Chapter 20
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or Lion King or their respective characters, just this story and my own characters.
My characters:
Haja
Jabali
Konde
The following characters belong to Anonymous 13 B and I have his express permission to use them:
Khara
Mheetu (his variation)
Fire
The True Fire Bender?!
*Kopa*
The laughter grew louder as I stepped closer to the shadow. The heat rose as I tossed and turned. A snap rang through my ears as my eyes finally snapped open.
"Son are you ok?" I heard my father ask. I looked up shakily and saw him poking his head into the den.
"ya, lets just get going." I said as I rubbed my brow with my paw. Apparently that nightmare was worse than I thought as my eyes were stinging once I awoke meaning I must have had bad sweat.I walk out into the sunlight and sling my brother over my back.
About an hour passed after we finally crossed the damned desert, before Simba decided to break the silence.
"Kopa come on! I can walk just fine on my own!" My brother's whining is starting to get on my nerves, especially since I am the one carrying him. Hey, I know he is my brother and I love him, but at this moment, when he is acting like a cub, I really just want to give him a good fireball to the tail.
"Simba," I said in a very stern tone. "Behave." I gave it a moment for him to answer before I decided to drop him roughly by sitting down and letting him slide to the ground.
He went oof before raising his head to glare at me. "Hey! I'm in recovery you know. Be gentle!"
"You're the one who said you could walk. So prove it." I said with a stern look.
Simba glared and to my surprise managed to with some pain, as I heard him wince a few times, get to his paws. After that, he took a few strong steps before finally buckling under his own weight. My Dad than takes a shift and places him on his back.
I heard him grunt as Dad carried him and rolled my eyes. This is one thing about me and my brother that I like about me but don't like about my brother, stubbornness. I decided if I don't want him whining or arguing on the way to the place in the Fire Pride that Dad is leading us to, I needed to start a conversation, and I have the perfect topic in mind.
"Come on, son. Don't give your brother a hard time. Why don't you think about who we are going to see today in the Fire Pride?" I perked my ears and looked at my father who had decided to come along today for Simba's and my meeting with a certain someone.
"Oh Yeah! We are going to meet the original fire bender today. I really can't wait to see one up close." I closed my eyes fondly at the thought . Hearing my brother's excitement and feeling his anticipation through his shaking on my back brings back the old cubhood joy to my heart. In this case, cause we both want to meet one of our favorite of the original four benders of the elements, the fire bender.
"I wonder what kind of dragon we'll meet." In our pride, we have stories about the four traditional benders of the four elements. Air is the sky bisons, water is the fish in one of the Water Pride's pools, earth is a gopher and fire is a dragon. Fire especially was my particular favorite cause when I was little and just starting my fire training, I would dream about meeting a dragon and maybe taking one as a friend.
"Heh heh. I can definitely see that you two are very enthusiastic about this. I guess telling you all of those stories when you were cubs really sunk in." I heard my father chuckle as he watched our enthusiasm. But behind the chuckle I could sense that my dad had a surprise in store for us. I raised my eyebrow and thought, what is he up to? I began scanning the area and looked around each rock we passed as we travelled past Master Jeong Jeong's pond and travelled deeper into the Fire Pride.
"So Dad, who are you having introduce us to the original Fire bender. He must be so honored?"
"I am. I think you will enjoy it a whole lot when you meet him." That answers one of my secret questions as to who this particular teacher. Dad said 'he' which meant the teacher was at least male and based on my Dad's demeanor, which was calm and playful, I could assume that whoever it was, was not very strict.
"So boys, can I ask while we are walking, since we have a little bit of distance left to cover, which of the stories I told you when you were cubs got you so excited about meeting the fire bender?" My ears perked and then I looked back at my brother who I had slung over my back to carry him and saw he had a smirk that I bet would match mine on his face and knew that we both have interesting but different stories that draws us to the dragons. Only questions are: which one will catch dad's eye and which, knowing how different they are, end up being a true story?
*Mufasa*
I looked down at my now adolescent boys. Kopa put a paw to his elbow thoughtfully and began to speak. "My favorite story is the one where you told us about the birth of the first of the four benders." I sighed as I was not surprised by Kopa's choice. Both of my sons have a curiosity about the past in our pride. They are always first in line to listen to stories but sadly, I frowned as I heard Simba chuckle, they don't exactly have the same taste.
