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I finished writing my first complete fanfic, and a rough version can allready be found at the fanfic section on TLK source, in two slices.
But because it took me pretty long to write it, I'm afraid there might still be some glitches in the fanfic. That's why I wanted to make a revised edition, combining both parts of the fanfic into one, cleaning out any mistakes or screwups, whilst also adding some extra content.
Therefore, I am first submitting each individual reworked chapter on the forum, so you can comment it, and I can adjust and polish my work in compliance with comments.
So please, comment as much as possible, the fanfic can only improve thanks to your contribution!

Warning: may contain violence. Estimated PG.

The Circle of Life

Table of contents

1. Cast
1.1 Unaligned
1.2 The Pride
1.3 The Clan
2. Prologue
3. I hate Mondays
4. Subtle diplomacy
5. You did what – act one
6. You did what – act two
7. The Circle of Rotten Fruit
8. Above all else
9. Leave behind the future…
10. … and embrace the past
11. The Queens of Priderock
12. Breaking the law
13. Purge
14. Götterdämmerung
15. Epilogue



Cast

Unaligned
Kiruhu
Race: cheetah
Bio: cheetah living across the White-pass river
Rafiki
Race: mandrill
Bio: spiritual guide and advisor to the lion pride; personal friend of Simba and Mufasa; herbalist
Tiko
Race: hornbill
Bio: legal advisor to the lion pride (or whomever else he sees fit); reluctantly chosen by Zazu as future majordomo; Zazu’s nephew and pupil
Zazu (deceased)
Race: hornbill
Bio: legal advisor to Simba and Mufasa; majordomo of whomever is lion king; personal friend of Simba and Mufasa; Tiko’s uncle and tutor

The Lion Pride
Kovu
Faction: former Outlander
Title: (former) King of the Outlanders, Lion Prince
Bio: joined the pride alongside other Outlanders, of whom he had previously been the King, after the Reunion; partner of Princes Kiara; second son of Zira and Taka; brother of Vitani (same litter); brother of Nuka (different litter)
Nuka (deceased)
Faction: Outlander
Title: none
Bio: born during Taka’s reign, Nuka is lacking in the field of physique due to problems at birth; first son of Zira and Taka, brother of Kovu and Vitani (different litter)
Vitani
Faction: former Outlander
Title: none
Bio: whilst she used to be Zira’s most trusted (and possibly most competent) supporter, Vitani has now settled with the pride following her brother’s example; believed to have contacts within the clan; first daughter of Zira and Taka; sister of Kovu (same litter); sister of Nuka (different litter)
Enyi
Faction: former Outlander
Title: none
Bio: a senior Outlander who is often made head of hunting-parties, often given authority because of her uncanny cool and ability to do as she is told
Anana
Faction: former Outlander
Title: none
Bio: youngest Outlander, only Outlander currently stationed at Priderock
Kiara
Faction: Pridelander
Title: Lion Princes, heir to Priderock
Bio: after reuniting both prides with the help of her love Kovu, she now spends most her time with Kovu and his Outlanders; partner of prince Kovu, daughter of Simba and Nala
Simba
Faction: Pridelander
Title: Lion King
Bio: driven from his homeland after Taka’s takeover, Simba returned to his pride just before the end of the great drought to reclaim his throne, which resulted in the War of Succession, the defeat of Taka, the defeat of the clan and the banishment of the Outlanders; reunited the prides years later; near legendary within his own pride but still looked at suspicious by many Outlanders; partner of Nala; son of Mufasa and Sarabi; father of Kiara
Sarabi (deceased)
Faction: Pridelander
Title: Lion Queen, Queen-mother
Bio: always loyal to her true love Mufasa, Sarabi held the pride together during the great drought and Taka’s reign; led the lioness uprising along with Nala during the War of Succession; unable to prevent the Pridelander/Outlander-split; partner of Mufasa; mother of Simba
Nala
Faction: Pridelander
Title: Lion Queen
Bio: unable to stand Taka’s reign, Nala was who brought back Simba to the Pridelands; one of the lioness-leaders during the War of Succession and has remained the most prominent lioness within the pride ever since; partner of Simba; mother of Kiara
Kani
Faction: Pridelander
Title: none
Bio: the youngest and possibly most devout of all Pridelanders
Kausha
Faction: Pridelander
Title: none
Bio: one of the Pridelanders
Mufasa (deceased)
Faction: Ahadist (lived before Pridelander/Outlander-split)
Title: Lion King
Bio: one of the legendary kings, Musafa assumed the throne after the passing of the just as legendary Ahadi; known to be just and wise; he uncompromisingly carried forth Ahadi’s legacy; overthrown and assassinated by Taka; partner of Sarabi; son of Ahadi; father of Simba
Taka (better known as Scar) (deceased)
Faction: Takaist (lived before the Pridelander/Outlander-split, Outlander-faction grew from the Takaist-movement)
Title: Lion King, Grand King (a self-assumed title to emphasize his rule over both lion and hyena)
Bio: least favored son of Ahadi (doubts exist whether he actually was Ahadi’s son), Taka grew up knowing he’d always be second; broke with his father and brother for unknown reasons during the First Hyena War, after which he turned bitter; assassinated his brother with help of hyenas and tried killing his nephew Simba; usurped the throne; re-opened the Pridelands to the clan; overthrown by Simba after the great drought had undermined his rule
Zira (missing, presumed deceased)
Faction: Outlander
Title: Regent of the Outlanders (popular title was however Queen of the Outlanders)
Bio: as most soon-to-become-Outlanders, Zira was of another ethnic than other lions (a reminiscent from the Ahadi-days); she and her etnic were fierce supporters of Taka’s way, which led to the Pridelander/Outlander-split after the War of Succession; supported Taka mainly because of her extreme love for him; lead the Outlanders in the hope of restoring the Takaist legacy, but failed and went missing (after a deep plunge into a ravine) after the Reunion, whereabouts unknown; partner of Taka; mother of Nuka, Kovu and Vitani

