Six lions walked through the tall grass.  Their faces each shared a common shape, their eyes held a similar spark.  Blue, green, brown, and a feral; golden yellow, their eyes shared the bright fire of wild that was becoming ever so rare in the years surrounding the turn of the 21st century.  Of the six were two sets of twins, all four of them girls.  The other two, including the eldest of them, were males.  

The eldest and largest of them all was Azubuike, whose name meant strength.  He was dressed simply: a breechclout with a few pouches hanging from his belt and a necklace hanging from his neck.  His necklace was a carefully made from the claws of a lion and wooden beads, strung tight to his neck rather than hanging loosely on his chest.  His fur was like polished copper, a reddish shade with a healthy, almost metallic shine.  His mane was a dark blond, a shade that would remind one of tarnished gold.  His eyes were an almost feral yellow, like golden Beryl.  His shoulders, sides, hips and thighs all bore scars from claws, a trademark of a wrestler in these parts.  

The next in line of age were the twins, Babirye and Nakoto.  They were both lithe, lean lionesses, their fur the shade of dry grass, with the very faintest hints of spots beneath their fur.  Their eyes a brilliant blue.  The oldest by minutes was Babirye, whose name meant the first of female twins.  Her garments were much more modern than her brother’s, and by far the most modern of the group.  She wore an American imported tactical vest, made for the lightest weight and most strength.  Perched upon the vest was an old Glock 17 and two box magazines for her lightened, shortened M82A1, which itself was slung across her back.  Underneath her vest she wore nothing.  She wore brand new top-of-the-line tac-pants held up by a tightly-cinched rigger’s belt.  She did wear her pants rather short to accommodate for her digitigrade legs, a fashion that would carry over for the rest of the siblings.  On her right ear was a hollow gauge made of elephant ivory, fairly large and brightly shined.  

Nakoto’s body was, of course, identical to her sister’s save for her gauge being in the left ear.  Averse to her sister’s style, she dressed to a more traditional fashion.  Her clothes were natural shades, thick khaki canvas pants with leather suspenders.  She was also averse to shirts, her barely-B cups naturally exposed.  Around her waist she wore a cartridge belt full of .700 Nitro Express shells for the broke-open Holland and Holland that was slung over her shoulder.  The pistol she wore on her hip was a fine old High Power in a leather flap-holster.  Her name meant the second of female twins.

The only other male, Fumnanya, wasn’t particularly dressed to hunt at all. He wore a loose, flowing white abaya with gold trim in a simple but particular pattern underneath a black bisht which also had a similar golden pattern on its collar.  His turban was black, ornamented in the front with a small golden pin.  His fur was very almost colorless, a light shade of charcoal grey with the slightest hint of brown.  He had no mane to speak of and his face had soft lines that combined to make him look very feminine.  His eyes had a soft look, his mouth was curled up into an idle, if not bored smile.  His hands rested inside of a long, thick sash which was wrapped around his waist underneath his bish, extenuating his narrow waist and broader hips.  Inside of that sash lived a few personal effects: a knife, a small flask, some cologne, and a pouch containing other smaller items.  From his wrists hung a few bracelets of the heavy, steel type called Chakri, of several different types, which were obscured by the flowing, long sleeves of his bisht.  His name meant love me.  

The last two, another set of twins, were Bapoto whose name meant noise and Kunto whose name meant morose.  They were both spotted like leopards, like their mother, but their fur was much shorter, more like their father’s.  Their color was odd, like electrum, their mother’s natural silver diluted by their father’s warmer tones.  Their tails were long for their height, longer than a lion’s would be, and were almost solid fluff, lacking the characteristic tailpoof of a lion or lioness.  Their eyes were white and blue, and shone with an amazing brilliance, much like their mother’s.  They both wore identical pants from Russian Afghankas, their hot-weather uniforms, held up by suspenders. They wore no shirts, and their pants and belts were too big to even cinch around their waist, the legs were cut off just below the thigh pockets to look more like extremely baggy shorts.  Their clothes rustled heavily on them, being possibly the most weighed down of everyone.  Bapoto had almost a half-dozen RGD-5s hanging on her left suspender, and and a mix of RGK-60SZs and RGD2s on her right suspender.  In her right thigh pocket, she kept a brick of plastic explosive, and in her left pocket, she kept a pack of detonators. The only thing she kept besides her explosives was a GSh-18 pistol, covered in scratches, dents, dings, and raw metal from the abuse both she and it’s former Soviet owner had put into it.  Kunto, on the other hand, dressed considerably lighter.  The only things she actually wore on her belt was a Jordanian combat knife, a modernization of the old jambiyas, and a Manurhin 73, an old French workhorse of a revolver, the last revolver ever truly designed for military use.  Both of the children wore foul looks on their faces, arms crossed in front of them, kicking at the rocks and dust at their paws boredly. 

“Why can’t we stalk like father does?  I want to kill something with my claws!”  Kunto growled, popping her claws threateningly at the air in front of her, swiping at nothing.  

“Of course, kitten,”  Azubuike said, “I would love to hold your knife and pistol for you and watch you go bare-clawed at a water buffalo.”  He patted her shoulder encouragingly and smiled into the horizon.

“HAH!”  Babirye laughed out, turning to face her older brother as they walked.  “I don’t think her claws are as long as a buffalo’s hide is thick-”

“-and that’s if she could even find one!”  Nakoto interjected,  “Those two can’t calm down long enough to track anything!”  

“She’d probably just get mad after an hour or two and start bombing a river or something trying to kill a hippo.” Babirye finished, laughing loudly and bumping shoulders with her sister.

“SHUT UP!” Kunto yelled out, already bored with this situation, but even more angry now that she was brought into the joke with her sister. “We can hunt just as well as any of you, if someone’d teach us!”  

“Father didn’t teach me,” Fumnanya finally spoke up, his voice almost melodic.  

“No one needed to teach you anything,”  Nakoto interjected.

Babirye continued, “you get on your knees and everything you want falls in front of you.” 

The younger twins laughed, giggling at their effeminate brother’s sake.  “He doesn’t always need to fall to his knees, sometimes just bending at the waist is good enough~”  Kunto said, a hint of venom in her voice.  

“Now, they’re only lashing out because men find him more attractive than either of them~”  Bapoto added, looking up to her older sisters with the same, if not stronger venom in her voice.  

Fumnanya laughed at that, and added, “Women, too.”

Azubuike laughed and reached to his younger brother, giving his larger, more plump behind a squeeze in his oversized paw.  “They just can’t handle their brother being more blessed in the behind!”

“Not just the behind.”  Fumnanya added, cradling his chest in his paws.  He was flat as a man would be, but he was still almost- if not as endowed as his two lithe sisters.  “I think that I’m as well endowed in the front, as well.”  

The two older females seethed and the younger pair mumbled to each other, making fun of the rest of their party, for sure.  Azubuike yawned boredly and stretched, cracking his back and neck and showing the tone of his chest and stomach.  Fumnanya rolled his eyes at all of them, both his bickering sisters and his musclebound brother, and cut out of the group.  “I remember, there’s  a small watering hole this way.  You can all go on your hunt, I’m going to go for a swim.”  

“What are you talking about?!”  Nakoto asked him, an angry tone in her voice.  

“Why’d you come along anyway if you didn’t want to go hunting?”  Babirye asked indignantly.  

“I didn’t have anything better to do.  And I thought we’d come this way, so why not take the company?”  He waved briefly over his shoulder before pushing his thumb back into his sash, sauntering away humming a song.  

“That f- I can’t believe that!”  Nakoto growled and kicked the ground.  “It’s like we’re the only people in this family that actually give a damn about the hunt besides father.”  

“I don’t think father gives much for [i]your[/i] kind of hunt, sister.”  He said with a smile as he started going off in his own direction as well.  “I, for one, am going to try and find a buffalo or an antelope.  I’m sure if you find whatever you’re looking for I’ll hear those cannons going off.”   He started running away from them quickly, before any of them was able to argue. “AND TAKE CARE OF BAPOTO AND KUNTO!”  

“We want to go with you!”  Kunto yelled as she started to run, before being grabbed at the nape of the neck by Babirye. 

“No-no-no!  We’re not going to have you two running off and making trouble, too!”  Babirye said, holding the kitten with one arm even as she thrashed and clawed and yeowled.  

“You can have her, I’m going with brother!”  Bapoto said before darting, only making two steps before Nakoto had grabbed her up as well, this one by the backstrap of her suspenders.  

“No, you’re staying with us as well!  And unless you both want father to hear about your behaviour, you’ll be good and quiet and maybe you’ll learn something!”  The elder twins both swatted the younger ones behinds, bringing angry roars from them in kind.  

Bapoto and Nakoto dropped their malcontent siblings, both of them falling into the grass to growl and pout.  The elder sisters shared a look, one of frustration and disappointment as they knew their hunting trip was now ruined.  

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A big-tusker, supposedly the last of them.  Jungabi was few heads taller than the tallest bull elephant and twice the weight; a large scar graced his forehead, gnarled and wretched, and the shameful nubs of tusks hung doleful from his face.  Around his waist were the dirty tatters of a loincloth, that was once a full robe.  The loosely hand-woven red cloth bore remnants of patterns  that had long since worn away, being eaten and eroded by time and long travel. Aiding his walk was the dry and cracking trunk of a tree that had been uprooted and roughly de-limbed.  The man himself wasn’t nearly as dour, though doing probably a fair bit better than his carnivore companions.  

The lioness Tau laid across Jungabi’s head, her legs straddling his thick neck and her arms hooked over his large, leathery ears, her chin laid flat on his forehead.  She looked almost like a pelt the way she stuck to him, the muscles of her naked back stretched taught and glistening with the slightest glimmers of sweat.  Her face was shielded from the harsh sun by a large wooden mask, carved roughly with claws and painted in the vaguest shape of a male lion with white ash and animal fat.  In her right hand clutched a short spear with a simple but well-forged iron head.  

