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The Lion King and all its characters are property of Disney, and this
fanfic is in no way a challenge to that.

Please be nice and do not alter, plagerize, fold, spindle, multilate,
or do suchlike to this fanfic.  Comments and suchlike can be emailed
to iggan@geocities.com.

And now, on with the fanfic.

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"Ruminations"
(c) 1997 Lisa O'Donnell


	When did it begin?  _Was_ there a beginning?  Was there a time
where I could have said something different, turned things onto another
path?  Was I destined for this?  And _why_?  What did I do to deserve
this pain?  The questions turn and writhe in my brain, biting like a
thousand tiny hyenas, sinking their jaws into my flesh.  And I have no
one to speak these things to, no one to ask.  The hyenas would laugh,
or just stare at me vacantly.  The lionesses would just stand and
stare at me with hate and scorn.  _That_ hasn't changed, not in the
least.

	Hardly anything has changed, and this least of all, for when
the questions circle my thoughts like vultures, I have no one to tell
them to.  I have only myself.

	I have always had myself, except when I wanted it most.  The
day of Simba's presentation... I remember that the strongest.  The
scene is so vivid, it burns behind my eyes like dry sand blowing in
this drought-parched wind.

	It was a whim born of hurt pride that I wasn't there to see
the cub lifted to the sky and praised by the gathered host.  Why
_should_ I go?  Was I a part of this pride, really?  I slept alone,
often ate alone.  I was so often alone, like a rogue within my
brother's kingdom, only without the satisfaction of self-reliance.
That's what I told myself when I heard the call to come and gather.
The truth was that I couldn't stand to go; even imagining the scene
brought me pain, like the twisting pain of bad meat in the stomach,
turning my bowels to fire and my limbs to water.  If I had gone, I
would have disgraced myself.  Of this I was sure, _am_ sure.

	Still... there was a kind of black humor in it all, wasn't
there?  That ball of fluff who might not even live past the first
dry season was to be my King, because he'd been born so.  And the
mouse under my paw was destined to die between my jaws, because he'd
been born... so.  A mouse, a lion cub... there isn't much difference,
when you get right down to it.  Both are born, bleed, die.  They die
so easily...

	Then Zazu interrupted.  That blasted hornbill who never failed
to find just the right words to needle me, to hurt me.  He always
hated me, always despised me, and fawned upon Mufasa the way the
hyenas fawned upon me when I brought them food.  So threatening to eat
him was, perhaps, going a trifle far, but Kings!  If I was really
going to eat that scrawny bag of feathers I bloody well would have
eaten him!  Mufasa, of course, didn't see it that way.

	Mufasa.  My brother.  Everything anyone could ever want in a
lion, and so much my opposite that it was painful.  Beside him, I
was nothing, and I saw that every day in the eyes of the other animals.
The lionesses.  The antelope.  The hyenas, for Kings' sake!  And it
all went to his head.  He took his kingship so terribly seriously,
and I hated him for it.  Yes, I hated him.  We were cubs once, he and
I, cubs playing under the wide sky.  Now I was nothing to him but
a burden, an annoyance.  He was so thrice-burned _full_ of himself,
and he didn't even see it!  Striding into my cave with head held
high, his face as stern as though he were my father.  Puh!  Mufasa,
I remember when you kept trying to pounce the grasshopper, missing
again and again.  You sat down and cried.  Bawled until our mother
took you up between her paws and groomed the hurt feelings away.

	That's what I remembered when you came to me, brother, when
you strode in fresh from your son's presentation, full of images of
your own regalness.  I remembered the cub that was my brother Muffy.
I remembered the way we used to whisper secrets to each other when
we were supposed to be sleeping.  I remembered the silly jokes and
rhymes we used to make up for each other.  I remembered everything,
Mufasa, but when I stared into your face that day, I saw a stranger,
a cold stranger who had no room anymore for warmth and giggles with
his dark, skinny little brother.  I hated that stranger, and I
answered your insulted honor with sarcasm.  I even provoked you into
fury--

	("Is that a challenge?!")
	("Temper, temper. I wouldn't _dream_ of challenging _you_.")

--and I was proud of that.  Proud!  And perhaps that's when it truly
began.  I don't think I'd ever really seen you before, Mufasa, until
that day, until you lunged into my face snarling, feeling threatened.
Perhaps that is the day I saw _myself_ as a threat, the day I could
actually consider the idea that I could best you, beat you.

	Well, are you happy, Mufasa?  Are you pleased?  The Pride
Lands are dying and I have nowhere else to turn, nowhere else to go.
I'm trapped in this pit of my own making, and there's no way out.
Standing here at the Promontory's tip, I can see my death approaching,
and I know it won't be easy or painless.  I hope you are enjoying
your revenge, brother.  I hope you're eating your fill of it.

	I hope it chokes you.

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