The Hyena Clan
Shenzi (deceased)
Faction: none (lived before Shenzi-clan/Westclan/Northlanders-split)
Status: Matriarch (popular status after she died became Grand Matriarch, to emphasize on the fact she ruled what would later become three hyenas factions)
Bio: assumed position as matriarch not long after the First Hyena War without being up to the task; became ally of Taka after unknown events; led her clan to the Pridelands after Taka’s takeover; proved unable to keep her clan on a tight leash, or to crush the lioness-uprising which started the War of Succession; partner of Mikhail; mother of Vincent and Shenya
Edward (better know as Ed) (deceased)
Faction: none (lived before Shenzi-clan/Westclan/Northlanders-split)
Status: domestic male
Bio: almost suffocated after birth-complications (all too common with hyenas), suffered from mental retardation as a result; still tried his best at making himself useful to the clan though; close friend of Shenzi
Banzaï
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: domestic male
Bio: being a close friend of Shenzi, he witnessed most of his clan’s history from front-row seats (although the magnitude of events often went beyond his reckoning); became a protector of Shenzi’s pups after her death, and still looks over them now that they have grown up
Mikhail (better known as Nyundo during regency) (deceased)
Faction: Shenzi-clan
Status: immigrant male, Regent of the Clan
Bio: little is known about his history; assumed regency over the clan after the War of Succession (initiating the Shenzi-clan/Westclan/Northlanders-split in doing so); reformed and retrained the clan to be able to stand up to the lions; reunited the clan (by diplomacy, force and deceit); died of old age (feeding rumors he might have been around as long as the time before Ahadi); partner of Shenzi; father of Vincent and Shenya
Kali
Faction: former Westclan
Status: high-ranking female
Bio: heir to the Westclan, she has vowed revenge upon the heirs of the hyena to have killed her mother and stolen her clan
Seko
Faction: former Westclan
Status: domestic male
Bio: believed to have loved Shenya as far back as before the Shenzi-clan/Westclan/Northlanders-reunion; spends most of his time serving the love of his life; partner of Shenya
Vincent
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: domestic male (de iure), Regent of the Clan (de facto)
Bio: having lost his mother at young age, he was primarily raised by his father and Banzaï; although being male, he was raised to become the leader of the clan, and discreetly began doing so after his father passed away; believed to have contacts within the pride; son of Mikhail and Shenzi; brother of Shenya (same litter)
Shenya
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: Matriarch (de iure), Hyena Queen (popular title sometimes used by lions)
Bio: being the only daughter of the former matriarch, she was supposed to become the next full-fledged matriarch, but she was replaced by her father as regent when she was younger; when she grew older, she still didn’t receive all the power that was rightfully hers because her father had deemed her brother more fit to rule, a situation which creates some frictions; partner of Seko; daughter of Mikhail and Shenya; sister of Vincent (same litter)
Kimagamaga (better known as Kim)
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: low-ranking female
Bio: being a low-ranking female, Kim spends most of her time doing chores and following orders, getting very little in return
Shetani
Faction: former Northlander
Status: (former) Northland Matriarch, highest ranking female after Shenya
Bio: initiated the peaceful clan-reunion between the Shenzi-clan and the Northlanders out of idealism (anti-lion idealism); now leads the notorious outfit of the ‘Graymanes’, the clan’s finest and stealthiest but most of all unquestionably loyal warriors
Umwa
Faction: former Westclan
Status: high-ranking female
Bio: leads one of the three Westclan families that didn’t agree with the reunion (but still preferred to join rather than being eliminated, as Kali’s mother was); remains loyal to Kali
Kiuma
Faction: former Westclan
Status: middle-ranking female
Bio: leads a lesser family that did not agree with the reunion; remains loyal to Kali
Keavy
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: low-ranking female
Bio: one of the youngest adults in the clan
Nya
Faction: former Shenzi-clan
Status: middle-ranking female
Bio: one of the clan’s better food gatherers

Prologue

Great, clouds gathering... A nice, bone chilling storm is about the last thing we need now. But then again, nothing has gone our way today (or any day for that matter) it seems. Hey, that ought to teach me: if you want to waste your time chasing myths, rumors and phantoms, all you can hope to get is hungry, and a wet fur if you are stupid enough to pick the rainy season to go adventuring (and indeed, we are stupid enough to do so)…
Right, like I had any choice to begin with. Vitani this, Vitani that... Oh well… Guess a little rain won’t (and can’t) stop me from doing what I have to do: following orders. That’s how hierarchy works, like it or not: Zira says, I obey. I can’t escape that just because of some insignificant orbs of water falling from the sky.
Nonetheless, the sooner we get this over with, the better: spending the day with my o-so-adorable brothers, who have been arguing and irritating each other from dusk till dawn it seems, is about as fun as beating your head into a rock for hours on end, and it yields similar amounts of headache, no doubt. If we were to fail our assignment, and we will, chances are it’s because those bloated egos of theirs crowded out anyone we could have ever come across. That, and their incessant bickering. Not to mention the risk of an ambush, since we are walking through a canyon, the perfect place to waste any lion-trio that draws far too much attention to themselves. Maybe it’s time I tried getting that through their thick lion-sculls.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across the term ‘discretion’ in your limited vocabularies?”

Nuka interrupted his discussion with Kovu, glaring at Vitani with the most arrogant grin he could muster.

“Oh my, looks like my baby sister has learned a new word, now isn’t that nice?”

