Emmanuel_Capricorn
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TLK : Chapter 131
🕑 Added 2025-09-15 19:37:16 +0000 UTC[1st POV]
It was not easy to find prey.
Let me rephrase that. It had been a few hours, and it was not nearly as easy as I thought it would be to find prey.
Usually, it would take Grim an hour at most before he found prey, but it had been a few hours like I said and he had not found anything yet.
Turns out, the whole battle was heard by animals in the area, causing them to flee further away from the Pridelands.
I could understand that. We were pretty loud and brutal. I would leave as quickly as possible, too.
Grim and the other vultures were currently out searching for prey in the area while I also set out to hunt too. I told my pride to stay together and not to follow me.
Although some might say it was not a good time to hunt so soon, I would say otherwise. I was actually using this opportunity to test my body and the extent of my capability. My main aim was not the hunt, actually; it was stretching my body after sleeping for two days straight.
Grim and the other vultures flew and searched one way, while I headed towards the other. Although I could not fly and did not have nearly as good an eye, nature had blessed me with a powerful nose to smell my prey.
The vultures were a convenience, not a necessity. I never wanted to depend on anyone or anything to survive, and that included the vultures and even my pride.
After walking all this time, I was quite far from the pride and the region that we were occupying. I was beginning to smell other animals again, although they were mostly just birds, rodents, and a boar.
Those prey were too small and not worth the effort, so I ignored them. If I could not find bigger prey and was desperate, I would hunt them.
I continued walking, my fatigued shoulders groaning in satisfaction as I released the tension with every roll. My paws that had an injury were starting to numb after walking this much; I barely felt pain anymore.
When I reached the denser part of the area where trees stood side by side, my nose picked up a new, distinct scent. I paused, genuinely confused for a moment as I could not identify the scent.
It smelled like a monkey, a baboon but not quite. There was a hint of spice on the smell, like colours and age.
Age? Does age have a smell?
My curiosity made me crouch low as I began stalking through the trees. My nose twitched, and the scent was my lead.
And after moving silently for a while, I finally sensed a presence.
I did not see it, I did not hear it, and my nose still could not pinpoint the scent, but I knew it was there.
It was coming from the trees, I knew, but I didn’t yet look. I wanted it to think I hadn’t noticed. But the fur on my back started standing, my instincts screamed as the presence reached the tree right beside me.
I felt it stay on the tree, its eyes observing me. Its gaze was almost penetrating; it was hard to act like I didn’t notice it.
But my patience paid off as the presence climbed down the tree and was now right above me. In such a close vicinity, I could feel its size and shape. It was a monkey.
“What are we looking for?” it said, and that was when I moved with preprogrammed movement.
If I had been unprepared, I would’ve flinched first before moving into action. But since I was ready, I moved immediately and the monkey did not have time to dodge.
*Whoosh!!*
A blur of movement, a chain of elegance you would not expect from a predator my size. I swiped the monkey out of the tree and slammed it on the ground, my paws pinning him, and I forcefully shut my teeth to resist the instinct of biting immediately.
I growled and paused abruptly when I saw who it was.
“Rafiki?” I called/asked. My flattened ears perked up and my lips curtained my teeth again. I blinked, genuinely surprised to see the monkey I caught.
“I didn’t expect that,” Rafiki said, calm like the biggest lion in history was not pinning him down, “Cunning you. You knew I was there.”
I shook my head and released my hold on him. He stood up and dusted himself off while I was still processing his sudden appearance.
“Rafiki, what are you doing here?” I asked while narrowing my eyes. My mind did not wait for his answer, even though I asked, I was already coming up with reasons why he was here.
He appeared, too, when Simba was about to take over the Pridelands again, so it was not really out of character for him to appear to me now.
“I could ask the same about you, cubling. It’s you who is not supposed to be here,” he said, and although I knew what he meant, I acted like I didn’t.
He was expecting Simba to come and take back the kingdom, not his tailless brother, which was me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh don’t act all ignorant on me. Only those who are aware of fate can defy her,” Rafiki said.
Rafiki was an aged mandrill. But even with his evident old age, he was still quite bulky and intimidating. Although not for me, as I towered over him in ridiculous proportions. The biggest monkey species in the world looked like a cute monkey standing before me.
