Chapter 4: The Snowlands
By midday, sunlight raged down over the savannah so intensely that all the water I'd had (roughly a liter) slipped from my body in copious drops of sweat which sizzled upon clashing with the arid earth. Rather than rustling, the withered grass and shrubs crackled in the summer breeze, which was doing little to relieve the stifling atmosphere. The young lions, though, did not seem disturbed by the heat; they ran about and pounced and yelled happily, with no restraint whatsoever. When thirst hung on their throats, they would simply stand on the edge of the sparkling water hole and drown it with a mouthful of the refreshing, bubbly liquid.
Nala and Simba engaged in a game much like the one the latter had played with his best friend before heading for this place, although the score was not as balanced as it'd been then. The pursuit almost always (to give Simba some credit for his pointless efforts) culminated with her on top of the golden cub. Whenever the tan cub nailed him down, the Prince would grumble under his breath, pushing the she-cub off of him, and attempt a successful counterattack only to miss her. Occasionally, he managed to skim her fur with a stretch of his paw, but that was as far as he would get. Her skill clearly outmatched his. She would probably grow up to be an extremely talented huntress.
Although all of the little ones' eyes glimmered anxiously under the diurnal star's infernal resplendence, the two lovebirds' blazed wildly and stood out from the crowd.
Just as I was going to join them, a bitter cubbish voice petrified me.
"They look cute, don't they?"
I glanced back over my shoulder to stumble on Sauda, whose chest was bloated with conceit. Her green orbs, ravenous for revenge, fell upon me after perusing the two playmates she'd referred to scornfully. Her tail twitched back and forth in a rather maniacal and evil fashion, dancing like a snake to the beat of her envious heart.
"I thought leopards could talk," she hissed, annoyed by my silence.
Her vexed stare sent numbing shivers down my spine. She stepped closer and smirked malevolently as I cowered back slightly. Her tail lashed the soil repeatedly, lifting a weak fog of dust. Looking away, I tried to pay as little heed as possible to the bully's intimidations. I could feel that sharp glare of hers stabbing into me like a deadly blade.
The silence between us ended up wearing out the vengeful she-cub's patience. A shriek of pain burst out of my mouth as a sudden, sharp sting throbbed in my left flank, close to my belly. Instinctively, I sprang violently from Sauda, who let out a pleased cackle. The unsheathed claws in her right paw had caught tiny bloodstains.
"See?" she laughed snidely. "You do have a voice."
I brought forth the toughest snarl I could contrive, but all that came out was a pained groan. In response, she issued a daunting roar much too fierce for someone her age, which drew all attention toward us. My heart shrank as she pressed her paws against the ground and lifted her rump, preparing to attack. She curled her lips into an ill grin, but erased it quickly when another girl planted herself between us. Her jade-green eyes scanned the hindrance disdainfully and then swirled about, noticing that all the cubs were surrounding her, eying her curiously. Seeing as her two loathsome cronies weren't here to provide aid, she reassumed an idle stance, unwilling to start a losing fight.
"You okay?" inquired my protector, glimpsing back. A feeble smile on her part welcomed my shy nod.
"Butt out, you tan freak!" growled Sauda, baring her teeth menacingly. "This is between the weirdo leopard and me!"
Nala would've attempted to calm the seething contender down under different circumstances. Not now. Any insults regarding her fur color roiled her like nothing else in the whole wide world. The additional fact that her sworn enemy had spoken them only fanned the flames.
"Why do you always have to bother us? Huh?" she asked defiantly, surprising the bully.
Simba, who'd hidden behind a bush to get rid of the water he'd gulped up hastily at the waterhole a split second before the brawl's ignition, returned to find the girl he was playing with confronting one of the most popular she-cubs in Pride Rock. He rushed toward the center of the imperfect circle the others had formed around us like lightning across a bleak, gray sky. Jostling through the gossiping throng, he finally wound up next to Nala.
The odd stare he aimed at her displayed his bafflement. "What's going on?"
