The Law of Unintended Consequences
[Author's Note:
It's been a long time since last I waded into the world of Lion King fanfiction. No surprise, then, that this started life as little more than an idle musing, one best characterized as Huh, that'd explain a few things. And why I left it alone for over a year. Then, one day, it prodded me: But how would that work? Brainstorming ensued. Then actual writing. What had been intended as maybe one or two brief scenes—the merest snippets of ideas, meant to assuage both my curiosity and my muse—burgeoned into a story that, my word processor tells me, is 28 pages long.
On similar note, a word of caution for the wayward traveler: This most assuredly does not mesh with The Lion Guard. Not out of any antipathy toward the show, but simply because I doubt if my errant musing would have flourished within its confines. I wrote with the less ambitious aim of making this work as a companion to the original Lion King and, honestly, not much else in the canon. Nothing contradicts Simba's Pride, per se, but neither are any elements from it incorporated. Sorry, Outlander fans.
I have borrowed a few concepts and names from outside sources, so it's not completely confined to the first movie. This is more because, let's face it, the fanon is strong and I wanted to avoid unnecessary confusion. I also took a cue from the Broadway musical, running with its implication that Zazu was majordomo even when Mufasa was a cub.
As I said, it's been a long time since I last waded into the world of Lion King fanfiction. If the idea explored here has been covered by someone else before me, I do apologize for my ignorance. And please link me, I'd love to see how others approached it.
This is meant to be a standalone work and, regrettably, I have no plans to expand upon it. I wouldn't know what to do next. And some things are best left as suggestions, the details hinted at but never shown.
And, at this point, let me never be accused of brevity.
Enjoy!]
Tomorrow. Soon to be today. Perhaps today already; how much of the night had passed? Mufasa squinted at the eastern horizon, willing it to pale with the promise of dawn. Maybe… Blink and the illusion vanished. Every time. He sighed, chin on his paws. If he could only sleep, then he wouldn't have to wait. Close his eyes and it'd be morning. Simple.
Only, it wasn't simple. He'd tried. Even Mom's calm words hadn't helped, before she and Dad drifted off into time-eliding slumber. Dad's snores hid Mufasa's grunt as he got to his feet. No real sense in pretending; there were better places to watch the night drag on than tucked inside a cave where everyone else made you feel like a failure without even trying. Or, in fairness, without even meaning to.
Outside, the stars stretched on forever. Immense. Timeless. Whenever he needed a lesson in humility, all he needed to do was look up. So many Great Kings. Grandfather was up there, Dad said. Mufasa was unsure which star was his, precisely, but…well… He chuckled to himself. No time like tonight to figure it out, huh? What else was he going to do? He studied the expanse. Maybe Grandfather was somewhere near the constellation of the Great Crocodile. Or would he be closer to the banks of the Sky River?
"What are you doing?"
Mufasa started, looked over his shoulder. In the starlight, Sarafina glowed. You'll blend beautifully with dry grass, he remembered Mom telling her one day at the conclusion of a hunting lesson, but on darker terrain the prey will see you. So, you must be silent and you must be still. Make them believe you are not where they know you are. She'd taken the advice to heart; a ghost would make more noise.
He smiled at her, an invitation to join him. "Waiting for the dawn," he admitted. "You?"
She offered him a wry half-smile as she padded over. "I couldn't sleep, either."
"Excited?"
Her hesitation surprised him; the sadness he sensed behind it even more so. He frowned.
At last, she said, "I don't want to go." The confession dimmed her, like clouds across the moon.
He had no response to that. He hadn't considered. Not everything could be happy meetings.
"They'll be such strangers," she continued. "And all my friends are here."
"Yeah…" He really hadn't considered. Doubt, insidious and opportunistic, wrapped python coils around his heart. He pushed against them. "But, don't worry," he said with a forced smile, "I'm sure Dad and Mom won't make you do anything you don't want to."
She peered at him, hopeful and skeptical, sensing the deception meant as much for himself as for her. "What if they don't have a choice?" she asked.
Dad's words came back to him: We are more than just ourselves, Mufasa. As royalty, we are also the pride, the kingdom; our personal desires come second to that. His smile faltered. "Well," he floundered, "what about your parents?"
And he knew the answer before she said it: "They sent me here. Remember?"
"Not really remember, no." He rubbed at the back of his head and neck, the crest of burgeoning mane there succeeding in making him feel even more awkward. "We were all so young." Still in their spots, barely talking—sensations more than memories. He put his paw down and sighed. "But I've been told."
"I guess"—she hiccupped a sardonic laugh—"if they really wanted me, they'd have kept me." She gave him a bright grin; his guts rolled and he was glad he'd been too restless to eat earlier. "So maybe they won't want me now."
"That's…" He coughed, unsettled. Not that her logic was wrong, per se, but he couldn't believe that it was right. He tried again. "I'm sure they'd want you to be happy."
She smiled at him, then, soft and sad and genuine. His sister in all but birth. "It's okay, Mufasa." She nodded out toward the horizon, where the stars at last showed signs of fading, yielding before the advancing sun. "Whatever happens."
–
The message had come from the Stone River Pride days earlier, scant on details, and delivered by a brown snake-eagle no one had encountered before. "Odd, that," Dad muttered afterward. "I thought King Kimelea favored a bat hawk."
"Watapeli." Mom stood beside him, also watching the eagle diminish in the east. "And he did."
Mufasa had met the Stone River majordomo a few times himself. Mouth wide as a swift's. A wonder in flight. Zazu dismissed him as a showoff, but was too diplomatic to say so to his face. Or he was too aware of how unbalanced a fight between a hornbill and a hawk would be. Nevertheless, Watapeli always brought merry tidings and good news from Stone River, and carried back to his king glowing reports of Sarafina.
Dad scowled, addressing Mom without looking at her. "This arrangement of his…I wonder if this is how they all go."
Days later, with the sun rising and the royal family gathered, that scowl remained. According to Zazu, the spot specified by the brown snake-eagle as the site of this meeting was where the exchange had occurred the first time. Mufasa couldn't imagine why. It was just a nondescript hill; he didn't think it even had a name. But it was away from Pride Rock and out in the open.
The lionesses had wanted to join them. Emotional support, they said. Mom had smiled and gently directed them toward a small cluster of bushes in a dip below the hill. King Kimelea is distrustful of others, Mufasa heard her explain to them, and will mistake your solidarity for hostility. Sarabi had wondered if he wouldn't then also mistake their discretion for an ambush. Mom had winked. Only if he sees you.
So, with the pride hidden and Zazu aloft, they waited. Mufasa placed his paw atop Sarafina's. Sitting straight as the sheer face of Pride Rock and just as rigid—and facing east, too, now he thought about it—she flinched at his touch. Her lips twitched, a hesitant smile; a silent reassurance that she was okay, really. He smiled back, patted her paw. Whatever happens.
Zazu dipped, dropping within earshot. "I see them, sire," he called.
Sarafina tensed anew. Concern for her warred with Mufasa's own excitement. He craned his neck, trying to peer past his parents. He'd never seen them so stiff, even when Zazu reported hyenas trespassing from the Elephant Graveyard.
Soon.
"Two of them," Zazu continued. "Plus the eagle."
"Only two?" Dad asked, surprise breaking the tension.
"He had an entire entourage last time," Mom added, exchanging a glance with him.
Zazu landed in front of them. "Quite certain," he said. A beat, a self-conscious shuffle. He rumpled his feathers and shook his wings, cleared his throat before anyone could insist he get on with it. "Only, it's not King Kimelea."
Mufasa looked over at Sarafina. Her father hadn't come. A relief or a disappointment? She appeared uncertain herself.
