Beru was used to hunting as half of a pair or part of a group, but lately she had not been very good company and she knew it, so a sense of guilt prompted her to head out on her own to spare anyone else having to put up with her for the duration of a hunt that could easily last several hours. There were a number of things she had to work out for herself, too, with regard to the recent events that had taken place for the pride, and that would be best done on her own, and maybe a little bit away from the pride.
The matter of the pride's relocation was something she was still having difficulty coming to terms with and accepting. It was undeniably true that the move had ultimately saved the pride. The land they had come to was greener, the climate more mild, and game was less scarce. Furthermore, the sickness which had plagued the pride before and during their move seemed to have subsided concurrent with the relocation.
The move had been necessary, but Beru could not help it: she hated it here. Everything looked wrong and everything smelled wrong and it wasn't home as far as the murky lioness was concerned. Home would always be the land where she and her mother and her mother's mother had been born and raised. This place was alien and it upset her to think that at least one of the pride's lionesses was pregnant and would probably be giving birth in this strange place.
There had been surprising talk in the pride of raising either her or another traditionalist lioness, Simo, to the rank of Umama. Beru really wasn't sure what the other lionesses were thinking when they looked to her for any form of leadership. With Simo it sort of made sense: she had been born into the pride and she knew all of the members and the traditions. The same could be said of Beru herself, of course, but Simo was more of a people person than Beru was, and she was more flexible, which was probably what the pride needed.
Beru knew she could not be flexible. It wasn't in her. It was difficult enough for Beru to admit when she was wrong, even if she was presented with indisputable proof that said as much. No other lion had ever succeeded in changing Beru's mind once it was made up. She was the only person who could make up her mind or change her mind, and it was extremely difficult for her to do the latter, whether or not she believed it was necessary to do so. Life would be easier if she was better at lying to herself.
"This is what the pride needed," Beru told herself firmly as she walked. There was ready proof in the very ground beneath her paws. The earth she had been walking on for the past hour was soft from recent rain, and that was a welcome feeling after so many months of drought and dryness. It was also evidence that these lands were not stricken as severely by the drought which had made the pride's historical home impossible to endure.
The ground became harder and dryer as she traveled farther from the pride's lands. Her mind had moved on from the matter of the pride's relocation to the perplexing matter of why she would even be considered for the rank of Umama. It was difficult for her to view herself objectively, but she knew herself to be outspoken, short-tempered, and generally inflexible. If anyone had asked her, she probably would have said that she would prefer to follow Simo. Instead it had been almost like the two of them had been pitted against each other, given how similar they were, it was hard to believe that there would be too much variation between their leadership.
Beru wasn't pleased with how that gathering had gone. It wasn't just that she had received one less vote than Simo. If anything, she was relieved to see that the lionesses had some sense in that respect. It did bother her, though, that the pride was finding more and more matters to be divided over. First there were the split opinions regarding the relocation, and then there was that nasty business regarding Biti, and now this Umama thing. There was something wrong, deep down and everyone seemed to be spoiling for a fight.
But then, maybe they would still get their fight. Three of the Abaholi were away, leaving only Kamal and Matifu to deal with the rogue males which had been spotted on the pride's borders. Beru had tried to sneak a look at the rogues to satisfy her curiosity, but that had proven impossible to manage without being obvious. It might have been convenient in that instance to have a vulture to act as her eyes and her spy, like Tapa had, but Beru didn't think she would really want to have to hang out with a carrion-eater so much. She still wasn't impressed by Tapa's rude avian companion.
Thinking of the rogues reminded Beru that she ought to be careful and watch out, or else she might find herself in an unenviable position. She did not want to be placed in that predicament. Although a certain heat flared when she thought about the possibility of what might happen should she encounter one of the rogues. She had never been with a lion carnally, though she had gone into heat once before. At the time she had been out hunting with her mother and her mother had known exactly what to do to keep anything unfortunate from happening. She had died two seasons ago giving birth to a single stillborn male.
Beru was startled to find that the heat she'd felt thinking of the rogues was only intensifying, despite the usually ardor-quelling effect her mother and her dead brother had on her. That..was not good. She was on her own and more than an hour away from the relative safety of the pride. Hardly an ideal time to come into heat, she thought irritably.
"Got to find someplace to wait it out alone," she told herself. "Before I do something stupid."
