Five days he had been here. Five hellish days.
The pride had long since disappeared in the background. The double toned lion had been keeping track of how long he’d been outside his home’s comfortable borders. Five. Five days since he and his brothers had set out on their quest. It had also fbeen five days since he had seen the other males, having broken off from their small group early on. The young male didn’t want his brothers hanging around while he tried to navigate and survive in the strange wild. He didn’t need them laughing at his failed attempts. Whether they did any better than he wasn’t the point. Nor while he was talking to potential Banu for himself. That was worse. He wouldn’t risk them jumping in and stealing his glory. What little poor, awkward Harith would ever manage to get.
On the first day, he had separated ways with his brothers. Regardless of what his father had said before he left, Harith really had no desire to stay near them beyond what was necessary. The arrogance of youth had him believing he would be fine on his own. That one little mouse he and his brother Ima had chased down a hole was the only experience with prey he had, but if the females could do it fine, so could he, right? He was the male. The protector. He should be able to do this.
Fortunately for him, later that day he had come across a carcass. Mostly eaten by whatever had killed it-closer inspection showed it to be hyenas-it had a flock of vultures flapping and pecking at it and themselves. With one mighty roar, he managed to scare the whole flock away and filled his stomach up. He felt a blow to his pride to be eating the scrapes of another, but it was better than going hungry.
The next day, he wasn’t so lucky.
Harith had just woken up from a restless sleep underneath a tree, not used to sleeping out in the open. All sounds seemed to waken him. Even the soft shuffling of a rodent among the leaves made him come awake so quickly, he was half expecting to be ambushed for setting onto the land of some territorial predator. Of course, he never found anything of the sort waiting for him in the darkness. Just the sounds of the night and the wind in the trees. When he woke for the last time, the sun was in the sky, just barely over the tops of the mountains in the distance.
He noticed quickly he was hungry. Used to having his meals brought to him by his mother and Elsa, he went in search of more scraps. He didn’t know what would be required of him in a hunt to bring in his own fresh kill, so he settled to more blows to his dignity. Unfortunate for him, he wouldn’t be finding any scrapes anywhere. Not even a small leg or even an ear to be had. Thinking it just one day, he ignored his stomach and went in search of a female to try his practiced speeches on. Everyone he met turned their backs on him, unwelcome of newcomers in their small territory of what was known as the roguelands.
On the third day, he was still hungry. To his annoyance, a small downpour had caught him without much shelter. The few trees nearby had Leopards glaring at him, so he decided to just continue on with his march. Not that he was interested in a female from another species from his own. He had little interest in hybrid offspring. Since he only intended on taking one Banu back with him and there were none in the pride of any interest to him, a Leopard or Cheetah wasn’t what he was looking for. One couldn’t create a good, solid family line with most of the offspring unable to reproduce. The fact a few would likely be able to-if he produced many offspring-was too small a number for his liking.
By now, the rain had seeped uncomfortably into his growing mane, weighing down his neck and head so he was walking more like an older lion than the young one he was, stooped over. It was putting him in a foul mood. Yet he didn’t begrudge his father for not taking the time to properly train his sons for this quest. Ilyas hadn’t taken them aside enough to show them the right way to take down prey. Nor had Harith thought to even ask him, his mother, or Elsa, the other Banu who shared the den how to do this.
Though his stomach had been growling since yesterday, food was last on his mind. Even if he had the proper training, he wouldn’t want to hunt anything. The adolescent wasn’t even in the mood to look for leftovers.
It continued to rain for a few hours more. The most he found was a bush to huddle under while he waited for it to stop.
By the fourth day, things were still not looking up. He had tried his practised speeches on a few lionesses he found. Most laughed in his face. One took a swipe at his face with her claws, so he retreated quickly. Only four days gone and he already felt his spirits sinking like quicksand. This was more difficult than he had ever predicted. Harith had lead a too privileged a life, staying near the den and spending most of his time just thinking. When he had sons, he would take them when they were still cubs and start to drill into them what they would need to know about this new land.
His confidence shot by the rejections so far, Harith found a hole in the ground used by a mother to birth her pups long ago and now left empty. Marking it to claim it and know where it would be, he went in search of a quick meal. By a stroke of luck, he managed to take down an old rabbit by himself, which he dragged to the hole and crawled in. There he stayed until the sunlight of a new day pierced his comforts.
Wordcount: 1,040
