(A/N: So just in case anyone was wondering what inspired me to write this if I say that it is "nothing like LASCAR." Greyhound racing. I always feel bad for them. I always want them to catch the rabbit. Nah, actually, the main reason was just so that Sarafina could get recognized by the pride for being the athletic lioness that she is. So that's the back-story. Although there is truth to the first part too.)
"Mom!" whispered Nala. It was difficult to try and call down the hill to wake her mom up, and yet be quiet enough to ensure she didn't startle the prey that was just walking on by Sarafina. "Mom!" she called again, "Wake up!"
Sarafina's ear twitched. She thought she'd heard her name being called. She lifted her eyelid a little and then realized where she was. Within a second she had already clambered back onto her feet, knowing there wasn't any time to waste.
Unfortunately, her hastiness at getting up had startled the zebra walking by next to her, and it and the antelope were sent off into a run.
Sarafina followed.
"Your brother's nice," said Anzi, now walking next to Bahati. "He doesn't seem like the kind who'd participate in something like this though."
"That's what I thought too," replied Bahati. "Lenny though, he likes to hunt. As soon as he'd heard I signed up for it again he thought he'd come and give it a try."
"Well he's doing well," said Anzi. She looked back over at the front stretch. The antelope, buffalo, and zebra were all running down it. "Everyone keeps catching stuff. If we just sat on the front stretch for the rest of the night we'd be leading. That's where they let all the prey out."
"I think that's what Guvu's been doing," said Bahati, "but he's not leading."
"Oh. Well . . . um, who is?"
"Fifty-seven," muttered Nala, watching with the rest of the Pridelanders as Sarafina had given up on the zebra and was now sitting and waiting for the antelope. The crowd cheered as Tumaini instead brought the zebra down. She was using Guvu's ambush strategy too. "Fifty-seven," said Nala again, "why would Mom wait for it to go that high?"
"Well four pieces of prey and she'll have fifty-three," replied Simba.
"But that's going to take a while," said Nala. "I guess I'd be okay if it wasn't Wamariri leading."
"Hmm," was Simba's response. The two remained quiet for a while as they waited for the buffalo to get closer to Sarafina. "Hey Nala, um . . . I don't know if you've already thought about this, but please don't go entering yourself in this next year. I don't want to risk losing you this early in our life."
Nala chuckled. "Don't worry Simba, I won't. Maybe one day, but no, not next year, that's for sure. Why, you think that I think that I could be doing better than my mom?"
"You are criticizing her a bit, yeah."
"That doesn't mean I'd do any better. Mom is a lot better with the logical and physical side of things when it comes to stuff like this than I am. I think she's also a lot more patient."
"Patience is a virtue," acknowledged Simba, "and when you don't have it you end up like one of the lions sleeping here," he said, looking at all of the ones asleep on the front stretch.
"Surely Wamariri needs to sleep soon," said Nala. "She's brought down five animals and completed seven laps, that's quite a lot."
"No one's completed ten laps yet, have they?" asked Simba.
"Nope," Nala replied. "We're getting close though."
Finally the buffalo made its way alongside Sarafina, and she jumped out from the side and tried to tackle the creature down. The Pridelanders encouraged her with cheers, and then at last, after about half a minute of wrestling with it, Sarafina was able to bring the animal to the ground. Ten points.
"And now they let a buffalo out in front of us," sighed Shairi. She was walking alongside her sister, Winda, as the two entered the front stretch. "That's a shame," Shairi added.
"Why?" asked Winda.
"Well before that buffalo was there, we could have just run on by and brought the zebra down. But now if we want to take the easy ten points, by getting the zebra, we'd have to run on by the buffalo first. The buffalo will then give out a warning shriek, and the zebra will take off into a run."
Winda smiled. "But there's two of us," she said.
Shairi smiled too. "So you want to just have both of us run, and one of us get the buffalo and then have the other charge down the zebra?"
"It's the advantage of having two pieces of prey right there. One for me and one for you."
"Okay, well which one do you want?"
Winda gave her elder and more experienced sister the 'What do you think?' look.
Shairi sighed. "You want me to tackle the buffalo, don't you?" she asked.
"I'll make it up to you," said Winda, "and that's a promise."
"Alright," replied Shairi, "let's go."
Sarafina looked up in front of her. Guvu and Tumaini were lying down right next to each other, waiting for the next piece of prey to come on by. Sarafina glanced over her shoulder to see how close the next piece of prey was. Quite far away actually, though it was on the front stretch. Sarafina decided to take a moment and sit down, just to see what would happen.
Shairi and Winda chose that exact same moment to begin their run. The crowd began to cheer. Sarafina smiled. If one of them failed, she was sure that Tumaini and Guvu would remain in their places. She'd then be able to charge the prey that was left through the first couple of corners.
Winda had gotten lucky. The crowd's cheer had drowned out the sound of her running from the zebra. Smells and scents didn't mean a lot at the Siku Choka, because the area was surrounded with various smells and scents from the crowd watching all the way down to the organizers in the infield. As a result, by the time the zebra realized that Winda was closing in from behind it, it was too late for him to run. It turned out to be an easy ten points for Winda.
Shairi wasn't having as much luck. She'd been able to get on the buffalo's back okay, but the first time that she had tried to bite her jaw down and kill the buffalo, it had turned out to be a failure. She tried again, but the buffalo was already beginning to attempt to throw her off. The buffalo seemed to be having much more success as he worked towards his goal than what Shairi was having at working towards hers. Still, Shairi wasn't about to give up.
