Blue’s Lie

A story by MUTALE CHISULO

Blue, you killed your second sister’s cubs in the cool of the night. There were four of them, but they were quick work. Their spattered blood flew with the wind-blown grass into the night sky. It was a kill of jealousy that grew within you when second sister gave birth to king Mansa’s cubs. He would love her more than he would ever love you.

*

Your mother named you Blue, ironically, later in your years a fight left you with a bulging blue wound to your left eye. Among the seven lionesses, you were first in line to be queen and your wound of an eye never made the king look the other way. You gave birth to three cubs in a shelter of green leaves and white flowers, hidden away from the beasts of the land — the cubs died on their birth. You mourned them till the whole wild heard you, you mourned for Mansa’s children. 

You returned for comfort to the king who chose you, and you made love during a full moon in the empty space of low grassland. His long black and brown mane softened you as you enjoyed the humping of his body against yours, even though it only lasted for six thrusts. After three moon cycles you left the pride to find a hidden thicket, and there you gave birth to four cubs, you thought Mansa was going to be proud. After they were two months old and could handle long treks, you decided that it was time to head back to your king with his new heirs.

The journey back was ruthless to you. One of the king's cubs was snatched by the heavy winds as you passed through the scrublands. Your roar of protest wanting the cub back was outmatched by the howling wind. The other cubs were still alive so you forced yourself to focus on them and held one of the princes between your jaws, and with your body as a shield, guided the other cubs beneath a boulder of a kopje, wind whipping your body and all.

When the morning came, only two of your cubs were suckling at your tits, the other was lying alone outside of your shelter. You desperately got up and found him fighting to take in air. A gentle nudge from your lick and paw couldn’t get him up. That’s when you saw two dark thorn sized holes on the side of his body, the killer couldn’t even take him away after the bite but had just slithered off, leaving you to drown in your shame as a so-called mother. It choked you to leave him to save the others. 

You still had two cubs to your status as queen, Mansa still had children, you still had his love. You hadn’t found the pride as you made your way through the woodlands with your little ones. A dark hidden den of fresh leaves secluded you for rest that afternoon. Your fear of losing the cubs made you think it over on whether to leave the children alone for a hunt or to keep moving on. Your fear of losing them made you stay, you couldn’t lose these ones, you refused to give death to more of your king’s children.

The late evening brought empty tits and noisy cubs wanting to be fed, you didn’t care about your hunger, but you still had to feed the cubs. Mansa had to meet them while they were strong. So when the dark settled, you carried your fear of losing them into the hunt.

The heavy winds that met you after your hunt gave you a leap back to your cubs. There was a scent of blood in the air as you got closer to the den. No, not the blood on your mouth from the impala you had killed, it was blood from another. Your mind rushed with thoughts of your cub’s deaths, you called out to them as you neared, ignoring the enemy who would hear you, but there was no answer from Mansa’s cubs.

You found the den wrecked, and the children lying lifeless with broken twigs around them, and buffalo hooves marked in soil. Your licks and the soft pressure of your paw on their bodies couldn’t wake them up, so you stood there, motherless and thinking of how Mansa was going to see you.

*

You arrived at your pride with no cubs to your status as queen. One by one, from Ila, Juyon, Ren, Mali and Katalika, your five sisters softly patted your head with theirs, rubbing neck to neck with you as if trying to take some of your burdens from you, and you gave back the touch they gave you. The sun was in the middle of the sky when you made your way to Mansa, your legs felt heavy as if not wanting to go to him. Mansa was squirting urine on a bush of twigs, marking his territory when you found him, he turned as if sensing you, but there was no excitement to his pace towards you as he often did in the past.

His eyes never met yours as your neck rubbed his and he never gave back the motion, you embraced him anyway. You knew that you could give him children again, hope again. He gave a low growl as you glided your back beneath his neck and teased him with a soft whip of your tail, but his focus was not given to you. You understood why he would not reciprocate your advances. Your Mansa , your king, he deserved children for his pride and you failed as a mother. 