Walking in the shade of the elephant were the three indigent hyenas: Kofi, Kwabena, and Kweku.  Nearly naked to the world, hollow-bellied and dull-furred, they trekked clumsily from their hungry enervation, loinclothes clinging to narrow hips.  They shouldered into each other constantly, barking and growling weakly as they attempted to all cram together into their companion’s shadow while still keeping up with him, their rough-hewn stone spears clutched loose and lazy in their hands.  They were all three nigh identical in their lack of any remarkable feature, so much so that one could mistake them for a mirage or a dream, as one could [i]almost[/i] forget them completely as soon as look away from them.  

At their head walked the matriarch, the hyena Asi.  Proud and tall, a full head above her males, more muscled, more evenly toned, endowed with a more than healthy bosom and a more present manhood than the actual males in her pack, Asi was remarkable.  Her body was only barely contained with raw leather like the rest of them, though her more healthy, fuller frame filled her tatters more completely.  Of course she ate her fill of whatever food they managed to scavenge before anyone else, and with Tau being the largest and strongest, she was obviously second.  After the two females had their fills, there was little more than bones left for the three males, perpetuating their role as the weakest links in their pack.  The elephant was thankfully left free of that predicament, able to fill his belly on leaves and grass rather than being dependent on meat.  

The three males knew better than to complain on their predicament though, as male hyenas could accomplish little on their own without a female.  Being naturally smaller, and branded simultaneously as slow-witted fools and crafty tricksters and thieves by other species, male hyenas couldn’t subsist either physically or in trade.  Their prayers were answered when they heard a rumbling, their leader’s stomach finally signalling her hunger and their opportunity for rest. 

They looked to one another as they walked, not knowing who would be the first to speak and also not wanting to speak up too soon, lest she would notice they had been waiting on that perfect opportunity.  “Asi-”  Kweku finally spoke, a nasal tone to his voice from a broken muzzle at the hands of his former wife in his former life, “Surely you must be tired, and hungry…”

Kofi joined him, his voice deeper and slightly hoarse.  “If you had us camp, we could go hunt for you, and scout for water…”  

“I know where the water is!” Asi said authoritatively, not turning back to look at them.  “A river runs through in the rainy season, and it should still be at least waist-deep now.”  She marched firmly on, her broader hips and the toned muscles of her thighs shaking with every step.  The three males slumped and continued their trudgery.

“We’re less than a mile from water now.”  Jungabi finally said without breaking his gait.  “We should look for a place to camp.”  

Asi walked a few more paces before stopping and planting her hands on her hips firmly.  “Not even a mile from here!” She exclaimed.  “We will sleep under that tree tonight!”  She pointing to a dika tree that had given up its fruit but still held onto it’s precious shade.  She turned on her heels to face the rest and pointed to the three males. “Go look for food with Jungabi. If you bring us some meat, maybe I’ll reward you, hmm?  I’m tired of fonio and millet every night!”  She smacked Jungabi’s thigh loudly, knowing his skin was too thick to hurt.  “You, look for plants to eat, them, meat.   Tau, wanna go for a swim?!”  The lioness’ ears perked around her mask, and she picked her head up as if suddenly woken from a sleep.  She put her hands down on the top of Jungabi’s head and vaulted forward with a happy reowr, sliding down the elephant’s face, bouncing to his belly, and landing with a thud on her feet beside Asi.  A cloud of dust rose from her feetpaws as she landed and looked down at her leader, her mask shading her face.  Asi grabbed the lioness’ mask and pulled it down, then turned on her heels and walked off, the lanky lion in tow.  

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The river, or maybe it could have more accurately been called a wash, was mostly empty now.  Waist-deep at it’s lowest, kneep-deep in most places, and fairly small; the fish, alligators, and other animals that usually called this place home had long since vacated, following the deep water as it receded.  Some of the thick water-grass still clung to life on the edges of the water, giving cover to what few small animals still chose to live there.  The water itself had a slight green tint to it but was mostly clear, the high sides limiting flow and leaving this little bed almost stagnant.  Birds twittered here and there and the wind blew through the reeds and grass to keep a constant, subtle melody in the air.  

“WOO!”  came a crass holler from Asi followed quickly by a splash, her leather covers left haphazard on the dusty earth at the bank of the wash.  She landed on her side and let herself sink, letting herself enjoy being wrapped in cool dark water.  Tau stuck her spear in the bank and hung her mask on it before walking slowly into the water, getting into knee-depth water and wading.  Suddenly the hyena exploded from the surface as she sat up and tripped the lioness over, throwing her completely into the water face-first, laughing like mad as she did.  

Asi threw herself on top of Tau, getting a good hold on her wet, muscled body before starting to tickle her ribs and stomach.  The lion didn’t laugh, but roared a high pitched, playful roar, thrashing in the water and trying to escape from the hyena’s grasp.  Her grasps tickled the hyena as well, making her giggle and bark as well.  

On the other side of the reeds sat Fumnanya, the charming son of the warlord Tapiwa.  He had been lounging in the shade of the high grass and the cool water, enjoying nature and being alone.  Lounging in a watering hole was the closest about Fumnanya would ever willingly come to wild, much to his father’s dismay, instead preferring modern comforts and the company of like minded young people, [i]usually[/i] women.  The loud splash made him jump.  The distinct, definite feline roar made him even more anxious, not recognizing the voice as any of his kin and knowing that lions don’t idly trespass into others’ territories.  The hair on his neck stood on end, but the laughing and giggling he heard afterward calmed him, and he released his tension with a sigh.  “[i]At least it’s women~  I can  handle women.[/i]”  Curiosity had him on his haunches, starting to slowly crawl through the reeds, leading with his nose until he could finally spy the two playing females.  

Tau sat against the bank, looking off complacently across the wash.  Asi sat reclined in Tau’s lap, her back against the lion’s toned stomach and her head cushioned by her breast.  A broad smile spread across her lips showing her teeth as the lion rubbed her arms and shoulders with sheathed claws and deeply-piercing fingertips.  “So, I think if the boys get enough food together we should celebrate.  It’s been awhile since we got to have any fun, hasn’t it?”  She said, looking down at herself under the dark water, one of her hands concealed beneath it as well.  Tau started licking Asi’s head, grooming her instinctively as her hands moved down to the hyena’s sides.  “Maybe even help out the old man again.  I wanna see how high he’ll squirt!” Asi squirted some water to emphasize her point.  The lioness didn’t answer, and started stroking over Asi’s stomach.   “Heh, he likes you, I think.  Too bad his cock is the size of your thigh.”  The hyena shut her eyes and nestled her head into Tau’s bosom, smiling toothily to the sky as she was pampered.  

The corners of Fumnanya’s lips curled up into a almost predatory smile.  Hearing how licentious the hyena was didn’t particularly surprise him, as their kind weren’t exactly known for their chastity or good manners, but the familiarity and the quiet obedience of the lioness did.  She should have been dominant, being stronger and larger, and seemingly more experienced (judging by scars), but that was obviously not the case.  It would have made more sense if this lion was a more domesticated one like himself, but she obviously was not.  The look in her eyes was one of a more wild lion, like his father and some of his wives, though it was obvious she wasn’t all there.  Perhaps that wasn’t right, though.  It didn’t seem that her wits were gone, that the lights were off and no one was home, as it were.  More like the shades were drawn and the doors were locked, as it were, whether to keep something out or something in had yet to be seen.  What was present to him now, though, was that there were two active, wanting females right in front of them, one of which a lion, and his curious feline instincts and the universal male instinct pressured him to approach.  

The reeds parted with a quiet rattle and the water rippled from the other side of the slowly-flowing pond.  Asi’s ears swivelled and Tau’s head turned toward it, a black nose and ashen muzzle with shiny black lips and bright white teeth all that poked through.  “I thought I would be alone here…”  said Fumnanya in his sweetest voice.  “I can leave, if you want, but I’d rather stay and share the water while it’s cool.”  

Asi opened her eyes and turned to the snout in the grass, a curious eyebrow raised.  She wasn’t too wary of danger since she had Tau with her and and because very few were willing to bring violence at the watering holes.  Tau lowed but didn’t show any other aggression, at least not yet.  “Sure… come out of the reeds.  Stand up straight and with your hands over the water.”  

The muzzle nodded and disappeared back into the reeds.  Slowly, two hands emerged from the top of the grass.  They had smooth pads like have never worked or seen hard travel or violence.  A head followed, a soft-but-masculine face without a mane, but too grown to be a cub.  His eyes were a light blue and his smile was soft and toothless; polite, reserved.  He walked out of the reeds exposing the full front of his body: a flat, slender chest, a narrow waist, broadened hips, and soft thighs.  He seemed rather well-endowed also, uncharacteristically so for someone of his build.  Most males of such feminine stature tended to be eunuchs, at least among hyenas, and she’d never seen a male like him without his mane.  “OOooh~ Well aren’t you something?”  Asi said, turning to face him, looking him up and down curiously.  “This isn’t your territory is it?  No… you’re much too frail to be holding territory of your own… concubine, maybe?  Your brother’s?  Or still under your father?”  The lioness Tau observed Fumnanya with obvious and extreme curiosity as well.  Her head tilted to either side, her ears as well, trying to find some angle where she could distinguish between a fully grown male and a cub.  She rolled onto all fours watching him, crawling towards him and sniffing the air around.  

“I… Heh, you’re right.  Though I’m not a concubine.  I am still in my father’s house.  In his pride.”  Fumnanya chuckled, his hands slowly lowering.  “And this [i]is[/i] his territory…” He stopped within arms’ reach of the lioness, only in knee deep water now.  “Not that I intend to tell anyone…”  He said, sitting down, covered up to his belly button.  “But if my father saw such a young, fit lioness in his territory, he might try to take another wife.”  Tau ignored what he was saying, crawling over his lap and getting close to him, looking over his chest and taking in his scent.  She couldn’t get much of his natural scent through his soap and perfume, but he didn’t smell unnatural or chemical, so it didn’t burn her nose like some more domesticated people she’d met in the past did.  Her hands moved up from the water to his shoulders, combing through the fur there, up his neck and around the back of his head, looking for any trace of a mane.  

“I don’t think we need to worry about that.” Asi said, moving around to his other side, examining him as well, but letting Tau have her way.  “She’s killed every maned lion we’ve come across since we’ve had her.”  

