NOVEL NEXT Chapter 100: Make his Mark
Although Dominic didn’t have much of an idea of where to go to find the other pride members, fortunately Neith and Hathor did. Perhaps they were used to separating and then coming back together. Either way, after communicating what he wanted to do, the two lionesses sent him a sense of ‘follow’, then moved off in a particular direction at a fast pace.
Dominic found himself exchanging a look with Jenkins. Then realising that he’d suddenly found common ground between himself and the troublesome juvenile, he hastily pushed himself to his feet and padded after the two lionesses.
A while later, the bush was starting to impinge on their journey. From the fairly open savannah grass where they had been, only a few bushes here and there offering cover for either them or their prey, they were soon starting to enter an area far more densely populated with foliage. And unfamiliar foliage at that.
Their view on the route ahead became limited and the lionesses slowed down, their ears on swivels, taking in all the sounds around. Dominic did the same, listening for any indication that there might be something in the bushes ahead which they might not like to disturb.
From time to time, the lionesses stopped to scent the air, even marking a few trees with their own scents. At one point, Neith stopped to defecate, and Dominic couldn’t help turning away in embarrassment.
He knew it was a stupid response. It wasn’t like he’d been embarrassed to see a dog do it when going for a walk in the park, after all. Why should this be any different?
But it is, a little voice – not Leo’s – said inside him. He would have been embarrassed to see another human squat down in front of him and start to off-load: he simply wasn’t used to communal toilet breaks. And now, although the lions weren’t human – and he knew they weren’t human – he reckoned that by recognising them as people, he was unconsciously trying to ascribe the same social behaviour to them that he would expect of other humans.
‘That’s stupid,’ Leo told him matter-of-factly.
‘I know,’ Dominic replied, more than a little grumpy about Leo having noticed his issue. He was hoping that the lion wasn’t paying attention, not in the mood to have his illogical emotional responses torn apart.
‘It’s perfectly natural.’
‘I know.’
‘We should do the same.’
‘I kno- wait, what?’
‘It helps indicate our presence,’ Leo said ‘helpfully’. ‘Our faeces indicates our health and strength – it will help warn away other males who might think that they stand a chance.’
‘I’m not going to…defecate
on a tree!’ Dominic rejected the idea immediately, feeling rather icky at the thought. ‘I don’t even need to go.’ Leo sends him the sense of a shrug.‘I’ve never needed to ‘go’ when spraying either. Why would marking our presence with faeces be any different.’
‘I’m not…I don’t…I’m not having this conversation with you!’ exclaimed Dominic finally, pushing at Leo’s mental presence and trying to shut it out. If he could blush, he bet his face would be bright red. Small mercies that lions didn’t show such obvious outward signs of embarrassment, then. Though his tail was curling a bit.
This was bringing back memories of being teased at school by the other boys for being too prudish. It was just…his dad had never been comfortable talking about these sorts of things, so he’d picked up the discomfort. Heck, his home bathroom had even had a sound system where he could put on the sound of rain when he needed to take a piss, or louder music if he had to release his bowels. His father had used both religiously, and had cleaned the toilet and sprayed the air afterwards so there was no real evidence of what had just taken place.
Spraying was bad enough, though Dominic had been broken of the embarrassment of pissing in public by pure necessity: when a guy had to go, he had to go, and often toilets were not easily available. But defecating? That was a completely different matter.
‘If you want to…to defecate on the ground, then we’re going to have to swap places,’ Dominic said firmly. The lion sent him a sense of disinterest.
‘I don’t care that much. Just put some claw marks on a tree, maybe spray a bit, and it’ll be enough,’ the lion told him lazily. Dominic got the sense that the lion was perfectly happy with just relaxing in the back of his mind, particularly now that he could actually relax in the semblance of a savannah area rather than just being disembodied.
Interestingly, he did seem more able to to monitor what Dominic was doing where Dominic generally found himself cut off from Leo’s senses when it was the other way around. Fortunately, since that was exactly what Dominic aimed for. Maybe that was the difference.
The former-human went over to a tree, standing up on his back feet and sharpening his claws on the tree. This time, he didn’t get any criticism from the peanut gallery, so he must have been doing a decent job. He’d had a good number of examples since whenever Leo was in charge, he took the opportunity at least once to make his mark.
Turning around, Dominic lifted his tail and closed his eyes.
Don’t think too much, he told himself. Just do it. I’m at a festival, the johns have a queue half a mile long and are probably disgusting besides. No one can see me, and if they could it’s probably because they’re doing the same thing. Dad’s not here to be disgusted. It’s fine.
