The Enigma
An alternate ending to “The Lion King” by Joe McCauley
© 1996, Joseph E. McCauley II
Based on “The Lion King” © 1994, The Walt Disney Co.
Early draft reviewed and edited by David Cleary, Ryan McGinnis, Adrian Rossi, Samuel Simpson and Christine Morgan. Final draft reviewed and edited by John Burkitt and David Morris.
Foreword
Have you ever been watching a movie and thought to yourself, “I wonder how the story would have continued/ended if X had happened”, instead of whatever did happen in the movie? For instance, how do you suppose “Beauty and the Beast” would have ended if, when the Beast had released Belle to rescue her father, she had brought him back to Beast’s castle instead of taking him to their home, or even if she had said a word or two on the way out to reassure the Beast she’d be back. But then we might not have seen Gaston and the townspeople storming beast’s castle, so in this case the ending would have been less dramatic. But sometimes these alternative story continuations raise some interesting possibilities.
This is an exploration of one of these “story variations” that came to mind while watching “The Lion King”. The original idea was to make a small change shortly before Simba’s return to Pride Rock, then rewrite the rest of the story from there. To that extent, it represents another way the movie might have ended. Why did I write another ending for “The Lion King”? One of the movie’s few flaws is that the ending relies on an overused movie cliche, in which the villain gives away his secret just when he thinks he’s triumphed (“I killed Mufasa”). This is avoided in “The Enigma”. Second, Scar did leave a few clues in his wake that could easily have aroused some suspicion. Finally, a lot of things happen in a short time toward the end of the movie, and some of them offer some interesting dramatic possibilities if they’re allowed to be played out over a longer period of time. I will concede that in some ways “The Enigma” is not well suited for the pacing and the visual elements that make the movie work well.
That was the original idea, but by the time I’d finished writing it, it also included other subplots and a bunch of new characters. The events here are different from the movie, but I have tried to remain faithful to the characters and concepts as presented in “The Lion King”.
I was inspired to write this story after discovering the TLK web pages and other works of fan fiction. At that time I had read only one other work of fan fiction, Joshua Templin’s “The Tales of Tanabi”, and reading that had a lot to do with my decision to develop this idea into a full story. At that point I chose not to read any other fan fiction until I had the story pretty well mapped out (to allow it to develop on its own without concern for conflict with or similarity to previous works of fan fiction). But once I had a general outline, curiosity got the better of me and I read other stories. Not surprisingly, “The Enigma” is generally not consistent with these but has are some similarities. In particular, the primary theme of “The Enigma” was explored somewhat in Robert Tuffley’s “The Longest Walk”, but since TLW stayed within the TLK story line and “Enigma” changed it, the results are quite different.
Any feedback, positive or negative, that you may have regarding this story would be most welcome.
Legalese
The movie “The Lion King” (TLK) and its characters, concepts and settings are (c) 1994 The Walt Disney Company. This story is unauthorized fan fiction based on TLK. Portions of this story are accounts of events which occurred in TLK or are modeled after scenes from TLK; no plagiarism is intended. Some of the details used in this story, including three characters, were drawn from previous works of fan fiction. A few details relating to the forthcoming sequel (tentatively titled “Simba’s Pride” and probably (c) 1997 The Walt Disney Company) were acquired from sources generally available on the Internet and from communication with Dan T. Guyton and Tad Stones.
Except as indicated in the previous paragraph, this story is the original work of the author. It was created without the intent or expectation of achieving financial or material gain. This work may be distributed so long as it is done free of charge and in its entirety including the front and back matter. This work may be made available on a www page or ftp site so long as you notify the author.
No animals were harmed during the production of this story.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks:
- to The Walt Disney Company for producing “The Lion King”;
- to Phil Pollard and others who developed the online version of the TLK screenplay which was an invaluable resource in reproducing scenes from the movie;
- to all of the reviewers and editors who previewed this work and offered many valuable suggestions;
- to previous authors of fan fiction for providing inspiration;
- to many regular contributors to alt.fan.lion-king and the TLK mailing list for encouragement and moral support and for keeping fan fiction alive;
- and last but not least to my wife Vicki and my children Joshua, Robert and Alison for being patient with me and allowing me the time to write this story.
Prologue
The Scattering
After the sun set, he forced himself onward in the direction of the twilight, until it faded. He was hungry, thirsty, nauseous, and most of all, devastated beyond belief. No one could possibly imagine the depth of the anguish, the distress he was experiencing.
“…Never return.” His father was dead. His life as he knew it was over. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he couldn’t go back.
The young lion cub summoned what energy he could muster, and followed the crescent moon until it fell below the horizon. By then he was too tired to go on, so he lay down to rest on the sand, still warm from the previous day’s heat. He wished he could be with his mother.
Only two days earlier, Simba awoke looking forward to a day with his father and a life full of possibilities. But he disobeyed his father Mufasa and almost got himself and his best friend Nala killed. Mufasa saved them, and after that they had a long talk. Simba decided he would be more careful and never to get into that much of trouble again.
But what happened the next day was much, much worse. He was in a gorge practicing his roar, when suddenly a stampede began and he was caught in it, and again his father had to come and save him. This time, Simba was in a much more dangerous situation, and his father could only help him at great risk to himself. Despite the danger he didn’t think twice about rescuing his son, and he was able to save Simba. But he wasn’t able to save himself. Just when it seemed like he was going to make it out alive, he lost his footing, or ran out of strength, or who knows what, and fell back into the stampede. Simba heard him scream. Saw him fall. And disappear under the trampling hooves of wildebeest. It was an image that would be burned into his mind for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t until the stampede cleared that he saw him again. Simba found his father and tried to awaken him, but there was no life left in the battered body. It had been too much for him. And as if having seen it happen wasn’t painful enough for him, what happened next made it unbearable.
Simba loved and trusted his Uncle Scar, and he believed whatever Scar told him. All night the words his uncle told him kept echoing through Simba’s young mind over and over again.
“Simba, what have you done?”
“…The King is dead, and if it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive.”
“Run away, Simba. Run, run away, and never return.”
With barely a moment for the words to sink in, Simba’s life was in danger again. Hyenas were after him and he knew his father wouldn’t save him this time. Running for his life, he barely escaped and was left headed out into the desert, headed away from the only home he had known. All of it had left him almost completely exhausted and barely able to go on, but there was nothing else he could do.
“…Never return.”
As Scar addressed the pride, announcing the death of Mufasa and Simba, Nala cowered behind her mother’s leg. She cried for the loss of her best friend and playmate, but moments later she looked on in fear and horror as the hyenas slunk out of the shadows. Lion and hyena living together? Even for a small cub such as herself it was quite a bothersome thought, and she could hear the gasps of shock and disbelief coming from the other lionesses. How could Scar do this? How could he be welcoming the same hyenas who had tried to kill her and Simba just yesterday? Did Scar know what had happened in the elephant graveyard? Were her mother and Sarabi wondering the same thing?
The next morning Simba awoke to a blazing sun. If he was any less tired it was offset by the fact that he was dehydrated, and the heat was oppressive. He had to go on if he was to have any chance of survival, but the desert sun made that very daunting. The night before he had seen the stars. Was his father among them? Would he want anything to do with him now? Such a heavy load for a lion cub of only a few months. Simba kept moving as long as his little legs would carry him, but eventually his last reserve of strength gave out, and he could go on no more.
He looked up one last time and thought he saw trees, but his mind and his eyes had been playing tricks on him all morning, so he guessed they probably weren’t real anyway. Still, with nothing better to go on he tried his best to move toward them. But a day of walking in the desert had taken its toll on him and he had nothing left. His feet were sore, his mouth was dry, and a day of self-accusation had drained his will to live. A fitting end for what he had done and what he had caused. Exhausted, demoralized and dehydrated, he lay down on the cracked dirt and gave himself over to whatever fate awaited him.
With Sarabi grieving from the loss of her husband and her son, Sarafina had to step up and act as leader of the lionesses. One of her first tasks had to do with Mufasa and Simba, but she couldn’t do it herself. Sarabi needed her and Nala was terrified of the hyenas, so she had two of the other lionesses assist Rafiki with the job.
When the task was completed the two lionesses reported back to her, and their report included a couple of very disturbing findings. Sarafina couldn’t bring herself to tell Sarabi about them. Maybe someday she would, but now certainly wasn’t the time. At the very least, she wanted to try to find out some answers first.
Zazu was ashamed and embarrassed that he couldn’t answer some of Sarafina’s questions about the stampede. He could remember Mufasa trying to rescue Simba from the stampede, but after that, nothing. The next thing he remembered was waking up with an enormous headache and finding himself back at Pride Rock. He soon found out from others that Mufasa and Simba had both perished in the stampede, but how had it happened? He had been there, he was sure, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t remember any more of it. He was tempted to bluff his way through the questions Sarafina was asking, but decided to tell the truth, even if it included an uncomfortable number of “I don’t knows”. What was going on? Was it possible that he could have blacked out the memory?
Scar found the questions bothersome too, but for a different reason. At first he answered them as best he could so as not to arouse the suspicions of the lionesses, but they proved a bit too persistent when they weren’t satisfied with his answers. Luckily for him none of them were willing to press once he asked them if they doubted him or would challenge his honor. He’d gotten what he wanted. He was the king of Pride Rock now and could get away with it.
How all this came about was story that could fill volumes. Mufasa and Taka were both taught about the Circle of Life by Ahadi, their father, the way he had been taught by his father Mohatu. Ahadi loved both of his sons dearly, and though Mufasa had the birthright to the throne, he knew it was also possible that Taka might one day become king, and thus he considered it important that both be instructed well. He taught them all he knew of the Circle of Life, the responsibilities of being king, and many other important lessons for life. Mufasa and Taka were good students and both learned well.
He treated them nearly as equals, but perhaps because Mufasa would almost certainly become king while Taka might not, he showed a little bit of favoritism towards Mufasa, thinking it wouldn’t make much difference. He underestimated the perceptiveness of his sons. Mufasa soon came to think of himself as the greater of the two, the one who should be in charge. Taka didn’t share this view, and later he would greatly exaggerate how much his father favored his brother over him.
In time, out of his inferior feelings, Taka came to want more than anything else to be the superior one, the king. For Mufasa, wanting to be king was never an issue, just something that was going to happen someday. He was the first born and would one day become king so long as he outlived his father. But for Taka, becoming king was anything but certain, and the circumstances that would dictate whether he would ever have that opportunity were beyond his control. Or at least they should have been.
Taka later became known as Scar, and as he grew older he became increasingly aware that every day that passed was one less that his reign would last if indeed it ever came. He tried to be patient and nurture his belief that his time would come, and for a time while Mufasa and his wife Sarabi were barren of children for more seasons than they had hoped, it seemed like he would get his chance. At times he fancied ways he might overthrow his brother and take over the throne, but he wasn’t willing to face the aftermath that might result from any of them, so he remained patient.
But all of that changed when Simba was born. Now there was another ahead of him in line, one he was not likely to outlive. Scar became desperate, and out of that desperation he became more contemptuous and began to seriously consider ways of becoming king that he had previously dismissed out of hand. It was then that he became friends with the hyenas. He had disliked the hyenas as much as any other lion and did his share to keep them out of the Pride Lands. But his lust for the throne, his desire to have something life hadn’t given him, soon overwhelmed him, and he overcame his disgust of the beasts to enlist their aid. He promised them that if they helped him become king he would allow them to live in and feed off of the Pride Lands.
At first, Scar was willing to settle for recovering his place as first in line for the throne, and tried to set a trap to get Simba killed. But Mufasa thwarted that plan, luckily without finding out that his brother was behind it. Scar knew that if he tried something like that again, successful or not, his role might be discovered and he would be stripped of any claim to the throne. He decided that killing only Simba gained him too little for the risk it entailed. He would kill both Mufasa and Simba, and though it would be riskier and more difficult, it had a much greater prize - the throne.
With this in mind, he set another trap, and this time to all appearances he was successful. He killed Mufasa and thought he killed Simba, and for the most part succeeded in making it look to the rest of the pride like it was an accident. Taka had finally gotten his lifelong wish. Secretly he wished he could have done it without becoming indebted to the hyenas, but it was impossible to deny that they had played a critical role in pulling it off. Therefore he would remain friends with them. He would keep his promise to them.