You lay down and surrendered your back to him. A cricket chirped and a bird sang before he mounted you, but did not engage for recreation. He bit your upper neck until you raised your head to try and soften the pain. He still did not engage, did he know he was hurting you from the grunts you emitted, or was he trying to punish you for your past failures before he gave you another chance at birthing? You didn’t know. You smelled blood and instantly knew it was yours, you didn’t want to escape your chance of motherhood but you did, and your neck stung from the after bite. 

You felt blood trickle down your neck and the king's lower mouth dripped with it. Your lover never looked apologetic but disgusted as he spat out blood.

You chose to ignore the pain he gave you and took a step towards him. “Get away from me!” he growled, his voice grumbling and poisonous. You halted in fear, as you saw nothing but brown eyes full of hate for you.

“Mansa. I will give you your cubs, you think I don’t feel the pain you feel?” He looked away from you then. “Twice, nature has taken my cubs from me, from us! Will you deny me the chance of having children?”

“And will you deny me?” he bit back. “Deny me a legacy, a name. Blue, I feel spat on by you. Those cubs are mine and I feel you claw away at my heart when you give me no children.”

“I’m trying,” you breathed wearily.

“Do you know how it looks when you, the one who ranks above the others, is having trouble keeping her young? The others are watching.”

“Let them watch, I must be the first to raise cubs for you. After that you can pleasure whichever one of them you want.

“Are you telling me what I must do?”

“I’m telling you my right as the matriarch of this pride––”

“Countless times, I have given myself, my warmth, my desire, my trust, to you. It’s not my fault that you get left behind when your time to birth young is near.” The trees were talking, they creaked and groaned, as if in agreement with him. “We can’t stay behind for you or any of the females who carry when we have to move on to new territory. Don’t blame me for your lack of strength to protect my cubs.”

“So out of all the animals in the wild I was picked as nature’s favourite to be afflicted?” Your tail whipped the air as you paced back and forth.

“After what you have been through you still want cubs, haven’t you suffered enough? You still think––” He released a sigh then. “Blue, you were not meant to be a mother.”

You tried to hold back your tears but they came, softening the fur around your eyes. You wanted to protest further, you had the right to, you wanted to beg for him to get behind you, all it took were a few thrusts from the hook between his thighs and it would all be done. But you knew where you stood with him now, and you accepted it. 

“Forgive me, for my lack of strength in protecting your young, my king.” A silence passed between the two of you then, and with a regal posture and pride about his face, he turned away from you and never turned back. When he stopped before he got far, he squirted urine in your direction, whether that was for you or for the marking of his territory, you didn’t know. You stood alone.

*

The sun rose and the sun set, the moon changed its shape and repeated its cycle, and still, Mansa never gave you another chance. The land was blood orange when you hunted with Ila. Tender Ila, of all your five sisters she was the most tender and thoughtful at all times. The others had muscle and skills, brave soldiers, but their consideration for others came only when the moment called for it, but not Ila, she carried the weight of others everywhere she went.

She always cared about you and how you felt. You went hunting together to get your mind off of things. Together, you caught the prey after the sun had gone down and admitted you weren’t at your best when it took that long to hunt. You savoured the blood and skin of the gazelle you had just caught, until Ila announced that she was staying behind as the pride went on ahead of her.

You knew that only meant one thing, you should have noticed it long ago; from how easily prey outran her, to the weight she was gaining, the change in her scent, to falling back when the pride went on ahead of her, cubs were coming. The warmth of the dead gazelle never matched the cold announcement. 

The dead and dark eyed creature looked on at you, laughing like a hyena. You smiled to hide the bitterness inside you, but the growing silence almost betrayed you so you leaped on your sister and licked her jaw clean, she laughed like a river in the still forest flowing ever so gently down stream. You told her that her cubs were going to be strong. You lied.

*

Ila left you with her four cubs when she and the other lionesses hunted for prey. Kunda, Mewena, Suru and H’layu, three months old, Mansa named them when they arrived, he was a proud father then. He had already left to scout out his territory. 

Your blue eye was aching, twitching like the day it was wounded. Ila suggested that you stay behind to rest and get to know the cubs better, she also needed to stretch her legs from staying with the cubs for a long time. You licked off the dirt from their soft fur, you allowed them to leap on your body and bite your ear with their blunt teeth. You gave them love a mother should give.

