The Lion King: Judgement
Book I - Cubhood
"The only difference that there is,
Between the Saint and Sinner,
Is that every Saint has a past,
And every Sinner a future"
- Oscar Wilde
Cubhood: Chapter 1
The world was grey. That was the first thing that would strike anyone. How grey and dismal the world appeared. High above, the sun glowed in a pale light, its usual yellow luminescence, now faded. In its place was a pathetic white imitation, almost lunar in its appearance.
Even so, the resemblance it bore to the Pridelands was astounding. The grass grew in the same way. The familiar dips and lulls of the earth beneath the paws of any creature. They were practically identical to the real thing.
But there was no sound. No chorus of singing birds. No splashing of water from the watering holes. Merely silence. With a creeping, cold stillness. The sun rose high above, but gave no warmth, no colour to its radiance. It moved across the sky, in a single great arc, but did nothing to bring life to the dead world that so closely resembled home.
In fact, there was only one spot of colour to be found on the lifeless landscape. His own form. One dark brown lion, with a mane black as midnight. Eyes of emerald. Cold and calculating orbs. Eyes that should have been sealed shut forever. The lion who owned those eyes felt his senses return to him one by one. First the sense of touch. Next came hearing, for he heard the rustling of the faded grass as he stirred. Then sight as his eyes blinked away the greying light. It was then he began to take in his surroundings. There was no scent in the air. No taste on the wind. No wind at all, in fact. It was a barren and lifeless place. One that was somehow like a void to his other senses. It felt alien, wrong somehow.
Scar took a gasping breath, choking down oxygen desperately as his faculties returned to him. Breath, sweet breath. He remembered choking, just before the darkness. Now the air was like honey to him. He could see no water about him, but he couldn't help but feel as if he'd been drowning on moments before. Or had he been falling? Falling, into the void, down and down and down.
"Where am I?" He demanded of whoever was there, looking around him for someone. Anyone to force some sort of explanation from. But he was alone. "What is this place?" He asked the air, voice barely above a whisper. There was no response.
The lion gave a roar. He started remembering. Images flashed before him. Fire, smoke...burning and the pain of teeth ripping him apart. He remembered the fire! There had been great flames licking the walls of Pride Rock. He remembered choking on the smoke in the air. Then on something else. Something metallic and sickly. He could remembered fighting, fighting for his life. It had been a savage and primal battle for his very survival. Clawing and biting. Mufasa had been there! No. Not his brother. His brother was long dead. He'd made certain of that. It was Simba. It could have been no one else. Simba had been there. But hadn't Simba been dead too?
He was supposed to be as dead as dust! Yet, whilst he had beheld his brother's body, broken, bleeding and ruined, he had never seen Simba's. Simba had somehow survived. They'd told him the deed was done...they lied to him!
The memories came back faster and with more ferocity. So much that the dark lion struggled to maintain his balance.
They had fought. He and his nephew. Clawing into each other like the savage beasts they were. Atop Pride Rock itself. Then he'd fallen. No, not fallen...he'd been thrown...all before he could deal the final blow. He'd fallen into the fires below. Only he survived! He'd live through the fall, only to encounter…her...
Shenzi.
Scar remembered. The name brought with it a terrible anger. A bitterness. A hatred. It coursed through him. Banzai. Ed. The other hyenas of the Spotted Clan. They had attacked him. He remembered their claws. Even more so their teeth, as the flames closed in around him. Carving, slicing, biting and tearing at his already bruised flesh. He remembered the blood. He remembered the fear and the terror.
How had he survived? He remembered one of them – he didn't know which; half the clan was already upon him – slipping past his guard, and taking a bite out of his throat. He remembered falling to the ground, as more hyenas savaged his bleeding body, tearing away his flesh. How had he survived that? He had he survived each new bite?
How had he survived? A small voice whispered in the back of his mind, softly "You didn't..."
They killed me. He thought.
The words crashed into his memories like ice water on a sleeping lion. The feeling of cold dread swept over him. How was this possible?
"They killed me!" he spoke the dreadful truth aloud this time, roaring the words.
He remembered the pain, he could remember it all. He remembered falling so far, and for so long. They had killed him. Those mangy beasts had turned on him after all he'd given them.