And that would prove to be Scar’s downfall as king. Everything his father had taught him about the Circle of Life was based on following certain rules, and among those was that lion and hyena were natural enemies. To keep things in balance the hyenas had to be kept off of or at least limited in their access to the Pride Lands. There were simply not enough prey animals to feed both a large clan of hyenas and the pride of lions without disrupting the balance.
To make matters worse, Scar was so intent on believing that his vision of lion and hyena living together would be a success that he began to dismiss evidence to the contrary, and in so doing allowed himself to fall out of touch with what was truly going on in his kingdom. Zazu had been valuable to Mufasa in watching over the Pride Lands and keeping him informed of any problems that arose, but Scar kept Zazu in a cage most of the time. Scar didn’t patrol the territory himself very much, citing his bad back as the reason, and had the hyenas do it for him and report whatever problems they found. But hyenas see things differently than lions, and their reports or lack thereof often reflected this. The lionesses and many of the other creatures did not have the same rapport with Scar that they had with Mufasa and didn’t share information with him as freely. At least not until much later when the gradual destruction of the Pride Lands made them desperate.
Thus were the pieces of the enigma scattered about, seemingly too few and too subtle to assimilate into anything meaningful. But they were there nonetheless and would lie dormant, waiting to be discovered and assembled when the time was right.
The most important piece was nearly lost. Simba had reached the end and given himself up, but the trees he had last seen were real, and among them stood two curious but friendly characters, a warthog named Pumbaa and a meerkat named Timon. Seeing the vultures starting to gather out in the desert, they decided on a whim to go check it out. They found Simba nearly dead and rescued him from the desert heat. Later they showed him a way out of his grief.
Chapter 1. Shadows of Doubt
Nala looked up at her mother with pleading green eyes. “Are we still going to have lessons like we did before?” She had waited a while to pose this question, for even at her young age she knew it wasn’t a good idea to broach the subject too soon after the death of Mufasa and Simba. Before that tragedy her mother and Sarabi had been giving Nala lessons in preparation for the role of queen that she would one day hold. Nala enjoyed these lessons immensely and was growing impatient for more.
Sarafina looked down at her daughter lovingly and regarded her for a moment. Was there any point now to giving her lessons on queenship? After all, with the death of Simba she was no longer destined to be queen. But the lessons they’d shared so far had been some of the more enjoyable times Sarafina had spent with Nala, and she didn’t see any reason not to continue teaching her daughter. Besides, many of them were not merely lessons for queenship but were valuable lessons for life that would make her a good leader among the lionesses, queen or not. “Okay, Nala. We’ll start up our lessons again.”
“All right,” shouted Nala enthusiastically as she jumped and waved her tail around.
Sarafina smiled as she mentally reviewed what she had been planning to teach her next before their lives had been so unceremoniously interrupted by recent events. “This is our lesson for today, then. The king must always be respected by all members of the pride,” her mother explained. “Whether we agree with him or not, he’s still the king, and what he says is the law.”
“You mean like letting the hyenas live here?” Nala asked.
“Well, yes,” answered Sarafina.
“But what if we REALLY don’t agree with something he says?”
“In that case, we talk to him and try to convince him to change his mind. If he’s a good king he’ll listen and take the views of others into consideration. But whatever happens he’s still the king and the decision is his.”
Nala thought about this a moment. “All right, Mom. But if I am queen someday, won’t I get to make some of the rules too?”
Sarafina had to think about that one for a moment. “That would be up to you and your king. But I never knew of a king that was any good who didn’t rely on his queen to help him make some of the decisions and take some of the responsibilities.”
“Okay,” said Nala. “What kind of responsibilities does the queen get to share?”
Sarafina looked down at her daughter with admiration. She was surprised and impressed that Nala, even at her young age, was already asking some very astute and insightful questions. “The queen has to fit in as one of the lionesses, sharing in all they do. She becomes their leader, and when there is something that concerns them all, it is she who must decide what to do about it and whether to bring it to the attention of the king.”
“Then the queen gets to decide as much as the king?”
“In a way, yes,” Sarafina replied.
“Okay,” said Nala brightly. “I hope I still get to be queen someday,”
“Maybe,” Sarafina acknowledged. If she keeps this up it will be a pity if she doesn’t.
Their lesson brought another question to Sarafina’s mind. Scar hadn’t approached any of the lionesses about being his queen, at least not yet. Was it because none of the lionesses were that attracted to him? Was it because he wanted to keep all the decision making power to himself? This was something she’d have to discuss with Sarabi.
Sarabi was no longer the queen officially, but the lionesses of Pride Rock would still treat Sarabi as the queen, at least unless and until Scar chose a mate. Whatever her title, she would unquestionably remain a leader among them, and she was gradually resuming that role which Sarafina had taken on while she mourned the loss of her husband and son.
A dozen or so hyenas were sunning themselves on the ground in front of Pride Rock when a leopard approached. He looked at the hyenas in disbelief as he padded toward the entrance to the cave. The hyenas didn’t like the look of this leopard, and two of them stood up and eyed him suspiciously, challenging him to continue. The leopard in turn stopped, stared back at the hyenas, raised his tail, crouched a little lower as if preparing to pounce, and began a low growl. They faced off like this for a long moment, until finally the leopard stood up straight again, averted his gaze upward, and walked disdainfully past the hyenas to the cave entrance, keeping them in his peripheral vision until he reached the opening.
“Scar!” shouted the leopard.
“Nguvu! What do you want?” he muttered, annoyed at the intrusion.
Nguvu forced himself to speak calmly. “I came down here to inform you that hyenas have been invading on our hunting grounds and interfering with my hunting, but I get here and I see you’ve been pandering to the miserable little moochers.”
“Don’t talk about them like that,” Scar shot back. “As far as I’m concerned the hyenas are friends and they’re welcome to… whatever they want.”
Nguvu looked at him incredulously. “Scar, have you lost your mind!”
“Oh, do lighten up, Nguvu,” replied Scar, as nonchalantly as he could muster.
“Do you really think…”
“We will live together with the hyenas and as king I will do whatever it takes to make it work.”
“Not with my help,” Nguvu retorted. “I’ve got a family to worry about, and I’m glad not to be a lion.” Though Scar was king, he couldn’t really exercise his authority over the leopards the way he could over the rest of the lions. “And what kind of a king keeps his majordomo confined to a cage?”
Zazu had been watching the discussion unfold and thought about responding to this last statement. Sizing up the two of them he decided it was not a discussion he wanted to get caught in the middle of, so he kept silent.
Scar glared back without even acknowledging Zazu. “This is the way I rule my kingdom, and if you’ve got a problem with it, GET OUT.”
“I may just do that, and I pity your lionesses who don’t have that option,” hissed the leopard.
“You’re starting to sound like one of them,” Scar grumbled.
“Oh really? Maybe you should listen to them more often.” Then without waiting to see what reaction that statement provoked, Nguvu
turned and walked out, holding his tail up high.
Zazu couldn’t help smiling to himself after hearing someone give Scar such an earful. Too bad he couldn’t get away with that himself. He was sworn to serve Scar and tried to stop smiling, but he couldn’t.
Rafiki put a few more touches on his painting. The picture was a the gorge similar to the one in the Pride Lands where Mufasa had died, but this one was deeper and more treacherous, so much so that it looked nearly impossible to climb out of. Rafiki studied it and mumbled to himself, “Must be a way out.” But he couldn’t see where.
Simba awoke with a veil of depression hanging over his mind, as he had every day since Timon and Pumbaa had saved him from the desert heat one moon earlier. The guilt from causing his father’s death was a heavy burden to bear, especially at his age, and some days he felt like he didn’t want to go on living. But today was better than yesterday.
He wandered out into the grassy plains to see what he could find. The bugs he ate with Timon and Pumbaa were better than nothing, but they weren’t all that satisfying to him and he was hungry for something else. Mice were better and he was getting better at catching them. There were usually plenty of them, and this particular morning he had no trouble catching two.
Timon and Pumbaa awoke to find their friend out in the grass stalking and pouncing, still a bit awkwardly but getting better at it. But his tail still hung low when he walked and he had that same lost look on his face that he had every morning. Timon had been worried when they first found Simba that he might eat them, but now it seemed that if he kills anyone it’ll be himself. Pumbaa had been outcast because he was too flatulent. Timon had been too independent to accept the responsibilities that came with the life of a meerkat, which he considered mundane. But their experiences hadn’t been all that difficult to put behind them. Whatever was bothering Simba seemed to go much deeper. What could he have been through that he’s still this blue even after a month of living “Hakuna Matata”, they wondered, especially Pumbaa. Timon was more inclined to simply try to find something to cheer up Simba. Still, they could see he was getting better.
After the lessons he had received from his parents during the early months of his life, Simba had his doubts about “Hakuna Matata”. Yet whenever he thought about trying to live according to the values his parents had taught him, it invariably led to thoughts of his father’s death and his responsibility for it, and that brought up feelings of guilt and shame. At least “Hakuna Matata” enabled him to have fun and allowed him to be happy. It gave him a way to forget about the things that bothered him.
“Good morning, Simba!” said Pumbaa cheerily. “Catching anything?”
“Coupla’ mice. Want one?”
“Ehhh, no thanks,” replied Timon nervously.
“Okay, just let me know if you ever want one,” replied Simba, not seeing the discomfort his dietary excursions were causing at least one of his friends. “What’cha doin’?”
“Just out for a stretch,” Pumbaa replied.
“Wanna go take a dip in the pool?” Timon suggested.
“Yeah! That sounds like fun!” said Simba, perking up.
They wandered into the jungle together. And so it went. Going through life one day at a time not having any worries. Or trying not to.
The lionesses with a yearling cub in tow approached the crest of another hill. “We’ve been wandering for a long time and haven’t come across anything yet,” observed Taraja, the youngest of the four adults, allowing a little stress to show through her normally hopeful demeanor. “It shouldn’t take us this long.”
“The herds have rather thin lately,” Sarabi noted.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” remarked Thabiti, the hunt leader.
“What with all those hyenas to feed, I don’t know how much longer this
can keep up.”
Taraja turned to Sarabi. “Have you talked to Scar about it?”
“I tried, but he won’t listen. He insists the herds will be back in full force before long.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Thabiti. “They shouldn’t be this thin unless we get a long dry spell or something.”
On a mound a short distance away sat Akili, a young adult lioness with what lions might consider a cheetah figure. She sniffed the air, craned her neck, then cocked her head a little to the left. “Over that rise,” she called back to the others.
They sniffed the air too, but couldn’t smell anything. “Are you sure?” asked Thabiti.
“Only one way to find out,” said Sarabi. “Let’s go.”
Might as well check it out, Thabiti thought. We’re not finding anything else. They all walked over to the rise, crouching and moving slowly as they approached the crest. Sure enough, there was a small herd of zebra a few hundred yards away down the other side.
“How do you do that?” Thabiti whispered to Akili.
“I don’t know,” Akili replied. “I just… I can’t explain it.”
“Dinnertime,” Taraja remarked, as they began to stalk closer to the zebra.
This was becoming a more common occurrence. Until recently Akili’s sense of smell had rarely been needed. There had always been plenty of herds to hunt and any lion or lioness could locate prey animals easily enough. But as they became harder to find Akili was quickly becoming their most valuable hunter, even though she was no better than the others at charging and grounding their prey. Thabiti had been proud of her role as the best hunter in the pride, and resented the fact that the rules had changed on her. For an instant she resented Akili, but she quickly forced the thought out of her mind. It wasn’t Akili’s fault this was happening, they got along well in every other way, so Thabiti was determined not to let something like this come between them. Besides, she knew Akili had been struggling to find her place in the pride, and this might make her feel better about herself. If she felt any resentment, there were better ways to deal with it, and this day she got an opportunity.
“They’re all full-sized healthy adults,” whispered Akili as they neared the zebras. “How are we supposed to get one of those.”
“I don’t know,” Taraja whispered back. “We’d need to get about three of us up close to bring one of them down.”
Thabiti smiled. “Watch a pro at work,” she bragged, and with that, she slunk off into the grass. Seconds later it seemed as though she had completely disappeared.
Sarabi and Nala crept up behind Akili and Taraja. As they neared the others, Nala’s tail twitched nervously.
“Keep your tail down,” whispered Sarabi. “They’ll see you.”
