[3rd POV]
(Documentary Episode 3: The New King!!)
[Name: Dr. T. Soma Tonson
Role: Lead researcher and ethologist.
Nationality: Indian (from Nagaland, Northeast India)
Age: 62]
"We are back, everyone!!" Dr. Tonson said while opening his arms. The suspicious excitement in his tone clearly tells the viewers that the poor doctor was forced to do this by the producers or directors of the documentary.
"Welcome back to another episode of the anticipated documentary about the lion King Leo. In the last episode, we ended the story in a cliffhanger where Leo was just about to hunt bigger prey as a solution to the challenges presented by the dry season," he said.
The screen changed to show a brief recap of the second episode of the documentary, which covered Leo's fight with Roku, a six-month time skip, and then his confrontation with the Mbali brothers or the Serenegti Kings.
The episode ended with Leo walking away from his kopje in the morning with deadly focus on his steps. People who had watched the contents on kingsarchieve.com knew exactly what that scene meant. It was a sign that Leo was going out to hunt.
After that, the scene briefly cuts to a herd of buffalo and then zooms in to a giant, powerful bachelor that blew out steam and smoke while staring at the camera.
The episode had ended there.
"Now, we have teased a lot in the last episode by mentioning how this led to the greatest growth period in Leo's life and how he completely thrived when other predators starved. I know everyone is excited to see that and you waited a week for this episode. But bear with me here." the doctor said and held his hand forward as if to calm down the viewers.
"Before we could dive into the topic of Leo hunting bigger prey, we first need to cover another subject that had been withheld for far too long. It is also directly linked to the former topic, so we must cover it first."
Dr. Tonson rubbed his hands together and the small smile on his face widened to astonishing proportions. A red lipstick and he would look like the Joker.
"As an ethologist, someone who studies animal behaviour, this particular topic might as well be the most exciting for me and it could be described in one word," he said.
A small pause, and then the great reveal.
"Vultures,"
....
The scene changed abruptly, causing surprise to the viewers. A loud background music with an African theme started blasting in full. The scene was that of an aerial view of the whole Serenegti taken by a drone.
The drone showed the majestic landscape of the savannah. The videography of such scenes was always impactful, especially for those who mostly lived in cities and were not familiar with the wonders of nature.
No matter how hard man tried, it could never imitate a fraction of beauty that was nature.
A few seconds into the stunning view and you could see a bird. No, not just any bird. It was the Lappet-faced vulture, the biggest and most prominent sub species of vulture in the African savannah.
With a wingspan of 10 feet, it was one of the most majestic creatures of the sky. The drone took a great shot of this vulture in particular and continued following for a while.
After some time, more vultures started appearing in view. What began as a single vulture soon turned into two, and then five, then ten, then a dozen and before long, the number of vultures in the sky neared hundreds.
Their collective flapping wings created enough gust to make the drone footage wobbly and make the scene come almost alive to the viewer. It's like they could feel the presence of the vultures.
It was breathtaking footage, especially if you knew that vultures never took part in coordinated flights like cranes or other birds. Vultures were scavengers, so they were rough and selfish.
To see them flying together like this alone was a phenomenon that only happened when a large animal like an elephant died.
"You see, there has been a misconception." Dr. Tonson's voice sounded over the incredible footage of vultures flying together.
"Leo was never alone," he said.
"He had an army in the sky."
And then the footage cuts to a scene of Leo sharing a meal with one vulture in particular. At first, it would appear as if the lion was just tolerating the vulture. The people who had watched detailed contents posted on the website also saw this but never noticed something weird.
But the documentary revealed something.
The footage changed to Leo eating different prey in different locations. But in almost every cases, there was one single vulture beside him, and the documentary pointed out that it was the same vulture every single time.
Now that couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
"It took us a few months to notice the relationship Leo had with the vultures. But it took us nearly a year to discover just how intimate that relationship was," Dr Tonson said.
"This wasn't just two different animals of a completely different species cooperating for the benefit of each other," he said.
And the footage stopped and slowed down in one surprising scene.
Of vultures bowing down before Leo.
The scene was enough to grip the heart of the viewers. It was an incredibly shocking scene. An animal bowing to a completely different species? How in the world did that happen?
"What you are looking at are animals of a completely different species, serving another as their king."
"It was the first discovery of its kind. One that blew the minds of every researcher that witnessed it."
...
...
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[Name: Dr. Elias Thorne
Field: Behavioral Ecology - Specializes in Interspecies Cooperation and Scavenger Dynamics
Nationality: British (from Cumbria, England)
Age: 44]
The screen went dark, and then it brightened up again to reveal an office of one of the researchers.
It was the kind of office that you would expect from someone who dedicated his life to learning. The office was messy but there was an odd order in the mess, as if everything was in its place but just not in the right position.
You could find graphs, notes, random anatomical pictures, paintings, and laptops lying around the furniture. On the office table sat the most English-looking man you would ever find.
The man had pale skin that showed he had rarely seen the sun and lived most of his life under overcast weather. He had a turtleneck sweater, and his face was creating slight wrinkles.
His blond hair was messy and unkept while also showing a receding hairline. His blue eyes had a grey hue to them, and right now, they were looking at the camera with equal nervousness and excitement.
"Some of you might not be too familiar with me, as I am not part of the original crew that studied Leo at the start. I was only appointed to that position after the end of my previous projects regarding the three coalition of brothers," he spoke with a British accent.
"Nevertheless, I was the first one to notice and point out the unique relationship Leo seemed to have with the vultures," he continued, "Which, in the beginning, we thought was a small cooperation. Like elephants and birds, where the birds eat the parasite and bugs on the elephants, or Wildebeests and Zebras, where the zebras eat the tougher shoots of grass, exposing softer shoots for wildebeests who, in return, could detect predators better and provide safety for the zebras."
"But as time will teach us, the relationship Leo had with the vultures was on a much deeper level. It was a king and servant relationship," he said.
The scene changed once more to show footage of Leo interacting with the vultures. Again, the documentary highlighted one vulture in particular who was always closest to Leo. The viewers could also differentiate it somewhat now as the vulture seemed bigger and healthier than the rest.
"Upon discovering this relationship they had, we went back to every video and picture that we have taken of Leo. We tried finding exactly when it happened. Did Leo enter the Serenegti with the vultures? Or did he form this relationship when he came to this land? If so, when did it happen?" he said over the scene.
The screen rewound the documentary and the videos until it stopped at the first image that was taken of Leo in his first sighting.
The image was taken only minutes after he first encountered the human in their camp.
"We believe that this...this exact moment....was the very first time they met," he said, "The king met his most loyal subject."
The image was of Leo sitting under a shade with a zebra carcass in front of him. The tree they were staying under was beside a watering hole and Leo had just stolen the kill from a crocodile.
And sitting right beside him and eating a separate chunk of meat was the same vulture that was shown in the previous videos. The vulture looked thinner and smaller, but it was still the same one.
"And among all the vultures, the one you see was the first to serve the king. We named him Grim."
..
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[IMAGE]
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