I Gets Up When I Like
Simba, Running Away Once More:
Even though Upweke had screamed for him to not go back to Sili, some part of Simba still thought that it was the wisest move. It was a three day journey, two if he ran his stubby legs till they collapsed. He knew the way. He could do it. Sili would know what to do, she was smart, and she could help him. Most importantly, she could fly. She could lead him across the sands, and it would be safe.
But Upweke had said not to. And that fact was indisputable. He knew, or understood, or was just smart enough to figure out, that returning to Sili would be an unwise decision. So no matter how wise it seemed to Simba, he took the kudu's last advice.
Probably the last advice he will ever give me. Animals did not return from the sand, animals vanished in the sands.
So how in the hell was he supposed to do it? Upweke seemed to think he could, and Upweke was from the east, so maybe he had crossed the sands and judged Simba good enough. Upweke was kind of a legend. It was plausible. If he kept up this reasoning, perhaps he could trick himself into not shaking so much it was hard to run straight, and he could cross the sands with bravery and speed unseen before.
So he ran out of the Bone Forest, and slipped between the boulders, rushed up the crumbling slope and when he came to the rise, he was in freefall for two seconds of his life as he catapulted over. The hyena's howls were loud, but they were behind him, and that was all that Simba could think about. He was getting away, he was getting away.
He ran and ran and ran, he lungs burned, his skin burned, the sun burned, his paws burned, and then eventually... he turned numb. It felt familiar. It felt calming, just one foot in front of the other.
But, inevitably, the numbness changed into something else. It felt like his body was not his anymore, it was just muscle and bones galloping away underneath him, surging him on. The high day left, and evening came. He crossed through the empty ocean of stalky grass, and when he saw the beginnings of the sands, he came to a stumbling stop, his mouth hanging open. Sand, for eternity. Nothing but sand, and sun and slopes and grains and nothing and too much.
The sun was on the side of the world when he took his first steps into the wasteland of the Wastelands. It wasn't quite sunset yet, but the light was changing appearance from whip sharp, to that of the down underneath Sili's feathers. Soft and peaceful, and the world looked to have embraced the coming night with equal love and fear as dusk settled over it. His shadow was so long it looked to touch the horizon as the seconds slipped by. East, it was east he had to go. So the little lion cub put his back to the falling sun, and galloped into the hot sand, his shadow acting like an arrow. Who knows how much the rest by the brink could have cost him, the hyenas could be close at hand, or they could be on the way to Sili's, refusing to believe that such a little cub would dare to cross the sands.
He followed his shadow, running along the feet of dunes bigger than Priderock. Sunset came and the sands became a blood bath, he ran. Young night came and the stars appeared in the tens of thousands. True night came, and the air was frigid, the sands were icy cold, and he became lost. Stars were still appearing, now uncountable. Simba tried to study them. Which constellation pointed to the east?
He did not know, and not willing to waste energy running in the wrong direction, he curled up on the sand and attempted to sleep. The sand was cold, the wind was cold, and the sounds the dunes made when the wind rushed against them was eerie. Simba's eyes were closed to keep the sand from them, not because he was getting any sleep. He needed to rest every chance he got, he couldn't afford to be sitting around like this. But the cold and the terror of a true desert night never let him drift. Eventually he got up and ran up the tallest dune just to keep warm. He lay down at the top, waves of sand falling where ever he pushed, and tried to count the dunes, and find differences amongst them. His eyes could see far, and they worked well in the dark. Not as good as Sili's, but better than Upweke's.
He looked up.
What did the great kings think of him? Simba looked amongst them, searching for kind eyes until his neck got unimaginably stiff and sore. Then he rolled on his back and continued. Did they even look over him anymore, considering what he had done and what he had become? Simba frowned.
Well screw them. Screw them and screw his father. Screw them all to hell.
He rolled around and lay his chin upon his paws, with eyes shut he brooded and cursed. It wasn't his fault, he never did anything wrong on purpose. He had been only a little cub. Nala had begged him to take her to the graveyard; she was as much to blame! But no, he got in trouble, and she got sooked over and tended to like a fragile flower. If Simba knew anything, it was that Nala was not a fragile flower, but she did a heck of a job acting like one when there was something in it for her. Simba felt tears well up at the thought of his best friend. What was she doing now? What did she think of him, being so pathetic and weak? Maybe she was happy he was gone, just like his father. Simba couldn't think about that too long, it hurt. Nala would never. They were best friends, they were partners in crime. She would miss him, he was sure of it.
But he had been wrong before.
The memory of that night brought back what his father had said, and he open his eyes to stare at the stars once more.
Simba I'm very disappointed in you
I know.
When you're young, some memories stay and some don't. Some moments you forget until one day, you remember them suddenly, like lifting dust off it as you brushed by.
Dad? We're pals right?
Right.
And we'll always be together. Right?
He had forgotten, but now as he looked at the stars he remembered with a shock colder than the desert night.
Those kings will always be there to guide you... and so will I.
The sky paled, and one horizon bloomed in deep pink. A ring of sweet blue, and the clouds were highlighted in dry yellow and gold. Simba studied the colours of the sunrise as he ran towards it, the red and black dawns of the Pridelands replaced with the fiasco of the desert morns.
Go East Simba! Across the sand, don't go back to Sili, I'll explain to her, run east and don-
Run east and don- what? Don't stop? Don't look back? Don't drink the water it's poisonous? There was no water out here, so that wasn't likely. He was just going to have to risk it, and do what he knew he must.
His name was Simba. And Upweke knew. Had he know he was the prince all along?
