The rumbling of a very demanding belly grew audible, providing a moment's silence. Zavier chuckled with relief.
"We've ourselves bountiful prey, a true blessing it be. If ye wander into the mountains, ye'll find ibex, hyrax, the funny lookin' bush pig, antelope, duiker, eland, etc. I could go on all day lad.
"... I've been watching this one Ibex off in the real mountainous parts. They come down for a few weeks and eat the minerals on the ground for some odd reason. I'd like to fell him before the leopards do. Reason being is he'd broken one of his horns clean off his skull, making him easy pickin'."
Zavier set to grooming her fur out of habit, cleaning between her toes and the base of her tail. She liked to keep herself clean and presentable, but the practice also left her feeling confident and rid herself of all of the discomfort that had piled up over the days.

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Zavier took a few moments to ponder the question."I don't know where to start. The prey is so strangely bountiful that I could list numerous prey items such as the hyrax, the ibex, the elek, the bush pig..the list goes on and on. Hyraxes make a pleasant snack but I prefer the latter three for full on meals and my - I hope - next one will be an ibex I've been watching for the past few days. He'd done gone and broke his horn clean off his skull and I wouldn't want them pesky leopards stealin' 'im from me."
The dame set to grooming the base of her tail and her underbelly. The daily practice helped to relieve what little tension had built up in the muscles so as to allow hunting to become efficient and painless. Somethin' like stretching although this took care of dirt and grime while makin' ye feel so much better.
Zavier then scented the air for a baby breeze had blown by, carrying many stories of bloodshed and tragedy..potential prey items of course.

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Jaromir watched her for a moment before he moved. A boulder nearby was an excellent perch, and as he crouched his muscles coiled and sprung impressively, making the motion smooth as he leaped to the top of it. He sat on his haunches, his tail dangling behind him and flicking from side to side, as he looked around. The breeze tussled his mane around his face, and he could just catch the scent of prey nearby.
"I'm not going to let you have all the fun," he said to Zavier, though his gaze didn't return to her as he strained to possibly see the target of the smell. "I can hunt well enough. I didn't have a choice; I have to hunt to live on my own." The tiniest of smug smirks played on his muzzle. (s)

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Zavier stole a glance at the hessian as he placed himself upon a nearby rock. She rolled her eyes, stood up and trotted away, mitts emitting a quiet thunder. Her silhouetted canvas glistened underneath the sunlight, banner and hindquarters swaying from side to side with each step.
The lupa's orbits contracted into slits to decrease the amount of sunlight obstructing her vision. It was clear she was off to hunt, with or without the other.

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"Hey!" Jaromir called with mock indignity. He slid from the boulder and fell into step behind the strange lioness, his shoulder muscles rippling with each step as he kept a smart pace to keep up with her.
They walked in silence for a good hour as they followed the ever-stronger scent of fresh prey. Jaromir marveled that anything could make a living up here when it came to grazing. The grass beneath their paws was prickly and dry from the cool air that whispered through it almost constantly. Pebbles and stones, and the always-present heaps of rubble and boulders, littered the land as they climbed to a steadily a higher altitude. Far away in the distance, though much closer than he had ever been in his life, the mountain peaks were already capped with white as the winter season crept closer with each passing day. The thought passed his mind that he didn't really know just how harsh the weather would be here, despite the cave being so low on the mountain, but he shrugged it away. Time would tell.
Zavier suddenly stopped, and Jaromir nearly bumped into her, lost in his thoughts. She was standing rigid, nostrils flared, ears perked straight up.

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The pair had come across a small trail, worn by decades and generations of use. She could feel the ground beneath them vibrating and rumbling for something big was coming.. Zavier's pistons buckled and it took her a moment to gather herself and her thoughts. The fae stared at her paws and the restless pebbles before she gripped the ground tight and bolted and made a sharp left to take shelter behind some boulders. "Down!" She hissed with false panic. She'd been here, done that. This wasn't new. The lioness peered into the open passageway ahead of them, waiting for them to show up.
"The Eland, they've been startled."

