Tanga was at a loss for what to do. Mufasa was the only lion he trusted in any way, and he had mysteriously disappeared. The make matters more complicated, no-one seemed to know where the gentle giant had gone, and Tanga's presence on Pride Rock was gaining more and more attention, leaving him more and more nervous. Trying to ease his fears, Tanga backed off a few paces, but this only put him on the long promontory of rock that stuck out from Pride Rock...essentially leaving him trapped without him realising it. For the moment, though, he failed to notice his increasingly distressing situation, as he continued backing away from Sarabi and Sarafina, while eyeing Nala, desperate for some help, and hoping her kind nature from last night wasn't a ruse.
"Please, Nala," he all-but-begged of the young cub. "Please...make the adults go away..." the way that Sarabi kept trying to get closer to him was seriously frightening, and he did not like Sarafina because he trusted adults less than he trusted cubs. Nala he could cautiously tolerate because she seemed nice enough...but the two adults were too much for him to handle. It was too many unknown faces at once, and Tanga took a few more paces back, eager to keep a good distance between himself and the others. "Please, Nala...help me..." he pleaded as Sarabi refused to stop her advances, taking one step closer to him for every step he backed off.
But eventually, when Tanga went to make another step back, only quick reflexes and a good balance from having to escape from bullies his whole life stopped him from falling off the end of Pride Rock's promontory. Yelling in terrified surprise, he jumped foward, getting all four paws back on solid rock, spinning around to finally see his rather trapped nature, which caused his mind to break down into irrational panic completely. To his mind, his precarious position was a deliberate attempt to trap him, and a sure sign that the three in front of him were planning to hurt him...why else would they let him trap himself so effectively?
Shaking and whimpering in anticipation to the stream of insults and blows he completely expected to come his way, Tanga heaved out a single, helpless sob, before curling his body up on the hard rock as tightly as his wounded state would allow, hiding his head inside his curled-up body as he screwed his eyes tight shut. Please, he begged silently of someone, anyone, out there, who might be listening. Please just let this all be a dream...please just wake me up... But even as he prayed for this to all be a nightmare, he knew that it was no bad dream, and he was not going to wake up...this was reality, and his future, as always, seemed to be filled with more ridicule and pain. All he could do was lie there, and pray they weren't too nasty to him this time.
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As Tanga kept backing off, Sarabi slowly kept up her gentle advances, keeping her gentle smile on her muzzle, trying to calm the cub without talking to him. The small cub, a small but significant size smaller than Simba and Nala, seemed extremely nervous and jumpy, which left Sarabi wondering what had happened to him to leave so nervous of strangers...most cubs were usually highly curious, talking to anyone they met with no concern for the stranger's intentions. Tanga, in the meantime, as she heard him called by Nala, seemed to be highly wary of everyone, immediately assuming the worst. Mufasa seemed to be the only one that the cub even mildly trusted.
But when Tanga looked to Nala, begging her to make herself and Sarafina go away, Sarabi's gaze become more confused, as she spoke before Nala could say anything. "Tanga, it's alright...it's okay," she said in the most soothing voice she could muster. "We're not going to hurt you, none of us are." But Sarabi was stunned by Tanga's show of distrust and fear. It seemed that he would only be comfortable around Mufasa, and that even though he seemed to have already met Nala, he barely even trusted her at all. What had happened to make him like this? It seemed like almost all of his cubhood innocence had been torn away from him already...and he looked like he was barely five months old!
But Tanga seemed to ignore her, continuing to back off, trying to keep the distance Sarabi was determined to close. Tanga may be distressed, but he needed to learn that no-one here would hurt him...even if he wanted them to stay away from him. As such, she continued approaching, not realising where she was backing Tanga up to. "I want to help you, Tanga...please, stop trying to avoid me...I can't help you if you won't let me come close." She thought that Tanga was just overreacting to whatever incident had given him his injuries...if she had even been mildly aware of what Tanga had been forced to endure for most of his life, she probably would have left him alone.
But when Tanga yelled in fear, before quickly curling up into a tight ball, sobbing and shaking, obviously completely terrified, Sarabi stopped, at the same time realising where she had accidentally lead the cub, obviously making him feel trapped. But his reaction implied a lot more than what she was worried was wrong with him...his fear was too strong, his reaction to being trapped too violent, for this to be in any way close to normal. With no idea what was going on, she turned to Sarafina and Nala. Sarafina appeared just as shocked by Tanga's actions as she was was, and the lioness was currently looking to her daughter for answers, causing Sarabi to do the same. If Nala knew something more about this cub than them, then she was their best chance of helping Tanga get past his irrational panic.
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Simba could see his father's sadness at seeing him upset, and hoped it meant that they would end the fight soon. But as the cub looked up at his dad, he could see that he regretted upsetting Simba like this, and had hope that things would end right there and then. But Scar then came forward with a comment that cause Simba to wince. Before this morning, Simba had adored his uncle almost like a second father...but the way he had behaved during the argument had left Simba worried, if only a little bit, about his uncle, and as such, his head snapped around, eyeing Scar with the same hurt he figured Mufasa would be feeling right about now.
"Scar, don't," he said flatly, too sad to really be angry for Scar blaming Mufasa for his own upset, when it was just as much Scar's fault. "Please...just stop fighting..." Soon enough, Mufasa apologised for Simba having to see this family argument, and Simba responded by simply burying his head in the fur of Mufasa's leg, glad that his father, at least, seemed intent on ending the argument there and then. Because of his position, he missed the look Mufasa gave Scar, reminding Simba's uncle that this was not quite over yet.
But in the end, Simba's curiosity was too strong for his own good, and once he had calmed down a little, he looked back up at his father. "Dad? Why are you doing this? What's Uncle Scar done? Who's Tanga?" the questions came from Simba's muzzle in his typically energetic, rapid-fire fashion, which tended to overwhelm a lot of other lions if he had a lot of questions on his mind. But he wanted answers...he had just seen one of the worst fights Mufasa and Scar had ever had, and wanted to understand why it had started, why his dad and uncle seemed to really hate each other right in that moment.