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Nala walked beside Uzuri. Despite the fact that she could be no more than three or four years Nala's senior, Uzuri seemed to be inhabited with a deep wisdom that any pride matriarch would be proud of. Nala looked at the stones set into the ground upon which she now walked. Uzuri had said that the issue here was not so much that this pride believed in something else, but that it was cohabiting with humans. Nala could see how the larger issue overshadowed the other, but unlike Uzuri, who thought that the matter of belief was inconsequential, Nala could not discard it out of hand.

She could, however, put it out of mind for now; at least long enough to learn the ways of the pride from Uzuri, or whatever she intended to show her now. They arrived back in one of the common areas. The young humans were still mingling with the mostly sleeping lions or else interacting with one or other of the strange wooden or stone decorations. "So it seems you were already introduced to one of the classes." Said Uzuri, imparting a knowing look.

Nala hesitated a moment, shuffling her paws on the dusty stone. "What did Fauzi tell you?"

Uzuri raised a paw and smiled, "No need to get defensive. I don't imagine that coming from the wild you've ever seen a human before, let alone a couple dozen younglings."

With some effort, Nala smoothed the fur on the back of her neck and looked at the crowd. Already there were two youngsters ambling up to greet the new lions. Nala flinched only slightly as a slightly taller female one pawed at the tawny fur on her shoulder. "They don't seem very dangerous." Said Nala, relenting.

"Oh, but they are." Said Uzuri despite the fact that corralled the male counterpart from Nala's side and was now muzzling the top of the boy's scraggly tuft of black fur with her nose. "Quite dangerous."

Nala sat, stiffly enduring the pets and pats from the girl at her side. Nala weighed as much as ten times more than the half grown human cub. "How so?" asked Nala uneasily.

Uzuri was in the process now of rolling over and exposing her tummy to her young lad. However she spoke as if this was perfectly ordinary behavior for a full grown lioness. "The story goes that before we made friend with our neighbors, the tradition was for human younglings, not much larger than these, to sneak up on a lion and yank its tail."

Nala's tail lashed in sympathy. "That sounds unpleasant."

"Not as unpleasant as getting stabbed with a spear, or shot with a bow. It makes sense if they learn how to do the one when they are this small, they can do the latter when they are older."

Nala stood, shaking off the girl for a moment by moving behind Uzuri. The other lioness completed her roll and began to rise. "I thought you were trying to get me to like humans." Said Nala.

"I never claimed any such thing." Said Uzuri and with a deft and gentle movement of her paws, she turned about the young ones and steered them off back towards the center of the common area. "I just want you to understand how we do things here and it wouldn't do for you to think humans were harmless. That will get you killed almost as fast as thinking they are your enemies."

"Then what are humans?" asked Nala, somewhat snarky.

"They are partners." Said the lioness twisting a paw in the air, "But they are powerful partners."

Nala let her eyes slid over the common area again, examining the children, the lazing lions. "So what is happening here?"

Uzuri gestured with a paw, "Education mostly, or rather acclimation. The partnership is almost as unnatural for them as it is for us. Humans need to be raised as children not to fear us. Here, they get a chance to shake any fear out of them while they are young. As for the others," Now Uzuri pointed toward a small gathering of young humans with their teacher and their carved idol, "They are learning the stories of the spirits and attuning themselves with one of the shrines. Shortly, they will make offerings, for some of them it will be their first."

Then, even as Nala watched, the instructor took from his sash a small waxy package. He inserted his thumb and it came away with the red of fresh blood. He fell to his knees, smeared the blood on the idol and bent his head in prayer. Soon the packet was going around and all the children were copying the genuflections. Nala was mildly distasted with the affair. "See?" said Uzuri. "That man is making an offering of blood in return for good luck. The shrines here are considered to be more potent than the ones in town because we live here. It's also why there are so many of them around."

"So that's it?" asked Nala. "He just smears blood on a rock and in return these... spirits grant their favor?"

Uzuri's grin was unshakable, she said, "Basically yes, blood and the right prayers and..." she made an encompassing gesture with her head, "Us, as the gods' messengers. I could explain more, but you don't look like you want a theology lesson just now."

Nala shook her head. Then Uzuri began walking through the common area and Nala followed. She tried very hard to ignore the passing pets and the small hands on her coat as she walked. "And the lions here. They truly believe in the same things as the humans?" asked the pridelander, still slightly shaken.

Uzuri bobbled her head in consideration. "Well... yes, I suppose we do. Although our own methodology differs slightly. We're supposed to be closer to the spirits than men, after all." She trilled a little laugh and Nala thought that Uzuri might be as without faith as her brother Fauzi. "And there's the language barrier of course too. Even during the best of times, things don't translate very well. But the neighbors expect us to do our own thing, so there's no problems there."

Nala suddenly thought of a larger problem as they began walking down another stone path, one leading through the trees and towards the savanna beyond. "Translate? You mean that your pride speaks with the humans? Mirembe mentioned something like that, but I wasn't sure..."

Uzuri's pace faltered, but only for a moment. "Oh, well, perhaps 'translate' is not quite the right word. None of the neighbors can speak like a lion nor can we speak their tongue."

"Then how do you communicate?" asked Nala, interested now despite herself.

"Oh, pantomime mostly and simple habit." Said the lioness leading Nala, shaking her shoulders and legs a little as she walked. "Mother is the only one who really claims to speak with the neighbors and that's due to divine inspiration and whatnot."

"Divine-what?" asked Nala confused.

"It'll make more sense once I show you the town." Said Uzuri shortly. "But before we go, we need to make sure you've eaten. It wouldn't do to have you misbehave while we are there."

