No one had seen Rafiki for almost a week. Almost no one quite knew what he was up to. Simba didn’t know either but he didn’t take much notice. He was too busy playing out in the pridelands, he let the grown-ups worry about the “old monkey.”
Then, the rain came. It poured down heavily and lightning flashed across the sky. Simba couldn’t go out and play, now. It wasn’t even midday and he was feeling bored. He had already climbed every rock wall he could. He tried to work on his roar; his father made him stop, claiming it disturbed the other lions taking shelter in the den.
Simba was fed up. Whatever fun he tried to have, the other lions in the den were squandering it. As far as he was concerned, they were a bunch of fuddy-duddies.
He found a patch of dirt in a corner of the den. He was so bored, he found himself drawing squiggles in it. Almost before he knew what he was doing, those squiggles turned into crudely drawn lions. Simba was amused when he realized this. Then he drew a big lion towering over them all. It was as crude as the others but he had meant for it to be him. “Yeah,” he laughed, “that would show them.”
“Did you hear about Rafiki?” A voice cut through the background chatter and caught Simba’s attention. Two lions were chatting nearby and didn’t even notice him. Simba rolled his eyes and was about to go back to his drawing when the second lion spoke.
“Yeah, I heard he brought something back from the Trench of Kings.” They certainly had Simba’s attention now.
“No way,” said the first lion, “No one’s ever made it back from there before. I don’t think the place even exists.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with his isolation.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” Their conversion shifted to topics Simba didn’t care for. The name “Trench of Kings” did peak his interest. He went to go find his dad.
Mufasa was having a conversation of his own with some other lions when Simba came up to him. “Dad? Hey, Dad?”
“Not now, son.”
Simba was never one to take a hint the first time it was given. He pawed at his dad’s leg. “Come on, Dad.” he scratched at his dad’s mane “I just have a question.” He even climbed up his dad’s back and flopped on top of his head. “Dad! Dad! Dad-dad-dad-dad-dad!”
The other lions couldn’t help but giggle. Even Mufasa himself had to crack a small smile. “Alright, son. You can ask one question.”
“Alright!” Simba jumped down and without wasting a beat asked, “What’s the Trench of Kings?”
“A place you will never speak of again,” Mufasa replied with the most deadpan serious voice Simba had ever heard. Even the other lions were shocked at how serious he was.
“What? But why?”
“I’m serious, Simba. If you ever listened to me, listen now. Do Not bring it up again. Besides,” he added wryly, “that’s another question, isn‘t it?”
Simba sighed. “Okay, Dad, I won’t.” He left him to his conversation. He tried to go back to drawing but he couldn’t concentrate. He just kept wondering what was so special about some trench and why was Rafiki so secretive of it, if that was where he was even going.
Time passed slowly that day for Simba but eventually, it was time to fall asleep. Tomorrow then came and naturally, the time to wake up came too. Simba, being the excitable ball of energy he was, was up first. He looked to the den entrance; the rain had stopped but the dark clouds still lingered. He took the opportunity to get some fresh air and went to the tip of pride rock. As usual, he looked out over the pridelands. There wasn’t much activity going on but a certain tree in the distance did catch his attention.
Simba was just able to reach the shelter of Rafiki’s baobab tree when the deluge began again. “Now,” he thought, “What have you been up to?”
He climbed up the tree to where Rafiki usually spent his time painting portraits of the royal family. He wasn’t there but that didn’t stop Simba from looking around. There were various paints, or rather what Rafiki used as paint, scattered around including one fruit cut in half, acting as a container, separated from the rest.
Simba was most curious about it and went to carefully inspect it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as careful as he thought because he ended up tipping the container, spilling the paint. “Ack!” he exclaimed in shock. The paint washed over and covered his front paws.
“No, no, no!” he exclaimed and frantically scooped up and put back as much “paint” as he could. He couldn’t do much and to make matters worse, the paint smeared everywhere and he was making pawprints.
