Yeah, so first off, I actually finally had someone come right out and say my author's note were too long. I mean, I knew that the whole time, but I guess now I should really get around to shortening them now that I know y'all have just been humoring me. I don't think that's a bad assumption. Anyway, moving on.
Obviously, this isn't your average "Pridelanders" update. Essentially, this is Chapter Fifteen all over again, except the one that I had actually planned to do from the very first outline of the story. I'm funny like that. Anyway, for those of you that just stumbled across this story, "The Shadow" is a companion fic to "The Pridelanders", and as such takes a great deal of plot events, characters, and locations from it. In other words, you're not gonna have a clue what's going on if you haven't read that story all the way through. With this first part, you could get away with just knowing the first few chapters, but this fic ends exactly where Part One of "The Pridelanders" does. So get reading, new people.
For those of you who want to review, I would love some feedback on the writing style of this fic in particular. I've been trying to get rid of a lot of the old, clichéd language I've had a tendency to fall back on in the past, so any comments on that would be greatly appreciated.
I think that's all for now. Enjoy the fic. And for the record, this totally counts as a "shortened" author's note. After the one I did for the end of Chapter Seventeen, I can say that with a straight face.
The Shadow: Part 1
Amani
Sometimes it scares me how quickly the world can change.
Three days ago, I was nobody. Three days ago, I was just a shadow among ghosts, waiting for a miracle and hoping that no one would notice me in the meantime. And now, after the world had turned on its head and that miracle had been delivered right into my paws…I was still nobody. I wouldn't speak because I couldn't speak; I wouldn't act because I couldn't bear what the consequences might be. In three days, everything had changed, but I was still the same.
I was still a coward.
A blast of icy wind cut across my ears and down my back for the hundredth time. The wind that had been so strong earlier had died down a little during the night, but not enough to stop it from sneaking into the crevice I was holed up in every other minute. I'd been awake the whole night, and that was just one of the reasons why.
The other reason was fast asleep on the other side of the tiny cave, his deep brown fur fluttering in the breeze. His breathing was even, and every so often his nose would twitch in his sleep. Four times in the last ten minutes. I had counted.
Why was I like this? Why would I get so close to him and then pretend he wasn't looking at me? Why couldn't I open myself up long enough to him to see inside just once?
No, I knew exactly why. It was because I was afraid of what he would see. I was afraid he would see me like I saw me. Like everyone probably saw me.
And yet I needed him to see. I needed so desperately to have someone I could trust, someone I could talk to. Someone I wouldn't have to be afraid around.
Someone like Mom.
All my life, she'd been the only one I trusted. Everyone always said I looked just like her. I had her eyes, they said, and they were right. My mom's eyes were blue as the sky and just as bright, and on those special nights when we went to the watering hole and snuggled up together by the bank, I could hardly tell the difference between the two pairs floating just beneath the water's surface. We used to go out there all the time. She used to call me her "little sunshine."
I loved those nights.
We left so fast that I never even got to say goodbye. She probably thought I had just run away from her, like all the others had their own mothers. She probably thought I was dead, and if not that she would never see me again. That we'd never share a sunset on the water's edge again. That I wasn't her sunshine anymore.
I wasn't anyone's sunshine anymore.
I didn't notice I was crying until the first tear fell onto my forepaw. The single drop slid down my fur and parted the grime of our escape like a tiny white rabbit bounding through the savannah, and then the trail it left widened and dissolved into a jumbled blur. One tear became two, and two became a hundred.
But even now, I cried quietly. Even now, I didn't want anyone to see me. I didn't want him to see me, especially like this. Especially when he was why I couldn't sleep, and why I couldn't speak, and why the last three days of my life could have been the happiest of my life if I'd only allowed them to be.
Maybe it was love. Maybe it was obsession. Maybe I just wanted someone to replace my mother. But the only thing I knew for sure was that whatever the reason, I needed Tama more than anything else in the world. And he had absolutely no idea, because in the whole time we'd been together I'd never had the courage to tell him. To him, I was always just a friend, just an accomplice. Just a shadow. And with each passing second, I knew with ever-increasing certainly that that was all I would ever be.
• • •
NINE MONTHS EARLIER
My mom says that when I was born, I was the tiniest thing she'd ever seen. She told me that when Rafiki handed me to her she was afraid that I would shatter into a thousand pieces if she wasn't careful. But I guess that wasn't true, because I never really got much bigger and I haven't broken yet.
I never really met my dad. I think he was there for a while when I was really little, but after that I didn't see him anymore. Mom said he went out in the grasslands one day and didn't come back. She called it "unfortunate". Her friends called it "divorce".
I didn't mind him being gone much. He was only a name with no face to me, and if Mom wasn't sad about him being gone, then I didn't have to be either. And besides, I was always happier when it was just me and Mom anyway. I don't really like being in big crowds; Mom thinks it's because I'm so small, and maybe that's true. But it's also because I'm not like them. They're loud, and I'm quiet. They like to chase and fight and talk, and I found comfort in silence. Whenever I'm with them, I always feel like I don't fit in, like I'm the one gazelle in a whole herd of zebra. I get nervous, and I don't say anything, and they think I'm weird for it. So I don't put myself in that situation much, and that suits all of us just fine.
Mostly, I just stay in the nursery with the really little cubs. All the other cubs my age wanted to get out of there as soon as they could, but I loved the place. It was a little clearing next to Pride Rock rimmed by golden spears of grass, with a shallow patch of water and a shady spot where our home towered over it. I felt safe there, mostly because words were never something anyone gave much attention to. It wasn't like the little cubs cared about which tree was biggest or who could run the fastest, and once all the older cubs left no one did. More often than not, I could close my eyes and not hear a single sign of life around me, especially at midday when everyone's legs filled with rocks and their eyes with sand under the immense heat of the sun. That was my favorite part of every day; while everyone else slept, I got to watch the clouds and feel the sun soak into my chest and wrap me up in its warmth, so that it felt I was nestled up inside it instead of lying far below it. Every day, the nursery was where I went, and every day there was a small part of me that wished someone else could be there to share the day with me. But I couldn't tell any of the other cubs; they were too busy chasing each other around and exploring the grasslands and almost getting killed by who-knows-what out there. Well, they could have all that. I was perfectly happy right here in the nursery. I traded secrets with the sun, I played tag with the wind, and on the clearest days I felt like I could fly with the clouds. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
And in a single heartbeat, all of that changed.
