From: Thylacine 2000 Newsgroups: alt.fan.lion-king Subject: "It runs away in the family" Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 16:19:55 -0800 [I recently saw someone put a humorous spin on the death scene from TLK and, what can I say, it inspired me......] --------------------------- "That's not my father," declared a crestfallen Simba. "That's just my reflection." And what a sad reflection it was. Staring back at him from the clear water of the small river was the awkward adolescent face of a very confused young lion. The honey-colored eyes, once always half-obscured by perpetually smiling cheeks, were now haunted--he'd seen too much, lost too much. "No," the bad-smelling primate urged, "look harder." And with that, the waters shifted--the face within expanded, matured; the look of confused despair shifted to one of grand regal arrogance. Rafiki grinned. "You see? He lives in--" *SPLASH* "Dad--Dad!" sputtered Simba as he flailed about in the pool, up to his ears in water. "Dad.... where'd ya go?" A familiar look of horrified devastation crossed his face. "Aw.. aw, *no*...water... w-water, it was an accident, he t-tried to save me...." He paused. "Well, I didn't *feel* like I was drowning, but he must have been trying to--" "So much for metaphors," mumbled Rafiki, cradling his head in his hands. "Forget this. You take it, big M." And with that, a sudden and odd gust of wind rushed over the grassy plains. An enormous cloud suddenly rolled in, its leading edge smoothly morphing into the shape of Mufasa. "Simba." "Y-yes?" was the astonished reply. "Simba," the cloud repeated. "I'm here." "Simba--" "Whaddya want, already?!?" snapped the young lion impatiently. "--ahem! you have forgotten me." "Huh? Who--who are you? What's your name?" Mufasa sighed--in doing so, he exhaled a plume of water vapor big enough to obscure Orion's belt. "I forgot how suggestible you were. I'm your dad, Simba." Simba stared. "Hey--how'd you just go from being a whole body made out of a cloud into just a big face made out of a cloud?" "Nevermind. Simba, you have forgotten your true self and--" "Wow, Dad, I--I can't believe it's really you! This is fantastic! I never thought I'd see you again--what, did you just arrive there or something?" Mufasa halted. "Err.. well, actually..." "Oh boy," the enthused juvenile continued, "I bet Mom jumped outta her skin when she saw you again! How is she, anyway?" "Uhhhh...." "Whoa! How'd you suddenly get all colored-in like that?" "Mmmm, colors," Rafiki softly whispered, his nose annointed with a healthy dose of his magic dust. "Pretty... colors.... pretty.. pretty...." Mufasa shook his head for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Son, *listen* to me. This is very important. You are--" "Aww, c'mon Dad," the golden youth chirped. The grin on his face seemed wider than his entire head. "Let's scuffle, or race, or something! I haven't seen you in years--let's have some fun." Suddenly, a new voice was heard. "But we *are* having fun," a throaty female voice announced from nowhere. Many giggles and half-hysterical whispers followed. Mufasa's jaw dropped, and he turned his gaze away from Simba to some point in the sky over his shoulders--well, where his shoulders would have been had they not mysteriously vanished a few moments previously. "Hush up, you!" The giggles only got louder. Simba cocked an eyebrow. "Dad, it's really cool how your face just turned half-dark and half-colored, but.... is there someone else up there?" "NO!", Mufasa blurted. More giggles. "Yep, just us. The--hee hee!--great queens of the past." Somewhere behind Simba, Rafiki tried to stifle his own laughter. "Great queens of the past?" Simba thought to himself. "Funny... Dad never mentioned them..." He looked up again, to see a very strange look had come over Mufasa's face. The apparition's eyes were half-closed, and one of his lips quivered. Seeing Simba's confused expression, Mufasa gritted his teeth and again looked back at the same point behind him. "Stop that," Mufasa whispered. "What," the feminine voice said, "you mean for good?" "No--nononono, I mean, heh heh...." Mufasa squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. "Just not *now*, d'ya hear me?" "Awww," another of the great queens cooed in a velvety voice. "Your kid's so *cute*!" Simba was mortified. "Cute?!?" A fourth female voice purred seductively out of the sky. "Forget about junior, oh great king, and give us some of your 'guidance'." With that, the giggling got even louder. "*DO YOU MIND*?" Mufasa bellowed. "Cool, Dad--you just suddenly got all colored in and now there's this spinning yellow thingy behind you!" But Simba's smile faded as he remembered just how his father had ended up in the sky in the first place. He found he could no longer bear to look Mufasa in the eye (and so he missed the moment when the eyes switched from normal to strangely sparkling). "D-Dad?" Simba attempted, his voice cracking with grief. "I'm.... I'm really, really, really sorry for getting you killed. I know I'll never forgive myself." Mufasa grimaced. "Now now, son, there's no need to--" "No, please," Simba continued, his body starting an all-too-familiar quaking, "you don't have to lie. You don't have to pretend to forgive me. I mean, it was all my fault that you died. I hate myself. I've hated myself more every single day of my life." Now the huge face in the sky said nothing. "I