You Would Have Roared Too, a lion king fanfic

You Would Have Roared Too

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Lion King

Night had fallen in the savannah. A cool wind ruffled the dry brown grass and Nala's fur as she slunk along; somewhere a cricket was chirping. The little lioness padded along as softly as she could, not out of any eagerness to catch prey, but out of pure shame. One couldn't make a noise when one was being escorted home in disgrace by the King's Major Domo, after having escaped a shameful death at the claws of hyenas through sheer luck.

Zazu, flying low above her, was silent too. She wondered if he was angry with her; she had sense enough to know that she deserved it. She just couldn't say no to Simba when his eyes glowed like that; he had promised her an adventure. And for all its horrible aspects, there was no denying that it had been exciting.

She recalled the hyenas' jeering voices and slobbering tongues, the elephant skull looming above them in the gloom, the frantic run for their lives, dislodging an avalanche of bones. Simba runnng back to pull her up the slope. King Mufasa's roar resounding in the stone cavern like a living golden earthquake. Poor Zazu nearly getting eaten ... wait ...

"Mr. Zazu?" she ventured.

"Yes?" He glanced down at her with one beady black eye.

"I've been thinking."

The little hornbill muttered something that sounded like 'that's a first for today', and Nala winced.

"You're even smaller than Simba and me," she reflected aloud. "And you don't even have fangs or claws ... you could have been eaten back there. You almost were."

"Thanks ever so for the reminder, child," he retorted, snapping his beak. "Your point being?"

"My point is ... you went and spread your wings in front of us. Like you were protecting us. Why didn't you just fly away?"

Zazu's irritated wingbeats propelled him higher, so he had to shout to be heard. "Fly away? Leave two cubs to the hyenas?" he huffed. "And one of them Mufasa's son? Well, really, Nala! What do you take me for?"

Nala couldn't resist a tiny giggle. He was reacting just as she'd guessed.

"Simba wasn't the only one who was brave today, Mr. Zazu," she said finally. "He might not have noticed, but I did. Thank you."

Zazu let out a squawk, tumbled end over end in his surprise, and righted himself in the air with distinctly puffed-up feathers. He cleared his throat and dove downward until he was nearly level with Nala, his wings skimming the grass.

"Brave? Me? Well, ahem ... I must say ... how very kind of you to say so, my dear. It's not as if I was actually any help," he added ruefully.

"That's not the point. I know you would have roared just like the King if you could. Besides ... if we'd listened to you in the first place," Nala admitted, "We'd never have gotten into that mess."

"True enough." Zazu shuddered at the memory of his wild lion chase through stampeding zebra herds and under elephant feet. "You and Simba are more trouble than a sackful of fleas, you know! When you have cubs of your own, I hope you find out what you've put your parents through."

As he fell into his familiar lecture pattern, to be echoed later by Nala's mother, she angled her ears at the appropriate, humble level and did not interrupt.

I'll have to remind Simba, she thought, to stop calling him Banana Beak. It's rude.