Leo was satisfied. No, scratch that. Leo was very satisfied. He had won the challenge, sending the older lion running. Had this happened Before, it would have been very different.
As a not-quite-full-grown lion, Leo had been vulnerable to reigning males finding him in their territory. He’d once been cornered by a coalition of two males, managing to escape with only a few bleeding gashes. He’d been lucky they had neither become infected nor had impeded his ability to hunt.
But now this is my territory, he thought to himself, letting out another roar of triumph. Still, he needed to be accepted by the pride to make his claim official. Not that it was really in question: females were used to males coming and going.
In fact, they should already know about his victory: they would recognise that the lion roaring in victory and territorial claim was not the one they had known. They would be expecting him to come. The females with cubs might even be considering ways of hiding them from him. He started padding down the path towards where the pride had been last. Time to stake his claim.
‘But you’re not going to kill the cubs, are you?’ his brother asked anxiously.
‘We agreed that I wouldn’t, so I won’t,’ Leo responded a little grumpily: he wasn’t in the habit of going back on his word. At least, he didn’t want to become so: it wasn’t like he’d given his word before.
‘And I didn’t realise that the lionesses could reject you – I thought that the victory over the other lion would be the end of it.’ The human sounded anxious for another reason now. Leo huffed.
‘It is not usually too much in question: one male is as good as another as long as he is healthy and strong enough to see off the previous. The females are permanent; the males are transitory. The females have their territory and keep to it; the male only has a territory while he is the protector of a pride. When a new male comes in, the main contention is over cubs as females do not easily allow their cubs to be killed. Females may choose to leave the pride to be with the cubs.’ Leo thought for a moment. ‘I believe that it is also possible for females to drive off a male if they find him unsatisfactory.’
‘Is that likely to happen here?’ the human worried. Leo huffed again.
‘No. I am…we are larger and stronger than the previous male; we defeated him in a fair battle. There is no reason for them to find us unsatisfactory.’ Then he hesitated before grudgingly admitting something which had been previously unsaid. ‘Perhaps not killing the current set of cubs will ease the transition a little too as, ultimately, there will be little change.’
He ignored the sense of triumph emanating from his brother.
‘Then again, it could make me appear weak, and make them desire to oust me – us.’ Leo snapped back at the human, not wanting his gloating to become too irritating. Sometimes his brother was as bad as a tsetse fly buzzing around his ears and stinging him.
‘I guess we’ll see,’ the human responded, though he sounded a lot more cheerful now than he had earlier so Leo supposed his words had at least reassured his brother.
In mental silence, Leo approached the waterhole. There were a few animals around the water which either watched him warily or fled into the bush at his approach. He ignored them despite his brother urging him to go for some more Prey Points: he wanted to set his claim on the females.
‘Though wouldn’t they like it if you came with a kill? Ladies are supposed to like gifts,’ the human suggested.
‘These are lion females, not human females,’ Leo emphasised. ‘They’re the ones who make the kill.’
‘But that’s the whole point from what I know – ladies can buy their own gifts, but it means more when a man is thoughtful and gets it for them.’
‘And if we ever pursue a pride of human females, I’ll listen to your suggestion,’ Leo finally snapped at him. ‘But since this is a pride of lions, I’ll do it my way, thank you very much. Besides, it’s not like you were exactly successful with the ‘ladies’, from your memories.’
The human was silent for a good moment and Leo thought that he might have finally got the annoying tsetse to stop buzzing.
‘No need to be hurtful,’ the human replied sulkily after a moment. Apparently Leo had been too hopeful. ‘I’m just trying to help.’ Leo didn’t dignify that with a response, and apparently ignoring the pesky human was the best tactic to take here.
After stopping to take a drink from the stream waterhole – accompanied by waves of disgust from the corner of his mind holding his brother – Leo was off, following the marks of the pride.
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Every so often he stopped to make his own marks, wanting to ensure that any other lion who wandered into this area was clear that it was guarded. He even paused to sharpen his claws on one of the trees: it felt good and highlighted his presence. He suspected that the changing of the world would mean even more males sniffing around; better to make his power and domination over the area absolutely plain.
The pride hadn’t got very far along the route into the bush; his fight with the previous incumbent and subsequent victory roars hadn’t taken that long. They were watching out for him, clear by how they had been travelling as a bunched up group and how quickly they responded to his presence.
The adults looked warily at him, clearly unsure how to react. The cubs took their cue from their mothers. The older ones watched him warily, standing close to their pride-mates. The younger ones hid beneath their mother’s belly, only their faces visible where they watched him too.
He strolled closer, resisting the urge that made him want to run straight in and mate with the female in heat. He also resisted the desire to kill the small cubs under their mothers’ bellies: while his instincts told him that they were a threat, a drain on resources which were stretched thin already, he was capable now of more forward planning than day-to-day survival. Thanks to the human currently quietly watching.