The day started like any other: my eyes opened to searing sunlight and my mother's scent encircling my nose, and I spent the morning lying in the shadow of Pride Rock watching the cubs in the nursery, accompanied by a very serene-looking lioness with big ears and scruffy tan fur. Mom had told me her name a few days ago, probably under the assumption that I would remember it. The cubs were spread all across the clearing: Kima was over by the grassline alternating between chasing a bright orange butterfly and his own chocolate brown tail, Kafala was curled up in an impossible tiny yellowish-orange ball by the massive wall formed by Pride Rock with only her slightly darker ears sticking out from her head like twin fallen leaves, and Jua was sunbathing on top of one of the flatter boulders that peppered the area with one thin paw poking out from under her cream-white belly. The lioness's cub, Afya, was cuddled up between her mother's paws, her bright yellow eyes following Kima's movements with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. I was almost eight months old, the oldest one there by a long shot, but I didn't feel uncomfortable at all; in fact, I felt more at ease here than I ever did in the den. It felt good to play the role of den mother, to watch them play and not have to worry about whether I would be expected to join in. And if something out of the ordinary happened, the other lioness would take care of it. It was just a normal, peaceful, perfect day.
I didn't see them coming at first; it was more like I felt them coming. The first voice didn't start soft and gradually get louder; it came out of nowhere, like there had already been a conversation going on right beside me that I was just now beginning to hear. The gravelly punch of words that came steaming around the corner was filled with a brashness that made it feel solid, made it feel like it was shoving its way into my ears and echoing through my bones. The noise propelled me onto my feet in an instant, my paws buzzing in rhythm with my chest.
"But I don't wanna watch the little cubs!"
"Well, your father does, so I'd say that's highly unfortunate."
"It's what?"
"It means you're going to watch the little cubs today."
"But…"
"No buts. A little bit of responsibility won't kill you."
"How d'you know that? What if I get really sick out here and I die and the last thing you ever said to me was that I needed more responsibility?"
"Then I will personally tell Rafiki to make note of you being the first royal prince to ever die of being overly dramatic."
The higher voice dropped into a mutter, and two figures entered the clearing. The bigger one was a lioness with bold tan fur that covered all of her body except her belly and her toes, which sported a much lighter, creamier layer. Her face would've been pretty if her deep red eyes and broad nose hadn't been shoved together in a bad attempt to force back the impatience I'd heard in her voice. The smaller one was a boy that looked about my age and had a much more yellowish coat. The two were obviously related: they had the same color eyes, and the scowl on the cub's face looked like it had jumped straight from the lioness's when I wasn't looking.
I knew both of them. Everybody knew both of them. The lioness was Sarabi, the queen of Pride Rock, and that meant that the cub could only be Simba, the prince of Pride Rock and the loudest, rowdiest cub I'd ever known. Suddenly, it felt like the grass beside me had gotten in between my ribs and started scratching at my heart.
"Morning, Adia," the queen sighed to the lioness lying across the way from me.
Adia. Her name's Adia. I knew that.
"Good morning to you too," Adia replied distantly, her quizzical look focused more on Simba than his mother. "What's with…"
"His father's idea," Sarabi answered without meeting her eyes. "Mufasa wants him to start taking more responsibility with running the kingdom."
"Little young to start Future King 101, isn't he?"
"Mufasa said it's never too early for him to start becoming a mature member of society."
Adia blinked, and the corner of her mouth twitched. "If he wanted to get the little guy out of his mane for a couple hours, he could've at least told you."
Sarabi sighed again, and her eyes took on a more pleading air. "Look, I know you hate doing this, but if you could watch him today…"
Adia's smirk rippled and grew into a grin. "Of course I'll watch him," she said. "And for the record, I don't hate doing nursery duty." Her eyes glowed as she glanced down at the little bundle of fur between her forepaws. "I get to spend more time with my little sweetpea here, in any case."
Sarabi grinned back and shook her head. "Just wait until she starts walking…" she murmured back before turning back to Simba.
"You be good now," she said as she matted down his fringe with a kiss before he could manage to squirm out of the way. "I'll come back at sunset."
"Sunset?" Simba moaned, rubbing at his fringe with a forepaw and twisting what little part of his face remained visible into a pout. "I have to stay here 'til sunset?"
"You'll be fine," Sarabi growled unsympathetically as she began to stride somewhat quickly towards the grass.
"No, I…ohhh…" Simba blinked a few times, and his feet began to quiver. "I don't...feel so good..." he panted as he stumbled forward, eyelids fluttering and tail drooping. He tripped once and made a big show of trying to heave himself back onto his feet, then he finally collapsed onto his back with a plaintive gasp, his ears flat and his paws sticking straight up in the air. He cracked one eye open long enough to make sure his mom was watching, then clenched it shut again.
I turned to look at Adia, who turned to look at Sarabi, who looked like she wanted to keel over herself. If the queen hadn't had her eyes closed, she probably would've thought Adia was trying to eat her own lip judging by how much of it was clamped between her teeth.
Sarabi was muttering something under her breath about how she "didn't have time for this", but Adia forced her jaws back open before I could decipher the rest of it. "Just go," she said in a forced tone. She was still trying not to laugh. "He'll get bored with it in a few minutes anyway."
For a moment, I thought Sarabi was going to reply, but she just took a slow, deep breath and gave a jerky nod before turning around again. But before she could break the barrier of grass surrounding the clearing, Adia spoke up one last time.
"Oh, and Sarabi?" she called out.
The queen turned around slowly. "Hmm?" she hummed, putting on a toothless smile for the other lioness.
"If you and Mufasa want to get the little guy out of the way for a couple hours, you can go ahead and tell me that too."
