So I decided to procrastinate on my studies write a short prequel story to Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom, featuring André Caron and a young-adult Nala. It’s Word of God that Nala is actually the Prideland’s best fighter and one of the better fencers in the Magic Kingdom, and that she learned to fight mostly from André during the era of Scar’s Regency. This story is a window into what that training was like…
Years before the events of Swashbucklers of the Magic Kingdom, during the era of Scar’s Regency…
Nala studied the young man in black, who just paced, twirling his wooden bastard sword in a way that might have been taunting if it weren’t for his deadly serious face. The two stood in the rain in a clearing encircled by rocks, out of view of all but the most determined spies.
“Nrrrgh!” Nala growled, lunging at the young man and swiping at his head with her own wooden sword. The young man sidestepped and whacked Nala on the back, laying her out flat on the ground.
“You’re dead,” André Caron said. “I could have killed you just now if I’d aimed for your head.”
“Thanks,” Nala struggled to her feet. That was going to leave a nasty bruise in the morning, she thought to herself. But the young lioness wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“Again,” André commanded, and Nala swung again, redoubling her attack on the fencing master. André retreated from the barrage of cuts until he counter-cut and stamped on Napa’s sword, knocking it out of her paws. Nala immediately pounced, but André ducked low and drive his wooden sword into Nala’s gut. Nala cried out, the wind knocked out of her, coughing in the mud as André placed his sword on her throat.
Once more Nala struggled to her feet, taking up her sword. These practices were grueling. Nala and André would practice for two or three hours at a time, practicing the three main areas of combat Nala needed to know as a lioness—wrestling, the use of claws and teeth, and the use of weapons, all of which André was expert in, except that in place of claws and teeth, André wielded a dagger or a knife. The dark young man with the shaggy brown hair held nothing back in their sparring sessions, using every technique and dirty trick in the book to win, and all with a cold-blooded efficiency and ruthlessness that would have been terrifying if Nala didn’t completely trust that he wasn’t going to kill her.
Nala couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Once again, the lioness roared and attacked André, this time feinting with a thrust before redoubling with a slash to the head. As André parried, Nala suddenly whipped her blade around and whacked André’s right hand.
“AAAAARGH!” André cried, but just as Nala swung at Andre’s ribs, she felt André’s sword knocking her’s aside and suddenly André‘s elbow smashed into her nose, and before she had hit the ground, André was on top of her, a knife to her throat.
André got off Nala and sheathed his knife, then stumbled back, cradling his hand, sinking into the mud with his back to one of the tall stones.
“Old Spanish trick,” André said. “I’ll show you in a moment.”
He flexed his hand, wincing in obvious pain, his whole body shaking but not make a sound. Nala stared at him with incredulity and a certain amount of dread.
He reached under his cloak—by now soaked in mud and useless as a garment—and took out a first aid kit. He pulled out a large, flat packet labeled “Pixie Dust,” tore it open with his teeth, then walked over to Nala and sprinkled the entire contents of the packet on her. Immediately, Nala’s pain disappeared and she rolled up to her feet, her only source of discomfort being the sheer fatigue of constantly sparring with André for nearly half an hour. André had none leftover for himself, but didn’t look any more uncomfortable and dour than usual. He just grabbed his sword and stood ready. He held it in his right hand, and Nala could see raindrops shaking off of him as he tried to stand still.
“Slowly,” he commanded in a rasping voice, “attack me.”
Nala slowly thrust at André’s face, as before. She turned her blade to cut at his head and he raised his sword to block, then she turned the blade of her wooden sword again, stopping just short of André’s injured hand.
“Now,” André said, “after you hit my hand, what should you have done?”
Nala thought. “I should have rushed in and grappled while you were distracted.”
“Exactly,” André said. “In a fight, you have only a split second to judge the right course of action. A split second is all you need, and a split second is all the time the enemy will give you. What did you do with your split decision.”
“A cut to the body is rarely incapacitating, especially to the ribs. To the belly, perhaps, but the ribs are Nature’s breastplate. But cut at my ribs.”
