John Burkitt - Shadow of Makei

“Are you crazy?” Timon said. “They’ll hang you right next to the pig.”

“I don’t see how. I’m stronger and I’m faster. And all I want is the meat. They won’t follow us to get it back.”

He roared fiercely and strode forward, splintering the wood boma as he shouldered his way through. A second roar sent the humans running, jabbering excitedly as they ran into their huts.

“Hey, that was easy enough! Come on, fellows! Let’s eat!” Simba padded over to the fire, wincing at the heat, and peered upwards, wondering how to get the antelope down. Glancing about, he saw the gleam of the firelight from the eyes of the people hidden in the huts and grinned.

His grin faded as they emerged, the light now glinting off the tips of spears, all pointed at him. “Uh oh!”

The lion turned and bolted, rear paws spurting up dirt as he ran for the hole in the boma. A whirring sound filled the air, and spears began to fall around him, their sharp tips whickering evilly through the air as they passed. Bursting through the gap, he shot away into the jungle. “C’mon, guys! RUN FOR IT!”

Warthog and meerkat followed obligingly as the humans emerged from the encampment, jabbering furiously and waving their weapons. A hissing sound filled the air, and a spear blurred past Simba to bury itself in a nearby tree, quivering angrily. Redoubling his speed, he crashed through the undergrowth, ripping vines and sticks asunder as he fled. Pumbaa ran alongside, Timon astride him and waving his arms wildly.

“Come on fellows!” Timon yelled mockingly. “Let’s eat!”

Pumbaa panted as he struggled to keep up with the terrified lion. “I think the natives are restless.”

“No darned kidding!”

Simba’s brush with humankind left him scared but still hungry. Somewhat pensive, he sat on the bank of a small pond, watching the fish swim in the crystal clear water. Some of them were rather large, and he felt that it would be a shame to waste all that meat on the bottom of a cold pond when it could be inside a nice warm lion.

He considered his approach. As slow as the fish swam, they would perk up substantially the instant his paw entered the water. As he saw it, there were so many fish that if he jumped in the middle of the school and grabbed, he ought to catch at least one.

After a while, the fish seemed to forget that Simba was there and began to behave normally. One of the came alluringly close to the surface, then snapped up a hapless fly that had fallen in the pond.

“I guess it’s now or never,” Simba said. He tensed up, poised like a statue, then sprang.

SPLASH!!

Timon and Pumbaa watched in awe as Simba grabbed, missed, and grabbed again. Flailing about in the water, he chased fish around until he was covered in mud. The slippery algae on the rocks proved a bit much, even for his large paws. He slipped and fell over on his back.

“Thunderation!”

Some monkeys began to laugh in a nearby tree. “Fresh fish! Fresh fish!”

Simba tried to ignore them. He concentrated on the task at hand, but with mud stirred up in the water it was almost impossible. Still he thrashed about, finally managing to chase a fish into some very shallow water. A quick smack of his paw pinned it to the bottom.

“Gotcha!”

He looked up proudly. “Hey guys, look what I got!”

The fish thrashed around, and as slippery as it was, it worked out from under Simba’s paw. The lion made another quick jab, but only managed to get water in his eyes. He rubbed his face with disgust.

“Hey guys!” one of the monkeys said. “Look what I got!” Gales of laughter erupted in the tree.

“Shut up!” Timon shouted from the nearby riverbank. “We’ll have gibbon instead of fish!”

At that remark, one of the monkeys pulled a ripe fruit and tossed it with almost flawless accuracy. At least it hit Pumbaa....

Others began to pull fruit, and Timon sounded a quick retreat. It was just in the nick of time, too. Fruit began landing all around them as they scrambled to put distance between themselves and the troop.

As Simba ran, he began to dwell on what he had lost. That fish meat would have tasted good. A curse on those monkeys! Maybe with a little more time things might have been different.

As Simba checked behind him to see if the monkeys were pursuing, he failed to notice the thinning trees around him. He absently noticed the light level increasing, but it failed to register until his front paws sank into soft grass instead of the spongy mat of leaves on the jungle floor.

He turned his head to look and sucked in a deep breath of awe. “Oh!”

Arrayed before him was an immense expanse of grassland, stretching out as far as he could see, the gentle fingers of the wind stirring the ground restlessly into a panorama of motion. He paused for a moment, the stepped out tentatively into the open.

Timon glanced at him apprehensively. “Hey? What’re ya doin’?!”

“This is beautiful!”

Timon and Pumbaa felt naked and exposed without the canopy of trees. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Simba had only good feelings. The cloying scent of rotting vegetation, ever present in the jungle, was gone, whisked away by a clean wind that brought the earthy smell of grass and ground, an ambrosia of scents that made his nostrils twitch with excitement. The last time he had breathed such scents, he had been but a child, the tall stalks of grass towering over his pudgy body as he waddled through the flora. Now he stood upright, the tops of the plants brushing his shoulders as he surveyed the plain, and nothing wad hidden from him. The faint flash of a thunderstorm on the horizon winked at him from far to the southwest, and a small herd of zebra paced leisurely a few miles off, bobbing their heads and gossiping in their singsong voices. He raised his head to look at the sky and grinned, settling down and rolling onto his back as he watched the clouds scud slowly by. “Oh yeah!” He sighed. “Come on, fellows! It’s OK. It’s great out here!”

“No thanks. We’ll stay here and watch.”

“Jeez! What is it with you two?” Irritated, Simba started to rise. Pushing himself up on his forepaws, he shifted, preparing to get up, when his ears flicked towards a sound from the grass behind him. He turned, seeing the stalks rustling and waving, but not from the wind. What breeze there was shifted slightly, and his nose twitched as he caught the long forgotten but unmistakable scent of a lioness. “Who’s there??” he said, frightened.

“Hey, it’s OK. I’m not going to rush you.” Timon and Pumbaa quivered in the underbrush as a golden face appeared. “My name is Sasha.”

Simba stared, entranced by the lovely visage. “Pretty name.”

“Thanks.”

He smiled. “Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to another of my own kind.”

“Are you a rogue lion?”

“Worse,” he said broodingly. “There’s something natural about a rogue lion. I’m--well--oh forget it.”

“You’re lonely? I can understand that.” She stepped from the grass, the entire length of a fully grown lioness revealing itself as she came to sit beside him. “How long has it been? A moon? Two?”

“Since I was three moons old.”

“My gods!” She looked at him with wonder. “How did you survive?”

Simba gestured over at Timon and Pumbaa. “I had help.”

“Them??” Sasha smiled. She looked back at Simba. “You mean you’ve been without lion friends since you were three moons old?”

“I’ve been without lion enemies too. You’re the first I’ve seen since my father....” He looked down.

She came to him and nuzzled him. “You poor dear!”

An embarrassed smile lit his face. “I forgot how good lionesses smell. But you look so small. I used to look up at my mom.”