later. I'd best be getting back now. Tell you what, why don't you two come with me, then you can tell me all about yourself and how Rafiki managed to keep so quiet about you for all this time."

Scar looked at Rafiki for a lead, he gave it by holding his staff out in the direction of Priderock and nodding gently. Scar lead off and Ahadi stepped forward to his side smiling. Rafiki fell in behind the father and son.

On the way back they chatted about the weather and mandrill's favourite foods and the difficulties of getting really fresh bananas. Rafiki, however, never saw his cousin again

      ***

On the flat, sun-warmed boulders below Priderock all was quiet as it usually was in the heat of the late afternoon. Akase lay relaxed as she waited for Ahadi's return, hopefully with the wandering Scar. She hoped he could be found before Immue arrived. Falasha lay nearby grooming herself lazily, paying particular attention to her left fore paw, which was still a little sore after receiving a cut just above the pads whilst out hunting. She slurped noisily as she moistened the wound, then ran her grating tongue along the hardened skin.

The little Mufasa played nearby, pouncing at insects, grasshoppers mainly, in the grass a short way off. He seemed totally engrossed in catching them only to release them soon after, waiting a few moments before pouncing again. Akase knew that he would be out of harm's way for a while longer. All was as it always was and the lionesses or the pride, or those who were not out on the plains, were at peace.

It was just getting round to the time when Akase grew restless and hungry as the heat of the day began to wear off when Immue slunk in silently. She came straight up to Akase and said in a tense tone:

"All right, where is he?"

"Who, Immue?" asked Akase trying to stall Immue in case Ahadi had just arrived at the rocks behind Immue.

"You know very well who, don't give me that 'innocent' stuff. Where's my son?" All traces of her normal veneer of politeness were gone. This was Immue in the raw.

"Your son? Oh you mean Scar. Well now, he's around. Er, Mufasa?"

The cub drew up from his pounce-ready crouch and answered his mother.

"Yeah Mum, what's up?"

"Mufasa dear, do you know where Scar is?"

"Yes, you little furball, where's my son?"

"Now then, that's enough." Akase snapped at Immue, clenching her teeth and giving a low, rumbling growl that was intended to signify: "Back off!"

"Well, now if it isn't the 'Queen'? I'm just as much Ahadi's mate as you are! And my son's going to be the next king!"

Akase pushed her forequarters up from the rock, tensing her shoulders and holding her snarl, she growled again; louder so that Falasha heard clearly.

"He'll never be king while I am alive. And where have you been today?"

Immue refused to back down in the face of Akase's warning and stood her ground proudly with her tail high. "I don't have to tell you anything. Ha, call yourself a Queen?"

 "You do if you've been hunting and made a kill." Akase growled and eased her hindquarters from the rock to stand full-square in front of Immue. Akase’s bulk was much greater than that of the relatively slightly built upland lioness Immue, if blows were to have to be exchanged then Akase would be sure to prevail.

Still Immue kept up her defiance. "I've not killed today. I may have been hunting, but that's not a crime is it? Or does the Queen have other ideas?"

Akase knew the time was getting close to when she would be forced to act or admit humiliating defeat to Immue. Akase was not known for being aggressive and this clear and public challenge to her standing put her in a difficult and dangerous position. She looked intently into Immue's eyes for a few seconds before speaking again, all the while keeping up a continuous rasping growling.

"If you haven't killed then why is there blood on your cheek?" Her growl rose as she finished, she lunged at Immue in a final attempt to assert her authority as the senior lioness. Immue was surprised by the sudden rush of Akase and despite outward signs was not going to wait around to exchange blows. She turned in the face of Akase's lightning burst of power and ran as fast as she could, her tail flailing wildly as she bounded away.

Akase slowed and stopped after only a few paces, her sides heaving. She roared after the escaping Immue. She felt relieved that Immue had been so selfish with her kill, thus giving her a way out of the stand-off. She felt even more relieved when, a few minutes later, Ahadi returned with Scar and Rafiki.

