Chapter 7: All The World's A Stage

"One minute Fuli was just next to us when we were teaching her how to hunt," Gwala stammered in his frantic tone of voice, "and the next it was if she had vanished from the Pride Lands altogether." He was pacing about before Simba and Nala with his nerves unsettled outside of his den. "Ife and I searched all over the area but her scent seemed to have gone cold as well." The freaked out father tried to steady his breathing. "Please, your majesties, we can't lose ou-"

Nala was quick to put her right paw on Gwala's head to stop his pacing. "We can't possibly imagine the grief you must be feeling," she empathetically claimed, "but panicking will only just make it all worse." She got him to finally sit down and could only hope her own anxieties weren't showing as she gulped hard. "My husband and I will do everything in our power to find Fuli and bring her back to you both." The Queen hated lying easily, exchanging worried looks with Simba.

"How exactly... did Fuli disappear?" Simba asked, taking over for Nala. "You didn't look away for but a moment and-" However, Gwala was quick to interrupt the king. "That's just the thing," he claimed quickly. "She was actually going ahead of us in our view and then we found ourselves sitting with our daughter blinked out of sight." His Majesty gulped hard, starting to put it all together. "It's like we had both spaced out but Ife insists that an hour passed by her sense of time."

Simba and Nala exchanged looks of growing anxiety as they were almost afraid to ask one last question. "Was there anything unusual going on before or after you two had blanked out?" He almost didn't want to know the answer. Almost. "Well... there was a strange unfamiliar scent like... a reptile if I might venture to guess," Gwala managed to recall. "Though what was stranger was how we felt a lingering sense of bliss just before realizing Fuli had only just gone missing..."

Nala swallowed hard in an attempt to put on a brave face. "Thank you for telling us all we needed," she declared, bowing her head in respect. "Be sure to stay by your wife's side in this trying time while we go find Fuli for you." Gwala bowed back in return, making a slight smile of comfort. "Please bring her back safely." The Queen smiled warmly back at the cheetah before turning around and letting her anxieties appear all over her face along with Simba, sighing despondently.

"It's cruel to give those poor souls false hope," Simba lamented with a growing scowl. "They'll keep thinking Fuli's out there when-" He briefly paused in his frustration before Nala spoke up in an awfully stern tone of voice. "Telling them that their only daughter's being digested alive inside a python's guts would just devastate them." Her words cut particularly deep into her husband as she glared back at him awfully sharply. "Better false hope than shattering their hearts..."

Simba could only sigh deeply in resignation. "You're always so quick to set me straight," he confessed wearily. "I don't know how you can stay calm at a time like this while I'm consistently having nightmare of..." The king couldn't bring himself to even utter the name and swallowed shamefully. "The King and Queen need to appear calm at least," Nala reassured him warmly, "or else the entire Pride Lands will be rife with chaos and give that monster exactly what he wants."

Simba could tell that Nala was more wracked with anxieties than she let on. "You're not the only one who's had that beast haunt their dreams," she mentioned, sounding more vulnerable than before as her husband suspected. "Even now, I can't ever forget his grip around me and how much I needed to breath." The Queen swallowed hard in an attempt to stay calm. "It's unbearable but it always reminds me of how our subjects are suffering and why they need us urgently."

Simba felt bad seeing Nala's solemn expression before deciding to be the stronger one this time. "Then we'll just have to snuff him out once and for all," he declared with the cockiness he was known for as a cub. "If he wants to get to us through those we care about, let's show him just how much we care." Nala looked his way with a surprised look in his eyes, taken aback by his gusto. "He might be a crafty creep but if we find him, he will be no match for our teamwork."

Nala couldn't help but smile back at Simba in return, her spirits lifting already. "Whether hyenas or snakes, we laugh in the face of danger," she declared before sharing a classic, "Ha ha ha!" with her husband. "I always did love that about you," she continued warmly, sharing bedroom eyes with Simba. Before they knew it, they shared an intimate nuzzle between them and took some comfort in knowing they had each other. They both pulled back before moving in to kiss when...