"Queen Fisadi, then?" Mom posed the question as much to Dad as to Zazu.
"Oh, no," Zazu said. "Definitely not. They're both males."
Well, that much was reassuring, at least. But…Sarafina hitched a breath. Neither of her parents had come. Had she been right to think they wouldn't want her? Would it be unfair to hope they didn't?
With little more preamble than a raspy hok, the brown snake-eagle alighted next to Zazu. Half again as big as he was, Mufasa couldn't fault his startled squawk and backwards flutter. The eagle ignored him, as he had on his brief first visit. Addressing Dad and Mom, he said, "Salutations. I am Uwezo. King Mnyonyaji sends his greetings and thanks you for accommodating him."
Like Zazu, Mufasa and Sarafina, it seemed, held no interest to him. No doubt Zazu would have something to say about it later.
"King Mnyonyaji?" Dad asked. "What happened to King Kimelea?"
Something fierce and unpleasant shone in Uwezo's eyes. When Watapeli came to Pride Rock, his eyes always sparked with mirth, an eternal joke animating him. Mufasa had asked him once what made him smile so. Life itself, was the answer. Uwezo, though… Mufasa wondered if he even knew how to laugh. Or, if he did, would it be like a hyena's cackle, delighting in another's suffering?
The eagle held Dad and Mom's gazes with an intensity bordering on defiance. Zazu clucked disapprovingly. Uwezo said, "Ask your son."
"What—" Mom began. But Uwezo was in the air already, circling higher.
"You'll see," he called before banking to the east and out of range.
Dad growled, on his feet and glaring at the diminishing dot upon the rising sun. "Curse these Stone River games."
Sarafina flinched. He was deriding her family, after all. Only, Mufasa realized, that wasn't right. The Stone River Pride might have been her blood, but the Pridelanders were her family. He pressed against her so she'd know the difference.
"Shall I summon the pride, sire?" Zazu sounded all too willing to do so. Rumpled feathers and insults could be borne only so far.
Mom shook her head, speaking on Dad's behalf. "No." She watched the two figures materializing out of the distance, shadows stretched like oryx horns ahead of them, aimed at the royal family. "This King Mnyonyaji is confident enough to come without his warriors."
Bold, Mufasa thought, if not a little foolish. Dad had met the occasional rogue under those conditions, but never a neighboring king. And least of all in that king's own kingdom.
"He's got all he needs to force our compliance." Dad's tone—Mufasa had never heard him sound like that before. Like realizing too late that he'd swallowed spoiled meat and no amount of vomiting now would spare him its effects. "Kimelea saw to that."
"I don't understand," Sarafina said, loud enough for Dad and Mom to hear.
Mufasa added, "Neither do I."
Looking first to Mom and then Dad, Sarafina continued, "I thought this was meant to bring the prides closer together." She paused a moment, a young huntress confronting large prey for the first time. "Like a family."
"It was." Dad sighed and turned to Zazu. "Keep watch," he told his majordomo.
"Of course." And Zazu was airborne, rising to hover above them, alert to approach while they talked.
The lionesses would remark, sometimes, upon how united the king and queen were. Of how they shared a conversation between them, one resuming the trail where the other left off without falter or deviation. Mom did so now, addressing Sarafina: "Your father's solution to the friction between our prides was a novel one. Even Rafiki had never heard of the like."
"He approved, though." This from Dad. "A measure of goodwill and trust. A first step toward full reconciliation."
"A leap of faith, if you will."
Dad nodded at Mom. "Time taught us the other side of Kimelea's…arrangement." That tone again, making Mufasa queasy with its implications. "More than symbols of peace, Sarafina, you were safeguards against hostility."
"A fact we didn't appreciate"—Mom looked down and away, focusing on a different when if not a different where—"No…a fact we didn't even realize, until King Kimelea had given us his promise and we had given him ours."
"Watching him leave was…" Dad abandoned the thought, almost shying away from it.
Mom filled the void Dad left: "I would rather walk—alone—to the heart of the hyenas' Elephant Graveyard, through all the fires and vapors and boiling waters, the clan harrying my every step, than face such a decision again."
Dad swallowed. "Exactly that."
A brother-shaped hole beckoned throughout Mufasa's life, a mystery explored in daydreams: the games they'd play, the stories they'd share, the trouble they'd get into. Watapeli's periodic accounts served as fertile hunting grounds. Outings with King Kimelea echoed Mufasa's lessons with Dad. The lionesses of Stone River gossiped just as much as those of Pride Rock did, but they needed to be extra careful who was listening, if they didn't want to explain themselves to precocious cubs. And the royal cubs—Sarafina's older siblings, whose mention always brought a slight shadow across her face—wove the fosterling prince into their embrace tight and intricate as a weaver bird's nest. Oh, Mufasa cherished Sarabi and the other youngsters of the pride as friends dear as family—adored Sarafina as a sister—and still never told them how he missed a littermate he'd barely met, knew only from a bat hawk's reports, and refused to admit was a stranger until Sarafina unwittingly raised the possibility last night.
A son-shaped hole, by contrast, haunted his parents. And he'd never known until now, never even guessed. Every question he'd raised, they met with optimism and cheer; every time Watapeli visited, they welcomed the Stone River emissary as they would a fellow Pridelander.
Mufasa had dreams. They had nightmares.
Mufasa looked down at his paws. What a cub he had been, even long past the fading of his spots.
Zazu landed hard in their midst, stirring up dust, quite heedless of the change in mood. "They're close, sire, ma'am," he said to Dad and Mom in turn, all atwitch, as if reporting the approach of one of the clan's raiding parties. "But…oh dear, oh dear…"
Everyone tensed, turning to face the two oncoming lions, the brown snake-eagle circling above them. What more can go wrong? Mufasa wondered. What more has gone wrong? He lacked the clear view his parents had, he and Sarafina forced to peer between and around them.
Coming to stand several lengths downslope from them, King Mnyonyaji reminded Mufasa of nothing so much as some of the rogues he'd glimpsed while accompanying Dad on border patrols: rough, travel-worn, a survivor of narrow escapes and endless battles. No heir to any throne this lion. A thief. Usurper. At best a liar with a self-styled title and no kingdom to support it.
Mom ignored all of that. She dashed forward and, before anyone from either party could react, wrapped her once-lost son in an embrace firm enough to subdue a buffalo. An act that almost managed to make Mufasa smile, to stir a fluttering of hope in his chest. Even Dad relaxed a little, his breathing easing closer to normal.
Uwezo drifted down into the scene, coming to rest next to his king instead of on his back as Zazu sometimes did with Dad. But Zazu lacked such talons. Safe on Mnyonyaji's far side, the snake-eagle stared at Mom the same as he might a black mamba.
"King Mnyonyaji," Dad said, stiff and formal.
Nodding in acknowledgment and greeting, Mnyonyaji replied, "King Ahadi." He regarded Mom with something like fondness or amusement but which might have been a muted version of Uwezo's predatory gaze. "And Queen Uru, I presume."
At the sound of her name, Mom pried herself away just enough to turn and glare at him. "What happened?" she snarled with a hardness and cutting edge worthy of a diamond.
Mnyonyaji was unmoved. He'd already strolled into potential enemy territory without the aid or recourse of a pride; the wrath of a single lioness—mother or not—was no more harrowing. "I don't know," he said. With a nod at her protective hold, he added, "And he's not telling."
Distrust radiated from Mom like heat waves over the desert west of the Pride Lands. But she eased her grip and leaned back to study her son's face. "Taka?" Her voice gone soft and hesitant.
Uwezo chuckled. "That explains a few things."
Mufasa glowered at the snake-eagle and so missed the moment Taka ducked out from under Mom's grasp. He stood back from her, a short distance and a gulf between them.
