But We're Talking Kings And Succession

In the beginning, there was a Wise Monkey, visiting Ndutu lake, during a Strange African Night:

He had felt the heaviness of the coming conversation for days now. The meteor shower was making thin scars across the night. Wind flew wildly and the trees gossiped.

Usually the trees talked of crazy things, but they had it on good account this time.

Rafiki would need to be alone in order to translate these coming messages.

The old rainbow faced baboon shuffled further along the tree he was in, peering into the lake's surface below him. Inky black in the moonless night, the water reflected the words of the meteros above perfectly. An upside down message turned right.

That was always the way when the gods sent signs. They wrote from the wrong direction.

Many disturbing signs were coming across rapidly, but also, an overwhelming sense was taking hold. In the trace of the light, in how many were shooting down from the stars, in the way the winds started to howl and the rain started to pour.

The true king's journey was ripe to begin.

Rafiki stroked his beard, the hair beaded with rain water. This was trouble.

On his way home before dawn, the weather worsened.

The spirits are aflame, still! Rafiki thought to himself.

It felt like they were repeating their foretelling to him over and over, following him, chasing him, urging him on. The rain was almost flying across rather than down!

Rafiki felt cold, even inside his nest at the ancient baobab tree. Cold all over. The ancestors swirled around in the air, burning the spirit of the true king into the back of his eyelids while he slept.

One lean shape. Like a crescent moon. Deadly and strong and covered in blood.

All the crescent moon ever did was stand in the dark, head bowed, but the shadows... oh the shadows! Shadows moved and squealed everywhere - lions, baboons, birds, antelope, zebra, elephant, hog...

The circle of life, Rafiki mumbled with estatic glee in his dream. The circle of life more clear and alive that he had ever seen it. Not for a thousand years had the world been in such harmony. But still, everything was drenched in blood, and Rafiki realised there would be war before harmony.

Lightning stuck close to the baobab tree. Close enough for every single hair on Rafiki's body to stand on end. The ape woke up in a leap, only just managing to land with grace thanks to years of experience.

At once his heart was heavy.

Poor Mufasa, poor, poor Mufasa.

His mentor would have said his soft ape heart was clouding his vision, but Rafiki could not help it. This could only mean one thing.

His dear friend Mufasa will be overthrown.

As surely as the grass rises with the rain, and trouble with the flood, a true king arrives in rebellion.

It all made his heart ache, yet the ancestors chattered and danced longer than usual. Into the dawn, day and the dusk. The stars were sparkling in some secret joke the next night, once the storm had cleared.

The baboon's mind wondered to the young prince, the one he had lifted up high on the rock only days ago. What would come of him?

This true king could arrive tomorrow, or the king could take years. But their arrive was within Rafiki's lifetime, for sure, otherwise the visions would not be so clear.

Would it even be Mufasa who ruled the pride lands when the true king came? Rafiki felt the potential in Simba, but also the recklessness. He was an uncontrollable fire next to Mufasa's sunlight.

Rafiki loved the cub prince dearly, but something...

Simba was so vibrant Rafiki could only describe it as a cesspool of rawness.

One day a lion with the right of birth would have to battle a lion with right of nothing but spirit, and the true king would be the champion. Perhaps the blood the king was drenched in was Simba's? Rafiki did not want to meditate on the visions anymore, but the images hounded him as he tried to made some medicines.

He sees that crescent moon shape every time he closes his eyes. He heards the pounding of the circle of life, ensnaring that shape, moving and twirling.

The true king was a ferocious beast, coiled tight around a vast knowing.

His outside was quiet, but the inside was simmering power.

Rafiki was afraid.


A Confused Child, in his Nightmare:

Hot breath fanned down his back. Nala was screaming, and the creatures with the crowd of fangs were chuckling.

Simba stretched out into the dark, his little claws scrambling over stone as smooth as water. He tried to call out, but his throat had closed up. He couldn't move - something was holding him down - his throat was hollow and slick with blood.

He was running, Nala panting and slowly falling behind him. They were bigger and stronger and savage, they would kill Nala where she stood, no matter that she was just a cub lioness. He needed to save her.

Simba leapt forward, Nala rushing along beside him. They tried to scramble up the bones but as they jumped the rotting bodies beneath them ripped, and they fell down into the gaping mouths of the rank hot breaths.

Simba woke up with a racing heart.

The nightmare played in front of his eyes, even as he traced the outlines of the older cubs surrounding him. If he looked far into the back of the den he would see his parents asleep atop the high ledge.

His dad was outlined in the night time's purple light, his huge body sprawled out and thick mane billowing in all directions. Any cub would be eased by the sight of their protective father, but Simba felt even sicker. If his father hadn't come in time...

Cubs as young as him should be sleeping safe between their parents for at least another five months, but ever since that night Simba felt like he'd disgraced himself. He felt unworthy of the space between the King and Queen, of the spot upon the royal rock.

They said one day he will be king, but Simba seriously doubted that. He couldn't protect Nala, he couldn't even save himself. How was he supposed to protect everything the light touches?

Ever since that day, his father teaches him more and more, but it feels like the energy of before has left him for good. He will pretend to be chirpy and unaffected, but if the constant nightmares of Nala being ripped apart before him wasn't enough, then the deep ache of being weak and useless completed the sense of being pathetic well enough.

He had taken to sleeping with the older cubs, the ones that had left their parent's sides and made a little corner of the cave just for them. They had tufts of manes coming through, and the lionesses already had kill tallies. He wanted to be like them.

But everyone kept treating him like a newborn cub. His mother still carried him around and bathed him for star's sake! Nala thought that it was nothing to be ashamed of, but she wasn't the bloody future king with the pressure of protecting everything the light bloody touches now was she?

Simba moped for awhile before getting up and shaking himself off, making sure to groom his fur so he wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of his mother doing it herself. It was still dark, but a pale, weak blue was starting to halo everything near the mouth of the cave. Simba knew that meant the sunrise was about to begin.

He walked out of the den, focusing on the way he moved, trying to prowl like the seasoned hunters did and move sleek and quiet like the fog which blanketed the Pride Lands.

The golden cub silently sat on the edge of Pride Rock. His tail curled over his cold paws daintily. His eyes scanned the land with an intensity the cub himself was not aware of. Deep black eyes rimmed in burning red studied all, from the dew gathered on the wet rock beneath him to the orange creeping over the horizon.

Restless sleep was making his eyes look weary and old, and as he sat on the royal throne and watched over his kingdom just as all the kings had done before him, the smallness of the cub, and the size of the burden he carried, became apparent.

Pride Rock loomed over him, dark and grey without sunlight.

A pause. A breathe. A stillness of dewdrops in the dark. Simba's ears twitched.

This was his favourite part.

The top of the sun spilled over.

Light hit the Pride Lands in a flood. Pride Rock was set on fire and Simba's coat glowed.