"No..." He whispered the word. "NO!" It couldn't be true! He couldn't be killed in such a brutal way! He was the King! How dare they turn upon him, how dare they betray him! How dare they defeat him! How dare they kill him! He had died! How could he have died?!
"They will suffer for this!" he screamed to the silent void.
But if they had indeed murdered him, as he distinctly remembered, then how could he still be here? And where was 'here', if it were not the Pridelands? Was it possible he had survived? No. He slowed his breath. They had killed him. The hyenas really killed him. He had died of many wounds, but he could recall his own strangled gasps as his throat was cut, and his lungs filled with his own blood. It hadn't been a quiet, dignified death. He could remember every moment of it and it horrified him. He closed his eyes, and let the shock pass, struggling to contain his horror, and then his anger.
"They dared to do this to me?! I am the King! King Scar!" He asked aloud, fury leaking into his voice. He had been murdered. He was the one dead as dust. And somehow he had found himself in this place. The greying copy of the Pridelands seemed so hollow to look at. A pale imitation. It angered him. But how had he come to this place? Some king of afterlife, apparently. He took a step forward, and roared once more. The sound echoed around him, growing louder as he unleashed his anger, fear and confusion in the only way that remained.
"What is this place and why am I here! Answer me!" Scar cried out. "Anyone! Answer me! I command it!"
Then there was a response. Scar almost wished he had remained silent. Or that he'd refrained from asking, from tempting fate further. From the ground, between the cracks in the earth and blades of grass, a smoke began to rise. Grey and dreary, much like the rest of the world. Scar leapt back in shock, slowly backing away further warily. Smoke wasn't sensible to breathe in at the best of times, and Scar would be a fool to believe this was normal smoke.
It wasn't. Not by a long shot. In the midst of it more smoke began rising, pure white in colour. The mist rose and coiled around him, and separated itself from the darker ethereal matter that was rapidly building in the air. It twisted and writhed like twin serpents, pulling away from each other as though they were alive. The two smokes pulled apart, and began to condense. Coalescing, coming together. Scar swallowed as the smoke began to solidify and form into shapes.
Out of the shapes stepped two figures.
They were lions, or at least appeared to be. But they were unlike anything he had ever seen. For one thing, there was an ethereal quality to them giving them an almost translucent appearance. Giving off a mysterious radiance. There was a faint glow to the lighter lion, but it could only be seen at just the right angle. The other creature though, had a much dimmer aura that seemed to actually absorb the light around him, causing a dark smudge to form in the air around him.
There was a dimness to it, like a stain. It augmented his hollow expression. Apart from that, they retained typical leonine features. The first was a remarkably handsome lion. It was a male, with a thin, curved body that any lioness might have found appealing. He had a well-groomed mane of black fur that came over and around his head. Set between it were two green eyes that shone like stones of jade. Peculiarly similar to his own, though he had more important things on his mind. There was a brightness to the lion's eyes. For all his otherwise foreign features, it gave him the appearance of a young lion, as if experience and cynicism hadn't yet snuffed out the natural light of youth.
The other lion, the one with a smear of shadows around him, was the complete opposite in that regard. Both had bronze fur. The dark one's mane though, whilst black in colour, was otherwise very different. It was scraggly and unkempt. His fangs, while sharp, were yellow and looked to be in an advanced state of decay. His eyes shone in a sickly emerald green light that was harsh to see, and though he hoped he was imagining things, they seemed to be glowing. Scar filed it away in the back of his mind, blaming it on the light from the pale sun. Most disturbing of all was the angry, jagged red scar line that ran across his left eye. It looked fresh, almost bleeding. The sharp red contrasted with the green of his eye in a misshapen mess of blood and sickly light.
Both lions were also staring directly at him.
Scar stared at the two in shock, momentarily overwhelmed by their sudden appearance. Then, his anger returned.
"What are you? Ghosts? Spirits? You are no mere mortals. I can see it on you." He asked harshly. He was faintly pleased that his voice didn't betray his wild emotional state. It came out as suave and sophisticated as ever, if a little higher than normal in pitch. The lighter spectre spoke first.
"You are as quick a thinker in death as you were in life, Scar." It said, staring intently at him. Scar refused to be intimidated by his look. He turned his gaze instead to the darker one.
"I am dead." He stated. It wasn't a question. He knew it to be true.