“H-heh…” Fumnanya chuckled nervously, staying still for the lioness’ examination.  She pulled his head down, planting his muzzle between her breasts as she examined him more closely.  “I guess my curse is a blessing for once… Is she alright?”  

“Oh no.  Fucking crazy.  But she seems to like you well enough.” Asi floated in the shallow water,  pulling herself around behind him and grazing one of her hands along his back.  “And you know, it’s been a long while since I’ve had some feline in me too… what with the her-killing-them-all thing.”  She said with a devious smirk.  “Tau, lean our kitten friend back so we can see what his father gave him.”

Tau quickly and obediently pushed Fumnanya backwards, bracing his fall on Asi’s belly as she laid behind him.  The rest of him floated up, exposing his front above the surface, the sharp, conical, spined tip of his cock poking from his sheath.  “You know, this is kind of quick… How do I know you ladies aren’t going to take advantage of me at my weakest?”  

“Well-” Asi’s hand wrapped around Fumnanya’s waist, combing over his stomach to move down, brushing over his sheath to palm his balls and give them soft, teasing squeezes.  “We’ve not had the benefits of a male for quite awhile… Not a lot of food and water, can’t really be wasting our energy with that, now can we?” She gave him more than a little squeeze, and Tau knew well enough how to follow Asi’s queues to begin licking and nipping at his neck, her own hands moving to stroke over his chest.  

“Well… that [i]is[/i] true…”  His hands spread out at his sides, keeping himself upright as the two ladies, each one alone stronger than him, began to have their way.  “But then again…”  He shuddered as the lioness’ maw started moving down his chest, her rough, sharp tongue raking across his flesh through his fur.  

“I’ll tell you what…”  Asi said, taking Fumnanya’s hand in hers and moving down her stomach.  “Be a good kitten for us, help us with our womanly urges for a little while-”  his hand moved between her legs finally, brushing across her erect clit, more like a moderately-sized cock, and down to her pussy below it, hot and slick beneath the water. “And I’ll take care of yours.”  

Fumnanya nodded and started to speak, but only gasped deeply as Tau’s tongue scored across his navel and her breasts brushed against his shaft.  He shut his eyes and wrapped his paw around Asi’s pseudo-penis, starting to stroke it lightly as the hyena’s own hand moved up to Tau’s head, guiding her maw down lower, down to Fumnanya’s fully-grown member.  “Your paws are very soft, kitten.  How many times a day do you oil them?”  She askedalmost derisively as he pawed at her member, her hands still stroking his balls as Tau began licking his shaft, her tongue combing through his spines, tickling and grating across his soft flesh and his sensitive spines.  “It hurts good, doesn’t it?  It took me a while to get used to it, the males back at camp still can’t take it… You love it though, don’t you?”  Tau’s tongue slurped over and over again from base to tip, almost like she was grooming him again, leaving no spot on his member untouched.  

“MMMmmhmmmm-” Fumnanya nodded, moaning out and turning into a low pleasured growl.  “I think- ahhh… it’s different for us.  Your smooth, soft tongues are s-mmm-so light. It’s like being tickled with a feather.” He held Asi’s clit between his thumb and finger and slipped his middle and ring fingers between her folds.  Asi was tight from going without for a while, her hips shifted and readjusted under him, helping his fingers find the sensitive places where she wanted to be touched.  

“RRrrrr…” Asi growled in pleasure, her chest and belly rolling against Fumnanya’s back.  “Just like that-” she cooed as her hand slipped down between his legs, her fingers dancing over his perineum to his tailhole, a soft, tight, but pliable ring, one she could tell was regularly used.  “Almost feels like you know your way around a cunt…”  She teased as she pushed two of her fingers inside of him, making his hips buck up and into Tau’s maw, piercing the lioness’ throat and planting her muzzle against his crotchfur.  Tau choked a little but held it, looking down at Asi rather than at Fumnanya.  The two females caught eyes for a moment, Asi smiling dominantly as she started teasing the lion’s ass making him twitch and pre and Tau shutting her eyes to obediently suck at the male’s member.  

“You’d be-eeeaaaah~ surprised!”  Fumnanya said in his defense, starting to finger the hyena more enthusiastically.  “I have much more female companions than male!” He clenched down on her fingers, trying to hold back an orgasm as the sensation of Tau’s maw and Asi’s paw started to become too much. 

“Oh?  So is it just one male that uses you often, then?” Asi asked with a little venom, pushing deep and clawing over his prostate.  

“AAAh!  OOOooh…”  Fumnanya groaned, successfully holding himself back but not by much, his pre starting to drip from Tau’s lips around his shaft.  “No.  Hyenas… Female Hyenas.”  

“I-ah!- sssssee~” Asi said through clinched teeth, the male coming close to pushing her over the edge as well.  “I think we’ve pampered you enough, kitten.”  Asi said before taking Tau’s head and pushing her off, pulling her off of Fumnanya and pulling her aside before sitting up, throwing Fumnanya of of her.  “Let’s see if a real lion can do any better for my pet than a hyena can.”  Asi said, groping Tau’s breasts and guiding her back to the bank, sitting them both up on the dry with Tau in her lap, hooking her knees inside of the lioness’ and spreading her legs, exposing the tight, feline mound and snug lips, glistening with the water from the pond and her own arousal.  The scent of Fumnanya’s heat and the taste of his pre feeding Tau’s arousal,  her instinct to accept a male.  “Maybe that big barbed cock of yours can do a better job at scratching her itch!” Asi said, her paws groping and kneading at Tau’s breasts, lifting and squeezing and clawing over the perky, full, soft orbs, arching the lioness’ back and bringing a low growling moan from her glistening black lips.  

“Hmmm… I think you’re right.” Fumnanya said, crawling on his knees through the water to the bank, lifting the lioness’ paws from the water and giving them a soft rub, caressing her calloused pads and the soft web in between.  “It’s just an issue of having the right equipment.”   He smiled while he eyed her, licking his lips as he smelled an unfamiliar lioness’ heat for the first time.  He was sure that he would be the first of all of his brothers to taste a strange lioness, to have an outsider for himself, which aroused him even more by bringing an oft-forgotten, primal instinct to overcome his brothers in him.  He let her paws fall back into the water softly, sitting forward and bracing himself, one hand on the bank and another hand on Tau’s thigh.  His thumb reached out from that hand, and took her lips, spreading one to reveal her pale pink insides behind her darker, brown-ish pink lips.  He opened his maw wide, exhaling a hot sigh across her lips that brought another low growl from her lips, Tau’s squirming against Asi’s hold almost stopping as her eyes locked down on him, a needy glow in them and a blush on her cheeks from arousal.  

Fumnanya’s lips pressed to Tau’s lower lips, his so soft and moist already, their caresses so much more delicate than the treatment she would receive from her rougher and less well-maintained compatriots.  He suckled at her soft, tanned outer lips, his own eyes shutting as a deep, almost purring growl left his lips.  Her taste was familiar and exotic at once, her filling his maw and flooding his nose with her.  His growl shook her deep, the vibration shaking her to her depths and stimulating her modest clit.  He pulled away, tugging her lips in his suckle until they finally came free, and took a breath before moving back in, pursing his lips, spreading them within hers, and opening her depths for his hungry tongue.  Her twitching and struggling resumed again, with Asi barely holding her as Fumnanya’s rough tongue explored her depths.  

“You want that big barbed cock in you, don’t you Tau?”  Asi whispered into her ear, still roughly playing with the lioness’ tanned nipples.  The lionesss growled in response, her head falling back against Asi’s shoulder and her own paws gripping Asi’s, lightly fighting, obeisantly and wordlessly begging to be released from Fumnanya’s and Asi’s teasing.  Asi dropped her legs, letting Tau’s free.  

Fumnanya’s head was suddenly wrapped in taut, muscular thighs.  His eyes opened and he looked up, but shut them again quickly and returned to eating Tau’s pussy hungrily, both of his hands gripping her thighs as he drug his rough tongue across her clit and rolled it around on his lips.  The more he went at her the tighter she squeezed, until he was barely able to hear her pleasured roars through her tightly squeezed thighs, the pressure almost painful but her taste more than worth it.  Then, like a whip he was thrown onto the bank as the lioness rolled her hips over, holding him between her legs.  His back smacked against the dry earth and the lioness was upon him, smothering him in her dripping muff.  

Tau didn’t stay mounted on Fumnanya’s face long, and lifted off of him, planting her paws on his shoulders and keeping him down.  She shifted her hips down, leaving a trail of her nectar across his chest and stomach.  He gasped and let his head fall back, looking to Asi, to see her leaning back, legs spread and both hands between her legs fondling herself.  Her tongue lolled out of her mouth lewdly as she watched Tau mount him and pin his cock between his stomach and her folds, grinding her clit and outer lips against his spines.  The lioness growled deeply and laid on his chest, pressing her breasts against his face as one of her hand moved down between them to guide his tip into her.  

“It’s been a while, so she’s probably pretty tight.  Don’t hold it against her if she starts off slow.”  Asi told Fumnanya, stroking her overgrown clitoris in one paw and the soft dark flesh of her nipple in the other.  Then, with two loud and sudden roars from the two rapturous lions and a flinch from the hyena their bodies meshed together tightly, the wet fur blending together at the place where they met; their toned, muscular forms pressed so tightly against one another that it concealed where bare flesh met bare flesh.  “Heh, well… Maybe she won’t go slow.”

The lioness’ unyielding tightness astounded Fumnanya, a sensation different than he’d experienced before.  Not like a young girl, immature and unready, or a petite woman that was simply too small.  It wasn’t like a woman neglected, whose body had become unaccustomed to friendly visitors.  No, what he felt inside her was muscle.  It was strength in the very core of her, the strength of a warrior and a hunter that permeates the deepest parts of their flesh.  As her muscles loosened and constricted around him, he could only think that this must be what it would feel like inside Baako, Folami, or any of the blessed daughters of Adaeze for that matter.  It wasn’t long that he could ruminate on his elder half-sisters though, as Tau began to rock her hips and grind herself against his lap, stirring her insides with his spined member with their bodies still tightly against one another.   Fumnanya could feel against his soft stomach and chest every sinew and muscle of hers tightening and extending against him.  Tau’s hand, no longer needed to guide him, moved back up and braced against the moist earth beside him.  She pushed herself up and sat back on his lap, leaning back and bracing herself on his knees, exposing the place where their flesh met, and her black lips swallowed his bright, light pink shaft.  