Long and lean shadows danced across the flat plains as animals stirred on the flat plains. Flowers and wings unfurled, clouds raced across the sky like they were jewelled in gold and Simba felt the maturity he had gained over the last self-pitying weeks sting him sharply. He would never have had the patience or the weariness to sit and watch the sunrise before, but here he was, content and observing his father's kingdom.

He wasn't going out with his Dad today. Since today there was 'dangerous business about' for the King. Instead, for the first time since the incident in the graveyard, Simba was doing what he used to do before everything began... he would be a cub. He was to play with the other cubs as the lionesses watched them from the shade. It felt weird to be back in a place that was his entire existence a few weeks ago, but now felt like a foreign idea.

He had changed - he was no longer Simba the Lion Cub, he was Simba the Future King - and the Future King was keenly aware of the responsibilities he had been unknowingly carrying since birth.

Heavy footfalls sounded from behind him, and Simba knew without looking that it was his Dad.

Simba never used to spend much time with his father. The massive lion used to leave before dawn and return after dark. Usually whenever the King was at Pride Rock, the Prince was fast asleep from a tiring day of chasing lizards through the grass.

But ever since Mufasa took him out to see the sunrise for the first time, and told him who he was, what they were and what this place was and, well... every since the afternoon in the graveyard, Mufasa has been taking his young son everywhere with him. Simba knew the heavy but perfectly placed footsteps of his father well.

"You're up early," his father said softy as he came to sit beside his minuscule son. Simba shrugged and looked at his paws, trying to school his expression into one of more cub like excitement.

"I suppose I've just gotten used to watching the sunrise."

His father rumbled deep in his chest, showing his amusement at Simba's answer. The flapping of wings announcing Zazu's arrival, the studious hornbill coming to perch on his father's broad shoulder.

Zazu looked down at Simba with curious eyes.

"I thought you weren't coming today?" He chirped.

Simba's father paused in his mane licking.

"He's just watching the sunrise," Mufasa said before twisting his neck back to reach a particular wild turf of red mane.

Simba looked between the two. Their expressions were harder to read then usual.

The clear trust between the lion and the hornbill was evident and Simba, not for the first time, wondered what sort of dangerous duties faced the King and his steward today. He had been told little, and Zazu had been mysteriously quiet that afternoon. The bird was even worse today as he scanned the sky restlessly for any messenger birds on their way in.

A loud yawn announced his mother before she appeared, stretching herself as she went. She licked Simba's head once, but did no more besides raise an eyebrow high at his neat appearance. She groomed and nuzzled her mate and wished the hornbill good luck as the two finally set out into the Pride Lands.

As the mother and son sat toward and watch the king walk off into the dancing shadows and red sunlight, she turned and smiled down at Simba.

"So I guess you're back with me today," she rumbled. "Excited to get a day off? Your friends miss you."

Simba settled for a nod. He hardly spoke to Nala anymore. He wondered how she felt about it.

The graveyard incident.

That he was now as absent as the King. Coming and going like a shadow.

He wondered if she had known he was the future king all along, or had been as oblivious as he had been. He got a little excited at the prospect of spending the day with Nala, but still, he was the youngest cub in the entire pride, and he had a feeling today was just going to be another lesson in how pathetic he was.

He used to be so stupid - all his big talk of fighting off hyenas if he ever met them and taking down a buffalo if they just gave him a chance.

Simba walked back into the den close by his mother's side. His eyes cast down on the rock beneath his paws. Ancient kings had long ago worked the stone smooth with their countless footsteps.

Simba stumbled.


The Sun and the Night, somewhere Dusty and Hot:

Mufasa and Scar strolled through lush grass, their manes intermingling as they bumped shoulders and padded side by side. Zazu had flown off to relay a message, leaving the brothers alone. The two beasts leaned into one another when in discussion, and trotted in unison when silent.

In times of danger to the pride, the two males worked together well.

Mufasa was the brute, testing the limits of how big his species could grow, his muscles seemed to fight and roll under his golden coat with every confident movement he made. Next to the golden example, Scar looked like a shadow – a dangerous shadow - but a thin shadow nonetheless.

Mufasa paused to study the horizon with an intent look so focused that Scar just had to roll his eyes. Magic? Senses? Instinct? Or was it a kingly knowledge only the King himself was privy to which caused his brother to root himself to the spot and study the empty horizon? God knows, he did it enough times, there had to be a reason.

The golden King's tail started to swipe, the only outward sign he had become agitated. His shadowy brother walked a few paces and flopped down in the grass like a boneless carcass. Leaves became entangled in his wild black mane as he rolled and rubbed against the scratchy ground. He paused and sat up quickly, observing his brainless brother.

"Mufasa what could you possibly be looking at?"

The golden brother's tail stilled at the voice of his companion, but he did not answer until many heartbeats later.

"The antelope are fighting."

"The rut has started?" Scar asked, mildly curious. He tried to watch the horizon again just as his brother did, but he couldn't see anything fighting, anything moving, anything alive at all, for that matter.

"It is too soon."

"Oh, what's it to us, the bucks fight because they got some fire in their blood and suddenly you got to leap off and make things right. Honestly Mufasa, why do you care?" Mufasa tore his gaze from the horizon, where Scar could now see a distant swirl of flying dust, marking where the bucks must be fighting. "Perhaps they were just practicing?" Scar said with a rascally look on his face. Mufasa fixed him with a leveled stare.

"I care because I am King, Scar,"

"Oooooh, that's riiiight. Silly me, I forgot that it was your birth right to boss every individual creature around. I feel so foolish now." He made a feint of being embarrassed, a quiet growl sounded from deep in his brother's rib cage and Scar smirked in himself as he threw himself back onto the ground in a carless sprawl. Sometimes he made it too easy for Scar.

"Let's check the watering hole," Mufasa ordered before walking off with a flick of his ears. Scar growled deep in his chest, annoyed. He'd been roped into this hunting party against his will, and now Mufasa was being miserable company on top of that. Scar's life was unfair.

The brothers were search for a gang of buffalo bulls. The boys were terrorising everything in their path as they travelled North, right into the centre of the Pridelands.

Loyal hawks were in the sky searching, and a pose of lionesses were out somewhere sniffing, but stars forbid Mufasa rest in the shade and wait on word from the birds.

Scar twirled around and flipped back onto his feet, shaking the loose white dust of his homeland off his dark coat. He looked around for his brother and saw the red maned King walking off.

Because of Mufasa's marching stride, and Scar's dragging, in-no-hurry-whatsoever-thankyou pace, the distance between them grew. They were walking together - honestly, this is what the brothers defined as being together – even though they became featureless lumps in one another's view.

Scar muttered and prowled through the grass lands as he traced the sent trial of his brother. Stopped here to scent mark the ground, halted here to talk to some birds, started jogging here to catch up to a gazelle he had recognised. Scar did no such thing, instead he glared holes into anything that dared to cross his path.

