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 Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:16 pm
The sun is high in the sky on this clear day. The savanna stretches in all directions, scrubby grass browning and the air shimmering with heat. The pride wouldn't go to the water hole until closer to evening, when the air was cooler. And while there had been a successful hunt the night before, there were many mouths to eat it and not as much for the youngest of the pride as they may have preferred.
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:23 pm
 Abeni was bored and hot and hungry. She was sure the fly buzzing around her ear was laughing at her and she knew that the journey to the water hole was much too far away.
Abeni was tired of sleeping with the pride and more than ready to be up and doing something, even in the heat. Slipping away wasn't a problem, most of the rest of the pride dozing in the sun. And soon Abeni was free. Even the fly was left behind.
Spying a beetle, Abeni slunk down in a small patch of browning grass to watch. As it trundled along, she prowled after it, not bothering to watch where she was going, only interested in the prowl, the hunt.
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:51 pm
 The shy little Elena was a long way off from the others and not at all happy about it. She knew she should have stayed with her mother. But she’d caught a glimpse of Haven sneaking off through the grass and had of course chose to follow him.
A mistake, if ever she’d made one.
Now she was lost in the long grass. Haven had become very good at this sneaking and hiding. It was getting harder and harder to find him if he didn’t want her there. But without him to follow both away from the pride and then back again, she was sure she’d never make it. Only the faint smell of the lions somewhere ahead kept her moving.
When Elena heard rustling in the grass she’d nearly cried out in joy and rushed headlong towards it, convinced that Haven had only been playing with her and had finally returned to take her home. Barreling through the grass, Elena collided with the other cub before she could put on the brakes.
Her smile, however, faded the moment she realized that she hadn’t found Haven at all. Instead she was currently tangled limb and tail with Abeni, her pride leaders’ only daughter.
“Oh no….I’m so sorry….”
Elena floundered around as she tried to untangle them and help Abeni to her feet.
“Please don’t be mad…”
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 1:07 pm
Caught rather off guard by a sudden pouncing from the grass, Abeni's air woofed out of her when Elena barreled into her. A bit stunned, she tried to roll out from under the other cub, but was frustrated in the effort by Elena's attempts to disentangle them.
Still getting her breath back, Abeni decided to lay there for a moment while the other finished whatever she was trying to do. The timid apology washed over Abeni as Elena tried to help her up.
Shaking her head to clear the bit of dirt that had found it's way into her ear, "What were you doing?" Abeni took a step back from the flustered Elena.
"And don't mew like that, you're almost a lioness, lionesses don't cower!" Abeni seemed almost more angry at Elena's apology than she was from being bowled over.
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 1:46 pm
The tone Abeni used was enough to see Elena’s belly hitting the ground, her ears going flat against her head. She’d said sorry, she hadn’t meant to be a problem. And she wasn’t cowering. She just didn’t want Abeni mad at her. Or anyone mad at her for that matter. She didn’t know how to deal it.
And while it was certainly true that she wasn’t the boldest of the cubs, she didn’t think mewing was quite the word to be used when describing her. She just didn’t like conflict. She always ate last, fought the least and listened the most to the adults in the pride. She was overly cautious about everything.
“I didn’t mean to cower. I mean, I’m not cowering. I just wanted to say sorry cause I ran into you. That’s all.”
The whole time she was speaking Elena stayed flattened on the ground, waiting for the other cub to take a swipe at her.
“I was just in an awful hurry to find my way back.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:47 pm
Abeni thought about Elena's response for a moment, and decided to accept the other's explanation. With a slight sniff, Abeni nods.
"Good then. Stand up and be a lioness, we are the huntresses of the future, don't ever forget how powerful you are!"
Abeni's skin twitched as she tried to clear her fur of the dust she'd picked up in the tumble. "We can go back if you want, since you're in such a hurry. But not so fast this time, we are awesome and powerful but I don't want to run into a pack of hyenas because we aren't paying attention." Abeni was ready to be hunting with the other lionesses, she was not ready to accept she was still a cub. But even a full grown lioness knows better than to get caught by a pack of hyenas without the rest of the pride close behind.
Abeni turns and starts to trot back the way she had come, sure that Elena will follow along behind. It didn't enter her mind that the other might have opinions of her own, Abeni never thought about the fact that Elena might have opinions of her own, everything Elena had ever done proved that Abeni was of higher rank. Not that Abeni thought about that either, it was just something she knew instinctively.
Of course, Abeni didn't think Elena should be as reserved and cautious as she was, but if Abeni had anything to say about it, Elena would get some bone to her spine wither she liked it or not.
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Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 6:35 pm
The mention of hyenas had Elena shivering and craning her head to look around. She knew they were the biggest threat to lion cubs. Her mother had drilled that into her from day one. And she could have run right into them. Not very smart at all.
Elena kept her thoughts to herself as she fell into a trot behind Abeni. While she wasn’t as confident about a lioness’s power as the other female was, she did feel safer moving along with her through the grass. A lioness was just not intended to be out on her own. It wasn’t safe. And it wasn’t normal.
“I do hope that Haven doesn’t run into hyenas while he’s out. Though I’m sure he would know what to do. He always knows what to do.”
A smile tugged at her lips as she spoke of him. All of the pride members were well aware of Elena’s apparent crush on Haven. And most didn’t approve. He got the timid cub into trouble more times than not. And her parents would surely be happier to see her return with Abeni instead of trailing behind him.
“Have you ever seen a hyena. I haven’t. Though mom talks about them all the time. About how cruel and dangerous they are. I don’t think I ever want to meet one.”
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Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2010 12:41 pm
Abeni hadn't spent much time with the other cubs, ready to be an adult and go out on the hunt, most of her time was spent stalking for practice, watching the lionesses, or trying to avoid her brothers. Not that she didn't like her brothers, they were just insufferably cub-like. And while she had interacted with the cubs who weren't her brothers occasionally, it was only because they were herded together in a group for 'safety'. Abeni hated that everyone thought she should be kept 'safe' because she was young. She surely hadn't noticed how the others interacted and had no idea that Elena behind her was smiling or more than passingly curious about Haven's whereabouts.
"I'm sure he will be fine, if not, it's because he wasn't careful. We could go look for him if you think we should, but I'm sure Haven's just getting into something stinky, boys like to do that." Abeni spoke as she continued walking, following her tracks back towards the pack. She had learned early that if she got lost, she got into alot more trouble than if she could get back on her own.
"I did see a hyena ones, three of them actually. After the hunt where I followed the lionesses, I have never had that much bathing before in my life! But they were there after the kill, trying to sneak in and eat before the lions arrived. They didn't see me. Mother was very angry when she found out I had been there and told me how dangerous they were. They didn't seem so dangerous to me, slinking and hiding and whooping in such odd voices. But I wouldn't want to meet more than one of them by myself." Abeni wasn't conscious of the fact that she came across as arrogant, she was very confident and assured and didn't bother worrying about what anyone else thought. She would do what she wanted to do just as soon as she could manage to figure out how. That got her into trouble quite often, but Abeni always brushed off the admonitions, after all, she was fine and they were just making a fuss over nothing.
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