“How nice indeed… What are you worrying about anyway, sis? Why on earth would we want to behave discreet? Scared of the hyenas, maybe? Come on now, what could a bunch scruffy, emaciated scavengers ever do to us?” Kovu yawned, trying to behave relaxed. His eyes, however, betrayed him: he was feeling just as uncomfortable as Vitani was. Who could blame them: their surroundings, consisting of sand, rocks, sharp cliffs and the sorry excuse for vegetation you could usually only find in a grade-A wasteland, combined with a dark and unsettling pack of clouds above their heads, could only be described as overly depressing at best. Vitani figured even the Elephant Graveyard was worth a visit over this place. The mere thought of having to spend one more second in out in these grim surroundings sent a shiver down Vitani’s spine.

“Haha, everyone‘s a comedian. Do me a favor and do at least try to keep up the appearances. This isn’t a blasted field trip; some of us are still actually trying to execute their orders in a serious manner. It’s got nothing to do with being scared, but everything with hehaving professionally. And don’t tell me you don’t understand that word either. And besides, talking about being scared…” Vitani paused, “I’m getting the feeling there are worse things out here than just hyenas for us to get scared about…”

The party paused, Nuka being ahead of the other two lions. With an unnerving smile, he turned around and slowly strode towards his younger companions. Feeling uneasy and unnerved, Kovu chose to break the unnatural silence that had descended upon them by now.

“Vitani, drop the gloomy mood already. Nothing here but sand and rocks, I mean, what could possibly be out here?”

Nuka’s smile darkened even further, as he was really amused at the fear displayed by both his brother and sister. He approached Kovu, who backed up a little.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? What could possibly be out here for us to fear?” he whispered

Kovu inched further towards Vitani, shivering barely noticeable. This, of course, made Nuka even more motivated to continue what he himself considered a humorous performance.

“Some say that way back, there indeed used to be hyenas out here...
They came here after their crushing defeat at the pride rock, four years back. Or no, they didn’t come here, they ran here, ran as the Pridelanders mercilessly hunted them down, every sorry one of ‘em. Thus, the hyenas fled until there was nowhere else to flee but here, since we, pitiful outlanders, had taken what they used to call their homelands. But they found nothing here but sand, rocks and death. And so they perished, one by one, starving to death, even turning on each other in the end…” Nuka uttered in the most ghastly manner, glaring at Kovu, “But even though their bodies have long since disappeared, their spirits live on, angry, full of vengeance. The kings of old only know what they might do to three lonely lions venturing into their realm, unaware of what danger lurks in the shadows…”

And as if Nuka had planned it so, upon uttering the last phrase, heavy thunder echoed down through the canyon the moment he closed his mouth. As one could have come to expect, both Vitani and Kovu yelled out in fear, be only for a short time. Once they had come back to their senses, Nuka broke out in the most annoying laughter, utmost amused at his own sense of humor. But before Vitani or Kovu even had the time to get back at him, it seemed like Nuka’s laughter echoed back at them, only louder, more shrill, with a grim touch to it. In one word: terrifying. In a rush of panic, all three lions stared into the dark canyon ahead of them, as Vitani mumbled with a voice that sounded like it was stuck somewhere in between anger and fear:

“Oh right, why bother being cautious for but one second, there’s nothing here but sand, rocks and death…”

Kovu by now figured it would be best if he didn’t say anything; this obviously wasn’t the time or place for witty remarks. Meanwhile, Nuka limited his response to an offensive gesture as his mouth felt too dry for a verbal comment. The lions cautiously ventured forward to locate the source of their terror. As the laughter faded away, an unsettling silence set in, seeming even scarier than the shrill laugh that had startled them.
The lions suddenly froze, as they heard a deep, slightly deformed and coarse voice behind them.

“Boo…”

Great. We’ve had it. Yeah, no doubt about it, we’re goners. Or aren’t we? Like hell that is a ghost, those aren’t real…I hope. Well, just standing here being paralyzed with fear probably won’t do me any good, so I might as well try turning around. And keep my cool, yeah, got to keep my cool. I know them brothers of mine won’t; they’ll probably just start roaring into thin air. It all comes down to me then? Somehow, I don’t find that thought all too comforting. Enough! Vitani, , just calm down. Calm down and turn around, ‘cause there’s nothing to see here… I need a vacation, I need a drink, I need something to eat, I need to get some sleep… but first, I’ve got to turn around…

As Vitani turned around to have a look behind her, she couldn’t see any changes at first. No-one there… or wait… Correction: no-one except for the lonely, gray figure that had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Well, gray… at least, it looked gray. Then again, everything started looking gray at dusk, especially with a thick pack of dark clouds above your head to further dim-out the sun.
The figure appeared to be, as Vitani had expected, a hyena. At least, that was what she presumed since she had never actually seen a hyena: they had already fled their lands by the time Vitani was born. But it looked more or less like what her mother had described as being a hyena: scruffy, paled spots, long forelegs, big jaws, big ears, black muzzle, short manes… But there was something missing on this guy: his right eye. As a matter of fact, the entire right side of his head looked like one big scar, his ear being torn apart as well. A lion’s claw had been the cause of that, definitely. Furthermore, the right side of his thin body and head were covered in… burns? Considering how the hyena looked, she wasn’t so sure anymore about him not being a ghost. By now, Vitani’s brothers had turned around as well. For seconds on end, they just stared. Suddenly, the ghostlike figure spoke again, giggling.

“Obviously you haven’t ever seen a ghost before…” he grinned, though his single, pale-green eye spoke not of amusement, but only of cold hate (for the time being). While all three lions were at first indeed confident of him being a ghost, Vitani quickly regained her calm and was the first to speak out, surprisingly defiantly.