“Oh great!” he thought, “Now he’ll know I was sneaking around.” A flash of lightning and crack of thunder startled him. As he stared out into the rain, an idea came to him. “He might know someone was sneaking around but he won’t know it was me! I’ll just wash this stuff off.”
With that, Simba climbed down the tree once more. When he reached the bottom, he noticed something; there was a cavity at the base of the tree and it seemed to go deep. The young lion looked back and forth between it and the rain.
At last, his curiosity won him over. “I’ll just take a quick look,” he told himself and went to inspect the cavity. It was indeed deep. Deeper than Simba was expecting. He found himself in a small yet spacious cavern beneath Rafiki’s tree. Inside were several severed thorn vines that looked very out of place and Rafiki’ staff. “Whoa,” said Simba as he looked around the space. Although he was curious about them, Simba at least knew better than to mess around with something that had so many thorns. That wasn’t going to stop him from messing with the staff, however.
With a cheeky grin, he picked up the staff and waved it around, pretending like he was king. “Look at me!” he said out loud, “I am Simba the great! In fact, I’m Simba the big and-!”
Suddenly, the staff tingled and in a flash, it zapped Simba with energy. Almost at once, Simba’s belly started growing bigger and bigger. “Hey, hey! What’s happening?!” he exclaimed. By the time it was done, Simba was rather paunchy. He still had energy to move but he wasn’t used to his new girth and found it a little awkward when he tried moving.
Simba’s shock soon gave way to frustration. “When I said big, I didn’t mean like this,” he grumbled. He was so cross that he decided to go and leave the staff behind. There was just one problem, the way out of the cavern was small and Simba was now quite a bit bigger than he used to be.
“Uh oh,” said Simba as he became stuck. He pushed his hind legs against the wall and was just able to pop back out and land back in the cavern. “Oh, this is just great!” said Simba looking back at the exit, “How am I supposed to get out now?” He looked back at the staff and sighed. “Alright, you stick,” he said as he picked it up, “you’d better not be stupid again.”
Just as he picked it up, several lightning bolts struck the tree. They concentrated on the paint that Simba had spilled; the same paint he still had on his paw. Simba’s paw suddenly became hot and tingly.
“What the?! Gah!” he exclaimed. He thought it was the staff and threw it away. But the feeling didn’t go away. Then everything happened in a flash. Lightning suddenly shot from Simba’s paw (or rather, the paint on his paw). He was so shocked he couldn’t move. The lightning struck Rafiki’s staff which, in turn, struck the bundle of thorned vines. One thorn lit up, then another, then another until all the thorns on the vines were glowing. Soon, they weren’t just glowing, small beams of light shot out of them. The light bent and contorted into one big beam and shot forward right towards Simba. The young lion was blasted with an immense amount of light and energy.
Then, as suddenly as it all started, everything died down and the light faded again. Simba just stood there, as he tried to absorb what had happened. Then, he made a noise. It wasn’t a laugh, or a scream, or crying. It was kind of a mixture of all three. He had no idea what had just happened but he knew he wasn’t going to stick around for it to happen again. He turned for the exit and made a run for it… even if, after all that, he was still paunchy.
Simba did get stuck again but he didn’t care. He just tried harder to get out. The harder he tried the more stuck he seemed to get. At last, there was a crack, part of the tree gave way, Simba popped out and shot forward, rolling into the rain. Simba was too relieved to care about getting wet.
He looked back at the hole. He was tempted to cover it up out of spite. Those thoughts gave way to another observation. The hole was bigger, as expected from Simba’s forceful exit but it wasn’t as big as he was expecting. It was also… going away from him? The further away the hole was getting, the closer the top of Rafiki’s tree was getting too.
“Huh,” thought Simba. “Is the tree shrinking?” He looked all around him. Everything was getting smaller. “Oh! The tree’s not shrinking. I’m growing…” It took a few seconds for the penny to drop. “I’m growing?!” It was too late to go back and get the staff, Simba couldn’t fit in the hole at the bottom of the tree now. In fact, he was just as tall as the tree!
