Heart Strings - Chapter Four: Hunting

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Chapter 4
Hunting

Hasira had finished talking to her sisters and went forth to find her daughter because she can slip away. She heard the voices of Bellona, Loki and Aris and approached them quietly. Bellona was speaking about how excited she was and wondered if she should wait for Kasi or go meet her at the border of the dog’s territory. Hasira cleared her voice and the three turned to face her as Faida and Hila sat behind her.

Hasira smiled “Bellona, I know how excited you are about learning how to hunt but I was hoping that instead of that lioness teaching you, I could”
Bellona frowned a bit “Mother, this is my first REAL friend. This is the stuff that makes us bond!”
Hasira took a more serious tone “Yes, she’s quite nice for helping our family but we don’t know if she has an agenda or not and we barely know her.”
Faida smiled softly seeing Bellona was clearly upset “We’ll teach you all our tricks and your cousins will help out too”
Bellona stomped her front right paw on the ground “It’s not fair! Loki and Aris have each and who do I have to relate to? No one. I took a chance on Kasi and she’s helped the family so much. Cant you guys trust my judgment?”
Hasira nodded a bit “I see your point but there’s nothing saying that we’ll stay here, what then? I doubt she’ll leave her pride to follow us”

Bellona frowned hearing her mother and knew she was right; Kasi would want to stay here with her family. She looked to her cousins to see if anyone would step up and talk but they both remained still. Loki stepped forward and Hila had been observing his interest in the conversation. Bellona smiled seeing that he was going to say something.

Azra had heard the previous night about Bellona’s desire for hunting lessons and wasn’t sure how that was going to pan out. She had missed raising Kosa and didn’t know how her sister was going to handle it. She moved towards her sisters with Kosa following close by.

Loki took a moment to speak. His words well calculated “Why can’t we stay? We are in neutral territory for once and we can lay claim. The hunting grounds are plentiful and despite having two prides on either side, we haven’t seen a single member of them. When Aris and I checked the borders it was quite a distance and Kosa said their border was quite far, wasn’t it?”

Kosa nodded quietly “it is quite a distance, our closest neighbors are those African wild dogs and they seem…civil enough”
Azra was pensive “We’ll discuss it later; we don’t know how the two prides will handle a new pride moving into their neutral zone.”

Bellona was still upset but Hasira smiled as she spoke soothingly to her daughter “Alright, you can go IF your cousins agree to go with you”

Bellona quickly turned to her cousins with a wide grin and they both chuckled. They affectionally nuzzled their mothers and were on their way to find Kasi.

--

Kasi had joined the morning hunt and was now preparing to meet her new friends. She had played with her brother and cousins and was quite parched. She headed towards the water hole seeing a few animals present and started drinking when she heard a familiar voice. She narrowed her eyes and turned to see Anya and two lions coming towards her. She noticed that the lioness was pregnant and smiled to her.

Anya spoke gently “My how you’ve grown. You’ve become quite the beautiful lioness”
Kasi kept on her guard “Hello Anya, how can I help you?”
Anya sat down and smiled “we have a problem and your uncle wanted to speak with you”
Kasi frowned “and what about our problem? He went back on his word to my father and now your pride is attacking and stealing from us! Why should I help your pride?”
Anya was quiet and looked at the lions “Oh that, it’s the queens orders you know. But that’s not what I’m here for”
The two lions were slowly circling Kasi; there was no way she can take on two lions at once.
Kasi spoke stiffly “if he wants to ask me something, he can come meet me himself”

--

Anya was about to speak but Bellona came out of the brush along with Loki and Aris. They were talking to themselves but stopped seeing the lions circling Kasi. Anya looked surprised and she grinned to them.

Anya looked surprised seeing newcomers and smiled “My goodness, new lions! Welcome!”
The cousins didn’t look convinced and it showed on their face as Anya slowly grinned and spoke to her friends “Alright, we’ll tell the king. Come on boys”

The two lions stopped circling Kasi and one snapped at her hind leg but she didn’t move. The scare tactic didn’t work and the lions followed Anya back to their pride. Kasi sighed and turned to the three “Sorry you had to see that”
Loki was staring off to where those lions went “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
Aris and Bellona were surprised at his words and looked to Kasi as she shook her head.

Bellona smiled in relief and Aris watched Loki “don’t do anything stupid for a stranger”
Loki simply grinned and looked over to Bellona and Kasi bumping heads.
Bellona: “alright, so are we hunting today?”
Kasi looked towards the three now standing beside one another “I’m teaching all three of you?”
Loki and Aris moved to each of Kasi’s side and Aris spoke “you did say we were only playing last night and Bellona said you were an amazing huntress….so we want to see that for ourselves”
Kasi chuckled and looked at Bellona “alright, today I’ll cover the basics about how to approach a herd”
Bellona couldn’t help herself as she asked curiously “What did they want from you?”
Kasi offered a quiet smile “My uncle wanted to see me about a problem with his pride but he and his queen have caused nothing but trouble for my family, so I refused”
Bellona grinned “You uncle is King. That means you’re a princess right?”
Kasi didn’t want to go into it so she looked ahead and Bellona understood quite quickly.
Loki frowned a bit “they’ve been causing you a lot of trouble have they….”
Aris glanced at his cousin “don’t do anything stupid” he whispered.
Kasi smiled to Loki which made his ears perk up “don’t worry about it, I’ve been handling things just fine”

She moved towards Bellona and motioned the three to follow her. The females walked ahead of the males and spoke about hunting techniques used during hunting.

Aris watched the two females and looked to Loki “I can see that you are quite fond of her but don’t do anything stupid like endangering the family.”
Loki grinned “I won’t but you have to admit, she’s amazing”
Aris shook his head in disbelief “I barely know her and she’s not my type. Plus, it wouldn’t be wise if we both wanted her. Look at Kopa and Kosa. Just promise you won’t do anything stupid”
Loki chuckled a bit “I won’t promise anything if it means winning her heart”

They moved onto the hunting fields and looked around seeing a herd of Zebra eating and playing. The cousins watched the heard as Kasi started to explain how to properly approach the herd but Aris interrupted her

Aris spoke skeptically “I would like to see your hunting skills before we take lessons; I want to see how right Bellona is.”
Kasi blinked but she smiled and nodded “fair enough, we will have to eat after the lesson anyway and I know you won’t be catching anything today”

She led the way in a crouched form and told them to wait as she snuck her way down. She was quiet, calculating as she moved along the tall grass closer to the unaware Zebras. Kasi inclined her shoulders and prepared herself once her target was picked. She launched herself forward towards a grazing male. The herd was spooked and started to stampede towards the water. Kasi’s movements were swift and cunning, anticipating the zebra’s movements before they took place. She sunk her fangs into its neck and put her paws against its shoulders as she tried to counter its body mass and bring it down. The Zebra flailed and tried to kick but Kasi was unshakable. The zebra gave in and soon collapsed as Kasi make sure to break an artery so it wouldn’t feint death.

Aris and Loki looked surprised and Bellona laughed victoriously at them “I told you so!”
She jumped up into the air and ran down towards Kasi; the males were quick to follow.

Aris spoke reluctantly “Alright that was impressive” he hated to admit that she was quite talented.
Loki couldn’t help but grin watching Kasi “Very impressive”

Kasi grinned to them as she licked her maw “over the next few weeks, I’ll be teaching you how to work as an effective hunting group, each with your specialty so you’ll rarely fail in your endeavors”

The three cousins grinned to one another and nodded as they sat in front of Kasi eager to learn her mastery of the hunting trade.

Cover art done by