Not Trusted...

The sequel chapter to – The moment of his return...

For weeks of living peacefully, Rio and Rucco's prides mingled between each other. Rucco's pride females took turns looking after the cubs. Rucco and Rio acted like brothers and got along well. Cayla, when not watching the 2 cubs, would be found talking to the main hunting lionesses or she was hidden, watching Mystu carefully. Nimfi did not trust Mystu, and Mystu did not like the way Nimfi glared at her. When near each other they would stop, glare for a few moments and then pass by each other warily watching each other. Rucco had noticed the fued since they came. Rio had only begun to notice.

"Nimfi, a moment please" Rucco asked, before sundown. Nimfi nodded nuzzled her 2 cubs and watched as they followed Cayla and Zenobia into Pride Rock.

"Yes" she said in her soft pleasant tone.

"What is up with you and Mystu?" he asked.

"Nothing" she lied, turning her head from him.

"Do not turn your head from me!" he growled, before ushering her away from Pride rock and down the trail away from the entrance of the cave. When they got to the bottom he asked her again.

"Nothing!" she insisted lying again.

"Nimfi... Do not lie to me" he stared at her.

"Nothing..."She avoided eye contact as she answered, but as he did not answer her she looked up at him. His stare was intense. "I don't like her" she added.

"Is it because she is the head lioness of the pride?" he asked.

"She is not the head of ours" she proclaimed "I am the head"

"No," Rucco started "She is the head,"

"But she is not part of-"

"WE are all a part of ONE pride..."

They were interrupted by a sound above them, Rio came down by them. He had heard the argument from the top of the trail down from the cave, it was getting dark too.

"Rucco, I also have noticed a slight tenseness around Mystu and Nimfi" he added.

"Since when, though?" He asked

"Since last week" Rio replied "Did you have an argument with her or something?"

"They haven't liked each other since the day I came back" Rucco added.

"Look... I don't like her; she doesn't like me either, that's that!" Nimfi blurted out, she didn't like those 2 meddling in her business. She began to walk away, but turned back or Rucco would growl at her. "It's getting dark, shall we talk about this some other time?" she asked.

"You go up, I will be there shortly" Rucco replied. When she had left, Rio turned to Rucco.

"Want some time to think?"

"I have already thought... Tomorrows hunt... I have a plan"

They planned it out and went back up, quite a bit after. Nimfi was apologetic by the fight to Rucco. Cayla was sleeping intently for the morning hunt, and Zenobia was lay watching the sleeping cubs. They were very young, and had yet to start eating meat.

When dawn came both Zenobia and Cayla were ready, Rio was awake and Rucco was waking. Both males yawned, waking the females. Nimfi woke slightly but as today was her turn looking after the cubs she would be sleeping in abit. She was surprised to be woken by Rucco.

"Its my turn to watch the kids today Rucco"

"Your hunting today, Cayla will watch the cubs"

Cayla heard this and butted in severly

"But I haven't been in a group hunt for ages!"

"Nira and Juda have hurt their legs and so will not hunt, someone must take their place." Rio explained

"And Pintia and Biratta do not make the best hunting pair" Rucco pointed out, to the embarrassment of the 2 lionesses who didn't work well together in hunts.

Frea, Zenobia, Tula, Mystu and Nimfi went out hunting, Nimfi and Mystu both had front positions. Frea and Tula took areas behind them, and Zenobia took a position circling around the pray. They had found a lone injured wildebeest. It was limping but listening carefully. It was grazing on the open plain, and had 4 lions on its tail, without it noticing.

When it had been spotted by Zebobia, she had given out the positions as would have Mystu if she had seen the prey. Zenobia was the quickest of the 5, Frea and Tula had very quick reactions. To keep Mystu and Nimfi happy they had been given high ranking positions, but Zenobia had spotted the prey so it was courteous to let her plan out the strategy, and they would give their say if anything was bad.