I never thought I'd seen the queen speechless, but a lot of things had already happened that day that I didn't think I'd see. Once she realized her mouth was hanging open, she shut it with an audible clack from her teeth and flushed pink under her fur.
"How do you do that?" she mumbled.
Adia giggled. "Sarabi, you're the most patient lion on the planet unless it has to do with him. And he's been busy with that plague in the elephant herd for the last week." She paused for a moment, then glanced down at the ground for a second before giving Sarabi a sly look. "And besides all that, your tail's been twitching for the last minute and a half."
Red gave way to maroon, and Sarabi's tail dropped like a rock. "Um…" she stammered, keeping steady eye contact with her front paw toes. "Yeah, I'll just, uh…I'll just…"
"Be going now?"
"Yeah."
Another good-natured chuckle crept out of Adia's throat. Sarabi nodded again, paused for a moment, then took off at a brisk yet still dignified trot.
I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that I liked Adia now. She seemed like a happy sort of lion, and she didn't look uncomfortable at all when she talked to the queen. I couldn't ever look at her when she spoke to me. I would stammer out a few words, then my mom would step in and smile apologetically, whispering something about how shy I was while my face burned and my throat ached. I could imagine myself talking to the queen; I could even imagine myself talking to Adia right now, joking and laughing with her just like she did with the queen. But I knew that I could think about talking all I wanted and the words would still ensnare themselves in the back of my throat, and nothing would come out. So I kept on imagining. I imagined that I was big and strong and confident and that I didn't feel afraid of anything. I imagined myself a whole other world where I was the one that everyone wanted to talk to, where I wasn't just a shadow on the den floor.
Not a shadow. It was an exhilarating thought: to not be scared. To be brave like my mom. Like Simba. Like everyone else. Like a normal cub.
And then I thought, maybe if I imagine it hard enough, it'll happen. And so I did. And it worked. I told myself that I wasn't a shadow, and I started believing it. I felt my paws grip the earth and the wind lift my head, and I felt like I was the biggest lioness in the world. I wasn't a shadow anymore.
And I was so busy not being a shadow that I didn't notice the new one right next to me until Adia started speaking to it.
"Well, hello there, Tama," the still smiling lioness said. "You looking for Simba?"
To my unsuspecting ears, her voice was a thunderclap. A shudder shot from my nose all the way down to the tip of my tail, and I was my old self again. My heart was pounding, my paws were trembling, and I was afraid. And I hated it. I hated myself for being this way. I looked down at the ground just as my eyes filled with tears. I had one little speck of bravery, like a tiny blue flower in a sea of thorns, and now that flower was buried in spiky blackness again. I couldn't have brought my head back up if my life depended on it.
"Yeah," the new shadow replied. It was a boy's voice, a little deeper than Simba's and a lot calmer. He was probably one of Simba's friends. So that meant he probably hadn't even noticed me yet.
Good. Right now, I think I preferred being invisible.
"My mom said he was over here, so I…" he continued a moment later before stopping suddenly. "Is that him?"
I sucked in a big breath and looked up, finally snapping the sheen of ice holding my neck captive. The shadow belonged to another cub that was smaller than Simba but still bigger than me. His fur was well-groomed, rusty-brown on his head, back, and tail and a paler hazelnut color on his chest and stomach. He was thin, but not dramatically; if anything, he was fit where Simba was a little pudgy. I couldn't make out much of his face, but then he turned a bit and I saw a slightly unkempt tuft of fur atop his head, a surprisingly small nose balanced on the end of a scruffy tan muzzle…
And his eyes.
I could only see his left eye from where I was standing, but I couldn't imagine the other one being anything less than its brother. It was a deep, rich brown color, a bit darker than his fur but close enough that I probably couldn't have told the difference from farther away. It was lively, but not like Simba's. Simba's eyes glowed with boundless energy; Tama had a different, almost muted light in his. If Simba's eyes housed a roaring wildfire, Tama's held the wind and the rain that would keep it under control. I knew immediately that he and Simba were best friends…but even more than that, I was simply hypnotized by that one peaceful, comforting, alluring orb. Even just looking at it now, when I was barely even in his sight, made my little flower of courage blossom with pride. I wanted to be brave and strong, if only so that he would look my way. If only so that light could be pointed at me.
"That would be our king-to-be, yes," Adia answered with the air of someone holding back a sigh.
"Why is he on his back?"
"He's very sick."
"From what?"
"Hard work, I assume."
"I thought that never killed anyone."
"Tell him that."
"Huh." After another long pause, Tama shrugged and laughed. His laugh was just like his eyes: quiet and reserved, but spirited all the same. I tried to swallow and almost choked. When had my throat gotten so dry?
With a faint smile still fluttering across his lips, Tama padded forward and prodded Simba in the belly with a forepaw. "Simba…" he called out. "What are you doing?"
"Dying," came his golden friend's scratchy reply.
"Uh-huh. Why are you dying?"
"Because I have to stay here all day."
"In the nursery? What's so horrible about that?"
Simba's eyes cracked open for the first time since his mother left. "Well, because it's…it's boring here!" he answered, as if were the most obvious thing in the world. "There's nothing to do!"
Tama's brow rose ever so slightly. "Nothing? What about helping with the little cubs? That'd be fun, right?"
Simba rolled onto his stomach and flicked his tail to shake off the dust from his resting place. "No, it wouldn't," he argued back with a skeptical glance in his friend's direction. "They're all small and squirmy and whiny and and…get off my tail!"
Simba flicked his tail again, this time with much more force, and Kima took flight as he was launched from where he had pounced on Simba's twitching tuft over into the nearby grass. His rolled back out not even a second later, completely unfazed and giggling like crazy. "Again, again!" he squealed as he tried to latch onto Simba's tail again, but he fell short and skidded a couple feet too far before he lost interest and resumed chasing his own tail. I clapped my paw over my mouth before I could laugh as loud as Adia and Tama were.
Simba glared at his friend and huffed out a heavy sigh, directing it upwards so it ruffled through his messy fringe. "This stinks," he muttered as he scrambled to his feet and checked his tail for teeth marks.
