Chapter 29 – Kings and Vagabonds

Scar came back home right before sunrise, after a restless night.

The whole pride was still sleeping uneasily, but he couldn't find his father or brother anywhere. Following the scent, he ascended to the very top of Pride Rock. Mufasa was sitting there, alone.

-"Where is that fool?" – Scar asked, thinking of Ahadi. He wanted to demand of the king to explain to him the details of Uru's death.

His brother remained silent, however, gazing at the rising sun for a while.

-"Mufasa, I asked you a question!" – the younger prince repeated angrily.

Then the lion turned around... and Scar had never seen his sibling in a greater state of shock. Not even when they sat by their mother's dead body.

-"He's gone..." – Mufasa mumbled, as if unable to believe the very words he spoke.

-"What?!" – his completely astonished brother gasped.

-"He... he left" – the older prince began to explain. – "He came to me at night... he said that you were right. That he's responsible for mother's death, and that this made him unfit to rule. He said he wanted to abdicate... that he was going on a voluntary exile. I tried to stop him, but I couldn't... He just kept on walking, ordering me not to follow him, and to... And to..."

A warm, satisfying feeling of gloomy joy filled Scar's heart, which for a time replaced the pain and sorrow he felt after losing Uru... He did not express any of it. When he tried to say something, however, Mufasa roared at him in a sudden outburst.

-"This is your fault!" – his anger was that of an unusual violance. – "I've become an orphan because of you!"

Oh Muffy, Muffy. Did you forget that our father was not just your exclusive property? – Scar thought with more sadness than anger. - I also am an orphan now… but unlike you, I have lost my father a long time ago.

Then the younger prince realized something else. And that made him shudder.

-"You are mistaken, brother" – he spoke seriously. – "Because of me, although it was never my intention, you have now become the king."

Laughing internally at the irony of his fortune, Scar remembered that, when they were just cubs, Mufasa once forced him to call him king. He clearly recalled how mad it made him feel back then… and that he even promised that he would kill his brother for it. Right now, however, he could feel no anger anymore. His heart was hollow, numb from the excess of suffering.

There and then, on the very summit of Pride Rock, Scar was the first one to give his homage to the new ruler of the Pridelands.

-"Hail, king Mufasa" – he said, and bowed his head.

Right after he did that, to Scar's greatest shock, his brother gave him a strong blow to the face, using all the strength he had in his huge royal paw.

The younger lion stumbled to the ground, rolling over. It seemed that Mufasa had sensed that he was not being genuine in what he was doing... Standing back up on his feet, Scar spat the blood from his cut lip out on the ground. The brothers fixed their eyes at each other, both of them with an almost indescribable hatred.

-"Father was the noblest lion in the kingdom" – Mufasa spoke with limitless rage. – "Because of you, he's gone- destined to die in the wild like some common vagabond. Get the hell out of my sight!"

The fury of being insulted so gravely blazed in the black-maned sibling's heart, almost making him completely lose his self-control…

But then Scar remembered a similar scene, one that happened at the very same spot a long time ago- the morning he caught Ahadi announcing to Mufasa that it would be him, not his younger son, who would become king in the future. On that day, he had also been struck on the face.

-"Like father, like son" – Scar snorted disdainfully, his rage momentarily replaced by a malicious sneer of derision. Afterward he simply turned his back on the new king, feeling triumphant for having made Mufasa more furious by his mocking tone than by baring his fangs.

At that moment, both the brothers gave each other an unspoken promise that their ultimate revenge would consist of more than mere words.


AN: Exit king Ahadi. And now, like in Shakespeare, all are punish'd.

In TLK, we see that Mufasa hates Scar almost as much as the younger lion hates him.

This is why.