Winda could hear the buffalo's hooves approaching, and so she backed away from the zebra, watching as her sister tried to hang on and bring the buffalo down. The buffalo was running all over the place, and it was a good thing that Winda had backed off because when the buffalo threw himself sideways, his rear legs clipped the zebra's carcass, and he was virtually forced into a buck which was so sudden and violent, that it threw Shairi off and an extra five to ten feet into the air.
Winda gasped, and then closed her eyes as her sister crunched back down onto the ground on her back. Winda ran over to her sister instantly.
"Shairi!" she screamed. "Sister, sister, are you okay?" she asked as she approached her side.
It only took Sarafina a couple of seconds to disable and kill the buffalo a little bit farther down the straight. It had already become wounded and weak. Nobody cheered when she did so. It was obvious that Shairi was not going to get up from that one. Even the animals in the crowd who could not see in the night had been able to hear the severity of the thud that had echoed around the hills when Shairi had landed. The only one who figured that she might have been okay was Winda. She would soon find out that she was wrong.
A few minutes of weeping followed for Winda, but when some boos were thrown out from along the backstretch, from where Wamariri had just caught an antelope, Winda snapped out of it. She got up and took a step back from her deceased sister.
"I shouldn't have made you go after that buffalo, Shairi," she said. She sniffed. "I would have got off him as soon as he started to put up a fight," she added. She thought back to her first piece of prey that she'd brought down a little while ago. Her sister had helped her with that. Until then she was the laughing stock of the whole Siku Choka, but then with that kill she had actually been beating her sister. She sniffed again. "I had a higher score than you! It was selfish of me to go after the zebra," she said. She looked back down at her dead sister. "I promised I'd make it up to you," she said. "You helped me get twenty points, sis, and so now I'm going to make them worth it. I'm going to win this thing, and when they all huddle around me and ask me questions about it later, I'm going to owe it all to you. You deserve it, sis."
Those were Winda's final words to her sister. Now, she had to make good on her promise. She began to walk again.
"My, things have certainly changed a lot, haven't they?" asked Sarafina nervously.
Uku looked back at her. "What do you mean?" she asked.
Sarafina took note of how her face was fairly wrinkled, but even so, she could still see the facial features that had made this lioness stand out from the crowd in her golden days when her reputation had been the highest.
"I—I . . . well, it's nothing," stammered Sarafina. "It's just, I was there the last time you won a Siku Choka. I never thought I'd actually get to speak to you."
Uku gave a grin. It almost looked like a forced smile, but Sarafina knew that at her age, Uku had to put her facial muscles to a lot of effort to be able to smile. She reminded Sarafina of her grandmother when she did this.
"I remember that day," said Uku. The two continued to walk alongside each other down the backstretch. "Were you competing then or were you in the crowd?"
"Oh, I was in the crowd," replied Sarafina. "I wasn't old enough to compete back then."
"I hope I didn't inspire you to do this," said Uku. "The Siku Choka is a one way ticket to death. It is synonymous with hell."
Sarafina laughed. "I've seen the last eight Siku Chokas, Uku. I think I had enough time to make a reasonable decision."
"You're probably right," Uku replied. "Having fun?" she asked.
"When I get closer to the leader I will be," Sarafina replied.
"Well we're getting close to her now," Uku said. "Look, she's lying just over there, sleeping."
Sarafina looked farther down the backstretch. Sure enough, Wamariri had collapsed onto the ground. The crowd sitting on the hill next to her was trying to make as much noise as possible so that she wouldn't fall asleep. Sarafina smirked.
"How many points do you have?" asked Uku.
"Thirty-four now," Sarafina replied.
"Not too bad," said Uku. "I don't think we're halfway yet. Kind of hard to tell at night. Can't judge the time by the sun."
Sarafina looked up at the sky. Many stars were out but she didn't know how to read them. The sun had long since set. It was as dark as what it was going to get. In the audience, many of those who couldn't see too well at night had drifted off to sleep. Sarafina yawned.
"Not tired now, are we?" asked Uku.
Sarafina shook her head. "Just waking up," she replied. "Glad the ground's hard," she said. "I can't wait to get back on the front stretch."
Uku smiled. "Yes, that is where all the action is, isn't it?"
Tumaini and Guvu's strategy sounded too good to be true. They both sat or lied down at the end of the front stretch, and then whenever a piece of prey went by them they would go after it. They would score ten points and wait for the next piece of prey, which was also let out on the front stretch. That animal would then make it to the end of the straight where one of Tumaini or Guvu brought that animal down. The only way that the strategy would not work was if one of the animals was able to make their way on by them without being brought down, or if there was another lion between the point where the prey was released and the point where Tumaini and Guvu sat. The plan had its advantages in that it stopped anyone else waiting on the backstretch from scoring and that it meant these two lions could get a bunch of points without losing their energy, but the plan also had its disadvantages.
An antelope and a zebra had just been brought down by the pair, and now they both sat to the side as the buffalo walked on by. However, Anzi and Bahati were now at the heels of the new antelope and zebra that had been put on the track, and while Anzi was able to bring hers down easily, Bahati mistimed his attack and thus decided to run on by his prey. He kept running. It was a strategy that had not been used since the start of the event. By running, Bahati could log a bunch of digit points, which could become crucial late in the event. Guvu and Tumaini may have had a lot of points, but Guvu had 62 while Tumaini had 54. The last digits of their scores were very low.
Not only that, but if Bahati kept running like this, when he gave up on that tactic, he would likely be able to time it to where he was the only awake lion on the backstretch, and then he could bring the buffalo down that Guvu and Tumaini had let on by.
Guvu had been the first to work this all out. He began to walk. Tumaini soon followed. But she began to run.