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Ajenti did not step forward, but she stammered, “Me too.”
Nala crept to the center of the circle. “She really loved children, though she had none of her own. She was always very nice to me. She was always sad, but one time she sang to me. She had a very pretty voice, you know.”
Nala edged back to Simba who nuzzled her and pawed her face.
As the turn passed from lioness to lioness, most remembered her strength. How, even through the mental isolation from her pride, she stayed faithful to her husband to the very end. How even through their scorn, she still loved everyone. The cubs remembered how kind she was...how she would always want to give them affection and how she would, the few times that she could, always had a story for them.
Finally, it came to her sister, Sarabi.
Sarabi sighed softly as the memory of her sister and their cubhood comes back to her mind. The wind whispered quietly among them. Her face remained motionless except for the slow blinking of her eyes. The other lionesses began to stir uneasily, looking to one another uncertainly as they sought an answer to her silence. Thus it was that they all started nervously when she spoke.
"Ela
Silence gripped the group as the former queen looked up to the sky. "I hope you are happy, sister, with your husband. I wish you all the joy in the next world that you never had in this one." She drew a deep breath and uttered a mournful roar, venting her pain in a cacophony of sound echoed by her pride sisters as it swept across the sava
CHAPTER: STRANGE PREY
After a long night with very little sleep, Ela
That didn’t prove so difficult since the terrible draught had not scorched the land beneath her feet. Silently, she made her way toward a small herd of impala. How she wished for her sisters to be behind her to back her up. But oh, if she DID succeed, what a bounty would be hers! It had been a long time since she had seen so much food. She continued to stalk the prey, hoping against all hopes that she would be able to get her wish.
Finally, after closing the distance farther than she had hoped, she burst from cover and rushed. The excitement of her youth came back. She felt so alive, so exhilarated that she began to understand what she had been missing the last two years.
The herd separated, just as she remembered from her lessons of so long ago. In front of her was a lone impala, unsure where to go. Ela
Just then, the familiar whoops of hyenas began to close in on her. Before she knew it, a group of hyenas closed in and surrounded her and her prey. At first, they are silent, looking over the lioness and the prey beneath her. Finally, in common speech they said, "Our share! Our land! Part is ours!"
She snarled at them as she stayed protectively over the life giving meat, "Krekh toh! Barekh moh amspach Ela
The hyenas were startled for a moment and backed off, looking at each other. "Hfff! The scholarly type! But, my dear bakhret, even from our own kind we require our share of everything killed on our land."
The hyenas began to approach her, but as it appeared that Ela
The hyenas looked at their numbers and decided not to risk their lives for such a meager meal. With curses, both in their language and common speech, they disappeared into the night.
With a grunt of satisfaction in his work, he moved to Ela
Suddenly she snapped at him, "This is mine!"
"You're quite welcome," he said with a bow. "Maybe we can do this
again sometime." With that, he turned and began to disappear into the night.
Ela
The lion turned around and began to trot back towards her. "How can I refuse an offer like that? But you go first--you look a bit thin, my dear."
Ela
"If you’re wise, you’ll eat a little grass, then take a few bites. With time you’ll get your appetite back.”
“Sounds like good advice,” she said, still sick. She nibbled half-heartedly at a few clumps of green grass.
“Are you a rogue lioness?"
"No. At least I wasn't." She sadly looked down.
"I hope I didn't offend you. I'm a rogue male--of late." He approached her closer and though she shrank from him at first she let him touch her cheek with his paw. "My dear, you look like a ghost. If you don't mind, we can help each other."
"How?"
"Well, I can drive off the hyenas and flush game. And you can talk to me."
"That's it?"
"Hey, it's the silence that gets to me. I can't stand it. I even talk to buzzards. And when they’re not around, I talk to myself. All the time."
"Well, I can talk," she said. "And if you help me hunt, you may eat your share. Deal?"
"Deal! I am Kubali, by the way. And you?”
She tried a small bite of the impala, chewing it carefully and uncertainly, then swallowing. “My name is Ela
He smiled. “Ela