But unlike the animated depiction that I was aware of, he did not have his signature staff. He was just a monkey without anything in hand.
“I thought you would’ve died by now,” I said, quickly changing the subject from fate to other things. In the original story, Rafiki was shown as a shaman, someone with some type of supernatural ability. I was not sure how much he knew but I was not going to step on those sensitive areas.
I was extremely cautious, perhaps more cautious than I’d ever been when faced with another beast.
“Really? I’m surprised you remember me at all, considering you were just an infant when you saw me, and I was only focused on your brother,” he said.
“I remember all my firsts and you were the first creature I saw that was not a lion,” I said.
Rafiki grabbed his chin and nodded sagely, as if what I just said made perfect sense. But his calm facade was soon replaced by a smile, a smile that seemed to know too much.
“So why have you come to me?” I asked.
“Hmm? You came to me. This is my home, my territory,” Rafiki said while pointing at me, “So, why have YOU come to me?”
“Don’t play games with me, Rafiki. Like you said, I was aware of your presence. You are the one who came to me,” I said, my eyes narrowing at him.
“Fine, fine, fine, you got me,” he said, raising his hand in surrender, “I was just curious, that’s all. I wanted to see how the cub that was supposed to die long ago has grown up.”
Rafiki began walking around me and observing every inch of my body. Much to my annoyance, he poked me here and there, scuffled my fur and mane a few times. But when I turned to him, he was already gone. He was quite agile for an old monkey, I’ll give him that.
“If that’s all you want…” I said. I did not like his presence very much; it was unnerving, and the way he was acting with me was nothing like the respect and fear I got from others.
If he was not going to do some magic shit to help me or let me see dead kings, I didn’t want him.
“Do you want me gone that much? Are you sure? Maybe I can help you,” he said.
“Help me how?”
“Help you find the prey you are looking for, for example,” he said.
My eyes widened, genuinely interested by that, “You can do that?”
“Sure I can. I know these lands like the back of my hand. Follow me!!” he said and jumped up a tree before he started leaping from tree to tree.
I began following him without questioning. Like I said, he was surprisingly agile for his age, but I was able to keep up without much problem.
But as the time passed, Rafiki did not show any signs of slowing down. On the other hand, I did not see any signs of life where we were going. I was beginning to be incredulous but still, I continued following him.
Every second ticked by, seconds turned into minutes and minutes quickly turned into an hour. Until eventually, we came out of the forested area and there were barely any trees to be found.
Rafiki finally jumped down from the trees as the closest tree was too far to reach. The landscape had changed into a dry open land and he would have to walk going forward.
“Are you sure you know where we are going?” I asked when he came beside me.
“Of course, I know where I am going. Your father trusted me with the future of his kingdom; you can trust me too,” he said.
“I’m not sure what Mufasa sees in you, but all I see is a crazy old monkey,” I commented, a little out of breath.
“Mufasa eh?” he said and eyed me with a smile, “Not your father?”
Now I stopped.
He waited for an answer so he stopped too.
I never considered Mufasa as my real father. I considered him a great king before I even considered him my father. He was always so distant to me. It was like only Simba had ownership of him, like he was only Simba’s father.
He never took me to his patrol, never showed me the kingdom, never put his expectations on me, never said I would be a great king like him one day.
He was, quite frankly, nothing to me.
“Did I hit a personal bone? I don’t mean to make you sad,” he said.
“I’m not sad,” I replied fast. After all, how can nothing make you sad?
“I’ll tell you something funny to cheer you up,” he said and turned to face me fully.
“I said I’m not sad.”
But he didn’t hear a word I said.
“I was born with a gift, a special kind of gift that no one else in the world has. You see, the earth talks to me, fate whispers in my ear her little secrets,” he said.
“And the funny thing is,” he said and gestured for me to come close. He cupped his hands and said to my listening ears.
“She never told me about you,” he said.
..
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Comments
kinggundam21
Does Rafiki know that Simba is alive?? Will the monkey let Leo talk to Mufasa
kinggundam21
What is crazy is Rafiki telling him to follow him so far just to tell him that fate doesn't know nothing about him what's Rafiki trying to say that he's the unknown King
