“Kirisa, Tiruk, Lukarin. My children. You must be brave You must be strong. You must be quick. The springhare is fast but you are faster. Never forget that,” the mother cheetah, called Tsiqai, told her pups.

“We’re not little anymore, mother,” Lukarin said, brushing up against her affectionately.

It was true, the three of them were almost her height. However, they were still lanky, clumsy, and soft. “It doesn’t matter if you grow as big as a lion,” their mother said, her sullen chocolate eyes narrowing. “The spring hare doesn’t care. He is wise, and he is tricky. To him, your strength doesn’t matter, but your wits. He only grants you his energy if you deserve it. The weak, the slow, and the dumb will not catch him. You are strong, fast, and smart.”

“We are!” beamed Kirisa.

Their mother nodded. “Now, recite for me.”

“Life is a gift, and through it, we sift. We are no more than the dirt beneath our feet, nor the air which through we leap. The lion, the hyena, the dog. The sun, the moon, and the fog. We thank those from whom we take from, and we welcome those that will one day take from us. From birth to life, to death, we are one with that which surrounds us,” they said in unison. Each of them knew it by heart, as they said it every time they went for a hunt. The mantra was part of who they were. Every cheetah knew it, and every cheetah swore by its code.

“Good,” Tsiqai nodded. “No go, and challenge spring hare.

The pups yipped and yelped with excitement for a first chance to put their skills to the test. All their lives they’d been waiting for the moment they were allowed to hunt the old spring hair. Tsiqai had always had respect for it, but its time was nearing. It was better to fall in battle than from disease. It had lived a good life.

The three of them were so excited that their feet shivered as they stepped up and down, eager to release their bottled up energy.

The springhare was sleeping, atop a rock. A casual observer would think it was an easy meal, but Tsiqai could see his ears twitching, ever so slightly. He knew that the cheetahs were near.

“Ok, how’re we doing this?” whispered Kirisa.

“We stalk,” Lukarin suggested. “If I go left, and Kirisa, you go right, and Tiruk stays here then we can surround him.”

“Let’s do it!” Kirisa exclaimed, slightly raising her voice.

“No. Wait,” Lukarin stopped himself. “He’ll hear us, don’t you think?”

Kirisa’s shoulders slumped, and she sat back on her haunches. “Well, what do we do then?”

“Um… we could try with a full attack. We try to outflank him? What do you think Tiruk?”

Tiruk looked up from the ant she’d been playing with. “Huh?”

“How can you be focused on an ant when we’re about to hunt spring hare!” Kirisa asked, exasperated.

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“Sorry,” Tiruk said timidly, pulling her feet together and standing up higher.

“Ok,” Lukarin broadened his shoulders and ruffled his pelt. “We need to seriously plan out how we’re going to do this.” He extended a claw and drew out their positions. “If Kirisa goes left but directs towards him, and Tiruk flanks around with a head start, and then I stalk up behind him…”

Tiruk leaned in to get a better view, trying to understand what her bigger brother was saying.

It was too late when Lukarin noticed Kirisa’s haunches raised high into the air, ready to spring forward.

“Stop!” he exclaimed, but she had already begun, flying forwards with the acceleration of a fish eagle.

“We’ve got to catch up!” Lukarin shouted, taking off after his sister. Tiruk followed, hard on her brother’s heels.

Kirisa knew she was the fastest, which is why she was leading the assault. She sped towards the spring hair, saliva flying out of her mouth as her lean, aerodynamic body covered the ground between them.

She closed in on her prey, opened her jaws and sprung at the sleepy hare. As she flew, she brought her jaws together, only for her teeth to knock against each other as she crashed into the dust.

Instantly she rolled to her feet, a furious growl scrunched her face.

Lukarin flew past her, pursuing their prey, with Tiruk struggling to keep up. Kirisa shook the dust off her pelt and took off after them.

Lukarin sped after the hare, keeping up with its twists and turns as it tried to best them. Lukarin wouldn’t be bested. Kirisa was faster, and the hare was more agile, but Lukarin was smarter.

“It’s headed to the river,” Tiruk panted.

Lukarin couldn’t waste any breath on speaking. He only charged forwards. He was faster and closing in. The hare glanced over its shoulder and its eyes went wide as it saw Lukarin just behind it.

Unfortunately for the cheetahs, the old hare had escaped many times and knew how to best the smartest of cheetahs. He dove to the left, making Lukarin skid past him.

Tiruk leaped at it, and before it could recover, she bowled it over. “I got it!” she exclaimed.

Before Lukarin could even get to his feet, the hare had kicked his small sister so hard in the chest that she was knocked off if him.

Cheetahs usually hunted alone, or rarely in twos. The hare never expected Kirisa to come smashing into him from the side, clamping down on one of its ears. Lukarin joined the tussle, receiving an onslaught of battering from the hare’s hind legs.

The hare wiggled and wormed and twisted its body, biting Kirisa in the shoulder.

She hissed in pain, recoiling from the fight. Tiruk smashed into the hare from the side, trying to bite it in the stomach, but she was kicked so many times in the nose that she backed off.

Lukarin was no match alone, as his long lanky limbs struggled to hold the squirming hare. Not a moment later, he was thrown off, and the hare took off again.

“No way is this happening,” Kirisa grumbled, instantly at full speed. Her light hearted mood replaced by a striving hunger to succeed. Tiruk was by her side but quickly fell behind. Lukarin didn’t waste any time, forcing his panting lungs to work harder, his lean muscles powering him forwards.

The three of them followed the hare, amazed at its speed in spite of its age.

Tiruk fell further and further behind, as her siblings pursued the hare further. Eventually, she was chasing them by scent, and soon enough, she’d lost them completely.

Broken, she slowed to a halt.

“No child of mine is that slow.”

“I can’t keep up. I’m too small,” Tiruk said, her voice barely louder than the grass in the wind.

“Am I big? Lukarin is taller than me, and Kirisa is longer than me, but I am faster than both of them,” Tsiqai told her cub. She’d been following them and watching their progress. “Get up. They’ve stopped.”

Tiruk let out a weak whine, but stood, and began loping after her mother. Faster than she thought, they picked up the scent of the others.

By now, the sun was hanging low in the sky, painting it with an array of brilliant oranges and purples, making the savanna around them glow.

Tsiqai’s pace quickened, as they neared.

The two of them broke through the grass, and into a small, barren clearing, just off from the river where the last crocodile lived.

Kirisa and Lukarin both stood with their feet splayed, and their chests heaving, glaring at the other form.

Tiruk had to squint in the fading light to see what it was. She thought she could see, but it seemed impossible, yet sure enough, it was true.

Standing before them, were two hyenae, the bigger of them holding the springhare in its jaws.