"Correct." He said. And grinned at the words. He looked unduly pleased with that fact. Scar's tail swished with impatience. "Your throat was ripped out and you drowned on your own blood." The awful looking thing said with enough glee that even he was a little disturbed. All the same Scar nodded.
"Yet, here I am." He said. Either as some kind of spirit himself, or as some other entity. A soul? A spirit? He had never had time to think on such things when he'd been alive. Such questions as an afterlife had never gripped his mind as much as they had his brother.
The Great Kings, he reasoned, might well have existed, but seldom had they interfered with the affairs of mortals. He hadn't imagined that a collection of former Kings of the Pridelands could be more interested in the demise of any one person, than in say...a famine. Or a plague gripping the lands. They hadn't interfered then. Why would they intervene now? A horrible thought gripped him.
"Are you… Great Kings?" He asked them, with some degree of caution.
"No." Came the firm response, from the both of them. That was a relief. He on the other hand, was, a Great King. Scar seized upon that thought as soon as it appeared in his mind. If there was something to be said for this whole afterlife business, well he deserved his own slice. Was he expected to share it somehow? With these… entities?
"But it is on their behalf that we now act." On behalf of the Great Kings? What nonsense was this?
"Why am I still here? Shouldn't I have gone on or something of that nature? Why am I still here?" He asked, wishing he had paid more attention to his father's lessons on the subject of the Kings of the Past, as well as the spirits. Weren't stars supposed to be involved somehow?
The darker of the two lions hissed, his tongue flickering, seeming to taste the air. He then smiled as if sensing the uncertainty in him.
"Judgment." The darker one said.
"Judgement of what?" Scar asked in confusion, sounding wary. This didn't bode well.
"Judgment of you."
"Why?" He asked. "Am I to be judged by the likes of you? Or am I not a Great King?" He asked, defensively. Sighing, the lighter of the two lions before him moved forward. His eyes were narrowed, and something in Scar's animal instinct made him step back. This was not a creature to take lightly.
"Beware, Scar. You stand astride a very fine line. You were a crowned king, in life. But don't play games with us. You are no Great King. Many have come before you. Each and every one of them your betters. Did you think that there would be no repercussions for your actions? No accountability for your choices? No retribution for the many wrongs you did?" He asked. Scar felt as though he'd been punched in the gut with every word.
Ah.
He was suddenly very aware that he was alone. A mortal, standing before two spirits.
"Your rule directly resulted in the deaths of a number of animals, including several of your subjects," spoke the lighter lion.
"Did you think that among them, that none would cry out for vengeance? How many among the Great Kings call for your soul's obliteration do you think? I'd be interested to hear your best guess as you fall short." The darker of the lions asked him. Scar swallowed.
Tread carefully. His instinct screamed at him.
In that instance a cold fear struck into the heart of the lion. He was facing judgment. Judgment for his reign. According to these two beings, if he did not pass then he could cease to exist completely. Removed from the twilight as a stain of water on soil. Worst of all he knew that such an outcome was altogether too possible. He swallowed.
"Vengeance? For what? That I was unable to prevent a drought within my own lands?" He scowled at the two spirits. "You two are clearly spirits of great power, while I am but a mere mortal." He said smoothly. "I have no power to command the weather, nor will the herds to go where I command them! If my kingdom suffered, then you can be sure that I suffered with it!"
"You do not face Judgement for the drought, Scar." The lighter spirit said. "You face Judgement for your crimes against the Kings. For the murder of your own brother, King Mufasa!" He snapped , quickly growing weary of Scar's games. "As well as the attempted murder of Prince Simba. You stand accused of reigning over the Pridelands as both a usurper and tyrant!"
Scar felt his blood run cold. It spent a shiver down his spine. For one craven moment, he actually considered admitting his guilt, and flinging himself upon those lion's mercy. He almost snorted at his own cowardice. He wished to avoid Judgement for that crime! Admitting to it now would be of no help in that regard.
"Mufasa's blood is not on my paws!" Scar said, drawing on indignant anger. How dare these two accuse him of murdering his own brother! If he could convince himself, even for this brief instance that what he was saying was true, fooling these two should be simple. "His death was a terrible, tragic accident! I didn't murder Mufasa! I mourned him!"
Scar said, putting on a mask of offended indignation. Internally though, he smiled as the lie left his lips with practiced ease. He'd spent the better part of a year pretending to mourn his brother, both in public and in private; with a few exceptions. This wasn't a difficult thing for him to change.