mean, it was *completely* my fault and everything--you'd have been totally fine if it weren't for me. I killed my own father. I'm worthless." The youth was now openly sobbing. "Uhhh... Simba...." "I HATE MYSELF! OH, GOD, I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH!" wailed Simba, and with that he began beating his head against a tree stump. His face a mixture of compassion and disgust, Mufasa finally blurted it out--"Oh for cryin' out loud, son, you didn't get me killed. Scar killed me and blamed you for it. Sheesh." Rafiki was horrified. "Ixnay, *ixnay*! This isn't part of the--" "Shut up, you!" snapped Mufasa. Simba looked up again, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "W-wait. Uncle Scar killed you?" "Yeah, that shadowy little prick." "Awwwww," came the chorus of female voices. Then one added: "Nothing little about *your*--" "*SILENCE*!" Mufasa bellowed, mortified. Regaining his composure, he ignored the chatting voices behind him and stared down at his son once more. "Are... are you sure?" Simba gulped. Now the giant face got angry. "I was *there*, boy!" "Why did he tell me I did it?" "Aw, that's my brother," Mufasa mused, shaking his head from side to side with an odd small grin. "Always such a joker. You know, there was this one time--" "Wait," panted Simba. "Wait just one minute. You knew." "Well.... yeah." "The *whole* time." Mufasa shifted his eyes nervously. "Yeah." "And you never told me...or mom... or anybody. Or tried to fry him with a lightning bolt or anything." "Actually," interrupted Rafiki, "there was this one time that your dad asked me to mix up this wicked cocktail for Scar and--" A furious glance from the face in the clouds hushed him quickly. "Dad," Simba whispered, his chest heaving, "why didn't you *tell* me? Why did you let me stay out here all this time, feeling this way?" Mufasa shrugged--possible now because his shoulders had rematerialized suddenly. "Eh. Builds character." "But dad, I've *really* needed you. Not just for that, but everything." Mufasa sighed softly, blotting out Ursa Minor as he did. "Well, I'm--" "Cool! Now your face is see-through and the color's gone and there's light behind it!" "Ahem! I'm here now, so what do you want to know?" "Everything!" panted Simba breathlessly. He'd waited his whole life for the chance to get answers from his father. Now, at last, good old dad was back--he'd make everything right! "Like--why am I here? How am I supposed to live my life now? What's the big payoff from all this? Mufasa beamed with pride. This was why he'd come back! "You see, Simba, you must take your place in--" "Wait," interjected Simba, "I'm not done. Howcome even with my short little legs I could outrun the wildebeests but you couldn't? Why didn't you just sit still on the side of the cliff instead of climbing up to try to reach Scar?" "Uhhh..." "How has it been possible for a two-hundred-pound dominant carnivore adapted to eating mammals to survive for several years eating nothing but arthropods and worms? If I can do it, that should mean all lions can do it--and since it's way easier than chasing down a buffalo, why don't we all do it? Doesn't that sorta defy some law of evolution?" "Simba...." "And why is it that sometimes when I wake up in the morning I'm all sticky?" "Ewww!" exclaimed one of the ghostly females. "Mufa-ah-sahhhh," panted another, "that gives me an eye-dee-yahhh....." "Later!" snapped Mufasa. "Look, son, everything will make a lot more sense if you just go back home and take your rightful place in the circle of life." Simba thought on it for a few moments. "So you're saying I've got to shlep back through that godforsaken desert in order to try to fight it out with a sexually ambiguous guy who's older and smarter than me and has a loyal army of thousands--in the process, completely humiliating myself when I'm exposed as first a murderer and then a gullible yutz--so that I can reinherit a grey wasteland." Mufasa gulped. "Yeah, that about covers it." "Nuts to that," pronounced the young lion, his face hardening. Rafiki would be silent no longer. "I *TOLD* you, Mufasa! 'Don't tell him!', I said! 'Give him the guilt shtick!', I said! 'Let him whale the tar out of your brother for you!', I said! But noooo, you been so busy chasing ghost tail that you forgot the plan! Mufasa's eyes, which had been glassing over, now snapped to attention. His translucent nose twitched nervously. "Uhh... wh-what was that, Fari--I mean, Rafiki?" He glanced nervously behind him again. "Stop it. *PLEASE*. Not in front of the boy!" "Tee hee hee!" Mufasa groaned softly to himself, and looked down again in time to see Simba retreating back towards the forest. "Hey--where are you going, son?" Simba looked back up, with a wounded scowl on his face. "Ehh, I'm gonna bag some antelopes, then see what I can figure out to do with Nala." Mufasa's face darkened. "Now you just hold it right there, mister! You have a responsibility--people need you--and instead you think you can just hang around in the middle of nowhere, unseen, with your ladyfriend?" Simba didn't blink. "Maybe." "I can't believe I'm seeing you do this. Where did this come from? Who taught you to act this way?" Simba took a deep breath, and shivering with frustration, shouted out his deepest feelings-- "From *YOU*, all right?!? I learned it by watching you!!" THE END --------------- Thoughts? :) -- T T T "BETTER LIVING THROUGH ZOOLOGY!"