The aliens retraced their path to their giant host waiting by the river bank, preferring not to risk another encounter with us for the time being.  But as I watched him standing proudly and snugly in the bosom of his monstrous host gliding down the river towards the sea, I was apprehensive.  He would return.  And I contemplated his return with dread and foreboding.

As I wandered through the palm trees pondering over the aliens’ existence, I walked straight into the path of my father.  Too late.  We stood face to face for a moment, father and son.  But there was no warmth; no appreciation.  Did I not save the life of the king?  I did not look for gratitude from a king.  But I had expected at least some recognition of kinship.  But I was to be disappointed.

I saved you once, his stare seemed to say, so don’t expect any favours.

Yes.  I understood.  He was a fallen king who failed to defend his territory.  And I was a witness to his disgrace.  He saved me once.  I saved him once.  Now we were even.  And that made him even more suspicious of me.  Would I continue to submit to his kingship?  He did not know.  Neither did I.

I said nothing.  I held his cold hard stare unflinchingly.  But my heart bled for him and for the pride.  How could we withstand the next onslaught of the aliens if we were divided by our fears and suspicions?  How could we defend our territory if father and son were at war with each other?  We were doomed.

‘Get out of my way!’ my father growled.  But it was not the growl of an angry, domineering father.  Instead, it was the growl of an old tired warrior whose body had been wounded by too many battles and whose heart had been weighed down by too much fear.

I said nothing.  I moved away.  I moved on towards my destiny.  I was the shooting star that had crash-landed on this island.  I was the first-born who was destined for greatness.  But what would future generations of lions remember me for?  Was it this one chance meeting with a prince who came in the belly of a winged dragon?  Was it this one reckless deed by which a son saved his father’s life?  Was it this one vision of a new social order?  A new social order where fathers need not sit alone on their rocky thrones, sons need not flee the pride to fend for themselves, and mothers and daughters need not slave all year round in exchange for a sense of security?

Yes, a vision.  It was no longer the babble of a lion cub, too frightened to leave the pride and fend for himself.  The arrival of the aliens had changed all that.  It was now a matter of the survival of the whole pride.  No king could defend his territory against the aliens alone.  The king needed help.  The king needed his princes.  And each prince needed his princess.  And each princess?  Each princess needed greater power over her prince’s madness.  Only then could the pride be strong.  Only then could the pride defend itself. If each princess' power were to wax and wane with the moon, then we are doomed forever -- father against son, brother against brother -- so, I had a vision.

It was the beginning of the end of an era.  But what the end was, I did not know.  I was too young.  I did not know what the king’s madness was.  I did not know why sometimes a female had no power to cure it.  I did not know why the king did not limit himself to just one female so that there would be enough females for every male lion.  There were many other things that I did not know then.  I did not know about the alien pirates who hid amongst the mangrove swamps west of the Dragons’ Teeth.  Or those who lived amongst the coconut trees on the sandy beaches on the eastern tip of the island.  I only knew that I had to run and tell my mother, my brother and my sister about my vision so that the pride might survive.

G