“MMmm she’s about ready I think.” Asi panted out as she pleasured herself with abandon, three fingers buried in her own hungry tunnel and stroking her phallic clitoris with her own slippery fluids.  “Better grab onto something, kitten~”  She said in a purring growl.   

Fumnanya himself looked up at the lioness that strode him, the half-feral beast above him with a body so tight and perfectly formed it seemed of marble, and reverently placed his hands on her hips. Tau took his subtle grip as the signal to begin, and lifted her hips suddenly.  It nearly felt like she would tear him off, and she did lift his rump off the ground before slamming back down with everything, releasing a thunderous roar along with two slaps, one as her lap struck his and another as his full behind struck the wet ground beneath them. Fumnanya himself barely muttered a pained mewl before she rose again, bringing that amazingly, beautifully painful tug on his nethers before taking him whole again, caressing the pain away with her rolling inner muscles before repeating the process yet again as her breasts swung at her chest like pendulums, bouncing pertly in time.  Fumnanya grit his teeth and fought to keep his claws out of her thighs, even as her own dug into his knees and her teeth gnashed freely.  

Head back and maw wide, growling and moaning in an intense, almost-forgotten pleasure, Tau couldn’t be bothered less for Fumnanya’s comfort.  That rough, spined member deep inside of her, scratching an itch that had long been ignored but could never be forgotten, woke a hunger for pleasure that couldn’t be distracted from.  His grunts and groans beneath her were drowned out in her ears by every wet smack as she drove home and felt him hit her depths.  The feeling of his spined tip dragging across her every sensitive, neglected spot blocked the feeling of his blood dripping around her fingertips and his knees buckling from her intense, powerful ride.  

“I’ve never seen her get this into it!” Asi said, having at some point moved to her knees, leaning closer to watch the pair of lions and add more fuel to her always-smoldering fire.  She walked on her knees closer and closer to them, until she was nearly dripping on Fumnanya’s ears.  “Are you gonna cum, kitten?” She cooed, the softened tone sounding almost frightening from her.  

With his eyes closed tightly, his face wracked as he tried to hold himself back and perhaps even give back to his enthused partner, Fumnanya barely noticed the hyena sitting over him save for the coolness of her shade.  If it wasn’t for good manners, he could have finished long ago, in the beginning of Tau’s ride but he was nothing if not a gentleman and wouldn’t dare let himself go without giving his fair share.  He lowed and bit his lip, finding her rhythm and thrusting into it.  Tau took this in stride, undulating her hips to guide his thrusts into the right spots and not slowing down a bit, seeming to perpetually build but never come close enough.  Fumnanya felt a warm breath on his ear and heard quiet, panting whispers, “Give it to her… She wants it… Fill her… She [i]needs[/i] it…”  As if he wasn’t weakened enough.   The hyena’s egging on was all the encouragement it took to convince him to finally let go, and like a dam breaking his seed was free into the fertile, aroused female.  

Fumnanya’s climax hit Tau like lightning.  Her whole body tensed and she fell forward again, her whole weight on his body as her hips bucked, her inner muscles milking his shaft and the outer squeezing his base like a vice as she ground her hips against him.  The hyena’s breath became ragged as she neared her finish herself, humping her paws and dripping onto the ground.  “Bite her neck… Bite her hard…”  He didn’t question it, and took her neck into his maw aggressively, biting down without hesitation.  The lioness roared and tugged against his maw, her claws digging into his shoulders as she finally climaxed.  Her strong, tight inner muscles clamped down on him from tip to base, squeezing his thick, milky seed out along with her own slippery fluids, dripping down the bends of his legs and across his balls, coating both of their lowers in their combined mess.  

The hyena grunted lewdly as she came, forehead against the dirt and humping into both of her paws as her climax squirted onto the dirt under her with a considerable splash.  “OOOooooh… MMmph-fuck… That was fun to watch…” She said hoarsely between panting breaths, her tail wagging slightly, making her butt shake.  

Neither of the lions responded.  Tau laid across Fumnanya’s chest nearly asleep, her eyes glazed over and half-lidded, purring like a kitten.  Fumnanya’s maw released Tau’s throat and his head fell back, thumping the ground as he finally relaxed.  He felt more spent and beaten than almost any time in his life, but still extremely satisfied that, if nothing else, he’d satisfied a lioness that probably no other lion ever will.  “I feel… Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of buffalo…”   

[center]------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

Azubuike lazed through the high grass.  He wasn’t one for the hunt when he wasn’t hungry, when there was so much food at home waiting to be eaten.   He felt hunting for sport to be beneath him, much preferring battle with intelligent opponents to grass-eating beasts, but the walk through the wilds was nothing if not meditative, and that is good enough.  At times he resented his father and mothers for creating such a comfortable lifestyle for him and his younger siblings, robbing them of the chance to be wild as they were.  He envied Gazini, Baako and Folami for having the chance to grow and experience their family’s growth amidst the savannah.  

His memories only went as far back as his father’s wedding to Eniola amidst her father’s ranks of dog soldiers and Majisola behind him like a servant.  It wasn’t long after that, a period of weeks perhaps, that they had moved from their home among the rocks into Eniola’s father’s luxurious hold as Komona’s brethren danced in the skins of dead dogs and the fat old lion was hung on the door.  He’d barely known what it was like to live without electric lights and refrigerators, without heavy walls protecting them from the warm embrace of the wind and the loving caresses of the rain.  As he stood, grass flowing around him as if he was wading in a golden sea, he felt a real loss.  

Azubuike heard the rustle of heavy bundles and grinding of flat teeth on grass from a ways away.  He knew it was an elephant, but whether feral or not was still unanswered.  He looked to overgrowth heavy bushes around a shaky trunk where they liked to hide, the ferals and intelligent both, from poachers and the sun alike that tended to burn their bare backs when the season was dry and mud was rare.  The bushes shook and trembled with the thing’s movements, though Azubuike still couldn’t see it.  The resilience of these woody, thorny plants to hold onto their green as the water disappeared and everything else dried away was impressive, a testament of resilience and hardiness.  Finally the thing stood, giving Azubuike a view of what he’d heard from so far away.  

The bull must have been twenty feet tall if not more, and a massive hand wrapped around his makeshift staff, the uprooted trunk that Azubuike mistook for the heart of this bush.   His ears flapped and his nose laid over his shoulder, finally hearing and smelling the lion at his back.  He turned, revealing the scarred face of Jungabi, his huge eyes calm, betraying no aggression or fear of the lion who, as large as he was, was still barely waist-high on the titan.  Azubuike stared at Jungabi in awe, having rarely seen bull elephants at all and never one as incredibly large as this one was, and never seeing one that had survived the removal of their tusks.  They held eye contact for a while, long enough for the elephant to see no ill intent in the lion, and then it was broken as Jungabi turned back to his front to stomp out of the bushes, crushing inches-long thorns beneath his feet as if they were grass and green vines.  As he started to move and Azubuike’s transfixation was broken, and he could hear the jabbering on of hyenas on the other side, the way Jungabi walked.

“We need to get on your shoulders!” One of them said.

“We can’t see anything from down here, the grass is too high!”  Came another voice.

“We can’t smell anything either, it’s too dusty!”  Said yet another, making Azubuike start to question just how many of them there were.  

“There’s a lion on the other side of these bushes, maybe he’ll help you.  I’m full.”  Jungabi said softly, though even in a soft tone his voice still made the earth rumble.  

“There’s a lion?!”

“There’s never [i]A[/i] lion!”

“There’s a lion and his dozen wives!”

“And sisters!”

“And daughters!”

“And-” this one shuddered audibly, “his mothers!”  

“This one is alone.  Big though.”  He said, still shaking the earth with his steps. 

Azubuike meanwhile their conversation had eased around that bush, sneaking a peek of what he saw were three young, not so well built hyena males.  Obviously they weren’t of Komona’s, else he’d know them.  They were strange to him, and were dressed likewise in tattered leather.  They carried spears, rough-hewn as they were, and little else.  They were underweight considerably, their fur was dull and their noses dry.  They looked downright ragged, and Azubuike honestly regretted not having anything for them.  He did remember, though, that Komona and his father secured this territory, and that they didn’t want any other lions or hyenas on it without their permission or knowledge.  

“I have no food,” Azubuike finally spoke, stepping around the bramble into full view. He towered over the Hyenas, his shadow nearly reaching their feet.  “And I hate to say, but I’m not a grand hunter.  But, this territory belongs to Tapiwa; the ones in robes call him Al-Mudhammir.  If you have know of him and have any sense, you’ll not remain here long.”  

“Are you Tapiwa?”  One of the hyenas asked, crouching as he stepped backwards, half-suppliantly, and half preparing to run.

“If I was my father, you’d not have had a warning.  I’m almost surprised you haven’t run into some of Komona’s already.  Hyenas usually sniff each other out faster than anything else.”   He said before loping behind Jungabi.  “Are they yours?”  He asked as he moved beside the huge elephant, keeping at a nonthreatening distance for strangers.  

“They are their own, I think.”  Jungabi rumbled and waved him off, still gnawing on a woody vine. “We all follow a big female.  Asi.  Smart, strong, very strange”  

“She must be to have you in tow.  Where did you come from?”  Azubuike asked again, looking at the elephant’s tattered loincloth and it’s almost completely faded designs.  “I don’t recognize these patterns.”  

“You would not know it.  I had not seen more than two lions in my whole time with my tribe, and those were not like you.  Not in the old ways.”  Jungabi picked his teeth with the rooty end of the briar and threw it to the grass, continuing his walk.  

Azubuike chuckled a little, that someone as… wild as this elephant would consider him with the old ways.  “Bah, you don’t know how spoiled I’ve been.  The old ways are as lost on me as any other, I just have the presence of mind to regret the loss.”  He stepped closer and softly nudged Jungabi’s massive hand with his fist.  “I am Azubuike, son of Tapiwa and Adaeze.”