Suddenly he felt bad for snapping at his brother earlier: the human had been annoying, but he had been trying to help in his own way. And once more you’re becoming far too human, allowing yourself to become distracted like this, he scolded himself, refocussing.
As he got closer he noticed all the lions tensing. The mothers of the cubs were the tensest, their lips rising to bare their teeth, their ears back against their necks. As he got closer still, a snarl rose in their chests, ripping clear of their mouths in a fearsome sound. Fearsome if he didn’t produce one just as threatening when he wished.
The pregnant female was hanging back, not offering her teeth, nor invitation. Instead, she seemed more to be trying to become invisible, crouching to press her belly to the dirt behind the bulk of the pride.
The two females who were in heat, one of whom had come to flirt with him earlier, were more inviting. They were still tense, but they didn’t offer him their teeth. As he’d thought, one male was as good as another to them and since he’d seen off their previous protector, Leo was clearly good enough to mate with and have his cubs. They probably would lead him a little bit of a dance before they allowed him to mate with them – he’d seen it happen enough times in his birth pride – but they would accept him relatively quickly.
But first, there was an important matter to take care of.
Building up his speed into a charge, Leo ran straight at the two male sub-adults. He might be willing to raise the other lion’s smaller cubs – new world, new rules – but he was not willing to offer succour to lions who would challenge him within a few weeks. They would leave, or he would kill them.
Although his brother seemed discomforted by the notion, he merely shifted uneasily in Leo’s mind, not arguing. Good.
The lions scattered before him, only the two mothers of the younger cubs standing their ground since they had their own litters crouched under their bellies. The mother of the two sub-adult males jumped back just as the two juveniles did. She snarled at Leo, and leapt to place herself between the cubs and him.
He snarled back and barged straight into her. His greater weight and strength sent her half-falling to the side. Continuing, Leo struck at one of the males, his claws ripping a wound across the juvenile’s shoulder. The lion let out a wounded cry, immediately backing up, his head down and snarling piteously.
His brother seemed to be questioning whether or not to chance it. When his mother leapt at Leo from the side, he took the opportunity and leapt at Leo too. Fortunately, Leo hadn’t been taken completely blind-sided.
‘To your flank!’ Dominic shouted in his mind. Leo turned in time to catch the female’s bite with his own jaws. In the meantime, the uninjured younger male leapt at his flank, his teeth sinking in deeply. Leo’s own health bar dropped noticeably and the sight enraged him.
Using his much greater strength, he drove the female to the ground and wrenched his teeth free of hers. A moment later, he darted in with his enhanced strength and set his teeth around her neck.
She stilled in fear, and Leo fought back the instincts that drove him to bite and choke her to death. I want females in my pride, he reminded himself. After growling for a moment with his teeth around her neck but not properly biting, he dared to hope that she might have got the message.
Releasing his bite slowly, he noticed that she did not move, looking up at him with a hint of confusion in her eyes.
‘I wonder if these females have crossed the Half-step Evolution threshold,’ Leo heard wondered by his brother in his mind. He paid it little attention, though: the two lions currently tearing at him were of more import.
Fortunately, none of the other females had joined in. The other two mothers were still focussed on protecting their own offspring, and the remaining three pride members were clearly less than interested in getting in a fight.
With confidence that he wasn’t about to be blind-sided once more, Leo focussed his attention on the two young upstarts. Not trying to pull his blows any more now that they had decided to challenge him, he whirled around on the one with blood around his mouth.
That particular juvenile was the one who had bitten him, but unlike a hyena had quickly leapt back afterwards. A mistake on his part.
Enhanced by Quick Strike, Leo was faster than the young lion. Enhanced by Crushing Bite, his own teeth were far, far more damaging. A single bite to the young lion’s shoulder crushed the joint and left the juvenile crippled.
He moaned piteously, but Leo didn’t have any pity for him. The older lion had given them the chance to run, and they had chosen to attack instead. Once more he lunged forwards and this time got the juvenile around his throat. The young lion went limp, perhaps hoping for mercy. But Leo had none.
A quick wrench of his neck snapped the younger lion’s spine with a resounding crack.
Squiggles appeared in Leo’s vision but he dismissed them with a thought. Dropping the body, he crouched over it, glaring at the other young male and snarled viciously.
The young juvenile lost his nerve and turned to run across the savannah. Leo chased him for a few paces, using Quick Strike to swipe at his back paws: a warning to match the one on his shoulder.
Slowing to a stop, Leo stood to watch the young lion disappear into the bush, letting out a victorious roar. If the young lion came back, he knew that death would be all that awaited him.