"Oh, c'mon, it's just one day," Tama answered back, his cheeks bulging and his voice as tight as a coiled string. He cleared his throat and put on a less amused face as Simba turned around and glared again. "This'll be fun. We'll just hang out here and play with the little cubs for a while."
"You think watching little cubs all day is fun?" Simba grumbled. "Geez, Tama, you're such a girl sometimes…"
Tama smirked. "Says Simba, drama queen of the Pridelands…"
"Shut up!"
Another laugh parted the silence. He had the most interesting laugh I'd ever heard: short and powerful and still as delicate as the breeze it traveled on. When I heard it, the sun seemed to flash brighter for just a moment, and I felt it all the way down to my toes: heat, creeping up my legs and tickling my ears and curling up somewhere between my stomach and my heart. I felt a little sick, but at the same time it felt like a sickness that I didn't ever want to get better from.
What's happening to me?
"Sorry about that," Tama said playfully. "Simba's cool most of the time, but he hates working. He'll be fine in a little bit."
Adia didn't reply; I could only assume she had simply nodded. I was a bit preoccupied with trying to wipe the color from my face, but every time I thought about what had caused it, it just got redder and redder. Maybe I just needed to lie down somewhere for a while. Then I'd be okay. And I almost left, except Tama was standing between me and the splotch of grass I was planning on hiding behind. And as I turned my head up, I had the strangest feeling that he was looking at me.
And then I met his eyes and realized that he was looking at me.
"I'm Tama, by the way," he continued, stepping a bit closer and sending a warm smile my way. He was talking to me. Me. I would've run, but my legs might as well have taken root in the dusty soil. He was talking to me, and he was looking at me with his friendly brown eyes, and if my heart didn't working again in the next ten seconds they would be the last thing I ever saw.
I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was even drier than before. I glanced away, swallowed hard, and looked up again. And somehow, seeing his eyes again made my heart kick into overdrive, and that made my mouth do more or less the same.
"Amani," I gushed. It wasn't my normal voice that I heard; it was a whisper, hardly even a squeak, like I was a little field mouse staring up into the maw of a starving hyena. A thousand things to say rushed forward and crammed into my mouth, but my throat closed up again and none of them escaped to tell Tama how nervous I was or how surprised I was or how his eyes sparkled like jewels when the sunlight shone onto them. Tama's eyebrows rose again, and then he smiled.
"Um…nice to meet you, Amani," he said. "I don't think I've ever seen you with everyone else. You hang around here a lot?"
I nodded.
"I don't blame you. I always kinda liked this place…guess when you grow up with something, a little part of it stays with you, right?"
I nodded again, and the corners of my mouth arced into a tight-lipped smile that wouldn't go away even after its recipient fell silent. Tama glanced down at the ground and smiled too, and I could've sworn it was a blush that I saw pooling under his fur. When he looked up again, his face was clear, but I noticed the change in his eyes right away. Talking with Simba, his eyes had been solid as stone: full of equal parts amusement and confidence. I guess then, he had known what would happen next, how Simba would react and what he could say in reply. But now, both of those things were gone, and in their place was something that looked more like confusion. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but just like I had done before his jaw clamped shut without confirming that intention. For a long moment, we just stood there and stared at each other. And for a slightly shorter moment, I had the craziest thought that maybe he was just as nervous about meeting me as I was about meeting him.
"Y'know, I should…I should go help Simba," he said quietly, sounding like the choice of words hadn't been entirely his. He grinned again, but awkwardly. "He's gonna need it."
Silence again. "Do you, um…" he started to say. "Do you wanna come with?"
I thought I wouldn't be able to answer, so I concentrated hard on forcing the words through my lips. But the sound wasn't a squeak like before. "Yeah!" I almost shouted. "I mean…yeah. Yeah, I…I'll come with you."
I don't think Tama had any idea what was going on, but after a bit it didn't look like he cared anymore. "Cool," he said, his eyes beaming. And before I knew it, he was walking back over to where Simba had crawled off to sulk. And I was walking with him.
And it wasn't until we reached the prince and Tama glanced over at me one last time that I realized that, for the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't afraid at all.
• • •
True to his word, Tama stayed with us in the nursery until the sun was only a messy scoop of orange and red melting into the horizon. Simba calling him a girl didn't seem to affect him in the least; he actually looked like he was enjoying himself, or at least he was faking it much better than Simba was. The whole day was a blur for me. Tama and I didn't talk to each other again, but I could feel his eyes on me all the way. And I knew he had to feel mine on him.
The next day, he found me on the way to the nursery. His ears perked up and his eyes smiled with his lips, but the fire that had given me strength the day before only ate away at it today. "Hi, Amani," he said, and I could only stare in response, my stomach churning and the proper response stuck fast to the roof of my mouth. When his ears fell again and he looked away, I had to blink hard to keep from crying.
From then on, I made it my sole purpose in life to return Tama's greeting each and every morning. We would pass each other, say hello, and keep walking. It lasted no more less than a second, but it would be all I could think about for the rest of the day.
My mom always asked who he was, and I always said the same thing: just a friend, just a friend, just a friend. She was more than happy with that, though; I'd never called anyone my friend before. Eventually, she stopped asking, and started telling.
"You should go talk to him more often."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I don't know…"
"Well, that's not a very good reason, is it?"
No. It wasn't. But there it was: I wouldn't talk to him because I couldn't talk to him. Because if I talked to him, I would stutter and mash my words together like I had that day in the nursery, and then he would think I was weird too. And I could handle that with all the rest of the cubs. I didn't like it, but I had told myself so many times that I wasn't like them that I was comfortable with accepting it as fact. But Tama wasn't like them, because if there was one thing that scared me more than being stuck in front of a hundred million lions the size of the sky, it was that he would be like all the rest. That he would decide he didn't like me.