“Like I said, everyone’s a comedian. You just plan on sitting there, further entertaining us with your high quality comedy? Or maybe you’ve got something usefull to say, like who it is you are, where it is we are and why you snuck up on us? I suggest you start talking, for your own sorry good…”

Surprisingly, the hyena just kept on giggling, in spite of Vitani’s threat, failing to respond. The lions didn’t really understand why the hyena kept defying them, as he was outnumbered three to one after all; pretty bad odds for a hyena. Come to think of it, he was actually the one in trouble; he should be the one shuddering in fear. By now, Kovu’s annoyance over being mocked by an inferior life form had made the lion realize all that, triggering a more assertive attitude from his part.

“Hey, comrade one-eyes, how ‘bout letting us in on the joke before we mash you to a pulp?”

The hyena didn’t seem to mind the mockery concerning his appearance, although his tone changed from amused to grim, even mean. That probably had something to do with Kovu’s rather blunt threat

“Just a déjà vu, two-eyes, déjà vu. Curious lions that stray from the pride always seem to bump into me… I just hope this time, it’s gona be a happier ending on my part.”

“Gee wiz, it can count too… two-eyes, what a pun. I wonder whether he bothered to count us too, ‘cause he’d notice he’s alone, and there are three of us. How ‘bout tuning it down a bit?” Nuka growled as he approached the hyena, halting only inches from him. The hyena, however, didn’t move one inch, in spite of Nuka now standing right in front of him. That was when Vitani realized the hyena hadn’t come alone, although she should have figured that one out way sooner; that’s called common sense. She also remembered that instead of pissing the hyena off to the best of their abilities, it might be wise to be a bit more polite, as they still had an assignment to fulfill: seeking an alliance with the hyenas.
Indeed, the lion trio had come to seek out the hyenas to forge a pact (aimed against the Pridelanders, of course). The motivation for that was simple: Zira’s original plan to topple Simba, which she still had to reveal to her underling, by the way, required the use of minimal force. But every good plan needs a decent backup-plan. Zira’s backup-plan was to use brute force, to storm Priderock head-on, and the backup-plan’s chances of success increased with the number of allies Zira would be able to gather. And she also had to take into consideration that the hyenas too were a part of Taka’s legacy, the legacy she defended. So why not invite them in on all the fun?
But as things were looking now, Vitani feared that getting out alive would already prove to be a real stunt to pull, let alone engage in some friendly diplomacy: the hyena they had met didn’t look all that pleased with the lions appearance.
Vitani’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted when she heard a sound she’d been expecting all along: the ticking of claws on the canyon rocks behind her. They were surrounded, as one could have reasonably expected. As they tried to suppress their panic, Vitani and Kovu turned around to face the new threat. Meanwhile, Nuka was still staring at the hyena who sat only a few inches in front of him. If it hadn’t been for his dark fur, Nuka would have turned pale, as he was not at ease, to say the least, staring at the hyena’s yellowish fangs.
Vitani saw him as she turned around: another lonely, gray shade, casually striding towards them. Vitani didn’t know what annoyed her the most: her and her brothers’ own incompetence, or the talent these hyenas had developed in the field of stealth and secrecy. Both presented a threat, although she also considered skillful hyenas would of course make better allies. If they didn’t kill her first, of course. Hoping to avert such unpleasant fate Vitani focused on the figure approaching her. He actually looked quite different from the mangled hyena behind her. Although the hyena was just as skinny as his companion (probably a result of a scarce Wastelands-diet), his face, for one, looked different in that it was unharmed, and his nozzle was a bit darker, and pointier. He had a darker tan altogether, so he probably was younger than his mutilated counterpart, Vitani realized. But the thing which truly put him apart were his manes: thick and way darker, and his fuzzy ears. All that, and his eyes. Come to think of it, he looked nothing like the other hyena. But those eyes… She only noticed those as he came closer. Not pale and green, but a deep, dark brown. She couldn’t help but stare, and he stared back, into her unusually blue eyes. None said a word. The silence was so unbearable, Vitani actually felt relieved when the ticking of small rocks falling down into the canyon reached her ears. Kovu looked up, and as he had come to expect, about half a dozen big, though also skinny, hyena’s stared back. Vitani could see them too, and judging by their size, they were all females, bigger and more threatening than the two who males that sat in the gorge with the lions. The lions, all of whom were scared out of their minds by now. Fearing this day to be their last, the lions rallied into a defensive triangle. The hyenas on the other hand, didn’t move.

“Right boss, what do we do now?” the one eyed hyena suddenly asked his younger counterpart.
The ‘boss’, the younger, dark hyena, didn’t say a word, but instead signaled two of the females above him, who immediately sought their way down and took position alongside the ‘boss’. He then approached the lions, keeping his gaze fixed upon Vitani, who started growling as he got too close, as not to reward his arrogance. Strangely though, his look wasn’t threatening. For a moment there, Vitani even thought he looked rather… charming? For a hyena, be it. The ‘boss’ suddenly spoke out with a slow, deep but still very hyenaish voice.

“You know, Banzaï, you really shouldn’t be calling me boss…”

“Sorry b… Vincent, nasty habit, ‘s all. But what are we gonna do with them? From the looks of it, I’d say they’re Outlanders, not fat enough to be Pridelanders.”

Vitani wasn’t sure whether that was an insult or a compliment.

“And that matters how?” Vincent asked.

“Well, you know the saying. Or maybe you don’t, not the point…” Banzaï shrugged, “‘The enemy of my enemy…’ and so on and so forth. I mean, they’re in a cold war with the Pridelanders, maybe we just ought to listen to whatever it is they have to say, if anything. That couldn’t hurt, right?”

Vitani sensed an opportunity, and before the other hyena could reply she had already started talking, as quick, self assured and confident as she could in the given situation, fearing it’d be the only chance she’d get at opening her mouth before the hyenas started getting hostile.