"Really, Kopa? That's the most boring story we ever heard when we were cubs." Simba has always been more interested in past stories of a more grand and adventurous nature and normally does not like certain stories that involve boring drama as he calls it. Sadly, that hasn't changed as he grew older. I saw Kopa turn and give what I assume was a dirty look and Simba immediately stopped chuckling.
"Yes, Simba. It is my favorite. It might not be a daring tale of excitement like the tale of Mohatu and his adventure with the white dragon, but it is a story you should respect since if that story never happened, we would not be able to bend in the first place." Despite his now distant attitude, he still listens to me.
Kopa used to be like Simba when they were younger and loved to usually only hear the same exciting stories that Simba did. But after his incident with Zira, he has stopped enjoying those adventures as much and instead took a deeper interest in more educational stories since then. Most likely, I reasoned, he was studying these stories so he could find a way to teach Zira a lesson the next time they fought. Kopa's respect for certain stories like this is one of the qualities in him that makes me proud to call him my son. Don't get me wrong, I love him the same as Simba, but it is times like these when I really feel pride that I can distinguish between my two boys.
"It is just a boring story, Kopa. A bison made a wind blow, a pair of fish swim in a circle, a gopher dug under the ground and a dragon breathed its first flame. Not very exciting in my opinion."
I shook my head with an amused chuckle at Simba. He has never been one for lessons besides paws on lessons and hope one day he will come to respect the stories like the one Kopa enjoys and pass these stories on like my father and Mother did me and their parents before them. He will be a great avatar and a mighty king if he can learn to respect past teachings.
"You know Simba," I saw my air bender boy look at me from on his brother's back and said, "you should respect history. If you don't then you are doomed to repeat it." I saw him groan as he heard my little words of wisdom and saw Kopa roll his eyes at his brother.
"Come on, Dad. I know I need to learn from the past. I do that everyday." I rolled my eyes at my son's 'I know I know' attitude and then a funny comeback came to my mind. Time to show my son who is boss with my Poetic Powers.
"Yet still you have not learned that females are the most dangerous." I saw my son's eyes narrow with mischief and I knew what that meant. It meant he was telling me 'Challenge accepted!'
"Is that so, Dad? Then, please tell me what your fumbles over your own tail self has on me?" I raised my own eyebrow at my son's statement and glared at him for mentioning that cubhood habit of mine. Darn my brother for telling him that.
*Simba*
About to play a game of comeback mania with my dad and I am all revved up for it. My dad made the first move and said, "Your bending lessons are an perfect example of your inability to learn from the past." I rolled my eyes as he said that and I know what he is going to say next. But being the challenging lion I am, I don't let it show that he is hitting me hard at first.
"What about it Dad? My lessons always went well. Heck, you said yourself that I became better than you at fire bending." I know my dad was exaggerating about that compliment, but decided to use it to my advantage.
"I said that only cause I did not want you to feel bad after all of the water blasts, rocks you took to the head and the embers you took to your tail.
My entire body winced as the memory of those numerous hits came back to me. I was literally dripping water out of my ears for days after my lessons where I sparred with Nala and had serious headaches after my bouts with Tama. I gave my brother a dirty glare as he started to smirk and he wiped it off instantly since I could tell he was thinking about the times he burned my tail in sparring and in our games with our friends. I will not allow him to enjoy himself.
"But Dad, doesn't that mean you lied to me?" Yawn. Simba uses Dad's words against him. Whoopee I thought bored.
"No, Simba. I did not lie to you. I merely feelt sorry for you and make you feel like you were as good as me. You know, a confidence booster." I groaned as my Dad countered my attempt to make him look bad. Why is he so clever? Guess it runs in the family.
"At least I didn't burn my first bit of mane off, 7 times in a row, when I was learning to fire bend." I saw my dad's eyes go wide as I brought up what an embarrassing part of his life.
It is embarrassing for any lion when they lose their mane, especially because they did it. I heard from Grandma that he was teased and called the Lioness Prince for at least 3 months during his lessons. I guess Kopa also pictured Dad burning off his mane when he was younger cause he looked like he was fighting a losing battle to maintain his unfazed expression as he most likely was battling a chuckle. Too bad I intend to draw it out of him.
"Remind me to get your Grandmother back for that," I shook my head as my dad recovered from his little beatdown. Does he really want to come at me again? He better be careful with what he chooses to say. I swear if he brings up…. "but Simba, what about all the times you tried to pin down Nala and failed even with your supposed dragon style?." He brought up the one thing I don't like to be constantly reminded of, Nala standing over me and smirking. Plus, he added my hated reminder of trying to imitate his special dragon style of fire bending through the mouth and only ended up coughing up smoke.