Not only was he growing bigger as a whole, his belly was growing bigger too. Simba hadn’t noticed that. All he noticed was that his head was heading for the rain clouds. The poor guy was drenched for a few seconds. Then he popped up above the clouds; the sun was shining, the sky was blue and everything/everywhere was clear. Simba had been so preoccupied by his growth spurt, he didn’t stop to think about what would be beyond the clouds. He smiled, it was nice to see the clear blue sky again.
Beneath the clouds, it was still raining. With it raining on his lower body, it was almost like he was standing in a refreshing pool of water. Simba found himself lying down without even trying. That was because his belly had grown so big that it touched the ground but he didn’t realize this. It felt nice. For a moment, Simba was able to forget about his growth spurt and relax.
Of course, he didn’t stop growing. The bigger he grew, the more of him went beyond the cloud-cover. The more he went beyond the cloud-cover, the less he got rained on. The less he got rained on, the less relaxed he felt. Soon, too soon for Simba, the weight of his situation hit him again. He looked down; the top of his paws were poking above the clouds. He tried in vain to look for his mom and dad. Even if the clouds weren’t covering the pridelands, he was so big, he couldn’t make out any individual lion or any animal.
By this point, Simba had accepted that he was just going to grow bigger and waited to see what would happen next. He was curious to see what would happen if he touched the sky. He technically did as he broke through the atmosphere. The blue sky gave way to, as far as Simba could tell, a starry night sky. He was amazed.
The Earth was slowly becoming, from Simba’s perspective, a ball for him to balance on. Even the deepest ocean was nothing more than a shallow puddle to him.
Simba couldn’t help but smile. “Hey! Look at me!” he shouted to no one in particular, “I’m on top of the world!”
He looked out into the vastness of space. Other planets were off in the distance. His curiosity got the better of him again. With as much momentum as he could gather, he jumped off the Earth and went exploring.
Simba was not used to zero gravity. It took longer than expected for him to get anywhere. He tried to swim as if he were under water. This helped a little but nearly as much as he would’ve thought. He was thankful when he reached Mars. He used it as a platform and jumped again.
The momentum was enough to carry him to the asteroid belt. These weren’t as big as the planets but there were a lot of them. This gave Simba an idea. He tried to see if he could make his way through by only stepping on the asteroids. It was almost like rock climbing. Rock climbing on some very unstable rocks. If he pushed against the asteroids too hard or for too long, they could easily float away. He found that out the hard way when he first tried his game. But to Simba, that was part of the fun. He quickened his movements and the asteroids didn’t move around as much. It wasn’t long before Simba found himself on the other side of the asteroid belt.
There was one planet that caught Simba’s attention. It had a ring of rocks encircling it. It really was an amazing sight and, of course, Simba started thinking how he could have fun with it.
“I wonder…” he thought and almost before he realized it, he was "swimming" toward the ring. It was getting easier to maneuver in space, now. He settled down on the ring, took note of where he specifically was on the ring, then said to himself, “Ready, set, go!” And he took off.
He was using the rings of Saturn as his own race track. He wanted to see how fast his new big self could go. He was enjoying himself. The more he moved the faster he seemed to be able to go. “Two minutes! A minute, forty-five! A minute, 15! 50 seconds!”
Eventually, he decided he had enough and stopped for a rest. He couldn’t help but feel like something was different. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw some movement. He turned to get a better look and he was horrified. Asteroids from the belt were hurtling towards Earth, the same asteroids he had been playing with. He didn’t have time to think about that. Without thinking at all, he jumped into action. If he had been thinking, he would’ve been surprised at how fast he reached the asteroids. In no-time, he batted the asteroids away from Earth. There was still plenty of time before the asteroids would’ve hit it but Simba still felt proud that he had saved the world. The world that was now much smaller than him.
Simba’s adrenalin was fading and his senses started returning to him. This included the off feeling he had before. The Earth seemed to be even smaller now than when he first jumped away from it. That’s when it finally clicked; he was still growing bigger and fatter this entire time. He couldn’t be sure but the big sprint he just made across space seemed to make him grow even faster.
