Originally written February 1997.

This version edited and republished October 2012.

Mandrills

"Oh no, no, no, this can't be - it's too easy," the lioness thought as she closed on her prey, patiently and silently edging forwards through the shoulder high grasses. She was not sure she even believed it herself.

It had been a short dry season; the rains had come early. The mud that so often made the gullies and hollows of the western valley impassable coated Immue's paws, weighing them down. Each slow step becoming more uncomfortable as the layer of mud pressed into her pads.

She had ventured among the crags and mud covered floor of the valley in pursuit of her favourite prey: warthog. She loved the rich, salty, warm taste of the flesh. She wasn't so keen on the tusks and the trotters that could gash her tough skin and deliver a kick strong enough to break bone. Larger prey, particularly zebra, was more dangerous still and might even break the back of a fully grown lioness with just a single blow.

"If you go in from behind," Akase, the pride's most experienced and successful huntress, had once told her, "go in high and hold on tight." It was sound advice, though Immue would not always heed it. Akase's next words however, were ones which Immue was to remember for a long time: "If you go in at all; go in to kill."

"Hmmm," Immue quietly said to herself as she parted the grass with her nose, "time to go in." She paused to watch her unconcerned prey. The mandrill sat with his lilac rump just visible on the ground. He bent his knees up by his age-greyed chest. He picked tiny berries one by one with alternate hands from a low bush. He stuffed them in his mouth and chewed noisily.

After a while he looked carefully about the bush in search for any berries he might have missed. Finding none, he grunted disappointedly and dropped his arms to the ground and began to lift himself to his feet. Before he could rise he was violently to one side into the mud by a massive force. It bore down on his back and grew unstoppably until the sky darkened in pain that, though intense, did not last long.

"I do like you Rafiki," Immue said darkly, "Well, I like all mandrills; but I don't think I could eat a whole one." She laughed gently to herself as she bent her head down, open-jawed, lightly gripping the stubby neck of her victim. She drew her jaws together slowly and deliberately; feeling the bones of the monkey's neck crack one by one between her teeth. Unending moments later the elderly mandrill fell still, released from his pain for ever. "I'm sorry my dear. It was simply too easy; yes, yes, yes." She dropped the limp meat into the mud, licking her teeth greedily. "I think I might make an exception for you Rafiki. Maybe I can eat a whole one after all."

The body of her kill slumped over and its eyes stared unseeingly back at Immue. "Oh no," she exclaimed, "perhaps it really was too easy!"

~oOOo~

"So young Scar," he said as he walked haltingly beside the flame orange cub, "where's your mother this morning? Eh?"

"Oh, I don't know," Scar said vaguely. "Tell me - you give Mufasa all this?"

"What? Mufasa all what? You tell Rafiki now."

"All this," repeated Scar scornfully in agitation, "...where you been? What you doing? Who you with: all that? You're not my mother."

"So, why you here eh? Why come and see a mandrill like me?"

"I..." Scar considered, searching for an answer to hide behind. "I want to learn something."

"Eh? Learn - learn what? Magic eh? Want me to turn you into a frog? Is that it?"

"Yuucck!" Scar turned away from Rafiki suddenly. "No way! Anything but that!"

"Ah, what about a mandrill? Like me?"

"Yeah, great! Wow, then I could swing through the trees!" The cub stood up and swayed from side to side, holding his tail high.

"Well now, not so fast, we're talking like me - a mandrill, not a vervet."

"Oh, yeah..."

There was a long, uneasy pause. Scar sat, patiently at first, but becoming increasingly restless as time passed. Rafiki sat quite still and calm, looking beyond the cub to the west as if searching for something. Scar looked intently at Rafiki as the waiting continued, becoming unbearable.

"Hey - monkey! Am I a mandrill yet?"

Rafiki looked over the cub for a few moments. "Sure, now there are two of us. Whatever will you're the king say now that he has a mandrill for a son?"

"Well - I don't feel like a mandrill. I mean I don't feel all blue or nuffin..."

"Nuffin – Pabbbh! No? You're a young mandrill yet. You won't turn blue for years. Just wait, your time will come. Listen to Rafiki, he knows. The ladies will love you."

"No! Not yet - all that smoochy-huggy stuff - no way am I going to have a lioness! I mean, whatever you mandrills call them." Scar exaggeratedly shook his head as if to add weight to his words.

"There'll be lots of little Scars one day, you'll see. Strong lads and beautiful lasses, fur as golden as the sunset."

"Hmmm, but I thought mandrills are blue and grey," Scar said probingly, wondering if he really was a mandrill at all, "…and there's no way I'm having cubs." He sat up pushing his chest forwards and holding his head high. "I'll not have any time for that when I'm king."

"Ah, but my friend, you cannot be king now."

"What?" Shouted Scar in obvious distress. "Mum says I'm gonna." He rose and turned on Rafiki with bared teeth. "She says I'm gonna be the bestest king ever."

"Going to be the best," corrected Rafiki firmly, "and mandrills can't be king. Only lions can be king. We haven't got the teeth: can't roar. See?"

