Heading back to the pride, Dominic noticed that Sekhmet had a bit of a spring in her step. Sending her a sideways glance, he tried to ask her why she was so excited. She didn’t understand his initial question, so he sent her two moving images – one with her normal measured and efficient pacing; the other with her current bouncy gait. He attached a feeling of confusion and curiosity to the pictures. 

This time, she seemed to have understood. She replied with a sense of anticipation and the image of the other lionesses looking at her. In the image, she was noticeably bigger than the other female lions. 

Ah, she’s excited about how her sisters are going to react, Dominic said to himself in understanding. 

‘Of course. She has made some excellent progress,’ Leo replied to his thought with a note of satisfaction.

‘Will there be problems with the hierarchy?’ Dominic asked him, the question suddenly occurring. From his understanding, if the young male lions had had such a boost in strength, they’d probably have challenged him straight up. 

Leo hesitated for a moment. 

‘I don’t think so,’ he said thoughtfully after a moment. ‘While the hierarchy among males is determined by strength, it is not so among the females.’

‘Oh?’ Dominic inquired, interested. ‘They’re more cooperative, are they?’

‘Yes,’ Leo replied. ‘And generally the hierarchy is determined by age and experience. The older females, even when they are nearing the end of their lifespan, still make many decisions about hunts. This female may gain something from the fact that she has experienced something new, but it is unlikely to change much of the intra-pride dynamics.’

‘Huh,’ was Dominic’s intelligent response to that. Apparently he still had lots to learn about prides. 

Still, he had to admit that he was interested to see what the other lionesses’ reactions would be to her evident changes.  

As they approached the pride who were still lying where they had been earlier, Dominic saw heads starting to lift and then the lionesses actually stood up and came closer. All seven of the adult lionesses – including the two almost-adult females – came to investigate. 

They rubbed against both Dominic and Sekhmet curiously, but Sekhmet in particular. They seemed fascinated by how much she had changed in size. Dominic, they clearly realised had changed a little too, but since he hadn’t increased his size, they were much less interested in him. 

Sekhmet seemed to be basking in the attention, rubbing back happily against all of her sisters – or mother, or aunts, or grandmother, or cousins, or nieces. However, after a few minutes, she projected a sense of frustration to Dominic. 

At first wondering why she was feeling that, he got his answer a moment later with the images she sent him. She showed each member of the pride with a sense of frustration, then a picture of Dominic with a feeling of success.

‘She’s trying to communicate with them and not succeeding, isn’t she?’ Dominic checked with Leo.

‘That’s my interpretation too,’ the lion confirmed. 

The problem was, of course, that Sekhmet didn’t have Telepathy; that was Dominic’s Ability. And even with Telepathy, she wouldn’t find it easy to communicate with the others, just as he had struggled to communicate with her. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it except offer to work as a go-between. 

Sending a feeling of calm back to her, he followed it up with an image. This one was of Sekhmet on one side of him, sending an image to him, then him sending it to the other lionesses who were all standing on the other side of him. 

The lioness hesitated for a moment, then sent a series of images to him with a feeling of expectation. Fulfilling his promise, Dominic connected to the other lionesses and passed on the message. 

Although he tried to connect to them all at once, he found that he was unable to do it. He guessed that he was limited to one at a time, either because of the level of the Ability, because of his intelligence level, or some other factor. 

The lionesses took his contact with a varying degree of suspicion. Some, like the two young females, didn’t really seem to question it. The older females were definitely more suspicious, and it took him sending them a few images of himself to ‘prove’ who was suddenly sending things into their heads. 

But within about fifteen minutes, he’d managed to get Sekhmet’s message across. The message in question was actually more of a story–telling than anything else. It was a series of images starting with her leaving the pride with him, finding the wildebeest, killing it, and then fighting the resorels. The final image was of her suddenly growing and feeling more powerful. 

Each time Dominic managed to pass the message on, the lioness he was ‘speaking to’ would go over to Sekhmet and rub against her again. Perhaps it was to check out if she was truly bigger – she was – and if anything had really changed – it had. 

Once he’d got through the whole pride, he found that he had a group of females standing around him. When he connected to their minds, he found that they were projecting eagerness and anticipation. It was like he was surrounded by a group of kids saying ‘me next, me next!’ 

A bit bemused, not to mention amused, by the situation, Dominic poked at his co-pilot.

‘What do you think we should do – take them out as a group? Or individually? A group would be safer – we wouldn’t have to protect them as much. Individuals would make more progress, though.’ He said to Leo thoughtfully. The lion considered the issue for a moment. 

‘The lionesses are used to going out as a group. However, going out with just the three of us did work fairly well with this female. The main problem here, though, was that we ‘stole’ quite a few Prey Points from her. Not that this is a bad thing, exactly, but not our aim, perhaps.’