“Just how big am I going to get?” he asked the void of space. The void didn’t answer.
Never-the-less, the planets just got smaller and smaller as Simba grew bigger and thicker. Eventually, even the sun began to look like a firefly compared to Simba as he continued to fill the galaxy, before he outgrew even that. Simba was growing at an exponential rate, and he could only watch as the countless number of stars and galaxies soon became like specks of dust in his paw.
Then, everything went white. Simba wasn’t sure what was happening now. There was just… nothing and he was floating in it.
Simba had no idea how long he had been floating. He couldn’t tell a minute from an hour or an hour from a day. For all he knew, he could’ve been floating in the void for weeks! He tried to think of something. Anything. He tried thinking about home, Nala, his parents but they all seemed to fill him with strong emotions, pleasant and unpleasant, that pulled him in so many directions.
Simba felt on the verge of screaming and was just about to do it. Then, he bumped into something. He looked up and found that he was at the base of an enormous tree. It kind of looked like a baobab Tree except its leaves and branches seemed to branch off infinitely.
Simba stared in awe for more than a few moments before finally thinking, “At least I have something new to think about.” He went to climb the tree. Gravity seemed to have kicked in again. Not strongly but Simba did have to put in some effort to climb up. His growth spurt seemed to have ended too.
He reached the tree’s branches and they were a labyrinth that stretched every which way, with many branching paths and twists and turns. On top of that, everything was surrounded by leaves, casting everything in a warm, faint green light. It would’ve been soothing if not so intimidating. Simba didn’t know where to start. He did feel drawn to one particular branch more than the rest, almost as if it were calling for him. To him, it was a s good a place to start as any, so he followed it.
The branch itself was big and wide. Simba had no problem walking along it. Not too far along, the branch widened even further into a broad platform with a large wall jutting up from it, as if it had been naturally carved out. Several other branches, well, branched from the platform as well. Some went forward, others off to the side and some seemed to loop backwards.
Simba went up to the wall, there was already a painting of, what he could swear was, the Earth. There were containers of paint at the base of the wall, like the ones he had seen in Rafiki’s tree. He was tempted to add to the painting. He dipped his paw in the paint and came very close to touching the wall.
He pulled his paw away at the last minute. He still felt drawn to one of the branches and it was stronger than any urge to paint. So, he followed the branch. It led to another platform but Simba wasn’t interested in the painting on this one. Instead, he just went down another branch. He went down several branches past several platforms. He wasn’t sure when but at some point, he did lose the paint on his paw.
Eventually, he reached a platform and he stopped. There were more branches he could go down, but none of them were calling for him anymore. The branches from this platform didn’t seem to go forward anymore either, though it was hard to tell.
Simba took note of the wall on this platform. It had several smaller branches growing from the top of it with several leaves. He recognized the painting on the wall immediately. It was pride rock. “Wow, home.” It came out involuntarily. It got him thinking about Nala, his mom, his dad, the top of pride rock where he had a perfect view of the kingdom. Then he thought wistfully. “I wish I could see it again.”
He noticed there was paint, once again, at the base of the wall. This time, he didn’t hesitate. He dipped his paw in the paint and drew himself on top of pride rock. It was crude and not at all to scale but it was him.
“See? I’m still here,” he said.
Then something strange (as if everything up to this point wasn’t strange already) began to happen. The painting on the wall shifted. The paint strokes shifted and morphed into different shapes. Simba jumped back in surprise. The new pictures on the wall became clearer, more distinct, more real. It took a moment for Simba to comprehend what he was now looking at, he was seeing the pridelands from the familiar view atop pride rock. It was slightly transparent but it was there.
“Wow,” said Simba in awe. He came close again. A big grin spread across his face. He looked all around as best as he could. Anywhere he wanted to look, the field of vision on the wall followed. He couldn’t look everywhere, something seemed to prevent him from looking directly behind. But what he had was enough for now.
It appeared to be late evening in the pridelands; the light was getting dimmer, not that it impeded Simba’s view. Several animals were going home for the night. He spotted a cheetah making his way across the savanna. Out of curiosity, he tapped the cheetah, just to see what would happen.