Oh, sorry, thought Nala, not daring to even whisper at this moment.
One of the zebras looked up and sniffed the air, then resumed its grazing. After a long and tense moment, Thabiti’s massive figure exploded out of the grass onto the back of the zebra, knocking it off its hooves. The other lionesses quickly charged as the zebra thrashed about and tried to fight off the lioness. By the time the zebra struggled out from under Thabiti and regained its feet, it was facing not one but four lionesses and had nowhere to go. Thabiti leapt on its back again and clamped her massive jaws down on its spine at the base of its neck. With that the zebra fell, and the pride was fed for another day.
Nala was along to learn and help out. More than once on previous hunts she had made noise at the wrong time and spooked their prey, leaving them without a meal, but it was one of those things most cubs have to learn the hard way. Fortunately she got through that stage while herds were still plentiful and at worst the pride would have to wait only another day for their next meal. Now poor Nala thought she was doing something else wrong since the hunts were taking longer and were unsuccessful more often.
“What am I doing wrong?” asked Nala apprehensively.
“Nothing,” Sarabi replied. “You’re doing just fine.”
“But the hunts are taking longer. It’s my fault, isn’t it.”
“No, Nala,” Sarabi repeated. “It’s not your fault.
But Nala didn’t seem convinced. She seemed too willing to blame herself for whatever difficulties they encountered while she was along. It took a lot of reassurance from Sarabi, her mother and the other lionesses to convince her she wasn’t the cause of their hunting difficulties.
Scar was aware that the herds were getting thinner but he thought it was only temporary. He was actually making an effort to maintain the Circle of Life the way his father had taught him, but for all of his life before becoming king the herds had always been plentiful in the Pride Lands, a seemingly endless supply of food for everyone. He had come to think of it as something that could always be relied upon, and he didn’t think there was any real chance the herds of zebra, antelope and other animals might be seriously degraded. A small part of him wasn’t sure, though, but that was a chance he’d have to take. He’d done what he had to do to become king, and that included making a promise to the hyenas that he meant to keep, a promise the hyenas might make him pay dearly for if broken. He believed - had to believe - that he could maintain the Circle of Life and keep his promise too. He couldn’t allow himself to consider that he might someday have to choose one over the other. For that reason he insisted that the thinner herds were due to unavoidable circumstances and were only temporary.
The lionesses did what little they could to keep things in balance, but for the most part they had to worry first and foremost about keeping everyone fed. The hyenas often went out hunting on their own, which meant less work for the lionesses, but also meant they had less control. Perhaps the only thing that kept the situation from degrading too quickly was that other predators living in the Pride Lands gradually left to find better living and better hunting elsewhere.
Simba seemed to have finally gotten the idea that Timon and Pumbaa were not interested in his hunting escapades. It made Timon nervous that he did it at all, even though Simba hadn’t given them any reason to think he’d turn them into one of his meals. Though he was still a cub, he had grown a little since his arrival here. They often feasted on bugs together, and Simba had even developed some preferences among the varieties, including a couple of favorites that neither Timon nor Pumbaa cared for.
One day while Timon was riding on his back, Pumbaa was having too much fun strolling along a path through the jungle, singing and acting silly, and he pushed a low hanging branch out of their way with his snout. When it snapped back, it hit Timon squarely in the chest, knocking him off Pumbaa’s back and sending him tumbling to the ground. Pumbaa had gotten too carried away to notice right away what had happened, so it was Simba who first saw Timon lying on his back with a bleeding cut where the branch had hit him.
Timon looked up and saw Simba’s mouth descending toward him. Suddenly several thoughts flashed through his mind, and he froze and eyes widened in fear. Oh no, this is it!
Simba began to lick Timon’s cut, cleaning it off with his tongue. Sensing Timon’s uneasiness, Simba purred a little and gave him a small feline rub with the side of his muzzle before continuing. A few licks later, Simba lifted his head. “You okay, Timon?”
“Yeah, just a scratch. I’ll be good as new by tomorrow.”
By this time Pumbaa had turned around and was watching. “Sorry about that, Timon.”
Having ever so briefly caught the look of fear in Timon’s eyes, Simba asked him, “You weren’t afraid of me, were you?”
Timon was briefly startled, then became confident. “Who, me?
We’re friends. Why should I be afraid of you?”
Simba smiled, swished his tail a little and gave him a slightly sideways look as if to say, “Yeah, right!”
Timon smiled back at him, allowing a little bit of gratitude to creep into his expression.
At that moment, they understood each other a little better.
Timon never worried about Simba hunting him or Pumbaa any more. Eventually it became one of their games for Simba to hunt Timon or Pumbaa or both, without harming them when the “hunt” was successful. Not only did Simba learn to hunt better from these games, but Pumbaa and Timon became much more astute at avoiding other predators who might hunt them for real.
Chapter 2. A Way Out
Northeast of the Pride Lands there was a large mountain, quite distant but easily visible from the Pride Lands on a clear day. The foothills on the west side of this mountain were home to a group of lions known as the Foothills Coalition, with a history much longer than any of its current members had been alive. When male lions who had no claim to the leadership of their prides reached a certain age, they often chose or were forced to leave them. There were a dozen or so prides within a days journey, including the one at Pride Rock, and the males who left these prides often became wanderers, who sometimes joined other males for company and to help each other hunt. This particular group was known to and on friendly terms with most of the prides in the area. In the more distant past they had been forced to move around, but for quite some time they had lived here in the western foothills, where there was too little game to support a pride of any size but enough for a smaller group of adults.
The current coalition membership consisted of four lions. Mtaalamu had come from a pride to the east when he was outcast. A year and a half later, his younger half-brother Wema left the same pride to look for Mtaalamu. Amani, the biggest of the four of them, came from a different pride to the west. A wise and proud lion named Mwongozi from a pride far to the south was their leader, at least when they needed anyone to lead. All four of them were quite capable of handling themselves, and when they did anything as a group it was usually by consensus.
They had a particularly good hunt one day and had downed two zebras. Mwongozi had just finished eating his fill from one of them and let one of the others have at it when he heard a sound. “Quiet,” he told the others, and they immediately crouched down and stood still. He crept slowly up the side of the ravine where they were eating, and as he peered over the edge, he locked eyes with a leopard about twenty yards away. They appraised each other for a moment; though leopards are quite strong they are at too much of a size disadvantage to have much of a chance of winning a fight with a lion, though the lion probably wouldn’t walk away unscathed. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” demanded Mwongozi.
The leopard dismissed the idea of trying to fight the lion and thought about running away, but decided to be straightforward with the lion. “My family and I are seeking a new place to live. We’ve not been able to find enough food and wish to live somewhere where the hunting is better. We are quite hungry, I smelled meat and came to investigate.”
Mwongozi relaxed a little but was still on his guard. “What is your name, where did you come from, and where are you going?”
“I am Nguvu. We have come from the Pride Lands of Pride Rock, to the southwest, and we don’t know yet where we’re going.”
This came as quite a surprise to Mwongozi. “Pride Rock?” he exclaimed. How could that be? He’d been to the Pride Lands a few times and it had always been a place where food was abundant and the hunting was always good. Yet here he was face to face with a leopard claiming to have left there in search of food. He looked back at the two zebra carcasses and the other three lions, who by now could see there was not a threat and were listening attentively. There was probably more meat on the two zebras than the four of them could eat before it would spoil. “You’ve aroused my curiosity,” he told Nguvu. “Our hunt went very well today. If you will tell me about Pride Rock, you and your family may come eat, and you may rest here tonight. Tomorrow you must move on, but even in that perhaps we may be of some help.”
Nguvu called over his shoulder and from the grass behind him, four other leopards appeared, three of whom were cubs just over a year old. Mwongozi led them back to the carcasses and told the other lions about the arrangement. Nguvu ate enough to take the edge off his hunger as his cubs bumped shoulders trying to get in for a few bites, while the lions continued eating from the other carcass. Nguvu was still hungry and would eat more later, but for now he stepped back and let his wife in.
“So, talk to me.” Mwongozi said.
“It’s the hyenas,” Nguvu began. “They’ve been roaming everywhere, getting in the way when I hunt, and feeding off the herds, which have been dwindling.”
“Hyenas?” said Mwongozi, surprised. “How could Mufasa allow it?”
“Oh!” said Nguvu. “You haven’t heard? Mufasa was killed in a stampede a while back.” At this, the other lions stopped eating and listened. “I guess it’s been almost a year now,” the leopard continued.
“His son, who was only a cub, got caught in a wildebeest stampede and
Mufasa tried to save him, but they both died.”
“So who is king now?” asked Mtaalamu.
“It’s Scar, Mufasa’s brother,” Nguvu continued.
“We used to be in touch with them,” noted Mwongozi, “but as you can tell we haven’t heard from them in a while. So what was it you were telling me about hyenas?”
Nguvu looked toward the Pride Lands and let out a sigh of resignation. “Scar seems to have this thing about lions and hyenas living together.”
“Most unusual,” Mwongozi remarked. “How is it working out?”
“Not too good from what I can tell. But Scar won’t give up.”
“How are the lionesses handling it?”
“Well, I see them out hunting a lot, certainly more than they ever had to under Mufasa, and even more so lately. Seems they’re having to look harder to find enough to eat.”
“Do you know about any of the lionesses in particular?” asked Mwongozi.
“Unfortunately,” said Nguvu, “we leopards don’t mingle with the lions that much. The only lioness I know by name is Sarabi, Mufasa’s widow. She seems to be doing fine, considering. I don’t know the names of any of the others, though there are a couple I know by sight.”
Mwongozi was disappointed with this response. He knew some of the lionesses from Pride Rock, including Sarabi, but there was one in particular who had a special place in his heart, and he had hoped to hear some news about her.
Nguvu offered, “For what it’s worth, I remember two lionesses dying a while back. That would have been while Mufasa was still king. I don’t know of any dying or leaving more recently.”
I hope she wasn’t one of them, thought Mwongozi. Probably not, he surmised, since Mufasa knew of their friendship and would have sent word if anything bad had happened to her. Still, the possibility worried him somewhat. Even if it wasn’t really what Mwongozi had hoped to find out from the leopards, it was something. Besides, Nguvu couldn’t very well tell what he didn’t know.
Sarafina returned from the day’s hunt to find Nala with Hadhari, the oldest lioness in the pride, and Mshairi, a young lioness who had made it to adulthood with more than her share of cub spots still intact. “Listening to stories again, Nala?”
Hadhari smiled. “I was just sharing a few stories with Mshairi about King Mohatu’s reign.”
“How old were you when he died?” Sarafina asked her.
“Only two. I remember him all right, but I wasn’t old enough to understand a lot of what was going on at the time, and of course a lot happened before I was born. Most of what I know about him I heard from others in the pride after he died.” Hadhari turned to Mshairi. “Especially your grandmother Shairi. She was quite a storyteller too, you know.”
“Yes, my father used to talk about her a lot,” Mshairi replied.
“I was named after her.”
“What’s Tarishi up to these days?” asked Hadhari.
“Haven’t heard from him in a while,” Mshairi replied. “As far as I know he’s still living with the Sunrise Coalition.”
Sarafina looked at Nala. “You really like hearing these stories, don’t you?”
“I like it best when you tell stories about when you grew up.”
Sarafina, tired from the hunt, looked down at her daughter and gave an exhausted sigh. “Can you wait till tomorrow?”
Nala pondered for a moment. “Yeah, that’s okay.”
“I’ll tell one if you like,” said Mshairi.
Sarafina gave her a look of mild exasperation. “You think you can tell MY story better than ME?”
The funny thing was, it was true, and everyone in the pride knew it. And not just of Sarafina but of everyone else, except perhaps Hadhari. Mshairi lived to hear the stories of others, both fact and fiction, and to tell them to others the best she could. Despite her relatively young age, she had become quite a storehouse not only of entertainment but history as well.
But Mshairi wasn’t blind to the workings of a mother/daughter relationship. “Would you rather tell her one yourself?”
“All right,” sighed Sarafina. “We were out exploring one day…”
As usual, when Mshairi wasn’t the one telling the story she listened intently for anything new.
When Sarafina finished her story, Nala spoke up. “Thanks, Mom. That was neat!”
“Want me to tell you one about Simba?” Mshairi offered.
“Yeah!” Nala shouted, always anxious to hear about her friend and former playmate.
