Orion the king lion and his sons Zuba and Rabat descended into a great canyon with walls some 100 feet high.

"This is the canyon where Simba the missing lion prince was last seen before he suddenly and mysteriously vanished after a wildebeest stampede." Orion explained.

Of course, due to the unreliability of the story of Simba, it was doubtful that much of the story was true. Even so, there was definitely a creepy atmosphere to the whole place.

"It's said that one can sometimes still here the hooves of stampeding thousands of wildebeest. Some say they saw a lion falling from a cliff, but disappearing before he hit the ground. Others said they heard the ghost of a cub wailing for his father."

"How exactly did Simba end up coming here in the first place with Uncle Scar? Scar hated Mufasa. Why did Mufasa even allow Simba to be alone with Scar in the first place?" Rabat asked.

"That is a great question. Perhaps the king was deceived and lulled into thinking that his brother no longer hated him. Perhaps he didn't want his son near his uncle, but only allowed it because he saw his brother was kind to his nephew."

Rabat continued. "You said there was a wildebeest herd above the canyon. That Scar told Simba to wait at the canyon because his father was coming to give him a surprise. Then he went out of the canyon and gave the signal to the hyenas. Mufasa came to save Simba, carried him to safety, was carried away by the stampede, jumped up a cliff to save himself, only to find his brother waiting at the top. Then the brother threw him off and went to find and finish off Simba, but Simba disappeared. So, he told the hyenas to search for the missing cub, but they never found him."

"You have a sharp memory, son. You remember well." Orion complimented as he looked above him at the high walls of the imposing canyon.

"Why didn't anyone stop to ask what Simba was doing down there in the canyon in the first place? The whole pride had to have known that Scar hated their king. Why'd they be okay with the king's only son being with him?" Rabat asked.

Orion didn't have an answer for that.

"It's probably because they're stupid lionesses who can't do anything without the king holding their paws." Zuba scoffed in his usual arrogant demeanor of speaking.

"It is stupid, I agree." Orion said, surprising Rabat by not rebuking his elder brother like he usually did. "If I had a brother who hated me enough to challenge me for the crown and if said fight ended with me destroying my brother's eye, I would not want my brother within miles of my family, let alone my son. Someone was either being extremely irresponsible and negligent to the point of criminality, or…." He paused.

"Or what?" Zuba asked.

"Maybe Scar had supporters in the pride who were scheming with him to kill his nephew the prince." Rabat conjected.

"That's what I meant to say. Yes." Orion agreed. "Stories of Scar as a king are varied, with some calling him evil and others admitting he was harsh, but fair. But he held onto power for a long time and had many descendants from several lionesses. He was even said to have adopted and parented orphaned cubs. In fact, there is a serious possibility that we could be descended from him. Kings do not rule for long without the support of the lionesses. The fact that Scar ruled as long as he did would certainly go a long way to show this."

Zuba looked up at the sky above the canyon. "So, Simba just sat and waited for his dad who was supposedly coming to surprise him, when out of nowhere, wildebeests stampeded in the canyon?"

"Well, Zuba. As you and your brother might have guessed, there are multiple conflicting accounts as to the story. Simba himself, knew nothing about his uncle's plot to kill his father. One version of the story says that his uncle did find him, but that he had also died in the stampede. Another version says his uncle found him and killed the cub. A third version says Simba saw Scar throw his father off the cliff but he ran away instead of returning home. But there is a fourth and very strange version that says Scar found Simba cradled over the body of his father and told him that his father's death was his fault and that he had to leave and never return."

"What!?" Zuba and Rabat were both greatly confused.

"Why? How?"

"In the fourth version of the story. Prior to leaving to go get Mufasa, Scar told Simba to practice his roar. So, Simba was practicing his roar when the big stampede happened. So, in his mind, he thought his roar caused the stampede."

"That's stupid! He's a cub! He can't roar loud enough to scare a whole herd of wildebeest that was outside of the canyon!" Rabat wasn't sure to be impressed that even Zuba, who wasn't known for brains, easily caught onto how stupid it sounded.

"Yes, it very much is, stupid. Simba, as a cub, from what the stories say, was not known for his brains." Orion agreed.

"So, his uncle told him that his father died because he caused the stampede and that he had to run away and never return? How would that fly with the lionesses of the pride, especially the queen? No one could be stupid enough to believe that a cub could have taken out the strongest lion in the pride. If anything, anyone with a brain would immediately suspect Scar killed the king and tried to kill his nephew too." Rabat said.

