Post by Thulani on Apr 21, 2009 12:17:16 GMT -5
Yaro is supervising the various duties of the colony. The new tunnel is being dug according to orders, and fortunately there haven't been any collapses. This is a good thing, in Yaro's mind. No injuries is no problems.
Just outside of the meerkat colony's tunnel system lurks Thulani, the matriarch of the Nqobile hyena clan. The oasis is a hefty walk from the barren grasslands where the other hyenas still remain, but she knew about the colony here, and figured it wouldn't hurt to try and catch a few. She was starving, anyway. With a serious lack of larger prey in her area, Thulani had held off coming here for a while. But finally her hunger got to her. Today, she'd catch and eat a meerkat.
Fortunately for Yaro, the advance sentries (Scouts, really.) are well-trained. As soon as he saw a team running in his direction he knew there had to be something out there. As the supervising meerkat of the team (Of a rank that in human terms would be called "Sergeant.") reports to him of an incoming hyena, Yaro's decisions are swift. "Evacuate the digging and foraging teams first. Sound the alert and make sure any sentries on duty out here know. If the hyena passes the outer perimeter, evacuate the sentries." The sentry team nods and runs to do as they are told. Yaro turns to face where they run off and hmmms. There hasn't been a hyena attack in generations.
Thulani hadn't attacked a colony ..ever. She'd only gone after stray meerkats that were wandering around due to whatever reason. Her mother never even considered it. They were too fast, and hid too easily. Thulani was desperate for something though, and the colony was the closest thing. She knew of their excellent team work, but would never dream that they had *that* much skill at such a thing. Spotting the figure of what she thought was a meerkat, Thulani's paws carried her quickly over into that general direction, laughing madly as she would if taking down larger prey; larger prey that would be easily exhausted, and couldn't take cover in a den. Laughing was a mistake.
And that was enough for the shift leader of all the sentries on duty (You could call him a "Staff Sergeant") to follow his orders and call for the evacuation of all sentries on duty. It helped that the hyena had begun to laugh, giving the sentries a rather wide berth. Yaro, however, remains where he is. He prefers to make sure everyone is in the tunnels before he is. He looks in the direction of the laughing. A laugh not heard in almost 15 generations. "Laugh all you like."
When she got to where she thought the meerkat had been, everything was gone. She blinked in confusion, and then lowered her head with a pathetic whine. Her tail flicked, and she began pawing at the dusty earth. Friggen' tunnels. A growl, and the matriarch sat on her haunches for a moment. What to do, what to do. A glance down at her own blackened paws, and an idea bloomed in her head instantly. Why not dig? With a quiet, almost eery giggle, Thulani was up again and sniffed the ground, then began digging up the dry dirt.
And by this point the Captain himself is underground, but in the upper portions of the tunnel. When he hears the hyena digging, he calls down to the sentries: "It is digging! I need a good team qualified in predator combat on the double!"
In her frustration, the female hyena only continues to dig, even though the ground hurts her paws. Spotted hyenas like herself aren't opposed to digging their dens, but in order to get food.. it's pretty unheard of. She begins to pant as she is over-exherting herself due to her irritation at the little mammals. She wants to call them cowards, but knows that their strategy is actually rather clever. Instead, she stops her frantic digging for only a second. "You can't hide forever, you little shits!" she yells, and digs once again.
Soon a team of meerkats files out of a nearby tunnel, their Sergeant bellowing orders. Yaro yells out, "Wait for my word!" He pulls himself out of the colony and turns to face the hyena. "Stop and identify yourself! You're violating Tonoqha land!"
'Huh.. guess they're not cowards at all..' Thulani thinks to herself, and stops digging the hole that she had been so set on doing for the past few minutes. With a wide grin, the female's ears perked up and she began walking towards the team of meerkats, not fearing them at all. "Of course, how rude of me. My name is Thulani, I just came here for a little snack." she said with a chuckle, and flicked her tail again, but made no immediate attack against any of the meerkats.
"And have you thought of the consequences of attacking meerkats on their own turf, Thulani?" Yaro says. "I have but to give a word and you might find yourself at the bad end of a mob."
The thought of being attacked by meerkats is too much for Thulani, and she bursts out in laughter. Cackling her way towards the team, she just shook her head, and caught her breath after her laughter subsided a little. "A meerkat mob! That's hilarious!" she teased, and continued her slow strides towards the prey. "Honey, I doubt your group of rodents could do very much to me." she said with her mischevious grin, and clamped her jaws shut. Not to anyone, but just to let them hear the sound of the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom.