"Mis-" stuttered Nala. "I will not-" but Uzuri cut her off.

"You say that now, but you don't understand, you can't. We have to get you nice and full so that you won't be tempted to kill anything you're not supposed to." Uzuri had whipped her head around to say this to Nala and her eyes silenced the younger lioness. "Or do you object to another meal?"

Nala licked her chops, self aware of her protruding ribs and her gaunt, unattractive hips. "It's been a very long time since I've eaten two days in a row, but I can certainly eat if there is meat available."

Uzuri tittered again, "We have more carcasses than we know what to do with. Better that they be in you than in a vulture's belly, or, spirits forbid, a stinking hyena."

Nala smelled the offal long before they came to where the bodies of the animals drowned in the flood had been collected. It was outside of the shrine proper, Uzuri led the way through the pathless, leaf strewn ground. "We don't usually have a surplus of food." Uzuri commented, "The men slaughter animals as we need them, but this is where we bring the few kills we make. Nobody is usually hungry enough to eat a whole animal so we share." Then the lioness paused, looking back, "I'm sorry, I must sound pretentious talking about food like this when you obviously haven't had enough."

"It's alright." Said Nala who had been thinking exactly the same thing. "You shouldn't apologize for having plenty." The pridelander licked her chops again. Although her belly was still somewhat engorged for her feast the other day, she felt the familiar hunger, or perhaps not so much hunger as an eagerness to make the most of an opportunity to recover from the many long months of slow starvation.

Nala was stepping on bones even before they came to the place. It was not altogether different from any other random patch of forest, save that this copse opened out onto savanna about a dozen body lengths away from the edge where they entered and extended another five lengths further into the woods. It was as if a great cat had pawed the forest, scooping out the trees in a long narrow trough. The grass was tall here, but here and there, pure white bone poked through the tufts. Lying next to Nala's foot up against a tree trunk was a broken skull of some large herbivore that the pridelander didn't recognize.

But Nala hardly took this in because littered about the place were at least two dozen large carcasses, mostly buffalo and antelope, but there was even a big black rhinoceros, its rough hide already ravaged by the exploring teeth of the pride. The bodies were pristine other than evidence of blunt force trauma, some broken necks and legs. But that hardly mattered. There was more fresh meat here than Nala had seen since the day Mufasa had died.

Nala was rendered speechless, but Uzuri moved ahead sharply. It was then that Nala saw that they were not alone. There, on the other side of the rhino, a broad tawny back was visible and a tail lashing with delight upon thick thighs and buttocks. "Paka!" called Uzuri, now loping along and forcing Nala to run to keep up. "What are you doing here? You told me you were going down to the river for a swim."

The obese lioness lifted her head to look at the two lions quickly approaching. She was all gore from her lips down to the bottom of her generous brisket. "I... I did. I came back and I thought that I'd have a snack... after all that swimming."

Uzuri reached her younger sister before Nala. Paka got a swat to the head as Uzuri forced her to back up from the large carcass. "Liar! I saw you leaving after midday siesta. You haven't enough time to get down to the river and back." Uzuri looked at the damage to the rhino's flank, it was quite substantial. "You've just been here stuffing yourself this whole time haven't you?"

Paka shrank before Uzuri's wrath, that is inasmuch as a lioness as flabby as Paka could 'shrink.' But she recovered after a moment. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and whether intentional or not, that fatty brisket of hers which hung ahead of her thick forepaws collided with Uzuri's chest as her bulk settled from the sudden movement. "And so what if I was? I was hungry."

Uzuri's eyes narrowed and made Nala feel like slinking away herself. Fortunately she was entirely forgotten as obviously some older disagreement was boiling over just now. "If your belly gets any larger, Paka, you won't be able to fit through the trees!"

"You're being absurd, Uzuri." Said Paka defiantly. She shook her broad, heavy flanks for effect and added, "I'm just taking advantage of a good situation here. How long do you think it will be before these bodies are so putrid only hyenas and vultures will be able to eat them?"

Uzuri shook her head slowly, "You know this isn't about that. When was the last time you even ran?"

Paka puffed angrily. "I don't see what that has anything to do with me. Why are you making such a big deal out of this. I don't expect to have to run for a living."

"You don't expect to do anything for a living, Paka." Said Uzuri harshly. "As for why I'm making such a big deal out of this, you're already the fattest lion in the pride, and you don't seem to care."

"Maybe I don't care, Uzuri, did you think of that?" said Paka, now turning away from her elder sister.

"You should care. You're an embarrassment to the rest of us." Said Uzuri, her tone dark.

Paka gasped and her expression changed. She looked hurt and on the verge of tears, her bravado evaporating. "You're the only one who harps on me about my weight, Uzuri!" she cried, tears flashing in watery eyes. Then, with dark stain running down her snout, she faced down Uzuri again. "You're just jealous I'm setting a new trend! Fauzi is always complementing me on how I look."

"Fauzi is a degenerate. Any other male will soon mistake you for a hippo at the rate you're-"

Paka rose up with surprising speed and slapped Uzuri across the face, leaving thin streaks of red which began to ooze blood. The obese, lion then jogged off, her fat rippling across the entirety of her enlarged body. She was soon out of sight, but Nala could still hear the sounds of her sobbing after she was gone. Uzuri hissed and moistened a paw, sitting and rubbing her smarting cheek. Her eyes turned to Nala for the first time and the pridelander stiffened under their narrow penetration. "Well, what are you waiting for? There's one lion here at least that's in need of a few good meals."