Jungabi looked down at the lion strangely before shrugging and returning the gesture, giving him a light shove with his closed fist.  “That regret makes you a greater lion than what I have met.  Jungabi.  Why do you walk with us, Azubuike?”  He waved his trunk towards their backs, where the hyenas followed far behind, spears at the ready as they shook in their own fur.  “It’s making them nervous.”  

Azubuike laughed and whipped his tail subconsciously.  “I don’t know why that would be.  Hyenas are dirty and stringy.  And they’re skinny anyway.  Barely stew meat on them!” He said, laughing loudly and smiling over his shoulder at them.  “But no…”  He shrank a little back from Jungabi’s gaze, the elephant not taking the joke quite as well.  “I’d like to see you out of our territory.  Preferably all at once, on your feet, instead of in pieces on the back of a truck.”  

Jungabi chuckled slightly. “Not much left on me to take, if you are worried about me.”  Strange thought that was, a lion worried about an elephant.  Worth another chuckle in and of itself.

“You’d be surprised.  The asians Komona sells to will pay your weight in gold for a powdered cock.”  Azubuike chuckled, “And they once you’re butchered, there’s not much difference between us and our wild cousins, you know that? No one can hardly tell.”  Jungabi chuffed and rolled his shoulders, a bit frustrated at that but unable to really argue with it.  

The hyenas mumbled behind them amongst themselves quietly, though not too quiet for Jungabi. He could hear them, of course, but they didn’t speak clearly.  Starting one word and finishing it with another, things jumbled and combined together.  One of them finally spoke up, “What of hyenas?”  

“You guys? Well, hyenas don’t have any magic organs that cure limp dicks, so… They’d probably just pretty you up like girls and rape you for a few weeks.  Then maybe integrate you, or else take you to sell.”  He said matter-of-factly, and without much thought.  A sure tone in his voice made it sound sure that this had been done before, maybe even routinely.

They looked amongst each other wordlessly for a moment, then another one asked, “How much they sell us for?”  

Azubuike laughed again. “They’d probably trade you for lunch or a few bottles of liquor.”  

“Not worth it.” 

“No not at all.”

“Think it’d be good liquor?”

They continued amongst themselves for more than awhile, until the elephant stopped at their started to kick dry bushes over, crushing them underfoot into flat piles for fire fuel.  Azubuike watched, kicking around the dead leaves under the tree and the few pits of fruit that were left.  “So, why did you all come here, anyway?” The lion finally asked.  

“Hmmm…” Jungabi scratched his chin with his trunk as he bundled up a handful of dead wood  carried it to a clear spot beside the tree.  “Depends.  Where exactly are we?”  He knelt down and flattened a bit of earth with his fist before dropping the wood onto it and dropping onto his hind end with a loud, earthshaking thud.  

“You don’t know?”  Azubuike watched Jungabi prepare their fire, putting his back against the barren tree.  “Well… Hmmm… between Zaga and Fali.  East of Wukari and South of Kwararfa.”  

Jungabi sat, placing the sticks for the fire carefully, his thick fingers making them look like toothpicks.  “None of those names mean anything to me.”  

“Huh…” Azubuike responded, moving on the other side of the pile and sitting with crossed legs.  “Well then, umm… Where the Benue splits off and the Taraba starts? The big rivers?  We’re almost straight South of there.” 

Jungabi nodded slightly and sighed. “I do not know which direction we came from… but if we have not hit water yet then I’ll guess we came from the Southeast.” He sat back with his hands on his knees.  At some point the hyenas had sat around the fire as well, slouching from hunger and their long walk.  

“Well… if you go straight West you’ll reach water.  Big enough that it doesn’t go dry, too.  Then follow that North a bit and you’ll find a village that should trade with you for food.” Azubuike drew in the dirt with one of his claws, making a rudimentary map.  

“Trade?”   The hyenas mumbled amongst themselves, a moment, before poking at Jungabi’s side.  “Do you have anything to trade?” 

The elephant ignored them partially, but did address the question to Azubuike instead.  “That is part of their problem.  They have spears and breechclouts, I have my own, and this staff.  Asi has her firestones and that is all we have.  Nothing we can stand to give away, not that it would be worth anything anyway.”  

“Hmm… well, you could tell them I sent you.  That should get food in your bellies and maybe some actual steel on the end of those sticks instead of pointy rocks.”  Azubuike said with a smile.  “I’ll just square it up next time I visit.”  

“Food?”

“Suya?”

“Tsire-tsire-tsire-tsiretsiretsire-”

“Coconut RIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!” 

The three hyenas started singing between themselves in happy little squeals and barks, rocking shoulder-to-shoulder, anticipating full bellies.  

“They will make you regret this hospitality, friend.”  Jungabi said with a slight smile.  “I do fine on what green I can find, but the rest will sing your praises for years.”

Azubuike laughed heartily and waved it off.  “It’s fine, really.  But I’d encourage you to eat something there as well.  An old cow there makes a vegetable Pate that’s amazing.  Her Moin-Moin is good, too.”  

Jungabi smiled and nodded, placating the lion.  “I am surprised you would eat something like that, being what you are.” He asked, putting the lion off.   

“I eat anything that’s good.  A luxury of the times, I think.”  Azubuike switched his crossed legs and leaned on his knees.  “Anything besides bleeding meat makes my father sick, though.  Too old for his body to get used to, I think.”

“Hah, well I am probably older than your father’s father, so I stick to my fresh grass as well.”  Jungabi leaned back slightly, stretching out.  “So, why are you being so kind, hmm?  You can’t just be this friendly, can you?” 

Azubuike shrugged and laid back, arching his back against the earth and pushing up his stomach.  “I don’t know?  I suppose?”  He flopped limp onto the ground and put his hands under his back.  “You’re fucking massive, Jungabi.  Must be so strong.  I’d hate to see you die before your time.  I’d hate to never get a chance to see you fight or wrestle you myself.”

Jungabi looked at the lion, his head tilted and an eyebrow raised, his ear flapping slightly as well.  [i]What an odd answer.[/i] He thought to himself.  “What an odd answer.”  He subsequently said.

“I know, right?” He said, sitting up.  “Most of my family feels similarly.  They don’t tend to fight people unless they want something they have or just want to kill them.  I just like fighting.  Wrestling, particularly.” He says, pulling the small leather pouch off of his waist and throwing it to Jungabi.  “One of my brothers is a boxer, though.  He understands.”

Jungabi carefully undid the tiny-to-him laces and opened the bag, inside were a set of small leather glove-type things, and another small back full of white powder.  There was also a plastic lighter, but it was too small for Jungabi to experiment with and he didn’t recognize it by sight, so he put it back.  “What are these?” 

“Gloves.  They cover my claws when I fight so I can’t hurt someone accidentally.  They make them for bulls and elephants and stuff too, caps for the horns and tusks. Though, you wouldn’t have to worry about that, I don’t think.” Azubuike said with a chuckle, walking over and taking the gloves to put them on.  

Jungabi chuffed in Azubuike’s face, blowing back his mane.  He was obviously irritated by that crack, but he sensed that this young lion’s irreverence was simply his personality.  “And this white powder?”  He asked, tossing it back into Azubuike’s chest.  

Azubuike caught it and untied it, pouring some into his paws.  “Talc.  It keeps the hands dry when it’s hot and sweaty, helps you hold on to the person you’re fighting.”  He ties the bag back up and holds out his hand for the bag, which Jungabi hands him.  “So, whattaya say?  Let me wrestle you for a little while in exchange for the directions and the food when you get there?”  

Jungabi sighed and shook his head, but smiled slightly as he stood up, pushing himself to his feet with his walking stick.  “How do you wrestle?”  He asked, walking onto another small clearing with soft earth and few weeds to trip over.  “My father talked a little about fighting lions, but not much for sport.”

Azubuike followed, taking a couple of loping strides for every one of Jungabi’s.  “Heh, well, no hitting, like punching, kicking, etc.  Just grabbing, throwing, etc.  Oh yeah and try not to break your friend.  You know, no neck-snapping leg cracking, so on so forth.”  

“Well that sounds fun!  How do you know if you won?”  Jungabi went to one side of the clearing and stretched out his arms, cracking his shoulders and slinging his trunk.  

“They give up or you get them out of the circle.  Throw, roll, push, however.”  Azubuike stood on the other side, stretching just the same.   “By the way, what was it your dad said?”  

“Sounds like how elephants fight, too.  And the old man was not fancy....  He used to say Something like ‘Get them by the tail and aim for the horizon.’”  He laughed and knelt down, his feet wide and his hands on his knees, crouched forward.  “So I just need to push you out of the circle then?” 

“Pretty much!”  Azubuike dropped his weight a little and dug his toes into the dirt.  “And don’t take it easy on me.  I’ll take it as an insult.”  

Azubuike then charged, throwing himself across the barely forty-foot circle like a bullet, a copper blur that the hyenas’ eyes could barely keep track of.  He hit Jungabi’s right leg with a smack of flesh that resounded like a gunshot, taking it by both arms and lifting with all of his might, but in vain.  In actuality, Jungabi didn’t move at all, save for the slightest ripple as the concussion travelled across his flesh.  Jungabi watched for what felt like a few minutes as Azubuike tried to twist, turn, lift, or push Jungabi’s leg any way he could.  Once he’d tired of it, though, he reached down and with one hand took Azubuike’s waist.  Peeled off of the elephant’s leg like a tick, Azubuike tried to twist or free himself, but found himself trapped firmly and completely in a hand almost as big as his torso and fingers as thick as his forearms.  

“Okay, okay, not bad for your first time!” Azubuike said as he struggled, trying to get his hands underneath Jungabi’s thumb to try and get himself loose of it.  “The technique is a little,-Unf!-sloppy, but whatever works!”  

Jungabi shook his head and bent down, touching his knuckles to the ground, then with a swing of his arm bowled Azubuike across the ground.  The lion rolled quickly, barely able to catch his feet before leaving the irregular ring they had and ejecting into the grass.  Azubuike shook the dizzy out of his head, his mane letting out a cloud of dust that settled around him, falling only slowly in stagnant air.  The orange dusk light trapped in the dust around him gave him a golden glow for just a moment, before wind finally picked up and blew it away.  