Simba. Not Simba the future king. Just Simba. A lion. And he would cross these sands. He couldn't see an end to them right now, as he trotted along the spine of a dune, but one day, he would make it. One day he would see green in the distance and croak his delight. The way sturdy ground feels, after so long in the shifting sands, would make him buckle and roll against the parched ground like it was water. It was not, it was cracked ground. And he needed water, badly. It had been four days in the sands, and the only relief he had gotten was a lap of water from an oasis tinier than him. But it had saved his life, following the footprints of some big three toes things. He never glimpsed them, but their footprints saved him.
Maybe the kings really were watching over him?
He ran for the green, and it was so easy and wonderful. No sand to suck his leg all the way up to his knee. It felt like he was flying. Sand on rock turned to cracked earth with the odd scratchy grass pile bursting from it. And that turned to prickly grass, which turned to grassland, which turned to lush rainforest.
Simba stopped and stared. It was impossible. He turned around and looked at the sands far behind him, then turned to the dark coolness of the forest. He could only imagine what sort of water reservoir lay below his feet, to feed such life, so suddenly.
He looked a breath, and walked in.
It was shady and cool; the floor was soft and damp. He could hear thousands of animals around him, singing and feeding in the trees. Simba stopped and stared at a clump of red flowers that hung beneath a waxy leaf, dark dark green and with an infant gecko stretched perfectly in its crease. It looked like something he had dreamt up. He sniffed the peculiar scent of the blossoms and crunched his nose at the foreign scent. Gentle wind brushed through the tree tops, and the rattling sighs of the forest echoed in his ears. He had heard trees rattle in the breeze before, for sure, but he had never heard the particular way a rainforest breathed. Simba tried to pick the smell of a waterhole, but everything else was too alien and strong.
He pushed on, staying away from tracks, not wanting to be seen. Frogs sung, but they did not lead him to a waterhole like they would in the Pridelands. Instead they lived in the creases of leaves, where they sat in private ponds no bigger than them. Simba prowled through the jungle, sometimes twigs would snap, and he would learn how to avoid that. With his own noise gone, the forest filled his ears, and he could finally pick the unmistakable sound of water rippling over rocks. Ears swiveling as he tried to pinpoint the direction, Simba jogged around tree trunks and ducked underneath bushes as his thirst burned him. The scent of jungle water filled his mind, and the sound of it trickling screamed inside his ears.
It was a sapling of a creek, not good enough for fish or waterweeds, but enough to run along its rock bed and quietly splash when it fell over small edges. Simba lapped at it, his rough tongue scrapping the slippery rock bottom. It was chilled, and sweet. Nothing like the prideland watering holes, filled with mud and teaming with life, hippos pushing against one another for space. Nothing like the cave reservoir in the Wastelands, filtered through limestone silt and sitting stagnant for months. Simba put his sore paws in the water. Paws that had lived through the jagged Wastelands, and an endless run across the harsh sands. It felt like they pulsed, as the water wove between the cracks and blisters of his pads. He walked along the slippery rocks, with the creek soothing his paws. It twisted and turned, and gradually deepened enough for Simba to slide down into it and let it rush over him. He opened his eyes, and the water was clear. Waterweeds as bright as the sunlight from above ripped around his paws, and tiny gemstone fish danced around his shadow. Simba opened his mouth, and let it fill with water before straightening his legs and emerging, he swallowed it all, and breathed heavy and laughed as he shook himself and scattered the jungle around with droplets.
This is where Upweke had wanted him to go, to survive and become something better than a wasteland skeleton. Simba crouched under the water again, filling his mouth up, and watching the fish smaller than grains of sand. He lifted his feet up, and let the current carry him half a meter, before snapping his paws back down and bursting from the water, spluttering his mouthful of water and gasping in adrenaline. This was all very dangerous for a lion who did not know how to swim. Simba blinked his eyes until they didn't hurt anymore, than lapped at the water as it glided by him. He moved his paws softly, exploring the feel of the velvet waterweeds and the many different rocks that made up the bed. When he was full, and a bit cold, Simba climbed out and walked along the bank, headed for a patch of sun that streamed through the canopy onto a large black rock. He stretched out and closed his eyes, sleep falling easier than it had in days. Each heavy breath accompanied by a rumbling purr.
The Dynamic Duo, by the Jungle Edge:
The warthog family milled about in the mud, snorting and squealing to each other. Timon looked over at Pumbaa, wondering about how his old friend was handing the scene. Indeed, the lone warthog looked on in unconcealed longing, pain on his face, as a bit of runny snot leaking out one nostril. It was a hideous sight.
"That's ours Timon," the warthog whined as he snorted his snot back inside his nose. "And they won't let us anywhere near it!" Timon resisted the temptation to rub his bruised ribs as he remembered what happened when they strayed too close at dawn.
"Ah, they'll leave soon enough." And so they waited, concealed in the forest, watching as the clan of warthogs dug around in their spot. For weeks this patch had been theirs. It was unspoiled delight, and Timon and Pumbaa had been careful to keep it that way. The roots were rich, the grubs were good and most importantly they didn't have to deal with assholes. That changed at dawn, when they woke up to find a battalion of warthogs plowing into one of their favourite digging grounds.
Timon growled as he watched the big male slurp up some worms. He and Pumbaa had been civil, for lion's sake, calmly coming down and explaining that they were in their territory and if they would be so kind as to move on to the thousand other acres of rich jungle and just stop destroying it. Of course the brute and his hideous wives had laughed at them. Losers, always the losers. At least Pumbaa could keep some of his ego, it had been the big male that chased him of. But Timon? A piglet had driven him into the ground.