"That was a low blow Dad. A really low blow. Nala only caught me off guard a bunch of those times. Plus I didn't want her to get hurt by going full strength. Her being a girl and all." I tried to defend myself to make it seem like my Dad had gotten me but at the same time I wanted to see if I could get him to say something I can use.
"You said that every time Simba. You were just trying to cover that you weren't better than her." I frowned when my Dad smiled a smile of victory and then decided to open his mouth again, most likely to gloat. "I always managed to win every fight with my signature style." My ears perked as my Dad said that and I smiled as the key to victory crossed my mind.
"Oh is that so, Dad? Perhaps I should tell that to Mom once we get back." I watched as Dad froze and gave a blanched expression as I used my ultimate weapon, Mom, against him. "I think it will be pretty cold out tonight."
"Sure son you win ok? You win!" I chuckled as I heard his sarcastic surrender and nodded to him. I showed him. He may have made this game, but I am its master.
"Your answer, Kopa. The answer Alex is: What is, Mufasa got served?" I chuckled as Kopa made his joke like conversation and thoughtfully added in my mind, Thank you Trebek!
"Ok, Ok. Enough. Can we get back to what we were discussing before this? Simba, what story drew you in to want to meet the dragons?" I saw my Dad was clearly embarrassed by me one upping him but since I am nice, I will ease up.
"My favorite story is the one where you got your nickname Dad." My dad's eyes widened and then he smirked and I knew I had surprised him. The story goes that years ago, when my Dad was an adolescent, he fought a full grown dragon and managed to beat it on his own. His victory earned him the title as the Golden Dragon of the Pride. It was my favorite story growing up and I hoped our dragon teacher could confirm it.
Dad was about to reply when we all heard flapping up above and then a strangely accented voice. "Oh that was indeed a joyous day for both me and for your father, young prince." I looked and instead of a large red scaled dragon which I had hoped was where the flapping came from, there was a large reddish gold bird with a long yellow beak looking at us with what I assumed was a smile.
"Uh, hi. Who are you?" I saw the bird look at my Dad in a way as to tell him to introduce him and I raised an eyebrow and looked to Kopa in a way that said 'what's up with the bird?'
"Simba, Kopa," We both looked to my Dad and paid close attention as he spoke and hoped he would explain the bird. "May I introduce, the former major domo of your grandfather King Ahadi and your fire bending teacher for today, Sifu Banana Beak."
"I told you when you were a cub how to introduce me, King Fuzzy!" I laughed when I heard the bird get defensive but then my eyes widened and my jaw dropped as I realized what my Dad also said.
"ZAZU? Zazu is our teacher?" I looked on at the now grinning bird and frowned as I looked at my Dad with a look that said 'you got some explaining to do'.
Skit Time:
(One of you asked for it so here it is)
Timon cleared his throat. "Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase. " He sang to the Aang whom had somehow drifted into the oasis.
Pumbaa walked up with his usual smile. "Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze."
Timon sang as he backed up and helped the boy get comfy in a bed of leaves. "It means no worries. For the rest of your days."
Pumbaa walked behind him and in tandem with Timon they sang. "It's our problem free. Philosophy."
"Uh Guys." The funky beat from nowhere ends and everyone turns to see Simba sitting there looking at them confused. "I'm over here you know."
"Whoops sorry Simba. My bad I let Pumbaa lead." Timon said ignorantly getting the warthog to snort as Aang padded over to the cub.
"Hi I'm Aang. Nice to meet you Simba." He said petting the cub who purred. "Sorry I messed up your number."
Simba shrugged and leaned up to Aang's ear with the other two listening in.
"I like that idea let's do this." Timon said grinning.
They continue on through the song until they get to Timon and Pumbaa swinging from the vines. "Hakuna MATATA! Ain't no Passing Craze!"
From somewhere, a light shone down on Simba began walking with a strut in his step as he sang. "It means no worries."
Aang jumped around along the air making the wind blow to make Simba look cooler. "For the rest of your days."
"It's Our Problem FREEEEE!." Timon Aang and Simba sang as they came together.
Pumbaa suddenly fell and landed beside the three of them. "PHILOSOPHY!"
"HAKUNA MATATA!"
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