Chapter 33
The days that passed her was silent. Life had official begun to stand still for Sarabi as the death of her pride sister hit her more and more with each passing breath. She couldn't believe it.
Everything has seemed so normal that day. Everything had seemed like it was going right. Even though Scar never sent for Rafiki against the odds it seemed as if Amir was getting better. It seemed as if with each passing second, passing hour -she was regaining some strength back. So when Sarabi found her outside, cold as old bones and still. It shocked her.
Or maybe she think It shocked her? When she looked down at Amir body that morning. It was plan as day that her inner organs were bleeding out. The blood could be seen stretching underneath her tanned fur. The Stain reached from her high shoulder blade to almost her mid torso. She wasn't getting better. She couldn't be getting better.
Sarabi had been lying to herself this whole time to protect herself. Her feelings. And now all that protector had fallen apart. Her protective wall was down. The queen could not fathom that she had let this happen to her pride sister. Under her watch. She had failed her. She had failed herself. She had failed her son and now She had failed them all.
What more could she lose? What more could he take from her, and simply NOT care.
"Sarabi?"
The rimmed eared lioness turned to see her best friend, just approaching her from behind a drying bush.
She didn't smile when she saw her. She didn't even acknowledge that she saw her. She had been avoiding her pridesister for a days now. Staying too close to the den, was simply too painful or a reminder. She had to remain away, even if that meant staying away from her new born son. "I've been looking for you."
"I've been right here." Her location was remote, but it wasn't to far from where there den was. She had been there before dawn and stayed there to watch the great circle move its way into the sky.
"Well you've been hard to track down lately." Sarabi said nothing. She continued to look forward into a far off distance where only her mind truly knew what she was looking at-Or was looking for. Was it hope? Freedom, escape?" Will you be coming home soon?" Again she said nothing. Not even trying to open her dry mouth to utter a single word. "Will you be coming home tonight?" Again she was ignored.
Biting her lip, Sarafina sat just behind her queen. She knew she had to egg herself to keep asking her. Even though she already knew the answer of why she was never home. Sarafina had somewhat of an understanding that Sarabi couldn't face this truth- at least not right now. Not while the wound were fresh. In truth none of them could face it. They knew it had happened, they knew how it happened thy even knew why it happened, but they couldn't believe it would happen. Especially not to them.
It was too otherworldly, honestly.
"I promise you she's better off now."
"…what?"
"Amir, she's better off now. Better to be at dead and at peace, then living and suffering."
" and she did suffer…" her voice was distance, hollow and shadowed with a unknown undertone.
"She suffered a lot, but now it's over." Over. Such a simple word, and yet it can mean a whole lot. "So you have to be happy for her, not sad. We are all happy for her-"
"Until it's the next one of us." It was quick, so hushed, Sarafina didn't even catch the fully of what she was saying.
"Huh?"
"We're happy for her, until it is the next one of us." She turned to look at Sarafina. " you know it's true."
"I try not to think about it like that."
"Hmp, I did too. With Mufasa, and then with Scar. Now with my own son…the suffering continues to go on and on…"
Wary of her friends words, Sarafina looked to Sarabi with concerned curiosity.
"…the suffering will stop.it will stop Sarabi, you know that."
"No it won't, not unless you stop it." Unless you stop it?
"What do you mean Sarabi?" There was a long pause between the two close friends. Yet strangely now, sarafina felt like she was looking at a lioness she had never seen before. This may look like the friend she loves dearly, but she certainly isn't like that friend right now. Not since she found Amir. "Sarabi?"
"I'm tried of us suffering Sarafina!I can't bare it any longer! We have been going though it, time and time again and I am done with this!" Her red eyes were suddenly enraged. Startling the lioness behind her with her sudden fire and fury. But Sarabi was able to catch herself,and she drew her overwhelming emotional back in. "I'm sorry…"
"No, It's fine. I know you're upset."
"I'm beyond upset at this point. I'm furious and I'm close to just giving up. I'm tired to seeing my family suffer- die by my own paw."
"You couldn't do anything to stop this sarabi-"
"Yes I could! I could have done something more, I should have done something more. But I've lost my power, and I cant do anything to protect my family. I've lost, I'm sorry for failing you all. It's going to stop."
Sarabi words hit Sarafina hard, harder than the situation itself.
"Fail? You haven't failed anyone Sarabi. You're doing the best you can given the circumstances." But those words fell on deaf ears. And sarafina knew it. If sarabi believe that she had failed them, then she had failed them. " well what are you planning to do?" Sarabi was silent for a moment.
"You won't like it, no one will like it."
"What is it? I'm sure we would like anything than this."
"No you won't. Because either way, we lose."
"What do you mean? Why do we have to lose? Are you thinking of leaving priderock?" Sarabi nodded her head slowly, but that wasn't her only option.
"How could see do that? Scar would easily skin us alive for leaving."
" we could leave in the middle of the night."
"But Scar would send those dogs to find us, wouldn't he?"
"Yes. But it's an option we can take."
"We can't take that option sarabi."
"Why not?"
"Aren't you forgetting something, your son. Kopa is barely walking." Right she did have that son? "I know you aren't planing on leaving him."
"Hmm"
"Sarabi?!"
"What, he's Scars son!"
"And yours too! Now, I know you hate his father, but Kopa has no control of that. I know you better than this sarabi, you would not let your issues of how you felt about one effect the way you feel about the other. he is innocent. And in your heart I know you wouldn't allow anything to happen to him…"
Those words where hurtfully true. No matter how cold and heartless Sarabi wanted to be, wish she could be. She didn't have that nature inside of her. It would scare her if she did.
"Then we only have one other option."
"What is that?"
"A take over."
"…take over?"