“I thought you would. This one happened when he was about three months old…”
It had been a while since Rafiki had worked on his painting of the gorge, but he took another look at it. “Ahhh, here,” he said, as he spotted a place to draw a path. As he started to draw it, he noticed it wasn’t going in the direction he’d hoped to make it go. Maybe that’s why it had taken him so long to notice it. “Hmmm,” he mused. After studying it and thinking for a moment and seeing nothing better, he went ahead and drew the path there. “Must be a way out of gorge. Better than no way at all.”
Simba was just over two years old and was showing the beginnings of a mane. He was a lot happier now, having fun with Timon and Pumbaa every day, and not thinking too much about his father or his past. He was actually becoming quite protective of them, wary of anything that came too close to their part of the jungle that might be a danger to Timon and Pumbaa. Every now and then he would become a little sad or homesick, but, he thought, just give it more time and it will be ancient history. After all he’d come a long way since he arrived at this jungle and found these two friends. Hakuna Matata. No responsibilities. Life was easy. He sometimes thought about the Pride Lands and the pride he’d left behind, but his thoughts didn’t usually go much beyond “I hope they’re doing okay”, though occasionally he wondered about Nala and thought it might be nice to see her again.
One day they decided to follow the river upstream from the pool where they liked to swim. From the top of the waterfall above the pool, they passed several rapids, climbed above another waterfall, and continued beyond more rapids. When they came to the bottom of a third waterfall, they decided they were tired of climbing and headed off to one side. They soon crested a ridge and from there it was downhill. Even though they weren’t familiar with this territory, they weren’t worried about being able to find their way back home. At one point Pumbaa and Simba were feeling a little lost when suddenly Timon exclaimed, “Holy mackerel, how did we end up HERE.”
“What do you mean? Where is ‘here’?” Simba asked.
Timon laid down low on Pumbaa’s back. “Go over toward that clearing up ahead,” he instructed. Simba crept up silently, using the low hanging foliage for cover. When they reached a safe vantage point at the edge of the clearing, they stopped.
“Look!” said Timon, pointing at the grassy area before them.
“I don’t see anything,” said Pumbaa.
“Just stay quiet and keep watching.”
A few seconds later, Pumbaa and Simba, who were about the same height at this stage of Simba’s growth, saw the movement at the same time. “It’s another meerkat,” whispered Pumbaa.
“Precisely. This is the colony I used to live in.”
“Oh!” whispered Pumbaa.
“As long as we’re here,” Simba whispered, “did you want to drop in for a visit?”
“I don’t know,” Timon replied. “I never figured on being back up this way.”
“Don’t you ever miss your old home?” Simba asked.
“No… Well, sometimes… I don’t know.” Timon was trying to sound like his usual self despite mixed feelings. “I don’t think they’d
wanna see me.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Simba replied morosely.
The tone of Simba’s voice was not lost on Pumbaa, but he didn’t get a chance to ask about it.
“Hey, it’s gettin’ late,” said Timon, trying to change the subject. “We better go see if our part of the jungle is still there.”
“Yeah, my hooves are hurting,” added Pumbaa.
“All right, let’s go,” Simba agreed. Hakuna Matata.
What Simba didn’t know was that he was at the age when an easy, responsibility free life had the greatest appeal. Soon he would turn the corner and begin to realize there must be more to life than this. Then the lessons his father and mother had taught him would start to come back. And so would the memories.
As the lion reached the edge of the Pride Lands, he noticed that things looked a little different, a little more run down, than they had on his previous visits. He looked at the savannah around him, at the scattered trees and rock formations, and noticed that things just didn’t seem quite as… how could he describe it? … not quite as alive.
There was ample evidence of hyenas roaming the area where there had been little or none before. “Nguvu was right,” sighed Mwongozi. He didn’t want to believe it, but it wasn’t hard to see why the leopard wanted to leave.
Looking over, he spied a few vultures and decided to investigate. As he approached, he discovered four hyenas crowded around a wildebeest carcass, with about two dozen vultures waiting their turn to scavenge from it. One of the hyenas looked up an saw him.
“Hey! You! Get out of here.”
“What’s the problem,” Mwongozi replied calmly. “I’m only here for a visit.”
“You’re not welcome here!” the hyena replied. “Boss’s orders.”
“Sorry, but I don’t have to answer to a bunch of hyenas,” Mwongozi asserted.
“I’m talkin’ about Scar. And he says no visitors. So go on back where you came from.”
“How about I go and talk to Scar myself, then?”
“What’s with you, lion. I said GET OUT.”
Mwongozi decided to try a gambit. He turned away from them and began walking in the direction of Pride Rock.
The hyena who had been speaking and one other bound over in front of him. “Can’t you hear? You’re not allowed in here!”
“You know, I could easily overpower the four of you,” Mwongozi pointed out.
“Yeah, but we could get twenty more hyenas to rip you apart. You’d never make it halfway to the rock,” said the hyena, meaning Pride Rock - like many of the hyenas he avoided referring to it by name.
“Okay, how about you go and tell Scar I would like to have an audience with him.”
“Nothin’ doin’, lion. Just get the heck out like I told you.”
Mwongozi regarded the hyena carefully. From what he knew of the behavior of hyenas he didn’t doubt what this one said about getting twenty more. “All right. I’m leaving,” he said, as he turned to walk back toward the mountain where he lived.
After retreating to a short distance outside the Pride Lands, Mwongozi stopped, lay down and rested as he looked toward Pride Rock, and took stock of the situation. Scar obviously didn’t want any visitors to the Pride Lands, or at least not any males. Did he regard visitors as a threat? Mwongozi certainly had no designs on the Pride Lands. All he wanted to do was visit a friend, and it wouldn’t bother him if he had to speak to Scar, which he probably would want to do anyway after what he’d seen and heard about the Pride Lands. Yet he wasn’t even being allowed that option.
He surveyed the horizon and noticed a movement. It was a hyena, one of the ones he’d encountered moments earlier, and it was evidently monitoring him to make sure he didn’t try sneaking some other way around to get into the Pride Lands. Mwongozi sighed. Whether by design or by accident, Scar had erected a pretty effective defense against any visitors. These hyenas would do whatever they had to do to enforce Scar’s wishes; they were stubborn and not intelligent enough to reason with, so they were nearly impossible to get through to even talk to Scar. It wouldn’t surprise him if Scar wanted it this way, as he had known leaders who regarded those who would question them as a nuisance they’d rather not have to deal with. I could teach him a thing or two, thought Mwongozi, if he had any desire to learn.
The possibility of finding a way in crossed his mind. He could shake off this hyena that was staking him out, then try to sneak in. But it would be risky, and having seen him once the hyenas might not give him the option to flee this time. Still, he could probably find a way in if he thought about it long enough.
On the other hand, Scar was the king here and could make whatever laws he wanted, right or wrong. Mwongozi was not one to challenge kings just because he could. He respected their kingdoms and felt that as an outsider if he didn’t agree with something the most he could do was offer his opinion. Though he could imagine there might be situations where he would challenge a king, the situation he was presently faced with certainly wasn’t one of them.
Reluctantly, he stood up and began the return trip to his mountain home and his coalition.
Chapter 3. Passages
Ever since Scar became king, Rafiki didn’t feel right about helping him. There was something that just didn’t feel quite right about him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. There was also the issue of the hyenas - a bastardization of the Circle of Life if he’d ever seen one. Sure, Scar had his seemingly noble purpose of lion and hyena living together, but that too left him with the feeling there was something else going on. Finally, Scar didn’t seem that interested in the old mandrill’s help.
Still, he couldn’t ignore the plight of the lionesses. He’d watch over them and do what little he could to assist in their survival, but there was only so much he could do without appearing to aid a king who neither desired nor deserved his support.
After observing the lionesses one day, he went back near his baobab tree to tend another tree from which he often collected fruit to eat. This particular tree had several pieces that had been growing bigger for many days. He studied them in anticipation of the day they’d be big enough to eat, when he noticed that one of them had already begun to rot on the branch.
Rafiki looked at it closer. “Hmmm… Lost dat one.”
There hadn’t been any rain in the savannah for over a month. Normally a drought like this didn’t make it that much more difficult since it affected the animals the lions hunted as much or more than the lions themselves. This time, however, the herds were already quite depleted, and what was left of them consisted mostly of animals who were stronger and healthier to begin with and better able to survive the drought, so it only made matters worse for the lions.
“Nothing,” said Thabiti dejectedly as the tired hunting party rejoined the rest of the pride.
“What are we going to do?” asked Mshairi. “We’re almost out of food.”
“We’ll just have to share what we have,” Sarafina sighed.
Hadhari was lying tired and weak at the base of a nearby tree. “You can have mine,” she said. “You’ll need the energy for the next hunt.”
“No!” cried Mshairi and Taraja together. “If you don’t eat,” Mshairi went on, “you’ll starve to death.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve lived a long and happy life, and my time is near. You’ve still got plenty of life ahead of you.”
This situation had been developing for quite some time. Hadhari was not as strong anymore as she used to be, and it hurt her joints too much to spend a lot of time out and about. She’d been able to go along for the hunts sometimes as recently as just before the drought began, and could help stalk and ground their prey if it didn’t take them long to locate some. Otherwise, she could not endure the longer hunts and would have to return and rest while the other lionesses continued their hunt. She was particularly proud of herself one day when she left the group to return to the grove of acacia trees near Pride Rock, when purely by accident she happened upon a group of gazelles. She returned to the hunting party, led them to the gazelles and they caught a couple of days worth of meals. Thus she got to be the hunter of the day one last time.
But that was months earlier. It had been over two moons since she had last contributed to a successful hunt, and she felt very bad to have to depend on the other lionesses to bring her food. Thus she would sometimes refuse her meals, insisting that the lionesses who would be going out on the next hunt needed the energy more than she did. As a result of this, she had become weak and malnourished, yet even as death threatened she persisted in this practice.
Sarabi observed this and was greatly saddened that their friend would probably be leaving them soon, but she knew better than to challenge Hadhari’s intentions. Hadhari had discussed her feelings at length with her and seemed to be quite at peace with herself. But the younger lionesses had more difficulty accepting Hadhari’s fate.
Akili looked on and felt very distressed. For the third time in a week she hadn’t been able to locate any prey, and now the toll it was taking on the lionesses was staring back at her in Hadhari’s weak form. She knew Hadhari would never blame her, but that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty for failing to meet her self-imposed responsibility. To her, Hadhari was as important a member of the pride as the others who could still hunt. She had much wisdom and many stories to share with the group, and Akili couldn’t bear the thought that Hadhari might die because of her. She wandered away from the group into the savannah and began crying.
Taraja saw her best friend leave and got up to follow her.
“I’ve got to find something,” sobbed Akili. “We can’t just let her die like that.”
Taraja tried to reassure her. “It’s not your fault. You’ve helped us find food when no one else could more times than I can count. If it hadn’t been for you, Hadhari would have starved a long time ago, and maybe some of the rest of us too.”
“But they were counting on me and I failed,” Akili uttered.
“It’s not your fault the herds are getting so hard to find. With all those hyenas to feed something like this was bound to happen.” Taraja’s voice turned angry. “Why is he…” Taraja wanted to lash out at Scar, but decided this wasn’t the time and stopped herself.
They didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Finally, Akili got up and looked out at the savannah. “I’m going back out to look some more.”
“Are you crazy?” Taraja exclaimed. “You’ve been out hunting all day and you look exhausted.”
“I know, but I have to try.”
Taraja had stayed behind that day with Hadhari and so wasn’t as tired. “Let me go with you then. Even if you do find anything you’ll have a heck of a time grounding it by yourself,” she observed. “I’ll see if I can get anyone else to come along.” And please don’t let anything happen to Hadhari while we’re out.
Taraja thought about who else she should ask. The older lionesses would probably think it was a foolish waste of time and try to talk them out of it. Maybe they’d be right, she mused, but decided her friend needed her support more than she needed reason. Mshairi might go along, but she had also been out on the hunt that day too and would be tired. That left Nala, who had barely reached adulthood. She was becoming quite a hunter and had stayed home that day, so she’d be the best one to ask. Nala agreed.
Nala returned with Taraja, and the three of them set off. They hunted as best they could under the cover of darkness, which would have made it easier to stalk their prey if they had found any, but they didn’t. They searched well into the night, and finally returned in the early morning hours, exhausted and with nothing to show for their efforts.