"Oh, Simba," gasped Sauda, "I've been waiting for a decent lion to show up. Can you please tell this tan nobody to get lost?"
"Do you have a problem with tan fur?" countered Nala, restrained from leaping forth by the Prince, who barred her way with his paw.
Sauda smiled, quite satisfied with the future king's preventive action. Convinced that she possessed some sort of hold over him and feeling obligated to strengthen it, the vicious female fixed her eyes on the golden cub flirtatiously. He glowered at her with disgusted amusement and opened his mouth to speak.
"Nala, I'll handle this," he murmured sweetly, dropping the limb with which he'd stopped her.
Probably believing her heartthrob would yield to her popular rival's charms, she complied meekly and gently scuffed backwards. Her head drooped like a flower confined to darkness as she waited for him to continue talking.
"Do you have a problem with tan?"
Each and every word was as clear as ice and as sharp as the fangs it passed. All the listening ears perked incredulously. Nala dropped her jaw, unable to explain to herself this dreamlike occurrence. Her heart did not just skip a beat; for more than a minute, it lay still.
Her mind had drifted away from the unreal scene before her; it had gone to party in a wonderful dreamscape with her happiest emotions as the guests of honor. She'd fallen into a fantasy which, perhaps for the first time, was based on a true event; something beautiful she hadn't merely made up to lull herself to sleep at night.
Sauda, rendered speechless, spun round abruptly and walked away with her nose pointing arrogantly at the vaporous blue ceiling and her eyes closed in indignation. Her followers and some wannabe popular girls caught up with her in no time. Others (an insignificant minority, I might add) stayed behind and praised the Prince for his heroic deed, as they had put it. Most of them were cubs he'd never even exchanged a 'hi' with: the pariahs his friends disapproved of.
"You're bleeding," stated Nala concernedly, studying the three cuts Sauda's claws had left on my side.
Simba approached slowly after being drenched in a shower of compliments and inspected the wound as well. "Maybe we should go back and let Mom see it. She'll know what to do."
I snorted in disagreement and licked the scratches clean. "You see? It's nothing… No need to go back."
The two cubs kept their worried eyes transfixed to the three beads of viscous blood that had formed again.
"You sure?" inquired Simba dubiously, but raised no further arguments in reference to the subject upon receiving a nod for an answer.
Soon enough, everything about my little encounter with Sauda slipped from everybody's thoughts as if it had never happened and a seemingly more crucial matter was brought to light.
What would be the next game?
'Tag' was their best option, although they'd already played that. Finding something unique and equally fun proved inconceivably hard. Scrunching up their faces and calling upon all the powers of their vivid imaginations, the young ones tried to come up with a suitable entertaining activity. In spite of their mental strain, not one single idea enlightened their inhibited minds.
Thus, a moment of sullen brooding struck the bunch, which lasted only as long as it took one of its members to speak.
"Tarja," started the Prince, almost at an inaudible volume, as though he felt embarrassed about the doubt that bothered him. "I've been wondering…"
Evidently, he had been pondering over something completely different to what had the rest so busy. His ears lay flat against his skull, his paws remained motionless on the grass, and his tail didn't twitch nervously like the others around me did; he looked oddly serene.
"What are 'snows' like?"
My crumpled expression shook him. "W-what are you talking about?"
"Remember how you said you were a snow leopard?" he asked rather shyly, beginning to fiddle with his claws.
Nala listened to the question and pulled a perplexed stare which resembled the one the inquirer bore. She faced me and sat next to him.
"You know?" she muttered, "I didn't get that either."
First, I endeavored to offer a good clarification, but all my explanations (and they were extremely detailed) seemed to crease their faces with an even profounder bewilderment. All along, they had regarded the cold, white heavenly substance under discussion as an animal of some sort. Since I had told them my mother was a leopardess, they had outright deduced that my father ought to be the 'snow' (hence, the name 'snow leopard'). This, actually, if I hadn't been born and raised in the tough snowy mountains, would've passed through my ears as a quite convincing and reasonable theory.