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Jaromir stifled a yelp when he felt a clawed paw clutch his shoulder and yank him to the ground behind the boulder.
"Could do with an easier warning system," he grumbled indignantly, but soon fell silent as the vibrations in their paws soon became an audible rumble. Pebbles slid down the higher slopes around them as the earth began to shift. Jaromir's ears pinned back to his skull, his expression a mixture of curiousness and puzzlement. "And they're heading right for us?" he hissed to Zavier. "What could have set them off?" (s)

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"There's a leopardess in the region who hunts here on a regular basis, but she's not supposed to be out today..I sort of forced an agreement on her after I threatened to kill her cubs when she felt the need to kill me and take my land," the lioness stopped to listen, "I swear to the gods above if she's out and set off this ruckus, I'll have her head."
Zavier snarled bitterly, her incisors grinding and her digits digging into the hard packed soil, banner lashing.
"The last stampede was when one of her last cubs decided he would be bold and take down one of the calves. Scared off the entire herd and got himself killed."
She scrambled onto the boulder's top, placing herself just high enough to get a better view of the place. But just as she settled down she was forced to hop off when the head of the Eland herd, ranging from at least 50 individuals burst into sight. Their hooves threw excessive amounts of dust, pebbles, rocks and dirt. The commotion set off another movement; larger stones were beginning to roll off the hills. They barreled into the few remaining Eland stragglers either slowing or tripping them.
Zavier let out a victorious and gleeful laugh, no longer upset for it was food she seeked and food she received.
She waited for the miniature landslide to come to stop. Then she left the safety of their boulders to fell who was left behind. An Eland elder stood as he regained conciousness, his pedates spread wide to help support his weight. The younger few of the group took off, leaving just the aged one behind. He towered above the dame, the rack upon his head just as long as her entire length. She wouldn't wait for him to become sensible.
The big cat hurled herself at the stiffened body, crashing into the whithers which had caused him to lose balance and trip over his own legs.
"Go for the throat!" Zavier shouted as the Eland threw back his head. She then wrapped her jaws around one of the knobby knees and gave it a nasty wrench. Something popped and the forelimb grew limp, forcing a sudden yelp of pain to erupt from the herbivorous mammal's cervix.

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Jaromir fell behind Zavier, their paws further churning the mess of rubble and dust flying through the air. Though the moments that followed were a blur of speed and heated action, he couldn't help but be impressed by the way she handled herself during the hunt.
"Go for the throat!" she had shouted.
Jaromir lunged, his forelimbs stretched to their full extent, claws splayed, jaw wide open and dripping with glee. His teeth sank into the exposed, muscular throat of the eland, who bugled in pain and shock, kicking his remaining functioning limbs out blindly. Blood gushed into Jaromir's maw deliciously, the thrill of the kill pounding through his brain. He jerked his head up with a snap, tendons coming with him in his tightly clenched teeth. The eland's eyes widened in shock before they slowly fogged over, its life seeping out onto the ground beneath them. With a final gurgling exhale, it passed into the next life.

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Zavier cleaned away what little blood stained her chin and labra as she watched the life drain away from the victim's eyes, it's lungs, and it's body. She gave a satisfied purr, or something of the sort. "He'll last us a long while, about two weeks judging his size...Great job by the way. I've not seen a bite delivered with such ease and such speed." The lioness commented cheerfully. Soon after Zavier was ripping apart the now mangled hide to expose the muscled chest cavity. She shoved her head into the cavernous belly and dug away flesh and entrails until she found what she prized the most. The femora's teeth revealed an enormous heart, nearly as big as Jaromir's forepaw. "The liver should be further down, somewhere ahead of the hind legs. A delicacy that one." She announced with energy. Clearly the hunt was what she'd needed, and it was something she needed to happen lest she'd disappear for good.. Zavier used her dew claws to separate the sectioned organ, swallowing a half after the other. "Eat yer fill quick before the hyenas and that darned leopard show up. We need to bury it before the winds hit us."

