Title: Scars
Summary: Whether they are on the mind or the body, they persist.

Author's Note: Reading my previous story, "Dirt and Diamonds," is not required before reading this one, but it sets up the favored relationship between "Scar" and his mother a bit better and is therefore recommended.

Taka is the birth name of Scar.

Uru is the mother of Mufasa and Scar. She is also the POV of this piece.

Ahadi is the father of Mufasa and Scar, and in some media he is described closer to Scar's likeness than Mufasa's. I took this description for this story.

You're blurring together, the two of you. You look so alike, you and your father, but you couldn't be more different, could you? In spirit, that is – in spirit, I could tell you apart in an instant but I can't see spirits and so the two become one in my eyes. My eyes, your eyes – they're the only things that help me anymore, your eyes. They're like mine, bright and green and I can see just a little bit of my insanity in them. I hope above all else that it remains a little. I couldn't stand for you to fallen as I've fallen, my son.

But I can see him. He and you, so alike; dark and lithe and strong, and he's doing it again. He's ignoring you, ignoring your needs, and you don't know this – well, of course you do. You've always known. I've always seen that hurt in your eyes when he'd look away, and I wanted nothing more than strike out at him, force him to pay attention to you, my poor Taka.

He's doing it again. This time I will strike. This time my anger's gotten the best of me, and I want him to treat you right.

He's looking so frightened, though, your father. It's so strange how scared he looks – I've never seen him in such a state! But I don't pause. I growl and I snarl and I tell him, You don't know what you're doing to your son.

I can tell that the first son he thinks of is Mufasa, and that makes me even angrier.

I swing, I arch my paw and I'm surprised to find that it lands upon his face. I would never think he'd allow me to land a blow, but I have. Right across his eye, and blood is dripping down his muzzle and onto the ground, drip drip drip.

When he opens his eyes, they're your eyes. They're my eyes. I'm so confused at the sight that I turn away and concentrate on the ground, at the blood drip drip drip, speckling the sandy surface of Pride Rock.

When he speaks, he's stolen your voice to say, "Mother, Mother it's me Taka," and oh, oh I 

won't fall for that.

I look up to tell him as much, a snarl on my lips and eyes sharp like the talons that had just torn his face, but I'm confused again. He does look a little young.

I look at those eyes, and it's all become so clear. So painfully clear.

The two of you really do look alike. Both dark and lithe and sharp, but I'd never seen Ahadi with quite the look of misery and pain that's on your face, Taka.

Your face, your poor face which I've… Oh, no.

I run. I turn and I run, and I can hear you calling me, "Mother?" but you sound so far away and so broken that there's a chance that it's just a memory of a call, resurfacing in my mind and playing tricks on me.

I truly am sorry to leave you. I don't know what you'll do with yourself. I don't know how you'll handle your life without me, but I'm selfish now. I can't stand to see that face, because every time I do I'll remember the moment where I lost control, and my mind lashed out on the one that I loved so much. Every time I see that wound, across the eyes that had connected you to me, I'd know that I caused you that pain.

But even in my isolation I couldn't run from the sight of you, blood dripping from the cut in your brow. Every time I closed my eyes I could see it.

I could visualize the healing, see it without the blood, but I still saw the scar that my claws had left behind and it seemed to glow bright against the darkness of your features, searing itself into my mind's eye and branding me as much as it had you.

In my dreams I see you in shadows, skulking around like an outsider in a forbidden world of death and destruction. I don't know how real it is, how you truly turned out, but it breaks my heart to think that you may have wound up so alone.

Damned to shadows when all you ever wanted was to walk into the light.