Yaro knows that the sentry team would rather be just about anywhere but here. But Yaro has to play up the "threat" of meerkats. And in all reality, you get a decent enough group, a predator would not want to tussle with them. For now Yaro decides to bluff. "Do you know what a scorpion sting can do to a hyena? It is an utterly fascinating process. First the hyena goes blind... then the hyena loses control of so many body functions at once. Then the real pain starts..."
Thulani doesn't buy his threats. Scorpions are nasty, venomous critters that the hyenas stay away from at all costs. Why would a meerkat even bring that up? Did they keep scorpions as subordinates? She knew quite well that there was danger in numbers in this case, but she didn't want the whole colony. One, maybe two meerkats would be plenty, until she brought the clan with her. "That might be so, but unless you've got little venom pockets in those tails of yours.. I see no real threat." she said, and came closer, even going so far as to lower her head and sniff at the apparent leader of the group.
Yaro resists the urge to squirm. "Well, that's the thing. I give the word, and you'll meet the meerkat's favorite part of the arsenal." Yaro says. "See, we're immune to the venom ourselves, but we have so many uses for it." Yaro gestures with his arms, the size and shape of a stick roughly the length of a meerkat. "The best use would be to dip sharpened sticks in them and give predators a vicious jab. Very quickly ends a hunt. And your life. Now, we don't have them up here with us, but given the right motivation I could bring up an entire squad of meerkats wielding these death-dealing sticks and you can try your luck then."
His threat is plausible, making the hyena consider it more than she normally would've, and even bought into it a bit more. Being stung to death by stick-wielding meerkats would be an embarssing way to go.. "Hmm.." she thinks aloud, and sighs. "Why couldn't you just go about this the old fashioned way? I chase you, you hide, I dig, you dig further.. it's so much more interesting that way." she jokes, and then puts both front paws on either side of the brave meerkat, toying with him some more as she begins to nip at him. She wants to crush him, to take the small forager into her jaws and clamp down, and then go after one more. But she can't. Not yet. Not when there's fun to be had!
"Well, digging nowadays is a matter of coordination and teams and bureaucracy. The hyena would reach the meerkats and eat them before the whole planning phase of the tunnel would even be completed!" Yaro says. "So we have sentries... with venom. We don't normally take these sticks to the surface since we like to employ sentries in more menial tasks out here while they're keeping an eye out."
Thulani laughs again at Yaro's explanation of the tunnel system. "Oh, well. Sounds like I've got enough time for one of you while your little 'sen-trees' or whatever go get those sticks. Good times." she said with another cackle, and pushed Yaro over with her muzzle, lifting her head up so that she could get some momentum into her killing bite.
Very few things in this harsh world surprise Lindani anymore. He's been up against deadly lizards and bugs, and against the worst of the predators on the savannah. He's faced dehydration and sandstorms. But he's never actually seen a meerkat very calmly talking face to face with, of all things, a hyena. There are a great number of creatures capable of eating them, hyenas not the least of which. But the... the image. Does his captain even have the slightest clue what he's doing? Looking up from one of the tunnels (the sentries having fled), he sees
Yaro about to be eaten, of course, following his pleasant conversation. "YARO! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" he screeches as loudly as he can, twisting around and catching a good sized rock with his tail, winging it as hard as he can at the predator.
Yaro eeps just as she was about to bite down on him and scrabbles away as best he can. Seeing Lindani there, he stands up and, showing the sort of discipline he learned that led to him being Captain, stands at attention and shouts out "Sir!" All while the hyena matriarch is directly behind him about to try chomping him again.
Ugh. Her mother was right about these things.. to fast for their own good. A stone hit her side, but the punch it packed wasn't *that* hard. It hurt a tad, but nothing enough to stop her. In fact, it encouraged her. "Oh look, reinforcements!" she said in a sing-song voice, and laughed wickedly. "Hello there.." she said to the newcomer, who was apparently higher up than the other, as he referred to him as 'sir'. "Oh? So you're the leader of the pest parade, huh?" she asked in a low tone of voice, and chomped her jaws towards the both of them once again.
"THAT WAS AN ORDER YOU IDIOT!" Lindani yells again as the hyena goes on the offensive. The next thing he does after winging the first rock is to pick up *another* one, and aim it this time at that monstrous mouth of hers, dancing in and out of striking range. Once everyone's inside they can use that new-fangled stick idea of Yaro's to forcibly poke her out. Oh yes. That sounded oh so dangerous.