“Indeed, you should listen! Because it just so happens that we’re here not to spy or sneak around, but to have a civilized meeting, a polite chat even between potential allies…”

But as smooth and self confident as it might have sounded, Vincent ignored her intervention, for now.

“I know they’re Outlanders. But Outlanders are still lions. We have our orders when it comes to lions, whether we like ‘em or not. Our irders didn’t include any affirmative action aimed at Outlanders,” Vincent grinned at Banzaï, after which he addressed Vitani.

“Anyway… You say you came here to forge an alliance? That’s why you’re here, right? To enlist us for one of your devious plans.”

Vitani nodded, now again fearful because she could about guess what Vincent’s orders concerning lions were. And as if he could read her mind, the hyena’s gaze hardened as he spoke to her again.

“For one, it’s not within my authority to conclude an alliance. Even if it were, I would be inclined to decline your proposal. I suggest you go find your cannon fodder elsewhere; we’re through doing someone else’s, and especially lions’, dirty work. And then there are my orders still, stating I am to kill any lion that crosses our borders…”

Such statement left little room for interpretation indeed. That being said, everyone braced for combat. For obvious reasons, however, no-one seemed willing to commence the seemingly inevitable slaughter, Banzaï least of all. The hyena was quick to voice his concerns.

“Wow, hold it, lets not rush things here… We shouldn’t interpret orders to the letter, you know, they’re more like guidelines anyway. The way I see it, there are three of you lions, and about ten of us… If we fight it out, you’re all goners, and we win, though we’d have to go home telling a handful of pups their mom ain’t coming back no more. I’d prefer to avoid that for the time being… but that’s just me, of course.”

Kovu wanted to comment it was to be expected of hyenas they’d prefer running off in stead of standing their ground in a decent fight, but since he preferred going home in one piece too, he kept his mouth shut. Luckily, Nuka had come to the same conclusion. Banzaï continued.

“Besides, the border is like, what? A mile, half a mile from here? Maybe it’d be best if we… misplaced it for the time being.”

What? Only half a mile? I knew it, I knew it! But did those blockheads bother to listen? Nooo... “Females can’t cope with directions, blah, blah, blah…”, yeah right. No wonder we didn’t find those stupid hyenas at first, we hadn’t even reached their land yet, probably going around in blasted circles… Well, guess that’s the last time I’m letting Nuka lead the way, that’s for sure…

Vincent seemed to think about Banzaï’s suggestion for a while, when he suddenly addressed Vitani.

“Well, Sunshine, you’re awfully silent and gloomy all of a sudden. What do you suggest I do?”

“Huh? Me? Eh… Well I… we,” Vitani stuttered, “I say we refrain from slaughtering each other… then you get us to that border of yours, and we all go home in peace… in one piece, if possible. And then you pretend this never happened… no?”

Vincent grinned, and as he was a hyena, it was hard to tell whether he meant it to be friendly or menacing: it just looked… mean, to oversimplify the matter, and even slightly vicious. Even when he tried to grin in a rather friendly manner.
The hyena looked up at his clanmates, who were still positioned above them.

“Well, you heard the lioness… What do think? No-one got a moral issue with that proposal? You’re all fine with it?”

The biggest, though not the oldest, female replied.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I think Banzaï’s right; I promised my Keavy I’d take her out hunting tomorrow, so she’d be real disappointed if I didn’t come home tonight. But well follow your lead, sir, to whatever end.”

“My thoughts exactly… Right... That settles it?” Vincent asked Vitani, “We‘ll… escort you to the border, make sure you don’t get hurt: this is a nasty place after all. Accidents will happen, especially when one of you wanders off without our permission.”

“How nice of you, looking out for us so,” Vitani replied as she tried to sound amused in stead of cynical.

“Right then, we haven’t got all day. We’ll take the lead, Banzaï and two of you close the group, and you cover the flanks,” Vincent quickly instructed his squad after everyone had seemingly agreed on Vitani’s suggestion, “Needles to say the lions take the middle position.”

The odd group set off. Given the unusual company they found themselves in, everyone felt uneasy at best, especially Kovu, who whispered to Vitani:

“I don’t trust these guys… I think they’re up to something…”

“Loosen up, at least were still alive. And we’re going the right way, ain’t we? Well, at least that’s what I think; we were pretty lost, only the Kings of Old know what the right way was… Besides, the hyena in charge looks okay.”

“Okay? He looks like a hyena to me.”

“No way, you noticed too?” Vitani giggled, utmost amused at her lame joke, “That reminds me… the hyenas aren’t the only ones around here with orders. Zira told us we had to negotiate an alliance….”

“Ain’t happening. He’s already said no.”

“He already said he’d whack us too, but here we are, alive and well. Besides, it won’t hurt to ask…”

“Whatever, just don’t get us killed, all right?” Kovu shrugged. With those last encouraging word from her brother, Vitani tried moving up the group, which didn’t go unnoticed.

“Sunshine, if you want to talk, just talk, no need for your thinly veiled subtility And try smiling for a change,” Vincent grumbled at her without even looking back.

“You too aren’t exactly looking like a bundle of joy, you know…” Vitani mumbled just that tiny bit too loud.

“Yeah, I know, but me grinning would just scare you,” Vincent grinned, immediately proving his point, “Besides, I just disobeyed direct orders, something I don’t find particularly amusing, whilst you on the other hand had your life spared...”

“Good point,” Vitani frowned, looking at Vincent’s fangs as he grinned, “Thanks by the way, for the life-sparing part, it’s not exactly every day my eternal enemy decides to pardon me...”

“The pleasure’s all mine Sunshine.”

“The name’s Vitani, by the way...”

“Well than, nice meeting you, Vitani. I’m Vincent.”

“Talking ‘bout awkward…” Vitani mumbled.

“What, my name?”

