Icarus woke up, but he was nowhere near the Tree of Conception, where had lied down for a nap. To his surprise, he was in the Wastelands once again. It had been a while since a repressed memory had manifested itself as one of his dreams, but this one picked up right where his last dream had left off. He knew it was so because he remembered where he and Saul went the day after the darker lion chased off Caesar for his less-than-caring attitude towards his own Pride. Since that day, Saul treated Icarus differently, for he saw his best friend in a new light.
"Saul?" Icarus started, and he knew exactly what he was about to say, simply because he never regretted asking. "Did I… Did I do the right thing?" Saul stopped, which made Icarus turn to face him as they were walking side by side. Saul looked Icarus in the face, his eyes full of pride in his best friend yet disappointment that he's still 'soft', as it were. "The only thing you did wrong was showing that nimrod any sort of mercy and allowing him to escape." Saul answered, and then asked a question of his own. "Why don't you do what you did to Caesar more often?" At that, Icarus remembered pondering that question. And he also remembered the answer he came up with.
"Because it's too easy, really." He said, simply. Saul raised his eyebrow. "Too… easy?" He didn't follow. Sure, Saul knew Icarus had combat and hunting skills. Besides, he actually was Daedalus' son, and often got special training when he, Daedalus and Tsara spent time as a family. But what Saul had always thought his best friend lacked was the backbone to use it. And now he was going to hear why. "Too… easy? I don't understand." Saul said, and now it was Icarus's turn to stare deeply into Saul's eyes before answering. "Saul, as you know, I killed Jambazi. As big and strong as he was, as fierce and dangerous a fighter he was, you might have noticed that I wasn't even so much as breathing heavily afterwards." As Icarus said that, perhaps with a bit of pride etched into his voice, but Saul couldn't deny the truth of his statement. "No, you weren't. You didn't even seem like you were sweating at all." Which served to prove Icarus' point. "Perfect example of how easy it is to fight, how easy it is take someone else's life. And Jambazi was an experienced fighter, too. A fully-grown lion, fully capable of defending himself, died with ease to one who was simply willing to do onto him before he did onto them. Beyond the physical ease of taking a life, there is a deeper reason to why I say it is easy." As Icarus was talking, he had lead Saul to a certain destination. Saul hadn't realized it at the time, and Icarus wondered how he kept his own emotions in check with what he was about to show him, but he caught his cue and looked over the ridge. And what Saul beheld made his emerald eyes dim just a bit. Icarus's own eyes held quite a bit of emotions, especially considering how close he was to what they there were looking at.
For in front of and below them, at the waterhole that both of them played around when they were cubs, stood Tsara, the mother of Icarus, the surrogate mother of Saul and former mate to Daedalus. But the male lion with her was not Daedalus at all, which wasn't to say the two brown lions didn't know who he was. They would recognize his orange-yellow fur and flowing, ashy black mane anywhere. And from what they saw, the two cubs he was playing with were fathered by him and there was no question who the mother was. Icarus's own heart was breaking, but for once it would be Saul who broke down.
"Guan!?" Saul exclaimed. "But… But Tsara made us…" Saul's eyes filled with tears as he realized exactly what his adoptive mother had just done. And they flowed freely when he saw Gaun and Tsara kiss and nuzzle with each other, as though they had always been lovers and never had a mother-son relationship in their past. Icarus, himself teary-eyed, still had more to say.
"Yes, Saul, I had suspected all along. She didn't even openly grieve about Dad's death." Icarus' voice cracked as he said that, but after a pause he continued. "I had suspected what she was doing the day she told us that it was time for us to leave the pride. You were right, despite what I had said. What I didn't want to believe Mom was capable of. But there she is, with a new mate and cubs. As though Dad never existed. As though she didn't raise Guan alongside you, Tsavo, and I. As though she didn't bathe him when he was a cub just like she did to me." All Saul could ask was a simply, one-word question. "Why? After all we've done to make her proud of us, after all that she did to nurture us and after all we've tried to repay her and show our gratitude. Why?!" He sounded as though he were looking at Tsara's dead body, and now that Icarus thought about it perhaps that was the moment Tsara died to him. He would certainly never mention her again, but on this day Icarus found the ability to continue speaking.
"Simple. She did what was easy. She took the route that so many lions out here take." As he said that, he paused again. Saul looked up and could see that Icarus was wracked with his own feelings, despite the composure of his voice. "You asked how it could be easy to kill and be ruled by anger, claws and teeth? Well, now you see. It's the same way Mom could send us out to what she tells herself to be an uncertain future, yet knows full well is a probable death. The same process that allowed her to go through with sending her only blood son and his best friend out of the protection of her Pride, all for the sake of getting under what was once her son's other best friend." Saul was glad Icarus paused, for he had also came to the same conclusion as the darker lion did. And now that Icarus thought about it, it was at this point they both had decided the path they wanted to follow.
"Selfishness." Saul said. And Icarus answered his statement. "Yes, selfishness. The ability to not care about anyone but yourself. The willingness to do wrong to those you know won't retaliate, and not feel guilty about doing so. The audacity to see nothing even remotely untoward with what you're doing, no matter who you hurt. The temerity to believe that everyone, even the Order of Nature itself owes you something, and you owe no one anything in return. The mind that can only think about how to manipulate others for its own ends, and can only value winning without giving heed to consequences. The coward who will tread upon the weak, and then tout himself as the one of the strong for doing so for as long as he thinks no one with similar power is around to make him answer for it. All of this, is what makes up the very spirit of those who think to utter the words 'I don't care'." It was then that Saul realized exactly why those three words and those who subscribe to that philosophy.
And why he knew exactly which Pride Icarus was planning to take over, without any need for the darker lion to tell him outright. As the world flashed white, signaling that he was about to wake up, he did not regret what he said to his spiritual brother.