The King I See Inside

Leave him there. Leave him there? This is emptiness, nothingness. It eats lions: it took Mufasa from me. I offered up Simba to this place and it took him too. Now it's taking Scar. Yes, leave him here. It would be better for all of us if he… oh to be free of him. Nala need never fear the sound of approaching padding in the night. Sarafina can at last find a decent, ordinary, boring lion to keep her from loneliness. I just want to sleep… to live again-

Sarafina's voice cut across Sarabi's thoughts. "Come Nala."

-To hunt for my own cubs, for our own pride; free of the hyenas, free of Scar, just free.

"Nala?"

Nala paced nervously, looking to the ground. "Where'd he go? Where is he? Where?" She turned and began to pace back. "No lion, not even Scar, can just disappear!"

"NALA!"

"…Mother?"

"Yes, Nala, it's me. Listen, he's dead."

"Dead! He can't be! He can't just die! Where is he? Where'd he go?"

Dead at last. The "king" is dead, long live the… the… well, what does happen now? It can't be that simple can it? Please Mufasa, help me. Give me the wisdom to see and the strength to do whatever it is I have to do. We came here when we were young; just you and I. Do you remember? We played among the rocks over there. We thought we were so rebellious, so daring. We stopped out here forever, until we heard your mother's call. Oh yes, once we heard there was something to eat we went back alright! We were sure we'd get shouted at, at the least, but no one even realised we'd been away. Our "rebellion" was just a little afternoon's playtime while everyone else was napping. We were hardly going to change the world. Now look at us.

Sarabi gazed down at Scar. He lay on his side on a ledge almost a hundred lengths below, his shoulders and forequarters under a bark-shorn, still barely leaved tree limb. Though she could not see them, she imagined his sharp eyes staring unseeing out over the gorge. This was not the way she had imagined his passing. It left so many unanswered questions, and felt so empty as if he had arranged it all just to leave her and the other lionesses in as bad a situation as possible.

Most lions left a proud legacy when they went: cubs and warm memories. Scar left a hole as big and empty as the gorge. He left no cubs, nor even the promise of any: his legacy was the hyenas and the perfunctorily grieved loss of his brother and nephew. He could have done so much, but his was a wasted gift: his ambition led elsewhere, not to the benefit of his own kind but to others. That, at least, might be thought by some to have had a sliver of nobility.

Why weren't you a good king? You never showed any signs of taking leadership seriously. Your father tried to teach you, but you didn't want to know. You cast nothing but disdain on Mufasa when he became king. You must have hated the idea of being king, but then, were you shocked when you were thrust to onto the throne? You could have done so much.

Then he moved; just a twitch of the tail, but he moved and was still once more. Sarabi was not sure she had really seen it. She watched on.

"Sarabi? Will you come home now?" Sarafina looked on as Sarabi lay still at the crumbling edge. "I'm going now Sarabi. Nala is coming with me."

"Am I, mother?"

"Yes."

Move! Damn you Scar, it's not too late. Do one good thing for a change! MOVE!

"Sarabi?"

There! He moved! He's alive! "He's alive! He's alive! Look! Look both of you. He's alive!"

"No Sarabi! He can't be. No one could have survived that fall."

"He is Sarafina. Come and see!"

"Alive… dead… alive…Scar alive," Nala muttered. "No, no, can't be. Must be dead. Must be."

"You're frightening Nala, Sarabi. He fell. He's dead."

Sarabi turned her head back from the edge. Sarafina stared at her, her eyes wide and her shoulders taut, the hair along her back prominent.

Nala paced back and forth a few lengths beyond, her eyes fixed on the ground. "The gorge reached up like a crocodile, and took him down."

Sarabi thought quickly. "NALA!"

"Yes?"

"Nala, now listen to me." Nala lifted her head toward Sarabi. "Scar - Isn't - Dead."

"What? But he –"

"He's not dead. He's lying on a ledge down there. He's injured but he's not dead."