And... there we go. Scar had lost Mufasa. Bound to happen really. The wind picked up where the land raised, and the smell of prey saturated the area.

Scar let out three quiet roars, annoyance quite evident in his tone. The moan they made echoed across the grasslands, startling a flock of tiny sandy birds into flight some yards away.

The unique booming roar of the King replied from down in the gully in front of where Scar stood. Scar started for it in a lazy wandering gait, sour insults being mumbled under his breath as he planned what sort of earful he would give his brother. Just wondering off like that, the nerve.

Scar didn't even want to be here, he could have been in his nice cool cave, sleeping away the heat of the day as he always did. As any sane animal did.

His big paws dragged heavily in the dirt as he yawned, tongue curving daintily in his dagger lined mouth. He was even sleepier than usual, eyes sagging quite a bit because of his late night meeting with the hyenas. It was no quick trip to go all the way beyond the border of Mufasa's seemingly endless domain and come all the way back before sunrise. But it was worth it, what a cunning plan he had made- oh! Riiiiiight…his cunning plan.

As Scar came to the ledge of the gully, he paused and looked down into the hollowed out once-river. The wind threw his pitch black mane into tangles around him as he looked down on to where his brother sat.

Scar watched the King with an absolutely unreadable expression. His clay brown coat was still dusted with the fine white dirt, and his claws were working slowly, making scratches in the shifting pebbles beneath them. The plan, the plan…

Yeah, be prepared.

Yeah-heh... we'll be prepared, heh.

...For what?

For the death of the king.

Why? Is he sick?

No, fool - we're going to kill him. And Simba too

Down below him Mufasa sat with (oh of course, he should have guessed) the antelope who had been fighting before. Well, he didn't actually know, but Scar assumed as much. The fools weren't even the countless gnu whose migration controlled life on the savannah - why on earth Mufasa wastes his time with irrelevant lesser species such as these antelope was beyond Scar.

They looked like the gnus, with the twisted short horns and the long muzzles. Same size too, they could stare a zebra in the eye, though they did not compare to the muscle and considerable bulk of the gnu. They lacked the blacky blue coat as well, with no long white beards full of snarls hanging from their chins. Kongoni, the name came to him, the gnu's fine boned and light footed, cream coated cousins.

They were young, Scar thought. Surveying them with his green, deadly gaze. Horns half as splendid as their species grew, not many scars, lanky with spurts of growth. Four of them, fumbling around one another as they tried to absorb Mufasa's every word, awe clear on their faces.

Oh bother, just what Mufasa needs, some easily impressionable adolescents making him feel like a bloody ancestor descended from the twinkling bum holes of the night. The kongoni had probably never seen the King in person before, probably never been hunted by a lion before. Idiots, gathering around an apex killer like cubs, jugulars within a millisecond of being torn open. Gods, this is what one predator to every million of prey resulted in. No respect for the lions. Soon they'll be questioning whether they even need to listen to us.

And Scar knew for a fact that quite a fair number were. Why do we need a lion king? Why do we even need a king?

Scar decided to fix that, and made a great show of leaning so he seemed to impose over the gully.

"Mufasa!" Five heads turned to him. Just how he liked it, center stage. "We're looking for killer bulls, not awkward kongoni," he teased, and with a simple gathering of muscles he leapt straight off the edge of the gully and down into its pit, one smooth, elegant, calculated movement. Like running water, he purred to himself as he prowled over the many rocks and potholes which littered the area, eyes fixing on the kongoni bucks each in turn.

They shuffled… restless… unsure…but not willing to leave the King's presence yet, not scared enough to do the smart thing and run like the meals they were.

"Scar," Mufasa greeted him in a displeased voice, clearly seeing what he was trying to do. "These are the ones responsible for the early battles; I am just explaining to them the significance of their actions." The four boys stood like statues watching the darker lion with the chilling smile slink closer and closer. One flinched, taking a step back. Mufasa turned to them, distressed by their distress.

Wimp.

"I shall be going now, thank you for your time and understanding young kongoni, I hope to see you all with your own herds in the future." The antelope offered their quick, squeaky voiced farewells and staggered over the rocks of the gully as they clambered up, out and quickly away, their restless bellows and moos heard on the wind as they galloped off.

Herds of their own? Those pimpled, weak bellied adolescents will be flat out getting a lioness interested in them let alone a lady kongoni.

"Scar why do you always do this?" Mufasa growled at him.

"What? I don't do it all the time," Scar defended, slinking up and out of the gully with far more grace than the young kongoni bucks.

"Would it kill you to be friendly for at least-"

"Friendly? Is that what you want Mufasa? To be friends? We aren't their friends Mufasa, we aren't god damn herd mates to those pathetic antelope. We're their rulers!" Scar looked to where the bucks were disappearing into specks. "And they're our lunch." He added, feeling himself start to droll.

"That's quite enough Scar," Mufasa thundered. The bigger lion leap up the gully's bank and walked so close that Scar instinctively shielded away, his brother's mammoth jaws within inches.

"I'm their ruler."

It was all Mufasa needed to say, and he knew it too. The larger, ideal male – the King – turned and strode off to the distant shade of a solitary tree which grew like a stranger in the ocean of grass, dust baths and shaky mirages.

Mufasa flopped down in the shade, licking his paws clean as he waited for the upset and sulking Scar to amble his way up to his side.

"Why did you even bring me on this patrol anyway?" Scar asked bitterly. "Its not like you needed extra muscle, I'm more mane then I am muscle." Scar's shadowed and heavily lidded eyes glowed dangerously bright as he mocked himself.

"I told you, because coalitions need to keep strong if they want to protect their pride," Mufasa told him, with a voice far too please with himself.

"Next time you suggest such a thing, I will kill myself."

With that Scar sunk into the dirt cooled by the protective shade. Mufasa chuckled, Scar knew it was an act - they had completely polar senses of humour.

"Is it really that bad?" Mufasa asked him.

Scar pretended to think about Mufasa's question.

"Ahh… yes. Yes it is." Mufasa paused in his licking, huffing a breath so great it sent little leaves skittling into the air. The King rested his head on his paws as he prepared to nap in the pleasant shade, safe from the burn of midday as they waited for Zazu to return with news. Finally, something sensible. Scar lowered his own eyelids as he lied down on his side.

"There was a reason, actually."

With great effort, Scar pried his eyes open.

"What?"

"I need to ask you a favour," Mufasa looked troubled and serious, like he had been planning this conversation. This was bound to be interesting, if not devastating to his ego. Mufasa's thought out conversations were always about how Scar wasn't as great as Scar thought, which dampened the day quite a bit. As if the almighty King was without flaws! But of course, one does not point out the flaws of a King. He simply sits pretty and waits for the idiot to fall of his precious rock ledge or something equally typical of Mufasa.

"The King coming to his naughty, disgrace of a brother for favours. What has the world come to?"