He was taken aback though, when the lighter of the two spirits snarled and suddenly Scar rapidly reversed his opinion as to who was the most dangerous, as righteous fury bled from the spirit's expression.
"Do you think us blind, stupid, or just impotent?" The creature asked him. "We know that you killed Mufasa, Scar. We know how you did it. We know you engineered a stampede. We know you lured him there with the threat to his son. We know that you flung him from the cliff face as he begged for your aid! Don't deny it. You admitted to his murder before you died, Scar, with Simba's paws around your throat! Or did you forget?" It said.
"That hardly counts as a just confession…" Scar muttered, but knowing he had been caught out. The darker spirit though, laughed.
"Just? You are seeking justice? How amusing. Your guilt, Scar, is not the question here. I assure you, the Great Kings are not blind, nor are they powerless. We know what you did, Scar." He said.
"What we don't know is why. I don't especially care why, that is not my affair. It is the affair of my counterpart. The only question I have left, the only one that matters to me, the only question I have a stake in, is whether or not your actions are serious enough to warrant the embrace of oblivion." His tongue flickered out again, tasting air, giving him a serpentine quality. "The kings do not damn the soul of one of their own lightly, no matter what monstrous things they have done. Their mercy is a flaw of theirs. But when they do… Then it becomes my affair." He said.
Scar's eyes narrowed and he took in the image of the two figures before him.
"You..." He muttered to the darker of the two figures... "Who are you?" He asked. There was something wrong here. Something terribly wrong here. They were like him. As if his image had been twisted. Like ripples in water. "Both of you look far too much like I do for this to be coincidence." So alike him, and yet so different. That dark abomination unnerved him especially. The creature didn't reply though. Instead, it just grinned at him, showing teeth, giving his visage a skull-like appearance. The lighter of the two spirits stepped forwards.
"My name is Kivuli." He said. "It means Shade. It is fitting. In a way, I am your...shadow, after all. You are correct however. Ammit over there is deliberately choosing to take your form. He claims he benefits from seeing things from your perspective. Or he is merely trying to unsettle you for his own amusement. Perhaps both," Kiuvli continued. Scar wondered if this Ammit would stop if he asked him to. Somehow, he doubted it.
"What are you here for, Kivuli?" He asked him, warily.
Kivuli gave a low growl. "It will be my task, distasteful though it is, to see things in a more… sympathetic light. To try and understand you and the choices you made. Even defend your actions and your judgment. Play devil's advocate for lack of better words." He said.
"My... associate other there-" he nodded to his counterpart.
"I get to play the devil." He grinned.
"-Is looking forward to the somewhat simpler task of criticising your rule. Eventually though, it will be down to you to decide your fate. After all, your decisions are your own." He said.
Scar gave a soft growl.
"What if I refuse to submit to this?" He asked suddenly. "Why should I bow to your whims? Why should I submit to this… indignity! I am the King, I can do whatever I want! Who cares why? It was my right to behave as I did."
"You are not the King." Ammit said, and the darkness seemed to swell around him. "Nor did you have any sort of right. You aren't even a dead King. You are a slain tyrant. A usurper. A killer. You have no rights. The question you ought to be asking yourself, is why I shouldn't annihilate your essence right here and now. Who would miss it? Who would mourn you? Nobody who matters, surely. I could snuff you out like an ember, right here and now. So why shouldn't I?" Ammit asked, seeming to take delight at just the possibility.
"You are only dead because of your own betrayal of the hyenas. People who trusted you, respected you and served you, even when your own species had disowned you and your barbaric, demented rule. What do you have to say that?" Kivuli added.
Anger gripped Scar as he recalled the hyenas betrayal. The ungrateful creatures! He had made good on all of his promises, despite the damage it had wrote on the Pridelands, and when he had genuinely needed their help, they had betrayed him; the same as everyone else.
"You ask me about cowards?" Scar spat. "The hyenas are nothing but inbred fools! Mangy, slobbering, disgusting, flea infested filth! Don't even try to paint them as innocent victims. They share as much blame as I do for the choices we made. They were a part of it right from the beginning. Yet still they betrayed me." His anger simmered.