Sarafina eyed Sarabi intensely. "He will be if we leave him. Sarabi, get real. Don't you see? This is our chance to get rid of him."

"And what will the hyenas think?"

Sarafina flicked her head and tail up and away from Sarabi. "Who cares what the damn hyenas think?"

"They'll think we killed him, Saffi. They'll think we did it. It doesn't matter what actually happened. We'll never convince them that it was an accident."

"Yes, they'll never believe us!" said Nala.

Sarabi lifted a forepaw sharply, shaking it. "Exactly, Nala!"

"So," asked Sarafina in a sharp, almost cynical tone, "what do we do Sarabi?"

"We've got to at least look as though we've tried to save him." Sarabi beckoned to Sarafina with a tilted nod of her head.

Sarafina padded urgently to the edge and peered over. "Save him?" She shook her head and drew back. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. We have to look as though we're saving him. He'll probably die anyway before we get to him."

"Get to him? GET TO HIM? You want us all to go down there, risking our lives, for SCAR?"

"No, just us two. Nala, I want you to go and fetch Rafiki and Zazu."

"Me Sarabi? Why?"

"We don't know where Rafiki went when Scar threw him out but I think you do. You do, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"And tell the others, but quietly! We don't want the hyenas hearing about this just yet. Do you understand?"

For the first time since Scar's fall, Nala's eyes brightened. "Yes, I understand." She looked away back to Pride Rock. "Where will you be when I get back?"

"We'll be getting down to Scar. Don't try and come down there yourself: send Zazu to find us. We'll send word with him. And Nala…?"

"Yes Sarabi?"

"This is important. You do understand don't you? Your mother and I are relying on you."

"Don't worry Sarabi. I understand. Get Zazu to come here and find you, then find Rafiki and tell him. Don't alert the hyenas. I've got it."

"Good. Now go, and may the stars look down on you."

Nala looked up to the sky before setting off. The lionesses' day had started late, and it was already well into the afternoon before they had arrived at the gorge. Sarabi knew that Nala would not be able to get to Pride Rock and back before dark. She would be gone until morning.

Sarabi watched in silence until Nala had crested the nearest rise. Then Sarafina turned to Sarabi. "What has got in to you Sassi? If you think I'm going down there to try save that lion you're crazier than he is."

"I am going down there. Alone if need be. Even if I'm wrong we'll have to make sure he's really dead and not going to inconveniently reappear later on." Sarabi watched as Sarafina shook her head and then sighed, her ears flitting. "I understand if you don't feel you can come with me. I don't know if I'd come with me."

"How are you even going to get down there?"

"I don't know. I'll look along the edge. There might be a way to get down somewhere."

"Mufasa and Simba aren't down there anymore." Sarafina's tail arched with twitching tip. "You know that. Anyway, there is a way. Remember? Where Scar took us to show us where it happened, remember? "

"Ah yes, I remember now. It's not far from here. I'll go that way." Sarafina gave Sarabi a resigned nod. "But Saffi, you go with Nala if you want: make sure she doesn't get into any trouble. She needs her mother. She needs you."

"No, she can more than look after herself. I'll come with you, but only to make sure he doesn't just up and disappear like Mufasa and Simba. I want to see his body. I want to look into his cold dead eyes."

It took some time for the lionesses to find the steep path down into the gorge. It had been deep into a long and traumatic night when Scar had led them down to where he had helplessly watched Mufasa's desperate and futile attempt to battle against the stampede to save Simba. The herd, several thousand strong, had had no respect for monarchy and had cruelly swept them both away… or so Scar had said.

The lionesses at first passed by the deep dip at the head of the path, dismissing it as it appeared overgrown and impassable. After searching on fruitlessly for most of an hour, ever closer to the widening, and deeply shadowed side ravines of the gorge that were the elephant's graveyard, it was Sarafina who realised their mistake and persuaded Sarabi to turn back.