What happened was that one of the leaves from the branches above stretched down and grew big enough to cover the whole wall. It was transparent too and showed a perfect view of the cheetah. Simba stumbled back again but just a step or too. The shock value was wearing off on him. The awe factor was still there, though.
He looked at the paint then back up at the cheetah. “I wonder what this guy would look like with a lion’s mane,” he thought. So he painted on the leaf to make it look like the cheetah had a mane. He began to laugh. “It looks good on you!” he shouted. Then, the paint faded from the leaf, as if it had absorbed it. Immediately after, the cheetah grew a lion’s mane.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Simba, “I can do that?!” His smirk grew. “I wonder what else I can do?”
“But yeah,” he continued, “I’m done with this guy.” As he was thinking this, the cheetah had just discovered his new mane. He was starting to freak out and rubbed his mane to see if it was real.
Simba didn’t take much notice. He pushed the leaf upwards, it shrunk and moved back to its original position. Simba looked back over the pridelands to see who else he could mess with. Aside from the maned cheetah having a panic attack, there weren’t many animals out at this time of night. A little disappointed, he turned his attention back to pridelands as a whole.
He took note of the elephant grave yard (or as he knew it, the shadowy place). He smirked. “I’m not allowed there, huh?” He took the paint again and spent the time painting a likeness of his head right above it. As he expected, the rocky terrain carved out and moved to copy his self-portrait. It was still crude but he didn’t care. “Looks like it’s mine now,” he laughed.
Almost by instinct, he tapped his new creation. With a woosh, the view on the wall changed. He was now looking out over the pridelands from a different angle. He guessed, correctly, he was looking out through the stone carving he just made. He could actually see pride rock now. Perched on top of it was a stone carving of himself. “Oh! That makes sense… I guess,” Simba told himself.
Except for the stone Simba on top, pride rock was exactly how Simba remembered it. He sighed. “I wish I could look in the den.” Then, an idea struck him. “Maybe I can!”
He went to work, painting himself on the outcrop of pride rock. Not too close to the tip, otherwise he couldn’t look into the den very well. Of course, with the painting formed a stone carving of himself. Once it was done, he wasted no time watching from its point of view. He looked inside. He could see some sleeping lions and there wasn’t any place to “paint” himself inside the den, even if he wanted to. That was okay, though; one lion, closer to the den entrance than others, caught his attention.
“Nala!” he exclaimed. He tapped her image and another leaf stretched down, grew large and covered the wall, showing a clear picture of her. She was fast asleep. At first, Simba was glad to see that his friend was alright then a mischievous smirk spread across his face. “I think I know how to mess with her,” he said to himself. He redesigned the tuft of Nala’s tail into a big, fluffy ball. It looked like a bunny tail placed at the end of her own tail. Simba couldn’t resist making her belly bigger too. “If I can have a bigger belly, then so can you,” he said, matter-of-factly. Then he waited giddy for morning and Nala’s reaction.
Simba couldn’t tell exactly how much time had passed but at last, he could see the dawn’s light casting over the den entrance. To his surprise, his Uncle Scar was the first to come out of the den. He did notice the carving of Simba right there but he only scoffed.
“Worthless,” muttered the big lion and walked away.
Simba was offended. “Hey!” he exclaimed, “What do you mean ‘worthless’?!”
Scar paused, as if he had heard. If he had heard him, he just shrugged it off and went on his way.
“Yeah,” said Simba, “I’ll deal with you, as soon as-”
Simba stopped. Another lion had recognized his stone carving. He recognized his mother immediately. Sarabi looked all over the crude statue of her son in stunned silence. Mufasa joined her not long after.
“Mufasa,” she asked, “where did this come from?”
“I don’t know,” Mufasa replied, “Perhaps someone left it here to commemorate Simba.” He hadn’t noticed that the statue was embedded into the rock. That or he chose to ignore that little detail.
