Like so many days in Africa, it was hot. The sun looked as wide as ten lions in the sky, blazing orange and glaring at the earth it was beginning to touch.

Tariq'ra'd was sneering softly, shoulders hunched and mane dipping into his face as he walked through the long grasses.

He hated the sun.

He hated it.

It was hot.

It was always hot.

It bit painfully at his entire body, making him curse his own black coat; curse the mother he never knew, for his father's coat was white. Ughhh, disgusting sweat and panting....The male lion usually made it a point to only go out at night, but circumstances had altered his normal routine. He was far from the lands of the Ukuucha'Wafalme, secretly trailing a group of adolescent males on their first raid. While he knew for a fact he had been completely alone when he had gone out on his first search for a banu, things had changed. Besides, the boys were all young and inexperienced. Tariq liked to think he knew a bit more about what he was doing than these boys did.

Then again...things hadn't exactly gone the way he planned after he left on his first banu...hunt. The banu he locked his sites on caused him to succumb rather than the other way around.

Ughhh, blazing, taunting sun, so much like the female from his youth...

Spiteful, irritating adolescent group, mocking his memories of when he had left home. He had been chosen to follow the group by the Sultan. And why would he refuse? He had no clear reason to. He was a Vizier. It was his duty to follow the Sultan. He wanted to follow the Sultan.

So of course. He agreed. With the Sultan.

But inside...the male was burning. Outside, he was burning. The heat of the sun combined with hot, volcanic eruptions of angry regrets and memories of wants and needs threatened to engulf him entirely and drag him through the dry, cracked dirt. He was an adult now--no longer the lesser-maned adolescent of what seemed like decades ago. His harem was large, as were the number of his offspring. He had many sons and many daughters...he was a successful Vizier. But he felt wasted. He felt he was slowly decaying without the one, true love of his life. Where were her gifts to him every morning--where were her cubs running around his black paws? Where was her scent filling the air of his den?

No where.

Because she had left him.

If there were gods, he prayed they'd curse that forsaken b***h. Tariq's stomach turned and his eyes slammed shut.

...Ugghhhhhhh, he loved her...

When his eyes opened again, they were smoldering pink sparks.

This was a time of celebration, everyone had said as the adolescent group departed. This was a time of rejoicing, for cubs were going to become adults. Pesars were becoming Pads. And what could be happier~?

What could be more GODS-DAMNED FANTASTIC?

Clenching is teeth so tightly that his head shook, the male continued stalking after the relatively large group of youths, pink eyes boring into them from afar--very far. They were full of ambition and strength and youth and ideals and visions of the future--visions of how their first banu would look--visions of the reactions of their family members upon their return--visions of praise from the Sultan--visions of love from their banu--visions of success.

Why did they get such happiness while Tariq'ra'd got s**t? His first banu was gone--vanished. He couldn't count how many times he had gone searching for her--how many raids he had left on solely for the purpose of seeking out his lost Warleader--how many times he had yearned in the night for her...

...No...

He was being selfish....

O'tep, Ukoo, Orah...his cubs...the fact that he was a Vizier, cubhood ambition come true...wasn't that enough? Shouldn't that have been enough? How pathetic he was...how disgustingly selfish...

...Tariq grinned. Brows furrowed and ears folded back, he grinned. A quiet laugh bubbled forth from his throat as he walked, but he sucked it back, not wanting to be heard. But this reaction to his own laugh only made the black-striped male laugh more. Yes, he was disgusting. He was pathetic. And he was selfish. He was unworthy of everything in life. Whatever he gained was from want and ambition, not as reward for what he deserved. He didn't deserve anything. He was a parasite to the world.

For the first time, Tariq began to think he was a useless waste of space--a leech of oxygen, starving other more worthy creatures of things they deserved more than he did. This realization--this epiphany--gave him relief. To know and understand that without him, the world would go on, was relieving....His banu could survive without him. His cubs could grow without him. And his position as Vizier...well, it could easily be replaced...the Sultan was already looking for a third. But with Tariq gone, it would be only a second Vizier--his replacement. And things would go on normally. Creatures would live, creatures would die.

All without Tariq'ra'd.

But as quickly as the giggling relief had filled him, it left, and in its wake came a hollowing, cold despair. The lion's eye were wide and quivering, lips moving as his mouth remained closed. His breaths were uneven and his brain kept telling him that his heart was gone, for he could no longer feel its hot, steady beat. His limbs felt made of water so much so that he could scarcely stand and seemed to hobble as he walked.

Tariq's existence didn't matter. He was not important. He was useless. He...

He loved his Warleader...Dulani...the memory of her name sent the hairs on his neck skyward in an invisible caress.