You groomed Kunda, the second youngest, as the older one, Mewena, kept his eyes on you, fixated on your wounded eye. “You look older than my mother. Why don’t you have cubs of your own?” he asked you.

You were a bit taken aback by the direct question, unlocking memories of your lost children, “They died before they came into the pride, some died before they were born, some couldn’t survive the wild.” Your wounded eye twitched like a thorn had just pierced you.

“I want milk,” said Suru, the youngest of the four, squeezing your tits with his little paws but no milk came out. You didn’t answer him and continued grooming the other. “I want mother’s milk, where is she?!” He cried.

“Shut up, you can’t raise your voice at her like that!” said Mewena.

“Your mother will be back soon,” you told the little one. That shut him up for a while.

They said nothing for a few moments until Suru sucked your tit so hard it pained you a little. “Why did mother leave us with someone who couldn’t protect her cubs anyway.” He then wobbled off from Blue and his younger siblings, crying out for his mother.

“Come back here!” You growled after him. Your eye twitched again, it irritated you.

You cut him off before he wandered too far. He angled his body away from your jaws as you tried to lift him. “We want our mother, not someone our father refused.” You halted your jaw mid-air as your head rushed with thoughts of Mansa and Ila talking behind your back, talking to their children about you, laughing at you, mocking you. You turned to face their children, perfect, strong and growing fast. “You are a weak mother,” the young one protested and smacked your jaw with its little paw. 

Your wounded eye twitched, Mansa laughed, your teeth crushed the little one’s head. Your eye twitched, Ila laughed, the other cubs were no match, their soft growls never matching yours. Lifeless, they lay on the ground, their blood dripped on your jaws, your wounded eye stopped twitching and you saw clearly what your hatred had done.

You thought of Ila, you remember what you went through when your cubs died; you refused to eat, you refused to feel, to move, you refused to live, and Ila was going to inherit that from you, her own sister. Thoughts of the anger the king was going to carve in your skin until your death rushed through your head.

Your thoughts ran wild until the wind bellowed with the scent of hyena. You turned to a dense bush and spotted two hyena younglings who witnessed your kill. 

You knew that they were going to laugh about your actions into the ears of all the beasts of the land. Everyone was going to know. So you chased them down, killed one and bit off the tail of the other youngling who managed to escape. You hoped for the tailless hyena’s death as he ran off, you couldn’t chase him down, there was no time. You took the fur of the dead hyena youngling and spread it among the dead cubs and dumped the lifeless hyena body in a secluded bush. You bruised your body against a rock over and over until you managed to fall unconscious.

*

You awoke to the sound of wailing. Your eyes adjusted and the murky watered form of a lioness in front of you became Juyon. She shouldered support as you got up to the sight of your pride sniffing the dead cubs, your king was furious, the one who chose you first had lost more cubs. Ila let out her wailing into the sky, Katalika comforted her. Mansa marched towards you and demanded to know. 

You strengthened yourself to stand without help from Juyon. “Hyenas came like a flood, I couldn’t fight them off on my own. I’m sorry, I failed.”

“My king, weren’t you out there scouting your territory?” asked Juyon. “Didn’t you see them?”

Mansa turned away slightly to his embarrassment, “I didn’t see them, didn’t hear them either.” He then sighed and shook his head, faced you as if he had already made a decision. “You will hunt with us.” 

“Mansa! She can barely move,” Juyon protested.

The king kept his eyes on you and yours on his, he never even considered your pain. “My fault, my problem, I can run, I can hunt,” You told Juyon.

Ila stayed with Katalika as you left with the others to hunt down the lie. You found a way to get to the hyena den before the tailless youngling arrived, you knew if you followed his scent straight to the river where it was leading, they would expect you so you took a route where tall grass hid you. 

The Hyena mother was grooming her two younglings. The young ones tried to bite the warthog that their mother had scavenged with their toothless mouths. The mother turned her attention to where you had hidden in the tall grass, as if the wind sent your scent to her. 

She focused but couldn’t quite figure out what she was looking at. Tailless came from the other direction behind her crying for her, and that’s when she turned back to you and launched up from the ground and grabbed one of the young by the back of the neck.

