The Truth Behind My Scar

One: The First Scar

Scar POV 

The night was cold and chilly. Unfortunately for me, none of the other lions wanted to sleep next to me and help keep me warm. Maybe it was because I was weaker than the average male lion. Or because of my skin. My fur had always been darker and more of an orange than the yellow and golden tan the other lions and lionesses had. And my mane. Long, dark, and brownish black, it stood out among the other tans and reds of the other pride members manes. And not a good type of stand out, but a bad type. The I-am-a-freak-and-different, the kind of different and special that got you mocked and beaten. 

 And beaten and mocked I was. Mufasa and his friends, his stooges, seemed to take pleasure in humiliating and tormenting me in front of everyone. My father, Ahadi, did nothing and seemed to encourage them from the small smiles and rewarding and appreciative nods that he gave Mufasa. My father also called me names, names I've never heard anyone else called before. Words like "freak," "bastard," "bitch," or "dark skin." And my mother, Uru, just ignored all my attempts to tell her what was going on. Even as a young cub, just out of her womb, she mainly ignored me and only gave her love to Mufasa, with me only being helped and loved as an afterthought and after a short period of both hesitation and consideration. 

The wind blew another harsh gust against my fur. Even Mother Nature was against me. I knew the Great Lions of the Past were always against me and would always favor Mufasa. After all, why wouldn't they favor everyone in the Pridelands' favorite lion cub, their golden boy? But now the very vegetation  and climate of the surrounding world was turned against me. I shivered, and tried curling up into a tighter ball to survive the night and awaited the coming sunny and warm morning.  

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I yawned, and stretched my legs. I blinked my eyes as the first rays of the dawning sunlight reached Pride Rock's tall stone slab, reaching high in the sky to touch the grey and pink clouds of the African morning. I slowly sat up before large paws grabbed me and forced me back down. 

"What's up, Taka!" A mocking and derisive laugh sounded from behind me. "Morning, dark skin." The other lion and lioness cubs around us laughed at my humiliation. I whimpered as two of them, Mufasa's best friends Kubwa and Kirafiki, clamped their massive tan paws around my dark muzzle. I screamed and thrashed about, but my cries for help were muffled and silenced by their  tight and crushing paws as they laughed at my struggles and futile attempts to break free. 

"What's the matter, dark skin?" Mufasa said, tauntingly. "Can't hold a little pressure!" As he said the last word, he dug his claws into the fur behind my neck. I screamed even louder. "Let's see if you bleed the right way!" He growled. He nodded to two others. "Bite him." They laughed creepily and jumped on top of me ramming their teeth into the soft sides of underbelly, barely visible above the ground. I screamed in agony. This was way worse than the other times they had beaten and tortured me. 

I felt it, painfully aware, as their claws and teeth broke my skin. I sobbed, begging and pleading for mercy to make them stop, but they just laughed and kept on torturing me. One of them growled into my ear. "You think this hurts," he muttered. "This is nothing, filthy bastard." I screeched in pain as they then proceeded to bit my earlobe, drawing blood. 

"Aw," Mufasa said, in mock disappointment and surprise. "It looks like he does bleed the same as us." The others cackled, sounding like those hyenas that lived in the Outlands. Except worse. Far worse. Mufasa pushed my face into the stony ground, laughing gleefully as something broke in my head. I didn't know what, but something started to bleed. Well, something else started to bleed, because by now I was bleeding from the cuts and wounds they had inflicted on me all over my dark body in their "research attempts" to see if I bled the same as them. I decided to use all of my strength and tried to buck off Mufasa, but he was too strong and heavy for me to take off. 

"You're a fucking sadist," I gasped out with my ever decreasing breath as more and more lions settled down on top of my back and the rest of my body. "You're worse than the hyenas." Mfuasi leaned in, down to where only I could hear him. "Listen to this, here is my little secret: I am your fucking KING!" He yelled the last word with all hi might and dragged his sharp silver claws across my face. 

I screamed as he drew blood again, the bleed intermingling and flowing into and over my eye. My eye involuntarily shut. "Ah! My eye! I can't see!" I shouted, wanting to try to open it but still having my paws and arms pinned down under me by the lion and lioness cubs' weight. Mufasa cakcled and yelled. 

"You see! This piece of dirt is so weak! See how easily I beat him! I scarred him! I gave him his scar!" He paused in his rant of victory. "Scar." The evil and horrid revelation dawned on him like the sun had dawned on Pride Rock earlier this morning, what had seemed lifetimes ago from now. "Scar." He said again, with relish in his mocking voice. "I like that." He leaned towards me. "Congratulations, shit skin, your new name is Scar." He pulled back up. "How do you like that! How do you like that!" He laughed again, and the other lion and lioness cubs joined in with him, mocking me, torturing me, reveling in my newfound nickname and their new name of torture and torment. 

Mufasa brought himself back down to my filthy, dirt-ridden, bleeding level. "Always remember, Scar," he said, saying the word with such utter hatred and disgust that I flinched away from him. His other paw grabbed me and pulled me back in. "Remember this, when you're old and dying, I will FOREVER be your king." He released me. "C'mon, guys. Let's go hunting for some antelope and leave shit head Scar here to think over what the fuck he did, living among us in our pride like that." 

The other cubs nodded, and whooped, and like a pack of bitching hyenas, moved away, bickering  and squabbling. When they had finally left and I was all alone save for the lone vultures circling over me in the hot desert African sun, I made a promise to myself. A promise I kept to myself to my grave, to my dying day. I swore on the bones of every ancestor and Great Lions of the Past I knew and had. I swore, with my gasping breath, the following. 

"I swear, on the bones of the Great Lions of the Past and every ancestor that every an8mal in the Pridelands has or will ever have, I will kill you, Mufasa. I will enjoy it oh so very much. I will watch you stare at up with hope and pleading in your eyes, right before I dash those hopes and your eyes grow wide in horror and fear before you die. Slowly and painfully, with whatever child you have watching you die." 

Having made my vow, I rested in the hot sun as the vultures swooped down and sat pecking next to me.