“Commemorate?” said Sarabi, “He’s not… gone…” She could hardly get the word out. She began sniffling then buried her face in her mate’s shoulder just as the tears started to fall. “He can’t be gone. He just can’t,” she cried.
Mufasa embraced her. “I know. I’m worried about him too.” He was fighting back tears himself. It had been some weeks since their son had disappeared that rainy day
Simba, of course, had seen everything. He realized that he must’ve been gone for a long time. He felt guilty, he didn’t want them to feel bad. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Sarabi’s tears stopped flowing. She stood alarmed. Mufasa was taken aback too. “Who… who said that?” he asked.
“I did,” said Simba.
The king and queen looked around. “And who is… ‘I’?” Asked Sarabi.
“It’s me, Simba. The rock carving.” Mufasa and Sarabi stared. “Hi Mom. Hi Dad.”
Sarabi screamed. Mufasa looked enraged. “I don’t know what kind of sick joke this is,” he thundered, “but if you think I’m going to-!”
“No, it’s really me!” insisted Simba, “You took me to the top of pride rock and told me everything the light touches is our kingdom. Mom, you were there too. You pushed me from behind to go forward, remember?”
Sarabi’s breathing steadied. “I did do that,” she said, reflecting.
“And Dad, afterwards, you said that when we die, we become grass as part of the Circle of Life.”
Mufasa let his guard down, just a little. “It really is you, isn’t it?”
“It really is.”
Sarabi raced over to the statue and hugged it tight. “Oh! Oh, my baby!” she sobbed happily.
Mufasa joined in the hug too. “And you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” insisted Simba. Despite them only hugging an avatar of him, Simba could feel their loving warmth and embrace.
After emotions had settled, Mufasa asked the question that was on his and Sarabi’s minds. “What happened to you? How did you turn into a rock?”
“I’m not a rock, Dad. I’m… talking through it? I think?” Simba went on to explain everything that happened. What happened at the tree, growing so huge he fell off the planet (which did answer a lot of pride-landers’ questions from that day), ending up at this tree and everything he did with it so far.
Sarabi and Mufasa were amazed. “So… the thorns from the Trench of Kings… made you bigger than the stars?”
“I guess they did,” said Simba thoughtfully.
“I suppose that makes you bigger than the kings,” said Sarabi, who was so shocked, she said it without thinking. Mufasa raised an eyebrow at this.
“Yeah,” said Simba with growing confidence, “I suppose I am!”
From the den came a loud, very confused “WHAT THE?!”
***
Nala was pleased to know that Simba was alright and that she was able to talk to him but she did have a few choice words for her big belly and bunny tail.
Simba hadn’t forgotten about Scar’s reaction to, what he thought was, a statue of his nephew. He wanted to catch up with him and maybe mess with him. When he saw that he was heading for the elephant graveyard, he channeled himself through the stone carving he made of himself there.
When he did, he could hear his uncle yelling at some hyenas. “Who did it?!” he roared, “Who carved the face of that…?! That brat?!”
Simba was offended. “Carving? Brat? Me?!”
“Hey, don’t look at us,” said Shenzi to Scar.
“Yeah,” agreed Banzai, “Besides, I’m no good at chizeling, anyway.”
Ed laughed in agreement.
“Wel, l whoever made that carving will be bumped off, once I’m king! Now that that little brat has disappeared, we should be focusing on killing Mufasa!”
Simba was alarmed. “You know what? I made that carving,” he said. His voice came booming from the large carving.
“Whoa!” said Shenzi, “Boss, did you let someone follow you here?”
“What? No, of course not!” said Scar, keeping up a brave front, “Who said that?! Show yourself!”
“Oh, that would be me.” Simba craned the carving around as much as he could to get a better look at Scar. “Hi Uncle Scar.”
Scar stared with his mouth hung open. He wasn’t so brave anymore. Neither were the hyenas.
“Yes, Uncle Scar, it’s me,” assured Simba.
