"Touch of the Nisei" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burkitt John H., Morris David A., Layton Ian)

CHAPTER: IN MEMORIUM

The search party quietly headed back without their Pride sister. Even the cubs were hushed as the lionesses slowly made their way through the grasses with their heads and tails hung low. Simba, who had stayed at Pride Rock to guard against the last of the hyena stragglers, saw the group approach. One look at their posture affirmed in his mind that Elanna was lost to them. Silently, he made his way to the queen mother. “I’m sorry mom...” he said softly to her as he rubbed against her gently.

Sarabi looked up at her new king, her eyes still wet with tears, “At least I have you, son.”

It had been a long time since Rafiki had been able to walk out alone without the confines of his hyena jailers. Even through the somber mood of the night, he was determined to make the most of his new freedom. He went to each of the pride members and blessed and stroke each of them in turn. He even had a special blessing for Timon and Pumbaa. Slowly, he began to fill in the gaps in the last two years of his life. He quickly ran out of his jerky as he gave all the cubs a treat...and even the lionesses he remembered as nothing but a cub.

As he went through the pride, he treated their wounds. True to his words, there were enough herbs for the lions of the pride, even if he would have nothing for his aching joints that night. It had been indeed fortunate that no one was seriously hurt, the worse injuries being some cuts and bruises. The hyenas that followed Shenzi were quick to leave after they passed their sentence on the former king and upon seeing their cousins fighting with the lions. Still, in the distance, their sounds could be heard, mocking the newly freed pride.

As the evening passed into night and the lions were able to rest their sore bodies, it was time to remember the lost member of the pride. Sarabi, being her sister, called the group together for a memorial to their fallen pridemate.

Rafiki stepped into the circle of lionesses. Everyone knew how he felt about Taka, and for this reason he was the only one left alive that could speak the opening words freely.

“Great Aiheu, we commend to your care Elanna, and pray that she will be reunited with her husband. And may Taka....” The mandrill leaned heavily on his staff as tears streamed down his face. “Grant them peace. Forgive him as I have forgiven him. He loved me once. He really did love me.”

As Rafiki stepped away, Isha came forward. “She was gentle and kind. And how she suffered! I wish I’d known her better.”

Ajenti did not step forward, but she stammered, “Me too.”

Nala crept to the center of the circle. “She really loved children, though she had none of her own. She was always very nice to me. She was always sad, but one time she sang to me. She had a very pretty voice, you know.”

Nala edged back to Simba who nuzzled her and pawed her face.

As the turn passed from lioness to lioness, most remembered her strength. How, even through the mental isolation from her pride, she stayed faithful to her husband to the very end. How even through their scorn, she still loved everyone. The cubs remembered how kind she was...how she would always want to give them affection and how she would, the few times that she could, always had a story for them.

Finally, it came to her sister, Sarabi.

Sarabi sighed softly as the memory of her sister and their cubhood comes back to her mind. The wind whispered quietly among them. Her face remained motionless except for the slow blinking of her eyes. The other lionesses began to stir uneasily, looking to one another uncertainly as they sought an answer to her silence. Thus it was that they all started nervously when she spoke.

"Elanna...." A wan smile creased Sarabi's face and she looked up finally, her gaze passing through the gathered pride into a haze of time into which only she could penetrate. A half sob, half laugh escaped her and she looked down again, staring through the air. "I keep thinking of a day, back when we were cubs..." She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a paw, smiling. "Once she saved my life. We were lost in a cave, and though I never told anyone about his, I nearly drowned--or worse--in the haunted cave under Pride Rock. She pulled me from the water. And how did I repay her?” New tears welled from her eyes. "I'd give anything to have her back here again...oh gods, I can't even remember what she smelled like before those damn hyenas defiled this place." She shivered, gripped by the terrible agony of her grief. "I'd give anything to be able to look her in her eyes...and tell her I'm sorry!"

Silence gripped the group as the former queen looked up to the sky. "I hope you are happy, sister, with your husband. I wish you all the joy in the next world that you never had in this one." She drew a deep breath and uttered a mournful roar, venting her pain in a cacophony of sound echoed by her pride sisters as it swept across the savanna into the depths of the night.