preface: this chapter is a quickie, a follow-up to chapter 8 - Lovers. I wanted to insert it as a later chapter, but I figured I might as well post it now to make up for the long silence.


The stranger

I am from a different place, visiting here only on a whim. I'm a rogue, if you're wondering. That might sound ominous, but you shouldn't worry too much about it; a rogue is just a lion with no territory. Most lions are a rogue at some point in their lives; usually, when a lion grows up, his father ends up kicking him out of the pride. It's so he won't have competition, you see: if a lion has a pride, that means the lionesses in that pride are his, and when it comes to those matters, most of us don't like to share.

That's how it was in my case: the old man kicked me out when my gaze started to drift towards his lionesses a bit too often. That was his right, to chase me off, he had that power. Mostly by virtue of being stronger than me; I was still pretty young.

But I managed. Not all rogues do, mind you; not all young lions can make it on their own. I've survived so far, though I don't suppose I've "made it" the way most lions see it. I'm still a rogue, after all, and for a rogue to make it, is to stop being a rogue. You have to get your own territory, get your own pride.

That means taking a territory and a pride away from another lion. I mean, I suppose you could luck into a pride that just lost their own lion, but that doesn't usually happen. Mostly because the way a lion who has his own pride dies, is almost all the time because a rogue kills him, and that of course fills the vacancy real quick.

Fighting and possibly killing another lion to take his pride is of course not a very nice thing to do. But a lion's got to eat – hard to do that without a territory.

And then, of course, there are the girls! Now there's something worth killing over.

As a matter of fact, that's why I'm here. It's about a girl. Is that something important enough for me to be allowed to intrude here? You might not think so, think that I have no right to stir up trouble over a girl.

And you'd have a point; I have had many lionesses, and I could have others if I wanted – I can certainly imagine easier ones I could get right now.

But I want this one. I want Sarafina. Why? No reason, really. She is not special. But she is what I want. You can't choose what you want.

There's just one problem: I can't have her. That is to say – I could, with some effort. What it comes down to is, I'm not supposed to have her. Because here, in this place, rules apply. And those rules tell me I can't have Sarafina.

So what does that mean for me? Rules do not mean anything. They don't bite. The things you should watch out for generally do. Or they sting... claws are also dangerous. So why should I care what the rules are, if they are not dangerous? Well, some animals believe in them. And those animals can be dangerous.

Like it's not enough that animals are dangerous in themselves, sometimes they even get together and decide to make certain ideas dangerous to me, too! This causes a lot of trouble for me.

Anyway. I can't have Sarafina, because of rules. She belongs to a pride. I don't. A pride with a king. That means she's his girl, basically. It might be a different lion every once in a while, but she'll always belong to the guy who has the pride. That is how I understand it. And because he is a king, his father owned the pride, and his son will own it after him.

I guess not all lions are as jealous as my old man was. Their kids are lucky fucks.

But it doesn't bother me too much. Mostly because it is nonsense. Just because the father can hold something, does not mean the son can. He might be too weak. If you are weak, someone stronger can come and take your lionesses. And maybe that someone is me.

But, of course, until someone like me comes along, the rules tell the lionesses that the son should be king. They believe it, and it is so. And if the king is strong enough, no-one can challenge that. When Sarafina belonged to Mufasa, I could not take her - not for very long anyway - because he was stronger. He was a very strong lion, needless to say.

I had Sarafina once, but I could not keep her. I had to run, or Mufasa would have found me, and killed me. So I ran.

That's what I usually do. It is easier than taking over a pride, let alone keeping it.

It all happened a fair while ago. Afterward, I heard from Sarafina that Mufasa did not kill our child. He must have believed it was his. She was lucky – I have known lions to get jealous, and kill.

I also found out about something else, though. Mufasa is no longer king - in fact, he is dead . Now his brother is king, because his father was king also. Lion by the name of Scar. Mufasa's son would have been king, but he also died. You have to go back all the way to the second son of the grandfather of the son of Mufasa to make that work.