"What was necessary, of course," Taka said, his cadence dissimilar from that of the pride. And uninviting. Maybe they didn't hug much in the Stone River Pride.
Mom wavered but did not step toward him.
"Ah," Mnyonyaji remarked as Mufasa maneuvered to see around his parents, "so, that is what a prince of the Pride Lands is supposed to look like." He turned to Taka. "You begin to make sense, Scar. Or is it Taka?"
Mom said, "Taka," sounding offended that anyone might suggest otherwise.
Taka said, "Scar," speaking over her.
Dad let the matter lie. Addressing Mnyonyaji, he employed what Mufasa regarded as his royal voice, the one he used when leaving no doubt that he was acting as the king: "You have our thanks for restoring him to us." His eyes narrowed. "But I ask again: Where is Kimelea?"
"Beyond your reach, I'm afraid. Barring necromancy."
"He's dead, then?"
Mnyonyaji nodded. "Just so," he said. "Justice served."
Behind Mufasa, Sarafina made a small noise. A gasp? A sob? Was it shock or was it grief that widened her eyes and froze her in place? Mufasa went and placed a paw upon her back; she leaned against him. Taka—Scar?—might not be ready for comfort from Mom, but Sarafina welcomed familial support.
"And your intentions now?"
Sarafina went still, right down to her breath.
Mnyonyaji looked at Uwezo; the snake-eagle launched himself into the air. "I return to salvage what I can from Stone River." Acknowledging Sarafina's presence for the first time, he added, "You may keep the princess. She is less trouble to me here."
Neither Dad nor Mom had any comment for that. And, again, that small noise from Sarafina. Mufasa lowered his head on instinct, uncertain what he meant to protect her from.
Judging their business concluded and the engagement at an end, King Mnyonyaji made to leave. He nodded at Dad and Mom, turning eastward to begin his journey home. "Scar," he said in passing.
"Mnyonyaji."
A few more paces and he paused, called back over his shoulder: "A word of caution, Majesties. Watch that one." He turned enough to meet Taka's scowl with an appraising nod. "He learned their craft rather too well."
Uwezo looped down and behind him with a throaty cry, as if severing the last ties of the conversation and tugging him away to Stone River.
Dad did not protest the meeting's abrupt end. "Zazu," he said.
Hopping to stand in front of him, his composure restored with the prospect of a task, the hornbill regarded the departing lion and snake-eagle. "Shall I follow them, sire? Just to make certain they leave, I mean."
"No."
Mufasa and Sarafina looked up.
"Tell the lionesses that we're done here," Dad said. "But we will need time to ourselves." He glanced past Mom to Taka. "A lot of time, I think."
"Of course."
As Zazu left, Mom moved to close the gap between her and Taka. "Come on, son," she said, skirting the issue of his name the way one avoids an unstable riverbank. "It's time you came home."
"If you insist."
Mom led him up toward the crown of the hill, where Dad, Mufasa, and Sarafina all waited. Dad must have seen already, but this was the first clear view Mufasa had gotten of his brother.
"Did my family do that?" Sarafina whispered, so quiet Mufasa doubted hearing her. A look at her expression, though, and if unspoken then her thoughts were loud indeed.
Mufasa and Taka had both been too young for Mufasa to remember if there had been such a disparate difference between them before, but no one since had described Taka as being sickly or a runt. But, then, he was a prince and no loyal Pridelander would slander their king and queen by speaking such things. And yet Mufasa towered over his brother, could count his ribs, identify bony prominences that should have been softened or hidden outright by muscle and fat.
With the family together, Mom paused. Introductions, maybe. But how do you introduce someone you were supposed to have known your whole life?
"Gently," Dad said softly to Mufasa, answering his question without intending to.
Taka had stepped past them, passing Mom to stand with an unobstructed view of Pride Rock in the distance, the panorama of the Pride Lands spread before him. Morning breezes stirred the dark beginnings of his mane—the only part of him that moved.
"Pride Rock," Dad said, joining him; Mom gave them space. Gently, Dad had said. Slowly was more like it. Just as he'd informed Zazu. "Do you remember it?"
"As unforgettable as it is," Taka said. "No."
"You were young—"
"Yes." Venom permeated the word. "I was."
A lot of time.
Mom edged over to Mufasa and Sarafina, picking her way with the care of a huntress. "Perhaps you two should spend the day with the lionesses," she said.
Mufasa heard the regret and reluctance in her voice, but still he demanded, "What? Why?" He was family, too, wasn't he? Didn't he have a right to speak with his own brother? To help him reintegrate into the pride and his life at Pride Rock? And that without considering Sarafina's right to know what had happened to her relatives back at Stone River.
All his arguments crumbled before Mom's plea: "Please."
Nightmares. Mufasa sighed and rubbed his forehead against hers. "Okay, Mom," he said. He could wait—he had this long already. Feigning playfulness in a bid to lift everyone's spirits, his own included, he bumped against Sarafina. "Come on," he told her. "Let's go save Zazu before he's buried under all the questions."
–
The walk down to the lionesses felt longer than its physical distance. One of Dad's early lessons kept Mufasa company: Doing the right thing does not always mean doing the easy thing. That is why it's precious. He wondered if King Kimelea ever taught Taka anything similar. Little sayings and adages, morsels of wisdom providing guidance in later life. It'd be interesting to see the philosophy and methods of a foreign king, compare them against Dad's.
If Taka was willing to discuss it, that is.
Up ahead, the cluster of bushes gave no indication of lionesses lurking within. Mom had chosen the site well and the lionesses were experts in stealth. He doubted he'd spy any of them until the moment he stepped on someone. Yet…Zazu's silence prickled the hairs along his spine. The hornbill would have no reason to be quiet and every reason to convey Dad's instructions and deflect the lionesses' probing questions. Complete with decrying them all as impertinent.
Maybe the majordomo had himself defied Dad's orders and gone after King Mnyonyaji and Uwezo. Beyond improbable as that was. Zazu would be more capable of running like a cheetah than going against his king. So where…?
Sarabi poked her head out from among the tangle of branches. Mufasa felt muscles he hadn't realized were tense relax at the sight of her. Her presence failed to explain Zazu, but it was some measure of much-appreciated normalcy, at least.
Ignoring him, she rushed over to Sarafina. "I'm so sorry," she said, pressing her forehead against the other lioness's. "Zazu told us about your father."
Mufasa drifted away from them. Once, a morose cloud had hung over the pride. An older cub at the time, he had as yet been too young to understand what a stillborn litter meant. Mom joined the lionesses; Dad explained that there were griefs that even a king couldn't intrude upon. Mufasa never learned which lioness had suffered so and he knew far better than to ask. This moment between Sarabi and Sarafina felt much the same: the unique purview of pride-sisters.
Odd that none of the other lionesses came over to share the burden of grief. Mufasa pushed his way through the brush, thankful that his mane was still short enough to avoid the worst of the grasping twigs. More than a few evenings saw Mom helping Dad groom out the flora of the Pride Lands from his mane—especially in the dry season, when branches broke instead of bent and all the plants seemed to be made of thorns.
By the time he had reached the other side of the cluster, he had seen evidence of the lionesses' waiting—slight depressions in the grasses between the bushes, disturbed branches from where they had forced a way through or leaned against them, scratches in the dirt from the bored flexing of claws—but not the lionesses themselves. He turned around, facing back toward where Sarabi and Sarafina should still be, hidden from view.
"Hey, Sarabi," he called. "Where is everybody?"
