Chapter 4: To Die For
Part 12: Aftermath
The sun was low on the horizon when Simba finally opened his eyes again. He was back in the den at Pride Rock, laying on his stomach on the cool stone floor. Everything hurt, but the pain was considerably less than it had been before he passed out. “Ugh…” The cub tried to move, but his body was still far too weak. Instead, Simba merely raised his head a few inches off the ground and slowly looked around. He was relieved to find Nala lying next to him just a few feet away. However, that relief quickly turned to dread as the prince realized just how bad the cub looked. The girl’s normally cream-colored fur was stained a dirty brown with dried blood, and although her eyes were closed, her face was scrunched in pain. Simba glanced down at Nala’s back leg, now wrapped tightly with large, blood-soaked leaves. Her whole body was shivering, and her breathing was labored. “Nala…”
“Oh thank the kings! Mufasa, he’s awake!” Sarabi cried as she rushed over to her son and wrapped her paws around him in a relieved embrace. “Simba, it’s okay, you’re safe. I’m here now. You’re back in the den.”
“Mom,” Simba gave his mother a small smile. “What…happened?”
“It’s…a long story,” Sarabi sighed sadly. “There’s a lot we have to tell you. But first, how do you feel, son?”
The prince winced as he struggled to raise his paw. “I can barely move,” the cub muttered worriedly. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re just exhausted,” the queen smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Rafiki says you’ll be running around again in a few days. You just need to rest for a while.”
“Oh, ok,” the prince sighed with relief. For a moment he had wondered if he would ever be able to move again. The young lion winced as a wave of nausea briefly passed over him. He was still in pain, and his thoughts struggled to penetrate the haze that clouded his mind. Even so, the cub was full of questions. “How…did you find us?”
King Mufasa gently rested a large paw on his son’s shoulder and began stroking the cub’s matted fur as he answered. “Simba,” the large lion sighed, “the hyenas that kidnapped Nala… It was all a trap. We were ambushed as soon as we crossed into the Outlands. There must have been dozens of hyenas…”
“And they were all going straight for your father,” Sarabi interrupted. “I think this whole thing was set up to lure him out there.”
Simba shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get it… Why would they do that?”
“Well,” Mufasa paused, unsure how to explain to his son without worrying him. “The hyenas don’t like me very much, and I think they wanted to, uh, to hurt me. But don’t worry,” the king gently tussled the fur on the top of Simba’s head with his large paw. “They were no match for all of us. We managed to capture one of them and forced him to tell us where they had taken Nala. That’s how we knew where to find you.”
“Oh…” Something still wasn’t adding up for the prince. What about his Uncle Scar? Where was he? And why didn’t he come to the rescue when Simba never came back from the cave? But before Simba could ask these disturbing questions, a deep coughing sound suddenly arose next to him. With a building sense of dread, the prince turned his head back towards the stricken Nala. Sarafina now had the girl gently cradled in her paws and was crying softly as she used her tongue to clean the dried blood from her daughter’s fur. “Mom, what about…?” Simba’s voice cracked.
Sarabi and Mufasa exchanged worried glances. When Mufasa finally answered, his tone was soft and his words were carefully measured. “Simba… Nala is in pretty bad shape. She…lost a lot of blood from her injuries and…and we’re not sure if she’s going to make it.”
“No!” Simba whispered as his heart dropped. “No, there has to be something we can do!”
“Son, I promise we’re doing everything we can. We’ve stopped the bleeding, now it’s up to her to recover. You know Nala is very strong. She won’t go down that easily.”
“Yeah,” Simba nodded, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, she’s got to.”
Sarabi nuzzled her son comfortingly, holding back tears of her own. “Sarafina thought that Nala might recover faster if you stayed over here with her. We know you two have grown pretty close lately…”
Simba nodded determinedly as he gingerly crawled closer to the girl and gently grabbed her paw with his own. Almost immediately, the unconscious Nala stopped shivering. “I won’t leave her until she gets better,” the prince promised. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
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4 years, 4 months ago
05 Sep 2020 21:14 CEST
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