"It's about Simba."

"Ah, the royal hairball. What's he done? Offended the rhinos again? Pissed on one of the baboon's ancient spirit fruits? Annoyed the herds so much they left early? Gods knows I would."

Mufasa tactically ignored Scar's dramatically said comments and carried on unchanged.

"It's became clear to me after the graveyard incident that he shouldn't be wondering the pride lands alone with just a hornbill to protect him," Mufasa was looking at his paws as he spoke about his ridiculously treasured son.

"He's got the golden coat of a King to protect him Mufasa, you and I both know that's more than enough."

Indeed they did, Scar was sickened by the look of pity on Mufasa's face. "But I suppose the cheetahs are looking more shifty than usual…"

"The cheetahs are not the problem, Scar. You know that. It's the hyenas, everywhere I turn they are flooding over the borders, they're stealing kills off of hunters who worked for their meals, they are violating laws, they are not playing their roles and are breaking the circle of life."

The precious circle of life, if Scar had a hair for every time Mufasa went on about it he would be a walking puff ball by now. Probably could just roll from place to place.

"What crimes have they committed?" Scar asked, wonder what his hyenas friends were getting up to. These were his loyal subjects after all.

"A few days ago a zebra was killed while she was giving birth, in plain day light. Many animals said they starting eating her while she was still alive."

Scar put on a convincing display of being appalled. Mostly because he was.

"What is that, two, three violations of the pride land rules?"

"One rule and two laws; Scar," and then, in a move that Scar rarely saw from Mufasa, he swore. "They're fucking driving me nuts. On top of that they attempted to kill my own son! I can't have cubs like Simba and Nala wondering around with a bird as their only form of protection."

"So… you want me… to baby sit?"

"It's your responsibility, Scar. Lionesses hunt and lions protect the pride; it's the roles we play in the great circle of life. These cubs are the future of this pride, and Rafiki sees troubled times ahead. The pride needs to be as strong as it possibly can." Mufasa was growing tired with him, Scar could tell. But he wasn't just going to accept this. Chaperoning cubs around all day was a death sentence. Putting up with the annoying prince was hard enough during the scarce amount of time Scar spent at Pride Rock, now he had to bring the cub under his wing. The kid could talk a vulture off a rotting elephant corpse. Shouldn't there be trained professionals for this sort of thing or something?

"Why can't you do it? You're the King of everything the light touches," Scar sulked.

"Scar this is your responsibility!" Mufasa snarled, lifting off the ground a bit as he roared before freezing, realising he'd fallen back on old habits. With a shaky breath Mufasa settled back in the dirt, the perfect image of apologetic.

Well, well, well, Sarabi certainly was changing him.

As Mufasa started to relax his muscle incrementally Scar realised his own face was twisted into a vicious snarl, and he had risen as well. Quickly he tried to relax his body language and considered how this baby sitting development could help 'the plan'.

"It is your responsibility as a male of this pride to protect its members and its land. I am also a male of the pride, true, but I am also King of the Pride Lands, and I have just as much responsibility to the herds and the orphans and the weak and strong and the wellbeing of the grass land as I do to-"

"Okay, I get it. Yeesh, I'll do it, just give me a break on all the Kinglyness," Scar snapped, laying his head down in a huff, refusing to look at Mufasa. He could just feel the oaf's grateful smile anyway, so it's not like it helped.

But in reality – this played into 'the plan' perfectly.

"Listen, Simba really looks up to you, his 'cool' uncle and all that," Mufasa snorted at the notion, showing exactly what he thought of that. "He's the only cub brave enough to talk to you. I think this could help both of you."

"What are you implying?" Scar asked suspiciously. He could just feel Mufasa swelling with pride at the fact that he got to call his equally idiotic son 'brave'. Parents, pathetic.

Mufasa didn't miss a beat as he responded to Scar.

"That you're an unpopular, resentful lion with no friends and absolutely hope of attracting a lioness with your current attitude." He gave Scar a stern stare, but the sadistic humour that only Scar seemed to ever be on the receiving end of was currently making itself known. "I'm really doing you a favour here, practically."

"Oh, woah, don't – no, please - don't try and save my feelings. Why even bother, really?"

Mufasa huffed and went back to napping in the dust.

Harsh.

While Mufasa napped, Scar planned.


Heir to the Kingdom, trailing behind his friends:

They were going to the fig tree today. He used to love the fig tree.

Simba was was the best climber and his claw marks covered nearly every inch of the fig's old branches, but still he couldn't shake his new found sadness. His mother had noticed straight away, she'd whispered to him that time would help him heal. Spend the day sun baking, she had said.

Simba had never been so still or listless in his life. The cubs ran off and jumped around and screamed as they tackled one another. Realising how annoying you used to be is never a pleasant feeling.

The grass was tall and lush. When the mothers pushed through it clouds of crickets and tiny bugs scattered up into the gentle wind. Sometimes there would be soggy ground or puddles of mud and the boys would jump in it and try to splash each other. The girls would scream. Simba took the easiest path and walked it.

He realised half way to the fig tree that he was walking like an old elephant, world weary and steady. Cubs twice his age bounded around and past him, giggling and screeching. Simba felt fury burn inside him as he realised exactly why he was like this.

Why did he have to be King!? When his father told him, he had assumed it meant doing what he wanted, but now it was all too clear that being King was about doing what everyone else wanted. He wished he wasn't King. He wished he was just a normal lion. He wished his dad never told him, never started taking him out with him, never did anything.

He wished he never got to see what being a King really meant. Why couldn't his father have let him live in ignorance for awhile longer? He was a cub! His fur was still tile marked and his ears rimmed with black, his claws see-through and bendy. Simba was angry at what his pride had done to him. On whose authority was it that he was the heir anyway? Why did the Pridelands need a ruler anyway? Why did he have to witness the dead and hear the crimes of the animals, why did he had to learn how to prosecute them correctly? Why did he have to be all of a sudden almighty, why did he have to grow up so quickly?

Why did his dad make him look into the eyes of the dying zebra? His father had said it would leave him with more questions and no answers, and the only way to answer those questions was to look inside himself. Why did he do that?

Simba's thought are interrupted by a shove. Someone behind him and just shoved him. Simba violently spins, half in surprise and half in anger. His hackles are raised and face stuck in a snarl when he rounds on an old lioness.

He snarls at her and she... steps back.

That would have never happened before. He would have been batted softly aside in reprime and told off with a growl. Then she would pick him up and caring him the rest of the way to shame him. She could easily still do that.

But instead she puts space between them, and lowers her head so that her deep black eyes are staring straight across into his troubled red.

"You have fallen behind," she tells him in her croaky voice.

She turns her face, one way then the other, and looks even deeper into his gaze. Simba looks away in shame. "Something troubles you, young Simba."

Simba sighed and started walking again, but now she strolled alongside him carefully.