They awoke late the next morning to find that no hunting party had gone out. Instead, everyone was gathered around Hadhari. Akili was the last to awaken, and when she approached, Hadhari spoke to her. “Thank you, child. You are truly great and your persistence shall not go unrewarded.”
Akili found it difficult to look at her. “I’m sorry, Hadhari. I tried.” But not hard enough.
“Akili, come over here, please. You have a talent and you must keep using it for the rest of the pride. You didn’t know it, but twice before I was ready to give myself up when you and the hunting party came back with a meal, one they probably wouldn’t have found without you. Don’t lose heart, child. You are important to all of us.”
“Thank you,” she breathed. Akili felt a little better, but she was used to holding herself to higher standards than others held her to, and at this moment it was hard for her not to feel inadequate.
Later that afternoon, Hadhari breathed her last. Even Scar was present and had Zazu with him to see her one last time. Taraja was with Hadhari nuzzling her and licking her fur. At the moment she felt Hadhari’s breathing and heartbeat stop, her intermittent tears became a steady flow and her licking intensified as if doing so would put some life back into her body.
Akili again went off by herself and cried bitterly. Nala soon noticed her absence and came looking for her. When she saw Akili, she knew right away that her crying wasn’t just mourning for the loss of one of their own. “Are you okay?” asked Nala.
It took a minute for Akili to get an answer out through her tears. “It’s my fault,” she finally said.
“No, it’s not. You did everything you could. She was able to live longer because of you.”
Akili stared off into space, not responding right away to Nala’s reassurances.
“Akili, you gave a hundred and fifty percent. If my life depended on finding something to eat, I wouldn’t want anyone on my team more than you. If you couldn’t do it, no one could.”
Akili let out a heavy sigh. She was finally starting to calm down and let go of some of her guilt
They continued talking and sharing their feelings for a while, and were later joined by Taraja, whose support helped even more. After a while, Akili felt more at peace with herself. She thanked the other two, and Nala and Taraja were able to let out some of their own feelings about Hadhari’s death. And while Nala had been trying to convince a friend she wasn’t responsible for the death of another, she couldn’t know that she would soon be facing another very similar situation, one that would present a much greater challenge.
Later that evening, Scar addressed the pride about the loss of Hadhari. He spoke of how hard times visit upon creatures from time to time, and about how it was part of the Circle of Life. But not everyone there found comfort in his words. All Taraja could think about was the things Scar had done, the decisions he had made, that had brought on the hard times. In her usual manner of trying to see the good in things, Taraja felt certain that Hadhari was in a better place now, but at times she got tired of being the optimist and at this moment felt anger at Scar whose leadership had resulted in a death sooner than it should have. And it angered her that Scar’s words didn’t carry the slightest hint of remorse or admission that Hadhari might have lived longer if he had done anything differently. Did he really think the Pride Lands could support the lions AND the hyenas?
Nala was having thoughts of her own too. Hadhari was getting old and probably wouldn’t have lived that much longer anyway. But if this keeps up, the rest of the pride will starve too, even the youngest. And if Scar won’t to do anything to save us or the Pride Lands, some one else had better. She began to think about what she might do.
That night, Nala, Taraja, Akili and Mshairi were keeping each other company as each of them continued to deal in their own way with the death of their friend. Taraja was a little upset with herself for letting her feelings get away from her, even though on reflection she had good reason for it. One lioness was dead because of Scar, and her best friend blamed herself for it. But there was another thing.
“You know,” said Taraja, “I’d like to have cubs sometime. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get the chance.”
“I know what you mean,” Mshairi replied. “I’ve been ready for that for a while, and if we have to wait much longer we’ll be too old.”
Nala and Akili nodded. They wanted cubs too someday. The way their leonine instincts worked they would seek a mate and try to have cubs when times were good and they’d be easy to take care of, but would forego producing offspring in more difficult times. The first season after Scar became king things weren’t looking good due to the thinning herds, so Akili and Mshairi waited, hoping for a better year. But by the following year, when Taraja was old enough, and each year since then, the Pride Lands had gotten steadily worse and these lionesses weren’t getting any younger. It didn’t help that none of them were attracted to Scar and he wouldn’t allow them to seek a mate elsewhere, but that was a secondary issue.
It also didn’t help that another tragedy had struck the Pride Lands shortly before Simba and Nala were born. Thabiti tried and failed to conceive. Then a mysterious illness killed two lionesses. One of them, Kilinge, had been pregnant, and her death left Sarabi and Sarafina as the only lionesses to bear cubs that year. The other was Njozi, Taraja’s mother, leaving Taraja an orphan at less than two years of age. The other lionesses pitched in to raise her, especially Hadhari and Akili, who were like a grandmother and a big sister to her respectively. After Taraja reached adulthood she and Akili kept up their relationship as best friends but remained devoted to Hadhari.
Nala looked at the lack of cubs in the pride from her viewpoint as the youngest. She and Simba had been the last ones to be born, and if the pride didn’t die of starvation, the Circle of Life would come to an end for them in a few more years from a lack of young to replace the old. She had more time than the others, but at the rate things were going that might end up meaning she would have to live through the most as the Pride Lands fell further into ruin. Then the hyenas would take over the place, and Pride Rock would become Clan Rock - a thought too revolting to think about. Well maybe some other lions could move in and establish a pride; that was a more bearable thought, but it wouldn’t be HER pride anymore.
Simba was virtually full grown now, and his mane was filling in nicely. This life of no worries and no responsibilities was okay, but it was… well, it just wasn’t giving him any real satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. Is this all there is? Surely there must be more to life than this, some greater purpose for his existence.
Actually, there was one higher purpose he couldn’t avoid thinking about. At one time he was supposed to be the king of Pride Rock. But he didn’t see any way that could still be in his future. He had killed his father, or at least he thought of it that way sometimes, even though he knew he hadn’t and wouldn’t have done anything deliberately to kill him. It was a past he couldn’t bear to face. There was no way his pride would take him back after that.
Simba wondered if Timon and Pumbaa ever thought about what the purpose of their lives was. The whole concept of Hakuna Matata seemed to go against it. They were friends to Simba when he needed it the most, teaching him how to survive in the jungle and all the while helping him as best they could through a difficult time. But there were some ways they couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t reveal his darkest secret to them, and that was something he’d been afraid to do.
Eventually Simba would come to the realization that his past wasn’t going leave him alone and sooner or later he would have to face it. But he wasn’t there yet. So for now he dismissed the possibility of returning to Pride Rock and went on searching for something else, hoping that there WAS still something else and that he hadn’t missed his one and only chance.
The Foothills Coalition were affected by the same drought that left the Pride Lands dry, and were likewise having a more difficult than usual time finding food. They hadn’t killed anything in over a week, when one day they cornered a small group of impala in a narrow gorge with steep sides. The impala were trying to climb to their escape as Mwongozi closed in. One had climbed to a low ledge, and with no place else to go it suddenly turned and attacked Mwongozi. He saw the attack coming and reared up to deflect the charging impala, but a loose rock caused him to lose his footing and the impala caught him off balance, goring him badly in the chest with one of its horns. Mtaalamu immediately leapt on the impala and broke its neck with his powerful jaws, but the damage was done. One of Mwongozi’s lungs had been punctured, and he could barely speak or move and was coughing up blood.
It was almost a week before they made another kill. The coalition had decided they needed to leave their home temporarily for somewhere else where there was more game to hunt, and would have already left had it not been for Mwongozi’s wound which made it impossible for him to hunt and difficult for him to travel. He seemed to be getting better so they waited, hoping that in a few more days he would be able to go with them.
“Any ideas where we should go?” Mtaalamu posed.
“Certainly not Pride Rock,” Mwongozi replied. “From what I can tell the drought is as bad or worse there as it is here.” Then he began pondered the thought. “I wonder how Sarafina and the rest of the pride are doing.”
“How long has it been?” Mtaalamu reflected.
“About three and a half years,” he replied.
“Holy cow,” Mtaalamu muttered. “Time passes so quickly.”
They discussed other possibilities and decided they would probably do best to head toward a great river a ways to the north of the mountain. It was just a matter of waiting for the right time to go.
But over the next five days they didn’t make a single kill, and Mwongozi’s wound became infected, making him very sick.
“I’m sorry to do this to you right now,” said Mtaalamu, “but there’s no way we can put this off any longer. We have to go now to where we can find food before we become too weak to travel.”
“Bad timing for me,” gasped Mwongozi, “but you’re right. We have no choice.” He groaned and winced in pain as he stood up. “I’ll give it my best shot, but whatever happens, the three of you must insure your own survival.”
They started off traveling around the west side of the mountain. But travel, which was slow enough anyway in the hilly terrain, was slowed down further by Mwongozi’s condition. The infection had reached his lung and breathing was painful. He couldn’t talk and walk at the same time, and at one point he collapsed while climbing a hill.
After resting a little while he summoned enough strength to stand up and continue the rest of the way up the hill. By then, however, he was close to collapsing again. So after stopping to catch his breath he walked over to some shade trees where there was a small trickle coming from a nearby spring, and lay down.
“I cannot go on,” he told them. He spoke gently, though it was very laborious for him to speak at all in his condition. “You guys will have to make do without me. I’m slowing you down too much, and this travel is making it worse. Mtaalamu, Amani, Wema, please don’t risk your lives worrying about me. You must go on.”
It was obvious to the other three lions what the likely outcome of leaving Mwongozi behind in his condition was, but there was nothing else they could do. The great river was too far away to consider commuting. But even if they could, or for that matter if they didn’t have to go at all, it was questionable whether it would have made any difference. Mtaalamu, Amani and Wema nuzzled him, hoping for a miracle but not really expecting one. He shared some more words of wisdom with them, words about leadership, about teaching each other, about respect for each other and lions everywhere, and various other aspects of life. Even though it was painful for him and they were words he’d shared with them many times before, it was something that gave him satisfaction for what would probably be his last conversation with his companions. Finally, it came time for the other three to move on. Mwongozi’s last words to Mtaalamu were, “If you see Sarafina, tell her I miss her.”
Mtaalamu cried as they spent their last moments together. All of them were greatly saddened of course, but he had lived with Mwongozi the longest of the three of them and as their new leader would miss the leadership and guidance of Mwongozi the most.
Their new leader. He looked up at Wema and Amani, who at the moment were wrapped up in their own thoughts of losing Mwongozi. He would be their leader now - that thought scared him a little, but it was unavoidable. Of course Amani and Wema had been part of the group for quite some time now and as Mwongozi had taught them they would lead themselves and help each other most of the time. The real challenge would be when they got a newcomer.
But that was in the future. For now they had to take the extraordinarily difficult step of leaving their long time leader, teacher and friend behind for the sake of their own survival. Mtaalamu and the others finally convinced themselves to move on. Despite their heavy hearts they were able to make much better time. Mwongozi wasn’t that young, but he should have had a few good years left in him.
Mwongozi got as comfortable as he could, though his wound made this very difficult, lying where his mouth could reach the tiny stream. He looked around at this small part of the lands he had roamed for the last several years, listening to the sounds around him and smelling the breeze. He sometimes coughed, very painfully and often producing fluids, but he usually suppressed the urge to cough as less unpleasant than the pain of coughing. Eventually, night fell, and he fell asleep.
Mwongozi didn’t wake up again.
The next morning when the sun rose, Mwongozi felt no more pain. He was looking down on his own body, which he realized was no longer his. Vultures and other scavengers would be here soon. They can have it, he thought. I don’t need it anymore.
He discovered in his new form he could go just about anywhere quickly and easily, and without any of the pain his aging body had been beginning to give him, much less what he had been suffering in his final days. First he went to check on the rest of his coalition, which he observed was making good progress. Then he looked ahead of them to the great river. Plenty of food and water, a few other big cats - he thought he recognized Nguvu - but plenty of room here for all to roam without getting too territorial. He didn’t know yet if or how he could help his now former companions, but it didn’t look like that would be necessary.