“Ooooh-”

“Wooooooah-”

“He’s so pretty~” 

The three hyenas had apparently joined them, heads and shoulders peeking up from the bush around them as they watched the little spectacle between the elephant and the lion.  

Azubuike bolted for Jungabi’s legs again, his body exploding forward leaving a puff of dust on the ground behind his first step.  His body twisted, flexed, his muscles rolled in time like the well-maintained machine he was.  Seeing the lion going for the legs again, Jungabi crouched to catch him, intending to toss him off before he could even get a hold on. Azubuike made a sudden lunge to the outside, dodging Jungabi’s sweeping arms and taking ahold of his leg again, this time using it to break his momentum and turn himself.  Azubuike put a foot in the bend of Jungabi’s leg, jumping up and taking a second step on his back, then a third, and then finally Azubuike jumped off of Jungabi’s shoulder, grabbing the elephant’s neck in both arms and attempting a cutter, a ¾ front-facing bulldog, an RKO.  Of course it failed.  

Jungabi stumbled a second from the jerk to his neck, but all it was was a slight stumble, which left Azubuike dangling from his neck somewhat ineffectively.  The lion’s fingers cold barely touch around the elephant’s huge neck, leaving him with no leverage whatsoever to transition to a choke or some other kind of hold.  Before Azubuike could think to let go, he had a heavy trunk wrap around his leg like a snake, and suddenly he was flung off and flying through the air.  

Azubuike landed with a thud, picking himself up slowly as Jungabi coughed and gave his head a shake.  “I appreciate those gloves, now!” Jungabi said as he rubbed his throat.  “Could have cut me open if you had not have had them.”  

“I don’t know about that.”  Azubuike said as he rose to his feet.  “As thick as your skin must be?  I’d probably just poke a hole and hang from it.  Not a deep one, either.”   

“Ah, well…” Jungabi straightened up, stretching and cracking his neck.  “Have you had about enough yet?  That was two good tries on your part.”  

“Give me another one.  I think I’m onto something.”  Azubuike said, getting ready to make another run.  

“This will be the last one.  It’s getting dark and the others will return soon.”  

Azubuike lunged again, just like he had twice before.  In a few long strides he’d covered the distance between them, and Jungabi was poised and ready to get him, whichever way he went.  Catching Jungabi off guard, Azubuike came to a full stop, dragging one paw across the ground and digging in his feetclaws to brake himself.  Jungabi flinched for a second, then crouched down, bringing both hands to the center to grab around the lion again.  Jungabi’s hands made an empty clap as Azubuike shot away between his legs, getting behind him yet again.  Jungabi tried to straighten up before Azubuike made it to his back, but the lion was just a hair too fast.  Azubuike jumped onto the back of Jungabi’s head, his stomach smacking against elephant as he clung to his head, tugging his ears with his hands to distract from his feet desperately trying to find eachother to clasp together.  It worked, and just as Jungabi’s hands began smacking and grabbing at the back of his head to pull the lion off, Azubuike managed to lock his feetpaws together and threw his weight back, dodging the massive paws and putting pressure onto Jungabi’s throat.  

Jungabi realized the hold he was in late, and his trunk and fingers struggled to find purchase underneath the lion’s thick, muscled legs.  His fingers were far too thick to slip in between, and his trunk, surprisingly, wasn’t strong enough on its own to break the hold.  Any time Jungabi attempted to lift his head to get better purchase it only relaxed his neck more, letting Azubuike tighten his squeeze.   The lion reached down and grabbed Jungabi’s loincloth, pulling on it and pulling himself tighter, making the elephant cough and sputter.  Jungabi thought through his lightening head and darkening vision, and reached his arms back to grab at the lion’s.  Azubuike could have got away, but he let himself get too caught in the elephant’s loincloth, and was unable to get out in time.  Jungabi pulled his arm hard, the natural motion putting a twist on the lion.  Azubuike didn’t have much choice but to let go of Jungabi’s neck and let himself get slung, which he did.  

Jungabi fell with a thud onto his hind end, both hands rubbing his throat.   “That was pretty close for you, Azubuike!”  He said, coughing out a laugh.  

Azubuike pushed himself up onto his haunches and laughed as well, shaking his arm and stretching as well.  “I know, right?  Haha, that was great!  Thank you for the opportunity!”

Jungabi got back onto his feet and turned back to the camp.  “Well, I think we’ll wait around camp for the others to get back.  You might want to leave, one of our friends doesn’t like male lions.” 

Azubuike rolled onto his feet as well and followed, roughing his mane in his paws.  “I’ll be alright.  They should be fine when they hear about the food.  And even if they’re not, they can’t be tougher than you.”  

[center]------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

Asi hung off of Fumnanya’s shoulders, one of her hands groping over his chest and the other inside the sash of his belt, scratching just beneath his belly.  “-and when we get back, I’ve had this idea for a while that needs four guys…” 

“Oh yeah? Heh, I can’t wait to hear it-”  Fumnanya said, his tail waving happily behind him.  

Tau walked behind them both, her spear across her shoulders, her arms lazily hanging over it, and her mask resting on top of her head like a hat.  Her hips swung side to side, her tail flowing behind her like a rhythmic gymnast’s ribbon.  Her expression was as impenetrable as usual, but she had a satisfied glow emanated from her regardless.  

“You know, I bet you’d love to meet my brother…” Fumnanya said as he slipped his hand under Asi’s loincloth, fondling her clit.  “He’s less refined, but… Bigger.  In all respects.”  He said with a smile and illustrated with his hand, drawing a line from his crotch forward to illustrate his brother’s size.  

“OOooooh.  That does sound fun.” Asi nipped his arm as he touched her, not because she didn’t like it, but because he hadn’t asked first.  Not that she’d asked before groping him, mind you.  “But I don’t think Tau would let us get very far unless he’s like you.”  

“Oh, yes.  I remember you saying something like that. What did you mean?” Fumnanya pulled his hand out from under Asi’s cloth and hooked it into his sash along with the other,  

“Oh that? Well, yeah.”  Asi pulled away and walked on her own, her hands to herself for the first time in awhile.  “Tau doesn’t like male lions.  I mean she absolutely hates them.”

“What do you mean? She doesn’t hate me, does she?”  Fumnanya asked, looking back to the lioness who followed along as innocent and unaware as a babe.  

“Well, no… but you’re also kind of lacking in the mane department… and the shoulders… and the muscles…” Asi said with a playful bit of venom, jabbing at the lion’s feminine features.  “So maybe it didn’t take?  But actual big he-man lions, well…”  She turned quickly and jabbed at his gut with the spear, poking him softly before dragging it lightly up across his chest to his neck.  “The one we met ended up too torn up to even skin.”  She winked with an unsettling smile and turned back around leading them.  “But hey, not like your bro is with you or anything, right?”  

“R-right…” Fumnanya stuttered as he followed her, swallowing a little gulp.  “I mean, we separated miles back and went in opposite directions... “   

“Right! So no way he’s around here!”  Asi pointed her spear to the distance, a barren tree and Jungabi’s massive shadow.  “There’s our people!  Come on!”  Asi said before running off, loping through the grass.  “They might’ve actually found meat!”  

-------

The five males sat around the still-unlit fire talking idly about the grasslands and their travels.  Azubuike avoided asking about the elephant’s massive scar and missing tusks or why he could never remember any specifics about where he was, where he had gone too, or where he had come from.  The three hyenas, who Azubuike learned to be named Kofi, Kwabena, and Kweku, spoke very little, and primarily only to self-deprecate or attest to their own incompetence.  That wasn’t unique to them, and was rather a trait of most tribal hyenas who reside at the bottom of the pecking order.  

“I HOPE YOU BROUGHT ME MEAT FOR DINNER!” A voice rang out from behind Jungabi, making the elephant roll his eyes.  Asi jogged into their clearing laughing and hollering, “I brought home a treat and momma’s going to need a whole lot of energy!”  She stopped as she saw the lion sitting across from Jungabi in all of his glory, larger than any she’d seen before and as magnificent as her wildest dreams.  She stared at him for a moment, his scars glistening with sweat and his mane shimmering in the orange sky.  His mane.  His muscles.  His scars.  [i]Tau is going to kill him.[/i]  She looked at him for a moment longer then said in a surprisingly even and nonchalant tone, “You’re Fumnanya’s brother, aren’t you?”  

Before Azubuike could answer Tau came vaulting over Jungabi’s head, spear in hand and mask down.  She must have seen him from farther back, or perhaps even smelled him on the wind.  She roared a deep, violent roar as she came down, spear poised at Azubuike’s chest.  He returned the roar and jumped back, leaving Tau to plunge her spear into the dirt and give him time to stumble onto his feet.  “Jungabi, is she mad?  You didn’t say she was mad!”  

Asi stepped in front of her three men as they and Jungabi moved to their feet.  “Alright, what did I miss that you’re having a party with some strange lion instead of foraging?” She barked to the three, at the moment more concerned with their lack of food. “Is he dinner? You know lion is fuckign inedible!”  She yelled.  

“He gave us directions to a village-”  Jungabi said as he walked toward the two scuffling lions.  “-And says his name is good for trade.  Enough for real food and steel for your spears.”  

“...”  Asi watched for a few moments as Tau repeatedly jabbed at Azubuike’s torso and face, the lion seemingly easily avoiding her blade, bobbing and twisting his body out of the way and smacking the shaft of her spear to a side to parry her when necessary.  “Can we still get the food with him dead?”  

Tau roared out with every thrust of her spear, throwing them out quickly as she advanced, keeping Azubuike moving backwards.  Her mask obscured her eyes and kept Azubuike guessing, never knowing where any strike was going to until she’d already began her thrust.  Luckily she seemed too enraged to fight with any guile, no feints and no fakeouts, no strategy.  She fought him like someone would fight a beast, jabbing away at it with reckless abandon and little expectation for it to fight back.  And he didn’t fight back, at least not in any real way.  Azubuike kept his distance, kept away from the jagged stone which repeatedly aimed for his flesh, but didn’t attack her back.  She was fast, and she was strong, but not enough to beat him on raw physical ability, and in the state her head was in, she didn’t have a chance to beat him.

“Tau!  Tau knock it off, this one is a friend!”  Jungabi said, standing nearby to stop them if things went too far.  