“I, uh… Simba?” squeaked Scar in a high-pitched voice. He couldn’t think straight. All that came out was what was directly on his mind in the moment. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough to make me do this,” replied Simba. He tapped the image of Scar on the platform’s wall and his leaf grew in front of it. Simba painted a great big belly on Scar and Scar’s belly grew so big that he couldn’t even move. “There we go.”
Scar’s anger returned. “Hey! What is the meaning of this?!”
“Oh, shut up!” groaned Simba, “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to go find my dad.”
The carving returned to its original formation, leaving Scar furious and slightly worried. “Don’t just stand there,” he shouted to the hyenas, “do something!” The hyenas were still in shock and couldn’t do anything. Well, that wasn’t strictly true; Ed did faint.
When Shenzi and Banzai came to, Shenzi asked the obvious question, “Well, what do you expect us to do?”
“I don’t know! Roll me away or something!”
Shenzi thought for a moment then grinned deviously. “Oh, of course, of course,” she said, “But before we do, how often do we get a chance to play ‘boss ball?’ Banzai, over to you!” With that, Shenzi rolled Scar towards him.
Banzai caught him surprisingly easily. “Oh, I get it,” he said, “Back at ya, Shenzi!”
And so, Shenzi and Banzai took turns passing Scar between each other. Ed was still passed out. With each roll, Scar was growing increasingly frustrated. “I am not a ball, you idiots!” he snarled, “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?!”
“I know who,” said an all-too-familiar voice. The hyenas stopped their game and turned to see Mufasa coming towards them. “A traitor to the pridelands, that’s who.”
“Mufasa,” said Scar, trying to play innocent, “It’s, uh, your son, he just took a conversation out of context and… and…”
Mufasa didn’t reply, he just stared at the Hyenas. “Hey, if we confirm he’s lying, will you let us go?” asked Banzai.
Scar snarled again. “Now who are the traitors?!”
Mufasa gave a small smile. “I can arrange that. If you help me with one more task.”
And so, after Ed came to, the trio of hyenas and the king rolled Scar towards the edge of the pridelands. It was quite a sight. Scar couldn’t move on his own but he sure could roll easily. He felt humiliated.
At last, they reached the gorge that separated the pridelands from the outlands. Simba had rearranged the clouds in the form of his face so he could get a proper look.
“Oh, so what are you going to do now?” asked Scar incredulously. No one answered verbally, they just kept pushing. “Wait, no! If I go in there, I’ll be-!”
With one last shove from Mufasa, Scar fell into the gorge. He didn’t go far before he got wedged and stuck.
“There we go,” said Mufasa.
“So, that’s it?” grumbled Scar, “You’re just going to leave me wedged here?”
“Don’t worry, you won’t be wedged forever,” said Mufasa, “your stomach will shrink, eventually.”
“But just so you can’t climb out again…” continued Simba. He had Scar’s leaf ready. He painted hooves where Scar’s paws were. He was going to stop there but Simba felt inspired. He changed scar’s mane, elongated his muzzle, added stripes and a few other details.
“There,” said Simba when he had finished, “now you can live the rest of your life as a zebra.” With that, everyone turned to leave.
Scar was furious. “You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am?! I’m brother to the king!”
Mufasa looked over the edge one last time, at that remark. “Oh really?” he questioned, “My brother was a lion who I thought would never betray me or the pridelands. You don’t look like a lion to me.” With that, Mufasa left once again, leaving truly and rightfully alone.
***
And so, Simba continued living his life in, what became known as, the Tree of Life. There are some that would call him a lion deity but for Simba, “bigger than the kings” was a good enough title. He explored all through the branches, discovering all sorts of new places and faces across the world, the universe and maybe even beyond that. The pridelands were his favorite and he always made sure to make time for his family and friends.
He did plenty of good and, being Simba of course, had a lot of fun and messed with a lot of animals. Sometimes, not entirely on purpose. There was the time he tried to make a mobile avatar or when he accidentally transformed the heads of all the animals in an entire forest into a copy of his own. The particular incident led him to experiment with creating new planets with a whole new lionkind; or perhaps more accurately, Simbakind.
But of course, all of those are stories for another time.