"Ah, yuck," a familiar voice called out, "talk about bad timing." Their moment disturbed, Simba and Nala immediately turned their heads towards the source and find a grossed out Kiara coming their way. "No offense but that's gonna be in my nightmares for weeks." The king was the first to frown sternly and march up to his daughter. "No offense but you're not even suppose to be out here period." He found his growing glare being countered by the princess's rather sassy smirk.

"I just thought that if I'm gonna take over the throne when you croak," Kiara surprising snarked, "I might as well learn from the professionals." She strolled on past Simba, surprising her father with her casual defiance. "Zazu's flown the coup and there's no way I'm getting bored to death by Mr. Mystic Monkey's life lessons." The princess could even see Nala eying her like she couldn't even recognize her own daughter. "Sorry but your stock speeches won't cut it this time."

Nala could only exchange a brief glance of bafflement with Simba. "What on Earth's gotten into you?" she asked Kiara as her daughter sauntered past her with such defiance. "You know how dangerous the Pride Lands have become lately?" The plucky princess sneered back at her mother with the most devil-may-care attitude. "Why do you think I'm here?" she rhetorically asked before swinging around dramatically. "The future Queen's gotta help her homeland, doesn't she?"

Simba cringed at how Kiara was practically exactly like himself back in the day, suddenly sympathizing with Zazu. "You two have been holding me prisoner while you aimlessly try to find this phantom predator," the princess proclaimed, putting her right paw on her chest so haughtily. "That's why I'm hear to show you how it's really done and prove that I'm more than ready to rule." She could hear soft hissing and recognized her cue. "I will maul this mysterious beast all by myself."

Nala could roll her eyes in frustration over how difficult Kiara was being. "That's quite enough, young lady," she sternly declared. "We are going back to Pride Rock and you're... not..." Her voice trailed off when she noticed a scaly tendril slithering towards her own daughter. The fear in her grew at a steady pace the memories of breathlessness flashed before her eyes. "getting into... danger..." The tail began inching over from behind the lioness cub and up toward her neck.

Simba was puzzled by Nala's mortified expression until he saw the tail beginning to encircle Kiara's neck. "You're just worried I'm gonna prove to be a better hunter than you," she declared as her father's heart sank. "Unlike you boring grown-ups, I laugh in the face of danger." He couldn't forget the color of those scales even if he tried. "HA HA HA-URK!" The princess's prideful proclamation was cut off when the tail squeezed her throat and made her eyes nearly pop out.

"LET HER GO!" Simba shouted loudly as he bolted toward Kiara along with Nala. They were ready to bit the tail clean off before their daughter could pass out from the strangulation. His mind was so focused on saving his own flesh and blood that Kaa's head popping up a few feet in front caught him off guard. Before either he or Nala knew it, their eyes made contact with the serpent's radiant rainbow gaze and found themselves slowing down in their sudden entrancement.

"Sssstand sssstill, old friendssss," Kaa hissed with the most sadistic smirk yet. "I'd hate for you to sssspoil the sssshow." He kept still as Simba and Nala came but two feet short of him with their eyes reflecting the colorful rings he was pouring out, their expressions of dismay plastered all over their faces. "That'ssss more like it." The python felt the most satisfied seeing their faces tensing up in each of their attempts to break free, the pair now prisoners in their own bodies.

Simba recognized the overwhelming power of Kaa's hypnosis but found himself baffled that he could still think clearly. "How terrifying it musssst be," the snake gloated right up in the King's face. "Your mind knowssss what you mussssst do yet your body can't even move a musssscle." He strained to scowl back as the serpent's smugness and felt the urge to tear out his throat greatly but could only let it simmer within his soul. "Sssso mucccch more ssssatissssfying in my eye."

