Lion?!
Imarie bolted upright, and froze. Desta, who had been woken by the yowling mumbled something about sleep and shut up.
Maliki didn't know what to do. The scent was coming closer. So she went like Imarie. She froze like a startled rabbit.
Akua on the other hand was half walking half rolling around not knowing where to go.

"Why is everyone awake" Desta murmured, yawing.
Imarie moved an inch closer to her.
"I don't mean to alarm you Desta, but you know another thing that kills leopards?" he asked her in a quiet voice.
Desta looked at him quizzically.
"Lions" he replied. "They're stronger than us, faster than us and they're cleverer than us"
"Your point being" she replied.
Imarie pinned back his ears and narrowed his eyes.
"My point being" he said, sounding forced. "That there is one, smells healthy, strong, and male, and its getting closer!"

"What?!" Desta yowled in shock, her eyes alarmed.
Imarie sank his claws into the ground.

Maliki padded stiffly up to his side. His pelt looked black as Akua's in the night, and unlike her and Detsa's, his navy blue eyes weren't glowing.
"If it gets down here we'll be trapped with the lion" she warned him.

She felt Imarie's body tense, his muscles bunched together.
Akua looked like she wasn't sure what to do so she stayed stock still.

Maliki felt awful, all she could do was sit and wait for their in-pending death. Scarcely daring to breath, she sat down and hid her face in her hair, quickly licking her top. She gazed down at the grass between her paws. It was green and wet with dew, which reflected the stars in the jet black sky above them.

She wondered what lions looked like.
She remembered asking her mother as a young cub.
"Mother" she had mewed.
"Yes princess" she had replied sleepily.
"What are lions" she squeaked. "Desta says they're big and scary!"
"Lions are like us but bigger and with plain pelts, if you ever smell one you run away quick OK" she had told her.
"Ok mummy" she had mewed, and then fell asleep into her mothers pelt.

She sighed quietly.
Sorry mum

Then it happened. A big pair of orange eyes with slit pupils glowed in the darkness behind a bramble root. For a spilt second anyway, until the rage filled cat launched itself into the clearing, claws outstretched, hatred in its eyes.
A long scratch down its cheek, and on its hind leg. Unlike their spotted pelt, its just had a flat pelt of sand, apart from around its neck, where it was ruffled and dark gold.

The great beast hesitated before rearing back on its hind legs and roaring a terrible roar which echoed around the clearing. It then dropped down onto four paws and scanned the four creatures. It snarled loudly, showing its jagged yellow teeth, as big as Maliki's head.

Maliki just remained like Imarie. Paralysed with fear. Unable to make the slightest movement out of fear.
Akua backed away slowly, taking little mouse steps, clearly petrified out of her mind.
Desta raised her head to look at it, panting with terror.

It surveyed the clearing, then looked puzzled, as it tried to claw its way out, just breaking away dusty chunks of the wall, it crumbled under its weight. Growling with frustration it turned back to the four petrified leopards.
It's crooked face suddenly smiled with cruel anticipation.
It took a step closer. Its claws sinking into the grass leaving marks on the ground, making Maliki shiver.

She saw its shoulder twitch, its muscles rippling underneath its smooth pelt.
Cautiously she backed away, and felt her hind leg press against Imarie. She swallowed.

"I like spotted cat" It grunted.
"I like to eat 'em!"

Maliki spat at him and padded forward.
"Maliki no!" Imarie rasped from behind her.
She didn't turn around, not daring to keep her eye off the lion for a moment.

She went up to him, until she three tail lengths away.
She dipped her head.
"What's your name" she asked, her head still bowed.

The lion looked at her, intensity burning in his orange eyes.
"Nooka" he replied, flexing his front claws.
"Me Maliki" she said, gesturing to herself.
"I fight"

The lion grunted in agreement.
"How did you find us" she asked, as they circled, Maliki's bad leg playing up.
The lion hissed softly.
"I smelled cat down at a nearby clearing a few sunrises ago, I kept your scent in mind, because you now what you smell like?" his voice was coated in anger. Looks like he could speak leopard well enough.
"What? she acted dumb.
"A crippled corpse!"

Frustration clawed in Maliki's belly as well as the panging hunger. She hadn't eaten today, or yesterday. She didn't feel ready to take on a wasp, let alone a full grown lion.

What was she thinking.
Maybe I should stop trying to play hero and let him kill me, live with Sebore, live with Kondo.
Suddenly time froze.