Disclaimer: I don't own lion king and I don't make a money from writing these stories. Or any money at all...

Hmm it's been awhile since I've posted anything but here is a lion king fic. Please read, and enjoy and don't forget to leave a review. It's always nice to receive and it helps the authors to be write a little faster ;)


Heir to the Throne

Prologue

Before Simba returned to the Pride Lands, before Simba became King, there was me. There was my Kingdom: Scar's Kingdom.

I was born mere days before Scar was overthrown. I hear he was overjoyed to hear of my birth, overjoyed to finally have an heir, it meant he was as good as immortal, there would be someone to carry on his legacy.

They tell me he almost killed my mother when he realised, when he realised the truth about who I was. Who I am.

"A girl?" He roared. "You gave me a girl?"

And it was true. Although I had his green eyes, his dark brown coat, I was his spitting image in so many ways, even the intelligence he was so proud of in himself. I had it all. I was perfect except I was not a son.

"How will she grow up to be a king, tell me Zira?" He asked, pacing the den, raising dust in his anger, spitting.

"I'm sorry Scar. I tried. You know I would do anything for you... I tried," My mother panted, tired, she had just given birth to me.

She crawled towards him, begging. "Scar please?"

She touched his paws with her own. Eyes wide. "Please?"

"You dare?" Scar slapped her with a clawed paw. She fell back. Blood seeped from her face onto the cave floor.

Scar turned his back on her to face the starry night yonder.

He laughed softly. "You tried, did you? You would do anything?" His mirthless laughter filled the cave. "You tried?"

Zira, sensing danger, backed away, pulling me with her, whimpering. "Yes Scar, I tried."

Scar turned his head so she could see only half his face. The damaged half. The half with the scar.

"Do you think I became the King by simply trying?" He said softly, dangerously.

"Do you think I got where I am simply because I tried?"

Zira stared, gaping.

Scar sighed.

"I should have expected no less from you, Zira. You were always second best. What you don't understand is that, in this life, we create our own destinies. There is no such thing as trying. You can only do."

And with that he left, leaving my mother shivering a corner, and me: my day old voice crying to be fed.

It was only two days later that Simba returned to Pride Rock, to overthrow my father and to take back the Kingdom.

My mother, myself, and all of those still loyal to Scar were driven out. Simba was King.

My new home became the Outlands, the dry, dead outer rim of the Pride Lands. The part that had been most severely burnt by the fire of the night previous: the fire that burnt my fathers kingdom to the ground.

There was no food, and even less water. My mother and her lionesses had to travel far to find means for us to survive.

I grew up on an empty stomach and an empty heart. My mother had no love for someone like me. Someone who did not, and could not be the King. I had failed my father. I had failed my purpose.


The sun rose over the flat blackness that was the Pride Lands. From the lofty peak of Pride Rock a new king surveyed his ruined Kingdom. Beside him, in a half circle, sat his lionesses, Zazu, Timon and Pumbaa and of course the mandrill, Rafiki.

"Settle down everyone. Settle down. Honestly the king wishes to speak." Zazu said. One of the lionesses giggled. "And you'd do well to listen." Zazu added giving the gathering a supercilious glare. It was the Kings first council.

"Thank you Zazu," Simba said affectionately. He had forgotten how pompous Zazu was in his absence.

Deciding to speak Simba opened his mouth but was interrupted by his mother Sarabi.

"Simba, first, tell us. What happened to Scar?" the former Queen asked.

Simba studied his mothers tired features. She'd aged more than he realised.

"He's gone." Said Simba quietly. Everyone lifted their heads in question.

"Dead?" someone asked.

Simba nodded. "The hyenas turned on him."

"Even after all these years I never thought he'd kill his own brother," said Nala. The other lionesses muttered in agreement. Sarabi was silent. The truth was as bad as reliving the moment Mufasa had died all over again.

"There was a darkness in Scar he couldn't escape," said Simba.

The mood was sombre.

"Simba, your majesty, I don't mean to interrupt this but what are we going to do until the herds come back? The Pride Lands are a wreck. No water. How are we going to survive?" asked Pumbaa.

"Should we leave the Pride Lands?" somebody asked.

"I've been thinking about that too but I don't think we should leave the Pride Lands," Simba said.

The pride stared at him.

"Simba, how will we survive?" asked Sarabi.

"We'll starve!"

"There's no food, no water!"

The meeting dissolved into chaos. Simba tried, in vain, to regain control but the lionesses were frantic.

Simba opened his mouth to let out a silencing roar but a loud crack of thunder cut through the air accompanied by a bolt of lightning before he could anything. The sky half covered in clouds, rumbled ominously.

Simba wondered if it was his father roaring in the clouds above. Whatever it was it had silenced the lionesses.

Simba sighed as he looked into their scared, tired faces. "We have to stay here. It's our home. Where else is there to go? Besides it's the place of our forefathers, our ancestors, lions have always lived on Pride Rock. Who will carry on their legacy if not us?" asked Simba, his eyes skyward. "My father would've wanted us to stay."

The pride was silent.

Simba stared at the clouds, hoping he was doing the right thing, hoping that there would come a sign from his father, from the Kings past. He waited for a long time but the sky remained the same cold and an ugly shade of weak grey. There was nothing. He was on his own.

"Simba?" came a voice, half whispered. It was Nala.

He looked at her. She was small beneath the great sky, one tiny lioness in a big world but her eyes bore into his, shining with emotion, with the hope he needed and suddenly he didn't need to worry.

"I trust you." She said.

He closed his eyes, hoping she was right, and prayed.

It hadnt been easy but Simbas Pride survived, and before long, the grass, green and new, grew back. The trees, seemingly blackened and dead, sired new leaves. The rains came and brought the Pride Lands back to life, banishing the old and cleansing the memories of Scar, to welcome the new, the dawn of the Simba's reign as King.

Along with this new found peace and change came another source of joy for the Pride Lands and its King: Kopa, Simba and Nala's son and heir.

He was the apple of his fathers eye, growing quickly from a tiny newborn to a healthy cub. Nala thought he was Simbas spitting image. Simba thought he looked just like Nala.

They both agreed however that he was perfect. The perfect heir to the throne.

All was well. For them of course.

For us the outsiders, life was always difficult and not much changed after Simba became King.

There was still no food, still no water, no land, no happiness and I, well, I was still a girl. And so I was still a mistake and my mother still hated me.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed.