by
Magharabi

I wrote a short story, and it's not a part of a long story! Hooray! (Just so y'all know, this is like, the first time I have ever been able to do this.) Okay, so it's a dramatization of a part of tlk, but read it anyway, it gets good. My anti-tlk friend even said so. (kind of funny, the way we get along. We fight over tlk and it makes us closer. Oh well.) Anyway, without further ado... (um, it ended up being kind of big. I hope you can find the time to read it though, and tell me what you think. This is my first official fanfic that I've put out in the open, so I would welcome some constructive criticism.)

-- Magharabi

Something very strange and very wonderful had just happened to me. I never thought I would see my father again, but I did.

He came to me in a giant cloud. I'd never witnessed such a magnificent sight in my life.

He spoke but a few words, but they were enough. My body shook, my eyes stung, my tongue was thick and choking me. Still, I've never felt such joy.

It had been his voice, his loving eyes, his warmth that surrounded me. I will never forget the warmth and forgiveness I felt in his presence. It was as if he never blamed me in the first place.

Rafiki hobbled up next to me, and we exchanged a few words about the weather. I wasn't paying much attention to his remarks until he said, "Ah, yes. Change is good."

Then understanding hit me.

"Yeah," I agreed, "But it's not easy. I know what I have to do but... Going back would mean I'd have to face my past. I've been running from it for so long..." I let the sentence drop, expecting some wise words or kind advice from the mandrill I now recognized as my old teacher.

Instead, I got my head bashed in by his stick. Dang it hurt! And I let him know it.

"Geez," I yelped, "What was that for?"

He looked at me, totally asking for a good thrashing.

"Doesn't matter," he said to annoy me, "It's in de past."

I rubbed the injured area with my paw, trying in vain to ease the throbbing.

"Yeah, but it still hurts," I informed him. Rafiki leaned on his stick, a very thoughtful glint in his eye.

"Ah, yes. De past can hurt. But de way I see it, you can eider run from it, or learn from it.

I saw the stick before it hit me this time, and ducked out of the way before any more damage could be inflicted on my poor, confused head. Evidently, this was what Rafiki wanted.

"Dere, you see?" he almost shouted, "So what are you going to do?"

I eyed him and that blasted stick of his cautiously.

"First," I began, "I'm gonna take your stick." Which I did, and threw it as far from me as possible. As he was yelling and retrieving the stick, I took off as fast as I could for the Pridelands. Stampeding wildebeest couldn't...wait, bad analogy. I was not about to stop for anything. I was faintly aware of shooting stars falling around me.

I came to the desert about dawn, a little winded but none the worse for wear. I wasn't sure how far it stretched in this direction. It had been an entire lifetime since I crossed it.

Thinking quickly, I figured it couldn't be larger than a day's worth of running. That's all the bigger it was in other places. I could make it, easy. No problem.

I topped a dune hours later and decided I was way off in my estimation. This must have been a harsher area of the Kouta, because never in all my wanderings, had it ever been this forsaken hot.

The horizon hazed in every direction and I could feel a dry breeze begin to stir in the east.

My eyes got watery and the throbbing pain in my head returned. Everything seemed to shift around me and I felt as if I were falling from a cliff. My back and neck felt like they were on fire, as did my feet. I felt my mind losing a grip on reality, and desperately tried to keep to my senses. But, dangit all, they all burned!

It became very hard to breathe, and for the first time, I didn't just think I would die...I knew it. I had failed. I should have known I could never win the desert. No one ever escaped the Kouta's burning dunes. I had cheated her once, long ago, when I would have welcomed death. But by the grace of something more powerful than I, I had been saved by Timon and Pumbaa. But not this time. Now, that I was grown and ready to fulfill my destiny, Kouta would have her revenge. I would suffer in this living hell until the sun burned the flesh from my bones.

I opened my mouth to cry out in despair...or was it for help? But no sound came. The cracked dryness that choked the earth and scorched my body had already permeated my skin and moved inside. There was nothing more I could do.

My legs buckled in unison and my body slid down the other side of the dune. As I lay there, panting, sweating...dying, I felt myself lift into the air. I looked down to see that I was swirling upward and away from my body. Years passed, winds swept by in forward motion, dunes slithered across the landscape, covering my body, then uncovering it again, only to be reinterred underneath another creeping castle of blown sand. This happened time and again, and every time my body became visible again, the less I recognized it. It became a monstrous, mummified thing. Sun bleached bones poked out of cracked, torn patches of fur. My eyes shriveled away from their sockets. My jaw gaped open, full of gleaming white teeth and sand. Not even the vultures dared disturb my corpse. Even the scavengers have standards of comfort.

The wind blew harder, and in its whistling I thought I heard a voice calling my name. Like lightning, the vision was gone, and my view was again earthbound. Was I truly still alive, or trapped inside that grotesque thing I had seen? I wasn't sure. There was too much pain to be dead, yet not enough feeling to be alive. Was there no end to the torment? Had I been able to lift my paw, I may have cut my own throat then and there to get escape the slow, fiery death I was experiencing.

I heard my name again, distant and unclear, as if coming from a vast distance.

A gust of wind blew sand up my nose and into my mouth. My body convulsed, gagging. A coughing fit overtook me, and twisted me into fetal position with my back against the wind.

The singular voice that I thought I heard calling my name was suddenly joined by more voices, both male and female. At first they only said my name at intervals, and somewhere in my rational concious, I disregarded the sound as nothing but the wind. But then the voices became more urgent, and added the plea:

"We need you."

Over and over again I heard it.

"Simba. Simba we need you."

"We need you."

The wind changed direction, blowing toward the Pridelands. Again I was caught in a choking fit. This one so powerful it rolled me to my feet. I stood before I knew I could. My head, however, still sagged close to the ground.

"Simba, we need you." A voice said, much more clearly than before. Others echoed it, and I felt a strong gust of wind push from behind. My legs became weak once again, my stomach hollowed. I knew I would not be able to go on.

"I can't," I whispered, barely able to move my mouth.

"We need you," the voices continued. They were becoming desperate.

I closed my eyes in despair, and tried once and for all to silence them.

"I'm not strong enough!" I yelled. It didn't work. The voices continued, growing stronger the more I fought to silence them. They became more firm, yet no less pleading. Wind swirled around me, flinging the fine, stinging desert sand past me.

Then a different voice came. One still desperate and pleading, but also holding extra emotion, making it discernable against the screaming backdrop of the others.

"Daddy," the voice, a female, said, "Daddy, I need you."

I looked up slowly. There, before my eyes, stood a beautiful young lioness. Yet she wasn't there...yet. I could see through her. The sand hazed horizon and rolling dunes were clearly visible behind her where they shouldn't have. Yet I saw her. She had my mother's features, but strangely reminded me of Nala. And everything about her was crystal clear, like the scenery behind her. She was there, but not. I tried to move closer, to raise my paw and touch her cheek, but my body wouldn't respond.

"Daddy, please."

"I'm trying," I cried. Had there been any liquid in my body, it would have left then, streaming down my face in the form of tears.

"I can't make it," I told her, trying to make her see that what she was asking me to do was impossible. "I'm not strong enough."

Her expression was one of love, yet there was a trace of disappointment in those strangely familiar features.

"We're helping all we can, Daddy. You have to try harder."

The wind threatened to blow me over, and I took a few shaky steps in the phantom's direction.

"It's not enough," I whispered hoarsely. My unborn daughter's face saddened even more.

"Please Daddy. You must find the strenght within yourself. We can't do it for you..."

Her image began to fade away, but her voice stayed in the air.

"Daddy, we need you. It is enough."

A surge of loneliness coursed through my veins. The same urgency I had felt when my father left now consumed me. Without even thinking, I ran after her, searching.

I searched until just before sunset. Dark clouds had gathered overhead. Once, it sprinkled enough for me to open my parched mouth and replenish my dehydrated body. I stopped and rested awhile then, turning different ways so the rain could wash the heat and sand out of my fur.

When it stopped, I found myself eager to move on. Somehow in my ignorance of pain, I had regained my strength.

I crested a rise and stopped short, suddenly realizing that I was no longer on Kouta sands, but the devastated remains of my former home. Pride Rock pierced the clouded horizon, as powerful and forbidding as it had always been for countless lifetimes before mine, yet there was a weakness upon all the land. A sickness and decay lay like a fog against everything, living and dead alike.

"Simba, wait up!" I heard someone call. Thinking that it was more of the voices, I turned to see for sure. It wasn't a voice...it was Nala! I was surprised and baffled and overjoyed, all at the same time.

She trotted up to where I was standing and looked at the valley below.

"It's awful, isn't it?" she asked.

"I didn't want to believe you," I replied.

She looked at me then, her emerald eyes deep and penetrating; devastatingly gorgeous.

"What made you come back?" she asked softly.

I smiled.

"I got some sense knocked into me," I said, then shook my head to the side where I'd been hit, "And I've got the bump to prove it.

"Besides," I continued, "This is my kingdom... If I don't fight for it, who will?"

"I will," she said earnestly.

I looked her square in the eye, almost looking forward to the trouble that lay ahead.

"It's gonna be dangerous..." I had to try to dissuade her, just for the record.

"Danger, ha!" she laughed, giving me the strangest feeling of deja-vu, "I laugh in the face of danger!" and she laughed again. I felt slightly mocked.

"I see nothing funny about this," another familiar voice broke in.

"Timon, Pumbaa!" I exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

Pumbaa bowed as best he could.

"At your service, my liege."

Timon took a more relaxed, possibly disgusted approach.

"Ew, we're gonna fight your uncle... for this?"

"Yes Timon," I chuckled, "This is my home."

"Whoa," he muttered, "Talk about your fixer-upper.

"Well Simba," he said louder, taking a breath as if he were about to say something he might live to regret, "If it's important to you, we're with you to the end."

I smiled at my lifelong friends, then looked again at Pride Rock. A brisk, cool breeze wafted across my face and through my mane. The winds had changed again.

Somehow I knew it wouldn't be the only change this land would see today.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Tell me what you think!

Magharabi