Nala slowly cut at André’s ribs, then André, who had been holding his sword with both hands, leg go with his right hand and brought his sword down in the pathway of the cut. “A warrior always knows the capabilities of their weapon,” he explained. “I have a bastard sword. I can use it comfortably in one hand or two. I started off with a two-handed grip, for extra strength and leverage. But a single-handed grip is faster, and requires less movement of the body. So I only needed to let go with my right hand to make the parry.”
“It’s a weak parry,” Nala observed, pushing André’s blade quite easily with hers and tapping his ribs.
“But it was good enough,” André said. “It bought me an extra split second,” he said as he stepped forward and pointed his elbow right at Nala’s nose, “to make the correct choice.”
Nala nodded as André backed off.
“It’s time you got going,” André said. “Scar will get suspicious.”
They climbed through a cleft in the rocks back out to the Pridelands, which the rains had turned almost into a muddy swamp.
“The grass is dying,” André observed. “The herds won’t have enough to survive if things continue the way they are.”
“That’s why I have to train,” Nala said grimly.
“Yes…” Nala said, looking out in the distance toward Pride Rock.
André followed her gaze. “If you’re thinking of hunting more dangerous game…”
“It might be our only chance to survive.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Because to get to him, you have to go through me,” André said darkly.
“Why are you defending him?” Nala asked angrily. “Why do you defend Scar?”
“You think I want to be in this position?” André asked angrily. “You think I want to be that tyrant’s bodyguard? I’m trapped in this, same as you.”
“You don’t have to be,” Nala said. “You could end him just like you ended Tristan L’Hermi—”
“You know nothing about that,” André growled, cutting Nala off. “Whatever you think you know, there are things that no one has told you and no one will ever tell you. What I did was not glorious, it was not heroic, and most importantly it is impossible to end Scar the same way.”
“Then how did you do it?”
André folded his arms. “There are only four people who can answer that question—God, the Devil, myself, and Sarabi. And not one of us will reveal our secret to you.”
“It’s a refusal to answer,” André said coldly, “and that’s all the answer you’ll get.”
Nala glared at him. “You know what I think?” Nala said. “I think that you’re just a coward.”
“Your juvenile attempts to bait me won’t work,” André said with a mirthless smirk.
“Then why won’t you kill Scar?”
“Because I can’t kill him with a clean conscience.”
“But you could kill Tristan in a church?”
“How?” Nala snapped. “How is killing one tyrant on holy ground not a crime, yet killing another is against your precious, precious conscience?”
“If you’d been there that night, you’d know,” André growled. “But you weren’t, so you don’t.”
“I would if you’d just tell me.”
Nala suddenly grew calm. “Fine,” she said. Suddenly she pounced on André, biting at his neck and clawing at his face. André barely defended himself, taking several vicious bites and lacerations to his arms that he’d put up to shield himself. As Nala bit down again, André shoved his arm into Nala’s mouth, choking her for a split second. André shoved his other hand into her throat, and Nala fell back, gasping for air. When she realized what was going on, André had his knife at her throat.
“I could kill you right now,” André said with a raspy hiss in his voice, “and after what you tried to do to me, anyone would say I had acted in self-defense.”
“Then do it,” Nala coughed.
André lifted his knife, a cold, dead, emotionless expression in his eyes. Nala suddenly realized what was about to happen, and she roared in terror as André’s knife hurled down—
Into the mud next to Nala’s neck.
It took Nala a moment to realize that she wasn’t dead. André left the knife in the mud and stood up, giving Nala a chance to collect herself.
“What does a split second give us in a fight?” André asked.
Nala didn’t speak. She stared wildly at the fencing master, who stood calmly and tiredly in the rain.
“Answer me, Nala,” he said. “What does a split second give you in a fight?”
Nala struggled. “An opening…a chance to attack—”
“Wrong,” André said. “Think. Remember…”
Nala thought, trying to remember what André had said. “A chance…to make the right choice.”
André nodded. “You may try to kill me again. But I know I made the right choice.”
He picked up his knife, sheathed it, and helped Nala to her feet. “I have to report in with Scar,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid before our next training session.” And with that he staggered toward Pride Rock, tearing off strips of his cloak and bandaging them around his arms and hand as he faded out of Nala’s view into the rain.