He winced again and touched his sore ribs. It would take a long time to heal. He glared at all the tiny piglets in turn as they dug beside their mothers, not sure which one it had been, but determined to hate them all if so be it. His gaze moved to the big brute as he pushed one of his wives aside when she got too close to his digs. Greedy bastards.
"I hope he trips and falls, and his own wives eat him." Timon spat as he watched the clan continue to rip the site to shreds. Pumbaa grumbled, but didn't disagree.
As Timon started to drift off in his own violent daydreams, the forest filled with terrifying screams. Timon jumped to his feet to see what was going on. A streak of gold, the warthogs scattering, he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Timon!" Pumbaa scream-choked as they watched an animal they both hadn't seen in a long, long time.
"The lion." Timon couldn't believe his eyes. Of course they had heard the rumours, but these lands had been lion free for decades now. That was if the locals weren't exaggerating. He had brushed the tales off for baseless gossip, if only for his own sanity. Timon hopped quicker than the eye could follow onto Pumbaa's back. "Run Pumbaa! Run!"
But Pumbaa just sat, watching the scene unfold. The lioness had no luck, and the warthogs had started dancing in circles around her. In fact, as one of the hideous wives charged, it was an incredibly small lion...
Where there was a cub, there was a mother. Timon felt the roots of his hair buzz in fear.
The cub lashed out, making the wife scream and swirl around to run. She tripped in the deep holes her family had made in the mud, and quickly the cub had jumped on her back, biting down on her skin. Timon frowned as he watched. It was obviously a very naive cub, because his bites landed with no real harm, and she shook him off with not a wound to her. As the hideous wife trotted away, offended and snorting, the big male made a break for the cub and tossed the child into the air. The body looked limp and raggy as it twirled about, trying to get its feet underneath it before it crashed back down.
Timon screamed and scrambled to grab a handful of Pumbaa's mane as the warthog leapt from the cover without warning, racing as fast as a cheetah across the ground and into the unprepared brute's side. They both screamed those teeth curling pig screams and Timon decided he was safer on the ground. Jumping away from the grappling warthogs, wondering what the hell Pumbaa was thinking, Timon raced for cover. He looked up, and screamed bloody murder as he watched the lion catapult directly towards him. He prayed to the lord and threw himself to the mud as the lion ran above him, completely ignoring him.
Of course he would ignore him. Stupid! He had big fat warthog's to choose from. Timon scrambled to his feet, a warning for Pumbaa dying in his throat as he watched the lion sail over his friend too, latching his claws into the brute male and hurling him onto his back as he crash-landed. Instead of running, Pumbaa took the opportunity to drive his tusks into the male's exposed underbelly. The cub had started to snarl, a sound that lived in every animal's worst nightmare. Timon was frozen solid, the brute started to scream an octave higher, and even the fool hardy Pumbaa shielded away. The cub was laying blows on the brute as well, but still they were childish and innocent. Though the lean hunger evident in the cub's bony body spoke of anything other than that. With Pumbaa backing up, Timon took the opportunity to race across the upturned ground and onto his back, shouting in his friend's ear to get the fuck out of here.
And he was too, they were half way through turning around and would have been out of there faster than farts if the cub hadn't screamed in that moment. Pumbaa jumped to his aid, driving the brute off him and causing him to roll over and over. When the brute got to his feet, he realised for the first time that his wives and piglets were nowhere to be seen, and that there was no one left to back him up. With a damning curse he galloped away down the grassy hill and into the plains where he and his ugly brood had ventured out from.
Pumbaa looked at the cub, and in doing so Timon was forced to face the kid as well. He was still lying where the brute had slammed him, now not nearly as golden from all the mud that covered him. Its red eyes flickered to them and it licked its split lip. Timon pulled on Pumbaa's ear so hard his muscles hurt, but Pumbaa ignored him.
"Thanks," the kid croaked, before wincing and coughing. Pumbaa took a step closer in concern.
"Pumbaa are you nuts." Timon hissed into his friend's undoubtable aching ear. This was not good for his nerves, he was sure he had lost two years of his life due to stress so far and now Pumbaa was going ahead and shaving off another five with his idiot concern.
"You alright little guy?" Pumbaa asked the cub, who winced as he tried to move.
"No."
"You need some help?"
"No." The cub frowned, before sighing. "...yeah, actually."
Meanwhile Timon had pulled enough hair out to be classified as bald.
"Ah, Pumbaa, could I have a word." He asked with a squeaking voice. Pumbaa snorted and trotted a few meters from the cub. Timon jumped to the ground and Pumbaa look down at him.
"What the hell? That is a lion. What are you thinking?" Timon pulled on his friend snout as he screamed into his face.
"Yeah but he's only little." Pumbaa reasoned, tilting his head, accidentally pushing Timon back into the mud.
"But he'll get bigger!"
"Then he'll be on our side!"
Timon couldn't believe the audacity of the warthog. A lion? On their side? What's he gonna do? Protect them and beat up anyone who crosses them?
Wait...
"Pumbaa I have just had a brilliant idea." Timon announced to his loyal but dim-witted friend. Honestly, how had Pumbaa not noticed this ingenious strategy? Sometimes it was tiring being this brilliant. "He's a baby now, small, needs protecting, needs feeding. We take him in, raise him, and in return we have a bloody lion at our beck and call. It's genius!"
"Aaaaaahhhh," Pumbaa grunted, trying to process something he couldn't quite put into words. Timon leapt on his head and looked back over to the cub, who was currently struggling to his feet.