"These days I feel older than you," he admitted. She laughed and did a little quiet roar in amusement.

"That sounds nothing like the pesky cub you were a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, well, a few weeks ago I didn't know I'm going to be King of everything," he said, flustered, his bewilderment coming through clearly.

The lioness just hummed, a smile playing across her lips.

"You know what I hate, Simba?" She asked strangely.

"What?"

"I hate that the stupid creatures get to make all the decisions, because the wise ones are too busy questioning themselves," her words struck him like wasp stings, painful and precise. "Now let's hurry and catch up to the party, my King."

Simba stared at her as he trotted alongside her. She was one of the few lions left with the true golden coat of the Pridelanders. Her eyes were dark and her whiskers extremely long and crooked. She had a map of scars running across her chest and her tail had been chewed off halfway. She caught him staring and whispered to him with a trace of good nature 'hyenas'.

Of course, thought Simba, it's always hyenas. He couldn't imagine an animal more filthy and vile than them. Where all hyenas like that? Of course they were. Just like how all lions were noble and cheetahs were cheats and crocodiles couldn't be trusted. Zebras were narrow-minded and water buffalos stubborn and elephants randomly killed.

Was that the great circle of life? Simba asked himself as he glanced up at the sun through the grass. Around and around? The big kill and the little suffer?

When they reached the fig tree the cubs were already up in the branches. Simba eyed the deep scratch far up off the ground that marked the furthest any cub had gone. He used to obsess over reaching that mark and leaving his own a few feet higher.

He went and sat beside his mother. She purred and reached out to rub her cheek along his side as he walked to her. He settled down and took a deep breath as he attempted to sunbathed for the first time in his life.

He was glad she didn't say anything. His mother let him close his eyes and enjoy the evolving warmth of the stone and the sun. It was far better than he ever gave it credit for. He stretched out his stressed body and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds close by and far away, occasionally flicking his ear when a fly walked across his face. The lionesses would chat about hunting and the coming change in the season, they would gossip about everyone, even each other. He felt himself drifting off, finally letting go of all the questions he had been forcing himself to answer. The comment of the old lioness replaying in his mind as he started to sleep.

When the little nose of another cub woke him up, he was ready to kill. He swiped out and battered them away, growling softly and frowning.

"Simba, shut up," Nala's no-nonsense voice sliced through whatever sleepiness he'd been hazed with. Opening his eyes Simba stared at the light coloured lioness. She stared back at him with furrowed brows. "Want to go climb the tree with me?" She asked him with a spreading smile.

Nala hated climbing. She hated being near the other cubs and she hated doing one of his favourite things without a fight over why one of her favourite things was far better. Simba pinned his ears back in worry.

"Okay," he agreed slowly. Nala actually brightened up at that. Nala brightened up at going tree climbing.

"Cool," she said before hoping down off the rock and waiting for him. Simba followed sluggishly, still trying to wake all of his muscles up.

Before all this... Simba used to rough house with the others while Nala spent her time with the lionesses. Or more accurately, Simba used to sneak off while Nala stayed every dutifully beside her mother, getting groomed, listening to hunting tales, learning tricks, sun bathing and watching the herds on the horizon with unconcealed desire. She liked fighting, stalking and exploring. She refused to do anything she struggled at, a perfect example being climbing, and she hated being anywhere around any other cub except Simba. Even her litter sister she despised.

They sat down when they got to the truck of the tree and looked up into the branches for the best place to start climbing. One of the oldest cubs, Enam, was lounging among the roots.

"Good luck she-lion," he cheered in the teasing way the older cubs have always done for Nala.

"Hey!" Simba growled, glaring at the bigger cub. Enam's spots had faded and his adult teeth were coming in, even long hairs were starting to grow around his neck. Simba remembered how he used to look up to the older boys. He used to worship them. And when they teased Nala for being a lion in a lionesses coat he used to... he used to...

He used to ignore it. He thought they had a point. Nala was nothing like the girls, she beat all the boys when they brawled which hurt even his ego and she was such a snobby boss sometimes Simba thought she could use a little teasing.

Just as Simba was about to walk over and claw the fur off of Enam's back Nala shot back hauntingly,

"Poor Enam, too fat to climb a simple tree," she then collected herself and jumped high up onto the lowest branch, landing on it flawlessly and walking along it with calm balance. Simba watched her go and gathering his legs under him to follow, but just before he did he turned to Enam and smirked.

The older cub didn't look furious, he just looked shocked.

Simba found Nala resting right on the edge of a thick branch, half hidden amongs the fig's copious leaves and the heavy loads of ripening fruit.

"I like the view up here," she said as he came closer, looking out over the plains again and watching the herds with eyes sharp with instincts.

"That's the only thing you like up here," Simba grumbled, judging the branch across from the one he was on and making the small jump. His claws lost a hold for a brief moment but he managed to jam his paws into the ruts. His heart was beating hard and Simba finally realised he was smiling.

This was why he loved climbing.

"What's up with you Simba?" Nala asked in a matter of fact voice, her creamy coat getting smeared with dead moss and frail bark as she stretched out on the branch. They looked at each other for a while before Simba sighed.

"How long have you known that I'm going to be King?" he asked her finally.

"Since you told me," Nala replied with ease, her tail curling and uncurling lazily.

"Well back then, we though being King was about doing what we wanted." Nala smirked at him and Simba couldn't help but return it as she said knowingly.

"We could do it all our way."

"Exactly," Simba said. "But I've been learning," his voice dropped to a whisper as he felt the pressure come back over him. "It's nothing like that Nala. It's hard."

It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

He looked at her, and her expression showed clear concern.

"I'm sorry," she said to him softly. Simba just shook his head.

"It's not your fault," he could start to hear the other cubs above them, fighting among each other and snapping small twigs under them.

"My mother says that when we grow up our fears will be a lot smaller, because we'll be the biggest, scarcest animals on the Pridelands," Nala said, her ears pricked forward.

Simba laughed. For some reason, he couldn't even phantom the idea of growing up into a lion as big as his father. He felt stunted and weak, and he couldn't imagine that ever changing.

"You want to try and climb to the top?" Nala asked him, cheered by his laugh.

"Nah," Simba said, shrugging. "How about we go hunting?" Nala jumped out to her paw at the suggestion.

"I love hunting!" she exclaimed, rushing back down the tree.

On his way down Simba stopped to look at the girls. They were usually loudly arguing or giggling, but right now they were strangely quiet. He glanced up into the branches just before he jumped down to the ground and saw them, all of them watching him. He made eye contact with one of them before they all looked away. All but one. Nala's sister kept looking on at him, her eyes gleaming with mischief. Simba rolled his eyes.

He hated lionesses. They were always up to something.

Nala was waiting for him down on the ground, sitting regally and licking her fur smooth. He walked up alongside her, his golden fur mingling with her near white.

"Mouse? Bird?" She asked with ears pricked and swiveling around. Simba smirked.