Yaro bolts for the tunnels, but stops before entering and turns to Lindani. "Sir. as the Captain of the colony it is my duty to inform you that my position is not to allow either dominant to come within harms way, sir!" And, likely to Lindani's chagrin, starts to run to fetch his superior and carry him bodily into the colony.
Though she's still having a great time with all of this, the main reason why Thulani is here is not to have play time with meerkats, but to eat them. With a vicious growl and her ears pinning back against her skull, she snaps at the two meerkat leaders, and sprints towards the tunnel entrance too, in an effort to beat Yaro back to it. Stupid thing, but she had to give him points for bravery. If she could cover this entrance.. they'd have no where to go, and it'd be time to chow down.
Lindani can see the beast right behind them. Or rather, him. Yaro, in his overprotective manner, is *dragging* him towards one of the tunnels. Leaving pretty much half his body to get eaten while Yaro makes it to safety a split-second before him. "You idiot, get OFF me!" Lindani demands, punching Yaro hard in the stomach to make him let go. In one fluid motion he grabs Yaro after the punch and *throws* him at the tunnel, before leap-running towards the tunnel himself, flying through the air as Thulani's jaws race him towards the portal into meerkatty safety. He's cutting it close...
Just missing one of the meerkats as he flew miraculously into the safety of the tunnel, Thulani barks angrily, and her dark eyes set directly on the remaining officer, Lindani. "Well, at least there's back-up.." she said with a grin, and licked her lips as she lowered her head over the entrance of the tunnel, blocking it off with one paw.
Lindani scrambles to a halt, veering off in a different direction, deciding to try and weave around the hyena's paws as he makes a bid to get around behind her, and go for the opposite side of the cavern. Hopefully, by the time she's finished turning around in the cramped space, he'll be well on his way to safety in the tunnels on the *other* side of the cavern wall.
Yaro rubs his head and sits up. Oooh. That hurt. Yaro looks around for sentries, finds none, so moves deeper in the colony to find some. The dominant male is in danger!
It's true.. it's pretty cramped in the cavern, but she's got enough room to turn around in rather quickly. Her jaws followed Lindani all the way around, and she's literally right on his tail.. and attempts to step on it. Desperate to make a kill now, her mouth began to salivate, and a little drool trail dribbled on the cavern floor. How attractive.
Lindani knows that he's practically doomed by now. He can feel something heavy descend on his tail, and with his forward momentum manages to yank himself out from under it... but he's lost all his forward movement. He scrambles to make the final few inches, just as desparate to get away.
Yaro decides he's got to hurry. He finds a few sentries finally and says, "If you know what's good for you you'll get topside and save your dominant male!"
Finally, Thulani feels like she's got her prey cornered.. but she doesn't. Her mindset is off though, and feeling cocky, she lets out another harsh cackle, the sound filling the entire cavern. Tired of chasing, but not tired of teasing, the matriarch stomps her paw on the scrambling meerkats tail. "Not so fast, little guy.." she says and licks her lips again, just about ready to enjoy her small meal.
Lindani is in a nearly hysterical panic, his claws scratching the dirt and the blood pounding in his ears. It's that fear he's felt several times before. The gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening absolute terrorizing knowledge that he's going to die. He turns around in one final lunge and bites down on Thulani's paw as hard as he can. At least Minim and the kits are alive. His only regret is that some of the decision making might be given over to Yaro after he dies.
Omba pages, "What would Omba's title be in the Nqobile @group members list? I'll go ahead and add him in." to you.
The sentries Yaro sent up start sprinting after the hyena, shouting. Yaro, on the other hand is making his way to the other entrance that Lindani was heading for.
Her facial expression changes from laughing, cocky, and ready to snack on Lindani's ribs to flabbergasted, and just generally confused. The meerkat.. is biting.. her paw.. "Hahaha..HAHA..HAHAHA!" Her cackling fills the small room once again, and quickly scoops the frightened dominant male up in her jaws as she hears the approaching sentry. Not biting down on his small body at all. Not yet, anyway. For now, she's more interested in playing a game with the rodents. She flees the cavern as quickly as she can, but not so fast as to lose her pursuers.
"Huackgh!" Lindani says as he's plucked off the ground, since there's really not much else one can say when they're snatched up by the jaws of death. Rather convinced he's going to die, he weakly tries to fight back, but getting jostled by the loping hyena makes movement nigh impossible. Why doesn't she simply crush him now and get it over with? He swears the first chance he gets she's losing an eye for being so arrogant!
