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 Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:12 pm
 A tan figure, striped by the shadows of waving grass that crossed her body, stretched in the open sun, tired and bored. But more of the latter than the former. The lioness stood, and surveyed the land around her, a grim expression on her face that noted its bleak tone. She yawned, tongue lolling out of her mouth, and turned her head to look for dark brown shades of a mane that belonged to her companion. The grasses were tall, but they were both taller, yet that didn't seem to help her find Unguzo. Hyundur'ton frowned now, and paced a few meters, letting the sleep fall out of her paws, and give her a broader view.
Unguzo was on the hunt, though he was not hungry. He did not believe in killing only that which he needed. Wasting flesh was no sin to him. And if it was something he may one day be punished for, he wanted his count to be high enough to be impressive. Grinning to himself, a growl rumbling softly in his throat, he dragged the rather large carcass back to his small collection of lands. The watering hole and den were not much, but they served him and his ward well enough.
Not thinking that she might be hungry, or at least not letting himself admit to it, Unguzo dragged the kill to the den and left it without a word or a glance around, moving to the water to clean himself and have a drink. He spotted Hyun nearby, having circumnavigated her view somehow and escaped her notice. He prowled over to her, the need to clean the blood from his paws forgotten, and pounced her with out holding back.
“Looking for something, little bug?”
Hyun fell to the ground with an "Umph", knocking her teeth together painfully, and on the tip of her tongue. As she felt the blood fill her mouth, she spit on the ground, but was overall less than surprised. Unguzo regularly pulled a stunt such as this and she was growing accustomed to his attempts at domination - if not expecting them. She spit again for use of her tongue, and looked up at him through her fluffy frock. "Do you think I was?" Even pinned, she rolled her head to look at him, eyes matching mouth, and noticing the red upon him as well.
Ah, so that was where he'd been. She speculated what he'd killed, and gathered her paws under her, preparing for an escape.
Unguzo let her up abruptly, coiling around her and bumping his shoulder into hers to knock her off balance. He turned and sat down in front of her, tilting his head at her critically. His eyes were deep and fathomless, blazing green as he flicked his tail against the ground with a mix of impatience and amusement in his body language.
“You certainly weren’t watching your back, whatever it was you were searching for in front of you. That’s not something I have instilled in you, I should think. To lower your guard, even for a moment. A useless trait to have, and you earned that blood in your mouth. And more to come, if you keep that up.”
He looked away, indignant and with an imperious air, “there’s a dead zebra near my den. I have no need of it, if you have not yet hunted for yourself.”
Hyun tripped over her feet, and stared at him crossly. She turned her head away, as the impudent student. Her tail drummed like his, but she was less emotional, and more trying to irk him. The still bleeding tongue hung from her mouth, and she righted her stance, moving to pass by Unguzo, brushing him, and licking his cheek, mouth pulled up at the corners as she did, and staining his pelt with her blood.
As she passed, she chuckled and kicked up her heels, heading towards the cave to eat the finest parts of the zebra at a nice clip. It was true, she had been hunting less, and when she did, it ended poorly. But perhaps it was because the injury inflicted upon their first encounter had just ceased to cripple her.
Unguzo frowned indignantly at her insolent display, but sighed and tolled his eyes instead of teaching her some manners. That would come in time, and he didn’t have time to bother with every rebellious habit of hers. Rubbing his paw against his face, he did his best to clean himself of the blood and the lick itself before standing and, in his own time, following after her.
He did not stop at the kill, however, moving into the den and plopping himself down on his bedding. He had not invited her into the den, making her seek her own shelter and resting place elsewhere. It was the male’s right to keep the den, and since he was the only male of this very small unit, he sprawled out in the rather spacious hovel. Yawning, his voice filling the cave, he shook his meaty head and sighed.
“You need to learn how to fight,” he said to her, knowing full well that she took pride in her skills and his words were insulting, “you’re skills need sharpening.”
Between the smacking of her lips and masticating, Hyun peered over the carcass. Hmph. As she hunched over to take another bite, her back arched and she glared at the intestines. But she had to be grateful to him, for reforming her from a plain brawler to a real fighter. For feeding her, and housing her. But that was all that had happened thus far, and even for that she silently thanked him. As she struggled to swallow a particularly large cut of meat, she cleared her throat.
"Well then you should teach me." Her voice was just short of a sneer, even as she tried to keep it in check. She drummed her claws against the floor of the den, and stood, stomach full, but almost anxious. It was not her domain, and she took a step backwards, then making a full turn before calling back to him again. "I'll be in my den when you would like the get started." She padded down a ways before turning into a less hospitable cave that was more of a dent against the wall, but it was the first thing she'd found, and suited her, for now, at least.
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Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:17 pm
 Unguzo stood and followed her silently, tracking her footfalls to her den. He frowned at the dwelling, clearly not finding it suitable for himself, though he had no opinion of her staying there. He stood just outside, tail swishing behind him. He watched her silently for a long while, not moving until a full ten minutes had passed. He then looked over his shoulder, out toward the open grass.
“Come and catch me, and then I’ll train you better. Come on, little bug.”