“No… though it does sound unusual… It’s just awkward we’re having this chat. Being eternal enemies and all. Being supposed to hate each other and all…”

“What makes you think I don’t?”

“Huh? Us talking for one!”

“Well, let me put it this way: Vincent might like Vitani, but that doesn’t stop the hyena Vincent from hating the lioness Vitani. Liking you as a person doesn’t mean I can’t hate you for what you are: a lion.”

“That’s comforting… just make sure you leave the person Vitani alone, I think the lioness Vitani would appreciate that,” Vitani frowned, “But that still sounds absurde… I don’t hate you for what you are, for one. I mean, I hadn’t even seen a hyena in my life before we stumbled upon you guys, why even bother hating you?”

“That’s where we differ, I’m afraid. I’ve seen lions one too many time, and I’ve seen what they do… what they do to us. And I’m afraid that what I’ve seen leaves little room for mutual understanding…”

Suddenly, Vincent paused.

“And here’s where our ways part,” he said, pointing at a small river at the end of the gorge: the border, “I appreciated your company, as a person. But now, as a hyena, I must ask you and your cronies to bugger off, and, if you favor your lives, never set foot in our realms again.”

“I’m more of a “bye-bye”-person myself…” Vitani replied yawningly.
Vincent grinned at her remark, and again it made him look mean at best.

“Bye, Vitani.”

Without further hesitation, the three lions crossed the shallow stream, back into their homeland. Of course, as to display their superiority, none of them looked back or said a word, not until they were out of hearing distance anyway. As soon as they were, however, Kovu immediately addressed his sister.

“That didn’t exactly sound as if you were negotiating an alliance, you know…”

Nuka, who had remained silent for an unusually long (to Nuka’s standards anyway) amount of time, engaged in the conversation as well.

“It sounded more like she was planning on promoting intermamalian breeding efforts.”

“What? With hyenas? Ah Nuka, you’re just sick, you know that?”

“Pity they didn’t join us…” Vitani said, sounding a bit confused.

“Yeah, I bet it is…” Nuka grinned.

“They sure changed a lot… Not quite like mom described them,” Kovu noted.

“A couple of years in the Wastelands‘ll do that to you, we ought to know. I got the feeling we had more in common with them than with those decadent Pridelanders…” Vitani grumbled.

“Illustrating how bad things are on us,” Kovu added in a rare stroke of cynicism.

“Touché!” Nuka exclaimed.

Vitani just smiled, silently.

This is good. I like it. I've never read the first version, but thanks to reading the prologue on the forum I think I will. I hope you post up the rest soon! Keep it up!

All right, a new fan!
Time for chapter two. It is a bit shorter, though, and deviates less from the original version as available on TLK source.

I hate Mondays

Sunrise. Day after day, each and every day, the sun rises. And day after day, each and every day it has the same effect as it still tender, warm rays hit the earth’s surface: half of all life got up, the other half sought shelter for a good day’s rest. After a few minutes, the sun would become a huge, reddish circle slowly creeping up over the horizon, followed by the warmth of a morning sun. A nice and tender warmth, not like the scorching heat past noon, or the ever chilling feel of dusk. Just a pleasant warmth, sustainable almost till noon. And thus the best time to chill out in the sun, Vitani concluded.
Ever since she had left the barren Outlands, after the death of her mother, to join the pride, it had become somehow what of a routine. A comfortable nap after a hard night’s work. If only she had ever done a hard night’s work ever since the reunion... Quite to the contrary, Vitani couldn’t remember the last time she had had to go through any trouble or any hardship to accomplish anything. Ever since life had stopped to be a day-to-day struggle, after she joined the king’s pride that is, her life, not unlike most of the outlanders’, had become… well, empty. A glaring, boring emptiness, forcing her to fill her days by taking naps in the morning sun. Indeed, lacking both the harsh surroundings of the outlands that would always ensure a night of toil and hunger, as well as an aim in life (think overthrowing a king and putting her brother on the throne), life had become boring at best. Empty and boring. The only one who really been enjoying himself ever since the reunion was Kovu, who now of course got to play king over the Outlanders in their newly appointed domain, right next to their old one.
You see, the ‘all-knowing’ king Simba had noticed (or concluded, or even made op as an excuse to get rid of the Outlanders) the Pridelands could not support a pride too dense, so the Outlanders had been rebased from Priderock towards the north east corner of the Pridelands, right next to and even slightly overlapping their former residence, the Outlands (though no-one bothered to venture there ever again). Although their new residence (about one-third of the Pridelands in size) was considered the lesser part of the Pridelands, it was infinitely better than the Outlands themselves, where the Outlanders formerly resided.
No-one complained. To the contrary, because, let us face it: Simba had not split-up the pride because the lands could not support a pride so dense, but because the lions themselves could not stand it. It was common knowledge that, even in being reunited and having made peace with one-another, the Pridelanders were glad to again be rid of them smelly, rude Outlanders. The Outlanders, in turn, weren’t afraid too admit they preferred not having those smug, up-tight Pridelanders (save for a few reinforcements, whose main duty was to keep tabs on Kovu) around. Besides, Kovu now got some practice at being a king, semi-autonomously ruling over ‘his’ Outlanders (at which he fared reasonably well). Everyone was a winner it seemed, the pride’s cohesion most of all: no more internal friction in the pride meant it became less likely the lions would once again decide to turn on one another. And that, in effect, was the best guarantee for a peaceful and prosperous lion-pride. Who wouldn’t sign for that? Well, Vitani, for one, wouldn’t: she was bored out of her mind, living in peace and prosperity. Ever since the reunion, more than one year ago already, Vitani couldn’t remember the last time she had had some excitement in her now dull life. She needed something thrilling to keep her occupied, or at least fun… Looking at it from that perspective, it’s not hard to understand why Vitani actually enjoyed the worried look on Kovu’s face as he approached the rock which Vitani had claimed for her daily sun-bathing. Maybe something bad and thus exiting had (finally) happened? To annoy her brother a bit, Vitani at first pretended she hadn’t noticed him. Until she spotted a lioness trailing him, that was. The more, the merrier! Vitani rolled over to address both lions to have appeared.