Yaro The sentries naturally pursue as fast as they can. Yaro pokes his head out and sees no one there. Panicking like he can, he pulls himself out and starts to run where the hyena and sentries would have gone: Only one direction to go.
If it was possible for her to laugh with this meerkat between her teeth, she would've. Picking up the pace, Thulani began jogging back towards the Barren Grasslands, wanting Lindani to stay alive long enough for her adopted pup, Omba to get the chance of making a kill. The poor kid, he wasn't getting very much to eat these days either. Thinking it over, a growing 'mwana' like him needed food more than she did, and now that she knew where to find it.. he could have this one. If they made it back, that is.
The jostling against Thulani's teeth is something incredibly painful; he could feel scratches turning into cuts on his belly and chest. The knowledge that he's being carried in something's mouth is ever present given the hot breath always washing over his back. He's pretty much given up for the moment, knowing further struggling and movement will only quicken his death and worsen the pain. He's going to die, that much he knows, but he's going to go down fighting if he can.
Try as she might, Thulani can't help but have her sharp teeth. She doesn't want the little meerkat to die yet. What would be the fun in that? Then she couldn't even brag to that colony that she caught their leader! The dominant hyena blinked, and slowed down. Where was his colony? Did they give up? Not very much of a fight. Blinking again, she turned around fully and sat down, keeping the meerkat in her mouth so he wouldn't run away.
Lindani hung limply from Thulani's mouth, having mostly given up on life by now, and only just waiting until he feels the numbness of death embrace him. He looks beyond the hyena's shoulders and sees that no pursuit is forthcoming. Well, that didn't last long... he wonders if the hyena was just that fast, or his colony gave up on him that quickly. Either way, he knew that he was going to die, and nobody else was. He could live with that. He sighs, gritting his teeth against the pain. This was a lot more uncomfortable than he thought it would be.
The sentries seem to be lost. They didn't catch up to the hyena at all. And of course, Yaro is right behind them. "What the devil are you doing standing there?!" Yaro says, "Up and at 'em! March! Find the dominant male! He must be saved! When I had your job, I had to find stray kits in dense foliage over the course of a day! You can find a d**n hyena! Go!""
The mouth of a hyena is a dreadful place. Filled with sharp pointed teeth, breath that smelled of carrion, ..and the drool. Oh, in a way she felt sorry for the dominant male meerkat.. but it was mostly just a joke to her. Sure, she was hungry. But a little thing like that would only make her want more food. No, she'd just toy around with these mites a bit longer, then let the male go. A smirk tightened her grip on Lindani, until she spat him out harshly on the ground, her paw restraining him afterwards. "Huh. No colony in sight." she said with a tilt of her cranium. A shrug. "Ah well. Guess they didn't care that much, huh?"
"Oof!" Lindani says as he drops to the ground. He's fairly certain he's bleeding by now from being scraped over the hyena's nasty teeth. He barely even moves when the hyena's paw stamps on him. He only groans painfully, closing his eyes and going quiet. He's not going to give this hyena the satisfaction of answering... getting abandoned so soon by his own was embarrassing enough. He just shakes his head a few times and waits for the end.
"You know.. I have cubs to feed." she muttered to the meerkat, knowing that she wasn't going to get sympathy from him, but felt like she needed to explain herself. "It'd be selfish of me to eat you and bring nothing back for my clan.. and I couldn't split a shrimp like you up into seven parts if I tried.." she said, and got up, releasing the meerkat of her paw. "It's been fun, little guy!" she said, and nudged him up with her muzzle, even barking in his face to see if he would run away.
Lindani doesn't react much when Thulani doesn't do anything except nudge him around, having already given up on life, giving in to the prey strategy of simply lying down and dying just in case something miraculous happened. He blinks and flinches when the hyena barks at him, and then simply turns his head and stares at her, looking almost reprimanding, like she's failed her duty as a predator. Very, very slowly (it hurts to do so), he begins to stand up, clutching the definitely bleeding marks on his body. "... *What?*" he asks through gritted teeth, sounding consternated.
Sitting back down in front of him, Thulani lowered her head and sniffed the meerkat again, just because. Her eyes stared at the cuts on his body, and she giggled a bit, before nudging him back down with her muzzle in an attempt to make him fall again. "You heard me. I'm not that hungry as it turns out. If I'm to eat anything, it will be with my clan. And trust me, you'll see us again soon." she said with a wide, toothy grin, and then stood back up, trotting back off to the barren grasslands to the south to meet her hungry clan.