"Whatever we can find," he said with a mock of evilness in his lowered voice, he dug his claws into the ground and Nala chuckled as their usually childish play returned.

She was a natural hunter. She was the best at what she did. A tomboy, a brute, a lioness over her head in ambition. Next to her Simba always felt clumsy, but he learns, just like Nala sometimes takes strength from his bravery, tentatively trying something new. It was something.

It felt good to play with Nala again. And when they lost interst in their play hunt and started to wrestly, some others joined. Nala came second, beating everyone but Kalifa, but the cubs who were beat didn't mock her for being a she-lion like they usually did after losing. Even the oldest boys said nothing. Simba wondered if they had come to accept Nala more while he was away with his father.

Simba was the youngest cub there, younger than Nala and her sister by a few weeks, and the rest by at least a few months. He usually managed to beat the lazy cubs like Adejola and Benji, and sometimes even Nala's sister Berta, but he was never a match for the bigger cubs and Nala.

They sat down in the shade and licked the light wounds they had gotten during play. The sun was high which meant it was nap time, and Simba's eyelids were awfully heavy. When he settled down to nap Nala quickly got up from where she was and curled beside him like always. The eight other cubs sprawled out with great yawns and purrs.

During their nap a shower past over, wetting his coat and making the grass hang with water droplets. On the walk back he and Nala joined the boys in rolling through the new muddy puddles (much to the disgust of the young lionesses who screamed when they got too close – though Benji looked on with envy).

They pretended to be cheetahs and raced each other home.

It was just what he needed.

The lionesses took them to the big kill they had made last night, now half stripped to the bone. The cubs liked to climb on top and proclaim themselves a part of the hunt that took it down, and make up wild stories of how it played out. All the cubs listened with interest as each took their turn.

The kill was big. A massive horned beast of some kind. Simba stuck his head where it's belly should be, and looked around it's empty ribcage.

It could have swallowed Simba whole if it wasn't a grass eater.

Simba pulled the thick skin back and looked at the exposed spine.

"How did it really happen?" Benji asked her mother from where she sat licking dried blood off her paws. Her mother grinned and bared her fangs.

"The Queen made the charge, and the herd went into a panic," all the cubs gasped and huddled to hear every word. "They were scared mad, and a few nearly tripped over the very grass they ate. Mother was on the heels of the slowest, but even they were still too strong for our liking." She looked them all in the face in turn. "Then a calf ran around a bank the wrong way, I was on the flank and nearly had him. I swiped a paw at his legs and he fell down, I was on top of him," one of the young lionesses gasped, and the huntress paused to look every cub in the eye.

"Just as I was going to bite down on his throat," she continued quietly, "a great bull runs up and flung me into the air with his horns." On cue, she turned to reveal the two deep bruises from where the horns had lifted her. "He was strong and brave," she said, now looking at the carcass with respect, something none of the cubs had for it.

They could not comprehend that it used to be something. They and their no-kill tallies.

Simba had watched that zebra pass away. He was to be the King. He had been told why thing die.

For the great circle of life.

"He sacrificed his life to save the calf. I wondered who that calf is, what he will go on to become?" The huntress exhales and smiled at the cubs. "Does the meat taste brave?"

Enam shook his head and someone else giggled.

"It tastes brave to me," the lioness admitted proudly.

Later, when the cubs were back to exploring the carcass and eating the grit off the bones, Simba went over to the lioness and asked her what brave could possibly taste like.

"Like ash," she admitted without thinking. "Only those who deserve to die, or those you never killed taste any good."

Her coat was a darker cream, just like his mother. Her mother. His half-sister stared at him with the same knowing eyes and strong face. She nuzzle him and chuckled.

"Little King's finally asking the right questions," Simba huffed and threw his tail up, causing her to chuckled even more. "If my mother where to hear of such teasing she would have you banished immediately!" His sister liked that and pushed him as she rolled over.

It was a joke she and him had played since he could remember. She liked to make fun of the fact that she and him had Sarabi in common.

Sometimes the cubs asked him what it was like to have such an older sister. Simba said it was like having a young mum. Ulan and Benji both worried that it meant he could boss them around, even though they were older, but Simba never really bother to treat his niece and nephew any different to the other cubs. It was weird anyway.

His half sister and his mother both came from the Lakelands. It was far to the west of the Pridelands, and you had to cross the Flatlands to get there. Their coats were the colour of wet sand because they did all their hunting on the banks of the endless inland sea.

Sometimes he tried to talk to his mother about her life before she came to the Pridelands, and she would always refuse, telling him that her lions had been ruled only by the laws of Blood and Fear. Big change had come many years ago, and now they were a new society, still tentatively starting again. She said she would tell him of the old ways when he was older. That's why they were called the old ways, because you had to be older.

Simba didn't like having things kept from him.

His sister once had five other siblings, but she was the only one who lived to leave alongside her mother. She told him more than his mother did. She told him about how her father lost to Silver-Side and how he and his mute brother killed all the cubs. She said how her mother was the only one that stood up, and those deep scars down her back where what she got for it.

Simba sometimes looks at those scars when the sun hits his mother right, and you can see the grooves in her fur that shows where they hide.

He used to think scars were cool.

But they are more than that.

Sometimes he looks at Uncle Scar's face and wonders what happened. But Scar always tells him a different story each time.

It was just after midday when they got back to Pride Rock. Scar was back with one of the lionesses, but everyone else who had gone out was still away. She was covered in mud and wouldn't put weight on her left paw. When the cubs crowded close to learn what happened, Scar roared at them and chased them away.

Simba wondered what the rest would look like when they returned. Later Rafiki came with his stick and inspected the muddy lioness, and Simba rushed over to his side, knowing that he would be welcomed by the ape's side.

"Oh no young girl," Rafiki had groaned as he carefully inspected her limp leg. "You've broken your bone in two." She started to cry, and Simba couldn't help but think of the big bones of the brave gnu and how the lionesses had cracked them in two so that the cubs could lick the soft marrow out.

"Can you fix it?" She asked, and Rafiki frowned.

"I will try," he admitted to her, but whatever he was feeling was making him shake his head over and over again.

"Please young King," she asked Simba, suddenly turning to him, begging him. What could he possibly do for her? "Please help me." Simba started into her eyes, she was young and Simba recognised her as the one who brought a mongoose back as her first kill, and how Nala had scoffed and told Simba her first kill will be a giraffe.

They had been very little back then.

"Simba, come here," Rafiki said softly, guiding the cub over with his large hands. He guided Simba's little golden paw and placed it gently on the girl's leg. "You feel it?" He asked, encouraging him to trace softly how the bone was angled wrong.

The circle of life. Simba thought, bile rising in his throat as he looked back into her watery eyes. Why did the brave gnu die? Why did his sister kill him? Why did this young lioness break her leg? Why did the shower pass over today and cause her to slip down the muddy bank? Rafiki pulled a small fruit from his stick and gave it to her to chew. Slowly, she relaxed and fell asleep.