"A shame for you that this is not their judgement. They will pay for their crimes in turn. Right now you should be more concerned about your own." He cleared his throat. "Let me make something perfectly clear to you, Scar. You are a monster. A cruel and vicious beast. A savage tyrant, who murdered and cheated his way into power, and then abused it for as long as he could before being killed in turn by his own underlings.
You aren't the first dictator Scar. And you won't be the last. By rights, your soul should be torn asunder in the darkest pit for the rest of eternity." Kivuli said.
"Yet, an… agreement has been reached. If you willingly submit to this judgement then I promise you: If there is a single shred of good in your heart, if there is any light to be found in your blackened soul, then that splinter will save you and your soul. Then you will be free to join your ancestors in the world-to-come. Otherwise, you will be damned till the end of days. I wouldn't have thought it a difficult choice, but that is the only choice left to you."
Scar sank to his knees, the enormity of what he was facing finally coming to him. His mouth was dry as the desert and he felt sick in the depths of his stomach. He was numb. He wanted to shout, to scream, to cry...anything to make this nightmare go away. The feeling was overwhelming.
"Why!" He snapped suddenly. "Why do you care? What is it to you?"
"Let's just say I have a vested interest in the well-being of your soul." spoke Kivuli.
"I don't have a soul." Scar snapped, silently berating himself for saying such a stupid thing. It didn't help him here, and it was evidently false. Still. A lifetime of cynicism and scepticism was hard to give up.
"That remains to be seen." Kivuli said. "And I mean that in a literal sense." He looked around. "Do you know where you are?" Scar didn't respond to the pointless question, so Kivuli continued. "This, is the Twilight Realm. A veil, between life and the beyond. Time is not as ridged or as firm as it is in the physical world. Space is fluid, great distances can be traversed in moments. The Past can be made to Manifest before your eyes. This is a world of vision and mist. Of uncertainty.
Hopes, dreams and memories are as much a part of this world as the wind or water are to the mortal realm. Here, I can allow you to relive and witness the parts of your life you bury, the days that shaped you into the creature you are today. The memories you hold on to. If we judge that you have shown sufficient kindness, generosity and compassion then you will be allowed to proceed to the world beyond. Or perhaps you can argue that you are the product of the world you lived in… That the creature you became isn't one of your own making. On the other hand... Ammit over there..." He nodded to Ammit who continued.
"I will find those moments when you were you true self. Your darkest days, the moments you were at your cruellest and most foul," he grinned. "This is going to be so much fun!"
Scar shivered. Ammit as he had been called, was a very unsettling creature. As well as a very different breed of spirit to this… Kivuli creature.
"I warn you Scar," Kivuli said slowly. "This is a chance few are given. A last hope. But if you begin down this path, there can be no retreat. No turning back. No stopping." He warned him. Scar swallowed. He knew, perhaps, the enormity of what he was about to say.
But the alternative was annihilation. Nonexistence. Oblivion.
Something about that terrified him, more than anything Ammit could say or do. It sank like cold into his bone, a terrible all-encompassing fear. He had survived death. He had escaped what should have been the end of him at the teeth of the hyenas. He had been falling, and as he felt life slipping from him, he'd been sure that that was it. That there was nothing else.
Now, face with that real possibility once again, it was all Scar could do not to scream. His cheating death was mere illusion. Now his entire existence was in mortal danger. Cold fear pierced his heart. But then, confidenece settled in his soul. This wasn't the first time someone had tried to end him. He wasn't some helpless cub. He was Scar. King of the Pridelands! Let them try, he thought. Let them pick apart all that was him. Let them explore the deepest parts of his past. His darkest days. If only to prolong his existence for a few precious moments more.
"Very well."
"Give us your word, Scar. Such things have more meaning, here in the Twilight Realm, and you will find yourself bound by them. Swear by your name and your power." Kivuli asked, though it seemed to come across as more of a demand.
"Fine. As King Scar. I agree to your… judgement." He spat the words. Nothing happened. He thought he knew why. But he still said nothing as Ammit looked at him, then grinned, his tongue flicking.
"Your real name, Scar." Ammit prompted with a mirthful smirk. Scar spat.
"I agree to your Judgement. My name… is Taka." He said at last, the nearly forgotten name sliding over his tongue like a poison.
And mist began to spiral upwards from the dust around him. It clung to his fur like spider silk, weaving its way around him. It spiralled to around Kivuli and Ammit, and around Scar, flooding his vision. Just like that, the world dissolved into white light.