Halfway into her journey Myani was feeling the weight of her emotions as
the severed ties between her and Kingsley were becoming more apparent. They had been together at one time during the musth when tenderness and playful
interchanges culminated in a bond that she had felt prior to their encounter and
which carried on thereafter. Now although bulls may socialise with
non-natal family units they were often solitary beings and had few social bonds.
In Myani's case, it was an unusual circumstance that had put her in solitary existence, enhancing her deep yearning to be with Kingsley. She was at once the matriarch
but the drought years had broken her family apart.
As most herds had a dynamic social system that was fluid relative to social
and environmental changes Myani was able to connect with several kin-groups over
the years. She had sought new habitats over the seasons but with the years of
drought those kin-groups also broke apart maintaining the difficulty to bond
deeply. Some of the bonds within a herd would last longer than others and these
connections would shift for many different reasons. One of the most recent
kin-groups that Myani had merged with had been abruptly separated by human
threat.
It was a still night when she heard the low rumble of one of the older
females in her kin-group and shortly thereafter the piercing trumpet-blast from
young Kanja. It was a scream that she matched with her own powerful
trumpet-blast as she tried to rally the herd into mobbing the imminent threat.
But it was too late. She was paralyzed in the moment as the memories of her loss of Kivuli came flooding back.
