Elanna laughed. “Just don’t let HER hear that!” She pawed Wehu. “Thank you! You have really made me want to stay.”
Wehu chuckled and nuzzled her. “It’s good to finally see someone that my mother can’t scare off.” She smiled. “Now come on. I know you’d rather hunt than sit cubs.” The two lionesses disappeared into the grass, Elanna eager to prove herself.
CHAPTER: THE DOCTOR IS IN
Mabongo was resting, something he was very accomplished at as a lion, but even more since he was older. Ujuzi came and nudged him with a paw. “Wake up, Bobo!”
One eye opened. “I wasn’t asleep. I was resting my eyes.”
“Then you won’t mind having a go at it?”
Both eyes opened wide and he sniffed the air. “Ujuzi, could it be that I didn’t notice? Is it that time for you?”
Ujuzi laughed merrily. “I meant wrestling, you old fool!”
Mabongo rose slowly and stretched. “Do you know how long it’s been since you asked me that?”
“Too long,” Ujuzi said, unwilling to speculate. “Now let’s see you work off some of that fat.”
“Fat? Me??”
Ujuzi snickered at him. She popped his thigh with a paw. “Fat little legs.” She ducked and touched his belly. “Check out that flab!”
“That’s muscle!” Mabongo said, getting into position.
“Put on much more muscle, you won’t fit in your cave!”
“That did it!!”
Mabongo stood ready for all comers. Ujuzi sprang at him, laughing. She sought to bear him to the ground.
Mabongo easily ducked her. “So I’m fat, am I??” He whipped out with a paw as she passed under him and grasped her shoulder. Coming down on her, he bore down with his weight. But she would not be easily won. Despite her age, she was a huntress, not the hunted. And she squirmed away, wrapping her paws around his neck. A few thrusts of her back legs got her the purchase on the grass she needed, and she shoved him over.
Ujuzi tussled with him as he lay on his back. Mabongo laughed, then reached up with both arms, not to wrestle, but to draw her face to his. He rubbed her cheek and kissed her. “My golden treasure. Oh, I love you, girl!”
“I need to hear you say that sometimes.”
“Am I old? Am I stodgy and no fun?”
Ujuzi said, “Heavens, no! You’re wonderful! I pledged to you once. I’d renew my vows if you wanted it.”
Mabongo rolled on his side, taking her with him. As they lay panting in the grass, looking deeply into each other’s eyes, he said softly, “You know, there’s no shame in growing old, not if you have someone that loves you to grow old with. Oh girl, I’d die if you left me!”
She stroked his mane. “No chance of that, Bobo! No chance of that! Nothing, and no one will come between us, my love!” Ujuzi kissed him, then got up and trotted away as quickly as he came. Mabongo closed his eyes and went back to sleep, a happy smile on his face.
For her trouble, Ujuzi ached all over, even in muscles she forgot she had. She would never let HIM know that, and she headed to see her friend, Uzima the Shaman.
Ujuzi had been walking quite a distance and her muscles were beginning to protest every step she took. She knew it was only a little bit longer. Finally...she reached a solitary tree in the open savanna. Uzima...come down here!” she cried out.
Quietly a mandrill’s head pokes down from the tree, “Who dares disturbs my sleep?? Go away--come back tomorrow!”
“Get your ugly blue butt down here on the double!”
A laugh was heard, “And what if I don’t?”
She growled up to him, “You know good and well that I will come up there...”
Another laugh, “I would like to see you try.”
Ujuzi grunted and braced her forepaws against the trunk of the tree. With a powerful push of her hind legs, she managed to clear the ground. Grunting loudly in exhaustion, she pushed her self to the lower branch, just barely above her height over the ground. With another laugh, the mandrill joined her on the branch, “How long has it been since you have done that?”
Ujuzi looked at him, “I can’t remember the last time I climbed a tree...” She looked down at the ground, gripping the branch tighter, “Damn...I’m surprised I got this high.”
Uzima chuckled. “Ahh...the mastery of the language...your father’s blood does course through you...”
She growled, “Don’t you start on my butt too...”
He nodded, “Come on down to the ground...then we'll talk...” With that, the mandrill flipped gracefully to the ground. The lioness looked down, holding on tightly. Finally...she simply let go and fell gracelessly to the ground, landing with a dull thump and raising a cloud of dust. The monkey chuckled, seeing the lioness get up and shake the dust out of her fur. “Never was able to master the dismount.”
She growled softly and moved to him. The mandrill smiled and wrapped his arms around her neck, fondling her face and kissing her. “What brings the great queen all the way out to see me?”
She sighed, “Am I getting older, friend? I was wrestling with Mabongo the way we used to, and kings above does my body ache!”
He laughed, “The only ones not getting older are dead, Ujuzi...it’s a part of life. Your body is telling you to slow down.” He looked her over slowly. “Why the sudden interest in your age? That wrestling match get you down?”
“I missed on the hunt. Me! I hadn’t done that in ages.”
He looked at her, “Everyone misses at times...”
She continued, “Then my daughter gave me the position of beater, something that is given to the worse hunter or the injured lioness. I haven’t been the beater since I was my granddaughter’s age."
Uzima started to stroke her fur, rubbing the deep muscles of her shoulder. “It’s all right...someone has to take that position.”
“But I’m the queen...doesn’t that mean anything?” she protested?
“Wasn’t it you that taught your daughter that position in the pride doesn’t carry to the hunting grounds? I seem to remember you saying something like that.”
She sighed. "But for all your monkey mumbo jumbo, you still know what it means! I don't like double talk, ape. I'm washed up--through--and from here on out it's only going to get worse."
He worked her shoulders, loosening up the muscles and eliciting a contented grunt from the old lioness. "That's the price of perfection--any change is for the worse."
"You have a civil tongue in your head, I'll grant you."
"And you have friends that love you." He continued to work on her shoulders, making her purr softly.
“I don’t want to grow old," she said, like a cub that is afraid of the dark mewing to her mother. "Please tell me how to be young again.”
He looked in her eyes with pity. “You should know better than that. You know even my spells have limits.” He grinned slightly, “Don’t you think that I would have used it on myself?” He smiled and continued to work on her shoulders. “Besides...you are only as old as you feel.”
She smiled, but with a tinge of sadness. “That old?”
He changed to the other side. “You need to slow down at your age. Please...dearie...don’t do what your mother did...she worked herself to death. Let the future of the pride take some of the burden from you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s not just the hunt. I wouldn't mind being beater if that was all of it! It’s my husband!” She looked at him with tears in his eyes. “I think I might be losing him.”
He shook his head, scandalized. “Mabongo chasing tails?? Him?? That lion would never leave you dearie! He loves the very ground you walk on!”