That morning, Jiska and his wild dogs had eaten with Tibuka and his pair of lackeys. As usual, Jiska watched them with a bit of annoyance, rolling his eyes at the stupid mannerisms of the female, and snorting when Tibuka said something to one of the wild dogs. Truth be told, Jiska didn’t even know what the hyena had said, but it seemed like he was bossing around one of the dogs. Jiska hated that. After eating, they had split up for a while, Jiska taking the wild dogs for a walk of sorts, more like a patrol to see the lay of the lands.
Now, along with the night, they were returning. Jiska could see the three hyenas on the floor, gnawing on bones. He approached like he usually did, just walked right over. The other dogs came around behind him. And then, on a whim, he snarled.
The mud-colored male raised his head from the bone and perked his ears. First, Jiska saw surprise. Then the hyena scowled. “What’s going on?” Jiska would almost call him slow, but figured he didn’t quite deserve that. The other two hyenas also raised their head, with the female looking stupid, as usual, and the purple male seeming unaffected, betrayed only by his pricked mane.
“I’m sick of you.” Jiska announced as he stepped closer, teeth bared. He raised his tail and lowered his head, ears flat against his skull. “So I’m going to be rid of you now. Leave.”
He hadn’t expected Tibuka to leave peacefully. The hyena had a lot of pride, perhaps coming from some stupid pack he had once been a member of. He didn’t know why Tibuka would be proud of that, since the hyena himself had left it. The hyena began to rise, snarling. “You’re messing with the wrong hyena.”
Normally, Jiska would be worried about facing off with a hyena. They were much bigger than wild dogs, with a nasty bite to them. But Tibuka only had two others to back him up, one of which was an idiot. Jiska had himself, a skilled and seasoned fighter, Kow’bakari, Kutu, Ziwa, Fajra and Chaka. He also had Ouro, but the orange male wasn’t much more clever than Tibuka’s Fido.
Soon enough, Jiska found himself in the almost familiar chaos of a fight. Tibuka was either coming at him, or he was charging the hyena, or maybe it was both. The black-and-white wild dog was vaguely aware of his little pack behind them, could feel their confusion as they scrambled after him and jumped uncertainly into the fight.
Jiska himself was going for Tibuka’s throat, but had to dodge away as the hyena just barely missed him in an attempt to bite his neck. Right, he had forgotten Tibuka was supposed to be an experienced fighter, too. He snarled, dodging around the hyena and throwing his paws against the larger animal’s hindquarters to throw him off balance. For good measure, he nipped at his ankles. This could be a long fight.
-
There wasn’t any fight talk or taunting going on. All Fido could hear was growling and anger and fear. She didn’t know what to do. Hadn’t they, the hyenas and the wild dogs, been friends? Sure, Tibuka always complained about them, and Jiska never looked at her right, but… Ziwa had always been nice to her. And Ouro was so funny! Kutu had always been polite. Why had they come like this? What was going on? She yelped as she felt something smack against her side, promptly knocking her down. Instinctively, the hyena turned her head and snapped at whatever it was that struck her, her jaws falling just short of closing around the muzzle of Ziwa.
“Fido! Be quiet!” The wild dog urged her. “Stay still! Stop moving!” Fido flailed around beneath her a bit more, whining and yapping for help. All around her she saw fur and teeth, except for Ziwa, who tried to hold her down.
“Ziwa! Ziwa! What’s going on?” She whined, still struggling, though more faintly beneath the wild dog. How could Ziwa hold her down? She was so small…
The blue wild dog looked around and yapped at someone, Fido couldn’t tell who, that perhaps had passed a bit close. Her fur prickled, and it looked like Ziwa was about to rejoin the fight, so Fido yelped to get her attention back. “I don’t know. Jiska didn’t talk to us about this.” The canine looked uncertain, which just scared Fido even more. “But if you just lay low and stay still, I’m sure we won’t have to hurt you…”
Ziwa’s words calmed Fido. Or, they calmed her long enough so she could actually look around and see what was happening. Jiska and Kow’bakari were attacking Tibuka in unison, looking almost like the same dog. Kutu circled around them, growling. Meanwhile, Chaka seemed to be handling Leith all by herself. “Get off me!” The purple hyena was snarling, trying to get the bright orange dog off his back. Meanwhile, behind them, Fajra paced back and forth uncertainly, apparently wishing to help Chaka, but the other wild dog urged her to leave them be.
