The Hunt

 

Boredom struck the lion hidden away in the castle of sheer ice, which was a result of boredom itself. He'd been lying in a bed of packed snow, which was comforting to him over warmth. The ice castle from the inside was dimly lit from light bouncing and reflecting off the icy walls and snowy floors. There were often dancing lights inside, which the lion enjoyed watching. His tail flicked from side to side and he quickly made up his mind. With one great paw after the other, Jökull heaved himself up, shook off any extra snow laying in his luxurious pelt, and wriggled into his icy and metallic armor. To get his armor on used to be extremely difficult, but with experience and the addition of ice, Jökull has learned the best way to squirm and use his elemental power to get the metal and leather nicely fitted onto him.

With a pawstep outside, Jökull could immediately feel the windiness of the area that carried snow along with it. From where he was standing, Jökull could see all of his glorious ice statues of real frozen lions. These were the lions that bothered him or provoked him, usually, and instead of downright killing them, he froze them in their place. Normally they began writhing to escape their wintry holds, but Jökull's icy grasp was too much and it created fun, entertaining poses for the ice prince. He avoided lions that were part of the Pride- since he knew he could never take on all of their warriors and knew of the Prisoner Planet and it's horrors. Being a prison guard at Planet Z-99 was actually an option for him when he obtained his long mane, but he refused angrily, only wanting to become a warrior. His claws began stretching out in anger the more he thought of what had happened. He took a deep breath and relieved his mind.

Passing through his "courtyard", Jökull did his familiar routine of smelling the air and looking for paw prints that didn't belong to him in case of anyone sneaking around his territory. Everything was all clear- except for the little blue blur just in the corner of his eyes racing away. It was far away, but it had clearly seen Jökull already, and the taxon would be near impossible to catch. Walking in an opposite direction, the beastly lion began to hope there were more. It'd been a while since he last caught prey, and his stomach would begin growling soon.


Jökull began walking in the direction of the spot that he had the most luck with. Soon the snow beneath his paws turned to dust and then grass, which already made him feel itchy and uncomfortable. But he pushed through his discomfort because ahead of him was smaller herd of Taxon- about 12 or so. The lion could already feel his mouth watering as he imagined his jaws breaking into the juicy flesh of the creature. He crouched into his hunting position, almost ready to take off. Jökull would use his element had he been closer to a water source or patch of snow or ice. However, all he had was on his armor, and he was saving that in case he was ambushed.

Jökull got a little closer without making an audible sound to the taxons. Little steps at a time, and soon he was in pouncing distance. He lifted his paw slowly, extended it before him...

CRACK

Jökull looked down in disbelief, but his paw hadn't even touched the ground yet, but he whipped his head up to see all the taxons running wildly with another lion chasing after them. Jökull jumped up and sprinted after, his stomach thoroughly disappointed, and anger beginning to ravage his body. He tremored with rage at the lion who screwed up his hunt, right as he was about to pounce too! The lion ahead of him was slow and quickly lost the taxon he was chasing, but Jökull hadn't. Luckily for him, the herd had darted right off towards a water source. Quickly and skillfully, Jökull used the water and manipulated it into an icy wall to herd the taxons right back towards him. This was the tricky part since these slender creatures had horns on their head and should to protect themselves.

Using a little more ice, he created a stump-like obstacle right in front of the wild creature, and before it could catch itself, since it was running so fast, it instead tripped and stumbled over the ice and crashed to the ground, where Jökull quickly ended it's life. The rest of the herd, by that time, had already fled behind him. He turned around to see the other lion standing in awe, but that didn't last long before Jökull lashed out in anger, and surrounded the lion in ice. The lion, obviously young and inexperienced began writhing to escape the ice, which only made Jökull surround him with a tighter grip. His face showed no mercy, his eyes were cold, and his body hungry for both food and revenge.

Jökull covered the taxon in ice and manipulated both his prey and his new statue to come back home with him, where he enjoyed relieving both his hunger for prey and revenge.