Eventually, my patience ran dry like all my water reserves had. I breathed out wearily, the noise shoving the other cubs from their worries. Before I could realize it, all eyes had fallen intently upon me, eagerly expecting an answer to the question posed by the future king.
"I can't put it any other way," I concluded. "Snow is just snow."
After the session of inquiries was closed, the young lions dedicated themselves to organizing the information I'd jammed their brains with. Later, Simba looked up at me with his eyes glistening excitedly.
"I know what we can play!" he hollered at a high pitch, rapidly picking up on the alarmed glares encircling him. Deeming his current tone unbecoming of royalty, he inhaled deeply, his chest swelling like something recently stung by a bee. Subsequently, he carried on smoothly.
"We can play 'tag' in the Snowlands. We can pretend the grass is… that thing Tarja was talking about."
Snow, Simba. Snow...
The proposal needed barely more than five seconds to be enthusiastically accepted by the entire group. Swiftly, Simba pushed one of the male cubs with his paw and bolted off. The crowd dispersed at a fast pace and, in the blink of an eye, the field was cleared. Only he who had been marked as 'it' wandered about, rummaging through the bushes (no, the rocks wrapped in sheets of frost) for a friend to catch.
The cub approached the frozen rotten log behind which Nala had chosen to hide, and would've found her, if a branch hadn't snapped violently nearby. The unfortunate paw that had provoked the noise belonged to me. As he turned, a mischievous grin drew below his sparkling chocolate orbs. I swung round and scooted away as fast as leopards could. Repeatedly, my legs pounded harshly on the thick white makeup of the lifeless ground surface, acquiring impulse for long, forward leaps. But, outside our minds, this was the Pridelander's turf, and I knew it. The run would eventually exhaust all my energy and he would inevitably seize me.
Just as I'd foreseen, he managed to get hold of my tail after a rather short chase. He pulled me back with all his strength and cried three muffled words that were nevertheless notably discernible.
"Tagh! Yuh it!"
Once he released me, I strained to tag him back. As I did so, my pleasantly cold homeland vanished before me the same way it had suddenly appeared: out of magic. His limbs, which functioned better in the new environment, carried the lion far away from me. Soon, he disappeared into the withered greenness of the surroundings. The sick, spiky carpet of vegetation spread around me like an endless sea. Sharp, dry waves rippled across it toward different destinations with the gentle caresses of the damp wind.
"Guys, this isn't fair!" I huffed, swiveling my head back and forth. The occasional wretched chirrups of birds soaring by made the stillness of the savannah feel strangely uncomfortable. The creepy shadows of these flying animals swept past me through the ground. Other than that, I could detect no signs of motion, or life, for that matter.
"It's the Snowlands," I mumbled sulkily. "I'm supposed to be invisible, not them."
I was fumbling through the bushes with my paws and sniffing the air carefully, although conscious that I'd probably stumble into nothing but bugs, when a recent memory glowed in my head like a star in the prime of its youth.
The frozen log (now, it was a regular fallen trunk), Nala's hiding spot…it was lying right in front of me!
I crept closer very cautiously, putting in practice the hunting tips Mom and Dad had given me long ago, in that icy home which now seemed to be worlds away. My ears perked attentively at the faint giggles that erupted from behind the wooden bar at irregular intervals. A broad smirk spread across my muzzle. It was Nala! And she was all mine…
Bringing my tummy low to the ground, I prepared to jump over the dead trunk and pin my prey. I could picture her coiled up beneath it, unsuspecting. Perfect.
I sprang forth with all my might but, before I could get to her, a furry body shoved me aside, pinning me to the cracked soil with its tough paws. As it stood on top of me, its weak shadow crawled through me like a giant black serpent. For a while, it squinted down at me disapprovingly. At the sound of a dubious voice, it opened its gleaming eyes wide, as if it'd been hypnotized by a swinging pendulum, and stole a quick glance back at its caller, who'd poked her head out of her hiding place.
