“Come on, Sarabi, why not?”
“Because, Mufasa. I am not in my heat. And also, because I say so.”
Her use of his full name was not a good sign. No bemused “Muffy”s here! But her ears told a story of faint amusement, and Mufasa clung to that, daring to come in closer and brush his muzzle to her shoulder.
“We’re mates now, you know.”
She pushed his muzzle away with a paw. “We are not mates, Mufasa. We are king and queen to be. ‘Prince and princess consort’ Zazu said, and if you try to get anyone to call you by that title I’m going to cuff your ear and you’d deserve it!”
“Heh, yeah I’d deserve that,” Mufasa admitted, sitting with a slump.
“Ugh, you are so glum, for a king-to-be!” Sarabi threw her eyes to the sky as if begging the Kings for patience. “We will mate. We will have cubs, when the Circle calls for it. We are not mates just because your mother and father gave us titles, Muffy. You know you may have your way with any females of the pride. Go play with Sarafina. She’s always lifting her tail whenever she catches you looking, hoping you’ll take an interest. She’s much prettier than me. I’d be over her in a moment, if I were a male.”
“Sarafina is new to the pride. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t think my dad’s even been with her yet. It would be a breach of protocol.”
“You’ve been listening to Zazu,” Sarabi scoffed. “You should have heard her grumbling after the ceremony, how she would have been the chosen if she were but a season older.” Sarabi stretched long, claws extending as she made a production of her lack of concern. “Ridiculous, of course,” she finished with a smile. “I’m far too much lioness to not rule a pride.”
Mufasa laughed deep in his chest and leaned down to nuzzle Sarabi’s cheek. She allowed the affection, like a goddess suffering her supplicants’ praise.
“I have always said so,” Mufasa agreed.
“You didn’t always say so,” Sarabi responded. “There were times.”
“I was a cub. I was stupid.”
“You’re still stupid.”
“Yes, but I was even more stupider!” Mufasa laid next to Sarabi, his face a mask of faux horror that led her to a giggle. He laughed with her, but his eyes grew distant after a moment and he stopped. “And there was Scar,” he said.
“What’s Taka got to do with this?”
“You know how he felt. Feels. He was always the smart one. I always teased him and called him ugly and all that, but in reality more than half the lionesses thought he was handsomer than me and most probably thought he’d make a better king.” Mufasa licked his whiskers, betraying a small hint of anxiety. It was not common for a lion to speak so directly, even to a friend.
Sarabi watched, measuring this unexpected vulnerability. “Oh my. Is the great Mufasa exposing his belly?” She teased, touching one hind paw to his stomach, but he didn’t flinch at the jest nor her sheathed claws.
“You should have seen him after, Sarabi. He’s just… Not the same. The way he looked at me after the ceremony. I don’t know. It feels like I won a tussle I should never have started.”
“Oh you’re a poet now too,” Sarabi inched closer, yawning and shaking a shiver through her fur. She was silent for a moment, watching as Mufasa replied only with a flick of one ear, placing his muzzle on his paws in thought.
Sarabi waited, but Mufasa said nothing more.
“Ahadi is not a fool,” she replied at last. “Your father may play at favorites from time to time, but not in this. He chose wisely, in accordance with tradition and with the benefit of Uru’s wisdom and insight from the pride that you know nothing of. Do you have so little faith in your father?”
Mufasa grunted his lack of comment. His differences with his father were well known to all.
“And Taka is not so smart,” Sarabi allowed at last, gazing off in the same direction as Mufasa as if that direction held some window across time into their shared past. “If he were, he’d be ‘Prince Consort Scar’, now. Kings save us.”
“There was a time when you preferred his company,” Mufasa reminded her.
Sarabi sighed, and gave her paw a few laps with her tongue, brushing them over her head. Mufasa watched, unclear how to interpret her silence. Sarabi merely continued her impromptu grooming.
After what seemed like a long time, a hint of a smile spread on the corner of Sarabi’s muzzle, and she peeked at him from under her grooming paw. “Very well. Will you force me to admit that I can be stupid too, then?” she muttered to him, and he chuffed, rolling on his back and letting himself laugh so that the stars might hear. Sarabi joined with him in her more quiet, elegant way.
Sarabi’s paw found its way into his mane, and he smiled as she rolled to rest herself half over his body.