It was then, just like that, thatFido decided she was mad. Why were the wild dogs hurting Tibuka and Leith? What had they ever done? She glared up at Ziwa, the wild dog that had been kindest to her, and begun to hate her. She was one of them. She wasn’t her friend. She was with Jiska. “Let me go!” She screamed, and suddenly felt much stronger. She thrashed beneath the wild dog, snapping up at her, then finally throwing her off.
Fido couldn’t remember ever being so angry. She bit at the smaller female, charging at her angrily. She couldn’t even fully understand what was going on, but she had to get this creature away from her. She felt her jaws close around something, Ziwa’s shoulders, and she shook the wild dog around.
Fortunately for Ziwa, being shaken about by Fido wouldn’t last long. Kow’bakari had been busy fighting Tibuka with Jiska, but had caught a glimpseof the two just as the hyena turned on the steel blue female. He didn’t even consider whether or not Jiska might need him, immediately dropping his fight with Tibuka to charge at the female hyena instead. “She was trying to help you!” He growled angrily, biting onto the hyena’s ears and pulling until she yelped.
“You guys are traitors!” The hyena wailed beneath him, and Kow was even kind of surprised she knew such a word. Traitor. Usually Fido’s vocabulary was much simpler.
“No, we’re not.” Kow replied, releasing hold of her ears to do so. He wasn’t so sure there hadn’t been some treachery in here. But it wasn’t their decision, it was Jiska’s. Jiska was their leader, and he was the one who had decided to work with Tibuka for a while. He had also decided to split up. Partnerships ended, such was the way of the world.
Then Kow’bakari heard a very large yelp, and he suddenly realized that he had left Jiska alone with the most dangerous hyena he had ever met. He immediately released Fido, who seemed to have been stunned into silence, and whirled around to see what had happened.
Jiska was standing over Tibuka, bleeding from the back of his neck, but head and tail held high. Tibuka, on the other hand, was shrunk against the floor. It seemed it had been Tibuka who had yelped, though now he was snarling once again. His right ear was torn up, and one of his hind paws was bleeding, along with some scratches on his muzzle.
From where Kow’bakari stood, somewhere behind the muddy hyena, he might not really be able to see what had gotten Tibuka in this position. But Tibuka had it worse off. His right eye was bleeding, and he could barely see from it. “That was…” He almost wanted to say dirty. Perhaps when he was younger, it’s what he would have said. But Tibuka had long ago realized there were no ruled in fights.
“Give up, Tibuka.”
He snarled at the use of his name, but, for once, seemed to have lost all his bravado. Years ago, Tibuka never would have fled. But Jiska, a wild dog, had him beat almost single-handedly. He had been caught unprepared and outnumbered, and, somehow, outclassed. Tibuka was growing older, and the wild dog had been a great fighter, swift and objective. Tibuka could hardly get a grip on him, and when he did, the slippery creature managed to wiggle away.
“Fido? Leith?” He called out to his hyenas, but didn’t immediately look for them. Finally, he took a glance around. Fido was on her belly, against the floor behind the wild dog that looked just like a son of Jiska’s, while the blue-ish female wild dog crouched behind her, bleeding from her shoulders. The purple hyena also didn’t seem to have done so well in his fight, still struggling with the bright red female on his back, teeth digging in to the back of his neck.
Though he was injured and shaken, Tibuka still had enough strength in him to slip away from Jiska’s stare and barrel against Leith, knocking both him and the wild dog onto the floor. That done, he grabbed the wild dog by the scruff and tossed her away from his hyena, turning in time to snarl at an approaching Jiska and sicourage another attack. “We’re going!” He growled at the spotted male, shrinking back and shoving Leith in the process.
“Fido, come on.” He glanced at her quickly before turning and walking away. He was too prideful to run, despite the snarls of wild dogs behind him. He even had enough in him to raise his tail as he went.
But in the end of the day, Tibuka had still lost.