Then he remembered Pride Rock. He hadn’t been there in a long time and wondered how many of the lionesses he knew were still alive. So he went back in that direction, and looked over the place to see how many lionesses he could recognize. There was Sarabi, looking rather disenchanted but still healthy. Thabiti looked as strong as ever. And of course there was Sarafina, as beautiful as he remembered her even if she was a bit emaciated as they all were. Where were Njozi and Kilinge? They must be the two that Nguvu had told him about. He didn’t recognize any of the other lionesses, and some them had to be several years old. Had it really been that long since he’d visited this place?
This place! It was in awful shape. The drought had taken its toll to be sure, but clearly that wasn’t the only problem here. No herds!
Just a clan of hyenas. What are they doing still here? He recalled hearing about them from Nguvu, and his experience with them when he
tried to visit, but it was still a shock to see how many there were, and what really surprised him was that they were apparently being allowed to roam freely despite the shortage of prey and the hardship it created for the lions. And there is their king Taka, now known as Scar, lying in his cave. Shouldn’t he be doing something about this? It was almost unbearable for him to see lions forced to live under conditions like this, especially when one of them had been one of his best friends. If there were a way to help those still among the living, he decided, this pride needed it more than his coalition.
Mwongozi looked again at the lionesses, and noticed he felt a strong connection with the youngest one, something he didn’t understand at first but which he could tell must be very significant. But before he had a chance to figure out what it was, he sensed there was another looking down on the Pride Lands beside him, one with a greater stake in it than him. The other spoke first.
“Mwongozi!”
“Mufasa!”
Mufasa explained to him what had been happening here and how things had gotten to be the way they were. He also told him the young lioness’s name was Nala, and why he felt the connection with her.
Chapter 4. Father
Once again, Rafiki looked at his painting of a gorge with a path leading out of it, trying to find a path to the right spot on the edge. Earlier he had dismissed the idea of continuing the path he’d drawn earlier along the edge of the gorge to that spot, but now he reconsidered it. He drew it in lightly and studied it. After thinking about it a little, he decided it would work after all. He drew it in better. “Not very direct, but it gets there,” he observed.
One day Simba successfully stalked and killed a topi antelope. It was his favorite but he didn’t see them very often in this jungle. This was only the third time he’d killed one and unlike the previous two he had done it cleanly, without sustaining any kicks or gouges from his prey. He wondered if he could eat the whole thing, but it turned out that even for a male finishing his last major growth spurt a whole topi was too much to eat at once.
Timon and Pumbaa had discovered a huge stash of bugs which they would have gladly shared with Simba, but when they found out Simba was more interested in his antelope they were able to gorge themselves all the more.
After the three of them ate all they could, they laid down on the grass together and looked up at the night sky. Simba gave out a loud belch.
“Whoa. Nice one, Simba,” said Timon.
“Thanks. Man, I’m stuffed,” he replied.
“Me too. I ate like a pig,” added Pumbaa.
“Pumbaa, you are a pig,” Simba pointed out.
“Oh, right.”
They took in the night air together, three friends sharing a moment. They felt very much at peace. Life was great. No worries. At least not until, by accident, the discussion wandered into something that had been bothering Simba more and more lately.
“Timon?” said Pumbaa.
“What?” replied Timon.
“Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?”
“Pumbaa, I don’t wonder. I know.”
“Oh. What are they?”
“They’re fireflies. Fireflies that… got stuck up on that big, bluish-black… thing.”
“Oh, gee. I always thought that they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.” As usual, Pumbaa was too slow-witted to realize he was often the smarter of the two of them.
“Pumbaa, with you, everything’s gas.”
“Simba,” said Pumbaa, “what do you think?”
This discussion was already starting to bring back memories - the kind he had usually avoided sharing with Timon and Pumbaa. “Well, I don’t know…”
“Aww, come on,” Timon and Pumbaa pleaded.
Simba shifted around nervously, not sure he wanted to do this, but the others kept after him. Reluctantly, he shared his memory. “Well, somebody once told me that the great kings of the past are up there, watching over us.”
“Really?” said Pumbaa.
“You mean a bunch of royal dead guys are up there, watching us?” said Timon. He couldn’t help himself, and broke out laughing. Pumbaa followed his lead and started laughing too. Simba tried to laugh with them, hoping the moment would pass. Timon continued, “Who told you something like that? What mook made that up?”
“Pretty dumb, huh?” said Simba, trying to play along, but his heart wasn’t in it. By this time his memories and old feelings were
back full force.
Timon wasn’t looking at Simba, so he didn’t see the unease this was causing Simba. “You’re killing me, Simba”.
By this time Simba was lost in his own thoughts. He could have gotten mad at his friends, but then he knew them too well not to have expected that something like this might happen. It was himself, his own past, that he was really upset with, and it wasn’t their fault he’d never told them why he was an outcast. Simba had been thinking more about telling them, waiting for a while, hoping a good opportunity to arise, but the time never seemed right. He got up and looked for a place to be alone with his thoughts.
“Was it something I said?” wondered Timon aloud, realizing a moment too late that once again he had gotten too caught up in a good
laugh to notice the effect it was having on one of his best friends.
Timon wondered if he would ever understand this lion. Simba had become something of an enigma to him and Pumbaa. He never really seemed very happy. Quite often he could laugh and have fun with them, but at other times he was moody and unpredictable, with bouts of depression that lately seemed to be more frequent.
Simba walked a short distance away among the rocks and bushes until he found a grassy spot on an overlook. He looked up at the stars again. Was his father really up there watching over him? He knew that Mufasa had expected him to become king someday - what would Mufasa think of him now? Would he still expect him to be king? It seemed impossible after what had happened, after the way his father died. The only way he could find out if his pride would still expect him to be king, or even accept him as one of them, was to go back to Pride Rock, but he just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t face his homeland. His pride. His past. On the other hand, could he go through the rest of his life, wondering and living with his guilt? Unlike the adolescent lion he was a year earlier, he knew he couldn’t just ignore it and hope it would go away. But he couldn’t bear the thought of having to face his past, either. Trapped by his past, there didn’t seem to be a way out.
Simba let out a heavy sigh and flopped down on the grass near the ledge, churning up a cloud of dust, leaves and milkweed floss. The night breeze began carrying the cloud off the north.
But a gust of wind from one side dispersed the cloud, scattering it around the desert floor. Just a small, seemingly insignificant breeze, but it was the proverbial flap of a butterfly’s wing, enough to change the course of events from what they might have been. And Simba would soon learn that there can be more than one way to face your past.
High in his baobab tree, Rafiki studied the winds, the clouds when there were any, and the plants, animals, birds and insects around him, as well as scanning the horizons frequently for any signs of what was to come. Ever since Hadhari’s death he had an increasing sense that something important was going to happen soon to change things, so he’d been studying the signs more diligently for some clue as to what it might be or whether he was expected to play a part in it. On this day, however, the signs told him nothing new. Were they holding back, or had he overlooked something important? Rafiki continued to watch.
Except for a couple of light sprinkles, it had now been three months since there had been any rain in the Pride Lands. The hyenas were back complaining to Scar again. “Hey, Boss,” grumbled Banzai, “We got a bone to pick with you.”
“I’ll handle this,” Shenzi said to him. Turning to Scar, she went on, “Scar, there’s no food, no water…”
“Yeah,” continued Banzai, “it’s dinner time, and we ain’t got no stinkin’ entrees!”
Scar was getting exasperated. This is getting old, he thought. “It’s the lionesses’ job to do the hunting,” he replied.
“Yeah, but they won’t go hunt,” Banzai complained. In a sense, this was true. The number of unsuccessful hunts of late had increased to the point where lionesses had developed a pretty good instinct for whether they were likely to find anything on a given day, and if things didn’t look promising after a brief outing, they returned to take it easy and conserve their strength.
But Scar still wouldn’t admit there was anything wrong. He would blame the lionesses or the drought or anything but himself for the current situation, and he wasn’t willing to consider the obvious choices for a way to get out. They could leave Pride Rock, but after what he’d gone through to become king he wasn’t about to walk away from it. He could tell the hyenas to leave the Pride Lands, but that would mean reneging on his promise to them, as well as admitting that his vision of lion and hyena living together was a failure. Thus by default he was taking a third course of action, which was to do nothing and persist in his belief that the problems would go away and things would get better on their own. But the lionesses knew better.
“Sarabi!” shouted Scar angrily from the rock.
In the shadows of a nearby tree, Sarabi sighed, “I’m really getting tired of this.”
Sarafina had seen this played out several times in the preceding weeks. “Let me see if I can handle him this time,” she offered.
“You don’t have to do that,” replied Sarabi, but Sarafina was already on her way up to the rock. She walked between the hyenas, who mostly just looked at her. Three of them sitting together began to growl as she walked by, but she paused, and looked at them calmly. They stopped right away.
“What can we do for you, Scar?” asked Sarafina politely.
Scar had been all ready to let loose on Sarabi, and at the sight of Sarafina he was only slightly calmed and somewhat irritated that Sarabi hadn’t come up herself. “Where is your hunting party!” he growled. “They’re not doing their jobs.”
“Sarabi and I maintain that we’re all doing our jobs the best we know how. There just aren’t many herds in the Pride Lands these days.”
“Yes, of course,” replied Scar, unfazed. “So why aren’t you out looking for the ones that are there?”
“I’ll tell you what, Scar. Why don’t you come along with us tomorrow and see for yourself,” she suggested.
“I have other responsibilities as king. I can’t afford to be spending my time doing your job,” growled Scar. “Your hunting party hardly spent any time out hunting today.”
“Hunting requires energy,” explained Sarafina, “so we hunt when there is something to hunt for. We can’t be wasting our energy trying to hunt on days when there’s nothing to be found. Today was one of those days. We have to conserve our energy for more promising days.”
“Well that just won’t do!” shouted Scar. “Send your party back out!”
Sarafina was getting impatient. “If you make us go out on days like this you will be working us to death.”
“The hyenas are hungry.”
“Well why don’t you just tell the hyenas to go out and find their own food!” Sarafina shot back.
“Infidel!” shouted Scar angrily, as he lunged forward, raised a paw and attempted to strike her. “I am king, and you will do what I
tell you.”
Sarafina was shocked at his reaction, but agile enough to dodge his blow. She jumped back several yards, never taking her eyes off him.
Scar thought about trying again, but restrained himself, though he kept a threatening scowl on his face. Sarafina glared back at Scar. She wasn’t strong enough to win a fight with Scar, nor did she have any desire to face the consequences of fighting the king, but she was quick and could outmaneuver him if he tried anything else. She studied him, and decided he wasn’t going to, at least if she didn’t give him any more reason to. She also determined that there was no point in trying to reason with him any further. “Yes sir,” she replied in a disgusted but deferential tone. She backed away, still keeping her eyes on him until she stepped down from the rock.
She returned to the rest of the lionesses in tears over the outcome of their conversation. It was the first time Scar had lashed out at her like that. He had done it to Sarabi a few times, but at least Sarabi knew her assertiveness with Scar might sometimes provoke him to react this way and was determined to stand her ground in spite of it. Sarafina’s approach of trying to reason with him and help him understand had never had this result before. What she didn’t realize was that she wasn’t dealing with reason but had run up against Scar’s hidden agendas.
Sarabi had heard enough of their exchange from the shade trees and came over to comfort Sarafina who was quite shaken up and tearful at this point. Sarabi nuzzled up against her friend and purred sympathetically, trying to calm her down.
Nala had heard what happened too and would have been angered enough to hear anyone taking a verbal and attempted physical beating with no more provocation than that, but all the more so because it was her mother. The Pride Lands were in big trouble and all Scar would do about it was to blame something or someone else. She made a decision. If Scar wasn’t going to do anything about it, she would.
After a little time for things to calm down, Nala approached her mother and Sarabi. “We can’t go on like this.”
“I know,” Sarabi replied. “If something doesn’t change soon the rest of us will die.”
“I’ve decided to leave the Pride Lands and go look for help.”
Sarafina looked at Nala as if to say, “You’re doing what!?”
“You can’t just go off like that,” Sarabi commented. “Good or bad, Scar is still the king.”
“I realize that, but are you willing to stand by that view to the point of starving to death?” retorted Nala.
Sarabi shifted uncomfortably. She looked up at the stars for a moment and started to speak, but didn’t get any words out. After an internal struggle, she finally spoke. “Okay, I see what you mean. I’ve lived under two kings before Scar and was taught to always honor and respect the king, so it’s difficult for me to go against that. But it is easier for you, Nala, who have spent most of your life under Scar, to think beyond such limits.”
