I own nothing.
It's a matter of pride, really.
Mufasa gets the girl.
Nala used to be his best friend. His hunting partner, his lookout when he snuck away from Pride rock. Until he stole her from him. It'd been a gradual process, at the start. In the end, it was dirt and dust as a paw pinned him to the bloodstained ground.
Mufasa gets the pride.
First born chosen over the obviously superior candidate. What use is brawn over brain? He even keeps the hornbill.
Mufasa gets their fathers attention.
He always was a daddy's boy, the two of them yellow as the sun that caught the grass in the mornings. Lapping up tales of circles of life and duties as if they were mother's milk.
Scar had been his mammas pet, naturally enough. He always had time for a quick tongue bath. He'd taken after her father in his colouring. She would tell him of her younger days, when all she wanted was to create her own pride, far across the savannah. Her betrothal changed that, and she says she's learned to live with that, that it's possible to learn to love someone, and he believes her, at least until the day he wakes and there's a cold place at his side.
She's the only one who knows him. Knew him.
A bit of equality is in order, is it not?
He can barely recall when they were evenly matched, light and dark tumbling in the grass of the Serengeti. Often it's all he can remember.
He doesn't sleep these days, preferring to use the quiet to plot dastardly deeds. Sometimes he makes his way out of the Pridelands. Hunting trips he call them. Or perhaps this time he's scouting to see what dark forces are amassing beyond the borders. Either way, he finds himself more at easy among the scattered rejects of society than with his flesh and blood.
Simba is born, a little ball of fur blinking in the African sun, and all he can think is that could have been me. That should have been me. He murmurs congratulations and returns to the cave he calls his own.
The cub avoids him. Inevitable, really, after the Graveyard fiasco. He'll have to inform Eddie about the downride of his inclination to verbosity. More to point, his own inclination to get a bit . . . slash happy when said chatty tendencies get in the way of simple tasks like taking out the heir to the Pridelands. His brother always did have the knack of ruining his plans . . .
He is surrounded by idiots.
Does he have to do everything himself? It is the only way to get anything done, after all. Plotting and planning, running around finding a suitable herd, hunting down the brothers three and drumming what he wants done into their heads takes another month and a half, but then what's a month compared to a lifetimes work?
He actually almost manages to escape. Almost. It's a feat made no less impressive as he tumbles to the milling mass below.
It's a matter of pride, the ruling of one's own Pride.
Long live the King.