“Why good morning baby brother (Vitani was about thirty seconds older than Kovu)! Looking all grim ‘n gloomy, I see?”

Kovu apparently wasn’t in the mood for irony, or any humor for that matter. Neither was the lioness, but then again, she never was.
Enyi never smiled, let alone laughed. She never cried either. It was her one true merit, being neither particularly bright nor strong: she seemed to have been born with a distinct lack of emotions, making her perfect for obeying orders, a quality seldom openly, but nonetheless often, appreciated. Vitani could already guess that it was the lioness who was the source of her brother’s worrisome gaze.

“Morning sis… sorry to bother you like this, I know your o-so fond of sunbathing,” Kovu replied teasingly, “Bbut I presume you’ve already guessed I didn’t come here to discuss the weather. We’ve got a serious problem on our paws.”

“Because of your uncanny talent for making things sound way too serious, I have to say you haven’t impressed me this far… But you still continue making that serious face of yours… why?.”

“Because my problem is serious. Real serious. Concerning you-me-and-who-knows-who-else serious.”

“Sounds good,” Vitani yawned as she leapt of her rock, next to Kovu, “You sure it‘s not just the nerves? You know, the usual panic you seem to descend into each time Simba comes over to visit his daughter, and spy on you while he does?”

“Hey, if you don’t believe me, feel free to judge it for yourself, for all I care, Enyi’ll gladly fill you in on the details,” Kovu shrugged, “You can decide yourself whether you deem the events important enough to spent your precious sunbathing-time listening to me further elaborating on the subject.”

“Goody… story time.”

As always, Enyi couldn’t even muster the faintest of smiles.

“Where do I start, sir? The hunt?”

Kovu nodded, and Enyi started explaining to Vitani what had happened earlier that night.

“It all happened while I was on hunting-duty, last night. As usual, I led a hunting party of six, myself included. However, we didn’t seem to have any luck that night as we found almost no prey, and took down even less: nothing. But after a couple of hours spent on failures and screw-ups, we caught the scent of a leopard. Since everyone had become tired of hunting to no avail, I suggested we stalk the leopard a bit and see what he catches: nothing like a free meal. And indeed, as we followed the leopard into some of that annoying tall grass that seems to be poppin’ up everywhere, we soon heard a dying groan: jackpot. Relying manly on sound, we then moved in to ‘confiscate’ the kill. It didn’t take us long to find the leopard, who (wisely) took off when he realized his meal was goners. But then, as we were just about to grab the food, competition appeared…”

“I can feel were this is going at…”

“Please, Vitani, let her finish her story, will ya?”

“… as I said, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to claim the leopard’s snack. Some hyenas appeared, three of ‘em. I ordered them scavengers to back-off and leave, but they chose to instead grab the prey. Then, as I was about to warn them they’d better reconsider before I would feel obliged to use lethal force, my overly rash companions decided to attack without orders nor warning, much to my annoyance. Two of them had already encircled the hyenas to that end. But the hyenas attempted a breakout. It was quite amazing really; they acted surprisingly effective and disciplined: all three of them threw themselves at one of our lionesses. Two of ‘em grinded her forepaw, and when she tried to bite the third one (this I found particularly amazing), the hyena snapped at the lioness’ mouth as she opened it, actually biting of her part of her lip, and more importantly, fending off the bite intended at her. Needles to say the lioness wouldn’t be doing a lot of biting after that. Anyway, by then, the others, including me, had intervened. A close friend of the mangled lioness I spoke of earlier managed to pin one of the hyena’s down, alive, while the rest of us overwhelmed the second hyena, killing it instantly. Meanwhile the third one was getting away, so me and two others tried to chase it down, but it outran us, probably because a night of hunting had exhausted us more than it had tired the hyena. After a minute or so, we gave up the chase and returned to the others.”

“Right, that ought to do,” Kovu interrupted, “I’d prefer not hearing the other part again, ever.”

“Why?” Vitani wondered, still unnerved a bit because of Enyi’s cold, seemingly uncaring manner.

“Trust me on this one… Thank you, Enyi, that’s all for now. Go take a nap or something.”

“Sir, ma’am,” Enyi saluted, after which she took off.

“Why did you interrupt her all of a sudden?” Vitani asked when Enyi was out off hearing distance.

“Because her way of saying things is a bit too… graphic to my tastes. For one, she was just about to describe how they had to drag their wounded friend out here, only to have to drag her away again at my command, ‘cause I wouldn’t want her upsetting the pride. You know, them screams of pain and such…”

Vitani just stared at Kovu for a while.

“What? But… that’s awful!” she finally exclaimed, shocked.

“Bah, you’re just not getting the full picture here. Besides, it’s not like I’m leaving her to die: her friend is with her as we speak, and with a bit of luck she’ll live. No, I just needed to get her away from the pride till I got her story straight, ‘s all.”

“Why would you want to… Oh, I get it… You want to look good in front of the big man, and having to admit you’ve got hyenas creeping over the border wouldn’t really have him think highly of his ambitious son-in-law, now would it?”

Kovu couldn’t help but look like he had been caught red-handed as Vitani grinned at him.

“Well, I guess you could persuade the wounded lioness if you talk nice to her… you know, a bit of comforting here and there. She’ll definitely fold to a big ‘n cuddly guy like you, ‘cause if she’s as helpless as I think she is, she’ll definitely do just that. Who is that wounded lioness anyway?”