He did not grin, and there was nothing playful in his movements. He bounded away at top speed, charging into the high grasses and keeping his body low. He vanished and waited for her to do what he ordered.
Hyun noticed his presence from the start. It was eerie the way he just stared at her, but for a while, she tried to ignore it. That is, until he bolted away, leaving his challenge hanging in the air. She scrambled to her feet and bounded down the side, the ground tractionless beneath her unsheathed claws. Her steps were clumsy until the land evened out beneath her, and she ran, her spine elongating and legs reaching with ease, reaching out and pushing forward.
The lioness's center of gravity was closer to the ground, and though Unguzo had a head start, she made way towards catching up, but he still raced ahead of her, the only real sign the splaying of the grass left behind him. Through her pants she cursed his name for her, and swore to catch him.
Having stopped in the shelter of the tall grass, he watched as she raced toward him. Crouching low, he counted the seconds before she was in the perfect place, then leaped from the grasses lie a bolt of lightning from the clouds. He slammed into her from below, using his heavy paws as battering rams, he tackled her out of her run. There was enough force in his pounce to literally lift her off the ground and the two fell together, Unguzo on top of her as he pinned her to the ground.
His front left paw was weak from a recent injury. Two, actually, compounded one after the other in the rogue lands. A young hyena had dared attack him and managed to hurt his ankle, but he had killed the whelp for his audacity. Then, still in a rage about the insulting injury, he had run into a wild dog of some minor acquaintance and had attacked her in his anger. She bit his already wounded leg to escape him, and he was left to brood over the injury. Now the leg buckled as he pinned her, and he growled at it.
“Seems I caught you,” he said to Hyun, almost grinning down at her.
Hyun was thrown backwards, her face blank with shock, and her mind trying to puzzle out what had occurred. As she stared up at Unguzo, her face twisted into a glare. "I was supposed to catch you! You were supposed to run!" She argued against the rules that she hadn't made. But she had noticed the falter in his feet, unknowing of what it was, she lay as always waiting for him to set her free. Hyun's eyes locked onto his, red versus green, and searching for an explanation as to why he'd changed the game.
But as she waited, this time she decided it would be different. She violently lurched forward, struggling for the first time with success. Hyun had thrown off Unguzo for the first time, now knocking him to the ground. She nearly fell over as well, extra momentum unbalancing her, but she stood. Well, hunched, she thought. But she swelled with pride, believing it had been only her strength, and not any of his weakness.
Unguzo let out a roar of rage and protest as she moved from under him suddenly, his weakened ankle unable to keep her pinned and forcing him into a recoil as a sharp pain shot through his leg. Holding it up, he jumped back on three legs, looking at her with incredulous anger in his eyes. There was also something else there, swimming with the bitterness, the embarrassment, and the pride: something close to respect. Though he was injured, she had still managed to throw him off. That was still not an easy task, as he had been putting a lot of weight into his pin. He nodded slowly, an indignant expression on his face.
“Very good little bug,” he said, the once mocking name now more of a nickname, though with little more fondness in it than the first time he had pronounced it, “I hadn’t expected you to ever get out from under me like that. Or at least not until I’d trained you much more. Seems you’re a quicker study than your age should dictate. That will do you well.”
He placed his paw down carefully, not wanting to look weak, and tilted his head at her, “rules change at the rule maker’s discretion. You will never have a choice in it. You should just get more used to it, and learn to adapt. Though, it seems that lesson is already inside you.”
For a moment, Hyun was wary of his manner, muscles drained now tensing should there be another fight, but as she scanned his face and his eyes, she knew that it would not be today. Her pride came back like rolling fog, and less like the wave it should have been, because she saw the way he treated his leg. Something within the lioness knew that she had not caused the damage, but taken advantage of it, and Hyun found herself almost disgusted. Furthermore, he had hunted with that injury and she had been the only one to profit from it.
But as the adolescent's eyes bore into the bone of Unguzo, her heart was hardened. After all, he'd done just the same to her, hadn't he? She caught her expression before the sneering response to "little bug" could overtake it, and instead watched him solemnly. His truth outweighed the compliment, and she nodded, a stark change from the impudent student of moments ago.
"You speak of more than just games, Unguzo." Her voice was dull as she spoke, and she turned her back on him once more, but only to retreat to their home.
Unguzo watched her turn away in surprise. He was out of practice, it seemed, with company and with students. True enough, he had not been old enough within his pride to train the youth, much less take on an adolescent cub of either gender as his ward. To watch her now, her mood so perplexing, he hardly knew what to do.
So he decided to do nothing at all. Nodding, he let her go without another word, standing and moving back toward his own den. He looked over his large shoulder once to catch sight of her tail as it vanished in the cage, a thoughtful expression on his usually impassive face. Shaking his head, a growl in his throat, the grumpy male scoffed and moved off.
Once he was back at his dwelling he ignored the kill and moved into the back of his den, flopping down and curling up on the mat he had made himself. Yawning, he laid his head down, but sleep didn't come to him quickly. He mulled over all that had happened and, with a grin, imagined what more would come.
END!
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