"What did the queen say?"

"Well, that's another problem. Some stories say the queen actually accepted Scar as her new king. Others say Scar picked another lioness as his queen, which caused the first queen to rebel against him, but that Scar's faction ultimately won. Still others say the queen refused to believe her son was dead and abandoned everything to find him."

"You said humans found and adopted Simba." Rabat remembered.

"I did, yes. But would it surprise you if I told you that the queen actually did find her son a year later, but her son didn't recognize her at all?"

"It was probably a lion who looked exactly like her son." Zuba said.

"No. It was her son. He had the same birthmark on his paw." Orion said.

"How could he not recognize his own mother? Did he hit his head?" Zuba asked.

"No. He said he had never seen her before in his life and refused to go with her."

"Did the queen take him back anyway?"

"No. His parents appeared. They were very angry. They accused the queen of abandoning and neglecting her son and told her to leave and never come back."

"Wait. So, it was her son, then!" Rabat said.

"Simba believed his mother would come back for him. But when she never did, he got angry and believed his family abandoned him."

"What about Simba that the humans adopted and took to the zoo and whose son later returned to Africa, only to find that nobody remembered his father? If this one is real, that one has to be the liar." Zuba said.

"Did he have the birthmark on his paw?" Rabat asked.

"He did. The one whom humans adopted at the zoo also claimed to be the son of Mufasa. Mind you, his son Leo was the one who told the story of his father Simba and his grandfather Mufasa. So, we know at least two lions with the birthmark claiming to be the son of Mufasa and having survived the stampede. We have the one whom that another pride adopted and the one that humans adopted. The problem is, between the time Simba disappeared and the time Leo came back as an adult, several other lions all claimed to be Simba. Most of them were obviously false. Believe it or not, some were fully grown lions similar in age to Mufasa and Scar. One, in particular, was old enough to be the FATHER of Mufasa and Scar. Those were obviously false. But the ones who would have been similar in age to Simba when he disappeared were harder to tell because they looked similar enough to pass themselves off as Simba."

"Well, Simba had the birthmark on his paw." Zuba scoffed. "That's a giveaway."

"See, that's another big problem. ALL of them had the same birthmark that Simba had on his right paw. Even the ones who were obviously lying all had it."

"What!? How!?" Zuba and Rabat asked.

Orion was about to sigh and admit defeat to his children's questioning, when they he heard a small voice calling.

"Dad!" A voice called.

For a second, Orion thought it was his imagination. Until he saw the looks on the faces of his sons and realized he hadn't imagined it.

"I heard that too, dad." Rabat said.

"It's probably just the wind." Zuba said nervously.

"Dad!" The voice called louder.

Orion didn't want to seem afraid of rumors of ghosts. But he didn't want to be at the canyon any longer than he needed to, especially after dark.

"Dad!" The voice called louder and he heard tiny footsteps scurrying his way.

"Dad, we should probably go back." Zuba pointed out.

Orion was about to say he agreed when he thought he saw movement. He saw a small golden face peer at him before darting behind a rock.

"Who's there?!" Orion boomed.

No answer.

"Dad. Come on, let's go." Rabat urged.

"Yeah Dad, let's get out of here." Zuba urged as well.

The small golden face peeked at them, then darted behind the rock again. It seemed like a cub.

"Who is it!?" Orion boomed.

He thought he heard someone crying. Against his better judgment, Orion moved closer to the boulder, ignoring the calls of his sons to come back home with them. As he got closer to the boulder, the crying grew louder. When he turned the corner, he found a small golden lion cub about the same age as his sons cowering in the corner.

"What is this? Child, what are you doing all the way down here alone? Where are your parents?" Orion asked in a concerned but gentle voice.

"Dad!" His sons finally ran up to their father and saw the lone, cringing cub.

"Who the heck is that?!" Zuba exclaimed.

Rabat nudged Zuba aside and trotted up next to their dad. "Hey, are you okay?"

The cub looked up at them with wide, wet eyes. "I'm lost."

"Where are your parents?" Orion asked.

The cub shook his head. "I don't know." He said in a quavering voice.

"What's your name?"

The cub sniffed and said something under his breath.

"Pardon?" Orion asked.

"My name is Simba." The cub said.