The Last Roar ( Previously "The Whitest Lioness")

10 - The Cave of-not-even-close-to-wonders

It was a cave.

It had to be a cave, unless Uncle Pumbaa had decided finally to eat her, in which case she was in the largest warthog belly ever conceived by imagination. Plumes of green smoke skulked in the acrid air, swirling gradually around the dark columns of rock as if they had decided to stay and watch the show. Everything had the smell of brimstone and with the harsh low lighting she could have mistaken it for the Underworld.

Stirring from a sleep driven on by blood loss and muscle fatigue, Zula awoke abruptly to a wiry sound. She peered open her eyes and expected them to be closed, but the brim of pale light skirting the edges of her vision assured her that she was just bathed in shadow. There were dust rings around her muzzle, places where her breath had left its trail. Hissing, she scraped herself to her feet and stumbled, hitting the ground on her injured shoulder. She roared in agony despite her conscience chiding her. The subtle chinking sound disappeared, replaced by the clunk of clumsy feet across bare stone.

"Shenzi." Came the call of a low voice. It was laced with hesitance and urgency.

"Don't be stupid!" Snapped the hoarse voice of the hyena beta, "It's injured!"

Turning in a circle, spots danced in Zula's vision. Then she realised they weren't sickly spots, it was the pale beige spots imprinted on the angular back of the male hyena. She saw the brutish face of Shenzi glaring at her, but the lioness felt indifferent.

"You're a troublesome thing, lion." Banzai hissed in disgust, but it brought satisfaction to her face when Zula noticed he kept his head tucked against his chest, protecting his throat.

"How's the throat, hyena?" Zula coughed mockingly.

The hyena snarled and leapt forwards with his powerful flanks carrying him with ease. He smacked his lips together and rose his paw in an angry swipe. Just before it implanted in her side, Shenzi knocked the other hyena on his side.

"Don't do anything to her, fool! She is our meal ticket!" Shenzi spat. Banzai whimpered with irritation but only glared at the lioness before skulking back over to the pile of bones and picking one up with his jaws, biting into the side. The clunking noise continued. Zula looked sick.

"We don't eat until the job's done." Shenzi said coolly as she glanced at Zula, a debilitating shudder wracking through the lioness's body as she glanced into those toxic amber eyes. She remembered a lesson that Timon had taught her once – or was it Pumbaa, whose ideas were always stolen by the meerkat – that predators never attack unless you look away from their eyes. It was difficult and already a weight had settled on her shoulders. A line of pictures started dancing in those venomous ember flames in the hyena's eyes – gory scenes of hunts; teeth shredding through flesh, blood slick over their abnormal, hunched bodies, the fear in the eyes of the animals who were hunted. The prey. A sick feeling rose from Zula's bowels as she realised that that was the fate of her uncles, too. They had become the prey. She looked away quickly, fast as a desert cobra's strike, for fears of the images that were unwinding in her brain. Even staring at the dust-laden floors the images were glued to her eyelids – replaying in a constant loop. A white tattoo that drove grief through her heart.

"Accepted it, have you?" The voice of the male hyena was cruel and cold, "I know what it's like to lose a loved one. I lost my father when I was just a pup." He laughed, "Of course, hunger always outweighs grief in the end, doesn't it?"

A revolted pang struck her stomach.

"That's disgusting!" She spat.

The male hyena hovered in front of the cage of bones that withheld her - the ribcage of an elephant now rotted and bare. His sour breath - the very breath of Death itself - festered in her nostrils.

"Life is hard in the outlands, lion." Banzai's voice was a feral hiss, "I wouldn't expect you to understand, but you will."

"I would rather die than become like you." She snarled.

A wide, unnerving smile spread out on the hyena's flat-planed face that struck a nerve in her that made her legs quake.

"That can be arranged." He murmured hungrily.

The scent of rotting meat drifted through the air. Had it not been so potent, so dead, then she would have assumed that it was just the odour of the hyena's quickening breath on her face. Yet there was also the sound of a scraping – the noise of something heavy making a wide arch on the stone floors. There was a deafening thump - something had landed.

Shenzi rolled her venomous eyes into an agitated glare, "Finally."

The hyena slunk off in the direction of the darkest section in the cave. It was difficult for Zula to see that far, especially when the gas that fumed from the open mounds made her eyes sting. Shenzi was not too far gone; the lopsided shape of the hyena female stuck out vibrantly with its piebald pattern against the darkness - but something didn't make sense about the way the hyena was quaking. What did the hyena possibly have to fear? The other hyenas had, too, disappeared. Somehow, they managed to slink away into the darkness like two disembodied shadows - only a figment of Zula's crazed imagination. Surely, she would close her eyes and she would be back at the watering hole - Timon doing a wobbly impression of Rafiki while Pumbaa chuckled, accidentally releasing gas that made her pretend to retch.

She tried it. It didn't work.

The grating screech of talons grazing against rock made her flinch and scurry to the back of her cage. A thought raced in her mind that made her wonder if there was a possibility of her adversary not noticing she was in there - but the quickening lope of soft footfalls coming nearer and nearer to where she was huddled made it clear that the very idea was deluded.

Then something happened that made her question it.

"Azula." Called a smooth voice.

Heart hammering in her eardrums, the fear rose so violently in her stomach that she was worried that she would retch. The relief that she swallowed down her throat was almost overpowered by her maniac urge to collapse into a bundle of fur on the floor and sob.

She whispered helplessly, "Scar?"

"You are quite safe, my dear." The lion replied quietly, "You can come out - I'll be here to protect you."

The lioness timidly paced to the edge of the cage, her footprints creating a pattern in the fine, powdery dust that littered the floor. Once she saw the striking outline of the intimidating male lion, her knees almost buckled as she sprinted to him in relief.

"Scar, you're here!" Zula blubbered, "Th-there're hyenas. They were - they were going to -"

"Calm yourself, my dear." Scar muttered calmly.

The distressed lioness hardly took notice of the male sliding beside her so that his chest supported her back and his head fit comfortably over her head. Tears of hysteria were building up in her eyes that blurred her vision and she gratefully accepted his offer of letting her sob into his chest. Scar raked his claws gently along her back, soothing the lioness.

Lifting up her head, tears cascaded down the length of Zula's face.

"You came for me." Zula whispered, her blue eyes sparkling with gratitude, "Thank you, Scar."

The male lion smiled before leaning down and licking Zula's cheek, tasting the salt of her sorrow, before placing his head on hers.

"It's what any lion would do," Scar whispered, "for his future queen."

Zula scrambled to her feet, her eyes wide with awe, "What ?"

* - * - *

Until next time. . .