"Come on, he needs our help, now's out chance." He was injured, currently of little danger; quarter the size and strength of Pumbaa. There really was no time like the present.
"Say kid, how bad dose it hurt?" Timon asked with forced carefree happiness when they neared. He needed to nail this. The cub looked up at him and grunted.
"I've had worse." His red eyes scanned both him and Pumbaa up and down, and Timon wondered if the kid was thinking about launching a surprise attack on them. Time to put some food in the kid's gut before he got truly desperate.
"That's the spirit! Now what do you say about hustling up some grub to eat. You must be hungry, just skin and bones, aren't ya kid?" Timon jumped down and started foraging through the toiled ground, his attuned senses working hard to find a quick meal before he himself became one.
"Well that was why I tried to hunt those warthogs." The kid chuckled, sitting back down, completely spent of his energy. Timon waved a hand at him.
"Don't worry, Pumbaa here doesn't hold any grudges. Do ya buddy?"
"Naha, Hakuna Matata little guy." Pumbaa rumbled, sitting down beside the cub and nudging him with his elbow, an action that made the kid's ears perk up in surprise while his eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Hakuna Matata?" Pumbaa nodded, and Timon turned from his hunting to explain.
"It's our motto."
"What's a motto?" Gees, lions, top of the food chain but don't even know what a motto is.
"Like, your philosophy," Timon explained, before realising perhaps he didn't know what that was either. "What you believe... like, you know..." Timon looked pleadingly at Pumbaa who had started scratching his ear. The warthog looked from him to the cub.
"It means no worries." He said happily, drawing the kid into a conversation about Hakuna Matata as Timon chased after a particularly big worm. Digging furiously through the soil, Timon got a hold of it and pulled it out of the ground.
"Ah, here's a fine specimen!" He announced, holding it above his head, hoping the cub would chose it over him as he walked over. "Lucky find considering how much those warthogs destroyed the place. Here you go, have a try."
"A worm?" The kid asked, scrunching his nose. However he didn't seem as detested by the idea as Timon expected him to, evident by the fact that the lion gave it about one second consideration before taking it in his paw.
"Slimy yet satisfying." Pumbaa told him. Timon resisted the urge to gag at the warthog's basic sense of taste.
"Don't listen to him kid, it's the crunchy ones with all the flavour. I promise I'll find you some of those next."
Yeah, that's what they'll do. Into the jungle under the logs, there were plenty of good ones there. He had been hoping to say down in these low lands for another moon or more, but with this new development...besides, this spot was empty now. The worm in the cub's paw would be all that was left.
"Full of vitamins," Timon explained, "and they don't run away. Who needs the thrill of the chase?" Pumbaa snort-chuckled.
"Not an endangered species," the warthog added as Timon jumped back to the safety of his friend's big boof head.
"Doesn't even know the difference between life and death really, they have more in common with plants than animals. Not too bright. So there's no moral dilemma." He explained as he rested his elbows on Pumbaa's crown. He watched as the kid's head cocked to the side as he studied the worm.
"Moral dilemma?" He echoed. Another concept he would have to explain, Timon realised. Of course a lion didn't know what a moral dilemma was! Timon watched on as the kid shrugged his shoulders and said, Oh well, Hakuna Matata, before swallowing the thing whole, obviously trying to resist the urge to gag. Well at least he's trying, Timon thought. What a good kid. Who would have guessed?
"That's the spirit!" Pumbaa shouted before prancing away. "Come on lets go find ya some more!" As they walked out of the clearing and into the beginnings of the forest, Timon turned around to talk to the kid as he trailed behind them.
"Ah, just a suggestion for next time, try chewing it first so it's not, you know, alive. They tend to wiggle less on the way down." The kid looked ill as he imagined the live animal he had just swallowed whole still twisting in his stomach. Timon waved his hands, trying to cheer him up. "But, you know, don't worry about it. More in common with plants, remember? A plant that moves, that's all. It will be half digested in two minutes so don't sweat the big stuff."
The grass clearing was a softly slopping bit of land, er, muddy patch, or whatever it was after the warthog family's destruction. But at the forest's edge it rose into a steep climb. The rainforest trees clung with their entire root's strength to the mountain side, and Timon watched as the cub eyeballed the forest from where he stood at the edge of it.
"How about you climb your way up first little buddy, and Pumbaa and me will walk behind, and catch ya if you slip." Timon thought it was a brilliant idea, if he did say so himself. Now the hair on the back of his neck wouldn't stand on end, anticipating a surprise attack from behind. Pumbaa, ever oblivious to Timon's true cunning motives though, took the suggest for face value.
"Good idea Timon. Say, it's not as steep as it looks. There's plenty of roots and trunks to jam your hooves between." The warthog sidestepped to let the quietly moving cub through. "Once we get up, it'll flatten out, and there is loads of bugs. You'll never believe you eyes!" Pumbaa snuffled and snorted in delight at the mention of the mountain top that they usual inhabited. He had been getting a bit homesick recently, Timon had noticed. Not even antagonising antelope and bowling for buzzards had seemed to cheer him up these last few days. Timon settled for massaging his temples, watching the cub attentively take his first steps up into the jungle. Lion's were not jungle creatures, he was aware. They liked the flat grasslands, and disliked having anything over their heads. If there was a rock, than they would climb to the highest point of that rock and stay for hours, all out of pure spite.
Or at least that was what he had heard.
Timon pressed his fingers together as he schemed. He had to win this cub's loyalty. Preferably before they went to sleep tonight. Maybe they would pull an all nighter? Have a wild party by one of the big waterfalls about the summit? The frogs were always singing and dancing throughout the night. Would they still sing with the lion around? It's not like he was a natural predator or anything. He wasn't sure if those mountain frogs had even met a lion in their life, either.
Spending the day and night romping around would not only give them a greater percentage of earning the cub's favour, but also eliminate the risk of sleeping about the predator before they knew if they were safe or not. After all, when they met him he was attempting to kill and devour warthogs.
Timon ignored how petrified his brain was of the whole idea, a smaller part of him, a very, very small part had taken precedence. The sympathetic part. The cub was small, and thin, far too young and far too weak. And after the desperate attempt for a meal, he was probably badly bruised. Timon wondered what exactly the little guy had been through, to find himself here in this state. As his mind speculated, his eyes darkened.
Simba, halfway up Mount Meru:
His muscles screamed, but he pushed them on, ignoring their pleas. Simba didn't know what to blame his current sore state on, the climb up the mountain or the warthog attack, the journey across the sand or the race from the hyenas, or was it the hard labour Upweke kept him under, never satisfied with his effort?
Or maybe it started all the way back then, holding onto the branch of the dead tree with all he had as a thousand gnu stampeded below, close enough that their horn's raked across his tail.
"- mud bath, Pumbaa loves them, and there's a favourite of ours close by." Simba blinked as the little mongoose looking animal's words registered.
"I'm sorry, what?" The mongoose looking animal's ears fell, and he stopped in his scampering along the forest floor.
"I said, that after the bad fight with the warthog brute, we're all pretty sore. And I asked if you would care to join us in a soothing thermal mud bath."
Simba scrunched up his face in thought.
"What the heck is thermal mud?" He asked, also...what the heck is a bath? He knew his mother washed and bathed him, but he had never heard of the word bath before. The pig's and rat's eyes lit up at the mention of the 'thermal' mud.
"Just you wait!" Exclaimed the pig trotting off at excellent speed. "Follow me!"
It was heaven. Odd and strange, but also heaven. He had to pull his legs out a few times until he got accustomed to the heat, but after that he melted into it. The perfect temperature. It smelt a mixture of composting rainforest and mossy rocks after the rains.
It smelt bad, was what he was getting at. But a weird soothing bad, the sort that mud smelled like as it bubbled, up from underground, heated by the hot rocks that lay deep down. At least that was where Timon said it came from. Pumbaa reckoned that it was gas that heated it, Timon rolled his eyes at that.
With his chin rested on a warm rock, submerged up to his neck Simba fell asleep. With a stomach full from all the bugs Pumbaa and the small one had hunted for him, it was a wonder why he hadn't fallen asleep on impact with the relaxing thermal mud. The bottom of the spring pool was soft and well slopped for the perfect comfortable position. His purrs were so loud sometimes the mud by his skin shivered a bit.
It was a good sleep. Deep and undisturbed. His dreams were good ones as well, where he jumped in and wallowed about in the mud spring, or sleep on rocks by the river filled with the tiny gemstone fish. Once he was trying to climb up the steep mountainside, and he would keep falling down. But it didn't hurt. Pumbaa would catch him, and he would laugh before racing up, and then falling back again.
When he woke, it was dark. His body was uncomfortably hot and clammy from spending so long in the mud. Simba tried to shift a leg to a better angle, but his muscles were so relaxed that he couldn't move. Closing his eyes again, he listened to the forest at night. The soft few bubbles of the mud springs, the wind through the trees, the creak and rustle of the rainforest and Pumbaa, digging close by, contently snuffling. The singing of frogs, and the high pitched hum of insects. Night birds, scampering about one another in the trees, whispering, the odd one calling out. Even the far off howls of a tribe of monkeys.
Sizable. Simba estimated as he listened to them howl together, before settling down. Whatever they had been excited about, now gone.
It means no worries, for the rest of your days?
Yeah. Hakuna Matata. You'll pick it up soon enough.
Simba, touring the Humid Jungle:
Claws into the soft wood of the log, and with a great heave and a lot of strength, it was ripped up and rolled. Thousands of bugs squirmed against the sunlight. Timon jumped to them, already deftly picking out his favourite types.
"What a feast! Get in here quick kid before Pumbaa gorges them all!"
Simba climbed over the log and looked over the selection, trying to pick the yummy from the foul. It had taken him a long time to get used to the taste of bugs; everything about the meal was different to the bloody meat of beast. Some were hideously sour, others, creamy and sweet. Timon and Pumbaa were feeding him on a new world of flavours, and often he didn't even have a name for what he tasted.
Spicy, punchy, waxy, sugary, bitter...
Often Pumbaa ate them alongside some roots and mushrooms he had dug up earlier, Timon too ate little fruits. Simba longed for something of his own, to eat besides bugs. But maybe that desire would pass in time, just like his disgust at the stinky green beetles had.
Small birds picked at the bugs alongside them, some brash enough to sit upon Pumbaa's back. Though they never wondered too close to him. Fear remained for a strange predator like him.
Timon 'Don't Eat Me!' Berkowitz, swinging over Crystal Clear Water:
"It's quite easy, you learn fastest by doing. Just paddle."
"Just paddle, yeah right."
"Do it! Otherwise we won't take you down the mountain!"
"I ought to eat you for saying that, Timon."
"Don't you try that!" Timon wagged his finger around angrily from where he hung in the vines above the pool. Pumbaa was already out in the middle, floating on his back and spouting a little fountain of water when he felt like it.
"Look, if the warthog of all creatures can swim like a fish, than you should have no problems."
When Timon and Pumbaa had realised he had no idea how to swim, they suffered heart attacks on the spot. After they recovered, they then made it their life mission to teach him the wondered of swimming. An activity that then proceeded to give him multiple heart attacks. Wallowing in a creak after days in the desert was one thing, swimming out into the deep and dark pools of the jungle was another.
Timon now had a vein throbbing in his head as he swung from the vines. He had been trying to teach the kid for days, and the closest the kid had come to swimming was walking around in belly high water. Threats seemed the only method that worked, at this stage. He knew how much the kid wanted to explore the plains where they had first met. Muttering something about 'I bet there's antelope down there...'
Well, there was, but Timon had been hoping that given long enough the lion's desire to hunt would go. That's why he had planned to stay up in the jungle for a least a year before coming back down for a look around.
In the end the whole thing was perfect leverage. If he learned to swim, they would go down the next day. So far it looked like they would never go down.
"Come on kid, what are you afraid of?" Often Timon asked this question in exhaustion, and the answer was always, it was unsafe... unnatural. "Nothing scary out there except Pumbaa."
"Yep," Pumbaa agreed just before he started to dive to the bottom and grab mouthfuls of waterweed. The kid turned his head and ignored him.
"You're not going to drown for god sake!" No response. Timon massaged his temples, something he had done a lot lately since this kid came along. He needed to learn to swim, living in a place like this, not only because it wasn't any fun playing cannonball with him watching on from the banks, but also for Timon's own peace of mind. What happens if he did drown, just because they hadn't bother to teach him how to swim in this waterfall filled jungle. He had come to like the little guy.
No more mister nice guy.
"Well I guess we'll never go to the lowlands than." That made the cub look at him, his eyes narrowing.
"I'll do it tomorrow." He reasoned with a toss of his head. Oversized ears pinned back in an emotion Timon had come to realise was a mixture of anger and distain.
"You said that yesterday!" Oh god the throbbing vein was going to burst at this rate. How high must his blood pressure be? Dangerously high if the roaring in his ears were any indication. He gabbed his finger violently at the pool where Pumbaa wallowed. "Look kid, if you don't get in there and swim today, the deal is off. It's been days and you ain't gotten deeper than you ankles." The vines were swinging a far bit now, due to his rather violent hand gestures and frantic breathing.
"The water touched my belly that one time!" He sounded like such a child when he said that. Young and immature. Sometimes Timon forgot he was only a baby, considering he was twenty times his size.
"Oh wow. Amazing." Timon clapped for the kid, a perfect calm before the storm.
"Get in the water!"
"No!"
"Then no trips to the lowlands!"
"No!" The kid looked thoroughly pissed. He stormed off, stopping half way to turn around and shout "I hate you!" before running away into the jungle.
Ergh, why was being a parent so hard!
Wait.
Parent? Was he this kid's parent now? Some part of him had always assumed it was more of an alpha role. He was leader of the herd, and Pumbaa and the kid were his underlings.
But, yeah, who was he kidding? He was Pumbaa's best friend and now they had somehow become adoptive parents to a defensive and terribly young lion.
"Arghh, what are we gonna do now, Timon?" Whined Pumbaa as he swam to the bank. Timon hung limp in the tangled vines, defeated.
"Now... it's your turn."
"Argggggggghhhh!"
"Oh, come on!" Now Pumbaa was acting like a child. Was it just not his day? For all his life he had been a worthless bachelor, and now he had a cub and a warthog with the brain capacity of a two month old. Said child-at-brain flopped on the ground, groaning and specifically avoiding looking in the direction the cub had gone. Timon swung from the vines, shaking his fist at the warthog and cutting loose a few choice phrases.
Timon's shrill bird like scream echoed louder than thunder as the thick foliage of the canopy beside him exploded. A creature, thrice – no, a hundred times his size leapt and raced along the old branch that Timon's vines hung from. The branches shook as the creature – golden monster – no, ah...
Timon felt ever more anger in his rising embarrassment. He cursed the kid, but wasn't quick enough. Without giving himself time to second guess, the kid jumped from the end of the branch and dived into the rippling pool, Timon's curse chasing him, but never having a chance to catch up before he barreled under the water. Timon watched the gold ripple among the dark blues of the pool's depths.
Timon and Pumbaa looked at eachother at the same time, Timon's eyes portrayed the soul of one who had given up, Pumbaa's were startled and worried. As time past, Timon raised an eyebrow at the warthog.
"And that is how one drowns, my dear Pumbaa." The warthog's eyes widen with a gasp, well, more of a squeal. Racing into the water, plowing it aside like a leopard through a crowd, Pumbaa dived down to where the cub thrashed, tangling himself in waterweeds.
Ergh, honestly.
King Of The Pridelands, currently trying to ignore his Throbbing Headache:
Nothing was peaceful in the Pridelands tonight. The insects roared louder than Scar's own thoughts, for the rains were coming to an end, and the last fury of life was in its stride as everyone sort to love and eat and dance while the grasslands were lush. Mufasa stirred more than usual, Sarabi paced around the dens. The pride was in mouring for those lost during the Gnu Execution. More nursed critical wounds, and with more sick and less hunters, he had politely introduced his hyenas back into the Pridelands.
Don't get him stared on the trouble they've cause. Not among the lions, the pride couldn't care less about the hyeans at the moment, but amongst themselves. Scar couldn't believe the amount of drama that comes with the grey hunchback beasts.
