(A/N: No lions or mandrills were harmed during the creation of the following chapter.)

Sarafina looked back at the carcass as Simba continued to chew once more on an excessively large piece of antelope meat. There was only enough meat left on the antelope for one more serving, so Sarafina waited for Simba to finish, so that she could offer him the last piece. She knew that if she had it, Simba would be able to make a head start and begin running away to avoid his bath.

After almost a minute of chewing, Simba swallowed his piece of antelope down.

"Do you want the last piece, Simba?" Sarafina asked, trying to hide a grin.

She needn't had bothered though. Simba knew her strategy. "Nope," he replied happily.

"Why ever not?" asked Sarafina.

"I'm full."

"Course you aren't," replied Sarafina, "now eat your food!"

"Make me."

Now Sarafina got ready to get to her feet. 'Make me' was just another way of saying, 'I'm not going to eat that. I'm going to run. Try and catch me,' which when translated to Sarafina meant, 'time to chase Simba and get him to have a bath.' Simba saw Sarafina's motion to get to her feet, and the chase was on.

The cub began to sprint away in laughter. "You'll never catch me!" he shouted over his shoulder at Sarafina.

Oh yes I will.

Simba didn't know it, but Sarafina was a much faster runner than Sarabi, who usually hunted best from short distances and when ambushing. Sarafina could run for miles, fast, and she knew the Pridelands better than Simba did. However, for the purpose of entertainment, she decided to hold back for a little while, so that Simba really did think he had the advantage, and then once he began to tire out, Sarafina would sprint and then give the cub his bath.

However, Sarafina's plans were forced to reshape themselves when she realized that Simba had a slight tactical strategy in mind. The cub was beginning to run down a steep hill behind the gorge, which Sarafina knew led to…

"The thorn bushes," she said to herself. She gulped, and then began to pick up her pace. She needed to catch Simba, now. "Simba!" she exclaimed. "There's thorn bushes down there!"

"I know!" shouted Simba back joyfully as they passed over the crest of the hill, "I'm small enough to crawl under them!"

That only led Sarafina to run faster. She couldn't let Simba escape from her here. They both began to run down the hill, and now with the lioness right on the cub's tail, she lifted up one of her paws and took a swipe at him to grab him. Slightly to her surprise, she got him! But now there was another problem, Sarafina was running on three paws down a very steep hill…with a set of thorn bushes at the bottom. She passed Simba from her arm into her mouth and held onto the cub by the scruff of his neck, while now using her four legs free to dig into the ground in an attempt to slow them both up before they crashed into the thorn bushes.

It wasn't working. Simba screamed. Sarafina closed her eyes…

"Welcome to Gourd Alley!" exclaimed Rafiki, as he gestured to a big branch that led up into the higher parts of his tree, with many gourds dangling from a branch above.

"Yay," mumbled Nala sarcastically, "more gourds." She lightened up her mood though as she asked Rafiki: "Do these ones perform magic?"

"Dere are two thousand three hundred and seventy-seven ways in which dese gourds can be combined to perform a certain kind of magic which no other combination can perform," replied Rafiki.

Nala gave a confused look.

"He means 'yes,' Nala," came Sarabi's reply.

"Oh," replied Nala. "Well, how does it work?" she asked.

Rafiki picked up the biggest empty tortoise shell he could find in his tree. "Run along Gourd Alley," he explained, "and as your body knocks the gourds, at random some will destabilize and full. I will try to catch dem in dis tortoise shell, and we'll see what we get. Hopefully it will be a magical potion!"

Sarabi shoved Nala along. "Go on," she encouraged her, "run!"

Nala began running up the big branch, and each time she went by a gourd her body would hit them. Sometimes they'd fall, sometimes they wouldn't. Down below, sometimes Rafiki was able to catch the falling gourds, but every now and then he wasn't. Sarabi realized as the second gourd fell and missed Rafiki's tortoise shell that some potential problems could arise. One gourd fell and she had to take a step back to prevent herself from being hit by the heavy fruit on the head. Then, she heard a SPLOSH! from behind her and she jumped back forwards, only to have a gourd hit her on the back and run its juices down her sides.

Rafiki cackled. "Sorry Sarabi, I will try to catch dem more!"

Sarabi groaned. She seemed slightly disgruntled about what had happened, but before she could complain, another gourd crashed onto the ground right in front of her face. Knowing that that meant that Nala was right above her, the lioness began running to escape the falling gourds. As fast as she ran, however, Nala seemingly was running the same speed. And every time Sarabi tried a twist or a turn or began to run backwards, Nala was doing the same from above her. Seemingly, Sarabi was going to have to keep on running to avoid being hit as gourds continued to fall ahead, behind, and to the left and right of her. Of course, some of them were being caught by Rafiki, and if it wasn't for him Sarabi knew that she would have been covered in the slimy liquidy stuff that was in those fruits by now. She couldn't thank Rafiki right now though. She was too busy running. She looked over her shoulder. A gourd fell from about a foot behind her. She ran faster. Another fell from about half a foot behind her. She ran faster. The next gourd fell, and it was now only a matter of inches. She ran faster…and then ran into a thick tree trunk. Sarabi collapsed onto the floor as she grabbed hold of her shoulder to ease the pain that was now circulating through that area.

I should've watched where I was going.

Crreeaakk…

What was that?

Sarabi looked up from where she had just heard the sound…and her jaw dropped. When she had run into the trunk, the impact had now jogged several gourds that were located right above her. She knew she couldn't run, so instead she just closed her eyes and took the impact as all those gourds fell and splattered on and around her.

Rafiki cackled again as he walked up to her. "Not your day, my queen, is it?"

"I've had better," admitted Sarabi, before running her tongue around her muzzle and washing the fruit away. She looked at the tortoise shell Rafiki was carrying. Fumes were rising up from it where the potions were reacting with each other. "Is that safe?" she asked.

"Certainly, my dear Sarabi. Dere is only one possible combination in the entire tree that would result in any kind of catastrophic explosio—" but Rafiki was suddenly cut off as another gourd fell right into his tortoise shell…and the mixture combusted. A huge plume of smoke engulfed the mandrill and the lioness, leaving them with soot making the fur on both their faces turn black and pointy.

Nala jumped down from Gourd Alley innocently and looked over at the other two. "How'd I do?" she asked.

Surprised that their appearances weren't enough of an answer to Nala, Sarabi shook her head violently and let the soot fly off, leaving her with just a darkened head as she walked up to the cub.

"Nala…" she addressed calmly, "…I think it's time we leave this tree."

"But I was having fun!" exclaimed Nala happily.

"Yes, I'm sure you were," replied Sarabi. She lifted up her paw and began to push Nala towards the edge of the tree. "Come on Nala, let's go."

"Where are we going?" asked Nala.

Sarabi stopped pushing her. "I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

"Can we go see Simba?" she asked.

"If that will get you off this tree, then it's fine by me."

"Yay!" exclaimed Nala, as she jumped back down onto the ground below.

Sarabi turned around. "Thank you Rafiki," she said.

"No problem," replied the mandrill, still with much of his fur black and pointy, "come back anytime."

(A/N: Don't worry, no one's seriously injured. This is designed to be more like cartoonish violence than action movie violence if you get what I'm saying. I know Nala and Sarabi got a longer section this time, but Sarafina and Simba will be in both parts next chapter while Nala and Sarabi will only be in one, so that's my excuse. I've been looking forward to this chapter and the next one so I hope you enjoyed them. Please review!)