Just outside of the meerkat colony's tunnel system lurks Thulani, the matriarch of the Nqobile hyena clan. The oasis is a hefty walk from the barren grasslands where the other hyenas still remain, but she knew about the colony here, and figured it wouldn't hurt to try and catch a few. She was starving, anyway. With a serious lack of larger prey in her area, Thulani had held off coming here for a while. But finally her hunger got to her. Today, she'd catch and eat a meerkat.
Fortunately for Yaro, the advance sentries (Scouts, really.) are well-trained. As soon as he saw a team running in his direction he knew there had to be something out there. As the supervising meerkat of the team (Of a rank that in human terms would be called "Sergeant.") reports to him of an incoming hyena, Yaro's decisions are swift. "Evacuate the digging and foraging teams first. Sound the alert and make sure any sentries on duty out here know. If the hyena passes the outer perimeter, evacuate the sentries." The sentry team nods and runs to do as they are told. Yaro turns to face where they run off and hmmms. There hasn't been a hyena attack in generations.
Thulani hadn't attacked a colony ..ever. She'd only gone after stray meerkats that were wandering around due to whatever reason. Her mother never even considered it. They were too fast, and hid too easily. Thulani was desperate for something though, and the colony was the closest thing. She knew of their excellent team work, but would never dream that they had *that* much skill at such a thing. Spotting the figure of what she thought was a meerkat, Thulani's paws carried her quickly over into that general direction, laughing madly as she would if taking down larger prey; larger prey that would be easily exhausted, and couldn't take cover in a den. Laughing was a mistake.
And that was enough for the shift leader of all the sentries on duty (You could call him a "Staff Sergeant") to follow his orders and call for the evacuation of all sentries on duty. It helped that the hyena had begun to laugh, giving the sentries a rather wide berth. Yaro, however, remains where he is. He prefers to make sure everyone is in the tunnels before he is. He looks in the direction of the laughing. A laugh not heard in almost 15 generations. "Laugh all you like."
When she got to where she thought the meerkat had been, everything was gone. She blinked in confusion, and then lowered her head with a pathetic whine. Her tail flicked, and she began pawing at the dusty earth. Friggen' tunnels. A growl, and the matriarch sat on her haunches for a moment. What to do, what to do. A glance down at her own blackened paws, and an idea bloomed in her head instantly. Why not dig? With a quiet, almost eery giggle, Thulani was up again and sniffed the ground, then began digging up the dry dirt.
And by this point the Captain himself is underground, but in the upper portions of the tunnel. When he hears the hyena digging, he calls down to the sentries: "It is digging! I need a good team qualified in predator combat on the double!"
In her frustration, the female hyena only continues to dig, even though the ground hurts her paws. Spotted hyenas like herself aren't opposed to digging their dens, but in order to get food.. it's pretty unheard of. She begins to pant as she is over-exherting herself due to her irritation at the little mammals. She wants to call them cowards, but knows that their strategy is actually rather clever. Instead, she stops her frantic digging for only a second. "You can't hide forever, you little shits!" she yells, and digs once again.
Soon a team of meerkats files out of a nearby tunnel, their Sergeant bellowing orders. Yaro yells out, "Wait for my word!" He pulls himself out of the colony and turns to face the hyena. "Stop and identify yourself! You're violating Tonoqha land!"
'Huh.. guess they're not cowards at all..' Thulani thinks to herself, and stops digging the hole that she had been so set on doing for the past few minutes. With a wide grin, the female's ears perked up and she began walking towards the team of meerkats, not fearing them at all. "Of course, how rude of me. My name is Thulani, I just came here for a little snack." she said with a chuckle, and flicked her tail again, but made no immediate attack against any of the meerkats.
"And have you thought of the consequences of attacking meerkats on their own turf, Thulani?" Yaro says. "I have but to give a word and you might find yourself at the bad end of a mob."
The thought of being attacked by meerkats is too much for Thulani, and she bursts out in laughter. Cackling her way towards the team, she just shook her head, and caught her breath after her laughter subsided a little. "A meerkat mob! That's hilarious!" she teased, and continued her slow strides towards the prey. "Honey, I doubt your group of rodents could do very much to me." she said with her mischevious grin, and clamped her jaws shut. Not to anyone, but just to let them hear the sound of the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom.