A matter of a few beats and both lionesses trotted into view, having opted to go around the bushes, rather than through them. They lacked the spring in their steps they both had before Uwezo's first arrival days earlier, but Sarafina's numbness had receded, her focus once again turned outward. And Sarabi… Mom had said that she had the makings of a great queen in her, an observation Mufasa had scoffed at, thinking at the time of all the trouble she got into. Now he began to see what his mother had.
"Gone," she said as they reached him. "Mom took them to scout the herds."
"She knows you stayed?" Maybe it was his parents' remorse over Taka influencing him, but the thought of Sarabi's mother discovering her missing unsettled Mufasa more than it would have even just this morning.
She gave him a look that said, quite plainly, that she was not a wayward cub. Not anymore, anyway. And that he shouldn't be so dense. "Of course she does."
"Right. Of course." He looked on reflex, but neither his parents nor his brother were visible upon the hill above them. Walking home to Pride Rock. Or just on the hill's other side. No difference, really—unreachable either way.
"That bad, huh?"
"Yes," said Sarafina.
Mufasa sighed. "It could have gone better." So much of what he wanted for this day had turned out wrong; his cubbish fantasies all trampled by an onslaught of reality. He didn't even know what to call his brother any more.
Unasked, Sarabi rubbed against him, lending him her strength. "It'll be okay," she said. "You'll see. Like Zazu told us: All this needs is time."
It sounded so much more convincing from her than it had from Dad. He smiled, a bit wan, perhaps, but hopeful. "Speaking of Zazu," he said. "Where is he?"
"Off chasing the pride." Sarabi shook her head. "Concerned that they'll go sneak off to spy on King Mnyonyaji all the way to the border."
"They wouldn't." But he wasn't so sure. The enticement—the excitement—and good old curiosity could prompt a little disobedience in anyone.
A sly grin and a wink all but confirmed his suspicion even before Sarabi said anything. "Well, not en masse, anyway."
"Sarabi."
"They know better than to antagonize him," she assured Mufasa—and, by extension, probably Sarafina as well. "They're not that reckless."
He waited, but she didn't add any flippant qualification. Not this time. Despite knowing that they could, in fact, be that reckless. Sarabi, Sarafina, and Mufasa—and, now, his brother—were not the only adolescents in the pride, after all. Sneaking off into the Elephant Graveyard was practically a rite of passage to some of their peers, never mind all the injunctions and warnings against it. Mufasa's own foray didn't count: He'd been accompanying Dad at the time, had never lost sight of the border even with the pervasive mists, and never encountered either the land's namesake skeletons or the hyenas that haunted them.
A thought: "Do you think the clan would take advantage of everyone's distraction?" he asked, frowning.
Sarabi snorted. "Only an extremely lucky—or an uncommonly intelligent—hyena would, one, know what's going on in the Pride Lands, and, two, think to exploit it."
"It's a large clan." Odds favored there being at least one such hyena.
She sighed, perhaps just a shade exaggerated for dramatic effect. "Fine. I know a distraction when I hear one."
Was that all his concern was? A distraction from the complications of the day? He hadn't given it that much introspection; trust Sarabi to know him better than he knew himself.
"Come on, then," she said, starting to pad away. "Let's go find this mythical hyena of yours."
Sarafina followed almost on Sarabi's heels. Even more eager than Mufasa was for anything to help her forget the day's revelations. Before he accompanied them, he took one last look up the hill. Deserted, just as it had been the last time. He sighed, not knowing why he had expected anything different—knowing why he hoped he would. Tonight, then. A chance, then. If nothing else.
–
Sunset. The sun rolling down the sky to rest in the western desert beyond the horizon. The earth there scorched to bone-dry barrenness by the time the sun rose again in the east. Common sense and the combined barriers of plunging cliffs and interlocking thorn bushes discouraged exploration of those inhospitable sands. Mufasa had never traversed that border and even Dad only periodically checked it. Drought alone came from the west, the desert reaching out in an endless attempt to swallow the Pride Lands. Without the stewardship of wise kings, the kingdom would have fallen long ago, a wasteland that even the rains could not rejuvenate. Many of those kings watched over them now from the stars, Grandfather Mohatu among them.
Those stars speckled the darkening eastern sky: one here, one there, then scattered pairs and trios. A welcome constant in a variable world. So, too, Pride Rock, rising from the savanna ahead of Mufasa, Sarabi, and Sarafina.
"I still say," Sarabi continued, the debate ongoing since they had decided to return home, "that anything that inarticulate cannot be intelligent."
"Hyenas are known for laughing," Mufasa reminded her.
"Not in lieu of talking."
Sarafina, walking slightly behind them, offered her own mollifying opinion: "Maybe he was just lucky, then. Like you said."
Sarabi huffed. "Hardly lucky."
"He did get away." An observation that earned Mufasa a hard look, as though it had been his fault. All they'd heard had been giggles receding at speed out of the Pride Lands. They'd never even seen the hyena, failing to catch up to him before he slipped over the border and into the concealing vapors of the Elephant Graveyard. The pawprints they'd examined afterward were too small to belong to a female, barring juveniles. And if he had caused any trouble while trespassing, they discovered no evidence of it. No kills, no panicked prey. Nothing.
The highlight of their day monitoring the border. And just what they needed.
"There you are!"
They paused and looked up. What misadventure would be complete without Zazu coming to harangue them for it? Mufasa made no attempt to hide his smile as the hornbill swept down to land in front of them. It was a favorite position of Zazu's, perfect for scowling up at young miscreants.
"And what timing," Zazu said. "Spares me having to go look for you."
"Glad to be of service," Mufasa said.
Zazu ruffled his feathers, insulted more than the remark warranted. "No cheek, if you please, young master. I've had quite enough of it from your brother."
"Ah." Cheek would be an improvement over the acerbity of this morning with their parents, at least. "Sorry." He only just kept it from sounding like a question.
Zazu waved his apology off. "Just the same, I'm glad to be heading home. Goodnight, young master, mistresses." He bobbed to each in turn, then, with as much dignity as he could muster and without awaiting their responses, he flapped into the air. A moment and the advancing night swept him from sight.
"Sooo," Sarabi drawled into the silence left by Zazu's departure, "he's already giving Zazu 'cheek,' huh?" She broke into a grin, laughing as she resumed walking toward Pride Rock. "Oh, he'll fit right in."
Mufasa shook his head. Sarabi hadn't met his brother yet, so she could afford to be so sanguine. Still, she could be right. In time. It was a hope worth clinging to as they ascended the path leading to the main cavern where the pride gathered each night. Where conversations dwindled and worries were set aside until tomorrow. Mufasa remembered many cubhood whispers being shushed there so the lionesses could rest for the next day's hunt. An enforced quiet appreciated by the weary hunters, but appalling to a cub not yet ready for sleep.
Murmuring voices reached them as they crested the trail, the words indistinct but the energy unmistakable: Excited chattering, like what had rippled through the pride when Uwezo first appeared at Pride Rock. Mufasa twitched an ear; Sarabi grimaced.
"Ugh," she said. "It's Zazu's casual mention of betrothals all over again."
When Mufasa's mane first started coming in, the hornbill had mused aloud to Mom—and within hearing of some of the other lionesses—about whether she and Dad had made any decisions regarding who would be his future mate and queen. The pride had all but exploded in speculation, with special attention to the political advantages of Sarafina contrasted against any and all of the eligible Pridelanders-by-birth. Never mind that Mufasa treated Sarafina as a sister…and much mind that Sarabi had otherwise been his staunchest friend since the communal nursery.
Sarafina shuddered. "Poor Taka."
Mufasa's sentiments exactly. The lionesses simply could not treat Taka as they did Mufasa, not with how withdrawn and caustic he had been to Dad and Mom. Or how he had barely tolerated Mom's embrace.