------

“Oh my gooooooooooood-”  Bapoto whined out as they walked alltogether, her and her twin following in the trails of stamped-down grass left by their older sisters.  “Why are we him?  Can’t we just leave him and let him find his way home on his own?” 

“Yeah!” Kunto exclaimed.  “And why aren’t we looking for Fumnanya?”

“For the hundredth time-” Nakoto said with an exasperated huff, her rifle hung over her shoulder.  

“-Fumnanya probably walked straight home to begin with.”  Babirye finished. 

“And besides that,” Nakoto continued, “Fumnanya bathes like, three times a day.  He has no scent to track most of the time, besides his horrendous perfumes, and he wasn’t wearing any today.”  

“There’s nothing of him to track.”  Babirye finished, yet again.  Kunto and Bapoto huffed together and shared a glare before rolling their eyes in unison.  They were stopped by their sisters, grunting together as they ran into the older twins.  Babirye and Nakoto had heard what Kunto and Bapoto hadn’t in their complaining; a loud feminine roar coming from the south.  “Be quiet.”  Babirye told them.

“That wasn’t one of ours, was it?”  Nakoto asked.  

“It sounded like a female.” Babirye responded.  

“Maybe Fumnanya found a big sweaty new friend.” Kunto said and Bapoto snickered.  

They heard another roar, one they knew was Azubuike’s, and the elder two started running towards the sound.  “Let’s get to the top of that hill where we can see over the grass!” Nakoto yelled as both the older twins unslung their rifles, their tails flagging and smiles on their faces finally after a long and boring day.  The younger sister’s followed behind them unenthusiastically, not having the benefits of telescopic sights to see into the distance. 

“Is that an elephant?”  Babirye asked, clicking her turrets for range.  

“Looks like it.  A bull, he’s gotta be.  What… How tall is he?” Nakoto asked, nearly aghast.  

“Uh… okay… Azu is two M tall and he’s a little taller than a Mil at this range so… just under two KM… And this guy is… fuck… He’s three Mils tall… He’s got to be six or seven meters tall…”  Babirye said slowly, doing the fairly complex math in her head.  

“I’ve never even heard of a bull elephant that big!  Imaging the look on dad’s face if we lugged his head in!”  Nakoto exclaimed, her hackles raised and her ears twitching excitedly.

“He’s no good.  Look at his face.”  Babirye said, calm and level unlike her sister.  

“What?  What the fuck happened to him?”  Nakoto asked as the younger twins finally caught up to them.  

“Some limp dick eurotrash probably knocked him out and took his trophy.  Only a foreigner would be fucking cruel enough to take his tusks and fuck up his face then leave him here like that.”   Babirye said, dropping her rifle and spitting on the ground.

“I thought foreigners didn’t hunt people.” Bapoto interjected.  

Nakoto dropped her rifle from her shoulder as well and spat.  “Things are getting stranger and stranger…”  

Kunto slapped Babirye hard on the ass and growled. “Who cares about the fucking elephant?  You saw Azubuike right?”  

Babirye half mewled then caught herself and finished in a roar.  “Oh yeah, and Fumnanya too.  Some psychobitch in a mask is trying to spear Azu and Fumnanya’s backed off hiding behind some tribal-looking hyenas.”  She rubbed her ass and glared at her sister as she spoke with an odd nonchalance.  

“So… Should we go help him?”  Bapoto asked.  

“Eh… It’s getting late and we haven’t got to shoot anything yet… so…”  Babirye smirked at her sister, making eye contact and sharing a glance.  

“I need to be within two-hundred M with this thing.  I know you’re good at seven-fifty.   Got the fun stuff?”  Nakoto asked her sister. 

Before Nakoto could even finish though, Babirye removed her magazine and racked the slide to remove the chambered round, replaced it back in the magazine and stowed it in an empty pouch.  She removed another box and showed it to her sister, a white tip with a red stripe then a green stripe.  “You bet your sweet ass I do.”  

Nakoto and Bapoto both smiled big, though Kunto didn’t get it, not being the gun type herself.  Bapoto wasn’t the type for guns much either, but she knew things that go boom, so she knew HE when she saw it.  She turned to her sister with a big smile and punched her shoulder.  “Explody tracers.  Big booms. Lotsa meaty chunks!”  

Kunto smiled herself and nodded. “Okay so what will we do?”  

Babirye and Nakoto turned and smiled at their little sisters.  “We’re going to move up.”  Babirye said.  “I’m going to stop at around seven-fifty.”

“And I’ll stop at five.” Babirye continued.  

“You guys go in and make havoc.  We’ll cover you from back here.”  Nakoto finished. 

“What do they have?  The hyenas and them?”  Kunto asked, still a slight frown on her face though her ears twitched with excitement.  

“Should be just your thing, sis!”  Babirye exclaimed.

Nakoto turned to face them, pointing to the distance.  “Spears.  Just spears!  And the elephant’s got a tree trunk.”   

“We’ll let you get some shots in first, have the element of surprise and all.”  Babirye said. 

Bapoto even smiled and told her sister, “I’ll even wait for you.  Cause some ruckus then I’ll bring the big booms!”  

“Me too, little sister!”    Babirye said, racking the first round into her heavy American rifle.  

Without any more words, all four of them turned and went into a solid run.  Babirye and Nakoto barely seemed slowed by their heavy rifles, but Kunto went around them easily and advanced on, almost doubling their speed.  All of them were low, to the ground, using the grass to hide them and their ears, noses, and whiskers to stay straight towards their target.  From any side they might as well have been invisible, the grass nearly closing around them, especially the smaller Bapoto and Kunto.  The first to stop was Babirye, crouching and withdrawing a set of tall shooting sticks to rest against while standing.  Nakoto and Bapoto continued on without hesitation, Nakoto stopped next and stood straight, wrapping her arm up inside her ching sling , the leather squeaking against itself as she tightened it up and tensioned it into the pocket of her bare shoulder.  Now it was just Kunto and Bapoto, with Kunto far ahead and beyond her twin, but that was okay.

Kunto hit the edge of the grass first, peering between the tall blades and reeds.  She popped her knife out of its plastic sheath quietly as she poised herself.  If she was paying attention she probably could have pieced together that these hyenas and this elephant weren’t their enemies, that the lioness was mad, but she didn’t care to.  She saw red and her ears were deaf, her stomach burned so hot she thought she might be sick.   The fur on her neck and shoulders raised and fluffed up, as did her tail, and as the elephant turned, following the fighting lions, putting his back to her, Kunto launched.  

The first slash was the deepest, aimed at the back of Jungabi’s leg and achilles tendon.  The elephant trumpeted from the sudden pain, which was thankfully minor.  Before he could even look down, he’d received two more cuts to the insides of his legs, higher up and obviously aiming for the major arteries.   As he went to bend down, still having not so much as seen his attacker, there was an explosion of wood and fire.   An entry the size of a baseball and an exit the likes of a beachball was in the treetrunk he’d been using as a staff for so long.  

The concussion, the flash, the noise, the smell of popped explosives and burning wood sent a rush of memories flowing through the elephant’s mind, and released something primal in him.  Jungabi’s eyes dilated and he released a sound unlike any they had heard before.  A roar.  Not a trumpet, not a yell, but a deep, guttural roar like a dozen creatures roaring at once.  The lions close enough to hear it felt tingles down their spines, though the elephant’s companions had heard it before.  

“Fumnanya, run!” Asi said, shoving the grey lion. “He’s frenzied!  He doesn’t even like us when he’s like this, he definitely doesn’t want to see unfamiliar faces!”  She turned and readied her spear to throw at the elephant’s attacker.  

Fumnanya stopped her, grabbing her arm with one hand.  “Hold on, that’s one of my sisters!  They must have seen-”  

“I don’t exactly care!”  Asi said, pushing him off.  “That’s my elephant.  If you want your sister taken care of, I suggest you take care of her, and I’ll take care of mine!”  She then threw recklessly at Kunto, paying no mind to the elephant in the target area.  

Not that she needed to.  The deepest of Kunto’s cuts was only barely bleeding, the elephant’s rough hide seemingly too thick for a blade.  Hearing her brother’s voice and then the whistling she recognized, she caught the spear in her eyes.   As it spiraled towards her she simply ducked and ran under it, letting its wind breeze across her back as she charged the four hyenas.  The spear glanced across the elephant’s thigh, but he ignored it completely, perhaps not even noticing it.   His aggression somehow avoided the lioness that had been carving away at his legs and centered on the two lions fighting.  He took his tree trunk and lifted it above his head, starting to run towards them, his pupils tiny against the red of his bloodshot eyes.  

Azubuike’s fight with Tau had barely been interrupted.  She was completely trapped with him, unable to see or hear anything except him, or to focus on anything but killing him.  With her back to the rest, she didn’t see the elephant’s charge or see the chaos behind her.  With no time to act, he grabbed her spear and pulled her into him, only able to grab one of her wrists allowing the other to claw across his chest and back as he turned, taking the blow full force into his back, sending both of them flying through the air nearly twenty feet.  

The blow should have and would have killed them if not for the massive hole in the trunk, letting it break and keeping them from taking the full force of the blow.  But that didn’t stop Tau from continuing to claw at him like a rabid animal, and it didn’t stop Jungabi from continuing his charge.  Azubuike could hear the footsteps getting nearer and he could hear the lioness snapping her jaws at him behind her wooden mask.  He could move out of the way in time if she didn’t hold the grapple, but he didn’t know if she could or whether the bull elephant would ignore her or trample her.  Before he was forced to pick an action, though, something else got in the way.   

There was a deafening boom and a blinding flash of light that set all three of their heads sideways.  Azubuike had felt this before, and even deaf and blind with vision pure black and his ears ringing he knew how to get away.  The pain of her claws digging into him was negligible compared to the throbbing in his head as he stumbled to his feet and picked her up, running straight away.  Jungabi’s reaction was less composed as he thrashed and stomped in all directions being blind and so disoriented.  

