The community around here believe that our King, who just recently died at the paws of his own minions, watches upon our lives from the stars. Personally, as the queen of these low-life outsiders, I don't believe it. I believe that they are just looking for a way to convince themselves of having the possibility of going back to their lives of comfort and abundant food. Honestly...there's no hope of that ever happening.
Still, after I gave some thought to it, I realized that there was a certain aspect to him-an aspect of power, cunning, and a strange body posture that always manages to rile the females up. It must have been his bad back. All those qualities gave him such a successful ruler as King of the Outlander lions.
With that thought swimming freely through the crevices of my brain, I fell into a world completely our own. The sun was bright, hanging high at its zenith and the ground, broken and dry as we had known it in reality, was lush and green with the previous night's rainfall. The wet season had come and, along with it, the prime of our love for one another. We strolled side-by-side, my head resting upon his shoulder, through a plain that held neither fence nor leash on our freedoms. I felt that we had an eternal belonging to one another.
In this dream, we went through everything together. We smiled and rejoiced at the birth of our daughter, who looked, dazed, deep into the eyes of her new parents. We wept and prayed as our son passed away, up to watch from the distant stars. Every event of our lives passed before us, as they had happened when we both lived together, and even through the tough times we stuck beside one another. The days may have been rainy, and the land flooded four-fold times than it used to be, but when our love held, it felt like the sky was bright and free of all clouds. Through all situations would we be together.
But, in the flash of an instant, my life plundered into a blazing flame with the laughter of hyenas sounding at every crack of the fire. A darkness shrouded my conscience, and for the first time I allowed myself to be consumed by my loneliness. It was now when the realization that Taka, or Scar as he had been known by the Pridelanders, no longer brought my body and mind a loving comfort. His body vanished into the very ashes of the flame that licked my ankles, and his soul leapt into the constellations of this barren night.
At the time when I was at the bottom of my pit of despair, a voice seemed to draw me out. It was a familiar voice, one I knew and loved well, but couldn't quite put a name to it.
It said, "Zira, I'm here. Are you ready to take back what my brother stole from me?"