Which was why he was currently residing on a high rock, the leaders of the hyena sitting tense before him. Maybe attempted murder of one's own kin was acceptable in the shadow lands, but they were a part of the Pride now, and they had to answer for the fiasco of last night.
The vile old ladies watched him with their rotten yellow eyeballs.
"King," one slathered, "we apologise." The four exchanged glances among each other. Scar watched their dark forms move between the shadows as they paced anxiously below him. Twilight having just fallen, the land was in the grips of freashly laden night, and the predators were restless to hunt. Ever he himself felt the adrenaline of night, and he had never been much of a hunter.
Around the foot of his throne, Scar could make out the lead lioness of the hunting party stalking through the grass. Her limp was evident and causing her to labour, Scar observed her worried mate trailing her closely.
She would never return to her prime, not after the shattering blow a gnu had dealt her during the night of the execution. Scar's eyes traced the stars as his attention came back to the hyena matriarchs. He respected ants far more than he did them. And they the same for him. His personal minions he trusted, but theses ones...
One scrapped her claws along the ground.
A hyena, cutting groves in Priderock. Scar froze, warm wind tossing his black mane, a growl rumbling from him. The insects feel silent, and the matriarchs stiffened.
"It won't happen again," the youngest one amongst them assured him, referring to the attempted murder. "We weren't aware of this particular lion rule."
Lion rule. A terrible inconvenience he was sure. He had given them everything he promised them and more, and how did they repay him? The frustrated looks on their face spelled out what they were thinking. This was a reprime, and then he would send them on their way, no? Would he just get on with the scowling and let them go? Scar didn't bother to fight his wicked grin.
"It is a spit in my face, after everything I have done for you, taking you into my own pride." His eyes glowed, purple light turned to a void of black. He could hear their heart beats. "I will not revoke your pride land privilege, I will honour that promise I had made, all those moons ago. But I will not stand you to be a part of my pride any longer." Their eyes flashed in shock.
"You mean for the hyena's to leave?" A scar riddled one snapped. She spat on Priderock in disgust. "Who would hunt for your weak lionesses than?" In a blink of an eye, Scar pounced from the rock, landing by her, his massive paw striking her shoulder and sending her tumbling dangerously close to the edge. The others giggled in terror and scattered from his reach, and the one struggling to her feet cursed him.
Stalking over, she crouched down. As he came closer her neck craned to keep eye contact, her pride fierce. He coldly stared back into her horrified eyes. Blood dripped from her shoulder. She was lucky; he had been going for her face, but changed his mind in the last second.
"No. All other hyenas are free to stay. You four on the other hand, will set a lovely example to them, of what it means to cross me."
In the end, a quarter of the hyenas left the pride alongside the four matriarchs. Many of them he was delighted to see go. With the head severed from the body, Scar worried for the future of those who stayed.
Whatever. This was a far better alternative to actually keeping those poison hags around. They made his skin crawl.
Sitting upon his throne, Scar watched as a squad of his lions escorted the twelve hyenas away from Priderock and out to the further reaches of the grass lands. Someone was purposefully scuffing their feet as they approached him from behind. A very hyena thing to do.
"Oh man Scar, I didn't expect that. Whaddya doing man? I thought you hated us, and now you could have just started your own goddamn demise over me." Scar dwelled on her words for a moment, before roaring into the night. Every lion who heard the booming declaration of their king added their own to his, as they had always done since the beginning of time itself. The shapes of the hyena fraction quickened their pace. Scar glared after them.
"If they do try such a thing, then it will be their demise, not mine." Scar scowled at Shenzi as she nervously looked around, the roars unsettling even her. The wounds from her attempted assassination still remained, red and raw. Scar glanced at her hardly swollen belly.
"I hope those cubs are worth it, Shenzi, after the trouble they're causing." She chuckled at his words, a genuine one. "We call them pups, Scar."
"Not even born, and they're already given me the biggest headache of my life." He grumbled through clenched teeth.
"Even bigger than your marriage problems?" Someone chuckled from behind them.
Scar snapped around to glare at Banzai, who was reclining a few meters away with a dozing Ed at his side. He hadn't sensed them. Maybe he was getting slack.
"Hey, boss?" They all giggled at the familiar sound of Scar grinding his teeth.
"Don't get me started."
The King Of The Pridelands, Many Days Ago:
The grass rustled from a small breeze, but nothing else. Scar lay, still and silent, crouched against the cool pride land soil. Every one of his senses burned from being attuned so much, but he remained highly keen.
A breath, a drag of the paw, a scent on the twirling wind. He had never been much of a hunter, but he was a lion.
But they were good.
Softly, Scar inched to his feet. Drifting through the grass, swaying with the breeze, he moved downwind.
Ten minutes later, after meretriciously moving without a trace through the grassland, Scar spotted one. And, lucky or unlucky, he wasn't really sure. It was that particular one.
Zira.
She and her sisters had arrived on the Pridelands half a moon after the Gnu massacre. They were from a pride that had no name, nor any royal hold. Just a gang of lions that had carved out their own domain along the hard Southern edge of the Wastelands. From the speech she had presented him with, it had been her grandmother who made it, her mother who grew it, and it was her intention that she be the one who finally gave it royal hold. Office. Recognition. She had been quite adamant that word of how he ruled piped her interest a great deal... Scar knew what she meant by that. They were a hard pride, forged in hard ways. She wouldn't know a lick about the circle of life, or give a single shit about her prey. Within minutes of meeting her he had decided that her proposition of marriage to him, him, was fool hardy.
It was true all marriage propositions had dried up after the Gnu Execution. All wary if he would be a lion to honour pacts, and unwilling to entrust their daughters into the bed of a king who was shaping up to be big and bad. Zira's propositions were, well, she knew how to bargain, he would give her that much.