"This could be a problem," he said. Dad had all but ordered the pride to give the royal family space, but how much of a buffer could he and Mom reasonably provide?
Sarabi bumped her shoulder against his. "Well, then," she said, "let's go rescue him from those shameless busybodies."
She brushed past him, striding toward the cavern, head up and with a hint of swagger in her step. Ready to command the lionesses despite being younger than all of them save for her sisters and peers. He watched her—admired her, in truth—a moment before turning to Sarafina.
"Will you be alright?" he asked. Even knowing that the lionesses could be tender and supportive.
She graced him with a tenuous smile. "I'll be fine," she assured him. "I know what to expect." A fate-tempting declaration after today.
He wouldn't gainsay her, though. Not now. Confidence was what they both needed; Sarabi had plenty to spare. They followed where she led: into the hubbub of the cavern.
The level of noise notwithstanding, it might have been a normal evening. The lionesses sprawled around the enclosed space: indistinct groupings of overlapping paws and tails, the careless placement of a chin across a pride-sister's back. Where Mufasa anticipated his family surrounded, instead they sat upon their usual platform, undisturbed. Dad and Mom watched, alert, not quite guarding his brother, who lay behind them, but clearly intending to control the speed and nature of introductions. From the chatter filling the air, they might not have bothered.
Snippets of conversation teased free of the din.
"—how long do you suppose—"
"—send someone—"
"—not a word—"
"—couldn't get close enough—"
Vague references, unspecific admissions. Censored for the presence of the royal family? Many a time Mufasa, Sarafina, and Sarabi—to say nothing of their peers—would choose their words with exaggerated care, thinking themselves clever little cubs, whenever they plotted mischief within hearing of the adults. They were only moderately more skilled at it now that they were adolescents.
The lionesses were probably just trying to be polite. Prudent, as Zazu might phrase it. Everything was still so fresh and sensitive.
"Did we miss anything?" Sarabi asked a nearby lioness. One of her sisters.
"No," came the reply, with a stretch and yawn to punctuate it.
A second lioness—another sister—twisted around to regard them. "It's been like this since before we got back home."
Sarabi grunted. The non-encounter with the hyena at the border was looking more interesting and exciting by the moment.
The last sister—their mother must be around somewhere—disentangled herself and padded over, brushing her forehead against Sarafina's shoulder. "How're you holding up?" she asked, a soft counterpoint to the animated tones surrounding them.
Sarafina lowered her head. "I…I'm…" Her voice trailed off, throat visibly working around the emotion. Sarabi stepped close and her other two sisters rose to surround Sarafina. Other lionesses were noticing, the cavern dropping into a hush that said more than all the evening's chattering.
Mufasa edged away, yielding space to the expanding expression of condolence and shared strength. As before, so again: As a male, he had no place among them. The best he could do for Sarafina was let her be encircled, emotionally protected by the pride. When she was ready, she'd join him, his parents, and, now, his brother on the royal dais.
Dad nodded at his approach. "We were beginning to wonder where you three had wandered off to," he said. Not quite a reprimand, as would have been the case in Mufasa's cubhood, but the hint of admonition tweaked at his conscience.
"Sorry," Mufasa said. They had been rather late in returning to Pride Rock. Given the day's events, he should have known better. "We were out at the border."
"That far?" Mom asked, sitting straighter. On her far side, his brother observed through hooded eyes. "How come?"
"We wanted to make sure the clan wasn't up to anything," he said. It sounded so silly now, and his abashed smile reflected that.
Dad took the possible threat more seriously. "Was it?"
Mufasa shook his head. "No. Just a stray hyena we didn't even see."
"Hmm." An official patrol tomorrow seemed likely.
"Really?" All three of them—Mufasa, his father, and his mother—turned to look at his brother. "Are the hyenas around her truly that intimidating?"
Disbelief? Scorn? If his brother sounded more like a Pridelander perhaps Mufasa would find it easier to parse his inflections. Zazu's speech could be similar, from what little of Taka's Mufasa had heard, but whereas stuffy provided a safe default whenever the hornbill's moods were in doubt, no such generalization existed yet for Taka.
Time, Mufasa reminded himself.
"Individually?" Dad replied. "No. But the clan is large and it is in those numbers that they are a hazard." Not even a full day and already Dad was providing lectures.
Mufasa asked, "Weren't there hyenas at Stone River?" Not what he had intended his first direct words to his brother to be, but, then, such was the nature of the day.
"Of course," his brother said, waving a paw dismissively. "They were idiots."
A smile tugged at Mufasa's whiskers. Sarabi had been expounding upon that theme all afternoon.
Dad frowned. That the hyenas were less intelligent than the lions did not make them harmless; even individually they could injure an adult, never mind a youngster or cub. The Elephant Graveyard was off limits for reasons other than its location outside of the Pride Lands.
"You boys haven't been properly introduced," Mom said, puncturing the nascent tension. The opportunity had never arisen. And, now, she used it as a calculated maneuver to keep the peace. She turned first to her younger son. "Taka, this is your elder brother, Mufasa." Then, to Mufasa: "Mufasa, this is your younger brother, Taka."
From observing Sarabi's interactions with her sisters, from witnessing how other cubs related to their littermates, Mufasa had fantasized about how he and his brother would greet each other: pounces and shoulder slams, noogies and tackles. None of which served when his brother was a stranger who shied even from Mom's tender touch.
Mufasa smiled all the warmth and affection he had to otherwise restrain. "Welcome home," he said.
Taka watched him, waited a moment, just long enough to stretch propriety toward awkwardness. "How"—a pause, a flick of his eyes from Mufasa to something else. Dad? The lionesses?—"charming." He stretched, then, yawning wide. "Well," he said, "with all the excitement today, I think I'll turn in."
"Oh. Okay." For all the logic in Taka's statement—and Mufasa would never contest that his brother had had a trying day—it stung the way a rejection would. Like being told you couldn't play in some cubhood game because you were too large or there were already too many participants. Even if true, even if you were the prince. Mufasa's smile faltered and faded. He tried for one more connection as Taka turned around and settled into the farthest corner of the dais: "Good night."
"Perhaps."
Barely an acknowledgement, but better than the silence Mufasa had dreaded. Hope yet. Perhaps.
Looking over at his parents, Mufasa caught the end of a silent exchange between them: Dad shaking his head. Mom stepped over, nuzzling first Dad, then Mufasa. Reassurance, because the trail ahead was long, winding, and uncertain.
"It has been a long day," she said. "We should all get some rest."
Around the cavern, the lionesses had decided likewise. They separated again into their jumbled clusters, resting one atop another, here and there paws poking above the mass. Sarafina, Mufasa saw, cuddled up with Sarabi's family, her pale fur contrasting against their dusky browns.
Dad must have noticed his gaze. "She'll be fine," he said before lying down beside Mom.
"I know."
He took his accustomed spot next to his parents, facing out toward the pride and the jutting promontory of Pride Rock. The royal seat. The kingdom's throne. His, one day. He stole a glance over at where his brother hid in the shadows, back to them all. Mufasa sighed, placing his head down on his forepaws. One day.
–
Morning. Pre-dawn. The faint gray over the horizon fading the stars and silhouetting a figure upon the tip of Pride Rock. Mufasa blinked. Not one of the lionesses, surely. Who…? He looked over, past his parents, into the darkness at the back of the cavern. Right. Yesterday. A careful stretch to avoid waking Dad and Mom, cautious navigation around and over the lionesses—Sarafina still asleep alongside Sarabi—and Mufasa padded over toward where his brother sat.
"Hey," Mufasa said, soft enough not to startle, as he stopped at Taka's right side.
His brother looked at him askance. "Oh. It's you."
Still not the greeting Mufasa hoped for, one day. They needed to work on that. So, he smiled. "The view's better up top," he said.