"Oh…" Scar stopped and stood, casting his head down. "You're right. Maybe I wanna be a lion again."

"May be. But you can be a lion any time. I'll not turn you into a mandrill again. You see? Enjoy it while you've got the chance!"

"Yeah, I guess so. But hey? Who am I anyway?"

In reply Rafiki laughed loudly, jumping back and forth waving his stick in front of the cub. "You mean you don't know? Why you ARE confused!"

"No, no! Oh..." Scar sat back firmly, he was beginning to tire of the mandrill's cryptic talk. "I mean Scar's not a name for a mandrill, hmm?"

"Oh no, right again. It isn't. So, who do you want to be?" Rafiki drew close to the Scar and bent low and close to look into the cub's eyes. Scar, drawing back instinctively, thought for a few moments before swatting ineffectively at Rafiki with a forepaw. "Eh? You have to be quicker than that if you want to catch a mandrill like us," said Rafiki as he dodged the cub's ill-aimed blow before rushing off.

Scar jumped up and followed, surprised by the mandrill's speed and agility. As he ran he felt the stones slip on the soft ground beneath his pads. He pushed his claws out a little to grip. They clicked and clattered on the stones as he ran after the leaping and bounding monkey. The pair chased each other towards a clump of acacias, their dappled shade proving to be a welcome relief from the burning sun and moist heat of mid-morning.

The fully grown mandrill proved too fast for the young cub to catch and in a short time Scar gave up chasing and lay down, panting on the floor of the thicket close to a thorny bush as all around him the rustles, whistles and shimmers of the breeze through the trees filled his softly furred ears and deep green eyes. Here the lion cub felt ill at ease and restless in the strangeness of his surroundings that seemed higher than he was used to. The trees rose up around him and filled him with a sense of enclosure that frightened the cub, so used to the expanse of the open savannah.

The mandrill however was quite at ease in the half-shade of the thinly branched, parasol canopy of the acacias. Here it was Scar who was the weaker animal: the hunter was now the hunted.

Rafiki stopped and looked back to see the small cub lying, cowering beneath the tree tops. He did not think long before bounding back to sit beside the hunched and tense, dark furred cub. He spoke to Scar quietly and intimately, as a father to an uncertain son: "you can be Makedde, my brother."

"You... have a brother?" Scar pressed his head firmly down to his forepaws, his tightly closed eyes loosening a little.

"Yes, of course! A brother and a cousin. He's coming to see me."

"Your brother?" asked the cub as he dared to open one eye just a little. Rafiki laughed gently as he lay his stick down on his open side.

"No, he's already here. You are here aren't you?" Rafiki did not wait for an answer from the cub who raised his head a little from his paws as he felt his warmth against his side.

"My cousin: Faraki. He should be here soon you know. He's never seen the Pridelands. No, he'll get a surprise when he gets here. I know, yes, that's it."

"That's what?" Scar's curiosity getting the better of his fear.

"He'll be stuffing himself somewhere. You know, don't know where he puts it. Me? I can't eat anything in my baobab without wondering if I'll get stuck for days. You know, it will get him into trouble, sure it will." Rafiki put his arm around Scar and chuckled, holding the warm cub and lifting him gently to his paws.

For a few moments Scar luxuriated in the comfort of Rafiki's warmth then pushed him away, remembering his mother's warning: "Never let anyone touch you my little one, you never know what they want from you, it could be something terrible." Scar was uncertain as to what Rafiki might want, yet he could see no harm in this closeness. Indeed there was no harm: Rafiki held Scar out of genuine concern and unconditional friendship. The young Scar had no understanding of his mother's fear of adult's 'terrible' intentions.

Before Scar was able to give much thought to his confused feelings he was distracted by a glimpse of something brightly coloured: a transient flash of blue and orange high above him. He turned his head skywards. For a few moments his eyes were flooded with the unaccustomed brightness of the savannah sky, even though it was partially shaded by the canopy of acacia tops. As he squinted upwards the blueness resolved itself into the unmistakable form of a hornbill flying steadily, scanning the ground below. The bird flew on without spotting the unlikely pair of cub and mandrill through the tree tops. Rafiki drew a hand up to his forehead to shade his eyes from the glare as he too, in response to the minute sounds of the bird's flapping, turned his gaze to the sky.

Seeing them, Zazu opened his eyes wide and added an extra forward turning flap to his steady wing beat, slowing him in flight. Then he swooped down to the pair and alighted, absurdly small, on the ground in front of Rafiki. Turning to Scar, he said with a deliberate nod of his beak: "At last, there you are. Your father has been looking all over for you, my boy."

"Tell the king he's with me. You do that. Go on, off you go!" Rafiki rushed forwards, grabbing his stick from where it lay on the ground and waving it wildly at Zazu. In a flurry of feathers and a couple of loud squawks, Zazu flustered upwards and flew off indignantly towards the dark shadow of Priderock. "Go and report that. Ha, haah!" The mandrill jumped up and down laughing and waving his stick at the receding bird. "Hah! Gets him every time it does! Haah!"