"Nala!" exclaimed Simba shrilly, leaping off of me and sitting down on his haunches before the tan cub, his chest filled with pride. "I saved you."
Sarafina's daughter smiled humorously and climbed over the log, digging her claws into its rotten surface. "Yeah, right. Like she could hurt me."
"I'm right here, you know," I interjected, rising to my paws gently so as not to damage the wound on my side more than it already was. The scratches had become three thin, ugly yellowish stripes encircled by clotted blood. It hurt tremendously when I performed brusque movements. Simba was right; I needed to show it to an adult. But infections didn't always require instant attention; Mom had told me so. Besides, I liked playing 'tag', especially now that I'd been ridden of the burden of being 'it' with the Prince's courageous intervention.
"You could still say 'thank you,'" pointed out Mufasa's son, slightly upset by her depreciating comment.
She eyed him avidly, a bright smile burning secretly behind her sapphire orbs. She seemed to have put a spell on him, like the ones 'hormones' (according to Mom, they were the reason adolescents behaved like they did) put on boys and girls when they start growing up. He still hadn't reached that tender age, yet he was already acting like Valo, who would drool pathetically over all the leopardesses we ran into in the mountains.
She hopped onto the ground and faced him. "Okay," she said, stepping even closer to the golden cub. "Thank you," she whispered coyly into his left ear, and proceeded to lick him in the cheek.
For what seemed an eternity but had actually been no more than two minutes, they stared at each other like they had done the night before. Silly grins gripped their muzzles when they realized what had just happened.
"W-why did you do that?" asked the Prince, suddenly imprisoning his happy expression behind a mask of utter perplexity and astonishment.
"Oh," gasped Nala, thinking up a suitable excuse. She must've found it hard to lie with a million butterflies fluttering madly within her stomach and her head.
"Ah… it's…" she slurred on, unable to blow the winged insects away from her airy thoughts. Suddenly, her crooked frown of concentration blossomed into a huge smile of relief. "It's the way to say 'thank you' in the Snowlands! Tarja told me."
He looked like he hadn't bought it. Upon watching his stern glare slacken slowly into his casual gaze, I realized that he had.
"The others are still hiding," remarked Simba, changing the subject. "We should carry on playing."
"Yeah," I agreed, walking up to him. "But guess what?" I went on, smiling slyly while laying a paw upon his shoulder. "Tag! You're it!"
"Hey!" he croaked, a bit shaken, as it was instantly withdrawn. Laughing, I streaked alongside Nala toward an area where the grasses were even taller. Simba, who hadn't hesitated to give chase to us, did not stay far behind. Once he lost our track, we huddled into a little, secluded spot and waited for the danger to pass. My whitish fur imperiled our cover; twice, he almost caught us out of the corner of his eye.
Much to our convenience, the golden cub soon found another playmate to pursue. Our bodies slumped onto the muddy floor of the hideout and, as we panted the exhaustion off them, our eyes shimmered at the thought of our victory.
"We did it!" she yelled excitedly after recovering.
"Yeah," I nodded, exhaling noisily. "By the way, that is so not the way to say 'thank you' in the Snowlands."
Nala blushed and giggled bashfully. "I know."
Once again, I'm sorry about the delay. My college schedule is very tight (personally, I think they want me to kill myself). I already mentioned this before in the last VH AN, but I'll say it again anyways (for non-VH readers ;) ): I'll be posting chapters for both of my stories about once a month, if possible. However, I don't want to make any promises. Most likely, it'll take much longer. Additionally, I should warn you that LLS chapters will not be as long as VH chapters.
That said, I hope you liked ch. 4. I decided to make this story 7 or 8 chapters long. I guess we're halfway through then, aren't we?
Pleeeeeeease review! Reviews make my day; they cheer me up (and motivate me to write faster ;) ). I didn't get as many reviews for ch. 3 as I'd gotten for chs. 1 & 2. :(
