Chronicals Of The PrideLands II - Clip by John Burkitt!

    I'm giving you bit of background on this piece that needs to accompany the excerpt. This text is still in flux as you read it--revising the whole long work will be a real bear! Now then: As readers of the first Chronicles well knew, Sarabi loved Taka's spirit dearly but did not end up being attracted to him sexually. Zira wanted him, mind heart and body, but only ended up with an affair. He admitted to her that it was not a love match, but he would share in her pleasures. So she tried very hard to content herself with that. Still, to the end, she tried to get more out of him than just sex. Now that he is dead, she is bitterly jealous of Elanna (Scar's mate) and Sarabi (his first love) and she unleashes her torment it in one of the most bitter, evil, vengeful, downright impolite dialogs in the entire work. She's saying this to the King's mother, mind you, and this, folks, is how she got her furry little patootie kicked out into exile....

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    Sarabi drew close to what was for her consecrated ground, a pilgrimage to the place where Taka died. Though the 'Scar' he had become had killed her Mufasa, she could not help missing the young idealist that had once begged her to come away with him. It was this young Taka she came to mourn, not the lion that died on that spot.
As she stroked the stain of blood on the stone where he died, tears filled her eyes.
    "My poor little nisei, if I had loved you the way you loved me, things would have been different. I’m so sorry. So sorry!"
    "You SHOULD be," another lioness hissed.
Sarabi looked around startled. "Zira!"
    "Yes, Zira. Little Zira the tattle tale. Plain little Zira. Oh, did I forget any other names? You can refresh my memory-you knew them all."
    "Leave me alone. Have you no respect for the dead?"
    "And you had respect for him?"
    "I loved him."
    "You loved him!" she spat.
    "Yes I loved him! Feelings more deep and gentle than you’ve ever felt in your miserable life! Beautiful dreams, hopes, anxieties, grief, and love that nothing he did could wipe out, even killing my husband!"
    "Dreams?? Hopes??" She drew close and whispered, "Anxieties?" She burst out laughing. "Let me tell you how I loved him, girl! I didn’t just lie there like a dead zebra the way YOU did with Mufasa, hoping something would happen! When Scar and I were together, we were locked together in a dance of passion, a glorious triumph of sexual ecstacy that made the earth shake beneath our feet! I gave him such a ride he used to howl like a moon-crazed dog and when he left me he was hardly able to WALK!" She spat again. "Why don’t YOU get out and leave ME alone! I’m the only one here that knows what she’s missing!"
    Zira looked into Sarabi’s face, watching her chin tremble and her ears lie back. Letting her hate show felt satisfying for a moment, but she knew at once it had been a mistake.

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Writing that was fun!
John B.