetah couldn't help but smile as her excited cub came pouncing across the plains, obviously just as excited by the sight of prey as Tuli had been when her mother had brought home her first fawn. Licking her lips, she nodded slowly as Noti came to a halt and sat infront of her mother. The gazelle seemed frozen in awe now that it had two cats to deal with, but Tuli could still feel his hearbeat through the pads of her paw as a reassurance that the thing was alive. Inclining her head, Tuli panted a few more seconds before managing to speak.
"When hunting, what prey do we cheetahs go for?" She paused, blue eyes pinned to her daughter as she patiently awaited an answer.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:10 pm
Noti stared wide-eyed at the fawn as it ceased to move. Was it dead? Had it been scared to death or had her mother crushed it with her unfathomable strength? When it moved again, suddenly, the cheetah cub jumped violently to one side before looking up at her mother and then moving back to her original place as if she had never moved at all. She wanted to chase! Why wouldn't Tuli let it go? When her mother spoke, Noti frowned impatiently at the obvious question and sighed in exasperation, "The easy ones, duh, Mom."
Her muscles were tense as her blue eyes dropped back to the gazelle, focusing on the creature's quivering body. How fast could it run when it was scared? Noti licked her lips absently, watching the twitching limbs with acute interest.
Tuli chuckled quietly and smiled at her daughter's unsurpressed excitement. This was going to be exciting, that much was obvious, but Tuli was patient enough that she could handle some rude assumptions on the cub's behalf. She sighed almost inaudibly and rolled her eyes, remembering her own impatience before steadying herself for a calm and collected lesson. She supposed she'd have to let go of the fawn soon to prove a point to the young cub. Instead, she replied, "I assume that by 'the easy ones' you mean the young, the old, and the infirm."
The cub frowned abruptly and looked up at her mother with interest. Her head tilted to one side before she inquired brightly, "The infirm? What's that?" The gazelle twitched and drew Noti's attention downward instantly. Shifting her weight from one paw to the other in an anxious fashion, she reached out to swat the thing lightly with her pawpad even as she spoke to her mother, "Does that mean, like, not strong? Firm means strong, like, determined, right?"
She let her gaze slowly raise back to Tuli's face, though she didn't get up from her crouch. If the fawn somehow got free, she would be ready. No preybeast would be getting away from her. No today, no siree.
Tuli listened intently as her cub worked through the new vocabularly. Smiling patiently as she flexed her pawpads over the supple flesh beneath, ignoring the sudden bleating of the alarmed creature as she reveled in the feel of it. Occasionally it would quiet, but she could feel its racing pulse and quick breathing. They would have to let it go soon or it would most definitely expire from a heart attack. Nodding at Noti's questioning gaze, barely able to contain a proud smile, Tuli responded in bemusement, "Close. It means the sick or injured. Anyone who seems like they can't move as quickly or fight back."
Feeling the gazelle calf grow still, she frowned before eyeing her daughter with a silent expression of approval at her crouching position. "Are you ready?" She smiled then before lifting her paw, "Go!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:18 pm
Noti absorbed the information practically subconsciously, too focused in the prey that was being dangled before her as if on a string. Her raised rear end swayed from side to side with the movement of her tail, but her clear blue eyes didn't move from the gazelle. It was that attentiveness that aided her immediate success - not by catching the fleeing beast but by keeping close at his heels. Her paws beat the ground beneath her as she pounded in his wake, and she was quick, surely, but not quick enough. She slowed after a minute or so, convinced that her heart was liable to explode right out of her chest. She had manged to trip the fawn up a few times, but never to completely throw him off his feet. She had failed.
Tuli noted not only her cub's technique, but her incoming exhaustion. She would not let her children expend themselves to the point of death or complete fatigue over a measley fawn. Trotting along behind the two, she sped up only when it was obvious that Noti was giving up. Speeding past the pink cub, she swept the gazelle off its feet with one swipe of her forepaw before descending upon it to close her jaws around the tender throat. It snapped, but she held her position to drive the point home further for her observing offspring. As Noti approached, she licked the blood from her lips with a smile, "It will get easier as your legs grow longer, I promise."
Though she tried her hardest to keep from sulking, Noti could feel her jaw set as it threatened to portray her frustration clearly for the world to see with a defined pout. Luckily, breathing so heavily through her nose was too difficult, so her mouth popped open to paint and officially ended the possibility of her betraying her resolve to be grown up about it. Coming alongside her mother as the elder cat spoke, the cub resisted the urge to kick the carcass of her preybeast out of childish frustration before she settled beside her mother. Licking blood off Tuli's lip, she sighed before responding, "Yeah, but I want to be able to do it myself now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:22 pm
"In time," the cheetah promised again, blue eyes watching her cub kindly before adding in a more conspirital manner, she whispered, "You atleast touched him. I couldn't do that at your age." It was true, Tuli had been unable to reign in the distraction of her insatiable hunger well into her time as a juvenile. Even then, she had only become so efficent at hunting after the early death of her mother. Through desperation she had perfected her ability, and she hoped that it would never come to that for her dear children. No cub should have to lose their mother so early in life, especially considering that Tuli didn't really care to die just yet.
Though her mother's words did do their job by assuring the cub, her bitterness throbbed like an open wound in her belly before it transformed into a dull but stubborn determination to do better in the future. Perhaps she would benefit from that cold defiance, and perhaps not. For now she would fill her belly with life-giving meat and prepare for her next hunting lesson after all her sisters had finished with their first. She would impress her mother another time, no matter what else happened. Noti was determined to prove to her mother that she could help the little family at whatever was needed at whatever time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