Nala couldn't tell if it was the fear leaving her frozen or Kaa's eyes as he turned right for her. "It'ssssss one thing to ssssee prey's mind molded to my whimssss to my ssspell with ssssuch ssssilly ssssmilesss," he told the Queen as the terror of his coils raced through her brain, "but I would say it'sss a whole other thing to allow them exxxperiencccce my ssssuperiority, wouldn't you agree?" She felt little more than the terrified little lioness cub Simba was defending from Hyenas.

"Jusssst asss your daughter will," Kaa hissed in a most diabolical tone of voice as he pulled his head back. Simba and Nala each realized that they had been so focused on the python's return that they nearly forgot that Kiara was being strangled right in front of them. Their despair grew once they saw their daughter's front being lifted up by the neck by the snake's tail until her hind legs left the ground. Seeing their own flesh and blood gasp for air broke their heart collectively.

However, Kiara was grinning triumphantly internally even as she had to endured Kaa's tightest tug around her throat. It was worth it for that expression on Simba and Nala's faces alone. Sure enough, she felt Kaa spin her in the air to weave his more thick coils around her body and pin her fore-arms to her torso but leave her hind legs conveniently alone. The princess felt dizzy seeing the world turn all around her and swore her eyeballs were rolling around every which way.

"How I adore the bravado of a lion cub," Kiara heard Kaa snigger into her left ear as she regained her bearings. "Alwayssss quick to prove themsssselvessss by biting off more than they can chew." She found herself held upright within Kaa's tight coils and both of her parents standing up as still as a pair of statues. The hypnotic rings in their eyes made Kiara smirk with how helpless they had been rendered. However, the mood was ruined when her coils began the big squeeze.

Simba and Nala prayed for mercy when they bare witness to Kiara all wrapped up in a cocoon of coils that began to put the pressure on her. They could see her mouth agape as air was pushed out of her lungs and hear gasping wheezes being the only thing she could utter. Both her eyes were wide open and borderline bloodshot with a blue-violet hue beginning to overcome her entire face. The king and queen wanted little more than to rush in and save their precious princess.

Yet Kiara relished Kaa's constriction as she felt her mentor give it all he had in order to make their play as convincing as possible. She conserved her oxygen as much as she could and endured the painful pressure encasing her body. It never got easier but Kaa managed to train her to last longer than most prey by now. She knew that both Simba and Nala saw her as little more than a helpless kitten but also that they would change these views drastically come the grand finale.

"Why, one could feed their ego with easssse with how impresssssionable they are," Kaa hissed with a diabolical laughter, tasting Kiara's delectable scent. "Far too muccch easssse if I might sssspeak from exxxxperiencccce." He could see a sort of dread forming in the princess's eye, telling him that she could sense that something was amiss. He smirked at how too little too late. "Mother alwayssss said not to play with my food but... I never was a very good boy to be very fair."

Kiara thought that this was all part of Kaa's theatrics to stoke fear in her parents but couldn't help find this all too... real for her. "One lessssson I neglected to impart onto you, my plucky princcccesssss," he declared with a maniacal grin upon his face, "never trussssst a sssssnake." The lioness cub felt a wave of total confusion mixed with dread when she saw Kaa's maw opening wide before her eyes. It finally became crystal clear once her mentor's mouth engulfed her head.

Simba and Nala felt as though it was all just one big nightmare the minute they saw Kaa swallowing Kiara's head. His coils loosened up enough for him to gulp down their daughter's upper body further like a banana from the peel and practically lift her out of the cocoon with his strongest swallow. Before them, the princess's posterior was put on display hanging out of the serpent's mouth when he paused to breath and soon disappeared into his gullet within one second.

It soon sunk in that this was a nightmare that had come true when Kaa slurped up Kiara's hing legs and tail as if they were noodle. All of their fears of Kaa returning mixed with their daughter getting into deadly danger were all wrapped up in one big horror show unfolding before Simba and Nala's eyes. The snake made another strong swallow to allow the bulge that had once been the princess to head down toward his stomach, plunging her parents into further despair.

"Mmmmmm," Kaa moaned from the lovely taste on his tongue. "Mealsss alwayssss tasssste better with a little anticcccipation... and plenty of desssspair."