Nala smiled humbly. Sarabi always seemed to know how to listen to and take advice from the other lionesses without losing any of her dignity.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Sarabi inquired.
This question was one of the reasons Nala had waited so long to present the idea, and she knew it would come up. “No,” she admitted. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Sarafina had been listening and was understandably apprehensive about her daughter taking on such an ambitious and possibly dangerous venture, but decided they couldn’t do worse to make her stay. When this question came up, she knew what to suggest. “Go northeast toward the great mountain and find the coalition of lions that lives in the foothills on this side. They might be willing to help us.”
“What would they do? Challenge Scar for leadership of the Pride?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” said Sarabi. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens.”
Sarafina instructed Nala at length on what landmarks to look for in her journey, how to avoid notice by the hyenas as she left the Pride Lands, and various other things that would be helpful to her. The hyenas couldn’t prevent her from leaving and were more concerned about who might be trying to get into the Pride Lands than who was trying to get out, but they would probably challenge her if they saw her leaving and would certainly report it to Scar, so it was important for her to get out unnoticed.
“Thanks a lot for your help,” said Nala. “I guess I’d better get some sleep.”
“All right. We’ll see you in the morning before you go. Good night, Nala,” her mother said.
They forgot all about going back out to do any more hunting.
That night Nala couldn’t fall asleep. What if she couldn’t find this coalition? What if they wouldn’t come with her? Other questions like these troubled her mind. She looked up at the sky and wondered if there was an answer up there, since she too had been taught that great kings were up there watching over them. Then she heard a voice.
“Nala…”
She looked up and saw a vague figure of a lion, a figure that was barely discernible visually, but looking at it Nala saw in her mind a clear image. “Wha… who are you?”
“Nala… The Foothills Coalition cannot help you now. They have been forced to move elsewhere,” the lion said.
“But my pride needs help. Where shall I go then?”
“Go west. There you will find help.”
“But there’s only desert to the west.”
“No… Where the desert ends, you will find what you seek.”
“How far will I have to go?”
“It is long but you can make it across. All that you have learned has not been for naught, and now your greatest challenge lies ahead of you.” The lion was becoming faint now. “Believe in yourself, Nala. Believe…”
“Who are you?”
“My blood runs through you.”
“Wha… ?”
“Believe…” And then he was gone.
Who was he? Should she believe this lion she didn’t even recognize?
My blood runs through you, he said! Could this have been her father? Isn’t he still alive?
She thought about telling Sarabi and Sarafina right away, but she found them sleeping peacefully. After all they’ve been through they deserve at least that much. Better to let them sleep and wait until morning before troubling them with this and its implications. After a while, Nala finally fell asleep herself.
“West?” Sarabi asked, when Nala first told them which way the lion had directed her. “There is said to be a jungle on the far side of that desert, but I don’t remember the last time anyone tried to cross over to it.”
“I can’t think of anyone who would be able to help us any better than the Foothills Coalition,” said Sarafina. “But if they can’t help us…” Her voice faded, then she asked the other obvious question. “Do you have any idea who the lion was? Mufasa, maybe?” she asked.
“No,” Nala replied. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Mufasa. He said his blood runs through me. Do you think he could be my father?”
Sarafina reacted in shock and dismay.
“What did he look like?” Sarabi asked Nala.
“His mane was very light, just barely darker than his coat. And his eyes, I couldn’t tell what color they were, but it was like… how do I explain it?” She stopped to think. “I was almost like I was looking at my own reflection.”
Sarafina looked at Nala and in her mind confirmed her worst fears. “Mwongozi,” she whispered, struggling to hold back tears.
“Did he say anything else?” asked Sarabi.
“Just one other thing. ‘Believe in yourself’,” Nala recalled.
Sarafina looked up. “Yes, it was definitely him,” she whispered.
“Then it was my father,” gasped Nala.
As Sarafina hid her face to deal with her own emotions, Sarabi explained to Nala. “Such an apparition as you saw is a very rare thing among lionkind, though most lions at least know someone who has experienced one. In all cases there was close connection of some sort between the lions, such as being married, or parent and child. Since it was a lion you didn’t know and you never met your father, it would make perfect sense that it was Mwongozi.” Sarabi paused for a moment, then continued. “Unfortunately, this also means he’s no longer alive. He and your mother were very close friends, and they haven’t seen each other since before you were born. She was hoping to get a chance to visit him again soon and take you to meet him.”
Nala was now saddened too at the thought she would never get to meet her father, and it gave her all the more reason to be angry with Scar since it was he who had not allowed the lionesses to travel outside the Pride Lands - a rule she would be breaking.
After allowing themselves a few moments of silence, they got back to the matter at hand. “So what do you think of what he said? Should I head west?” Nala asked.
“I don’t know. That desert doesn’t look too friendly,” Sarabi noted.
“But I can’t imagine Mwongozi leading us wrong, and from where he is he probably knows things we don’t,” Sarafina reflected. “It doesn’t sound like it would be very promising trying to get help from his coalition. Are you willing to try crossing that desert?”
“I guess so,” said Nala. Though she wasn’t too thrilled at the thought, she desperately wanted to help her pride and the Pride Lands, and she was already becoming curious what she find on the other side.
“Eat and drink well before you go,” advised Sarabi. “That should give you enough strength to journey out for about a day and be able to make it back if it doesn’t look promising.”
Nala caught and ate a few small rodents, thinking it might have to suffice, but then the other lionesses soon returned with a good meal for them all, which she gladly partook of for the added strength it would give her. Perhaps someone watching over them had played a part in that too. Then she went to a spring she knew of and drank as much water as she could. By the time she was ready to leave it was mid-afternoon, later in the day than she had hoped. She said goodbye to the other lionesses, and with some trepidation about what she was embarking upon, she set off. At least leaving by way of the desert had one advantage - the hyenas didn’t patrol that part of the border very carefully since outsiders seldom came from that direction, so it would easier for her to escape their notice.
Chapter 5. Reunion
It was the hottest part of the day, but Nala considered herself fortunate that she was getting through this first when she had the most energy. She traveled on, and eventually the day turned to evening and cooled off. In some places the desert was sand, while in others it was cracked dried mud with a few hardy weeds growing in places. Night fell, and she was getting tired, but she wasn’t about to try sleeping in this terrain. That, plus her desire to find help for the Pride Lands, plus Mwongozi’s words, drove her onward.
The moon was out, which enabled her to make sure she kept moving in the same direction - this was the last place she’d want to find out she was wandering in circles. Sometime after midnight Nala began to notice small patches of savannah-like grass. As she continued, they became larger and more frequent. Finally she reached an area that looked large enough to support some wildlife, and it was then that she looked up and saw a few trees and the outline of jungle and hills ahead of her. A little bit further on she found a small stream, which she sated her thirst from. With her muscles tired and her throat no longer dry, Nala decided that whatever awaited her here could wait until she was rested, and with that she found a comfortable spot in the grass and went to sleep.
Simba rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes. He was soon feeling the familiar haze of sleep creeping over him when he heard a voice. “Simba…” It was a familiar voice, the voice of his father. “Simba…” He heard it again, this time a little louder. It was a dream he’d had many times before, and he always either woke up too soon or too late, and when it was too late it was always his own mind accusing him, reminding him of his past as he believed his father would do. He wished this dream would leave him alone.
But this time something was different, and he didn’t hear Mufasa’s voice again. When Simba tried to force himself to wake up, he suddenly realized he wasn’t asleep. He jerked up his head in surprise and looked at the stars. “Father?”
Only silence. “Father?” he said again desperately, but it was too late.
“Father, I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing he probably wouldn’t get a reply now but hoping his father could at least hear him.
He lay back down, tears welling up in his eyes. “Father, forgive me,” he murmured. At least now he knew that what his father had once told him was true. He was up there watching over him, and Simba could only hope he would be back again soon.
When Nala awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. She was hungry and thirsty but decided to continue toward the jungle, which wasn’t much further and would have more food than she was likely to find here. She soon found another stream that she drank from, and as she continued toward the jungle she found that sources of water were plentiful here. Now to find some food.
As she approached the edge of the jungle, she heard some animals. She crouched down low in the grass and crept carefully forward. Flies were buzzing all around her. She noticed the animals were singing a song about… a lion? Were there lions around here? Then she saw one of the animals, a warthog, stalking something she couldn’t see on a log. She crept up slowly. Then suddenly the warthog saw her and bolted.
She leapt after it in pursuit. She had almost caught it when it did a clever turn against a tree and put some distance between them, but she was still in hot pursuit. Then it got caught under a tree root. Now it would be easy. As she closed in, a meerkat appeared who seemed to be desperately trying to help the warthog. Then she got a big surprise.
A moment earlier, Simba had been resting in the shade behind some jungle foliage, able to hear his friends a short distance away, then silence, then… the sounds of pursuit. His friends were being hunted! He could hear the hunter growling - definitely a feline, perhaps even another lion. He charged toward the noise as fast as his feet could carry him, but managed to find a bit more speed when he heard Pumbaa shouting frantically, “She’s gonna eat me!”.
He saw them and leapt over them just in time, and saw a lioness closing fast. She was momentarily startled, and they collided and began fighting viciously, he for his friends, and she for her meal. As Timon cheered him on, Simba seemed to be getting the upper hand and thought he saw an opportunity to pin her. But when he tried, she flipped him over and pinned him instead. Her last move seemed just a little bit too… familiar. Then Simba got a good look at her face, and gave the lioness her second big surprise in less than a minute. “Nala?”
He knows my name? she thought. She forgot all about being hungry, and backed off and studied him.
“Is it really you?” he said.
He knows me and now he seems friendly, Nala thought, but she couldn’t quite place him. “Who are you?”
“It’s me. Simba.”
“Simba?” she said quietly. Then her eyes flew open. “Whoa!” she shouted. They were excited to see each other for the first time in
years, and greeted each other warmly, at least until they were
interrupted by Timon, at which time Simba introduced Timon and Pumbaa to
Nala, and her to them.
“Wait ‘til everybody finds out you’ve been here all this time. And your mother… what will she think?” said Nala.
This threw Simba for a loop. Didn’t everyone know he had caused Mufasa’s death, that he had run away because of it and could never come back? He managed to stammer out a reply. “She doesn’t have to know. Nobody has to know.”
“Well, of course they do. Everyone thinks you’re dead,” she replied.
“They do?”
“Yeah. Scar told us about the stampede.”
Then it dawned on Simba that maybe some of his assumptions were wrong. “He did? Well… what else did he tell you?”
Nala replied, “What else matters? You’re alive, and that means…” Her voice turned to one almost of awe. “…You’re the king.”
She doesn’t know, does she, thought Simba, but before he got a chance to ask, Timon interrupted. “King?” he laughed, “Lady, have you got your lions crossed!”
Then Pumbaa joined in, making Simba forget where his train of thought was headed. “King? Your majesty, I gravel at your feet,” said Pumbaa, as he began kissing Simba’s feet.
“Stop it,” said Simba, withdrawing his foot.
“It’s not ‘gravel’, it’s ‘grovel’,” Timon, corrected him, “and don’t… he’s not the king…” then looking up at Simba, “are you?”
“No,” Simba replied.
“Simba!” Nala chided.
“No, I’m not the king. Maybe I was gonna be, but that was a long time ago.”
Before Nala could decide how to respond to this, Timon interrupted again. “Lemme get this straight. You’re the king, and you never told us?”
“Look… I’m still the same guy,” Simba replied.
“But with power,” said Timon enthusiastically.
Nala could see that it was next to impossible to carry on a serious conversation with Simba with these two present. “Could you guys excuse us for a few minutes?” she asked Timon and Pumbaa politely.
“Hey,” Timon replied, “whatever she has to say, she can say in front of us. Right, Simba?”
Simba didn’t want to exclude his friends, but Nala wasn’t used to them and seemed to be getting frustrated, and he thought they could discuss matters better if he could talk to her alone anyway. “Maybe you’d better go,” he told them.
Timon was surprised Simba hadn’t taken his side, and walked off with Pumbaa. “It starts… You think you know a guy…”
“Timon and Pumbaa. You learn to love ‘em,” Simba remarked. But when he turned to look at Nala, he could see her thoughts were elsewhere. “What? What is it?”
