The Lion King

Chapter 2 - Everything the Light Touches

Chapter 2

As night descended on the Pride Lands, the sky darkened with black clouds. A shadow fell over Pride Rock, and thunder rumbled softly overhead. For a moment, the stillness before the storm came alive with the crackling of static energy. Then, at last, the world could hold its tension no longer, and the storm broke over the land in a burst of heat and light.

Rain fell in sheets, and animals fled the storm in terror, their wide eyes fixed on the world raging around them. Never before had a storm of such power or size been seen in the Pride Lands. Could it be an omen? Yet among the fear, there was one animal who felt no fright. Instead, a great peace warmed his belly, assuring him that the storm was not an omen but rather a sign that the savanna in all its untamable beauty was in good hands.

The mandrill's tree swayed back and forth in the wind, its gnarled branches webbing across the night sky like strings of spider silk. The mandrill ignored the strange illusion, ignored the very storm itself. At the moment, something else held his interest, something far more important.

Garbled mumbles escaped the mandrill's lips as he reached up on high and smeared red juice across the trunk of his tree. An eye there, an ear there, an arched back and a winding tail. Suddenly, a smile broke the mandrill's lips, and he laughed. Dipping his fingers into the split gourd, he reached up higher than ever and drew his thumb across the painted lion cub's forehead, leaving behind a distinctive red mark.

"Simba," he said.

A new prince was born.

* * *

Dawn was just breaking over the land when a golden-furred lion cub bounded to the edge of Pride Rock, his glowing amber eyes fixed eagerly on the horizon. Though darkness still consumed the land, light was breaking through the shadows on the horizon, straining to envelop the world once more in an ethereal golden glow. The cub's tail whisked high above his head as he continued to survey the savanna, and a smile etched across his soft face. No doubt daylight was just around the corner. It was finally time.

"Dad! Dad!" The cub's tail waved wildly behind him as he stumbled into the shadows of the pride's den. "Come on, Dad, we gotta go!" He gazed helplessly across the sea of sleeping lionesses to where his parents slept at the back of the cave. Neither moved as he shouted once more, "Wake up!"

At last, the cub's impatience got the better of him, and he thrust himself into the midst of the sleeping pride.

"Oomph!" one of the lionesses moaned in her sleep as he tread heavily on her tail.

"Sorry!" the cub apologized, wincing.

Turning back to the rest of the pride, he squeezed his way in-between two sleeping lionesses and bounded across the rest of the cave to where his father slept soundly beside his mother.

"Dad!" he called as he drew nearer. When the king made no move to respond, the cub stuck out his bottom lip and whined, "Dad!"

In his sleep, Mufasa groaned, hoping the chattering voice would give way to gentle dreams. The cub, however, continued to talk, his excited voice permeating the perfection of sleep. Why did cubs wake so early?

Beside Mufasa, his mate murmured sleepily, "Your son is awake."

Still, Mufasa made no move to get up.

"Before sunrise, he's your son," he mumbled back.

"Dad!" The cub's voice broke through the dreamlike barrier once more, and he shoved his pouting muzzle into Mufasa's face. "Come on, Dad!"

In a spurt of impatience, he jumped up on his father's flank and snagged Mufasa's ear in his tiny teeth. With all his might, he began to pull and pull and pull until suddenly, his teeth ripped free, and he went tumbling backwards. Leaping back to his paws, the cub raced across the cave and threw himself in his father's face.