At Taka's furrowed brow, Mufasa nodded toward the summit of Pride Rock. "You can see the entire kingdom from up there."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Mufasa beamed at the expression of honest interest. "Come on," he said, trotting toward the trail Dad had led him up one early morning just like this one. A lesson well-remembered from his cubhood, emblazoned with the rising sun, of the scope of the Pride Lands and kingship both. "I'll show you."
Talking as they climbed would have, somehow, betrayed the moment. Mufasa had chattered at Dad that morning, but other than an encouraging smile and entreaties for patience, Dad had stayed stolidly silent. The sunrise had been all the more spectacular for it, laden with a reverence that impressed even an energetic cub.
Taka said nothing anyway, but Mufasa grinned the entire climb.
They reached the flattened peak just before the sun crested the horizon, light exploding across the savanna. Taka stood right at the edge, unconsciously choosing the same spot Mufasa had; Mufasa placed himself where Dad had, a step or two behind, giving his brother a clear view and a private moment of awe.
The kingdom wasn't all that the sunlight revealed. Anger flickered deep in Mufasa, tightening his smile as he fought to keep it from sliding into a scowl. He refused to think ill of Sarafina's birth family, but what had they done to his brother? Or what had they allowed to be done? Or failed to prevent from being done? He exhaled the sour thoughts in a sigh. Too much was unknown to assign blame. And, yet, there his brother stood, emaciated and withered, like a wind-stunted tree given leonine form.
"How far?" Taka asked, breaking in on his thoughts.
"The Pride Lands?" An echo of his lesson with Dad. One of the reasons for coming to this vantage instead of just touring the kingdom.
"Of course."
Mufasa grinned again, remembering how Dad had described it. "Everything the light touches."
Taka turned to face him, his squint having nothing to do with the sun.
"It's true."
"It's trite."
Mufasa frowned. It's trying, was more like it. He didn't say as much, of course. In fact, he didn't know what to say, an occurrence he was coming to recognize as inevitable when it came to conversations with his brother.
Taka continued, nodding off to his left. "And, besides, there's a dark patch."
Mufasa looked despite knowing what territory that was. "That's the Elephant Graveyard," he said. "The hyenas live there." Then, to stress the point: "It's outside the Pride Lands."
Eyebrows raised, Taka muttered, "My, my. An elephant graveyard." He walked over in that direction, as if those few steps would dissipate the distance and pierce the mists. "How mysterious."
"It's forbidden."
Taka chuckled, a rolling sound that mixed a purr with mischief. "And has that stopped anyone?"
Mufasa might have protested. He might have admitted that it had kept him from going, barring Dad's supervision. And then he'd only been there the once. But…he didn't. Others had gone, stupid as it was. Boasted of daring they didn't deserve. A pattern of behavior archetypal to youngsters everywhere; in the Pride Lands for less than a day and Taka had already identified its local form.
And it was just the idiotic sort of thing two brothers would do.
"Just to the border," Mufasa rationalized, starting to lead the way back down Pride Rock.
"Of course." He could hear the smile in his brother's voice.
"Dad was planning on patrolling that area, anyway." A warning that they shouldn't get too close and that if Taka had any plans of slipping across anyway, he had best abandon them now.
"Of course."
–
They were stopped before they'd barely stepped off Pride Rock and entered the grasses surrounding its base. Zazu fluttered down in front of them, blocking their path. From Taka's expression, Mufasa suspected his brother would have brushed past the hornbill if not for Mufasa coming to a halt.
"And where are you two heading this morning?" As if Zazu knew that trouble was in the offing and he intended to engender some guilt in them by way of discouragement.
No such luck. Taka, smooth as a snake's underbelly: "Why, a little fraternal outing. Isn't it wonderful?" He smiled, bright, almost chipper. At complete odds with how he'd acted since his return. "Mufasa's promised me a tour of the old homeland."
A laugh now would ruin it, but, oh, the look on Zazu's face! Shocked and mortified that he had suspected anything, never mind that he was right. Or too stunned by Taka's sudden improvement in personality. With a hop, he turned to Mufasa, seeking confirmation.
Clearing his throat and straightening, Mufasa provided it. "That's right," he said, then broke into a broad grin. How conspiratorial it all was. Just like brothers.
"Ah, yes, well." Zazu fluffed his feathers. "I'll be sure to let your parents know." Another test for guilt.
Another failure. "They'll be delighted, I'm sure," Taka said. Now he did step past the hornbill. "Why wait?"
Such a blunt dismissal, even one delivered with such jovial enthusiasm, shifted Zazu from embarrassment to indignation. Mufasa thought he heard a sotto voce grumble from Dad's majordomo, something related to "cheek."
Smiling, Mufasa moved to join his brother. "See you around, Zazu."
"You most definitely will."
The sound of flapping signaled Zazu's departure for the cavern, where Dad and Mom may or may not already be up. If not, the morning report would have to wait. And he and Taka would have that much more time to themselves.
"Don't worry about him," Mufasa told Taka as he kept pace. "He can be a nuisance, but he's mostly harmless."
"Oh, I'm not worried."
No, he hadn't been. Mufasa shook his head, smiling in wonderment. "You must have done this sort of thing all the time in Stone River."
"What? Mislead fools?" That bitter edge again, same as yesterday, all jocularity gone.
A different topic prowled the periphery; Mufasa chose to face it. "Was it really so bad?" he asked, as quiet and sober now as he had been delighted by their joint purpose a moment before.
Taka stopped—hard—almost to the point of a stagger and glared at Mufasa. It was not the sun behind his brother that prevented Mufasa from meeting his gaze.
A stupid question, the height of naivety, but how else were they—Mufasa, Dad, Mom, the pride—how else would they know? How could they?
"Watapeli made it sound…normal." Nice would be a step too far, but the accounts had been that, too. Like home. The Pride Lands but different.
"And you all trusted him?"
In hindsight, of course, they shouldn't have. They should have asked more questions. Demanded more proof. Sent Zazu to the Stone River Pride to see for himself. Anything but what they had done, which was…nothing.
Mufasa winced. "We trusted King Kimelea." A thin excuse. But you should be able to trust a king. Any king you couldn't trust was unworthy of the title.
Taka's laugh was harsh, derisive. "Ah, yes, because that's so much better." He stalked away. "Of course."
Mufasa hurried after him. His brother didn't know the Pride Lands well enough to wander them alone, as much as Taka might prefer a lack of company at the moment. At any moment. In consequence, they avoided other Pridelanders—of all species—wherever they could. Where they couldn't, where someone stared after them a little too long for comfort, Mufasa would nod in recognition but refrain from any comment or conversation. Taka barely glanced aside. The duration of their journey, the best Mufasa could offer his brother was silence and such understanding—and apology—as that silence afforded.
Which was not much, as it happened.
Pride Rock had slipped beyond the horizon behind them, the sun sat poised a paw-span short of midday, and the lands ahead blurred with the dreary murk of the Graveyard before Taka spoke again. If anything, his words were even less encouraging then they had been earlier.
"I always presumed they were joking," he said, meditative, and yet Mufasa couldn't tell if the condemnation darkening his words was self-directed or meant for a wider audience, "it was such a common punchline."
Tentative, because, while the question seemed necessary, even expected, Mufasa balked at the trap the answer promised: "What was?"
"Pridelander gullibility." No trace of meditativeness now; contempt replaced it.
Ahead, the ground dropped into a mist-filled pit. The Elephant Graveyard. They had crossed the border without Mufasa consciously realizing it; this was as far as—no, farther than—he'd gone with Dad. He'd seen the edge of the collapsed depression the hyenas called home, but only Dad had approached it. Steam hissed in the distance, a sibilant threat from the land itself. At the edge of hearing, muffled and distorted, the echo of a whoop, the ricochet of a cackle.