Yaro knows that the sentry team would rather be just about anywhere but here. But Yaro has to play up the "threat" of meerkats. And in all reality, you get a decent enough group, a predator would not want to tussle with them. For now Yaro decides to bluff. "Do you know what a scorpion sting can do to a hyena? It is an utterly fascinating process. First the hyena goes blind... then the hyena loses control of so many body functions at once. Then the real pain starts..."
Thulani doesn't buy his threats. Scorpions are nasty, venomous critters that the hyenas stay away from at all costs. Why would a meerkat even bring that up? Did they keep scorpions as subordinates? She knew quite well that there was danger in numbers in this case, but she didn't want the whole colony. One, maybe two meerkats would be plenty, until she brought the clan with her. "That might be so, but unless you've got little venom pockets in those tails of yours.. I see no real threat." she said, and came closer, even going so far as to lower her head and sniff at the apparent leader of the group.
Yaro resists the urge to squirm. "Well, that's the thing. I give the word, and you'll meet the meerkat's favorite part of the arsenal." Yaro says. "See, we're immune to the venom ourselves, but we have so many uses for it." Yaro gestures with his arms, the size and shape of a stick roughly the length of a meerkat. "The best use would be to dip sharpened sticks in them and give predators a vicious jab. Very quickly ends a hunt. And your life. Now, we don't have them up here with us, but given the right motivation I could bring up an entire squad of meerkats wielding these death-dealing sticks and you can try your luck then."
His threat is plausible, making the hyena consider it more than she normally would've, and even bought into it a bit more. Being stung to death by stick-wielding meerkats would be an embarssing way to go.. "Hmm.." she thinks aloud, and sighs. "Why couldn't you just go about this the old fashioned way? I chase you, you hide, I dig, you dig further.. it's so much more interesting that way." she jokes, and then puts both front paws on either side of the brave meerkat, toying with him some more as she begins to nip at him. She wants to crush him, to take the small forager into her jaws and clamp down, and then go after one more. But she can't. Not yet. Not when there's fun to be had!
"Well, digging nowadays is a matter of coordination and teams and bureaucracy. The hyena would reach the meerkats and eat them before the whole planning phase of the tunnel would even be completed!" Yaro says. "So we have sentries... with venom. We don't normally take these sticks to the surface since we like to employ sentries in more menial tasks out here while they're keeping an eye out."
Thulani laughs again at Yaro's explanation of the tunnel system. "Oh, well. Sounds like I've got enough time for one of you while your little 'sen-trees' or whatever go get those sticks. Good times." she said with another cackle, and pushed Yaro over with her muzzle, lifting her head up so that she could get some momentum into her killing bite.
Very few things in this harsh world surprise Lindani anymore. He's been up against deadly lizards and bugs, and against the worst of the predators on the savannah. He's faced dehydration and sandstorms. But he's never actually seen a meerkat very calmly talking face to face with, of all things, a hyena. There are a great number of creatures capable of eating them, hyenas not the least of which. But the... the image. Does his captain even have the slightest clue what he's doing? Looking up from one of the tunnels (the sentries having fled), he sees
Yaro about to be eaten, of course, following his pleasant conversation. "YARO! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" he screeches as loudly as he can, twisting around and catching a good sized rock with his tail, winging it as hard as he can at the predator.
Yaro eeps just as she was about to bite down on him and scrabbles away as best he can. Seeing Lindani there, he stands up and, showing the sort of discipline he learned that led to him being Captain, stands at attention and shouts out "Sir!" All while the hyena matriarch is directly behind him about to try chomping him again.
Ugh. Her mother was right about these things.. to fast for their own good. A stone hit her side, but the punch it packed wasn't *that* hard. It hurt a tad, but nothing enough to stop her. In fact, it encouraged her. "Oh look, reinforcements!" she said in a sing-song voice, and laughed wickedly. "Hello there.." she said to the newcomer, who was apparently higher up than the other, as he referred to him as 'sir'. "Oh? So you're the leader of the pest parade, huh?" she asked in a low tone of voice, and chomped her jaws towards the both of them once again.
"THAT WAS AN ORDER YOU IDIOT!" Lindani yells again as the hyena goes on the offensive. The next thing he does after winging the first rock is to pick up *another* one, and aim it this time at that monstrous mouth of hers, dancing in and out of striking range. Once everyone's inside they can use that new-fangled stick idea of Yaro's to forcibly poke her out. Oh yes. That sounded oh so dangerous.
