Chapter 47 47: What is Pride to a lion?

[1st POV] I was avoiding the Mbali brothers. It was the smartest thing I could do with how things stand at the moment. I could defeat Roku, I could probably fight Makali, but I was not too sure about Baraka. From the description of his size, I would likely lose against him, but Grim also said that he was gentle in nature and rarely fought. So I might be able to stand a chance by exploiting his lack of experience. But be that as it may, it was absolutely irrelevant how I would fare against each one of them. If a battle broke out, it was not going to be a fair fight of 1 vs 1. It would be 3 vs 1, and I had no hope in that situation. When the sun fully settled beyond the horizon and stars decorated the sky, I made my return to my kopje. When I reached home, it was no longer an early night. The savannah was asleep, and the only sound was the sound of insects like crickets croaking in the distance. I was about to climb up my hill, but then I stopped at the base. My eyes narrowed and my nose twitched before I turned towards the trees on the hill. I moved away from my usual entrance to the hill and climbed up from elsewhere. I walked up to one of the trees, and before I even reached it, my nose caught an unpleasant smell. "....." I did not even bother taking another sniff and quickly moved away. I climbed up the hill and went elsewhere. I let my nose guide me through rocks, boulders and through the sparse vegetation. The familiar stench was everywhere I went. It was not just one but two distinct scents, so they were able to mark my home in different places. In the end, I came up to the place where I usually sleep. The small cave provides shade in the daylight and shelter from rain at night. It was the perfect cosy spot that also provided a great view. And on that exact spot was huge piles of shit. I paused for a long time, staring at the shit with eyes that lose color ever passing second. It did not take a genius to figure out what happened. The Mbali brothers came to my home and after they didn't find me, they thought that I had left the place and fled elsewhere. So they did the next best thing they could do, which was to erase my scent from the hill and replace it with theirs. They marked my home with their scent and claimed the place as theirs. Although it never crossed my mind for some reason, what happened was to be expected. It was a lion's behaviour to mark their territory after all, and this kopje, no matter if I called it my home, belonged to them completely by right of conquest. But still.... Knowing all that, I still could not stop the anger that came from the deepest part of my being. I tried to reason with my emotions, and that did not work well. At first, I thought it was a situation similar to shouting at someone to punch you and then them actually doing it. You were shocked that they were daring to punch you, and you became enraged. But it was not that simple. Even the emotions I was experiencing at that moment was not that simple. It was weird. I thought I knew anger, I thought I knew rage. After all, a lot of things have happened to me in the short two to three years that I've been alive. Only a month ago, I saw Scar trying to mate with a female I considered mine. Rage had different tastes, anger had different flavours. The emotion of red that boiled from the depths of my soul was not so shallow. It was old and ancient. It was like anger that had been passed down from generation to generation from the first Lion King. The anger at seeing someone disrespect your home, your kingdom and marking what you consider yours with their disgusting scent. The rage was inherited. There were no words to describe the feeling. No human mind would understand it. It was imbued in me as much as my instincts were. "Hahahaha," I laughed. It was not funny, not funny at all. It was so not funny, but a laugh seemed to be the most fitting reaction. I guess laughing was not just an expression of joy and humour. "Interesting," I said to myself while trying to restrain my own body. My blood was boiling in my veins, my muscles literally started getting a pump even through inaction. My body was begging for a fight, revenge. How fucking dare they? And also, it was asking for redemption. I was the one who walked the other way after all. So I felt that I lost a part of my dignity. My body wanted to reclaim that dignity as soon as possible. The human's logical mind and the lion's body clashed. It was a new experience that reminded me I have much to learn. I was already the size of a fully grown lion, but I was not fully grown. In fact, I was not even halfway there. And growing up for a lion was not just about physical, but also spiritual. What does it mean to be a lion? And why was a lion always associated with pride? Was pride a part of being a lion? Well, this experience hinted at the answer. Pride was an identity for a lion. It's what gave him the crown of the king of the jungle even though he was not the biggest, fastest or strongest. Without pride, a lion was just like any other animal. It was just a big cat. I never knew that before. It's why the thought never even crossed my mind. I had assumed that I would be okay with doing things like this. 'What's the big deal even if they mark my home with their scent? The rain would wash them away before I even knew it?' It was a big deal. Maybe not to a human but for a lion, that shit was personal. It was personal on the DNA level. "Gee, it's like I am just now discovering my standards, or sexuality," I said, trying to distract myself from my own rage. "I guess I found where my pride draws the line," I said. I walked down from the hill, having learned something new and discovered my pride. It definitely gave me a new perspective on things. When I came back down from the hill, the anger in me was no longer felt. It was because it had planted itself into my heart as a grudge. The development made a drastic change in the future that I had envisioned. Becuase the conflict between me and the Mbali brothers was no longer just about tradition or me needing an army. Roku, Makali, and Baraka. They now shared a list with a lion called Scar. Motherfuckers. Next time it's on sight. .. .. [IMAGE] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This book has the egoist tag but not really sure how to go about that. This was a rather choppy attemt at affirming Leo's pride and making it mean much more than what he initially expected. Honestly it would look so stupid to those readers who feels like MC should be the most logical and wise person. But it is what it is. Author : Yeah, the loan stuff too way more work than expected. Basically I had to update a ton of documents because I was still listed a minor there. Here's he new week double chapter.