Your pride leaped out of the tall grass and soared to the mother hyena who hid the pups in the den and ran for it. She didn’t make it far when your sisters tripped her and killed her. Mansa dug the underground den and made short work of the pups. Your body ached but that didn’t stop you from hunting down the tailless hyena, who had turned away from his family and rushed for the river occupied by broad and thick hippos.

You chased him into the rushing torrent of a river, but he managed to escape the long sharp teeth of the hippos and crocs who guarded the river— their territory, and they came for you. Your life was of more value, and your feet found the strength to cling back to the shore and marked the young hyena for death. The truth flowed down the river and you hoped to never see him again.

Your pride hunted down tailless for days, through mud-lands and land owned by two-legged hunters, you searched for him, your pride wanted answers that only you and the tailless hyena knew. Ila dragged behind the pride, you saw her discomfort when the question, “Who killed the cubs?” echoed from the king’s questioning of other hyenas they had scouted out.

When the pride rested, you stalked Mansa and watched as he mounted Ila in the night. You watched the two in the distance, and your eyes never looked away from their love making, he lasted longer than when he mounted you. They groomed each other with their tongues and carressed each other neck to neck.

When you had seen enough, you sneaked back to the other lionesses. Forgotten and no longer the lover he wanted. More tears came, and into your sleep they followed you, and in your dreams, Hyenas laughed at you.

The next day your pride found a hyena den and murdered the hyenas after questioning, they knew nothing of your lie. Ila told the pride at one point that she wanted to forget the hunt, she wanted to rest, and the king obliged. 

Your attention turned away from the way he licked her neck to comfort her, and focused on the two rogue male lions off in the distance. Their manes were a gentle yellow and bright color, a symbol of their novice in contrast to Mansa’s long, bushy and dark brown mane. They looked younger than him but still old enough to last in a fight with him, a bounce to their walk, and their eyes were on your Pride. You knew Mansa could take them by himself, they would need another pair of teeth if they ever thought of bringing your king down.

Your sisters had been calling your name, it’s not until Juyon was by your side that you finally paid them any mind. “We’re leaving, forget those two pups, they are not a problem,” she told you. With pride leading his feet, Mansa roared a call for a challenge to the rogue lions, to which they retreated. The king told you they wouldn’t bother the pride and you followed behind him and your new queen.

*

Ila’s grief was immense to the point that it weakened her womb. You hoped the king would come back to you, but he was always found with Ila. She failed just as you had failed in keeping your cubs alive, you hoped she never had children but Mansa still preferred her company even if she wanted to be alone. You saw them making love and like the last time you saw them together, he lasted longer and they conversed after, unlike the way he treated you like a seed bucket and walked away after mating. 

You were gutted at how she excited him, but you clang to hope for a chance to get to the top of the hierarchy again, even if you were never going to have the pleasure of making the king love you. You still hoped your sister never gave birth.

A few days later, you were limping as you led the king through the long grass when the night was ruling the skies. 

“The third looks stronger than you,” you told him, as you two hunted down the two rogue brothers and another lion who had joined them and entered Mansa’s territory. You told him how they ambushed you as you drank at a waterhole, a limp of a left leg is all they gave you. Juyon suggested you stay and heal but the king demanded you show him where they headed. Typical and predictable, he had no sympathy for you and you obliged, like a humble servant.

As you made your way, crickets and the buffalo grunt calls in the distance were the songs of the night. Mansa held his head high above the tall grass as he roared a callout at the challengers who were nowhere to be seen.

When no other Lion call was heard, the crickets came alive again. “Cowards,” he grunted. “Are you sure you saw them come this far?”

“After the watering hole I passed through here and they stopped their chase. I’m sure.”

He stared poker faced at your wounded leg, “You are a good soldier,” he told you, and you chuckled.

“Not a good queen.” You both started back to the pride.

“I don’t hate you Blue,” he said. It surprised you that he said that. You stopped and looked him in the eyes. “You are only a soldier in my eyes. I’ve always thought of you that way. Do you understand?”

You nodded. “I was also queen, even though I was a so-called soldier I was still a queen who deserved every chance to have children of her own. Do you understand?”