"Oh Ahadi, thank the stars you've found him." She turned to the cub. "And where have you been? Don't you know it's dangerous out there? There's all sorts of animals that would like to take a young cub like you?"

"Hmmm, you have no idea." Replied Scar sarcastically.

"What? Now then I'll have none of that. If you were my cub I'd make sure you felt the back of my paw for that. So, where have you been?" Akase demanded, half expecting some retort or other, she

was not disappointed.

"Well, I'm not your cub. You're not my mother. She says what I can do, not you!" Scar turned away from Akase. He made the mistake, however, of turning towards Ahadi.

"But I am your father. Now, that's no way to talk to a lioness who cares about you. You had better say you're sorry or you'll not share a kill for two whole days." Scar stayed facing Ahadi but looked out to one side, across the plain. "Do you hear me?" Ahadi raised his left forepaw, not to strike Scar, but merely to warn him that he could do so if he felt the need.

Scar mumbled under his breath as he turned back to Akase, "Temper, temper." For a moment he refused to meet her gaze, then he raised his head and with all the conviction he could muster he said: "I'm sorry Akase."

Akase saw Scar's expression carried a hint of remorse about it and smiled gently in reply.

"That's ok, but I do need to know where you went. I have to be able to tell your mother all about it you know. She cares about you very much."

Scar felt a little guilty at this. He hadn't realised his mother could be hurt by one of his little adventures.

"Well I..." Scar started, but Rafiki stepped in and spared him from any further awkwardness.

"He was with me all afternoon. We talked. He was a good little mandrill."

"Hmmm?" Scar felt a little embarrassed and foolish to have believed that Rafiki had really turned him into a mandrill, but he was certainly not going to admit that to Akase and Ahadi, and definitely not Mufasa who was standing a few lengths away.

"Hmmm indeed Scar. I hear you were a very good mandrill, do you want a banana?" Jested Ahadi gently. Scar turned away and dropped his head close to the ground in shame. "Oh, come on young'un." But Scar did not 'come on', instead he sank to the ground in front of Akase.

"Ahadi, what did you say that for?" glared Akase in a whisper over Scar, then raising her voice as she bent down to lick the top of Scar's head. "Up you get, I think I'd better take you home to your mother." Scar looked up and smiled uncertainly at Akase who looked reassuringly down at him. She offered him a paw, placing it gently by his side to hold as he got unsteadily to his paws. She led him away, pausing only to throw a comment on the breeze to Ahadi: "You just can't trust lions can you?"

"...I see you brought him back then. You had him hidden did you?" Immue was impatient and did not wait for Akase's reply. "Well, give him here and be on your way, come on - I haven't got all day my dear." Immue stood on the ledge on the northern face of Priderock outside the cool cavern she called home. The cavern was not enclosed; at the far end, no more than ten metres from the north entrance, the floor sloped up to a narrow rock platform reachable from either side only by a powerful leap. "Come here my little one."

Scar did not wait for Akase to respond to his mother and leapt to her and threaded his way among her forepaws, standing, albeit a little crouched, with the top of his head rubbing her dark and warm underfur. Akase realised that her carefully prepared speech was not going to help the situation and so it was consigned to her memory, never to be heard. She turned, unsmiling and resigned, and walked back the way she had come, back to her own cub, Mufasa, who would be waiting for his evening feed.

Scar fed voraciously that evening. Immue lay back and enjoyed the company and intimacy of her only son as the light finally faded to leave the cavern dark and foreboding. She drew the tired cub to her with a forepaw and in time he dozed quietly on her forelegs, pressing his back up to her breast which moved gently with each breath. Scar felt secure and at peace, Immue licked his head and shoulders, not so much because he was dirty, but because she longed for the smell and taste of his young fur. Scar said little as he wavered in and out of sleep. In ten or more minutes the only words he said clearly were:

"I love you mother." In reply she gazed longingly at her cub and, softly and gently at first began to sing. Not a lullaby but words of love for her cub who was all she he ever had in the world:

I wanna call the stars down from the sky.

I wanna