They struggled through the brush with the weakening sun low on their backs. Soon, with the edge of the plateau above them, they were in deep shadow. The air was still and cool. Though it steepened, under pad the sandy ground felt secure and safe. Sarabi led down carefully. She barely noticed the green of the scattered brush, barely felt the coolness under her paw, and paid little heed to the moist dark of the undisturbed ground.

Sarafina said little. She looked for each pad-fall, often gingerly holding back to make sure the way ahead was clear.

Sarabi stopped. Sarafina was some way behind so she waited, looking around. Some way above and to her right, the full, terrible extent of the collapse was now apparent. The gash in the gorge side was several times deeper than it was wide, and much darker than the bluffs to either side. The fallen sandy earth and rock, several thousand tonnes, though Sarabi had little concept of ground having weight, covered everything in dead brown to a little above the ledge where Scar had come to rest. Only it wasn't a ledge. Though still some way below, it was clearly much wider than it had appeared from the plateau. Sarabi saw that it was the top of a stack, a pillar of sandstone – one of many, including that from which Scar has shown her the site of her mate's and son's loss – that formed the lower levels of the gorge walls.

The landslip darkened and bared the otherwise remarkably green gorge wall: mosses, grasses on the ledges, even short stunted trees, such as the one that must have broken Scar's fall and thrown him clear and possibly safe, of the smothering bulk of the slip.

If it's killed him, it's killed so much more. There's life here, green, cool, sheltered life. Above there's nothing anymore. It's all gone, or going. The Pridelands are dying, but here in the gorge, life carries on. How? This place does more than just kill. How can it kill and yet sustain? If we could only find out what it is, how it does it, and take that back. That's what we need: new life.

Sarabi looked up. The clouds, while beginning to break up, still scurried leaden grey above.

We're like those clouds: we're grey and cannot give life. None of us rain anymore. There he is: Simba. He's so young still. He's jumping up on that dead tree down there; hanging, clinging on to life. "Simba! Hold on! I'm coming!"

"Sarabi? Are you OK?"

Simba fell and was swept away before he struck the ground, dissolving into dust, carried off on the wind.

"Yes Saffi. Yes, I'm alright. Come on, we're over halfway there. We can reach him before dark."

"Reach who?"

"S… Scar."

"I did say this wasn't a good idea. Are you sure you want to go through with it?"

Sarabi stood silently for a moment. Then she led off down the still clear path. Sarafina followed closely.

The slope soon lessened and they came to a mass of stacks. Pillars all folding into others, joined, layered, tumbled together. Sarabi felt cold as she stood on a stack's flat top. She looked down and shivered when she thought she heard the rumble of the wildebeest herd scouring the gorge below.

"Look, Sarabi! There's earth's still falling. Smaller… but we shouldn't stay here any longer than we need. It's not safe."

Sarabi snapped her head back toward Sarafina.

Maybe she's right. "He's got to be here somewhere close. Come on."

The sky was beginning to redden when they finally found Scar. They had taken more hours than the seconds he had taken to fall to this place. Sarafina held back as Sarabi approached slowly. His side rose and fell with his steady but slow breathing. He was in the same position he had been when Sarabi had first seen him from far above. He had not moved. She picked her way around the loose soil chunks and dusty crumble of the fall.

Standing as close to the edge as she dared, she finally saw his face. He looked out sideways through his drawn-forward muzzle with terrifyingly glazed, unseeing eyes. He made no movement, no blink; no shiver of recognition as she came into what she assumed must be his view. Scar was indeed alive, but some strange sort of un-aliveness quite unlike anything Sarabi had ever seen. She recoiled, averting her gaze from him.

"What's wrong Sarabi? Is he dead?"

"No. He's… alive. I'm sure he is; he's breathing."

"Show me." Sarafina came forward, alongside Sarabi. She looked at Scar. It was an unfamiliar view, one that few lions, save perhaps the cubs he had never fathered, could ever have seen. Sarabi drew back, Sarafina moved closer, sniffing at Scar's still form. A scent drew her towards his mane. Where it gave way to his dark fur, it was matted to the lose earth: matted with thick, hardened blood: lots of blood.