He started off again and you limped behind him. “I understand. But that fantasy is something you have to forget, Blue.”

Your heart sank in despair sadly, this is the king who loved you at first and now saw you as nothing but help. You once mated and had children together, and if they were still alive he wouldn’t be calling you just a soldier. He was so full of lies and had bitterness towards you that you then had to happily betray him. It was quick, but your teeth found their way into his lower spine. He growled and grunted at you, but you leaped away from him. 

“What–What did you do?!” He cried at you. His eyes were moist.

“Crawl to your grave,” you said. And the two lion brothers creeped out of hiding in the long grass off in the distance, they leaped to where you were. Mansa began to crawl away in desperation, he panted through the pain as his lower back dragged behind him. “They said they’ll make me queen, and I told them I’ll make them kings.”

His crawl continued on his desperate attempt to escape, whether he heard you or not it didn’t matter, and you joined the two brothers in tearing him apart.

Later that night, with a downcast look on your face, you idly followed behind them to your sisters. The lionesses were resting on dry grassless ground when Juyon saw you first and rose to her feet, then the others rose in unison. 

You led the two kings as you neared the pride, and arrived to the sight of confused faces. They were all beneath you now.

“The king challenged them to a fight, I was spared. I bowed my head for the sake of our pride, I hope you all do the same.”

They looked at each other, as if searching for an answer from someone. Ila was first to come forward in submission, bowing head to ground, Juyong followed and the rest did the same.

*

You gave birth to four cubs after mating with the kings. Their names were Insala, Chintomfwa, Kalulu and Amatwi. The cubs were a healthy bunch, milking and leaping on you and play-fighting with a burst of energy. They were in contrast with Ila, she didn’t always hunt with the pride, preferring to stay behind, and she had had nightmares that haunted her night after night, she refused to sleep that close with her sisters fearing she would wake them. 

The kings wanted to banish her from the clan, they didn’t like that she was idle, but you refused to let her go alone into the wild.

You told the kings she just needed time and they gave that to her, you stood your ground for the one who took your place in the past instead of letting her die. Your guilt of killing her cubs protected her, to give her a future in the pride even though she refused to have a future. When the time came for the pride to hunt prey large enough to last for a while, you had to leave your cubs with Ila. You were hesitant at first, fearing she might snap like you did, but you guided them to a woman you had known was a mother before, and she groomed them in acceptance, it brought a smile to her face.

The giraffe was steady, long legs were its strength. Your four sisters and the kings had danced with the beast the whole night until you had your claws on its back, up in the air. Your jaws clamped to its flesh, and in a flash you were taken back to when you cracked the skull of Ila’s cubs. Your jaw lost its grip from the sight of the dead cubs and brought you back to the giant. You shook off the images and dug your claws further into the giant’s flesh, but that took you further into the past as you dug your claws into Ila’s children, they were all lying dead around you. The thought distracted you from the task and you let go of the beast and dropped. 

Losing the advantage, Mali came to your rescue before the beast stomped on you, but she was the one blasted head first to a tree trunk. Her head cracked like the sound of a broken twig.

You ran back to your cubs, leaving your sisters and the kings to deal with it. When you arrived, you couldn’t find the cubs or Ila anywhere. You thought Ila had already done her work, and the dark thoughts were your now dead cubs calling after you from their graves. You pictured Ila had taken her revenge and was laughing, taunting you to run faster, faster and faster to your children that had become ghosts. 

Until Ila came laughing as she played with your cubs. You remembered her laughter that you thought had gone from her, as if she had just been cured.

“How did the hunt go?” She asked excitedly.

Her smile you hadn’t seen for a long time forced a grin on your face. You did not answer her, and made your way to your cubs and dropped among them. They jumped and played prey with your tail.

When your sisters arrived, a sour gaze to your direction was all they gave when Ila asked them the same question. She fell down and wept when she heard Mali had just died.

Ila, tender Ila, you thought to yourself. 

The kings came to you and you gave a low growl to your cubs, to which two of them stopped milking and the other two got off of your body.

You idly made a distance between you and the cubs as the kings stalked behind you. There was no time for discussions, the kings gave you a rumbling growl and paws extended their claws that lined your face and body with wounds. Not to kill you, just a lesson, a lesson you never forgot, an embarrassment in front of your sisters.