"I came to talk to your father," Rafiki told him, sitting beside the sleeping lioness. "The visions get more violent, the first change is at hand, my bones ache from the racket the ancestors are causing."

"What do they sound like?" Simba asked.

He looked down at the lioness and wondering if she will be joining the ancestors. Maybe that was what she was begging of him? They say the Kings have sway over the ancestor's decision; maybe she wanted him to beg on her behalf.

Scar appeared out of nowhere in an angry huff of mane.

"He'll come back when he has dealt with the danger," Scar said. "They're still searching for those idiot bulls, and probably never will. I reckon they've already crossed into the Flatlands," Scar had bent down and said the last through gritted teeth to Simba. "But far be it for my opinions to be taken into account."

When Scar stood up his mane was ruffled, and the sleek black colour seemed to absorb all light and haloed him in darkness. Simba watched him wordlessly, torn between wanting a red mane like his father or a cool black one like uncle Scar.

Scar seemed to suddenly remember the lioness, and asked Rafiki how bad it was.

"She will recover in time," Rafiki said softly,

"That's what they said when I got struck by lightning but here I am now," Scar looked at Simba and grinned widely, "perfectly normal don't you agree?"

"You? Normal?" Simba scoffed as he followed behind his uncle. Scar looked around at the bratty kids, over bearing mothers, the broken lioness and the sad old baboon waiting for his king to return. Simba saw it all too.

"Simba," Scar said to get his attention, "you're father sent me back early because I have a special extra mission."

"Really?" Simba was skeptical but curious at the same time. His head tilted to the side as he studied his uncle's gleaming eyes.

"He's got a surprise for you, down in the gorge, I'm meant to bring you to meet him." Scar used his large paw to scoop Simba along in the right direction. Quickly getting his feet under him, Simba jogged to keep up with his uncle.

It was strange to set out into the Pridelands during the hottest part of the day, but Simba supposed time was of the essence. He hoped it wasn't another dying zebra he needed to look in the eye.

The journey to the gorge was hot and quiet. He tried asking about what they were doing, but uncle Scar would always shut him down with a smile. It only made Simba more curious. It was driving him insane. By the time they started to descend into the gorge both lions were panting. The shaded rocks they climbed down helped lift some of the heat from their bodies.

"Now you wait here, your father has a marvelous surprise for you," Scar spoke with excitment, but there was another tone there, just enough for Simba to pick up on. Like Scar didn't believe his own words.

"What is it?" Simba asked while stepping into the shade of the one little tree growing stubbornly at the bottom of the gorge. Scar grinned and walked up to his nephew.

"If I told you then it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?"

"If you tell me, I'll still act surprised."

Scar saw right through him and chuckled.

"You are such a naughty boy."

Simba sat and curled his tail up close, upset that his Uncle was being so stubborn and, really, quite strange.

"Come on uncle Scar," Simba pleaded, looking him in eye. Scar just put his head in the air and refused him over and over again.

"This is just for you and your daddy, you know, a sort of father son... thing," with eyes nearly rolling out of their sockets, Scar sighed at Simba's pleading.

Simba wondered if Scar even knew what it was like to do a father-son thing.

"Well, I better get going then," the big lion finally concluded, walking off quickly. Simba looked after him in surprise. He was just going to leave him on this rock?

Before, Simba would have given his tail to be left alone. Alone to explore, alone to be alone.

But right now he wasn't very keen on being alone in a gorge

"I'll go with you," Simba exclaimed, bouncing down the rock after him. Instantly his uncle tensed and whipped around, pushing him back up the rock.

"No," he said quickly, startling Simba before laughing it off. "Just...stay on this rock. You wouldn't want to end up in another mess like you did with the hyenas." Simba's stomach dropped at the mention of the graveyard incident.

"You know about that?"

"Simba," Scar said bluntly. "Everybody knows about that."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. Lucky daddy was there to save you aye? Oh, and just between us, you might want to work on that little roar of yours, hm?" Scar tried to be comforting as he rested a paw on his nephew's shoulders. No matter that the grown lion's paw was half the size of Simba himself.

"Oh. Well, okay." So everyone knew, and even the most embarrassing details? Simba felt wrecked. Everyone in the Pridelands had probably heard the gossip by now. How could he ever show his face again? As Scar walked away, Simba felt suddenly remembered the reason they were out here was because his father had a surprise for him.

"Hey uncle Scar, will I like the surprise?"

"Simba, it's to die for."

Simba huffed as his uncle slinked away. It had better be to die for, Simba grumbled, plonking himself down in the shade in an upset bundle of lanky cub legs. As Scar walked further and further away Simba could hear a bird cry from way up above the gorge.

"Little roar, pfft."

Everyone was talking behind his back about his little roar, the weak little King. A stupid lizard crawled down from the bush and ignore him blatantly as it walked past, nose in the air. Simba bet the lizard thought he was a weak little cub too. Well he wasn't. And somebody ought to set those idiots straight or he would... he could...

Simba decided to set it straight himself, and with flattened ears he snarled at the lizard. When it ignored him he jumped down beside it and took in the biggest breath he could.

Focus Simba.

He roared.

It kept on walking.

With a smirk Simba eyed the lizard. He crouched like a predator, then jumping up to it, he focused less on his breath and more on his voice, and as his roar came out the lizard scattered away so quick it was gone when he opened his eyes. His roar echoed all around him and up through the gorge, and Simba felt so happy as he heard it bounce around and fly down the canyon.

He felt big.

Finally.

The rumpling of hooves and the startled cries of animals cut Simba's smile short. Birds flew into the air with alarm cries, and the little pebbles by his feet started to jump and skip across the ground.

Then the entire canyon shook.

Looking down the gorge, Simba watched as gnu started to pour down the side, jumping and skipping down the steep rocks. More and more, until it was like a waterfall and the dust they threw up clouded them into one mass.

Everything in him went cold.

He watched them in disbelief, wondering what they were doing, knowing what was coming for him but not realising what it meant. As the first beast charged closer, it didn't seem that bad, but then the black mass swept after them and pushing them forward... one of the leaders faulted, maybe it saw Simba, maybe it simply tripped, but the many running behind it simply charged over their herdmate's fallen body.

They could not stop what had begun.

Simba turned and ran. The pounding of their hooves and scared bellows breathed down his back and chased him. They were running from the stampede like him. He was now the leader of the stampede.

They were gaining so fast Simba felt like he was made of stone.

Once he chanced a look behind, and he nearly lost his footing. He was growing tired already, body exhausted from the long walk to the gorge in the heat. Why didn't they stop? He was the King, wasn't he? Why did they have to run? What made them run?

He managed a few more bounding leaps before he could hear their breathing as clear as his own.