"Indeed," Taka continued, as if responding to the hyenas' laughter, "someday, I might even find the humor in it."
Mufasa had wondered, as his mane grew in, if the new, longer hairs could prickle in the way the shorter ones along his back could. Now he knew. "We should turn back," he said.
"Why stop now?" Taka fixed bright eyes on him—they all but glowed an impossible, vibrant green in the gloom of the Graveyard. "Aren't you curious?"
The emphasis harkened back to Mufasa's ill-considered question. Yes. Only… Mufasa gazed at the shifting air currents just beyond his paws. Only…the answer didn't wait in the Elephant Graveyard, guarded by bones and hyenas. How much easier if it did.
"Of course," Mufasa admitted with a sigh. "But if the clan doesn't kill us, Dad will."
"Perish the thought."
"Don't be funny."
Taka snorted. "And here I thought we were being brothers."
Left unsaid: Like you wanted. Mufasa sighed again, massaged at his forehead. He could almost convince himself that it was the miasma hanging around them feeding his headache. "Please, Taka," he said, "let's just go."
"Scar."
"What?"
"My name," his brother said, slowly, annunciating each word as though certain Mufasa would fail to grasp the concept, "is Scar."
Yesterday and the disagreement with Mom. Mufasa had thought the matter resolved, with Mom prevailing. Last night's introductions as proof. "You're not at Stone River anymore," he said, puzzled. "You don't have to—"
"I choose to."
No further explanation was forthcoming; that alone should have been enough. And it was, truly. Taken from the Pride Lands, relinquished to a foreign pride for political reasons far beyond a weanling cub's reckoning, without any say in the matter or idea of when—or even if—he would return home…was it any wonder that he would latch onto whatever slim measure of control over his life he could?
"Scar," Mufasa tested it, the awkward feel of a common word pressed into service as a name. The discomfort of labeling his brother by a disfigurement, by the bald slash above and below his left eye.
"Yes?"
Mufasa could adapt. Maybe it would get easier with time, like Dad and Mom insisted. Not without difficulty first, though. "Mom's not going to like it."
The far off giggle of a hyena merged with Taka's—Scar's—chortle. Now, there was a discordance that Mufasa hoped never to hear again. "She already doesn't like it," Scar observed. "Or didn't you notice?"
"Yeah." Mufasa cast a wary eye toward the Graveyard. Had that hyena been closer than the last? "Still, Scar, we should leave."
"One less thing for her to dislike, eh?"
Mufasa was pretty sure his brother was teasing again, trying to be funny. But, he just didn't have the energy to play along. Not right now. Not with the clan skulking somewhere, potentially nearby.
"Please."
"Oh, very well."
–
Whispered among those Pridelanders who had snuck into the Elephant Graveyard was the conviction that time moved differently there, that it stretched and contracted, folded in upon itself in ways unfathomable. Disappear into the Elephant Graveyard and it might be the Graveyard itself that claims you. A labyrinth of time as well as space. How else could it sustain so many hyenas?
Nonsense, of course. Stories meant to ward off naïve cubs and irresponsible adolescents—naturally unsuccessful on both counts. Tales told with the intention of boosting the notoriety of the reckless trespassers—more consistently successful, but not without well-earned ribbing.
So why had the sun barely moved?
"Well," Scar said once they were unquestionably back within the bounds of the Pride Lands, "that was thoroughly anticlimactic."
"Only if no one finds out where we went," Mufasa murmured, his conscience nipping at him with all the alacrity and persistence of a jackal thieving from one of the pride's kills. Dad and Mom would be so disappointed. As heir, he should have known better. He did know better.
How had he let himself get talked into this? Even Sarabi had failed to entice him to the Elephant Graveyard, and, Great Kings above, she had tried. She'd succeeded in leading him into lesser disobediences, sure—and he went willingly, far more often than not—but never into that one, blatant act of rebellion.
"There are these things," his brother saw fit to inform him, "I believe they're called 'secrets.'" He looked over at Mufasa, a smirk curving his whiskers in what might have been mere raillery or could have been the reappearance of what Mufasa was forced to accept was a snide, incisive streak. "Or don't you have those here in the Pride Lands?"
Mufasa considered. One day, Sarabi had stopped trying to get him to come to the Elephant Graveyard with her. Whether out of respect for his wishes or because she had gone on her own, he didn't know. She'd never said. He'd never asked.
Matching Scar's smirk with a mien of utmost seriousness, Mufasa declared, "I can't tell you."
A beat. A blink. Then, Scar laughed, the first sincere expression of mirth Mufasa had heard from his brother; one unguarded moment that brought a smile to Mufasa's face and eased a tension around his heart that had been curling tighter since Sarafina first suggested that his brother would be a stranger to him, and that, by extension, all of the pride—Mufasa, Dad, and Mom included—would be a stranger to his brother.
"Touché," Scar said.
Mufasa took a chance, a gamble he'd been hoping for since the beginning: He bumped his shoulder against Scar's, same as he had done countless times with Sarabi and Sarafina. A sign of comradery and affection. A playful jostle.
Scar, stumbled, caught himself. Size difference. Right. He didn't respond in kind—Mufasa had no illusions that he would—but he also didn't recoil as he had with Mom. Even the watchful gaze he turned on Mufasa was more scrutinizing, even hesitant, than wary and hostile.
"Too soon?" Mufasa asked, at least a little embarrassed.
The response came slowly, as though Scar calculated the timeline and where Mufasa's liberties in their relationship fell upon it. "Yes."
"Sorry."
"Noted."
They walked in silence, then, the only interruptions coming from various denizens of the savanna as they passed. Zebras, antelope. Vervet monkeys as they strolled beneath a group feeding in a fever tree. This time, Mufasa answered their hails, one and all, keeping the greetings brief on his brother's behalf. If Scar wanted to engage them further, he would do so on his own terms.
As they continued on after an encounter with a family of white-bellied bustards, Scar remarked, "My, but aren't you the popular one."
Mufasa shrugged, self-conscious. "Dad conducts a lot of lessons out here. The Pride Lands are more than just a stretch of territory, after all. The king is responsible for everyone living here, too."
"The personal touch."
"Yes," Mufasa said, proceeding with a certain measure of caution. A note of distraction tinged his brother's words, a suggestion that his thoughts were elsewhere. "I suppose so."
"I see."
Definitely something else on his mind. Press on or not? Risk another distressing revelation? Give his brother the chance to talk, to vent frustration or rage or the poison that envenomed far too much of what he said? "But not what you were taught," Mufasa hazarded.
"No," Scar confirmed, muzzle wrinkling in a barely suppressed snarl. "Kimelea favored…other tactics."
At that, Mufasa backed off. Though he did wonder—of course he did. The question also arose: How much should he share with Sarafina? She had a right to know about her father, but, then, the more Mufasa heard, the more convinced he became that the knowledge would only pain her.
"Sarafina's not like that," Mufasa said, a preemptive defense.
Scar gave him a curious look. The statement had been, in hindsight, something of a blurted non sequitur. Excusable for his brother to think he might start spouting real nonsense next. "I never said she was."
"I know, it's just…" She's suffering, too. Mufasa heaved a sigh, started over. "Don't blame her for her family, okay? Whatever enmity they've earned, she wasn't part of it."
Promising nothing, Scar turned away. It occurred to Mufasa that maybe his brother didn't know who Sarafina was. They had never been introduced, after all. And there was no telling if the Stone River Pride ever spoke of their displaced princess.
The context was clear enough, though.
"So," Scar said at last, "just a regular little Pridelander."
