Powerful gales rocked the slim boat like some sort of buoy, everyone held on tight onto their seats to prevent any chance of being tossed overboard. Grusha on the other hand balanced herself perfectly without the need to anchor herself in place, she felt at peace within the mayhem. Despite the powerful arctic winds temporarily subsiding, it still was precariously dangerous for everyone else on the boat.

A radio crackled. It was indistinguishable to everyone else but the captain of the boat and Grusha, her sharp hearing was able to hear the voice without difficulty.

“We’re breaking off brother, continue with your current vector. Whoever comes back home last buys the lucky winner the ale.”

Aput picked up the comm. “That’s a done deal. You’re not gonna back out on that now, are we?”

“Of course not, I am expecting to win after all. Like every other time.”

“Cocky rat.”

“A fat rat. If you’re gonna call me one, at least be accurate.”

Aput laughed. “Fine. Cocky fat rat.”

“Thank you. Comms out, good luck and good hunt. See you later brother.”

The radio clicked off and the fleet of boats began to break off one by one, each towards their own designated direction. For Grusha, the hunt seemed awfully inefficient. There were ways how they could optimize, but she knew it was best to keep it to herself. Everything she thought off was just overkill measures to accomplish what they were doing, using things like explosives to rile up the sealife below. In her case, all she needed were her five senses, that was why she was not overly concerned about waiting too long.

“Breach over the stern port-side!” The man standing on the bow boat yelled, pointing at a puff of water spray ahead of them.

Aput laid out the commands. “Harpoons on the ready! Bow at the ready! Reelers on standby!”

The crew bustled lively, all in a synchronous display of activity, they acted as a single organic unit. From their seats, the men in the middle row lifted long harpoon rods. Another team handed the man on the bow an air gun loaded with one of the harpoons.

Unsuspecting, the whale breached highly in the air again. An entire pod of them took turns breaching, a glorious dance of nature’s beauty. The most glorious part Grusha considered was the hunt, the natural order of things demanded the existence of a food chain. Nothing felt more appropriate than for her to be at the top of that food chain. She quivered with excitement along with the rest of the men on the slim sloop, there was a deliberate attempt to hold back from letting her hair to quill up from the anticipation.

“Twenty to proximity!” Declared Aput.

Grusha assumed he meant twenty in metric meters, since that was the only number that fit within that description. They were slightly over 100 meters away, that would mean that their proximate range was roughly around 80 meters away. Aput confirmed her calculations with his following set of commands.

“In range. Harpoon take aim, and fire when ready.” He ordered.

Everyone crouched and covered their ears, in preparation for the loud pop these guns let off. There was a large puff and the harpoon shot in arc towards its target, a lone whale that foolishly strayed from the pod. The rope tied to the harpoon zipped along with it, a spool of it on the side of the bow spooled out. The shoot fell short by a mere meter, an admirably close shot she had to admit.

“Starboard reelers, redraw!” Aput ordered.

The men on the edge of the boat started to tug the roped harpoon back in, meanwhile the ones in the mid-row on the port side handed their harpoonist another loaded shot. He took his time to aim properly, adjusting to the winds and waves that formed. Another shot was fired and this struck its target, digging deep into the whale's flesh. The odor of blood excited her, this was what the hunt of one of the largest mammals the earth offered felt like.

“Strike!” Shouted the harpoonist.

“Port reelers, redraw! Starboard reload!”

Reelers to Grusha’s left started to reel in the burrowed harpoon in, tiring the whale by the painful impalement. Another loaded gun was handed to the harpoonist, he took his time aiming again before firing. He landed a second successful shot. The whale showed little signs of letup, putting up a fight to escape the pesky creatures that hunted it down. It was left behind as the pod took note of what was happening, abandoning the lone whale as they dove away. Grusha felt the creature's pain. Abandonment was a notion she related to, having had happened to twice in her life. Without a doubt, it felt confused and lost, without a clue who or where to turn to just she had.

Over an hour passed, making the hunt seem unnecessarily longer than it should be. Grusha did not speak the tongue that animals spoke, but she was well attuned to their feelings. The whale was tired and desperate, it wanted whatever was happening to end. The reelers struggled to reel themselves close to the whale, there were a lot of forces working against them. Most progress they could achieve was an inch at a time. To make matters worse, the sky darkened as it threatened with distant thunder with another storm.

“How long will the hunt take.” Grusha asked the young boy who was lifting another harpoon.

The boy stuttered, surprised that she spoke. “I-I-It might take another hour at this rate, if the storm comes we will have to cut it loose.”

Grusha sniffed the air and sensed the atmospheric pressures, she could tell that it was going to storm soon and their quarry would go to waste if something was not done elsewise.

She sighed.

No other way.

Snatching the harpoon before it was loaded into the gun, she shoved the young boy out of the way as he resisted. Everyone was distracted with what she was doing, walking barefoot up to the bow of the barge boat. Some tried to grab, but she just shrugged their reaches off of her.

Aput yelled at her from behind. “Stop! Sit back down!”

This time she would not be obeying, they needed her and she planned to pay back her debt in full by any means possible. She would rise to the top of the food chain again, breaking this pact of servitude she was in.

“Grab her!”

All of the men on the barge reached out for her, but their motions were sluggish. Everything transpired at a rate that was slower than what she processed, she saw things and reacted nearly at the same instant as she saw them. They were too slow, so she discarded that detail to concentrate on other data. The whale was at roughly fifty meters distance, well within her leaping range. She accounted for the wind speeds and the kinected whiplash she would leave behind, it would be a minor inconvenience if she overshot their prey.

Having taken all information into consideration which took a half-second to process in her mind, she dropped to her knee and took one leap towards the bow of the ship. Landing on the tip of the bow successfully, she crouched and sprung again with a harpoon in hand. The harpoonist stumbled backwards from the rocking of the boat, everyone else was shaken from their seats from the force of her jumping power. They all moaned and groaned from the shakiness.

Grusha spun in a somersaulted in the air towards where the whale was, the force her jump made was translated into the ropes that were attached to the whale and tug it backwards the slightest bit. She angled herself to land on the head, her quills formed and gave her the wind resistance she needed to make the landing perfect. Foot first on the head of the massive beast, she did not hesitate piercing through the skull straight into the brain.

Noone else on the barge would be able to hear it, but their prey gave one final trill. A final calling to those who had left it behind. Grusha blinked at it. Kneeling on it, she stroked it gently with her one free hand. With her other hand that held onto the spear, she drove it deeper which successfully killed the beast.

In the animal kingdom, there was no need to toy with prey. You are either the winner or the loser. That was why she clawed herself to the top. None other than her would hold the reign as the king of the beasts.

Everyone else in the barge cheered for her, excited that in one swoop she ended this hunt in an exciting climax. Only one was not cheering for her, the one who claimed her life-debt. Her expression grimaced.

What must I do to prove my superior dominance? You’re nothing to me in this food chain.