When Simba looked above him, the first one was there, head over him, body beside him, then suddenly, Simba was among them.

Desperately he tried to avoid the forest of legs and striking hooves swarming him. There was no way they could see him down here, no way he would survive.

He needed to get out, up out of the rising dust. His eyes locked onto a branch angling out among all the gnu legs, and he made a mad dash for it.

Simba scaled it in seconds with sure feet, but as he made a last jump along its curved truck, he went flying down and missed it. Only pure instinct saved him from being flung back down into the writhing mass of the stampede. Sometimes their horns would pass under him, close enough to scratch along the bark.

Eat your heart out Nala. Was what flashed through Simba's mind. She used to think climbing was useless from a lion to learn.

The dust was making him cough, and when he saw Zazu he felt so much relief he nearly lost his hold. But at the same time, Simba felt new panic.

Because Zazu meant his father was coming to save him.

Again.

"Zazu help me!" Simba called to the bird as he slipped and clung to the shaking branch.

"Your father is on the way, hold on!" The distraught hornbill cried, Simba couldn't see him very well, too busy pulling himself up after he was nearly thrown clear off the branch.

"Hurry," he managed to say. Trying not to cry.

He was such a mistake.

One horn caught the branch squarely and the vibration were so hard it felt like his brain got dislodged. Simba tried to hold on, but he couldn't do it anymore. He was tired. Before he knew what had happened, he heard the cry of a gnu directly underneath him, and felt the force of the blow as the branch went sailing. He was thrown clear off it, and came hurdling down onto the beasts. If he hadn't of been such an idio-

Simba's body was caught in a bruising catch, and violently pulled in the other direction. He felt where his dad carried him, and gasped in surprised as the ground came within an inch of his nose before swirling into a blur of pale colours as his dad sprinted and swerved through the stampede. There was a great hit and he was ripped away and throw across the gorge floor, teeth raking over his skin where his father had tried to tighten his hold. He could hear his dad's pained roar - it rumbled as loud as the hooves.

Simba tried to get to his feet, but the gnu were panicing.

Probably because of dad's roar. Simba thought instantly.

Then he remembered his own roars just before it happened.

Through the dust he could make out his dad running for him. When he picked him up again mid-stride Simba felt more terror in that moment than in his entire life combined. His dad jumped up and onto a ledge safe on the side of the gorge, and as he was placed down with extreme care, Simba only had enough time to turn and catch a glimpse of his dad before he was gone again.

"Dad!" Simba cried, the bad feeling doubling and growing and crawling ontop of each other until he felt numb and shaky and ready to burst open and ooze it. He couldn't see him. He couldn't see anything down there. His dad was trapped on the ground as hundreds of his loyal subjects trampled over him.

There was a loud, pained roar, and Simba feared the worst until he saw the massive shape of his father jump out of the dust cloud. He scrambled to get a hold on the rock wall, with clenched teeth Simba watched his dad pull himself higher and higher with all the power he could muster.

With dread Simba tried to find a way to help. He could rush up the rocks to his side and try to find a way along to the ledge his dad was climbing for.

Yeah. He would do that.

With new determination Simba bolted away and up the tiny ravine in the rocks. He heard his dad's hurt cry, it shook his bones. Simba stopped dead in his tracks and watched with numb shock and denial as the gnu went past in a haze. He hadn't fallen. He hadn't fallen. He couldn't see his dad anymore, but that was just because he was on the other side of the rocks. He hadn't fallen. He couldn't.

And then he saw it, watched it in slow motion. His dad tumbling down, flailing and falling wildly. He was grasping for something he couldn't hold, and he was falling so hard and fast that the gnu looked like spikes waiting to impale him. The rawness in his fathers last cry made Simba stop thinking at all.

Simba cried, all he could do was cry. He couldn't tear his gaze from that spot in the air, he didn't know how to.

He didn't know how he managed to regain himself, but when he did he was sliding down the gorge wall, crying and falling and hoping that his dad was still alright. Still down there.

He searched and cried through the empty, dusty wasteland. When a lone confused gnu ran by him with a noticeable limp, Simba felt such a strong hatred wash through him that he became plastered to the spot.

And then he saw it, in the swirling dust, limp under the cracked bow of an equally dead and trampled tree.

But he refused to believe that. His dad was stronger than a tree. Dads don't die.

But something in him knew, as he circled and saw the beaten body of his father. His sobs were wrecking his body. The big lion was nothing but dusty fur.

"Help!" Simba cried. But no one was there. Simba went back to his dad's side and tried to believe. There was hope, there could be. Was his chest moving? It could be. Simba pressed himself to his dad, trying to listen for the familiar booming heartbeat.

It was there.

Oh thank god.

Simba was crying now more than ever from equal sadness and joy, he pulled at his father's ears and begged for him to get up.

He started to stir, and when his dad's eyes opened, then looked straight past him. For many seconds Simba didn't know what to do as his dad looked past him, disgust creeping up onto his face followed by anger.

"Simba," Mufasa whispered quickly, like he didn't have the breath to say all he needed to. "Run." Simba was so shocked, his mouth hung open and he couldn't say a thing. His dad kept looking between him and the distance. Like he was tracking something. Simba was about to turn around to look as well when his dad struck him hard and sent him tumbling across the torn up ground.

"Get out of my sight!" His dad snarled, his expression one of pain and desperation. His eyes flickered beyond him, then focused on him with such a burning glare Simba felt his breath catch so much he was barely breathing at all.

Mufasa launched himself half off the ground, keeping his cry of pain down as he watched his helpless cub gasp and run. He glanced behind at where Scar was hurriedly stalking towards him, the telltale shadows of hyenas darting along behind.

He will not let Scar get to his son. Anything to save Simba, anything. Mufasa looked away from his murderous brother running along the gorge, to where his beloved son was disappeared from view.

Mufasa would be condemning him to a dangerous life of hiding. There was only one way to make sure his son did that right, in the short time he had.

"Never come back!" Mufasa roared as loud as he could. He had just enough time to watch the tiny form of his cub disappear before he felt Scar rake his claws across his face. The blow made all his other injuries scream.

"Kill the king!" Scar cried to the hyenas before he too raced into the dust, intent on the trail of a cub he believed knew everything of his failed murder.

"He knows nothing!" Mufasa cried. He prayed Simba was scared enough to hide and run, scared enough to disbelieve Scar's sweet words if he ever got close enough. One of the hyenas lunged and got a mouthful of Mufasa's ear and cheek, the creature swung viciously, ragdolling from side to side, tearing his ear to ribbons and yanking his head around in all directions. Mufasa roared and tried to swipe him away. One had his back paw in his mouth and was pulling at it and chewing, Mufasa felt dread as he watched and felt nothing.

One jumped heavily onto his back and Mufasa looked up into her cruel smirk with thunderous narrowed eyes.

"Boo," she said, making all of them fall over in giggles.

Run Simba. Run as fast as you can.