{SRP} Hunt Fail

[magnadearel]

Kyriaka was almost sad the little festival the Ammon had thrown was over. It amazed her that all the meat that had been brought in for it had been devoured. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised. There were a fair number of residents now, which meant there would be plenty of work for her. The leopardess felt herself to be somewhat of an oddball among the tiny pride. She wasn’t super stealthy or even very good at sneaking beyond her skills as a hunter. Truth be told, she couldn’t even say why she’d joined up in the first place. Kyriaka mulled on that as she went to collect the other odd piece of the puzzle. Her familiar. A maned wolf who happened to have the exact same coloration and markings she did.


Iphigeneia lifted her head from her paws as familiar paw steps sounded down the path. She’d been roaming aimlessly since she’d become an adult. Always searching for something she’d never been able to find or exactly pin down until she’d seen it. “It” had turned out to be a leopardess. Not just any leopardess either; Kyriaka had been surprising in that their coloring and markings matched exactly. The maned wolf couldn’t believe her eyes at first. By unspoken consent they’d began traveling together. Then the leopardess had joined a weird pride, but really not that weird. Iphi liked it well enough. She turned her head toward the leopardess as she came into view. “Time to hunt?”
 

[magnadearel]

Her familiar already knew what was on her mind. Kyriaka smiled to herself and nodded. They made a rather good hunting pair. Sometimes they could confuse others into thinking they were twins before they’d gotten a good look at them.

“Aye, can you believe they’ve gone through that pile already?” She chuckled. Despite her oddities she could at least provide this much for her adopted family. With Iphi at her side she headed for the outskirts of the pride. There hadn’t been too much hunting over the last few days, so she hoped there would be prey close by. As they reached the border’s edge, she went into tracking mode. Prey had been here she noted, but not recently.


“Well with nothing but a couple’s nights worth of partying, how could you expect anything less?” Iphi replied casually. At a party you ate and ate. It was a good thing they didn’t do it often. The maned wolf loped easily at the leopard’s side until they reached their target hunting area.

Iphi went in one direction to scour the ground for signs of prey as Kyriaka checked another. Working in a pair was nice. There was twice as many chances to find good prey. As she headed back in a wide circle she didn’t find anything exciting. “Looks like the prey’s been and gone while we were having that party.” How could they possibly know there was no hunting going on at that time? Prey had to have sharp noses too and could tell there wasn’t anyone around. Blast.

 

[magnadearel]

Kyriaka completed her half of the circle and come to the same conclusion just as Iphi stated it aloud. “Then we have our work cut out for us eh?” No one said this had to be easy. More often it wasn’t! The leopardess chewed her lip a moment then jerked her head in the most likely direction. Down the path of the prey. “What say you that we follow this a bit and see where it leads?” Theoretically, the prey would be at the end of the trail. The problem lay with how far the trail went. If it looked like the trail went too far, they could circle around and hunt for something closer.


Iphi snorted. This “work” was never easy anyhow. The only time it wasn’t was when an animal was sick or weakly. But then she wasn’t sure she wanted to eat something that was sick. It might spread to them. Not a pleasant idea. She cast a glance at the sky and shook her mane as she thought about the suggestion of following the trail. They might catch up or they might not. Depended upon how the herd had moved. Eventually she gave a shrug. “Sure why not.” They already had a positive sign here, it’d be foolish not to investigate it instead of chasing a possibly imagined wild hare.
 

[magnadearel]

If Iphi was willing to go along with it, then it wasn’t a half bad idea. Kyriaka oriented on the hoof prints and the direction they went. A hoofed beast then. She thought they might be zebra prints. Only way to be sure was to see the beast themselves. The leopardess moved to cover as much ground as quickly as possible without tiring herself overly for the hunt at the end.

Luck was with them in the end, so she thought. It was late afternoon by the time they had spotted the herd. As she’d guessed, the herd was zebra. Just enough time to try one ambush. While the herd had passed days ago, it seemed they’d stopped here for a couple days to feed.


She worked the opposite side of the trail, searching for any wanderers. Prey alone was easy prey. Unfortunately any tracks she saw diverge from the main stream soon rejoined the group. Nothing suggested a lone wanderer. Oh well they couldn’t always have it easy.

They reached the herd belonging to the tracks they’d followed late in the day. She shared a glance with the leopardess. Zebra were bigger prey than they usually took on. It did help that both of them were about the same size, but they were still on the smallish size. She had misgivings, but she could tell Kyriaka wanted to try it. With a nod she moved about the other direction in hopes of spotting an easy target.
 

[magnadearel]

Adult zebras were big, Kyriaka noted as she eased through the grass around the herd. They were much too big for just the pair of them to tackle alone. If they had had one of the lions from the pride with them, then maybe. Sadly she turned her eyes away from the adults of the herd and toward something a little smaller. The young of the herd were playing under the watchful gaze of their mothers. All she needed was one to stray just a little too far.

She waited in the grass for her chance; tensed and relaxed. This might take a while but she couldn’t rush it or she’d fail. Then one of the young colts made a break away and she dashed from the grass toward him. Kyriaka had almost reached her prey when an angry zebra mother interposed herself between them and landed a sharp kick on her right foreleg. She gave a screech of pain as she went down.


The maned wolf circled the herd slowly. All of the ones she had seen so far looked far too healthy for them to tackle. She startled to hear whinnies of fear from the zebras then a scream of pain in a familiar voice. Iphi broke cover and charged through the herd with a wild howl; further scattering the already frightened animals. She race through a small second of the herd toward her friend driving off an angry mare from the down leopard. Once sure the zebra wouldn’t come back she returned to Kyriaka’s side. The leopard was down and groaning. Iphi could tell right away it wasn’t good. Her right foreleg lay at an unnatural angle.

“Don’t move!” She ordered sharply. This was bad! They were nearly a day away at least from the pride’s borders, and that was at a good pace on healthy legs. How was she going to get Kyriaka back safely?


Fin. 1,297