Rules tend to turn in on themselves quite a lot. Do not pay them too much heed.

This new king does not seem so strong. Maybe I can kill him. That was my first thought when I heard about the new king from a fellow rogue. We talk, mostly boasting, or reminiscing about a brother who has settled down after killing the leader of another pride. Sometimes talk about killing him in turn for his new pride.

Life among rogues tends to be brutal.

When I heard of this new king, I came down here as fast as I could – maybe this time, I could finally have Sarafina, forever. I'll I had to do was face a weak king, and steal Sarafina away from him.

If only it were that simple, I realize now.

For one, Sarafina does not wish to be taken. She is perfectly content belonging to a pride, and has no intention whatsoever of running off with me. What's worse, our child seems to have given her even more reason to stay glued to this patch of land. So she will not leave. I'm getting the impression that the only way I can have her back, is if I actually take over her entire pride.

It's all so tiresome!

But now that there is a new, weak king, taking over her entire pride seemed to be in reach, too. I made all kinds of plans! Maybe I could take the pride, have the lionesses call me king, and name a son of mine the next king! What a laugh! If I could keep it up until he was of age, I might talk him into keeping me safe from other rogues even in old age, all the while I kept having my fun with the lionesses...

A conservative dream to be sure, but I won't be the fit young lion I am now forever. Right now I can have any lioness I want now, in many different lands. But that won't last – at some point I will grow old and tired, and I will get nothing, grow hungry, and die. Being a king pushes that off for a long time if you have an heir to do the fighting for you.

You can even adopt one if you want to, invite over a less ruthless rogue in, and split the lionesses between you. That's a risky bet, though – why bother sharing anything with a useless old fool that's weaker than you, the young rogue might think.

Point is, I was thinking along those lines already, making plans for the future, thinking of what I will do when I grow old. Father an heir with Sarafina? Adopt some younger rogue? I lost sight of the fact that I did not have the pride or Sarafina yet. It was a bit of a shock when I found out that less had changed than I hoped, that I still couldn't have her.

Turns out the rumors about the weak king were true – but they had missed an important point. Let's write it down to the rules, this problem: the weak new king had broken the rules. And that caught me by surprise, honestly. I never even imagined the possibility – I suppose that I too am slave to a few rules.

What this king had done, was to bring in a bunch of hyenas.

I did not even consider the possibility before. Hyenas... they're a real nuisance. They also hold territory, and they won't allow any lions on it. So whenever you don't have an overly territorial lion chasing you anymore, you'll see those guys show up.

But somehow, somehow, this new king, this Scar-fellow, he convinced a gaggle of hyenas to take up with him and settle down in his territory. Suddenly not as weak anymore, when you've got a couple dozen of those poachers around.

I guess that at it's core, it's not that different from inviting in another rogue, except that you only split the food, and not the lionesses. Or so I assume – I don't really know what hyenas want.

So where does that leave me? Same place I always was. I'm still a rogue. And I still want Sarafina.

For now, I guess I'll just stick around and see what happens. I can't fight my way through all those hyenas and take on Scar, not alone. So I'll just hang out on the margins – this new king doesn't seem too concerned with paroling and policing his borders anyway.

I'll be outside, looking in. For now. I have a feeling things might change though – that's how the world works. I compared bringing in the hyenas with taking in a rogue. The risk of taking in a rogue, of course, is that he turns on you. That's how lions are.

I don't know much about them, but I'm not sure hyenas are any different.


author's notes: sorry for leaving so much time between updates! I wish I could get myself to write more regularly. Anyway, I see there's some new followers; I hope I don't let you down over the course of the story. Re the reviews of justsomeguy and ograndebatata: I'm very pleased with both your reactions; you felt something, something I more or less intended you to feel. This is where reviews are helpful; it helps me gauge if I'm managing to transmit my ideas in any meaningful manner.