‘That’s true,’ Dominic admitted pensively. ‘It’s probably better to take them out as a group,’ he agreed. ‘It will be more to manage, but if we pick our prey wisely, I should be able to stay out of it for the most part and only step in if necessary. But there’s still a risk – if some of the lionesses have more impact on the deaths than others, they’ll earn more Prey Points. The ones who earn less will therefore start being left behind and might even start struggling with more difficult prey as the others increase in level. That would only compound the problem.’

‘True,’ Leo acknowledged. ‘Then how about a compromise. Take a small group of three or four at a time. That way they should have the benefits of not needing to split the Prey Points too many times, which will help them progress faster, but also have some protection of going out as a group.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Dominic conceded. ‘Alright, let’s do it that way.’ Looking over the lionesses assessingly, he tried to work out which ones to take with him next. 

‘I’d suggest that you let the lionesses decide,’ Leo interjected. 

‘Will they understand what to do?’ Dominic asked his partner with a mental eyebrow raised. He received a huff back in response. 

‘It is not unheard of for a pride to split in times of resource scarcity. And as we saw in the last hunt, this pride has obviously understood the idea of splitting strength. I don’t think they’ll have a problem with the idea.’

‘Good point,’ Dominic allowed. 

Of course, working out how to communicate this to the lionesses was another question. Based on Leo’s previous words about how the hierarchy of lionesses worked, he decided to try to communicate with who he thought was the oldest of the current pride. She had been the mother of the older cubs, the two males who had challenged him and the two – formerly three – young females who were now part of the pride properly. From Leo’s memories, she also seemed to bear the most signs of age. 

Her head was the broadest of them all, her nose was the darkest, and she had been the one to direct the buffalo hunt. Mentally naming her ‘Isis’ after the mother of Horus and wife of Osiris, king of the dead, Dominic tried to communicate with her. 

Sending her images of him going away with three lionesses, he attached a feeling of question, then changed which lionesses joined him. It took a couple of attempts to get the message across, but finally she seemed to have got it. 

Unexpectedly, she didn’t choose herself. Instead, she chose one of the youngest lionesses, the other mother, and the lioness with a heart-shaped spot who Dominic had already named Hathor. 

She seemed perfectly able to communicate with the other three, and within a short space of time, the pride had split. Hathor and the other two lionesses – who he would have to think of names for – started walking away with Dominic. The rest of the pride also started walking in a different direction, perhaps to find water. By this point, the sun was rapidly descending towards the horizon, so they might even be aiming to hunt down some prey by the waterhole. 

‘You’ll help me find them again, won’t you?’ Dominic checked with his co-pilot anxiously. The lion sent him a feeling of amusement. 

‘Of course. I want to mate with them, after all. I will have to make up for you being directionally-challenged!’

Dominic sent him the mental equivalent of sticking his tongue out but didn’t argue. It was unfortunately true, especially in this completely unfamiliar environment. Though he’d like to see Leo navigate a capital city like London! 

An amusing image came into his mind of him padding down the streets as a lion, people running away from this predator walking casually down Oxford Street. Or no, a lion-man. A humanoid lion walking on two legs, dressed in a snazzy business-suit, walking past Westminster. 

He huffed audibly in amusement. The chances of that happening were fairly slim, especially with how the world had changed. But he did think that a humanoid lion form would be pretty cool. Maybe not particularly practical, unless he could somehow speak through it despite having a lion head. 

He was jarred from his thoughts by the sound of a conflict ahead. There were snarls and grunts interspersed with giggles. Every so often, he heard an odd roaring sound that he couldn’t quite place. 

Curiosity taking over, he couldn’t help but creep closer, wanting to find out exactly what was going on. Not intending on announcing their presence, he made sure that they were approaching from downwind. The lionesses followed him, the youngest practically vibrating in excitement. As the smallest and lowest-level of all of them, he wasn’t surprised that she was eager to earn some levels. 

It wouldn’t do for her excitement to give them away, though, so he gave her a low warning growl before they got too close. 

Creeping through the grass, they passed a bush and the scene came into view. 

It was, as he’d expected, a group of hyenas. There weren’t many, perhaps only five in total. They were big, though, at least Half-Step evolved. Maybe even level 7 or level 8. 

And that wasn’t the only reason Dominic was giving a hard ‘nope’ to this fight. Their opponent, of all creatures, was a hippo. What a single hippo was doing this far away from water, he didn’t know. 

It wasn’t looking in particularly good condition – its skin was dry and cracked, its eyes dull. But that didn’t in the least mean that it was defenceless and the hyenas were already sporting multiple wounds of their own as a proof of its continued might. 

But, given how unlikely it was that either would be even a temporary ally to the lions, he had no desire to get involved. 

Unfortunately, it appeared that not everyone in the party was in agreement. 

In a blur of sandy-coloured fur, the young lioness leapt into the fray with a roar. 

‘Bloody hell!’ Dominic cursed soundly.

S_Winter

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