"Sarabi?" she said without breaking her gaze from him. She called again: "Sarabi?"

Sarabi stood at the edge of the stack, unhearing, looking intently out and up to the now blooded sky. She gathered her breath and roared out, "You lose!"

'-lose.'

"I'll not let you take him. Do you hear?"

'-Hear, hear.'

"You've taken Mufasa and Simba but you're not taking Scar!"

'-ing Scar, Scar, Rrr.'

Birds, settling in the acacia tops below, shimmered up, folding into swirling, wheeling flights. A shadow rushed close by overhead. Sarafina looked up but saw nothing but the brightened, orange-gold edged clouds.

Sarabi closed her eyes for a few seconds, and then turned back to Scar. He lay still. He had always lacked Mufasa's bulk, but he was by no means thin. His firm muscles covered his bones well, tight and dense. He carried little fat, though two years of indolence and indulgence had begun to change that. His coat almost matched the setting sun; his dense mane, rich, deep brown with the low falling light behind, draped close over his shoulders. His face, so often tightened by a scowl, was relaxed so that his black lips fully covered his teeth. For once – Sarabi noted it as it was so unusual for Scar – his claws were retracted; the lighter fur on the tips of his heavy paws looked soft, as if he were about to touch his new-born cub for the very first time.

Sarabi looked over him, checking him for injury. Other than a few lengthy gashes across his ribs and up along his shoulder he appeared miraculously unharmed by the fall. The blood though, now hardened and cold, in his upper mane and on his forehead, had to come from somewhere. It could only be from the side on which he lay.

Simba would be this size by now: a full grown lion, a proper mane, and eyes to melt any lioness's heart.

Sarabi got her nose under the tree bough and shoved. She strained to move it, but managed to lift it up and finally tossed partially aside. Unsure of what else she could do, she turned round and settled down beside Scar's motionless body. He was warm and strangely comforting. She laid her head on his forelegs.

She woke to a violent, repeated paw-prodding. It was almost dark; the sky over the far side of the gorge held the last glow of evening.

"Sarabi, get up! Rafiki's here."

"What? How?"

"Zazu saw us and guided him down most the way through the darkness. I went up to see what the commotion was about, and then brought him down the rest of the way. Come on, get up. Let him take a proper look. Though what he can see in this, I'll never know. I can barely see anything myself."

Sarabi shut her eyes for a few seconds, trying to wake them up. When she opened them, Rafiki stood just a length ahead, eyeing her intently. She rose, the cool of the night gripping her suddenly. The mandrill waved her away. She stepped forward, carefully avoiding Scar's legs and paws, and joined Sarafina. She couldn't bring herself to watch as the mandrill examined the lion.

"Rafiki says Nala's not handling this too well. I need to – "

"Go to her Sarafina. She needs you. She needs to know she can do things on her own. She's done well so far, but she still needs her mother's help and support."

"What will you do? You can't stay here."

"Yes I can."

"But the pride…? I told you the best thing would have been to leave him to die."

Sarabi turned back towards Scar to consider her reply. Rafiki shook his head and moved to join them. "I concur. This lion's not responding. Oh don't you worry, he is not in any pain. He won't know. It would be best to let him go. He'll not last the night most likely."

"Let him GO?" Sarabi turned and bore down on Rafiki. "Mufasa is… dead. My Simba, my son is lost. My mother died and my sister killed. 'This lion' is alive and he -" She lurched forward, closing tightly on Rafiki, getting right in his face. "-is my only hope. He's all I have left. He's all any of us have left. So if you honour Mufasa's memory as much as you love that stick of yours, you had better try and save him."

"His head must have hit the ground hard. It's a very bad injury. There is… there is little that I can do."

Sarabi turned away, withdrew a length and slumped to the ground. "Then… please Rafiki… do that little. If he dies… then he dies. If he lives…" She sighed. "I'm not going anywhere. I need to sleep. I'll be right here at dawn either way."