Lioness Tales
Tale 1: Njano's Secret
Chapter 4: Hunting in the Darkness
Duni had kept more to herself ever since she had that conversation with Adla by the river. Finding out that the lionesses didn't find it worth their time to teach Duni how to hunt came as a harsh revelation of what the Pride thought of her. But after a few days of sulking, Duni finally decided she would do all that was within her reach to prove them wrong.
She started by paying extra attention and learning all the theory by heart. Duni couldn't help feeling proud of herself when she didn't fail to answer any of the lionesses questions. But today would be the first practical lesson. Therefore, Duni was extremely nervous, and kept pacing to and fro, as they waited for Safi to show up.
He finally arrived, looking bored and uninterested.
"This is going to be a piece of cake, don't you think?" he teased Duni, seeing her nervous pacing.
"Easy for you to say... I still haven't figured out yet how to put everything we've learned into practice without having the extra advantage that you guys have."
Safi yawned noisily and replied, "You'll do fine, stop fretting."
They both looked up when their teachers called for their attention. Bahiya and Chiku would be teaching them today, while Adla, unbeknownst to all of them, had decided to keep an eye on Duni from afar, in case she were to get in trouble.
"All right, gather round," Bahiya said, "We've found a group of antelope grazing not far from here. Your objective for today will be to target one of them, and chase it down. There will be no killing today, so all you need to do is pin the antelope to the ground, and then immediately release it. Don't use your nails, and don't bite them."
"Remember, don't just go chasing them randomly," Chiku added, "We will want to know afterwards what prompted you to target that specific animal, and we want to hear a good reason for it. Is everything clear? Any questions?"
Safi and Duni shook their heads. The lionesses then silently lead the students to where the antelope were grazing.
"Okay, Safi, you'll go first. Once the herd regroups, Duni will have a go," Chiku said, and nuzzled the young lion quickly. "Good luck!"
Safi took a deep breath, and immediately adopted a stalking position, hiding from the view of the antelope. The lionesses watched him from afar, while Duni listened intently to their commentary.
"His tail's up, he'd better tuck it in soon, or else..." Chiku whispered.
"Ah, there he goes, almost like he heard you! Good. What do you think of the antelope?"
There was a moment of silence, and then Chiku replied, "I see at least three potential targets. That young one over there, that female with the limp, and the old one who looks like he's asleep. Let's see if Safi manages to spot hem too..."
The lionesses waited in silence, while Duni shifted her ears often, trying to pick up the voices of the antelope in the distance. It appeared none of them had noticed Safi yet and they were still going on about their business. Duni wondered if there was a way for her to track back the three weak antelope that Chiku had singled out, but for now it was no use worrying about it. Safi was bound to scare the herd and they would scatter and regroup elsewhere, where she'd have to start the search for a target all over again.
"There he goes!" Bahiya exclaimed, and both lionesses held their breaths for a while, only to breathe again once Safi had successfully tackled one of the antelope.
Safi returned sporting a triumphant smile, which erased quickly from his face once Bahiya and Chiku started questioning his choice.
"Why did you target that one?"
"Um, well, he was closest to me, he hadn't seen me, and he was quite big. I could've fed the whole Pride with that, huh?"
"He was also much stronger than the rest, and you wouldn't have had a chance of actually suffocating him on your own. When you're hunting for yourself, you'll have to focus on smaller prey. There's no use going for the biggest one if you can't hold on to it."
Safi growled slightly. "I could have killed him if I wanted to, you know."
Chiku snorted. "We'll see about that when the time's right. For now, good job on your stalking skills, just keep an eye on that tail."
Safi nodded, still feeling proud at his first attempt.
The group then moved towards where the herd had regrouped, and the lionesses turned to Duni. "You have to do this on your own," Chiku told her, sounding very serious, "there will be no hints from our side. Just for your information, the three antelope we had singled out earlier are nowhere to be seen. You will have to identify if there's another antelope with a weakness. Got it?"
"Yes... I think so," Duni replied.
"Whenever you're ready," Bahiya told her and gave her a quick nuzzle too, for good luck.
Duni began by sniffing around first, but she couldn't smell the herd clearly; the lionesses must have led her upwind to make it more difficult for her. Fair enough, she thought, not all prey would be standing right in front of her nose to be tracked down. She decided to use her ears instead, and headed in the direction of the herd's sounds instead. Duni adopted the stalking position and off she went.
Chiku and Bahiya didn't take their eyes off Duni, while Safi also followed her progress, not really interested, just curious to see how far she could go.
Duni was unfamiliar with this area, which meant that she had to walk very slowly, to make sure she was not stepping into anything that could make a noise and alert the herd, or perhaps even hurt herself. Finally, she was able to scent the antelope, and she crouched down to the ground as low as possible.