So I never gave him the chance. I was friendly to him for one word, and that was all I could manage. All I could risk. And somewhere deep inside I knew that if I kept doing that, he would give up. He would either be too frustrated to keep trying to be nice, or he would show that he'd never really cared all that much in the first place and I was easy to forget about. But if I could imagine for just a moment that all that was a lie, that there was something about me that would keep him coming back every day for the rest of our lives, then I was going to grab hold of that and never let it go. And so for a while, that was all my life consisted of. Just one word every morning, and a hundred questions every night.
And then the king died.
I hadn't known him personally, not like my mom or her friends did. But I knew of him, and I knew that he was the reason I was born at Pride Rock and not out in the middle of the grasslands. So when he died, I felt sad, but I wasn't heartbroken. Even when I heard about Simba, there were no tears. He wasn't my friend; I had no reason to be anything other than mournful for the loss of others. But I still felt guilty about it.
Tama didn't, though. In fact, if I hadn't seen him crying in the den the night after his best friend died, I would've thought he hadn't even realized Simba was gone. He didn't mope around, he didn't spend every night staring wistfully off into the sunset like Sarabi had done for a little while…on the outside, it looked like he wasn't troubled at all.
Even when Scar kicked all the cubs out of the den and made us crawl around under Pride Rock like ants in an anthill, Tama wasn't fazed. As the months dragged on and everyone's ribs began to poke through their sides, Tama took over the position of de facto leader as easily as if he were the one destined to be king of Pride Rock. He couldn't get us out of the Undercroft, as he called it, but when he spoke, everyone in the place listened. And as much as I hate to admit it, I was jealous. I was jealous of his ability to mediate, to emanate confidence and reason at every hour of the day. I was jealous of his ability to pretend that he cared about broken claws and hurt feelings while the grass yellowed and the watering hole contracted into nothing more than an ambitious puddle and the trees cried sap from their drought-induced wounds. I was jealous of his strength, and I wanted more than anything to have it. I was terrified of it too, but that only made it more alluring.
We still didn't talk much, but I was a constant presence by his side. I only saw my mother when she had a few spare minutes between her endless hunts, and she was always exhausted when those minutes came around, so in a way Tama almost took her place. I hardly even knew him, and yet I felt like I trusted him more than anyone else in the whole pride. Whenever I was around him, I would take in a bit of his courage and project it onto my face, so that no one would see anything but calm. So that I would look like him. And it worked; in just a month, I felt just as comfortable with him as I did with Mom. And I think Tama felt comfortable around me too. At the end of every day, his face would be as weary and raggedy as Mom's, but when he came near me it was like his mask of authority lifted away and he was the old Tama again, the one that joked around with Simba and smiled at me and blinked his eyes a lot whenever I looked at them for too long. That was how I knew he hadn't forgotten Simba; I think I was his link to his old life as much as he was my link to the rest of mine. He was the towering baobab tree, and I was the hidden pond that kept it growing. And still we never spoke. But somehow, it felt like we didn't even have to.
It wasn't until five months after we moved to the Undercroft that I began to realize that something wasn't right, that there was something going on that I wasn't aware of. I'll never forget how Tama's eyes looked that first day in the nursery: flickering like two lumps of smoldering wood, just waiting for the single spark that would set them ablaze. After Simba died, it seemed like the spark had already run its course; his eyes were still big and round, but the life that had been in them was gone. At first, I had thought it was because of Simba; later, I had thought it was because he was exhausted from all the responsibilities he had taken on. But after a while, I noticed something else there as well, something that I'd seen in my mother's eyes every time she visited and frozen in the glassy gazes of all the kills she brought home.
Fear.
Something huge was gnawing away at Tama bit by bit, had been ever since Scar became king. But it wasn't just fear of starving or the hyenas; everyone knew those far too well by now. His was a different breed, and once again I had my mother to thank for my being able to recognize it. Mom looked afraid because she knew she wasn't supposed to be down in the Undercroft; none of the lionesses were. Scar didn't allow us nearly enough food to feed twenty cubs, so whatever Mom and her friends could sneak out of the pile for Scar and the hyenas, they would give to us. There was never enough for everyone, and if a cub got sick there was nothing we could do about it. Two months after Scar took over, Kafala started coughing in her sleep. Three days later, we buried her under a sickly baobab that had once held every kind of bird in the sky. Two days after, we buried her mother right next to her, and over the next seven months two other cubs joined them. Everywhere I went I'd hear mutters of rebellion, but there were too many hyenas and the lionesses weren't getting any more to eat than we were. And yet they still tried to bring us food.
If Scar caught any of them in the act, there was no telling what he would do, and so that was Mom's fear: that she would be caught and punished, maybe even killed. And I saw that same look of pure animal terror in Tama's eyes every day. The look of someone who was always looking over their shoulder, who didn't know who they could trust and who would claw them in the back the second they turned it.
The look of someone with something to hide.
It wasn't just the look in his eyes that caught my attention. Tama was never at Pride Rock much during the day, but once I started paying more attention I began to notice a strange pattern to his actions. Every day, Tama would wander in and out of the Undercroft until the sun was about three-quarters across the sky, and then he would disappear for about two hours. It happened almost every day without fail, and he was always tired when he came back. A few times, he was even a little wet. I don't think anyone else had picked up on it but me…but then again, I don't think anyone else was watching him as closely as I was either.
Once the seed of curiosity about what Tama was hiding was planted, it grew constantly inside my head. Watered every day by his sagging jowls and his mysterious disappearances, its vines stretched deeper and deeper into my brain, until it became all I could think about. I couldn't figure out why it was so distracting, but nothing my brain had done in relation to Tama had ever made much sense. By then, I had more or less gotten used to not knowing what my mind was going to churn itself into when I saw his eyes and felt his presence beside me at night.
After nine months, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I met Tama outside the Undercroft just as he was returning from one of his daily trips, when the whole of the Pridelands was bathed in twilight. He didn't see me until I asked him in the most confident voice I could manage where he had been. Even then, the cricket chirps cascading through the air around us almost swallowed up the words before they could even get close to his ears, but judging by how high he jumped the moment after I spoke, I guess the words got close enough.