"Right, we will circle around it carefully. Do not give off your position, until everyone is in place. When Tula and Frea are in place, Mystu and Nimfi must be too. Then you Nimfi will get it closer along with Mystu. If any of you 2 give off your position, shepherd it towards Tula and Frea. If it runs off towards me, it isn't all failed, chase it. I will pounce and startle/kill it. If you get to your second position without startling it, then Frea and Tula will get closer still. Then so will I. We will be so close it will go for a gap in between 2 of us. Then we have it. And you know the rest" was her tactical manoeuvre. Nimfi had heard it soo many times. She loved the position she was given, it was the most important. Mystu had heard this before only a few times, and knew it worked, as it had worked every other time Zenobia had hunted with her. Frea and Tula were new to this manoeuvre, having never been on a hunt were Zebobia had spotted the prey.

They had circled the prey easily, it had heard something, but after a few moments of silence had got on with grazing, a little more wary. Mystu and Nimfi had got to there positions, and waited for Frea and Tula to get into their second positions. Unfortunately Tula had startled the wildebeest and so Both Mystu and Nimfi jumped up and chased after it, with Frea and Tula trailing behind. The wildebeest stunted towards the direction of Zenobia who was getting ready, the wildbeest was worried of Mystu and Nimfi who were getting ever closer. Suddenly Zenobia pounced out of the blue at the wildebeest. Mystu had carried on running for a few moments before stopping to see Zenobia suffocating the wildebeest. Nimfi had stopped and was biting the neck of the wildebeest. Tula and Frea were watching out for scavengers, until the wildebeest was killed. They pulled it off towards Pride rock, where there was another kill. Cayla had disobeyed orders and killed a warthog, on her own before being found. The cubs were left with Nira and Juda the youngest females, which Nimfi was not happy about.

After having eaten the kills the lions lazy sat in the mid afternoon sun. Even the cubs had eaten some meat, which was their first taste of it. Terra and Gae were now playing nicely, with Cayla watching them. She had been banned from hunting for a few days until the migration came, her own fault for leaving the cubs with young inexperienced females. Mystu was lazy lying down the trail, when Nimfi walked down. Mystu stood up, watching the lioness carefully.

"You don't like me, I don't like you" Nimfi said.

"That's true, and?" Mystu asked.

"Why?" Nimfi wondered

"Well... Because!" Mystu replied.

"Look... I was wary of you because I had cubs; you were the high lioness of your pride at the time... I was of mine"

"So that is why you didn't like me"

"Yes" Nimfi admitted "Though I know I can trust you"

"Well... I didn't like you, because of the same reason, I guess I didn't want my power taken off me" Mystu explained.

"Well then, Peace?" Nimfi asked

"Peace. Just stop that Cayla watching me"

"How did you know?"

"Zenobia told me..." She explained

Mystu and Zenobia were good friends, and Nimfi also became friends with Mystu. For a week everything was good, until the migration was late. Days later, one of the cubs went missing, Gae. Rucco's females searched endlessly, leaving Terra with Mystu. Some of Rios females also helped and by the second day Rucco joined the search. Mid-day on day 2 of the search Nimfi stayed back with Terra, she was very protective, no one but her, Rucco and Zenobia were to see the cub. She trusted no one, and hardly got any sleep. With most of the females out in search of the cub, food was scarce. Mystu had not gone out to look but by day 3, when the migration came, she gathered Zenobia, Cayla and herself to go get food, the rest would either join them or go looking for the cub.

Day 4, news spread quick of Gae's 'death' and a rouge male on the horizon of the borders. The tales were heard of from the birds and from the lions who searched by the watering hole. Rio placed Cayla by the watering hole daily, for if a male would go in to the Pride land, he would want water. He would be thirsty.

Day 5 came and passed and hope of finding the cub was lost. Exhausted lioness' came back from their search to finally eat from a few days of nothing. The cub could not have survived without food this long, he was gone. Rucco was scarcely seen, and didn't want to talk, so Rio had to bring the news to Nimfi.

"Nimfi, the search cannot go on"

"No! He's out there"

"Nimfi!" Rio looked at her with sorrowful eyes "It has been 5 days he couldn't survive 5 days without food!" Rio looked at her sympathetically "He's gone... Were sorry, We couldn't find him... he's gone"

Nimfi was outraged and distraught. Rucco watched behind Rio, who turned to see him. "I'm sorry" he told them, walking away.

Nimfi was angry, she hissed and scratched at Rucco, who nuzzled and tried to comfort her. She eventually calmed down, and they slept in the cave peacefully for the first night in 4 days.