The sun was almost exactly over her head when she came across him.
He was standing over a hole in the ground, looking down into it with his blue eyes narrowed. He was younger than her, easily realized by the mane he was still growing. It went down the back of his neck and on his chest, but nowhere else. It was pure white, with blonde streaks on the front. She liked that. He wasn’t a familiar sight to her, which wasn’t anything surprising. With so many living in the roguelands, she only sometimes saw the same feline or canine more than once. The ones who made their home near her pride. Eli made certain never to go too far from her homeland, in case of getting lost.
Since this young one wasn’t familiar to her, she couldn’t tell if he was lost. Nor was this an easy guess with his attention being on the hole in front of him. Though she could easily assume he was inexperienced in living by himself. Possibly a runaway, an orphan, or a pride lion out on some kind of rite of passage to become a full fledged adult.
Considering she had nothing better to do-Eli often liked to wander the roguelands just for the fun of it when she wasn’t busy or wanted a change of pace-the lioness approached him, keeping behind him just in case he was an aggressive one. Behind, she could defend herself faster. Or get a head start on a getaway.
“Staring at it won’t make the creature appear,” she commented, suppressing a chuckle when he jumped at her voice. He turned so quickly to face her, she backed up a few paces in case he decided to attack. The adolescent did no such thing, just looked at her in a way that told her he wasn’t used to interactions. He seemed nervous. Shy.
This was already starting to annoy her. Eli wasn’t fond of kids. Least of all the timid, shy ones. She lacked the patience and kind words they needed.
“Look. I gather already you’re new to this whole “Taking care of myself” bit, so let me spare you some grieve. If they hide in the ground, find other prey. Or you’ll be waiting until you die of hunger for them to emerge.” Moving past him, she took a sniff at the air, catching scent of other prey, both large and small. Perhaps she should do him a kindness and catch him some dinner. Or just show him how it’s done and leave him to figure it out for himself. In the roguelands, you learned to take care of yourself quickly or fall prey to something yourself. “There are other beasts out there. How about we catch you something hoofed? Come. Watch how I do it.”
And without waiting for him to speak or even to check if he was still following, the red lioness bounded off to a clump of grass. Down wind of the gazelle she had spotted, she dropped to the ground, looking back and motioning for him to do the same and creep closer for a better look. She mouthed the words “Stay close” to him and promptly ignored him once more, sneaking closer to the horned creatures.
There were not many of them. Three, in fact, all females. No young. That made her job easier. Of which she was very glad of. If she was to teach this random young’in, she didn’t want a difficult job. Off in the far distance, she could see a few more. Which meant, like the day she had hunted with the Hyena Shabnam, this was a group that had split off from the original group. That no buck had felt the need to protect or noticed, as the zebra stallion had.
----------
Harith wasn’t sure what to make of this stranger. He hadn’t even said a word to her, yet, and she was offering to show him how to hunt. He did need someone to teach him, but was she doing it just to be nice? Her gesture did seem a little too quickly done. He didn’t trust some of the lions in the pride he had been born into. He certainly wasn’t going to willingly trust this lioness.
Still, there was the chance of a free meal. One could be suspicious and take advantage of that. Especially when one still wasn’t too adapt at hunting for oneself. He should have been a smart cub and asked for simple lessons from his mother or his father’s other Banu. But that chance was passed. Perhaps he could get such lessons from this female.
And maybe, hopefully, finish his quest in the same day. She was pretty. He hadn’t seen very many reds, if any at all, within the pride, so she would be something different.
That was, if he could persuade her. Something told him that wouldn’t be easy. She seemed more the type used to giving orders than taking them. Harith never planned on doing much commanding of his Banu in the first place, but there was the problem of the pride’s customs. She would be expected to obey other males. She wasn’t even waiting for an adolescent to say a word before deciding what would be done this hour. Not the kind of female he wanted. Unfortunately, Harith was also a young lion. And young lions were impatient when doing something they really didn’t want to do.
Keeping his own body crouched low in the grass, the male watched as the female stalked closer to the hoofed beasts. For what felt like a hour she lay there, never taking over green eyes off them. Harith, in his boredom of waiting for something to happen, caught himself looking away from time to time. He was almost too late to see her finally make a move towards them. Rising up now, he ran alongside to watch how she did it, keeping well out of her way should the herbivore decide to turn towards his direction. It never did.
He wasn’t sure how long it took her to take the gazelle down. His blue eyes watched carefully as it tried to zigzag and get her off its tale. The lioness never relented. The prey tired before the predator did. She grabbed it around the neck, dragging it down and holding onto it by the neck with her jaws. It struggled for a time before going still a few moments later. By then Harith had stopped and was watching her from afar as she rose to her feet and beckoned him closer.
Word Count: 1,103
