THE SCARRED KING AND QUEEN NALA - Ch VI

Notes: Oh yay, Bafe, you reviewed! I always know a story's goin' well when you of all people are of my reviewers :)

The days to follow were of sorrow and mourning. Nala lay before the water hole, silent. One paw draped upon the other, green eyes squinting crossly into her reflection in the water.

Great King Scar did not emerge from his quarters for days. No one dared enter his lair, and thus no one could account his doings.

"Kivuli?"

"Figure?"

Sarafina sighed. It had been so long since anyone had called her Figure - much less him. "Yes, it's me. Figure."

She could hear a sigh from inside King Scar's quarters. Then, to her astonishment, (A/N: To YOUR astonishment, I started a sentence with the word 'then'... xD) he emerged.

The sight of him was nearly unbearable. It was much like the day Nala had glimpsed him when she was but thirteen years of age. (human years, remember?)

The mane of the king was matted and knotted. His eyes were dull, rather than shocking as they usually were, and his nose puffed larger than normal. Sarafina looked in disgust at him. "What have you been doing?"

Scar sighed. "Mourning," he answered, before adding, "and what are you doing here?"

Sarafina gave a sigh as well. "My daughter - as well as being your daughter - misses you. There's something wrong with her lately. She needs you. If you were going to completely ignore her, you shouldn't have told her that you were her father."

"Figure - can we discuss this somewhere else?" Scar said, motioning toward his major-domo, Zazu, who was seated in a cage, glumly whistling a perky tune - which turned out to be remains from The Madness of King Scar.

"She's... got... those... uuhhh..." Zazu slumped to the ground, giving up his song.

Grimacing at Zazu's references to Nala, Scar gave a growl toward his major-domo.

"Okay," Sarafina sighed. "Where?"

"Figure honey, you never say 'where' to a King in that tone." Scar winked, leading Sarafina out of the lair.

"Wait!" Responded Sarafina. It took an effort to match Scar's swift pace. "Where are we going?"

"To a place that I'm sure you'll find familiar!" Scar said, a grin implanting his maw. "Come on, let's go!" He began running in an awkward way towards the east of Pride Rock.

The lionesses they passed cocked their eyebrows and swished their tails at the behaviour of Scar and Sarafina. Never before had they seen the two bound happily together. Two ageing lions loped toward the east, tails swishing in delight, laughing.

Finally, Sarafina still laughing, the two came to an all-too-familiar tangle of leaves and branches. "When you said I'd find it familiar," she panted, "I didn't know you meant an old hideout!"

Scar gave a final chuckle. Moving toward a rock wall of the debris, he began to claw and chew it away. Soon, an entrance to a cave could be seen. Blocking the entrance was a slab of broken-off tree bark. Sarafina gave a grin at the slab of material. "Oh..."

There were paintings upon the bark. Paintings, and writings in their own language. There was a drawing of herself, painted in a deep shade of pink. It wasn't well-done; the drawing only had two legs, her tail was at least two centimetres too long, (the drawing's overall length was only about ten centimetres,) the eyes were simply circles. Below it was labelled, "Figure." The 'F' was backward.

Next to the drawing of Sarafina was her sister, Zira. Zira was painted in blue-grey. Under her painting was labelled, "Notch." And finally, next to Zira, was a third drawing. It was done in black ink. And this one looked slightly different than the others. For it had a black blob atop its head; the beginnings of a mane. The label under this lion was smeared, but Sarafina and Scar could never forget what it read. "Kivuli."

Oh no, people... not more... PLOT DETAILS! AAAAAHH!