For just a bit too long of a moment, Tama looked like he didn't know what to say. "I was…I was visiting my dad," he finally said haltingly. "He, um…he lives with another pride out in the grasslands, so I go out and visit him sometimes." He tried to smile and met some invisible resistance perched above his upper lip. "That's all."
He was lying. I knew right from the start, when his eyes widened with panic and his legs went stiff as the gigantic stone we lived under. And I knew when he shifted his paws in the dust when he spoke, and when he never looked me in the eyes, and when I realized that that invisible resistance looked more like guilt than anything else. I didn't know why he would lie to me, and I had a feeling, maybe nothing more than a foolish dream, that he didn't exactly know either.
But I was sure as heck going to find out.
When my mom came to visit that night, I met her on the fringe of the Undercroft just like I had done with Tama. She was accompanied by two other lionesses, each of them working together to drag two almost untouched wildebeest behind them. It still wasn't enough food for all of us, but it was much better than what we usually got.
"Hey, sunshine," Mom sighed as she dropped her kill and surveyed the darkening landscape behind her to check for hyenas. "How you doing?"
"Good," I replied. My mind was still buzzing from my earlier encounter with Tama, so I got right to the point. "Mom, who was Tama's dad?"
"What, honey?" Mom murmured a bit absentmindedly. She wasn't as quick as she used to be; no one was. The drought and the loss of the herds had dried up our thoughts just as much as the grasses and the watering hole. "Oh, um…you know, I don't really know much about him. I guess he was part of Maji's old pride. Why, did someone ask you about him?"
"No, I just…I was just wondering." I leaned down and took a bite out of the wildebeest before my mom could see me blush. There wasn't anything going on. Tama was just nervous, and I thought he was lying to me. Why hadn't I figured that out by now?
Mom raised her brow, but didn't press the matter. "All right, then," she said. "How is Tama doing, by the way? His mom's been stuck out hunting for a while, so she wanted me to ask you."
I almost choked. "Why does she want to ask me?" I managed to cough after a giant swallow of meat.
"Well, I told her you've been hanging around him a lot…"
"Why did you tell her?" I interrupted in what was almost a hiss.
My mom looked confused. "Was it a secret?"
"Well, it…yeah, kind of..." My face was burning again.
"Well, then, you might want to tell Tama that too…he's been talking about you a lot, apparently."
Before then, I'd never really understood how someone could feel like they were floating unless they had jumped off a cliff or something. I was learning a lot today. "He…"
"Oh, yeah. He's quite a chatterbox. Maji says you're all he ever talks about."
Any time you want to start working again, heart, that'd be great.
I tried to reply, but my throat was dry as a desert. I buried my nose in the wildebeest again, but not before I saw a knowing smile spread across my mom's face.
"What?" I muttered through a full mouth without looking up.
"Nothing," she chuckled, looking much happier than she had earlier. I didn't get what was so funny. Maybe she was hungrier than I'd thought.
"So, any other burning questions about Tama?" she asked a moment later. I almost said no, but then I remembered one last thing. She probably wouldn't know the answer, but I figured I might as well try.
"Where does Tama's dad live?" I said as my internal organs finally started functioning properly again.
My mom's eyes turned down. "Well, technically, he's not living anywhere now…"
My jaw paused in mid-bite. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, he died a long time ago, honey. Before you were even born. Maji doesn't like to talk about it, but that's what she tells us whenever we ask."
And there went my heartbeat again. This was becoming a bit of a pattern.
"He's…he's dead?" I stuttered after forcing the meat in my teeth past the lump in the back of my throat.
"That's what Maji says," Mom replied without noticing my alarm. Neither of us spoke for a moment, and then Mom jumped as if she'd just remembered something important. "Crap, I gotta go," she said. She licked me on the head and pushed the wildebeest towards me. "Make sure you get enough to eat," she called back as she motioned to the other lionesses. "I'll see you tomorrow if we get back before dark."
I didn't reply, and I certainly wasn't going to be eating anything else that night. As a few other cubs trickled over and started gnawing at the wildebeest corpse in front of me, I stood stock still where I was, my stomach pitching back and forth and my mind spinning circles around me.
Tama was lying. I was right about him. And that meant that whatever he was doing, he didn't want me to find out about either.
Well, that just wasn't going to work.
It took another week for me to work up the courage to follow him. He'd come back every night and smile at me and I would smile back, and neither of us meant it. We were both trying to figure out what the other was thinking. Each of us knew the other was up to something. And for a few days, it became almost a routine. Almost like a game to see who would slip up first, who would break and spill all their secrets to the one lion they had spent every day of the last nine months with. But it wasn't a game, because there was no chance that I would lose. Partially because I wanted to know where he was going and partially because I was worried that he was doing something dangerous and that he would get hurt, but most of all because if there was one thing in the whole world that I was good at, it was keeping my mouth shut.
Finally, I was ready. Exactly one week after that last talk with Tama, I awoke to an overcast sky and the same muggy heat that penetrated the Undercroft and chased us out into the grasslands every single day pressing down on my ears. Today, it felt hotter than ever, like the air itself was being sucked into the soil and was trying to take me with it. On any other day, I would've just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but today I forced my feet to start carrying me towards the graying outside world. I was going to find out where he was going, whether he liked it or not.
There was just one problem: I couldn't find Tama anywhere.
Every day for the last nine months, he could be found somewhere around Pride Rock until mid-afternoon, and then he would leave. Every day, without exception. And now, on the one day I wanted to find out exactly where he was leaving to, he went early. I felt like screaming. This wasn't right. This wasn't like him.
With no better idea in mind, I set off into the grasslands. Over the last week, I'd noticed him going in the general direction of the river that cordoned off the Pridelands from the rest of the world about five miles from Pride Rock, so that's where I decided to go. I thought if I walked long enough, I might see him along the way.
Bad idea.
It took fifteen minutes for Pride Rock to slip down beneath the horizon behind me, and another ten for me to be hopelessly lost. Everywhere I looked there was only an unending sea of broken and yellowing grass, and the suffocating mass of dark gray clouds above me didn't even let one ray of sunshine through. I was tired, I was thirsty, and I had no clue of which way to go. And as the clouds gradually began to darken even more, I started to get scared.
