The water of the swamplands glistened brightly against the poweful rays of the setting sun. An old lioness stood in the midst of the dryer places, watching the sun sink behind the horizon. She glanced at the water with a bit of disgust, remembering the drier times, the times when the nomadic males and their wives first settled here. She was only a cub then, now she was the only one left who remembered the dry times.

"Baya!" Cried a younger lioness, "Uzuri is about to give birth!"

Baya lifted her head up high.

"What? The cub was not to come untill the dry season!"

"I know," Gasped the lioness, (obviously out of breath) "That's why we need you!"

Baya nodded, then put her old bones into action, and leapt into the water, swimming towards the den site. She could hear Uzuri's screams of pain and the easily ecitable chatter of  Dene, the gossip. She allways had to know everything, and if she didn't, utter chaos.

"Where's Tau?" Dene questioned as Baya trotted into the cave.

Baya said nothing.

"I said, where is he?" The Gossipy lion snapped.

The grandmother lioness just padded over to Uzuri, who was sobbing with pain.

"It will be all right Uri, just breathe..."

Dene turned to the Lioness who had gone to find Baya

"Why didn't you find Tau, our leader?" She growled.

"I searched everywhere!" the young lioness replied insolenty.

"Shut up!" Snapped another lioness.

Uzuri screamed again, and blood began to ooze from her body.

"Oh... no..." The pride whispered.

Baya was painicking, she didn't know what to do anymore, when the cub appeared, she was overtaken with greif.

"They... they aren't breathing!" Dene screeched.

Uri's eyes glazed over,  

"Jamila... " She whispered, "Jamila..."

Her head went limp, and the cub cried out.

"UZURI!!!"

Baya looked up and saw Tau standing in the entrance of the cave, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

"No..." he padded over to his dead wife and nudged her in sadness.

"What will I do without you?"

Jamila screeched again, terribly small, but alive.

Baya cleaned her, and placed her before the Leader.

"You have Jamila." She said softly.

Tau carefully pulled the small cub into the mane on his chest.

"Kayoa, you are nursing cubs right?"

A loiness nodded slowly from the back of the cave.

"Take her, will you?"

"Yes sir." She replied, and came forward to take the cub.

"Now," Baya said in mizery "We will bury our queen."

Jamila squeaked as she nuzzled in with the other cubs, nursing peacefully as Kayoa smiled gently.

"Your mother was the queen, and you are a princess."

END PART 1