“Awfully close, for ‘not a mate’, don’t you think?” Mufasa teased, still laughing a little under her.
“Is having my cubs promised to you not enough, Prince Consort?” She said it with a smile, but her tone held an edge and Mufasa’s laughter subsided. His eyes found hers and he held them.
“It is,” he agreed. “I am the luckiest lion in Africa and to ask for more would be to kick dirt in the face of the Kings.”
Sarabi’s ears twitched and she brushed her nose to his. “Flattery—though justified—will not get you under my tail, you letch.”
Mufasa chuckled, but he held her gaze, his eyes scanning Sarabi’s. He started saying something and stopped, and Sarabi tilted her head, curious at the unsaid.
“I don’t need to cover you or be under your tail to be happy, Sarabi,” he said at last. “I am happy right now as I am, under you.” He broke eye contact in embarrassment, looking instead off to the side. “I think I always will be, you know. I guess we’re expected to have cubs. And of course I want to mate. But, well. My father does those things, doesn’t he? He has cubs. He mates the females in heat, or whoever will have him. But I’ve seen him cuff mom for telling him off. You know they say he sometimes forces himself on lionesses.” Mufasa coughed, his ears betraying his anger at the idea. Sarabi knew the only thing keeping the anger from flaring into flames of rage was familiarity with its heat, and she pressed into his mane in hopes of her presence being a comfort.
“I won’t be like that,” Mufasa ground out. “But thanks to his perversions I must always know that those same desires live in me, too. My father takes what he desires and, to him, that’s the measure of a good lion. Sarabi, I’m afraid of everything I’ve ever been taught of being a good lion. I want to be a good king. Perhaps a good father, one day. I want to be a good…,” he trailed off, “…Lion,” he finished at last, unable to think of a better ending to his sentiment. “But my father will never see it that way. And, thanks to his teaching, I don’t know if I will either.
He hates that he had to choose me. You know that, don’t you? He tried so hard to get Taka—Scar—to take an interest. My brother is certainly more than capable of taking what he wants, but he doesn’t want what dad wants either. He has all of his strange ideas. Always trying to change tradition. To “move the kingdom forward”. You know how he is. I’ve seen dad beat him so many times and he always comes back, Sarabi. I know some people think my brother is a coward, now, but he isn’t. He just doesn’t care to act like he’s normal. He’s never been normal in the first place.”
“That’s certainly true,” Sarabi agreed with a flick of her ears.
“He always comes back,” Mufasa continued. “He knows there’s going to be a fight and he knows he’ll lose, but he refuses to give up.” Mufasa sighed. “But he’ll never win a battle for the pride, and he won’t listen to dad’s lessons. So who else is there? Dad ran off all the others, so there’s just me. Expected to carry on his legacy. Carrying all the lessons my brother was strong enough to throw back in his face, like the dung they are. And I was not. And now I will be king.”
Mufasa stopped, leaving the evening suddenly silent. He laid back, eyes closed, and Sarabi remained on his chest in silent thought. She couldn’t remember if she had ever heard him talk that much at once. It must have been building up inside him for ages to come out like that. Her mind swam with possible responses, but each one fell flat, either too stern or saccharine beyond her nature. So she did what she always did when uncertain, and told the truth as she saw it.
“I think you’re a good lion, Mufasa,” she said.
Mufasa didn’t answer, but put a paw around her neck, taking gentle comfort in her presence.
“Someday, you’ll be great,” she finished, after more thought.
“If I am, it will be because of you,” he answered.
“Yes,” Sarabi agreed into his mane. “But only by half. We will be great, Mufasa. We, and our children, and our pride.”
Mufasa did not answer, but his paw settled about her neck in a grasp she did not resist. Dusk had succumbed to night during their talk. The proper thing to do would be to head back to Pride Rock, but Sarabi answered Mufasa’s unspoken call by nestling herself closer to him. She snuggled into his mane, closing her eyes. She would not leave his side, and she knew he would not leave hers.
A chorus of insects performed unhindered around them in buzzing obeisance to the moon’s slow climb high into the night sky.
“So. Can we have sex now?” Mufasa chuffed.
“No, Mufasa,” she replied without opening her eyes, and enjoyed the rumble of his laughter beneath her as they fell asleep for the first time as prince and princess of the Pridelands.
