The first night without Mufasa’s comforting presence was the hardest for Sarabi. She slinked quietly to the spot where she had spent so many blissful nights pressed against his beautiful body. His scent still hung in the air, and closed her eyes, clinging to that one last trace. “Oh gods, help me!” she cried, falling to the ground sobbing.

That evening her own sister had practically thrown herself before Taka, even after he had brought hyenas into the Pride Lands. Hyenas had murdered her parents! After that, she could not bring herself to speak to Elanna. Now her dear friend Rafiki was confined in house arrest. She had no one to turn to for comfort and had to weep alone. Only God stood between her and total isolation.

There were exactly forty paces to the end of the promontory. On the forty-first she could find an end to suffering. One extra step into the arms of love, and all the things she wished she could say to Mufasa and Simba would come pouring out before them as sweet as fragrance from the nighttime jasmine. But what a blow it would be to those she left behind! Sarafina and Isha would have to drag her battered body to the jackals and watch as her flesh was torn from her by small, sharp teeth. No, after weighing the consequences, she accepted her fate and chose the path of duty. Her life, worth living or not, would go on.

Elanna had considered her own path of duty. Her heart was pierced with thorns over the anger of her sister and the disapproval of the Pride Sisters. It would have been simple to turn away from Taka and stay in the good graces of her friends. But she had watched Taka’s struggle with depression and frustration wear away at him and take his joys away one by one. His first love had rejected him, and his parents were dead. Now his brother was dead, and he had to turn to the hyenas for comfort. She wanted to love him, to comfort him and give his life meaning once more. And hoping against hope that he would find solace in her love, she had dared to offer herself to him completely and openly.

Sarabi had asked her to choose between her sister and her lover, to give up happiness and cubs of her own, and share Sarabi’s loneliness forever in return for acceptance by the Pride.

“It’s not fair!” Elanna prayed fervently. “I love her enough to die for her and right now I should be by her side, but she won’t have me! She loved him once--how can she blame me for needing him so? She doesn’t understand, God. What can I say that will make her listen??”

Taka stole quietly to her side and nuzzled her. “So sad, my darling?”

“Hold me,” she said, as tears ran down her cheeks. “Let me feel you near me.”

Taka kissed away her tears and began to stroke her with his paw. “I’ve never seen you more beautiful than you are right now. Such a kind heart, capable of such compassion.” He looked at her with a tenderness uncommon to him. “If I’d known how you felt before, things might have been very different now.”

“How?”

“Does it matter?”

Taka rested beside her feeling her comforting presence. He closed his eyes and could see Mufasa and Sarabi with little Simba resting in their favorite spot. Next to them, Elanna nursing a small Taka and a small Lannie. Taka loved Mufasa once, as he had loved Sarabi. If only he had stopped striving after a vain dream and seen the potential in Elanna long ago! Under the circumstances, Taka felt his deeds were justified, but still he wondered if there was more he could have done to purge the curse that poisoned Mufasa’s love and alienated Sarabi. The nagging doubt that he was partly to blame for began to eat away at him, and he felt contaminated--dirty in ways that no water could wash clean.

Oh to have felt clean again! He would have been content with Elanna’s sincere and unblemished love. And there would have been no hyenas in the Pride Lands earning him the undying hatred of the pride. The price he paid to rule was too high, but it was final and there could be no refund. Opening his eyes once more to the sobering truth, he kissed Elanna’s cheek and sighed deeply.

Uzuri and the other pride sisters were also very upset, but they found solace in the discipline and effort of the hunt. Sarabi’s missing position hurt them like a wound, and Uzuri discretely asked Ajenti to take the left point of the crescent formation. Ajenti took a few steps toward Sarabi’s old spot, but she broke down into tears.

“I can’t! I just can’t! It’s HER spot!”

“There now,” Isha said. “You take my spot, Honey Tree. I’ll do the left point tonight.”

Painfully, Isha stalked to the left point position and took the post with unaccustomed somberness. “Well, let’s do this thing.”

Meanwhile with unaccustomed jubilation, the hyenas were going to hunt the Pride Lands without the fear of being discovered. Used to the arid conditions of the elephant graveyard, the smell of fresh grass and trees, of blossoms and vines intoxicated their senses. The scents on the wind filled them with promises of good times ahead.

Not that Ber or the other loyalists got to enjoy any of that. Their ties to the former Roh’mach earned them endless, mind-numbing guard duty. Shenzi suspected that the old ways were too ingrained in them to trust them with anything else.

Ber watched the night sky and sighed. The distant laughter of his clan brothers stirred a longing in him to be out and about following the trail. “Roh’kash, first I lost my son, and now I’ve lost my true calling! Great Mother, am I to rot out here like a discarded bone with all the marrow stripped away? Show me the way out, Great Mother! There is only death here!”

Uzuri nodded, and her pride sisters spread out in a pattern of her own design, ready to advance on a herd of gazelles. The moon was kind-- just full enough to see by, but not full enough to betray the lithe lionesses in the tall grass.

Uzuri’s ears flattened back and her tail twitched. Instantly her pride sisters tensed up, ready for action. They waited for the signal to rush....

“Now I got you!” shouted a hyena, darting between the lionesses and the gazelles in pursuit of a bolting hare. The gazelles looked around and fled.

“Damn!” Uzuri yelled.

The hyena closed on the hare and with a snap, he had snatched the life from the small body. Bearing his trophy proudly, he trotted back across the meadow toward Pride Rock.

Ber watched Skulk prance by with a dead rabbit. Not far behind him was the hunting party of lionesses, and Ber could tell they were furious.

“Back early, I see? Did luck go with you?”

“Yes!” Isha spat. “All of it bad!”

“Hfff! Did it have to do with that rabbit?”

Without answering, Isha and the others pushed past him and went to see Taka.

The King was lying down napping when he got a rude nudge from Uzuri. “Look here, we have a problem.”

“We do indeed,” Taka said grumpily. “Never do that when I’m asleep!”

“Those--friends of yours--just spoiled our chances of pulling down a gazelle or two for a lousy rabbit! We can’t have them running wild while we’re hunting! You’re King--do something!”

“Well I just might, since I AM King. Not that you’d know it from the level respect you show me.”

“I’m sorry--Sire.”

“This union will work. I didn’t say there wouldn’t be any problems at first. What we need is more cooperation. Something like a mutual hunt. That’s it--you get together with Pipkah and plan something you can all pull off together.”

“But sire, our styles are so different!”

“That’s why I’m putting an expert in charge. You will justify the faith I have in you, hmm?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask of anyone. Now run along and let me get some sleep.”

He closed his eyes and rolled over. Clearly, the subject was closed.