Unfortunately, there were so many voices nearby that Duni was having a really hard time estimating the distance between all of them and herself, and she hadn't been able to spot any of their weaknesses yet. She concentrated very hard, listening to the sound of their voices, trying to focus on those who sounded young or old. She eventually heard two young voices, belonging to someone playing around nearby; their mother scolded them gently, reminding them to be quiet and stay on the lookout for predators.
Duni decided she would try and go for them, but the biggest problem now was how to get close without giving herself away? The lioness became more and more nervous, as the antelope scent became too overpowering, confusing her even further. She decided to trust her ears and finally gave chase in the direction where she had heard the two young antelope.
Through the commotion around her, Duni could hear that the antelope had seen her and were running away, but she still could hear the two young ones not far away, laughing and mocking her.
"Isn't that the lousiest huntress you've ever seen?"
Duni stopped on her tracks, tilting her head, completely confused and having lost all sense of direction. Why are the two calves not running away? she thought. Duni charged again, resulting only in more laughter.
"Hey, doofus, they went the other way!"
"Now, now, be nice, she's only learning, from the looks of her," the mother chided again.
Duni could not help feeling extremely frustrated and angry, and charged again towards where she had heard the voices, running as fast as she could, only to ram head first into the trunk of a huge, thick three. Duni groaned in pain, and fell to the ground, unconscious.
"Ow! That's gotta hurt... Hey, mom, is she dead?" came the young voice again.
"I don't think so. Don't go down there, maybe she's trying to trick us into going to check her out..."
Just a few moments later, Safi, Chiku and Bahiya arrived at the scene. The lionesses nuzzled Duni, looking worried.
"Wake up, come on..." Chiku said, licking the lioness' face.
Bahiya looked around and spotted a family of vervet monkeys sitting on a low branch of the tree that Duni had rammed, peeking down at them interestedly, but far out of reach. The lioness put two and two together, and sighed deeply, shaking her head.
"She must have been so confused, she couldn't even tell what she was chasing down any more."
Shortly after, Adla also arrived, having witnessed everything from a distance.
"Adla! Did you see what happened?" Chiku asked.
Adla nodded, as she nuzzled Duni gently. The young lioness stirred slightly as she came to, but the rest of the Pride didn't notice.
"She must have gotten disoriented," Adla explained, "Something similar happened when we went to visit the abandoned cave; she kept walking into walls and such. The antelope made such a ruckus and at that point I could see she had no idea where she was going anymore. Imagine a hundred trails to follow and a hundred voices around you, not knowing which one to pick..."
"Which is exactly why I was against teaching her to hunt in the first place," Chiku interrupted, "It's a waste of our time and you're putting her in danger. Today it was charging against a tree. What if tomorrow she charges down a cliff?"
Adla bared her teeth at Chiku for a moment, but Bahiya tried to calm both lionesses down. "Please, don't fight... Adla, we did as you told us, but you've seen the outcome. We gave her a chance... Here's the result. I can't blame Chiku for feeling this way, she's got a point..."
Adla listened to them, swishing her tail from side to side, looking very upset. "Fine, I relieve you and the rest of the Pride from this duty. I'll teach Duni myself."
Chiku rolled her eyes and walked past her, looking very angry, "You just don't get it, do you? Blind lionesses cannot hunt! But if that's how you want it to be, fine, have a blast."
Adla watched her leave, hesitating whether to go after her or not, but Bahiya whispered, "Let her cool down. I'll talk to her, you tend to Duni in the meantime..."
Adla nodded. "Fine... Thanks."
Bahiya and Safi walked away in the direction that Chiku took, and Adla bent over Duni's body, nuzzling her again. She felt Duni's face was soaked in tears.
Adla swallowed with difficulty and sat next to Duni. "You'd been awake for long?"
Duni nodded slightly, feeling her head pounding with every beat of her heart. She tried to sit up straight, but stumbled slightly.
"Shh, s'okay, just lie down, take it easy. It was quite a knock on the head you got..." Adla said, inspecting Duni's forehead, which had now a bump that was swollen and bleeding. She cleaned the wound as carefully as she could.
"Hey... We're sorry for makin' fun of ya, we didn't know you couldn't see," one of the young monkeys exclaimed, feeling a bit guilty.
Duni looked up towards the source of the sound, sniffing intently, and finally realized that what she thought had been antelope calves, turned out to be monkey youngsters instead. She flopped her head on the grass again and groaned in pain.
"The Pride was right," Duni muttered, "I can't hunt... I had no idea what I was doing... I couldn't even tell a monkey up a tree from an antelope grazing in front of me..."
"Don't be so harsh on yourself, dear. It was stupid of Chiku and Bahiya to put you in this position. I have high hopes for you, but even I know that going after a herd and singling out targets without being able to see is just impossible. You will be able to hunt, trust me, just not in the usual way. You'll see, we'll put that awesome nose and those great ears of yours to good use."