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Jaromir merely nodded, following suite and delving into their prize with a ravenous ecstasy. He pulled voraciously at the meat, waxing happier with each mouthful. He was more than glad to let Zavier devour the beast's heart; she had done most of the work anyway, as a lioness was born to do. He did take her word to heart about the liver, as soon had it clutched juicily between his jaws He sliced it in half with one sharp snap of his teeth, pushing the fallen half to her with a paw while he chewed his own.
"Here," he mumbled around his bulging cheeks. "Eat it before it gets cold."
His own appetite was soon diminished, and there would still be plenty of meat even after Zavier would finish her own portions. The sun had just left its place in the noon sky, and he knew before long the winds of the afternoon would shift, taking with it the scent of their kill to pesky carrion and scavengers. While Zavier finished off the last of her meal, Jaromir began to rake his claws in the earth behind the boulder they had hidden behind. Before too long he had a fairly narrow trench dug into the dust, and he turned to Zavier. "If we can pull him into this, we can cover him part way with dirt and the rest with the rocks lying around," he said, licking his chops with his tongue to clear it of blood and dirt. "Shouldn't be too hard to dig him back up, but it would be for anyone smaller than us," he said, grinning almost wickedly. His eyes flickered to her, then to his paws. "You were quite impressive, I have to admit," he said lightly. "I haven't seen such skill in tracking and taking prey down in a long time. You would do any pride justice with your talent."

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Zavier gorged herself with Eland flesh and what remained of the liver until she couldn't stand it anymore.
She ran her tongue through her silky canvas decorated with few linear stripes before sinking her claws into the carcass's thick pelt.
"Weell hereh aleng den!" Speaking with a mouthful of fur weighing around three hundred pounds was harder than it looked. She waited for Jaromir to take hold of the carrion and drug it back to the divet in the ground. She sent it tumbling into the little ditch and threw unto it the upturned dirt and rock.
"I don't think I'm pride material," Zavier retorted. "Besides, what I did back there was something everybody else could have easily done." She grunted. "I'm confident in my ability to survive, but I'm no pridelander."

(Sorry these are getting so short. I've been posting really late and I've been babysitting my toddler siblings for the past few weeks as well so I've not time enough to post longer.)

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(All good, I have two kids m'self!)

"We'll have to agree to disagree," Jaromir half-grinned sheepishly. He casually tossed a rock onto their buried stash with a flick of his paw. "We'd better head back," he said after a few moments of silence. He took the lead this time, following their pawprints back to the cave. He was lost in thought for a time, but eventually he paused and looked over his shoulder at Zavier. "Although... Perhaps I could have a proposition for you?" (svs)

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The hellion kept a steady pace even after Jaromir's rough voice had interrupted the silence. She cocked her head to the side in an inquiring gaze. "Well, what're ye waitin' for lad? I'd love te hear it."" She offered in response. Her pads stirred up dust devils and clouds of dirt and rock, while nails clicked on what stone lay ahead or beneath and behind. She drew back her labrum and curled her tongue as she yawned. The lioness's tail brushed the ground; Just something more needing care and tending.. She looked back at their previous location where lay hidden a feast waiting to be eaten. Hours later it would be sundown by the time the pair had found the den and slipped into the overcast shadows.

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"We're both on our own," Jaromir wheedled casually enough as they padded along. "Although we both do well enough as it is, clearly; perhaps it would play in our best interests to start something bigger." He paused for a moment as he pondered on his own thoughts before continuing, "We should join forces," he finally said, a bit rushed thinking she may flat out refuse. "I came up here looking to start fresh. I didn't expect to find any lions so soon, but luck would have it, I found you. We're in a prime place to start such this, and word will eventually spread back down the mountain that we've established ourselves; they'll come from all over to join up! What do you think?" he asked, stopping and looking at Zavier with a hopeful expression.

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