After a full half-hour of wandering around looking for a familiar landmark, I stopped to catch my breath. The patch of ground underneath my aching paws was devoid of grass, but it was barely big enough for me to fit inside it without the thistly plants poking through my fur. I tried to swallow back the urge to panic, but the knot in my stomach got tighter with every second. I couldn't find Tama anywhere, and at this point I knew about as much about where my home was. Panic was looking like a pretty good option right now.
I shut my eyes tight and clenched what little of the earth wasn't occupied by prickly stalks of straw inside my paws. My whole life, I'd always felt small when I was surrounded by bigger lions, but I'd never felt more weak and insignificant than that moment when I was surrounded by nothing at all. I gripped the earth as hard as I could, and for a while it felt like that was the only thing that would keep me from falling right through it. The roaring in my ears was louder than any I'd ever heard come from a lion's throat. I wanted to cry, but that would mean I'd have to open my eyes and see all that nothing again, and I couldn't bring myself to do even that. But after a long while, when my claws felt like they were ready to snap clean off, my stomach began to unwind. I thought about finding Tama, and it loosened even more. And before I knew it, I was calm again.
And then I heard the grass rustle.
I spun around to face the noise, but it was already to the left of me. I turned towards it again, only to hear it somewhere behind me. Whatever it was sounded like it was coming from every direction at once.
And whatever it was sounded like it was coming right towards me.
Terror seared my throat again, and my body started sprinting almost before my brain could comprehend why. My legs raced. My heart flew. The grasslands blurred to a golden smear…and still the sound stayed behind me. Still the sound got even louder.
I didn't know where I was running. I didn't know whether I was running towards Pride Rock or towards the noise or farther away from both of them, but I wouldn't have stopped even if I had known. I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, completely alone and utterly defenseless, and if whatever that thing was felt less than friendly today, I was worse than dead. I'd heard stories about the rogues and outcasts that prowled the Outlands waiting to prey on the next unsuspecting passerby; we all had when our parents had been trying to keep us close to Pride Rock. My mom never really had that problem with me, but I'd heard the same tales as everyone else. And I guess I still believed them.
Then, for the smallest glimmer of a moment, I saw it: a streak of brown against dusty yellow. I turned my head and slowed down ever so slightly, but by then it was already on top of me.
The first impact ripped the air from the lungs and sent the two of us rolling away into the grasslands, although I don't think that was the brown blur's intention judging by how tangled up his legs were in mine. But a second later, and much quicker than I had myself, he got his bearings and twisted me back under him. I landed hard on my back, and the clouds disappeared behind a shadowy mass of fur. In the instant before I shut my eyes, I saw a paw rise above my head, with claws unsheathed and glittering black. My pulse went flat, and I screamed.
But instead of killing me, the shadow held back. Then he spoke.
"Amani?"
I cracked one eye open. Tama was straddling my belly, his right forepaw still cocked and ready to strike. Confusion and shock spilled out of his eyes, and as I opened my other eye I felt the same emotions seep into my own.
Tama was the first to recover. "Gods, I…I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I thought you were…here, lemme just…"
He stumbled back a few feet and I sucked in a deep breath, and then a few more for good measure. I rolled onto my stomach, and once my legs stopped shaking I pushed myself back into a sitting position. Tama stayed back the whole time, chewing on his lip and looking horribly guilty.
"I…I'm really sorry I scared you," he said quietly as I looked up again.
I flashed him a shaky grin. "It's fine," I lied. Suddenly, I remembered why I was out here in the first place. I'd been trying to figure out where he was going…well, here he was.
"What are you doing out here?" I asked in a slightly steadier voice.
Once again, Tama hesitated. "Oh, y'know, just…visiting my dad," he replied, still stammering a bit. "I thought I already told you…"
"Your dad's dead, Tama," I said a little more forcefully than I thought I was capable of. Now that my life wasn't flashing before my eyes, adrenaline was setting my heart ablaze. "I know you're lying."
Perhaps a bit understandably, Tama looked taken aback. "How did you know th…"
"I asked my mom about you after last time. She said your dad died before I was even born. So where were you going?"
"Look, what does it even matter to you?" Tama asked in reply. "Why do you care where I go?" He narrowed his eyes and tried to stare me down. Unfortunately, it worked.
"Because I…"
Just say it!
"Because you…" Tama continued.
No, don't say it…
…what?" Tama looked confused again. "Come on, don't leave me hanging here. Why-"
"Because I worry about you, okay?"
Tama fell silent and went back to just staring at me. I looked at my paws for a moment, and then kept talking.
"You're the only lion besides Mom that ever talked to me," I said. "You never thought I was weird because I was shy and you never made fun of me and I guess I thought that meant you liked me, so when you started leaving I didn't know where you were going or whether you were in trouble or…"
"Hey, hey…" he interrupted, stepping forward a bit. His voice had dropped into a soothing, sympathetic tone that I'd never heard from him even when he was trying to fix something back at Pride Rock. "I'm fine. I'm not in trouble…least, so long as I don't get caught."
I was still out of breath from my last speech, so it took me a few seconds to catch on to the end of his remark. "What do you mean, 'so long as you don't get caught'?"
"Well, it's…it's kinda complicated…" Tama started to say. Then something weird happened. He looked me in the eyes, and it was like a spark had jumped from my mind to his and spun it like a top. Suddenly, it was like he couldn't wait to tell me everything.
"All right, this is gonna get out pretty soon anyway, so I'll go ahead and tell you now." He glanced left and then right, and then leaned in close to me, his whiskers tickling the inside of my ear and making me shiver just a little bit.
"Simba didn't die in the canyon," he said. "He's alive."
"Simba's alive…" I repeated slowly as Tama backed away again. Simba was alive. The cub who Scar had told us died in the gorge with his father was alive. Tama was really telling me that Simba was alive and expecting me to believe it.
And I was. For some reason I couldn't fathom, I believed every word he said. I looked in his eyes right back, and I knew beyond all doubt that if Tama said Simba was alive, then he was alive. His eyes didn't lie; they never did.
