Game of Spies (Private Balanced Breakfast, Leorgathar, Lyon)

[Lyonize]

Alari was excited. Finally, she was actually making a difference here. For days she had done the odd job here and there to help the local pride survive the drought. Now she was actually ending it. Still, it wasn't over yet. She could only hope that Dhalimu would step down peacefully or die quickly. Alari's thoughts were interrupted by the distant groan of a roar coming from the wrong direction. At first she though it might have been her stomach but then she heard it again. Nobody else seemed to notice. The young lioness peeled off from the group and headed toward the fracas.

It had to be Zainab. She must've been found out. Finally, Alari caught the scent of Zainab, Nabeela, and Nero. As she crept along, Alari saw Nabeela and Nero but Zainab was nowhere in sight.

"Let's go." Nabeela snapped at Nero with a cough. There was definitely an injury on her neck.

As soon as the two had left and Alari was sure they wouldn't be back, she silently padded into the area, still tracking Zainabs scent. The hole took her by surprise. It seemed so out of place but there it was, and there, at the bottom, was Zainabs motionless body. Alari stood for a moment, eyes locked on her. Without hesitation, Alari slid down into the hole.

"Zai!" She whispered as she held her head against the lioness' chest. There was a heartbeat. That was good. But what now? In her haste, Alari hadn't taken the time to figure out an escape plan. Ohhh stupid, stupid lioness! Alari thought. She could probably climb out by herself but she'd never be able to bring Zainab's dead weight with her. She began nudging the unconscious lioness. "Zai! Come on! I can't carry you out of here! Wake up!"

[abalancedbreakfast]

Talisman landed on Marat’s shoulder. “Sir! Zainab is gone. Nero and Nabeela are heading this way.”

“Dammit… Talisman, look for her, go opposite the direction those two are going. Find her, as soon as possible, and get back to me. I’ll take care of Nero and Nabeela.”

Both took off towards their tasks, Talisman overflying the pair of lions, whom Marat could here had now taken to bickering.

“Your timing could have been so much better!”

“Well, sorry, but you’re the one who insisted on grooming the lady. Why didn’t you just kill her on the spot if you had suspected she turned traitor? Are you some kind of lesbian now?”

“Because, you cannot kill someone in broad daylight! And if you ever think that she had any sway over me, you’re wrong.”

Marat had heard enough. His eyes started to fill with fire and fury, almost changing from a bright green to a darker shade. His claws unsheathed in wrath, and he stood up to start walking to the two. If they had killed Zainab, they were going to pay dearly.

Nero was the first to stop his bickering and notice the lion walking towards him. “Hey, hey what are you doing here!” he said as he sprinted towards Marat only to be flipped onto his back and silenced immediately with a swipe of the claws to his throat.

“Stop talking, Nero. There’s not enough air in this world for you to keep mouthbreathing it all the time.” He looked up, and noticed Nabeela running towards him with anger. He directed a swipe to her face and threw her to the ground immediately, pinning her down and ignoring the deep swipes she was giving to his arms and chest. He placed his paws on her throat, stopping her swipes as she tried desperately to pry him off of her. “What did you do to Zainab?”


“You killed Nero! You killed my mate, you worthless monster!”

Marat pulled her up by her neck, earning another cry of pain, before spinning her around by the nape of her neck and pushing her face into Nero’s corpse. “DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT I KILLED YOUR PATHETIC, WORTHLESS EXCUSE FOR A LION? TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW” he said, burying her face into the corpse of the lion she once loved dearly.

“Stop! Stop doing this! Stop making me see him like this!” she said, tears starting to stream out of her eyes.

“Oh, so now you don’t want to see a corpse, is that it?” He said, pulling her face away from Nero and pinning her to the ground next to him. “That’s an easy fix! I won’t even have to move a claw” he said, unsheathing a claw and digging it into her right eye, causing a blood curdling shriek to ring out for miles.

“Okay, okay! P-please, j… just stop! I’ll tell you where she is!” She said, shaking and writhing in abject pain and horror.


“Don’t tell me a damn thing” he said, hauling her up onto her feet. “Show me.”

“But… you t-took out my eye”

He roared into her ear loud enough to make her lose her hearing “I LEFT ONE INTACT, DID I NOT?”

“You did! You did! You did…” She said as her right ear rung with pain, unable to hear out of it anymore. She started to walk. “P-please… I don’t know what’s going on, why she’s so important to you. But I’ll listen to anything you say.”

“I didn’t ask you for sob story” he said, pushing her forward. “I asked you to show me where Zainab is. Now, you take me to where she is. If she’s alive, you live. If she’s a corpse, you’re going to be a corpse.”

As she walked along, Marat started to talk. “I know what you did. Collaborating with the lump of meat back there you call a mate, trying to kill Jalil and Dhalimu so you could take the throne and rule with the same iron fist Dhalimu did. You’re pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. But, in any case. Dhalimu is going to be dead or gone soon. I made sure of that.”

Talisman landed on his shoulder. “Marat, what in the hell? What on earth did you do to her?” he asked, causing the tears to flow faster from the one intact eye she had left.

“I got her cooperation.”

“Marat, you’ve been at this business for three years! You should know better than anyone else that gouging someone’s eye out isn’t going to go over well with the pride you just liberated!”

“Self defense.”

“Gouging out someone’s eyes isn’t self defense, Marat! It's heartless, devoid of compassion, and you know what it makes you? It makes you just as evil as the people we're fighting, Marat!”

“She killed Zainab.”

“No, as a matter of fact, she didn’t! She only knocked her out. I found out when I landed there and found her. Alari's there too.”

“She hurt her.”

“Why do you care!” he asked. “You’re the one who’s always claiming to be so detached from everything, so out of touch that you don’t get attached to anyone!”

Marat walked on in silence.

Talisman puzzled it out in his mind. “...You love her, don’t you?”

“I don’t.”

“You loved Ujana.”

Silence from Marat.

“And Ujana is the only other one you’ve mutilated lions like this over.”

Marat stayed silent.

“I can’t do this anymore, Marat. I’m sticking with you for the rest of this mission. But once it’s all over, I’m leaving. I’m going to follow Zainab, or settle down with a nice drongo, or something, I don’t know. But I’m not going to stay with you while you bury yourself in work that you hate just so that you can forget about the past.”

The two had reached the cave, grabbing Alari’s attention.

“This is it, Marat. She’s in a pit here. Still breathing.”

Marat threw Nabeela to the floor. “Well. Just like I promised. You go free.” He said, before digging a claw into her one intact eye, blinding her permanently with a shrill of pain. “Get out of my sight.”

She ran off, crying maniacally as she picked a direction she couldn’t see. Marat watched her go off.

“You know she’s as good as dead with no eyes, Marat.”

“I kept my end of the deal. I didn’t kill her.”

“You might as well have. Just… ugh, follow me.”

Marat walked into the cave and immediately jumped into the pit that Zainab was in. “Zainab… Zainab, come on, wake up.” He put an ear to her chest. “She’s still breathing. Alari, I need you to get out of this pit and stand on the edge. I’m going to put her onto my back and jump up. I’ll need you to help me up.”