Journey To Kin

Chapter Four

Yawn...

Fuli blinked the sleepy fuzziness out of her eyes. All she could think about were two things. One: how —now that she looked— how Kion looked didn't quite align with how his so-called 'parents' looked, and two: her paws were literally about to fall off.

However, she couldn't clearly see her lion friend now in the front of the group as the rays of the early sunset were shining directly at them. So that left her with my paws are literally about to fall off. The cheetah looked back with half lidded eyes and could see no one else looked any better. Makini half walked, half hobbled, and Anga's wingbeats above them were less and less powerful each time, letting the eagle sink lower from her regal position in the sky. Bunga and Ono were both resting on Beshte, whose steps were heavy and without his usual pep.

"Man, I'm beat!" Bunga moaned, placing a forepaw on his head. "Kiooooooooooon!" he called to the leading lion further ahead. "Can we take a breaaakk yet?"

"Not now, Bunga." His voice too was laced with exhaustion as he glanced back, his form more hunched over than anyone else's. "We need to get to the tree as fast as possible."

The sun's rays were so bright it was hard to focus on Kion in front of them, but his form stopping suddenly and a paw raised towards his face made Fuli trot closer despite the additional huge aches traveling up her legs each time they moved faster. "Kion, are you okay?"

Kion didn't turn to face her, but then he leaned a little bit in her direction and suddenly sidestepped. Fuli, quick as a cheetah could be, thrust her shoulders under his chest to catch him. Her already exhausted legs trembled under the dead weight of a growing male lion, but she managed to hold them both up.

"Kion!" the others cried, rushing over to them. Fuli could feel the rising and falling of his chest against her shoulders as his breaths grew more labored, shakily steadying himself to a stand again. Muscles all over her body screamed with relief as she sat back.

"Are you okay?!" Beshte asked.

"What happened?!" Ono squawked.

"Let me check you over!" Makini squeaked, running in front of him. She put her ear to his chest. Fuli held her breath as the mandrill pulled away, then took his face in her hands and laid them across his forehead. "His pulse is okay and there's no fever!"

"See? I'm fine... We'll just keep going..."

"You are not fine!" Fuli had to draw a line in the sand somewhere. "You literally just collapsed! We've been walking all day and we need to rest!" 

She held Kion's gaze. Determined emerald eyes met tired but just as headstrong orange-brown. All day, he'd hadn't been right. Heck, he'd lost control of the Roar twice! Was it because of the venom in his injury or because of all the stress of the day? Fuli knew it couldn't just be stress; Kion was good under pressure, but she hated Rafiki's explanation-prediction of him basically losing his sanity. Getting a good look at him, she could see he was worse for wear than the others. His stance was anything but firm, his fur was ruffled and messy, and the bit of sprouting mane at the top of his head was scraggly and knotted. Finally Kion gave in with a weary "Okay..." and his bagged eyes lowered in submission. He looked around at their surroundings. The orange sky illuminated the lightly tree-dotted grasslands stretching out before them, the two-peaked mountain looming closer than just the horizon. Off to the side, however, was a fallen baobab tree with a hollowed out inside. "There."

Fuli made herself stand again. Walking a couple hundred more pawsteps was kind of torture. The day had been so long... They'd just battled for the Pridelands that morning... Fuli had so much endurance for a cheetah, a type of animal who wasn't exactly known for stamina, but this...