*

The next hunt was easy, it was a calf, you needed the meal, you needed the milk for your young ones. There was no cloud in the sky and the wind was still. The young wildebeest was warm in your mouth. All was well until you heard laughs. A cackle of hyenas stormed to your meal, more than a dozen of them. 

They surrounded your pride but you kept the meal from them, swashing your paws when they got too close, baring your teeth and growling to stave them off. But they outnumbered your defence, when one tried to pull your tail here, the other tried to sneak in a bite of the beast over there, it was a push and pull of trying to save your meal and them trying to take it from you. 

When their bites got annoying, you and your sisters retreated and had to leave your meal to them. They chased after you to make sure you didn’t come back, and their leader in the forefront was a tailless hyena. The kings dashed towards you and your sisters, and the laughing behind you faded. All the hyenas turned and made a run for it. When you were safe, you saw the youngling who had become an adult, Tailless, you had named him, but bold nonetheless. He knew you; he would never forget your blue eye.

Back in your territory, death was your decision for the tailless hyena. You were pacing back and forth and Ila saw your discomfort. Your mind raced with the young hyena who escaped down river. You told Ila that you would never be alright until the hyenas left the land, for the safety of your cubs, for the pride. She smiled when she heard about protecting the cubs, that put a smile on your face. You gathered the pride for a plan.

*

Your pride killed a buffalo and ate without haste, that was to the satisfaction of the hyenas who came back and stole the meal from you. That was no matter to you, when their bellies fattened, you invaded their den with your sisters and began to kill them a dog at a time. Tailless spotted you and commanded his clan to retreat, you found his pups hidden in a den, but he speared you away from them and gave them a chance to retreat. Tailless ran for it and you gave chase up a hill and down towards a herd of buffalo that then surrounded the both of you.

The huge beasts circled, waiting to strike you down. You two knew you had to finish it right then and there. You fought with claws, you fought with teeth until you bled. 

“All you had to do was leave me and my family out of your lie,” he told you. “We were kids, we weren't going to say anything about those cubs you killed!”

You burst out in laughter, “You think I would trust a dog?” You laughed again, as if you were a hyena yourself. “No, you would have spread the word like fire. Fire. Fire,” You said. Going mad, never wanting Ila to know the truth. 

Surrounded by those beasts, you knew the truth was going to die there with the two of you. You thought of your cubs, little Chintomfwa who never listened, your delicate Insala who was always wanting milk, Kalulu the little thief who took his siblings tit positions away from them, and Amatwi, with ears so big he could hear your call from afar. You thought of Ila, tender Ila, why was she so perfect, so innocent! You knew she would give the cubs her world, a mother your cubs deserved and you knew it. Tailless got the buffalo horns first, he was flown and dropped like a pup. Yours came into your side and you gave out a loud cry.

When the beasts thought you dead, they left, and a dust masked your figure from view. Death never came fast, dust was your air to your already failing lungs. You heard footsteps heading towards you, was this the hyena coming to kill you, or the beasts desiring to finish their work? But out of the cloud appeared a familiar figure, a lioness, Ila herself. Her head was downcast as she got closer to you.

She stood where you could see her, her eyes never meeting yours. You coughed out blood twice as you tried to speak.

“I– I heard,” she said, and that’s when you saw her tears. She sniffed the dust that was settling and coughed as she began a low cry. “Why, Blue?” She hissed. “I never asked to take your place, I didn’t want it. I was happy that it was yours and it hurt me when I saw it taken from you,” she confessed. “I also hoped that you were happy for me, Blue,” the last words trailing off into a sob. “Why weren’t you happy for me?”

That’s when you knew that she overheard you and the dog speaking. You shed a tear but the gut wrenching pain from the wound held them back, holding back your self pity, and you groaned.

The dust settled and you clearly saw her red eyes full of fury and a hint of tenderness. Your tears finally flowed when your life was at its conclusion. You finally gave one last chest piercing deep breath and coughed out, ‘Sorry.” Blood sprang from your mouth and your world began to darken.

*

“Rest now sister,” Ila now tells you.