"So Scar lied?" I asked just so I could hear him say it, so I could see the relief in his eyes and know that his answer was pure.
"Yeah," Tama sighed with a smile. "Or he might not know either. I don't know…" He chuckled. "I never asked him."
The answer to my original question was suddenly obvious, as if it'd been hiding at the back of my mind the whole time and it had finally decided to make itself known. "And that's where you've been going this time, isn't it?" I said. "To see Simba."
Tama grinned again. "Yeah, I was just about to go get him for…" And he stopped again. He was holding back.
Oh, no. He wasn't going to just block off his lips and parry my concern with another lie. Not again. Not today.
"For what?" I asked innocently, but with a glare as fierce as a hyena's. He tried to bring out the lie I knew he was thinking, but I could almost see it catch in his throat and sink back down into his stomach.
"There's a little hole in the back of Pride Rock that goes into the den," he murmured guiltily a moment later. "I went in this morning, and I heard Scar talking to one of his hyenas about us…about me."
My glare disintegrated in an instant. "Who's us?" I asked. My ribs felt like they were squeezing together inside my chest.
"You know…the cubs. All of us. He's been ignoring us all this time, and now he's finally gonna get rid of us."
My chest tightened even more. "Get rid…he's gonna kill us?"
"No. At least, not in front of everybody. One of his hyenas told him to exile us, and I think that's what he's gonna do…but once he does that, there's nothing to stop him from sending out half his army to hunt us down." He shrugged. "It'd be a pretty good plan, actually…we'd all be dead, and no one could ever prove that he was involved. He probably wouldn't even tell our moms…"
"Stop it!" I shouted. I could hardly even breathe anymore through the lump my throat had constricted into. How could he talk so calmly about death? About our deaths? How was he so calm now? Why wasn't I that calm?
Because I was petrified and Tama wasn't, that's why. I was scared of so many things involving Tama, and now this was just one more onto the pile. And that pile had finally gotten too big to me to control.
I turned away and stared off into the sun, but not before Tama caught sight of the glistening droplet fleeing my eye. "Oh, geez, I…I'm sorry, Amani," he said plaintively. Through the corner of a foggy eye, I saw his ears flatten. "I didn't mean to scare you so bad. Please don't…please don't cry."
I heard Tama shift, and then he was right next to me, scuffing his paws against the ground as if he didn't quite know what to do with them. If I had taken a deep breath right then, our sides would've touched.
"You know, I'm…I'm really scared right now too," he said quietly, and with a faint smile. "And when I get scared, I try to look at stuff as if it doesn't affect me, so I can try and fix it like someone who wasn't scared would. That's all I was doing there. Please, I'm…I'm really sorry."
I dragged a paw across my muzzle and tried to pretend I was itching my nose rather than wiping it clean. "It's okay," I sighed after a deep breath. "That's a good idea. About being scared."
His ears came alive again. "You think?"
"Yeah, it's…really smart." I took another shaky gulp of air and decided to go ahead and try his idea out. "So what are you gonna do about us being exiled?"
"I'm gonna sneak everyone out tonight, and I thought I could use Simba's help so I was going to go get him just now," he answered. "Maybe everyone'll listen better if I tell them that he's coming."
"What if they don't believe you?"
"Then I'll…" Tama sighed. "I'll figure something out."
The heartbeat it took me to make my decision seemed to take longer than the whole rest of our conversation combined. "I can help," I said.
For a brief second, Tama looked surprised, but more than that he looked overwhelmingly relieved. "Really?" he asked. "You're not…I mean, you're gonna be okay with that?"
"Yeah. I mean, all I have to do is just tell everyone you're not crazy, right? I can do that."
Probably.
But if I'd ever had any doubts about whether I could follow through on that promise, the smile that broke over Tama's face stole them all away. He was elated, and I couldn't tell whether it was because someone had believed him or because that someone was me. Deep down in my heart, I knew exactly which one I was hoping for.
"Yeah, that'd be awesome," he laughed. "So can you cover for me while I go get Simba?"
Well, what was one more promise? Another grin from Tama and I would've jumped over the moon if he'd asked me. "Sure," I said. "When are you gonna be back?"
"I don't know…a couple hours, maybe. Just tell 'em I'm getting something important, okay?"
"Got it."
His innocent grin softened into a bashful one, probably after he'd realized how big it had been before. "Thanks," he said. "Thank you so much."
I don't know how much time passed between then and when he started walking away, but all I remember were his grateful eyes framed by a brown pelt and a canopy of blue horizon and frothy white clouds. He took a few steps, then turned around and smiled again.
"You know, it's really brave of you to want to do this for me," he said.
I couldn't bring myself to look at him, but when I looked down the fire in my cheeks blazed even brighter. "I don't know…" I mumbled back.
"C'mon, would I lie?"
"Yes," I said without thinking. I almost bit my tongue trying to clamp my jaw shut, but Tama was already staring back with wide eyes. Then he laughed, and my heart seemed to leap free of its moorings and soar into the sky.
"Yeah…" he admitted. "Well, I'm not now."
I smiled too, and for the first time that day I didn't want to hold it back. "I know," I said softly back.
He stood there for a bit longer, and though he was still ten feet away I could have closed my eyes and sworn he was sitting beside me again. My heart still hadn't come back from its unscheduled flight, and that was perfectly all right with me.
"See you later," he said, before turning back around to leave. And as I watched his paws step delicately over each clump of untamed grass and his tail swing lazily behind him, my heart came plummeting back to earth and my tongue caught in my throat. I couldn't speak, or I didn't want to speak, or I was just finally going completely insane. In retrospect, I think it was all three.
"See you later," I finally whispered when he was much too far away to hear. But he did turn around one last time as if he knew I had said it all the same. His eyes glimmered, and his tail twitched in time with the corners of his mouth.
Then he stepped forward, dove into the yellow sea of the grasslands, and was gone.
As I said before, reviews are always appreciated. I'm nearly finished with the next chapter of "Growing Down", so that should be up soon as well. Peace out.