For Originalfic_LAS, on the other hand...
I have been eliminated from this Round with this story. Guess I should have used my skip. (Didn't remember I had one...bummer!)
The prompt was "Alpha".
Story Title: Keenu of the River Clan
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some physical altercations, but not graphic
Keenu cowered as Makku beat his chest and bellowed. Keenu yearned for the day he would grow large enough not to fear the blustering Makku, but for today, he submitted in dread. Sneaking a look at his clan, he saw all the younglings prostrated. The adult males, those next younger than or of an age with Makku, took one knee and bowed their heads. Even the elders acquiesced to his authority. Anyone showing disrespect would find himself the beneficiary of Makku’s swift retribution.
Behind Makku, the clan females mirrored the males. As the new clan leader, he could claim any unattached female for his mate.
Keenu prayed silently to their god Hu that Makku would choose anyone other than his sibling, Ameenu. Keenu had lost his father and clan leader today; he didn’t want to lose his closest companion as well. Ameenu had more reason than Makku’s defeat of their father to dislike the brute; Keenu feared she might refuse him and not only suffer his abuse but be cast out of the clan. Either alternative assured a miserable existence, if not an early death.
As Makku strutted past the females with audacity, pausing near Ameenu, Keenu sucked in his breath.. Makku growled; Keenu glared from beneath his protruding brow. Then an elder thumped the youngling on the head and shoved his forehead into the ground, probably saving him from reprisal. Makku huffed and returned to his selection, the result of which Keenu didn’t see at first with his face in the dirt. His mother Ka-Neenu’s keen - quickly drowned out by the clan’s celebratory cheers - informed him.
Keenu’s heart settled into the dirt with his face. While others around him rose, surged forward and formed a ring around the new mates, howling and jumping in place, Keenu sat back on his haunches and wallowed in his misery. On the edge of his vision, he saw Mother slip away to mourn privately.
Keenu, unwilling to join in the fête, climbed to the Watch, an overhang that provided a clear view of the general area. He had barely settled into the hollow worn into the rock by sentries over the cycles, his chin resting on his forearms, when he spotted Mak-Ameenu staring up at him. She tilted her head to one side and let out a heavy breath, which he matched
Two clan females found Ka-Neenu’s body the next morning. It appeared she had eaten poisonous Zaba berries. Keenu, believing his mother would not do so willingly, confronted Makku, who beat him senseless. Keenu learned later the price his sister paid for defying Makku and tending his injuries.
Keenu kept an internal catalog of injustices his sister suffered at Makku’s hands. Friends and elders cautioned him not to challenge the physically-superior Alpha, but Keenu struggled to remain patient in the face of Mak-Ameenu’s weakening spirit. Each confrontation with the older, larger male resulted in severe wounds for Keenu.
Twice in two cycles Mak-Ameenu carried Makku’s seed. After miscarrying once, her second youngling died following live birth. Both were malformed. Clan gossip attributed it to Makku’s mistreatment of Mak-Ameenu during gestation, but Makku blamed Mak-Ameenu and abused her more. In a rare show of will, Mak-Ameenu stood up to him. He backhanded her, knocking her into a tree.
As his sister lay unconscious at the base of the tree, Keenu surged forward and received the same treatment. When the siblings revived, Makku declared them NeHu - living dead to the clan - and banished them. The elder males escorted them outside the clan camp and stood guard until they walked away.
Life outside the clan, while difficult for the siblings, proved less hazardous than life with Makku. Ameenu - she dropped the mate prefix -regained her health. At the same time, Keenu achieved adult size and weight.
They crossed paths with a few other clans, but none welcomed them as more than brief visitors. The leader of more than one clan chased them off, and Ameenu surprised Keenu with the explanation that he now presented a physical challenge to the Alpha Male.
Three full cycles of the seasons had passed when they found an outcast female named Anawa, whom Keenu took as his mate once they had nursed her back to health. Over the next cycle, Ameenu grew ever more distant; she implied that she should ask another clan if they would take her alone. Keenu refused to listen. Another cycle passed, and the nomadic trio grew to six, as they added a young female-with-child, Ge-Anni, who had refused the new clan leader after her mate had lost clan leadership.
In the cold season of the seventh cycle, their small clan neared the old clan territory. While camped near a river, Keenu, Ameenu and Ge-Anni left Ke-Anawa with the sleeping children - Ge-Anni’s twins and Ke-Anawa’s newborn son - to search for food and firewood. Hearing Ke-Anawa’s screams, the three raced back to find Makku and several males from the old clan surrounding Ke-Anawa.
Keenu lunged forward, pushing the other males aside. Makku at first expressed surprise to see the outcast siblings and then turned to face Keenu, returning his possessive growl. Makku and Keenu converged. Fueled by just rage and no longer the weaker youngling, Keenu proved Makku’s physical equal. In fact, his youth - and the strength born of years surviving without clan support - now gave him the advantage.
Throwing himself at an exhausted Makku, Keenu pushed the clan leader to the ground, where Makku’s head struck one of the rocks surrounding the campfire. Keenu stood over Makku’s dead body, facing the clan males with a fierce, challenging growl. They all took to one knee and bowed their heads in submission.
That day Keenu and Ameenu’s clan welcomed them back, along with their adopted, extended family. For many cycles, Keenu led the clan, which benefited from the relations established with several of the clans he and Ameenu had visited. Ameenu mated again from one of those clans and bore a healthy female, whom she named Neenu
As always, I appreciate constructive criticism, aimed to help me improve my writing.