Cubhood: Chapter 3

Again the mist cleared, and Scar was unsurprised to discover they were in the Pridelands once again, this time right at the base of Pride Rock and just outside the den itself. For a moment, Scar made his way towards the den, marvelling at how it resembled his childhood home, and suppressing the feelings those memories brought with them. His mouth was dry, and he licked his lips with uncharacteristic nervousness. What strange apparition would his two guides show him next? Which ghosts, long buried, would appear before him?

Although that was precisely what he and his two sentinels were doing. In the most literal sense.

The morning air hadn't yet lost its cool tang, though he knew the sun would soon be blistering down upon him. As he watched, he could make out shapes beginning to form again, and saw clearly the figures of himself and his brother, once again alongside their mother. They were in the long grass, some distance away from Pride Rock. At a guess, he'd have placed them somewhere near the waterhole, and his suspicions were confirmed a moment later by the arrival of a number of herd animals, having just drank their fill for the morning. Watching the herd of what he could now make out as gazelle, were the three lions he had seen before. His mother. His brother. And the disturbing image of his former self. Their expressions were all identical. Attentive. Anxious. Hungry. They were stalking the herds with predatory purpose.

Suddenly, the lead gazelle's head snapped upwards, looking around in alarm. Mufasa cursed, and made a dash for the gazelle, but the herd was already darting away in panic. Mufasa slowed to a halt and watched the gazelle disappear, looking disgruntled.

"I don't get it!" He snapped in frustration. "What did I do wrong this time?!" He rounded on his brother. "You must have made a noise!"

"I certainly did not!" Taka said indignantly, glancing to his mother for reassurance. Uru shrugged.

"Technically it was all of us. You were both as quiet as mice, but you were coming at them from the south." She explained. Mufasa frowned, mulling this over and then groaned.

"And it's a southern wind." He muttered in annoyance. "They smelled us the moment we came within sight of them." Mufasa said, looking irritated. Taka on the other hand feeling vindicated, smirked and didn't look too concerned at all. It hadn't been his turn, after all.

"Why didn't you warn me?" He asked his mother, looking a little put out. Uru laughed, and nuzzled her elder son.

"Then what would you have learnt? I followed your lead. It wasn't for me to tell you were wrong: you needed to learn that for yourself. Next time you'll do better." She told him. Mufasa didn't look happy, but nodded.

"Is it my turn next?" Taka asked her. He'd already thought of the best way to encircle the herd from three different direction and was excited to try it out. To his obvious disappointment though, Uru shook her head.

"It will be. But those gazelle will be running for hours. It'll be a while before we can try again." Uru told him.

"You spoilt it." Taka said, shooting Mufasa a glare who shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Before he could open his mouth to speak however, a second voice interrupted their conversation with a shout.

"Your Majesty!"

Uru turned, and saw a golden lioness standing there. Next to her was her cub, a dark brown ball of fur, who looked to be about the same age as Taka and Mufasa. The cub looked at the other two uncertainly. Taka couldn't remember his name, though he'd seen him about the den in the evenings.

"Suberi." Uru greeted the lioness warmly, as the other lioness bowed to the queen. Scar remembered her. Suberi was a close friend of their mother's and they had spent many an evening under her watchful care when both Queen and King of the Pridelands had been unable to fulfil both their parental and royal duties.

"What are you doing out here?" She asked her. Uru smiled.

"I was hunting. After a fashion. With these two mighty hunters here." Uru said.

"Ah. Any success so far?" Suberi asked.

Uru's mouth twitched. "It's a work in progress." She admitted. Suberi gave a smile at that, and nudged her son towards the other cubs.

"Go on Imani. Say hello to the Princes." She urged him, and drew off some distance with Uru, leaving the cubs to play without hovering over them. Imani looked at the cubs and Mufasa smiled warmly.

"Hey Imani. My name's Mufasa." He said.

"I know who you are. You're the King's sons." He said.

Taka smirked. "Does that bother you? Everyone else always comments on it."

Imani shrugged. "Should it bother me?" He asked, looking puzzled. Taka raised an eyebrow, but shook his head. Mufasa rolled his eyes.

"Come on. Whilst our parents are busy, let's go play!" He said. Imani grinned.

"Sure. What do you want to play?" He asked them.

Mufasa looked to Taka. "Eh. We'll figure it out as we go. For starters though… tag!" He jabbed Taka in the shoulder with enough force to knock him down, and so give the other cubs a head start.