"Yes it's the only way to stop living like this. Either we take our chances and leave or take our chances and fight."
"We couldn't never beat him!"
"You don't know that-"
" we're outnumbered! We'd easily be over powered!"
"That's only if they all came to us at once. And you know the hyenas hardly spend there time here unless Scar is here. The only ones that stay in priderock are Zira and her two pridesister, once we take them down and over throw them the hyenas we will back. And besides we may not be as strong as we once were- but we can damn sure handle his lousy dogs!Scar will be leaving with Vitani to the mountain pride. That give us a days chance!"
"No!something like that is too dangerous and risky."
"Then we take out chances and leave! But we must do something soon Sara. If not we'll end up like Amir or worse. We can't keep living like this! Be think about, think about what Nala will have to go though when she's older- if she lives to gets older! If she's lucky she might go in her sleep like Amir."
"It won't get like that! Life may be bad now, but it wont stay like this forever."
"Does Scar look like he's going to roll over and die soon?" She didn't answer, only shifting her weight uncomfortably between her front paws. " he is a mad lion, I know this….this plan with allaying with the mountain pride will only backfire on us! He's planning a wider take over…more than you and I can imagine! It won't just stop at priderock. He needs to be stopped."
"It's too dangerous!"
"More dangerous than how we are barely living now? It can get worse, it will get worse and you know it. We cant be afraid of this anymore and playing it safe." Sarabi words fell on deaf ears are, she watched denial read on her friends face.
"…it will get better." We hoped it would get better, we dreamed it would. By at this point in time we can believe it's not. Sarabi understood how sacred she was- hell she was scared, just thinking of either thought ran chills up her spine. To leave a place she had called home her entire life, to leave her safety-net her family safety net. To live a life of the unknown, unprotected. That or kill the lion she once considered a brother to you. Either way, either choice, was going to be hard on her.
" it will get better when we are dead. And we would have left this all behind, we wouldn't have to face the harsh reality that we left to our cubs." That got a concerned mother attention.
"Life outside the pridelands is certain death. We have no territory. No shelter from storms, no stable place for food, no protection from roaming males. That would be our reality."
"Sara stop being blind, that is already our reality now! We barely have enough space for us in the side den! we hardly eat the food we do catch! and the roaming males you fear so much are right here!"
"What do you mean?" Sarabi paraded for a second. "What is it Sarabi, tell me?"
" she didn't want me to tell you."
"Who?"
"Nala."
"Nala? What didn't she want you to tell me? She tells me everything…"
"She told me she had had an encounter with Nuka."
"Encounter…what encounter?"
"I had asked her to go to the waterwhole for me. When she came back she was upset and shaken. I asked her what was wrong and she told me, Nuka tried to make an advance on her."
"…w…what…why…why didn't she tell me?"
"She was embarrassed Sara. And frankly I had to pull it out of her myself. What he said was nothing serious, and she hasn't spoken much about anything happening like that again. But I guess it wouldn't because she barely leaves the den now. She's scared Sara."
"…i…I can't believe I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me sooner Sarabi?!"
" she was already upset, I didn't think it would be good to add on to that." Sara turned to walk away.
"I don't believe this."
"This isn't something that I wanted to tell you that I want to happen, I love Nala just as she was my own too, and you know this… what happened to me can very well happen to Na-"
"No! No no no I wouldn't let that happen! Never, I'd die first!"
"Nuka is Scar son, he is an entitled monster walking around here freely. do you really think he would care if she said no? Do you even think the word no get said to him? As much as I want to believe that you can protect your cub from harm- you know you can't. You can't be with her all the time. When Scar sends us out to hunt who is left to protect her? Zira? her pridesister? maybe a hyena?. For all we know something could be happening at the side den right now- and it shouldn't be this way. Don't you see? We shouldn't be living like this, I shouldn't have allowed us to be this afraid to think this is what we are left to live like. Do you understand me now, why we have to do something. Anything to reclaim our lives back. You don't want her to live in fear. I don't want any of you to live in fear. And I don't want Kopa to live in fear either."
Sarafina looked up from her shaking paws, that was the first time she had mention Kopa by his name since Amir death. She had blamed Scar and in so had to distance herself from her son.
"Sarabi…"
"Who's to say what will become of him when he's older- if he's even allowed to see another day. I feared for so long that Zira would have them come and take him. Right from under me, like Scar took Simba. And I wont be able to do anything….I still think of it. The fear only gets worse as he gets older every single day. Zira see him as competition, she has to."
That night Sarabi returned to the den and she told her sisters what she planned to do. Either with them or not, she would fight to find a way to free them. Her sisters didn't need much convincing. They too had grown tried of the way there life was. And once Amir had passed, trying to please a tyrant king who didn't know her name, that was the last straw. They would either leave with the ones who wanted to leave or die trying.
Everyone spoke about the risks, their fears and hesitation to want to go though with any plan fully- but knowing full well that they had to. They weight their options. If they leave. He would send to find them. If they were found, he would surely kill them. And where would they really go? The pridelands territory runs for miles and miles on end. And it was miles and miles of nothing. The herds were gone. They would have to intrude on another prides territory to survive and if they got caught. They could be killed.
There was so much uncertainty with leaving that some forgot the purpose of even trying. But there was some certainty in staying…and fighting back. If by the great kings of the past, the plan to take back priderock worked. They could stay in their home. Reclaim their lands, and live a free life again. Life with no fear, no hunger. They could go back to living their old lives again. The only thing stopping them from that dream was, Scar.
AUTHORS NOTE: well this certainly was a long and stressful chapter..DO I SEE A TAKEOVER COMING?! I'm hella nervous to right the final few chapters...not doing o lie, it's gonna be rough.