Throughout the preceding events, Nala had been thinking about what why she had been guided here. She hadn’t expected to find this, but then she hadn’t really been sure what to expect. It was obvious that Simba was probably what she was supposed to find. Finding Simba alive was more than she could have hoped for because it meant he, not Scar, was the rightful king. Yet… he denied it. Was it possible that the cub she had known who “just couldn’t wait to be king” had changed that much? She would have to find out what had happened to him, but she didn’t know where to begin. Nala also recalled that at one time they had been betrothed, a thought that at one time had been revolting, but looking him over now the idea seemed interesting, to say the least. It also meant that assuming their betrothal was still valid, she was queen.
But only if he would accept his kingship, and that looked like it could be difficult. If she could do it, though, the rewards for her would be great. Nala dismissed the thought - not that she would have a problem with it if it came to pass, but she had to keep her original goal in mind, to find help for the Pride Lands.
She and Simba were finally alone, so she could let more of her emotions show through. “It’s like you’re back from the dead.” she said quietly. “You don’t know how much this will mean to everyone… how much it means to me.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Simba replied, not really knowing how to respond to her words, but at least trying to respond to their feeling.
Nala could see he was trying to be understanding. “I’ve really missed you,” she said, rubbing her head up against him gently.
This surprised him at first, but it gave him a warm feeling for her he hadn’t felt before. “I’ve missed you too,” he replied.
For a while they just spent time together, enjoying each other’s company. For Simba, it had been a surprise and somewhat of a relief that she didn’t know about his past, but that raised another question - what would she think if she found out? Somehow it didn’t seem possible that she would still want to be his friend if she knew. But Nala was perceptive; she could tell he was withholding something and hoped he would talk about it. She believed in him. As they walked around, they studied each other, trying to discern each other’s thoughts.
But they were also playing and having fun. Regardless of what else was going through their minds, it felt good just to be back together again, playing like they did when they were cubs. Simba surprised Nala when he jumped into a pool of water, then pulled her in with him. She was intrigued with some of the habits he had acquired here, and with what he had become now that he was grown up. She saw him as a good friend, her best friend… and he had become quite a handsome lion. When they were wrestling and rolled down a hillside together, she allowed him to end up on top for once, and gave him a gentle lick on the face. This took him by surprise, but he liked the way it felt. When he looked down at her, she was smiling back at him in a way she never had before. He was feeling things he had never felt before. Though it was new to both of them and a little scary, it was like the two of them could spend the rest of their lives here in bliss, never letting go of this moment. So it went, for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Simba and Nala sharing a part of their lives in a way they had never shared with anyone else before.
But eventually they had to come down off their cloud, and Nala couldn’t forget what she had come here for. Simba was still trying to avoid bringing up his past, but he could tell she knew he wasn’t telling her something. “Isn’t this a great place?” he asked her.
“It is beautiful,” she acknowledged, “but I don’t understand something. You’ve been alive all this time - why didn’t you come back to Pride Rock?”
Simba was still afraid to bring up his past. “Well, I just needed to get out on my own, live my own life. And I did, and it’s great.” But he knew even as he said it that he didn’t sound very convincing.
Nala tried another approach. “We’ve really needed you at home,” she said desperately.
“No one needs me,” sighed Simba.
“Yes we do. You’re the king,” she replied.
“Nala, we’ve been through this. I’m not the king.” I’m not worthy to be king. “Scar is.”
“Simba, he let the hyenas take over the Pride Lands.”
“What?”
“Everything’s destroyed. There’s no food, no water… Simba, if you don’t do something soon, everyone will starve.”
Okay, maybe Scar isn’t much of a king, but… “I can’t go back” “Why?” Nala asked desperately.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he countered.
“What wouldn’t I understand?”
He was avoiding the issue, she knew it, and he knew she knew. But he still couldn’t bring himself to tell her and was trying to wriggle out of this conversation. “It doesn’t matter… Hakuna Matata.”
“What?” she said, puzzled.
“Hakuna Matata,” he explained. “It’s something I learned out here. Look, sometimes bad things happen…”
“Simba!” Nala tried to interrupt.
“…And there’s nothing you can do about it, so why worry?” he continued. He was getting annoyed at her persistence and turned away
from her.
She faced him again. “Because it’s your responsibility!” “Well… what about you? You left.”
“I left to find help. And I found YOU.” She had to believe in him, but he was trying her patience. “Don’t you understand? You’re our
only hope.”
He wanted to help. He still loved the Pride Lands, even though he hadn’t lived there in a long time, and after what she had told him… But… he still couldn’t face it. “Sorry!”
Nala was surprised that he still wouldn’t relent, her patience was wearing thin, and now she was trying anything just to get a reaction out of him. “What’s happened to you? You’re not the Simba I remember.”
“You’re right, I’m not,” he conceded somewhat sarcastically. “Now are you satisfied?”
“No, just disappointed.”
Simba turned away again. “You know, you’re starting to sound like my father.”
“Good. At least one of us does,” Nala retorted.
Her last statement finally produced a reaction. “Listen,” he shot back, “you think you can just show up here and tell me how to live my life? You don’t even know what I’ve been through!”
Getting a little closer. “I would if you would just tell me!” “Forget it!” he replied as he turned again to walk off. “Fine!” she said, deciding not to follow him this time. Both of
their tempers were flaring, and trying to continue the conversation probably wouldn’t accomplish anything except to get them even more upset. They both needed to cool off, and she needed time to think about how to approach him about this.
Simba felt angry, though he wasn’t sure if it was with Nala or himself. He was pacing nervously and mumbling to himself, “She’s wrong. I can’t go back. What would it prove, anyway? You can’t change the past.” He looked up at the stars and shouted, “You said you’d always be there for me! But you’re not.” Simba bowed his head in shame and began crying. “And it’s because of me. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”
And still he was alone with himself.
Nala went off and found a place to rest. Though she was frustrated with Simba, she was upset with herself for losing patience and getting him angry. What should she do next time he sees him? She knew they probably wouldn’t stay mad at each other, but the issue wasn’t going to go away. As she went over their conversation in her mind, a few things became apparent. Pushing Simba too hard to reveal his secret wouldn’t be productive, but maybe she could help him along a little more gently. And why wouldn’t he reveal it? Whatever it was, it seemed to be what was keeping him from wanting to be king. Everything else he had said was just to dodge the issue.
For a moment she became upset with the whole situation. I just wanted to help the Pride Lands, she thought. Why do I have to deal with this too?
But almost as soon as she asked the question, the answer was staring her in the face. Something had happened to Simba, something that had broken his spirit, and she was here for another purpose, to help Simba work through whatever his problem was. She didn’t know what it was yet, but that would come out in time. This realization gave her a new sense of purpose, and the realization that the rewards for success would be even greater than she had expected. She would be queen of Pride Rock after all. But she hadn’t embarked upon this expecting any rewards other than the satisfaction of doing something to save her homeland.
Can I do it, she asked herself. She looked up at the stars and remembered her father’s words.
“Believe in yourself, Nala.”
Nala smiled. She was now convinced she was on the right track.
Now, what to do about Simba. Was he afraid to tell her whatever it was? Yes, that was probably it. She decided she would have to do whatever she could to ease his fears. And what if it turned out to be something that really was hard for her to accept? She tried to think of what could possibly be bothering him, and couldn’t think of anything she couldn’t deal with, at least not since he seemed to feel pretty badly about whatever it is. Besides, if Simba were truly unworthy to be king, why was she led here in the first place?
Simba had gone to rest on a log that acted as a bridge over a stream. Could he reveal his past to Nala? He didn’t know. But the Pride Lands were obviously in trouble and she was desperate to do something, and if he wouldn’t help her she might not want anything more to do with him. Maybe if I tell her, he thought, she’ll understand why I can’t go back. But she’ll go back regardless.
He had other thoughts too. Surely the others will find out he’s alive. Would any of them come looking for him and try to talk him into coming back? Or perhaps they would accuse him. What will Uncle Scar think? Various questions like these kept running through his head, and it didn’t seem like any of the answers would allow him to go on living his life here as he had grown accustomed to. Why did Nala have to show up here? But he chided himself for that thought. Aside from their argument, this had been the happiest day since he could remember, and now he didn’t want to lose her. Why does life have to be so complicated?
He was tired, both physically and mentally. He looked up and remembered hearing his father’s voice the night before, when suddenly he heard it again.
“Simba…”
This time he knew he was awake. Simba stood up and walked toward the voice. “Father?”
“Simba,” the voice went on. The shape of Mufasa was now becoming clear in the clouds. “You have forgotten me.”
“No. I’m sorry, Father. How could I forget you?”
“I am not as you have thought of me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. Remember who you are. Then you will find the path you must choose.”
“How will I know?”
“Remember who you are,” said Mufasa, “and you will know the way.” The vision was fading into the clouds now.
“No! Please don’t leave me”
“Remember who you are…”
“Father!”
“Remember…”
“Don’t leave me…”
And then the vision was gone. Simba continued to gaze up at the clouds for several minutes before he returned to the spot where he had been lying. He pondered the words he had just heard from his father. Not as he had thought of him? Was his father that forgiving? And what was this path he spoke of? But he was tired and didn’t get a chance to puzzle over these questions for long before sleep overtook him.
Under the moonlight, separated by an argument and some distance, Simba and Nala rested. Both of them knew that tomorrow was another day and they’d talk some more.
Chapter 6. Metanoia
Nala awoke first as the sun was coming up. She was still sleepy but couldn’t stop thinking about Simba, so she got up and started looking for him. She found Timon and Pumbaa, still asleep, so she went over and prodded Timon gently. “Hey… hey, wake up.”
Timon looked up through sleepy eyes, then suddenly panicked and shouted in fear when he saw a lion face filling his field of vision. Pumbaa was startled awake and began screaming as well.
“It’s okay! Whoa, whoa, it’s okay, it’s me,” she tried to assure them.
“Don’t ever do that again!” gasped Timon, trying to bring his adrenaline rush under control. “Carnivores, oy!”
“Have you guys seen Simba?” asked Nala.
“I thought he was with you,” Timon replied.
“He was, but now I can’t find him. Where is he?”
“Well we haven’t seen him since yesterday,” said Timon, then paused to think. “When he wants to be alone, he usually heads for the grass.” This was how they referred the savannah-like region where the landscape makes the transition from desert to jungle, which in actuality has a lot of trees, streams and other features besides grass. Timon elaborated, and they told her how to find a few of his favorite places.
“Everything okay with you two?” asked Pumbaa.
“Hmmm…” Nala paused. “Yeah, I think it will be,” she said, looking optimistically in the direction of the ‘grass’.
“Hey, if Simba gives you any trouble, just let us know and we’ll straighten him out for you,” offered Timon, half jokingly.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” smiled Nala. “Thanks a lot, guys, for your help,” she said, as she turned to go look for Simba.
“Timon?” said Pumbaa.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think they had a fight or something?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, then brightening up, “Whatever it was, I’m glad we weren’t in the middle of it.” He looked down at his hands, which he had tensed like claws and facing each other. “Eeesh!”
“I didn’t mean that kind of fight,” Pumbaa remarked.
“Well… if she’s trying to figure him out, maybe…” Timon paused. “Yeah, that’s it, we could go help her out!”
“Timon, I think it’d be better to leave ‘em alone.”
“It’s too early for this. Whaddya say we get some more shuteye?” said Timon with a big yawn.
“Sounds good to me,” Pumbaa replied, and not two minutes later they were again fast asleep.
It only took Nala a few more minutes to find Simba. He had moved from the log to a nearby grassy spot and was still asleep until she nudged his head gently. Simba raised his head a little and looked at her through sleepy eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Simba took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, too.”
They rubbed heads and purred, and she lay down next to him. She pulled her tail up over her back legs, and he laid his across her body. They felt closer now, and she now felt confident it would lead to a better understanding of each other. But there would be time for that later. Neither of them had gotten much sleep, so they were both still pretty tired. They were soon back in dreamland, and finding it a better place than it had been earlier.
It was mid-morning when they awoke again. They stretched and yawned, and Nala began to look around at the area. “I like it out here,” Simba told her. “It kind of reminds me of the Pride Lands.”
“Yes, it does look a lot like the Pride Lands… used to,” Nala observed.
Is it that bad?, he thought at first, but then he got an uneasy feeling that right away their discussion might end up where it did the night before. But Na