Work Text:
Halloween Comes To Pride Rock
by Pirate Turner
"Dad! Dad! Daddy!" Kiara squealed as she jumped up and down.
Simba watched her for a moment, laughing and smiling at his daughter's antics, before putting a gentle paw out to still his cub. He lovingly scratched her head as Nala watched on with a loving smile. "What is it, Kiara?"
"Can we have a pump'in just like the humans? Can we? Can we? Huh? Pleeease, Daddy! Pllleeease!"
Confusion etched Simba's face for just a moment as he repeated, "Pump'in?" {Pumpin, pump'in . . . } He rolled the word around in his brain, and then his eyes lit up with shining comprehension. "Pumpkin!"
Kiara mewed her agreement, her head bobbing up and down with the same eager enthusiasm that she had been jumping with only a minute before. "Can we? Can we? Pllleeeeeeeeease?" She crouched in front of him, fixing him with the smile he could never refuse even as her rear end wriggled uncontrollably and her tail whisked to and fro.
Simba laughed, the deep, rich sound filling the cave they called home. "What do you say, sweetheart?" he asked Nala, who had quietly padded to stand beside him. "Should we show our daughter how we do jack o' lanterns?" He grinned mischievously, and Nala smiled secretly as she saw the same eager gleam in her mate's eyes as was in their daughter's.
She paused to study Kiara, her head tilting inquisitively to one side. "I don't know, Simba . . . Do you think she's old enough?"
"Yes, ma'am, I am! I am! I am!"
The adult lions laughed joyously as they gazed lovingly down at their cub. Then Simba walked over to the shadows and returned swiftly with a pumpkin. "On the count of three," he murmured from around the vine he clenched in his teeth.
As soon as Nala had nodded her agreement, Simba swung the pumpkin. It spiraled into the air like a huge, orange ball, and as dropped back downwards, the lions sprang upwards. Their claws slashed out, and Kiara stumbled backwards as pieces of shell, meat, and juice flew everywhere.
She ducked the harder pieces, but her coat was spattered with the juice as she looked on in amazement. Never had she seen her parents' claws fly so fast! When at the last the spinning pumpkin dropped in front of her, Kiara jumped back in surprise. She peered at it nervously as it swung around one more time, and her eyes were every bit as big as the two large holes that were now the pumpkin's eyes.
The pumpkin grinned at her from a jagged mouth, and Kiara ooohed and ahhhed as her parents laughed gently. "That's so cool! One day I'm gonna make a pump'in just like that!"
Nala leaned against Simba, enjoying the feel of her husband's furry chest as it heaved with joyous, loving laughter. "That day might come sooner than you think, sweetheart."
Kiara's huge eyes swung to look at her mother. "Really?"
Simba and Nala nodded. "You see, Kiara, Halloween is the one human holiday we always decorate Pride Rock for." Smiling knowingly, he gestured with a large paw to where figures were just beginning to come out of the shadows. Kiara's grin grew as she watched her uncles, the lionesses, and even Rafiki coming forward. Every one of them was burdened down with a great deal of decorations, but it was the wheelbarrow of pumpkins that Pumbaa was pushing while Timon rode the very top pumpkin that drew the cub's big-eyed interest the most.
"Come on, Daddy," she called as she ran forward to greet the rest of her family, "Mommy! You can show me how to make one like you did!" Her parents' gentle laughter continued as they trodded along behind her, eager to experience all the delights this festive holiday had to offer but, most of all, to experience them through the eyes of their daughter.
The End