It took longer than it probably should, but finally a small spray of urine shot out from behind him – and completely missed the tree.
Dominic didn’t care – he just hurried away after the unconcerned lionesses with a mixture of elation and shame running through him. He felt victorious at managing to achieve something he’d found hard, but shameful that he’d behaved like an animal.
But I am an animal now, he told himself, trying to push away the image of his disapproving dad. It was easier than it might have been – the reminder of festivals had definitely helped. And the lack of actual toilets. Still, he didn’t think he’d be bringing himself to defecate any time soon.
Though that all raised an interesting question: why didn’t he need to defecate, when the lionesses did? Or were they choosing to do so just like he’d just chosen to spray without actually having any pressure in his bladder? And where was the waste from his food going? After all, although he generally Consumed his prey, he had eaten it sometimes.
Then he thought of how dung, particularly from herbivores, was an important fertiliser for the soil, and food for a number of insects and other invertebrates. What would happen to them in this new world if defecating was no longer an obligation?
He didn’t know the answers, but wondering about the questions at least got his mind away from the actual action.
However, it turned out that his mind was too far from the actual action as, without realising it, he’d got ahead of the lionesses who had stopped.
When he realised that, he paused, turning back to look at Hathor and Neith. Jenkins had stopped near them, also obviously wondering what the issue was. The two lionesses were looking uncertain, and they sent a sense of ‘danger’ when Dominic asked them why they’d stopped.
After a few moments, the lionesses started moving towards Dominic again, though slowly and warily.
They were walking through a thicket of trees. These were not ones Leo recognised, so Dominic had to guess that they were newcomers from one of the other worlds. The trees were almost like umbrella thorn acacias, except that they were much shorter – Dominic could reach their canopy by standing on both legs and swiping upwards with a paw.
Thankfully, they also didn’t have any thorns, meaning that the mini-pride had decided to walk below. That turned out to be a mistake.
The first indication of something being wrong was when Hathor grunted in pain and warning. Already alerted, Dominic himself felt the impact of something on his hindquarters, just above his hip-bones.
Confusion turned into pain and fear as he felt the little patch starting to burn. He heard the sounds of more grunts from his pride-members and sent an urgent message to all of them to back away and out of the thicket.
The lionesses didn’t listen at first, too consumed with their own pain and fear to listen to his mental message. The patches that burned continued burning for far too long, the substance eating away at fur and flesh alike.
Falling with increasing speed, Dominic felt several globs more hit him and chanced a glance upwards to find out what exactly was the reason for the attack. He’d wondered whether it was the trees themselves, but it turned out to be a load of spitting lizards laying camouflaged on the tree branches.
Each lion by this point was jumping about in increasing panic, only Dominic having kept his mind since he had a good idea of what was happening. Seeing as mental messages were having no effect, he was going to have to physically move them.
Running at Neith, he bulled straight into her, weathering her snaps and angered growling as he forced her away from the spitting lizards. Dashing back into the fray, he next ran at Hathor. Her bites were more impactful, her new Skill taking chunks out of his health pool. But he ignored that for now: he needed to get her out of there.
Once she was clear of the trees, he went in for Jenkins. Fortunately, this time she had actually noticed what the rest of the pride was doing and decided to follow suit – she almost ran him over as she stampeded out, her eyes wide.
The three lionesses were not in a good state. Their fur was patchy and bloody, the biological weapon having already eaten through their skin in multiple places. Heck, Dominic was the same: he had at least twelve areas which were paining him, and he wondered when the substance would stop. He guessed it was some type of strong acid or strong alkali, neither of which he could do much about. At least none of them had been hit in the eye or mouth.
The best he could do was pull queerb carcasses out of his storage space and encourage the lionesses to Consume them. Although his rate of losing health wasn’t quite as fast as his regeneration rate – the spots of acid really were quite small – it was simply too painful just to tough it out and his resolve to do so crumbled quickly.
Consuming a queerb carcass of his own, he watched one of the patches.
The damage the corrosive substance had done was quickly healed; the substance itself, however, was still there. Within a short time, blood was once again beading on his fur as the acid ate through the outer layers of his skin. Without anything to neutralise it, the acid would just keep eating until it neutralised itself.
It seemed like time and keeping the healing going was the only answer.
Unless… thought Dominic to himself, eyeing the thicket grimly once more. Surely the lizards are not vulnerable to their own corrosion.
