Trapped in Remorse

Nala was my mother, but she did not feel that way. She was not a mother to me, perhaps in a way a caregiver, but never a mother. She did not pick me up and swing me around by the arms, making me scream with laughter. She did not bound through the fields with me, playing tag and letting me catch her. No. She never did any of that.

But I don't hate her for it. Not her, not anyone. For it isn't her fault, really. It isn't her fault that she's too trapped in her remorse for me. I don't like it, but who but the dead have I to blame it upon?

Scar, perhaps. Scar was her father. He proposed to her, one day. That day, Nala realized that perhaps she was hated. Not so loved as she had hoped. That she was just another random individual, fighting for love.

Simba, her beloved, returned from the dead. Ended her sorrow - or so she thought. But her sorrow was not nearly over yet.

She and Simba had a beautiful son called Radhi. (The cub you see at the end of TLK) They raised him to be perfect, to be wonderful... to be the only one.

But he left. He left them to wither up and die. And they about did. Simba's soul dried out, he became harsh and unemotional. My mother, my Nala, became someone else because of that. She transformed from the wonderful one she'd always been into a depressed, forlorn individual.

Simba and Nala carried on the tradition; they gave birth to me. Kiara. The second daughter to Simba and Nala, the future queen of the great Pride Lands.

But I did not take pride in my place. My mother and father tried so hard... but they had no time for me. I savor the few precious moments I spent with them... even when they were angry with me. It was for my own good, their anger. I know that now. And, besides, anything to hear their voice not consumed by madness.

Though my mother was, all the same, a depressed soul. Through her despair, she became a madwoman. A dual megalomaniac. A madwoman with a split personality who thought highly of herself.

"I'm the queen of the land. Mate of Simba, mother of Kiara. I don't dress up for Halloween, I'm every inch a queen. Yet, I feel a twinge of doubt as I go walk about."

Some of the most madly consumed words of the queen. I heard them. In fact, they were directed at me.

"My bones are on the outside, looking in!" Timon the meerkat had complained to her.

"Eat Kiara!" My mother had now been desperate to pull the conversation to an end.

"Fine," Timon had said. "We'll split Kiara."

"We will?" Pumbaa had retorted.

"Shut up!" Nala was furious by now. "You might as well be picking fleas off my back, and feeding them to the monkeys!"

Timon and Pumbaa had exchanged disgusted glances. Guh-ross!

"Stop this at once!" I had cried, in sorrow and exasperation.

"Shut up, you nasty little utandu!"

I was beyond words by this point. My mother had threatened me. My own mother had called me "utandu", a forbidden word among the Pride Lands. Especially to use it on your own daughter... and I knew then, once my caring, beautiful mother, had turned into a replica of her mad father. And I hated Scar for it. Not for what he did to Mufasa, but for what he did to my parents.