Yaro bolts for the tunnels, but stops before entering and turns to Lindani. "Sir. as the Captain of the colony it is my duty to inform you that my position is not to allow either dominant to come within harms way, sir!" And, likely to Lindani's chagrin, starts to run to fetch his superior and carry him bodily into the colony.
Though she's still having a great time with all of this, the main reason why Thulani is here is not to have play time with meerkats, but to eat them. With a vicious growl and her ears pinning back against her skull, she snaps at the two meerkat leaders, and sprints towards the tunnel entrance too, in an effort to beat Yaro back to it. Stupid thing, but she had to give him points for bravery. If she could cover this entrance.. they'd have no where to go, and it'd be time to chow down.
Lindani can see the beast right behind them. Or rather, him. Yaro, in his overprotective manner, is *dragging* him towards one of the tunnels. Leaving pretty much half his body to get eaten while Yaro makes it to safety a split-second before him. "You idiot, get OFF me!" Lindani demands, punching Yaro hard in the stomach to make him let go. In one fluid motion he grabs Yaro after the punch and *throws* him at the tunnel, before leap-running towards the tunnel himself, flying through the air as Thulani's jaws race him towards the portal into meerkatty safety. He's cutting it close...
Just missing one of the meerkats as he flew miraculously into the safety of the tunnel, Thulani barks angrily, and her dark eyes set directly on the remaining officer, Lindani. "Well, at least there's back-up.." she said with a grin, and licked her lips as she lowered her head over the entrance of the tunnel, blocking it off with one paw.
Lindani scrambles to a halt, veering off in a different direction, deciding to try and weave around the hyena's paws as he makes a bid to get around behind her, and go for the opposite side of the cavern. Hopefully, by the time she's finished turning around in the cramped space, he'll be well on his way to safety in the tunnels on the *other* side of the cavern wall.
Yaro rubs his head and sits up. Oooh. That hurt. Yaro looks around for sentries, finds none, so moves deeper in the colony to find some. The dominant male is in danger!
It's true.. it's pretty cramped in the cavern, but she's got enough room to turn around in rather quickly. Her jaws followed Lindani all the way around, and she's literally right on his tail.. and attempts to step on it. Desperate to make a kill now, her mouth began to salivate, and a little drool trail dribbled on the cavern floor. How attractive.
Lindani knows that he's practically doomed by now. He can feel something heavy descend on his tail, and with his forward momentum manages to yank himself out from under it... but he's lost all his forward movement. He scrambles to make the final few inches, just as desparate to get away.
Yaro decides he's got to hurry. He finds a few sentries finally and says, "If you know what's good for you you'll get topside and save your dominant male!"
Finally, Thulani feels like she's got her prey cornered.. but she doesn't. Her mindset is off though, and feeling cocky, she lets out another harsh cackle, the sound filling the entire cavern. Tired of chasing, but not tired of teasing, the matriarch stomps her paw on the scrambling meerkats tail. "Not so fast, little guy.." she says and licks her lips again, just about ready to enjoy her small meal.
Lindani is in a nearly hysterical panic, his claws scratching the dirt and the blood pounding in his ears. It's that fear he's felt several times before. The gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening absolute terrorizing knowledge that he's going to die. He turns around in one final lunge and bites down on Thulani's paw as hard as he can. At least Minim and the kits are alive. His only regret is that some of the decision making might be given over to Yaro after he dies.
Omba pages, "What would Omba's title be in the Nqobile @group members list? I'll go ahead and add him in." to you.
The sentries Yaro sent up start sprinting after the hyena, shouting. Yaro, on the other hand is making his way to the other entrance that Lindani was heading for.
Her facial expression changes from laughing, cocky, and ready to snack on Lindani's ribs to flabbergasted, and just generally confused. The meerkat.. is biting.. her paw.. "Hahaha..HAHA..HAHAHA!" Her cackling fills the small room once again, and quickly scoops the frightened dominant male up in her jaws as she hears the approaching sentry. Not biting down on his small body at all. Not yet, anyway. For now, she's more interested in playing a game with the rodents. She flees the cavern as quickly as she can, but not so fast as to lose her pursuers.
"Huackgh!" Lindani says as he's plucked off the ground, since there's really not much else one can say when they're snatched up by the jaws of death. Rather convinced he's going to die, he weakly tries to fight back, but getting jostled by the loping hyena makes movement nigh impossible. Why doesn't she simply crush him now and get it over with? He swears the first chance he gets she's losing an eye for being so arrogant!
