Ithunzi’lusizi was out wandering the pride once again. The juvenile had been taking heavier risks recently in his attempts to explore and understand the pride his bother had bore him into. There were several occasions where he thought that leaving the pride would be a good idea, but as soon as he stepped outside pridal borders he would pick up the stench of the Rogues and what territories they controlled. It would always cause the pit of his stomach to drop into a never-ending abyss, like an insatiable hunger.
Today Unzi decided to take the safe route and not venture outside pride borders. He had found a bunch of abandoned caves up on the men’s side and was investigating them for left over items, abandoned memories from the times of old. So far he was finding no luck. There were some bones from carcasses so old that any remaining flesh had rotted off and returned to the earth, but it wasn’t anything he didn’t see on a daily basis.
He was careful as he moved amongst the rocky mountainside. The male dens were in much rougher terrain than the females. It stemmed from the fact that the children slept in the women’s dens, with their mothers, so a smoother surface terrain to climb up was easier on their little paws. Unzi didn’t often come over to the male side of the pride since he had no father, but he thought that since he would soon be a man in the eyes of the pride he should start scouting out a den… while he went on his adventures, of course.
Finding a less than obvious den entrance from behind a rocky outcropping, Unzi peaked his head inside trying to see whether or not enough light went inside for him to see what was in there without having to actually enter it. As expected it was nothing but darkness after a few feet, which meant he would have to enter it, allow his eyes to re-adjust and possibly take the risk of hurting himself. He was down with it…
“Den, you better be riddled with untold secrets if I’m going to risk my well-being to investigate you,” Unzi said in a grumpy little voice.
Entering carefully while his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Unzi hovered a paw out over the ground he was walking on. He wanted to make sure he didn’t step on anything, or find himself without ground beneath him. Usually dens that were no longer inhabitable because of cave-ins or earth shifting were marked, but for ones this secluded from the rest extra precautions were necessary. You never knew when ground would suddenly be gone beneath you, or rocks would come tumbling from the sky. Unzi wanted none of that happening to him.
“Why must eyes adjust?” Unzi mused to himself, feeling a few rocks underneath his paws as he began to distinguish shapes in the darkness, “Why can’t it be instantaneous like the thunder light or something?”
Lately, Unzi had been spending some of his time around the council members, finding the constantly running cheetah cubs that had overtaken the pridal crush extremely annoying. He tried to express to them his annoyance with shoving, but apparently that wasn’t the right thing to do and managed to get himself punished numerous times for it by the nannies and his own mother. If only they knew how annoying it was to have those blasted cheetah cubs running laps around you, than maybe they’d understand his frustrations. After all, Lions are supposed to be the best cat in the world, so why are they faster than him? It made no sense.
Since spending more of his time around the council, Unzi started picking up an air to himself. A loftier way he carries himself around, as if to imitate the authority and prestige they hold. He was not council material, and he wasn’t exactly gunning for a position on the council, but he liked how they carried themselves and he wanted that. Unwarranted self-importance, he liked those sorts of things.
Once his eyes had fully adjusted, the juvenile wandered further into the abandoned den he had found. There were bones, some rocks and the remnants of what was once bedding for the den; nothing exciting, nothing interesting, nothing of note. This was turning out to be a wasted trip for Unzi until he spotted some faint in the distance.
Trotting towards it he scented the air quietly. A whiff of perfumed flower managed to hit is receptors within moments and he pulled back, stunned by his discovery. A flower? Flowers had managed to grow her, but how? There was no sunlight, or at least not enough that it would penetrate the darkness this far into the den. He sniffed the flower once again, trying to remember why this scent seemed so familiar to him. Had he brought the flowers to his mother? Was it something one of the Umbikezeli wore?
It took Unzi a good several minutes before he realized where the scent was from. The evil pink flowers! The ones he thought would very well kill him when he was practicing his hunting technique weeks ago. He glared at them, raising a paw hesitantly to strike them down before he remembered the words of his mother that day. She had told him that the flower he had eaten was sacred to their pride, even if it did taste horrible and he thought it was going to kill him.
Unzi sighed to himself and put his paw back down. His mother would be upset if he destroyed the flower, even if he was sure it was out to get him. Maybe if her brought her to this place, she’d appreciate his find of the flower. His mother was so busy though. Being an Umbikezeli was hard work, and required such dedication that he didn’t see her much during the daylight hours.
“I will just have to coax her here,” Unzi muttered to himself, thinking of a good way to get his mother to travel to this side of the pride.
While Unzi was lost in thought he became unaware of what happened around him. Quietly he took a step back to turn and leave the cave knocking into a piece of bone in the process. It rolled quietly into a pile nearby creating an awful sound. Unzi’s hackles raised and he whipped around to see what was there, knocking into another pile of the bones. He jumped, having freaked himself out with his own accidentally steps.
His heart raced quickly as he made a mad dash for the exit of the den, his ears flat against his head and his tail firmly tucked under his bottom. He would tell no one of this embarrassment. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to bring his mother up to this spot either.
Word Count: 1148