Yes, he loved her...if he dared to say he knew what love even was, or even how to identify it, he would say that he loved her. More than anything...more than anyone he had known...but she...she didn't love him, did she? No, she despised him. He took from her everything she knew, except himself. But he wasn't enough. No, why would he be? He had never proved his worth--never won against her in a fair fight. He never showed her he was anything more than a sneaking parasite of a slave boy, weaseling his way into the minds and hearts of others, corrupting them like a plague and sending them wherever he wanted. But to Dulani, there was no strength in that. And why would there be? Yes, he knew she didn't love him...maybe she never would.

O'tep was his beybanu...but did she love him? How many times had they grappled, blood sprays and claws and teeth...how many harsh words had been exchanged? Was it possible she loved him after that? He was fond of her, fond of her fire and anger, fond of her threats and scorching voice, fond of her sudden changes...but it wasn't love. He didn't know if it ever would be. Dulani had poisoned him--a toxin spreading through his body so that he could only think and feel her no matter where he was or what he was doing. He only saw her. Even O'tep's violence sent his mind to memories and make-believe fights between himself and his Warleader. So how could O'tep love him despite all of that? The answer was simple: she couldn't.

Ukoo was his first--...no, second...--banu. She was small--didn't understand how beautiful she was--a sad, forlorn creature who was a puzzle of a lioness. He didn't understand her dreams, how she could see things without seeing them. She did kind things for him, but she had grown distant. No, maybe she had always been distant...maybe she knew no other way than to serve someone else? Maybe that was all she knew in life? So if that was the case, how could she love him? Perhaps she was just doing what she knew--serving and caring? But that wasn't love...that was routine.

Orah, his newest banu, his desert flower...and his guiltiest capture, though Tariq felt no guilt. More that she was the most lost--the most taken advantage of. She had no memory of anything. How easy it was to twist her, bind her close to him so tightly so that when it was he who changed her mind, she thought it was her doing all along. Now she had cubs just like the rest, and a reason to stay. But therein lay the very point tugging at Tariq's mind. She stayed for her cubs, not for him. She didn't love him, did she? How could he know? He didn't even know her. Orah didn't even know who she was, so how could Tariq? How could he know if she loved him, then? How could she know if she loved him? Neither of them could know.

Tariq was alone.

From the moment his father died, he was alone. No, maybe before that--maybe after his mother died bringing him into the world, he was alone. But even when he forgot that fact and it was hidden beneath the smiling, accepting faces of his fellow pride members, he recognized how alone he was when he was an adolescent. He was alone when he set out to find his first banu--completely alone. No one had followed him like he was following these youths now. Times had changed. Even if someone had been following him, he would've still been alone. The only time he had felt like there was someone else connected to him was when he was with Dulani.

At first, he mocked the idea--laughed at being captured by a female. But she warped his mind and altered him greatly, so much so that he had completely forgotten what he used to be like, if he used to be any different at all. Anything he had ever been taught growing up had been replaced with the idea that no one else had taught him except Dulani. Any dreams of being a Vizier vanished, so long as he could stay with Dulani....

Wherever he went back then, it was always for Dulani, following her orders, doing what she commanded. Wherever he went, he was with Dulani. Just as Tariq bound his banu to himself, Dulani had bound Tariq to herself. And after a while, Tariq didn't mind. After a while, he wished with every fiber of his being that he would never be separated from her. That was how much she had sunk her claws into his heart and mind.

It was so pathetic...

He was pathetic...

He should've been killed by her own paws back then...

He should've killed her...

She was like the venom of a snake to every part of him, coiling around him tightly even though it had been so long since he had last seen her. He wanted to be rid of her. He wanted to cleanse himself of her poison.

And he would.

He would cleanse himself.

He would start over. He wouldn't think of her anymore. He would focus on his banu. He would focus on his cubs. He would be the best Vizier he could be for his pride and Sultan. He would be able to look at the sun without thinking of her. He would become himself again, whatever himself was. He would be rid of her so that he was living on his own, without her memory. And when he could finally live for himself again, without her toxins racing through his veins at every waking moment, then he could begin living for others...maybe he still could...

...Maybe there was time to change....

He was Tariq'ra'd; Vizier; Pad of three banu; father; lion...and as his pink eyes lifted to the sun-kissed sky overhead, he made a solemn vow that from that day forth, he would never, ever think of her again.

It was done.

And Tariq moved on, his eyes opened to a new life.

He had begun again.

























Gods....


























Maybe...


























Maybe she was just over this hill. Maybe if he just went over this hill, he would see her, and he could capture or, or just see her one last time. Yes, he'd just see her one last time...just once more. He'd keep looking. Of course he would. He would keep looking. He had to keep looking.


He had to keep looking.