He Lives in You
2. The Unmorning
While Nengwalamwe always had been a light sleeper, Falana seemed capable of sleeping deeply and peacefully through practically anything. So as Nengwalamwe woke in the dark of the cave, Falana lay still at his side. He got up carefully, leaving her to sleep on, yawned and stretched and wandered toward the cave mouth. He took a look back to check she was still asleep and then stepped out on to the rock promontory.
The sun was a little lower than he expected, and well to the west. Nengwe struggled to make anything out against the brilliant light. It was already past noon, indeed it was well into the afternoon. He shuddered with the unexpected cold, wondering why he hadn't woken earlier.
He stopped and looked down. Instead of the sun-warmed rock he was familiar with, the ground was grassed: tight, green grass, beautifully comfortable under pad. He looked around. Instead of looking down from the rock promontory to the plain below he looked around at a ring of trees some lengths away; unfamiliar trees, dense and dark. Where the ground became open lay a line of undergrowth atop a low earth bank.
He shook his head and looked again. The trees and grass remained. His breath quickened and his eyes widened. He cast about one more time and, spooked, dropped his ears back, turned and dashed back to the cave.
Nengwe slid to a halt a couple of lengths into the darkness, his heart still pounding. Falana snored lightly. She was here, he was here, but where was here? What was here? Why wasn't it there? Gathering himself, he turned back slowly and looked out once more. It was still all there.
"Nengw… wha… 's OK?"
He knew well enough not to answer. Falana was still well asleep and would not make anything of any reply he cared to make. He made one anyway. "Nothing Falana. It's alright." He crept to the cave mouth, drew down to the ground and peered out. What was out there? Where were they? What "they"? He knew he had to go out there, and for more than one reason. He'd just have to go and find out.
He fought down a feeling to slide back into the cave and re-join Falana. Creeping forward he stole glances to both sides. Then he rose silently and slunk out in to the open, muttering, "Why does it have to be trees?"
~oOOo~
The woodland was open, light and airy. Underpad, occasional fallen twigs cracked, cushioned by fine leaf mould from the fresh green sparse canopy. The bark of the trees was smooth: roaned green amid silver brown with some thinner and flaking silver. The trunks sighed lightly in the breeze which barely stirred the dappled air below.
The ground rose gently ahead and to Nengwe's offside. He looked, barely up; nothing stirred. Unlike the forests he had feared in before, this woodland, quite unlike those steaming dark, fetid, oppressive, treacherous confines, felt welcoming, as if the trees themselves smiled upon him. It didn't make him any less alert, or any more at ease: he never could be in closed country where he could see no further than ten or twenty lengths and where all he saw were the trees and not the wood.
Had he known it, the woods were alive with potential prey, all of it as yet unknown: so many new tastes to acquire, so many new ways to find to catch them. That was not yet of any great concern. It was a mere barely noted interest. It would be at least a day before it came forward to fully occupy his mind.
What did worry him, almost to the point of obsession, was who was out there, hidden amongst the trees. Who or what might threaten him, and most importantly Falana and their unborn cub. It was clear that no lion could live in these woods. No lion ever had. A leopard perhaps, yes, that was possible. Some other, like the woods, unknown and unknowable cat of course, but certainly no lion. Yet Nengwe was there, and the unpalatable thought had already struck him that he might have to learn to live in these woods.
Having neither seen, heard nor smelt anything other than small birds rummaging around amid the leaf litter, Nengwe turned to walk in wide circle around the cave, all the while taking care to never reveal its existence, nor indeed its precious occupants. The breeze stiffened overhead, shuffling shadows over the lion below. He looked up, his fur fringed ears catching the folding slip-shuffle of the leaves. He afforded himself a light smile, and closing his eyes for just a moment, lowered his head. When he opened them again, less than twenty lengths ahead on the crest of the rise, close to a stunted dead-straight black almost bough-less tree, stood what he had persuaded himself could not be there: a lion, a full-maned male lion. The tree crown flicker-softly glowed.
The stranger spoke, "Nengwalamwe, son of Nengwala, you are indeed welcome indeed t-"
Nengwe cut through the words; a growl rapidly rising up within him and exploding into a roar.
The stranger fell quiet. He held his head high and just looked from open, honest eyes. He looked confident, proud possibly. A little like Nengwe's father had tried to be, but so often failed as his eyes had always been tainted with malice. The stranger seemed to simply be there, to stand tall, his forepaws close together, not braced like Nengwe's for a spring. His mane slipped down around his head. It held little of the tension that underlay Nengwe's. The stranger's high head accentuated his short body. Nengwe mentally stripped away the stranger's mane, seeing the line of his neck and the bulge of his shoulders. The stranger's coat was smooth and even, unmarred by wounds, even to his legs, and head-to toe shone in golden brown with little countershading.
Nengwe, who despite having left some of his vanity behind when Falana fell pregnant, still spent a lot of time washing, felt tarnished in the face of the stranger. Did the stranger's mane sway minutely in the softest of the breeze? Was this his territory? Had Nengwe done it again; straying into another male's domain? And what a male: tall at the shoulder, feeling no need to ready for the strike. Who was this? Why was he here? Could he fight?
Nengwe, while never the biggest or strongest of his kind, was longer than the stranger; he held his head low, ready to run, ready to fight. His tensing muscles burned, forged in the daily battle to hunt and survive. The stranger looked, well, Nengwe was certain as he studied him further, out of condition. Fat even. All mane and no muscle. Slow no doubt. If Nengwe was to spring, he'd be on the stranger before he had turned to run. He might well have more than the edge in weight, but Nengwe felt sure he would not be able to make it count, and he wasn't going to let the stranger sit on him. Nengwe's mind was made up. He burst forward, rushing the stranger.
Nengwalamwe growled and stopped a couple of lengths ahead of the stranger; forepaws spread tensely, teeth and claws bared. Nengwe had been wrong: the stranger managed, just, to turn away, momentary but very real fear in his previously calm eyes. As he turned, he tried to say, "I only wanted to welcome y-", before Nengwe roared again. The stranger gathered himself and leapt away down the far slope of the ridge. Nengwe watched him go, roaring again when he was ten lengths off, by twenty five he had disappeared into a gully.
Nengwe noticed the woods lay silent now. No more did the shadows dance at the lion's paws. The breeze sliced chilledly through the hard wood. When he was sure the stranger had gone, he turned back toward the cave, back toward Falana.