Duni tried to stand up again, feeling weak to her knees, but she succeeded eventually.
"Let's go home, and don't worry about what happened today anymore."
Duni sighed and followed Adla slowly, without saying a word. She hated to have proven the lionesses right, but felt thankful to Adla for her support and for believing she was not completely useless.
Word spread quickly about Duni's unsuccessful lesson, and the lionesses wondered how Adla would deal with Duni's lessons from now on. But Adla always took Duni far away, to teach her in private, away from prying eyes and ears. Up until then, the Pride had no idea if Duni had made any progress at all, but when they asked Adla about it, she'd simply say, "she's not under your care anymore, don't worry about her."
It was until Faraji himself actually questioned Adla, that she spoke more openly about her lessons with Duni.
"So, how is she coping? Has she managed to pin something down?"
"Pin something down?" Adla said with a satisfied expression, "Duni's actually made her first kill already."
The Pride looked at her in disbelief.
"Is that so? Why hasn't she presented her catch to me?" Faraji asked, looking slightly displeased.
"You never believed in her, you can't blame her for not wanting to share her catch with any of you."
"That's unfair, she's been eating from what we hunt," Chiku muttered, to the agreement of most of the Pride.
Adla turned to the lionesses, "You mean the scraps you leave for her, her being bottom of the rank and all?"
The lionesses looked away, knowing very well that they had been intentionally pushing Duni aside. They had now realized what Faraji had seen since the beginning; Duni was of no use to their Pride, and had the lowest rank of them all. Duni's obedient and meek temper didn't help; she seldom stood up for herself.
"Anyway," Adla continued, "I think she's hunting right now, you can go check her out if you don't believe me."
"She's hunting? Without your supervision?" Faraji then stood up, looking very curious. "Stay here," he told the rest of the Pride, "I want to see this for myself."
Adla simply grinned to herself and lay down to lick her paws nonchalantly. Bahiya begged her to tell her more, but Adla only smiled and said, "You'll have to ask Faraji, when he returns."
The lion in the meantime had located Duni, who was sniffing the ground very carefully, and marking the area just as if she was patrolling the borders.
Faraji tilted his head as he stared at her peculiar behaviour from a distance. What in the world is she doing?
It eventually became clear to Faraji that Duni was tracing a perimeter for herself. She had also left marks around all the objects and plants she could crash into, and once she was done marking the area, the lioness went into a sprint, avoiding the obstacles successfully. Duni ran with her eye closed, guided simply by her nose, looking happy and carefree.
Once Duni had exercised her legs while getting rid of pent-up energy, she focused on the ground again, sometimes even pressing one of her ears down on the soil.
Faraji watched in amazement how Duni was able to find tunnels and lairs of several burrowing animals with extreme ease. Every now and then one of them would manage to escape and run past her paws. Duni would then give chase, stopping only once the animal had crossed the border Duni had marked for herself.
She only lost one or two critters; the rest were promptly killed and piled up nicely, and Faraji couldn't stop his mouth from watering. He decided to get closer, but tried to do it very quietly, testing how the lioness would react to someone sneaking up on her.
Duni eventually noticed someone coming, and looked up in Faraji's direction, scenting the air. She recognized Faraji's scent, although there was something slightly unfamiliar about it. Duni couldn't tell what it was.
"Why are you sneaking up on me, Faraji?" she asked, loud and clear for him to hear.
Faraji stopped sneaking and walked to her. "I see what Adla means now... She really found a way to ensure you'd survive if you had to fend for yourself. But what would you have done if I had been a leopard or a hyena trying to steal your meal or attack you?"
"I'd just leave the meal behind, follow my trail home, and hope they won't follow," Duni replied, smiling slightly.
Faraji chuckled and approached her catch, sniffing it carefully.
Duni pushed one of the gophers she had found towards him, invitingly.
Faraji immediately dug in, while Duni sniffed the animals she had hunted and picked up the one she found the tastiest. Both lions ate quietly, too engrossed in their meal to engage in conversation.
"Well done," Faraji said after he was done with his midday snack, "but you should have presented your catch to me sooner."
Duni nodded and looked away. "I'm sorry... I just thought you wouldn't want such small prey, compared to what the others have to offer you... I didn't want anyone to laugh at my efforts again."
Faraji looked at her intently. "I'm certainly not laughing. So I expect from now own you will follow the rules, and will share your catch with me and the Pride. Agreed?"
Duni nodded. "Would you like another one?" she asked meekly, trying to make up for all the times she hid food from him.
"No, thanks," Faraji replied, "I'm parched, I think I'll go have a drink now. See you around."
Duni stared in his direction, until she could not hear the sound of his paws anymore. She then continued to devour her meal, not worried anymore about the lionesses leaving little food for her.