Mufasa frowned at the derogatory tone. "A Pridelander," he said by way of correction and rebuke. "Yes."
"How reassuring."
Maybe it was, but Scar made it sound like an insult, perhaps even a disappointment. And yet, he couldn't possibly want a continuation of his experiences at Stone River. Right?
Mufasa glanced up at the sun. Still so high for how exhausted he felt. He supposed they could head back to Pride Rock, lounge around waiting for the lionesses to return from the hunt. A truly lazy afternoon. But—he looked over at his brother—would that really be any more relaxing than wandering the Pride Lands some more?
"Is there any place else you want to see today?" He tried to sound enthusiastic and encouraging—tried with what energy he could muster—but he doubted he was at all convincing.
"Is there any place else worth seeing today?" At least Scar answered him. Sort of.
Mufasa considered. He hadn't formed any kind of list of grand sights of the Pride Lands to take his brother to. And after Pride Rock and the Elephant Graveyard (though the latter, of course, was not actually in the Pride Lands), only two other locations leapt to mind: the expansive gorge clawed out of the savanna; and the plummeting cliffs of the western border, with a view of the desert beyond. Neither was close by.
"Well," he said, "it's not really worth seeing, but it is worth knowing."
"You have me all in suspense."
Sarcasm must have been another favorite form of humor in the Stone River Pride, even more so than deriding the Pridelanders as gullible. Scar certainly seemed to revel in it.
"It's only the waterhole," Mufasa admitted.
"Ah, yes," Scar said. "Food and water."
Some things were genuinely different in the Pride Lands. Just as well Scar learned that now. "Well, no, actually," Mufasa cautioned. "Not exactly."
Scar grimaced. "Don't tell me. It's nothing more than a glorified mud wallow for the buffaloes."
"No, no," Mufasa laughed, though quite what was so funny eluded him. "There's plenty of water. It's just, well, we don't hunt there."
For a moment—two—his brother just stared at him. Incomprehension? Incredulity? Scar's expression could have been either—or neither—of them. Then, Scar chuckled. "Very funny." As though this were all some bit of brotherly teasing.
"I'm serious."
"Of course you are."
"Back when our grandfather Mohatu was king," Mufasa insisted, the explanation necessary if he meant to convince Scar that the rules of the waterhole were not a fraternal prank, "a severe drought hit the Pride Lands. As part of a water truce, the waterhole became off-limits to hunting. We've honored that arrangement ever since."
Scar raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"Yes," Mufasa assured him. "We. The pride and all the other predators."
What might have been the aborted beginnings of a devious smile tugged at Scar's whiskers—an unbecoming response from anyone, least of all his brother, that Mufasa did his best to ignore. "That must be a nightmare to enforce."
"Initially, perhaps," Mufasa conceded. Animals hording access to the waterhole had also been a problem and, according to Dad, still occurred whenever the dry season grew especially harsh. "Nowadays it's accepted as the law of the land. It's also regarded as a sign of respect for our subjects and a royal guarantee that we are all equal participants in the Circle of Life."
"Charming."
Where the previous instances of Scar's fondness for sarcasm had baffled or unsettled Mufasa, this one rankled him. This time, he entertained no careful sidestep. This time, a challenge accompanied his scowl: "How did King Kimelea earn the loyalty of his subjects, then?"
The far horizon held more interest to Scar than Mufasa did. He growled toward it as he answered, "By being a cunning old bastard."
Mufasa blinked. He'd failed to sidestep around his brother's experiences with the Stone River Pride—indeed, he'd let his temper direct him straight into the topic—and found himself stumbling into a metaphoric hole as a result. Why did this all have to be so…fraught and complicated? So different and difficult?
Dark mood subverted with disquieting—and unnatural—swiftness, Scar flashed Mufasa a grin that included a few more teeth than were strictly necessary, or entirely seemly. "Naturally."
"Right," Mufasa said, looking away. A lackluster response intended to fill the space, nothing more. He sighed. Pride Rock was some distance yet, beckoning from across the savanna. The position of the sun meant much less to him. "Perhaps we should head in," he said.
"If you insist."
–
No fresh kill accompanied the lionesses' return to Pride Rock. The abundance of prey in the Pride Lands made the hunt itself no easier, success no more certain. And, besides, Mom preferred to stagger those successes, taxing the herds within manageable bounds, ensuring both they and the pride survived and flourished. Another sign of respect for the Circle of Life and all within it. Another reason why the kingdom's inhabitants honored their king and queen.
Cunning had nothing to do with it.
"You're moping," Sarabi said, joining Mufasa on an acacia-shaded ledge along the backside of Pride Rock. He'd retreated there once he and Scar had reached home, Scar disappearing to some unspecified spot elsewhere, claiming the day had been "an education" as he did so. Now, sunset bathed everything in ruddy hues, as though the light itself was bleeding across the landscape.
Mufasa raised his chin from his paws as Sarabi seated herself next to him. As always, she was right. His whiskers twitched. Then he sighed, returning his chin to his paws. "Yeah," he said, because he needed to say something.
"That bad?"
Her tone was light, teasing—and he wondered if she knew she was repeating herself from yesterday—but he heard the compassion in it. The concern. He sighed again. "Have you met him?" he asked. "Really met him, I mean."
She plopped down, stretching toward the sun's last warmth and soaking up its residual embers from Pride Rock. "Not yet," she admitted. "Not directly. But from what I've seen and heard"—she shrugged—"this is all new to him." She gave Mufasa a soft, soothing smile. "He just needs time is all."
A comforting thought, often invoked over the past two days. Enticing. Promising. And yet… "I don't know," he said. "Sometimes, it feels like more than that."
The sun slipped below the horizon, disappearing into the western desert. Off on the other side of the sky, obscured by Pride Rock, the first stars would be peeking out of the emerging darkness.
Sarabi nuzzled him, rubbing her cheek against the incipient mane sprouting along his neck. "Don't give up on him just yet," she admonished, a playful note tempering her words.
"Of course not." Scar was his brother. Mufasa would make this work. Somehow. And, really, the day, while tumultuous, hadn't been a complete failure. Parts of it had been, well, fun. Closer to what Mufasa wanted to have with his brother. That was something, certainly. And something to nurture.
Night crept over the Pride Lands, the Great Kings peering down from on high, watching over them. Mufasa and Sarabi would need to join the pride within the main cavern soon if they wanted to avoid a swarm of salacious speculation come morning, the lionesses all winks and nudges. And tomorrow, Mufasa would try again. Maybe speak to Mom on Scar's behalf about using his chosen name.
He could make this work—would make this work. All it wanted was time.
Perhaps, even, a lifetime.
[Author's Note:
A smattering of parting thoughts that would have spoiled if placed at the beginning.
Stone River: For reference, see the Yatta Plateau in Tsavo East National Park. The plateau is an ancient lava flow and, thus, a literal river of stone.
Brown Snake-eagles (Circaetus cinereus) are a real thing. They do, in fact, eat snakes. Including black mambas. For breakfast. Respect!
Bat Hawks (Macheiramphus alcinus) are also a real thing. Exactly what it says on the tin. They will swallow their prey on the wing, like aerial insectivores do, hence the extra wide gape. Only, you know, they do it with bats instead of bugs.
Like many a Lion King fan, my knowledge of Swahili is limited to what the likes of Google Translate provide me. I'm such a plebeian. Thus, with that qualification in mind:
Kimelea: Parasite and host.
Mnyonyaji: Parasite and explorer.
Uwezo: Able, ability, or capability.
Watapeli: Tricksters. (Google Translate was adamant about that plural.)
Fisadi: Corrupt or corruption.
Seriously, brevity, never a problem.
Snowy out.]