Yaro The sentries naturally pursue as fast as they can. Yaro pokes his head out and sees no one there. Panicking like he can, he pulls himself out and starts to run where the hyena and sentries would have gone: Only one direction to go.
If it was possible for her to laugh with this meerkat between her teeth, she would've. Picking up the pace, Thulani began jogging back towards the Barren Grasslands, wanting Lindani to stay alive long enough for her adopted pup, Omba to get the chance of making a kill. The poor kid, he wasn't getting very much to eat these days either. Thinking it over, a growing 'mwana' like him needed food more than she did, and now that she knew where to find it.. he could have this one. If they made it back, that is.
The jostling against Thulani's teeth is something incredibly painful; he could feel scratches turning into cuts on his belly and chest. The knowledge that he's being carried in something's mouth is ever present given the hot breath always washing over his back. He's pretty much given up for the moment, knowing further struggling and movement will only quicken his death and worsen the pain. He's going to die, that much he knows, but he's going to go down fighting if he can.
Try as she might, Thulani can't help but have her sharp teeth. She doesn't want the little meerkat to die yet. What would be the fun in that? Then she couldn't even brag to that colony that she caught their leader! The dominant hyena blinked, and slowed down. Where was his colony? Did they give up? Not very much of a fight. Blinking again, she turned around fully and sat down, keeping the meerkat in her mouth so he wouldn't run away.
Lindani hung limply from Thulani's mouth, having mostly given up on life by now, and only just waiting until he feels the numbness of death embrace him. He looks beyond the hyena's shoulders and sees that no pursuit is forthcoming. Well, that didn't last long... he wonders if the hyena was just that fast, or his colony gave up on him that quickly. Either way, he knew that he was going to die, and nobody else was. He could live with that. He sighs, gritting his teeth against the pain. This was a lot more uncomfortable than he thought it would be.
The sentries seem to be lost. They didn't catch up to the hyena at all. And of course, Yaro is right behind them. "What the devil are you doing standing there?!" Yaro says, "Up and at 'em! March! Find the dominant male! He must be saved! When I had your job, I had to find stray kits in dense foliage over the course of a day! You can find a d**n hyena! Go!""
The mouth of a hyena is a dreadful place. Filled with sharp pointed teeth, breath that smelled of carrion, ..and the drool. Oh, in a way she felt sorry for the dominant male meerkat.. but it was mostly just a joke to her. Sure, she was hungry. But a little thing like that would only make her want more food. No, she'd just toy around with these mites a bit longer, then let the male go. A smirk tightened her grip on Lindani, until she spat him out harshly on the ground, her paw restraining him afterwards. "Huh. No colony in sight." she said with a tilt of her cranium. A shrug. "Ah well. Guess they didn't care that much, huh?"
"Oof!" Lindani says as he drops to the ground. He's fairly certain he's bleeding by now from being scraped over the hyena's nasty teeth. He barely even moves when the hyena's paw stamps on him. He only groans painfully, closing his eyes and going quiet. He's not going to give this hyena the satisfaction of answering... getting abandoned so soon by his own was embarrassing enough. He just shakes his head a few times and waits for the end.
"You know.. I have cubs to feed." she muttered to the meerkat, knowing that she wasn't going to get sympathy from him, but felt like she needed to explain herself. "It'd be selfish of me to eat you and bring nothing back for my clan.. and I couldn't split a shrimp like you up into seven parts if I tried.." she said, and got up, releasing the meerkat of her paw. "It's been fun, little guy!" she said, and nudged him up with her muzzle, even barking in his face to see if he would run away.
Lindani doesn't react much when Thulani doesn't do anything except nudge him around, having already given up on life, giving in to the prey strategy of simply lying down and dying just in case something miraculous happened. He blinks and flinches when the hyena barks at him, and then simply turns his head and stares at her, looking almost reprimanding, like she's failed her duty as a predator. Very, very slowly (it hurts to do so), he begins to stand up, clutching the definitely bleeding marks on his body. "... *What?*" he asks through gritted teeth, sounding consternated.
Sitting back down in front of him, Thulani lowered her head and sniffed the meerkat again, just because. Her eyes stared at the cuts on his body, and she giggled a bit, before nudging him back down with her muzzle in an attempt to make him fall again. "You heard me. I'm not that hungry as it turns out. If I'm to eat anything, it will be with my clan. And trust me, you'll see us again soon." she said with a wide, toothy grin, and then stood back up, trotting back off to the barren grasslands to the south to meet her hungry clan.