Meanwhile that was going on, Kunto continued her charge at the hyenas.  Asi still stood at the front, guarding her three males even though they had spears and she had nothing.  Fumnanya stood behind them, watching the scene unfold before him.  He yelled out, “KUNTO, STOP!”  But she didn’t listen.  Whether or not she even heard him was suspect, in the tunnel-visioned, joyful rage she was in.  The young lioness lunged, jumping high, her knife poised for the hyena’s throat.   Asi was ready, and was about to lunge into her both of them to meet with a fleshy thud and the gnashing of teeth, but she was stopped and nearly thrown aside by Fumnanya.  Not as useless as he seems, but still not a fighter by any means, Fumnanya threw himself in Asi’s place and stuck out a strong arm.  Kunto didn’t lead with her knife, and her momentum forced her into his arm, taking the heel of his palm in the center of her sternum, stopping her dead and knocking all of the wind out of her.  

“Th-The fuck!?”  She roared out as Fumnanya crouched over her, smacking away his hand that was reaching out to check if she was okay.  

“Well alright then…” He said, standing up.  “These people are friends, or at least they were.  The lioness is crazy and I think the elephant was cool before you guys frenzied it.  Where are the rest?” He asked quickly, scanning the horizon on all sides.  

“Fucking…” Kunto stood up, holding her chest with one hand and putting her knife away with the other.  She would question what was going on, but considering no one had stabbed her yet and her brother was between her and them, she went with it.  “They’re that way.”  She  pointed off in their direction.  “Should we get Azu or leave him with his new girlfriend?”  

Fumnanya smacked her on the back of the head and growled quietly.  “Get running.  And tell Bapoto to stop throwing bombs!  Have her pop smoke and get running back!”  He said, looking into the distance and making large, overt signals with his arms, hoping to keep the elder twins from opening fire again.  

“Gah!-hey!” She punched him in the stomach and started running.  “Whatever, you just come on!  And bring Azu!” 

Fumnanya nodded and turned to Azubuike and Tau who were having a wrestling match of their own, Azubuike trying in vain to peal the crazed lioness off of him before she completely shredded him with her claws and before the elephant got his bearings again.  Just as he was starting to run off, he felt a hand grab the collars of his bisht and abaya, turning him around and pulling him to face her.  “Fumnanya son of Tapiwa… I am going to see you again someday… And when I do, I’m going to fuck your ass until you cry…”  She kissed him hard, almost choking him with her tongue, clawing at the back of his neck and nearly ripping off his turban.  When she finally let him go, she held the nape of his neck tight and forced him to face her.  “And then you’re going to turn me over and give me the fucking you owe me.  Understand?”  

Azubuike nodded nervously and backed away, gently pulling her hand off of his neck.  “Th-that’s a promise.  W-we’ll even do that thing with the four guys…” He broke her hold and turned, winking back at her.  “I promise.”  

Asi smiled a big, toothy smile and licked her lips.  “Okay boys, let’s go peal our lion off of his brother so they can get out of here!”  She pointed to the Azubuike and Tau in their scuffle as Fumnanya ran towards them as well.  

All five, the hyenas and Fumnanya descended on them.  Kofi, Kweku, and Kwabena all pushed and shoved to get between the two, getting clawed and bit at for their own troubles.  Fumnanya stood behind his brother and Asi stood behind Tau, watching them fight to get them apart.  After she felt like her boys had gotten enough new scars, Asi stepped behind Tau and wrapped an arm around her neck, putting her in a choke, and wrapped the other around her stomach.  She bit the lioness’ ear and gave her a slight pull backwards, growling into her ear.  “Let go.”  

Tau tensed up, digging her claws into Azubuike’s shoulders and squeezing for just a moment before going almost completely limp in Asi’s arms, barely supporting her own weight with her legs and letting the hyena do with her as she pleased.  “Fumnanya, take your brother and leave…”  Asi said quietly, still holding onto Tau’s ears.  

Fumnanya nodded and pulled on his brother’s arm, turning him.  “The girls are this way, let’s go.”   

“R-right…” He said, looking back.  “Remember, West until water, then North.”  He told Asi and the hyenas again, wanting to be sure they got what he promised.  “And tell Jungabi I’m sorry about all of this!” He waved back as he ran, though the elephant probably heard him by now.  The flashbang had given Jungabi enough time to come out of his frenzy and he had been sitting for quite awhile, staring at the broken stump with deep, empty eyes.  

[center]------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

As the six lions walked back to their home together.  All four twins were unsatisfied that they got to kill nothing, although Fumnany and Azubuike were both quite pleased with themselves.  As they led, the girls stared daggers into their backs, their ears pasted to their heads angrily. 

“So you expect me to believe… that thing in the mask…?”  Asubuike said incredulously, his eyebrow raised at his younger brother. “...and you?”  

“Hey, she didn’t pull that with me!  Being my un-manly self saved my ass for once.”  Fumnanya pointed to his head.  “That big manly mane and all those muscles are what set her off!”  

“Huh?”  Azubuike grunted then shrugged.  “Huh.  You always hear about tribal lionesses that go wacko.  Maybe she’s one of those?”  

“Like, her or one of her brothers fucked her stupid?  Or maybe she had a husband that got killed.”  Nakoto said, waving the idea off like it was nothing.  

“She looked old enough…” Babirye said.  “Maybe her kids?”

“You think?”  Nakoto asked.  

“Yeah, sure.  But what got me was the elephant.  I’ve never heard of one frenzying like that outside of rutt, and to go off that easy is weird even [i]in[/i] rutt.”  Babirye posited.  

“Maybe he’d been through some shit too?  I don’t know.”  Nakoto said.

“He HAD to have!”  Kunto interjected. 

“What kind of weirdo pack is that?  A bunch of hyenas running with a lion running with an elephant?”  Bapoto said forcefully. “I bet they’re all defectives.”

[center]------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

Tau laid sideways across Jungabi’s stomach, stretched out to all four corners.  Asi sat between his own outstretched legs, rubbing some paste of something on the insides of his legs where he’d been cut.  The other three sat behind and around her, looking over her shoulders and watching her every step of the way.  The fire smoldered quietly beside them all, glowing a bright, deep red.  

“Now watch close, I might get hurt someday and you dumbasses will have to do this for me.”  Asi told them as she dabbed the mixture on.  

“I can’t believe they broke my staff …”   Jungabi lamented.  

“We’ll find you another tree.  Hell, rip this one up when we leave for all I care.”  Asi said.  

There was a silence for awhile before Jungabi spoke again.  “That red one was the strangest lion I’ve ever met…”  

“Yeah?  He just seemed big to me.”  Asi replied.  “Now his brother… the little one in all the clothes?  [i]He[/i] was special.”  

“Grey one was prettier.”

“Azubuike’s color was better.”  

“His hands were so big~”  

The three males all said amongst themselves.

“And he gets us food…”  

“Azubuike is better!”  They all said in unison.  

“Good, well, next time we meet him I’ll get what I want from the little one and you can pay back Assa-bucky with some suckysuckyfuckyfucky.”  Asi said with a frustrated growl in her tone, massaging the salve into Jungabi’s cuts.  “Next time…”  

[b]THE END?[/b]

AZUBUIKE
He’s copper with a dark brown mane, yellow eyes, scars, loincloth and a small leather pouch.  
obviously i think the fight with Jungabi and the fight with tau are the best things to work on but i don’t know where to source visual references for the poses we’d need.  

BABIRYE
She does very little except shoot her big gun so she probably should only get a sketch or a little side image.  RIGHT ear gauge
She’s shirtless except for her vest, is wearing pants though.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0sdVMKQReM
http://www.truthordarepics.com/publicflashers/images/twistedcouple6.jpg
http://jkemosabe.tumblr.com/post/127187457363/military1st-flyye-lbt-ak-tactical-chest-vest

NAKOTO
Similar to Babirye.  Identical actually.  LEFT ear gauge.
Her gun  http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/12240/12498471_4.jpg?v=8CEEBAFA07EFE60
Her sling http://brassstacker.com/images/P/ching%20sling%20001-01.jpg
Her vest http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq223/dinerman3/2014%20September%20eBay/IMG_0014.jpg 
Her pants http://www.orvis.com/orvis_assets/corpimg/38X2A2FH_lg.jpg
How the sling is used, possible pose idea http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n-oHZQ2smpA/maxresdefault.jpg

FUMNANYA
He’s a light charcoal-y grey and has no mane.  Is slightly femininely built.  

This is the other one with the best usage of both of our characters besides the big brawl later, i think.  a crowd favorite among early readers was “pussy game so strong it pick a muffuger up by the D”  so that should be a thing that happens i think.  

Also Asi being right up in his ear telling him what to do to finish Tau off was called out as a particularly hot image as well.  So… 

A post-coitus shot could be funny as well, with Asi sitting on her ass pleased with a good wank, Tau laying on top of Fumnanya all good and took care of, and Fumnanya just @.@  and nearly passing out under her. 

http://imgur.com/a/vh7FZ

Babirye and Nakoto
I’m throwing these two in together because their physical designs are almost identical.  They’re grassy tan and have the very faintest hints of leopard spots, they have slightly fluffy tails with no tailpoofs, and bright blue eyes.  
their pants http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/Nzc3WDEwMDA=/z/FIsAAOSwLVZVn8Au/$_57.JPG
They wear suspenders without the shoulder pads.  http://www.sovietarmystuff.com/images/products/200702071548570.gbeltplsusp.jpg
One has RGD-5s hanging on her left suspender, and and a mix of RGK-60SZs and RGD2s on the right.  
RGD5 https://dmz.co/img/products/rgd5-grenade-green.jpg  
RGK-60SZ http://77rus.smugmug.com/Military/Interpolitex-2011/i-FCHQVKh/0/M/InterpolitexPart561-M.jpg
RGD2 http://rus.mil.pl/forum/uploads/sprzet_granaty/__07v_RGD-2Ch_RGD-2Kh.jpg 

EVERYONE’s pistols are in big flap holsters so you shouldn’t have to draw the pistols all the time http://cdn2.armslist.com/sites/armslist/uploads/posts/2014/02/11/2681937_01_european_military_flap_style_p_640.jpg 

Okay so as for the climax, the big fight later, i have no idea what scenes or what things you’ll be wanting to draw or what would make the best visual impact so i think we’ll try and figure it out when  you’re drawing and the juices are flowing?