She came with three of her own sisters, a niece and an unrelated lioness who had joined their pride many, many years ago. They would hunt and give all their kills to his pride, never taking a bite for themselves, to prove their loyalty. They would share all the hunting techniques of their pride, honed for generations in a terrain long considered unlivable. And most of all, something he had figured out in shock, as she rose from a deep bow, her eyes burning him all over. She was here to seduce him in any way she could.
Which was a heart stopping realisation for Scar, who had never had a lioness look at him let alone smoulder as she dose.
They had been here for five days, and after much hustling from his own lionesses that he just had to see them in action, he had agreed to partake in the ancient initiation game of hide and seek. None of the pridelanders had lasted more than five minutes against them, but Scar guessed that he had been out here for nearly twenty. He wasn't good at doing many things, but he was damn good at going unnoticed. Or they were going easy on him because he was the King.
Either one flattered him immensely.
Zira changed direction, bringing Scar out of his thoughts. He crawled on his knuckles through the grass, attempting to wedge himself were it was thickest, down in a buffalo sized dip. Settling down, Scar waited for her to find him, or walk right past.
He closed his eyes and listened to the slightly different sway some of the grass had, and the slightly orgasmic smell she had to her that lay beneath the smell of her homeland. Scar did not know if he was the only one to pick up on this strange scent of hers, or if it was because she was initating such a relationship with him that he began to notice. He didn't know, he had never been in such a relationship before. Feeling a bit like a trapped mouse as she came closer and closer, Scar snapped his eyes opened and stared coldly at her as her face emerged inches away from his own.
Her eyes widened a fraction in shock before she purred his name. So perhaps he had been truly hard to find.
"Zira," he replied curtly, though it actually sounded quite throaty since he hadn't used his voice for awhile now and... oh dear...everything about this lionesses and this situation terrified him. She lay down with him, they were almost nestled together in the dip. He swallowed his spit and tried to act undisturbed. Project aloofness, be aloofness, you are aloofness.
"I called my girls off awhile ago, I wanted to find you all myself. To prove to you my skills. Leader against leader." Scar thought that was a bit of a stretch, comparing the likes of her leadership position to his. She raised an eyebrow as she studied him, lazing in the grass. "Though I must say I never expected a lion to be anywhere near as good as you at stealth." She rumbled in laughter, and he felt it where their fur brushed.
"Not many skilled lions where you're from?" He smirked, maybe if he just imagined she was one of those stinky hyenas he could snap out of it. A smile of sadistic pleasure came about her face in response to that question.
"They eat more and do less, in my pride we chase them off once they fail to bring home a kill every quarter moon." She shifted her weight an inch, so that now their sides pressed together. "But you are quite an amazing specimen."
Yeesh. He felt like he was being dissected and his genetic potential counted. He may have been jealous and depraved enough once to attempt the murders of his brother and nephew, but that was moons ago. It felt like a life time, like another lion's thoughts. Like he hadn't been of the same mind he was now. This Zira lionesses reminded him of his darkest times. Maybe there was something tantalizing in that. But there was also something unsettling.
During his ponders, back in the real world, Zira had decided to get straight to the point. She leaned into him, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck. Scar stiffened, brain frozen, soul departed. A lionesses was nuzzling him. A very attractive lioness was all over him. She was currently pressed up on him like it was a matter of life or death. She pulled away an inch to stare up at him. Scar found it physically painful to look down into her eyes.
"I'm going to be frank, King Scar."
"I think you already are." He meet her eyes for the sake of delivering that line to perfection, and then found it physically painful to tear his eyes away from her. This was a hopeless situation.
"I have never met a lion who turned me on like you, just the scent of you makes me want to scream and claw at your eyeballs until you hold me down and take me."
How's that... what... god... that's rather frank indeed...
She waited, watching him, expecting him to react like any other lion would, even if it costed them their life to complete it. However Scar had a secret weapon that was currently coming in very handy when it came to Zira.
Virginity.
So even though he most definitely did want to, the fear of not knowing how one exactly did was enough to give him a strength that good kings had lost kingdoms over simply because they had not posses such a hesitation.
Say something! You're just staring at her like a land locked fish!
"Flattering..."
Anything but that!
"I'll keep it in mind,"
Leave! Leave before you screw it up even more! Fool! Absolute fool!
And so he left and mopped about in his old home in the shadow lands. The area was now deserted of any life, the hyena clan gone, and so it was just him, his frustrations and sheer, pure mortification.
Eventually when he returned under the cover of night, he dealt with the incident like the mature King that he was.
Pretending it never happened, and never looking directly at her ever again.
A Strengthening Soul, Swimming Through Darkness:
Billowing dust, constant thunder, black shadows racing over him, looking among them.
Simba.
He didn't know who that was, but he knew how it felt to cry that name. His throat tore apart, and his heart was cracking into splinters, it beat so fast and loud he thought it might burst through his flesh.
Green eyes, reaching out to him, claws scrambling to hold, falling, screaming, hitting the tide, and the shadows crumbling beneath him. Those behind pouring over, trampling him and their herd mates, screaming.
Screaming.
His own screams.
Actual screams.
He leapt to his feet, but it was only a twitch, darting across his skin. Eyes roved underneath closed lids, looking among the shadows for light.
Rafiki lay his old hand on Mufasa's temple. The muscles were twitching, his eyes were searching, his heart was quickening back to normal pace, and his breathing was louder with each hour that past.
Soon.