"Hey no fair!" Taka shouted, but Mufasa had already darted away. Taka's eyes settled on Imani, who backed up, and quickly darted off after Mufasa. Taka leapt to his feet and chased after the two of them.

It was some time before he caught up to them. Both Imani and Mufasa were a little bigger than Taka, and could run faster. Even so, Taka managed to surprise even Scar – who watched in ethereal form – with his stubbornness. Eventually, Imani tripped and Taka pounced on top of him.

"Tag!" He pronounced triumphantly, as Imani grunted.

Scar watched the cubs play for a while.

The ethereal spectre of the Traitor that Taka would one day become watched was still unnoticed and unseen by the cubs. Beside him, Kivuli was not paying as much attention to the visions before them, but was instead watching him carefully. Gauging his reactions. Ammit was looking about disinterestedly.

"And what…" Scar asked in his usual drawl, "… am I supposed to be learning from this? The antics of cubs? The innocence of youth? Am I supposed to remember what it meant to be young and free? Before I was so cynical and jaded? When I was ignorant of the real world? What's the game here?" Scar asked him. Kivuli gave him a shrug.

"I think it's interesting that you weren't always as you are now…" He pointed out. "I think it's interesting that there was a time you trusted, even loved your brother."

"Hrm. What were you expecting? That I was a wicked, cruel child? Someone who hated the world from the moment he had been born?" Scar asked, his eyes glinting. Ammit gave a slow chuckle.

"Oh no. No one is born evil. It just takes… pressure. All it sometimes takes is the littlest push. It's like gravity. So difficult to fly. So easy to fall," Ammit said. The Shade's eyes glinted, and it was clear that the thought of it thrilled and delighted him. Scar tried not to shudder when he met its eyes, glinting like emeralds underneath that hideous bloody scar.

Turning away again, Scar returned his attention to the sight of the cubs, who had progressed some distance from their parents by now, chasing and tackling each other with youthful vigour and energy. He tried to conceal his irritation. He had never possessed much patience in his adult life for the antics of cubs and he only possessed slightly more for those of his former self. He couldn't help but feel embarrassed by his younger happier self.

He moved closer and caught the end of their conversation.

"Darn it, Taka, you're fast!" He heard Imani shout, as he ducked under Taka's pounce.

"Look out!" Mufasa shouted in warning, and the cubs stopped their playing hearing the urgency in his voice. Stretching out before them was the unmistaken shape of what seemed to be a canyon. The Gorge stretched out under them, seeming to drop to a dizzying depth. Suddenly they felt as though they had perched on some high mountain, and were only now looking down below. Taka swallowed.

"Whoa…" He said, leaning in close. The cubs had been playing perilously close to the edges of the canyon, and had unknowingly came all the closer to the very edges of the cliff! Here, they could see the other side of the canyon, just out of reach. Imani looked up excitedly.

"I know this place! This is the Gorge! It's the lowest point in the Pridelands, down there!" He gestured vaguely to the south, where they saw the gorge widening out. They could make out vegetation below, and its steeper slopes began to turn shallower as they moved to the south, as the gorge opened out. Imani began to grin, and ran along the edge of the Canyon. Taka heard Mufasa's sharp intake of breath.

"Careful!" He said again. One false move, one misstep, and Imani could be sent tumbling down the edges of the Canyon to the rocks below. It was dangerous and reckless. And so of course, to the eyes of a cub, it looked like a lot of fun. Taka made his way along the edges of the Canyon. The height was dizzying, and he let out a whoop of excitement.

"Guys! Check this out!"

"Hey! Taka!" He heard Imani shout. He looked up and saw that the cub had ran along the edge of the Canyon to its narrowest point, where the far side of the Canyon was some mere feet away. Mufasa and Taka both watched, mouths open in shock as Imani leapt the distance and landed nimbly on the other side.

"Whoa!" He heard Mufasa gasp. Imani turned around and watched them both smugly.

"Care to beat that?" He asked them both, looking pleased with himself. Mufasa grinned and did a short run up, leapt the distance and landed less gracefully next to Imani. Both turned expectantly to Taka who looked down the depth of the Canyon.

"What's the matter? Scared?" Imani asked.

No. Just not an idiot. Taka thought to himself.

He gauged the distance. He could make that, he was sure. He'd leapt that far dozens of times. Hell, he'd pounced half again that distance not two moments ago whilst playing tag. The great gaping pit beneath him was nothing but a distraction. It didn't enter the equation if he could clear that distance.

The strength needed to leap that distance was the same, regardless of whether he was leaping over river, canyon, or grassland.

It was a simple matter. He swallowed.

And ran up to jump.

"TAKA!" he heard a familiar shout. He stumbled, and turned suddenly, and saw the angered – and frightened – face of his mother racing towards him.

Damn.

"Uh oh." He muttered, and gave a sly grin to his mother. Behind him, Suberi was rushing towards them.

"Imani!" She shouted. Imani's eyes widened. "What have I told you about playing near the Canyon! It's dangerous!" Uru looked at Mufasa, who (wisely) didn't jump the distance again, but walked back around to join them on the nearside of the Canyon. Uru looked disappointed. She opened her mouth, but Mufasa was already speaking.

"Sorry…" He said, looking more than a little ashamed.

Uru sighed.

"Do I even need to tell you that you ought not to have been leaping across the gorge?" She asked him. Mufasa sighed, and Taka winced. She had a fair point. It was needlessly foolish.

"No… Sorry Mother…" Mufasa said. She looked to Taka, challenging him.

"Hey, I didn't-"

"Don't even try saying you didn't try to leap the distance, I know full well you were only taking a run up!" Uru cautioned him.

Damn.

"It… It was only the edge. A tiny distance."

He smiled sheepishly, but Uru wasn't amused.

"Taka, Mufasa, you two are supposed to be Princes of the Pridelands! That doesn't mean you aren't expected to just be cubs and to have fun, but I can't imagine anyone, Prince or not, who would think that holding such reckless disregard for your own safety was in any way a good idea."

Alright, alright. Wasn't she laying it on a bit thick now? Taka thought to himself.

"Umm… Your Majesty? I was the one who dared them to try it… I don't think they'd have done it if it hadn't been for me…" Imani mumbled quietly. Suberi rolled her eyes in exasperation at her son and looked apologetically to Uru, who sighed.

"I don't… I don't believe I am about to say this with sincerity." She muttered. "Imani. Taka. Mufasa. Please don't jump huge distances over perilous cliffs for your amusement. Find something else to occupy your time?" She told them. Imani nodded.

"Yes Ma'am." He agreed. Uru sighed at the collective foolishness of the trio of cubs.

"That's it. We're going home now." She decided. The cubs groaned in protest, but a quick growl silenced any dissent. "And when we get there, you three are heading straight to bed." She said sharply. Taka's eyes widened at that.

"But it's still daylight!" He said. This was so unfair! Uru glared at him with a sudden intensity, warning him that now was not a time to debate her on this matter. Taka wilted under her gaze.

"Head back to Pride Rock. We'll be behind you." She said wearily. As annoyed as Taka was, he was just glad his mother had spared he a his brother the humiliation of being walked back like a pair of newborns. If she hadn't had both of the cubs with her by herself, she might have carried them back in her jaws like the cubs they were. Especially after such infantile behaviour, if only for the lesson.

Taka counted himself lucky that she couldn't face either prospect right away, not with her heart having only just returned to normal speed after its sudden jump at spotting her youngest cub about to do something as monumentally stupid as jumping one of the deepest gorges in the Pridelands.

"Don't worry!" Imani said as they trudged slowly back to Pride Rock.

Mufasa merely grunted, clearly a little cross that Imani's reckless behaviour had landed them all in trouble. "They'll be plenty of time tomorrow." Imani added.

"To do what?" Mufasa asked him, tiredly.

"Why, to explore the Gorge of course!" Imani said excitedly. Taka bit back a laugh.

"Do you have a death wish? Mother will skin us if we start messing around there again tomorrow!" He said, annoyed.

"No she won't! She only said we can't play around the edges! She said nothing about us jumping to the bottom and exploring all the crags and crevices down there. I bet there is a load to see and do!" Imani said. He looked at them both.

"Hey, he has a point." Taka said. Mufasa wilted, outnumbered now.

"Mother will have Zuzu watching us all day tomorrow." He pointed out. Imani laughed.

"Don't worry. We'll find some way to ditch the dodo. Nguvu will have an idea – he's a friend of mine." He said. Mufasa smirked.

"Well… Mother didn't say we couldn't…" He agreed. Then nodded. What the hell. It sounded like fun. He gave a laugh as they approached the base of Pride Rock.

"Great to meet you Imani. See ya tomorrow." He said.