“Uh…” Kovu sighed, “Would you believe that, I forgot again… One of the Pridelanders that are supposed to keep tabs on me… Nope, can’t remember her name… Hey, what do you expect, Enyi never calls anyone by their names, so when she told me her story…”

“Yeah, I noticed too, why the hell does she do that? Quite frankly, she freaks me out… That aside, how are you going to convince the other lionesses involved to keep their yaws shut to Simba?”

“Well, luckily, Enyi came straight to me before even letting her party near the rest of the pride; we could still keep all this under wraps. And another ‘stroke of fortune’ (of sorts): as Enyi told me that story of hers, she also noted some of her companions had admitted to have displayed… ‘disturbing’ behavior while she had been occupied trying to chase down the hyena that got away. I think that information might come in handy.”

“Huh?”

“You know how I said Enyi could get a bit graphic at times? Well, one of Enyi’s companions had described to her, down to the nasty details, how they… well, kind of tortured the hyena they had gotten alive to death. Enyi passed on that disturbing report to me. Trust me; you wouldn’t want to hear any of it. “To make her pay for their wounded friend”, the offenders had explained. But Enyi got the impression they had actually enjoyed what they had done, and were proud of it as well. You can say a lot about Enyi, but at least she isn’t very tolerant of cruelty (probably because she considers it a as just another distorted display of emotions). Anyhow, needless to say such crude behavior is unsuitable of any lion, which I thoroughly and brutally explained to the offenders once they got here, and the only way I would let ‘em off without some ‘pedagogic’ punishment would be if they kept their mouths shut, now and forever.”

“No wonder we’re always gnawing at one another,” Vitani sighed in disgust, “If idiots like them keeping pulling hideous stunts like that, we’ll still be fighting the hyenas when hell freezes over…”

“Probably,” Kovu agreed, “But on the upside, those lionesses’ own stupidity has ensured they won’t talk to Simba. We all know the king isn’t really the sadistic type; those lionesses will think twice before telling Simba they enjoyed the suffering another living being, even if it only was a hyena. I’m pretty sure they won’t mention their encounter with the hyenas to our king, fearing that I might reveal the more sinister details.”

All right, so that’s been taken care of, no?” Vitani reasoned, starting to lose interest, “I mean, none of the lionesses will mention the hyenas to Simba now that you can blackmail them. Case closed. So why on earth did you come over hear to let me in on your little cover-up? Where do I enter the picture?”

“Quite simple really: I’m confident everyone had already guessed hyenas were entering our lands from time to time, even without any of us openly admitting it, or talking about it. But all signs point in that direction. However, up until today, thanks to their apparently newly developed knack for secrecy, we never sighted a single hyena ever since I took charge around here, or at least no-one bothered to report it when they did see one. But I figured quite some time ago it was becoming obvious they were crossing the border on a regular basis, so I concluded it might not have been a bad idea to… well, broker some kind of deal with ‘em, agree on some guidelines, to avoid situations like we had tonight: things like that could escalate. And good rules make good neighbors. But since we never actually got to see one of those sneaky *******, and because the subject is rather… touchy with the Pridelanders, I figured it’d be best if I didn’t rush the matter…”

“You freakin' right it’s touchy,” Vitani interrupted him, “Simba‘ll probably eat you alive if he finds out you, of all lions, are even as much as thinking about doing dealings with hyenas. Should bring back a nice pile of nasty memories.”

“Well, yeah, if you want to put it that way…” Kovu shrugged, faintly annoyed, “Anyhow, I think it ought to be better if from now on, I gave those negotiations a somehow what higher priority: my procrastination has already caused injury to one of our lionesses. And now that Simba is coming over, I’d like to avoid him bumping into any hyenas; he’d be less than amused if that were to happen.”

“And you want to make sure an agreement is reached before Simba visits us, right?” Vitani smiled, amused at the glaring transparentness of Kovu’s intentions, “You want to make an agreement with the hyenas, to make sure they at least keep their smelly selves out of our domain for the duration of Simba’s visit? I don’t know… If Simba came here and encountered a hyena, he’d probably scold you and beat the hyena to a pulp. But if he found out you’re doing deals with the hyenas, you’ll be the one getting the beating.”

“The old man, beating me up? Not likely!” Kovu grinned, “But you are right about me preferring him not hearing about those planned agreements I’d like to make with the hyenas. That’s why I’m sending you to the hyenas as my personal emissary.”

“What?” Vitani gasped.

“Well, it’s obvious I need someone I can trust, sis. And someone who can keep things under wraps, if necessary, if I want to avoid Simba’s wrath. Besides, from what I recall, last time we met some hyenas, you and them got along fine…”

“You mean you’re sending me into enemy territory, alone, after we iced two of their clan mates? Isn’t that a wee bit dangerous? Or do you think I’m too stupid to realize that?”

“No, I think you’re a loyal and trustworthy sister to whom I would entrust my life. And I also think you’re bored to death and in need of some suspense, before you were to vegetate. You have to admit, this can’t be anything but exciting!” Kovu suggested grinningly.

“You got me there…” Vitani admitted. She was actually starting to like the idea. It had been an awful long time since she had done something exiting… and the thought of going against the will of ‘her’ king brought back some of her good, old rebellious spirit… But the idea still sounded a bit dangerous, though…

“Right then,” she finally agreed, after a minute’s thought, “Where do I go, what do I tell ‘em and when do I leave?”

With final note I will wait for epilogue, but so far so great. As I write on C’s ffic-gallery, Nuka’s quotes are killers

And finally we have some real dark-stuff, not another candy-like story

Ah yes, as for the grim opener: let me assure all readers I am not a depressed looney who enjoyes being clad in black all day long and fears the sun. I just like writing with a sniff cynical gloom; it eases the otherwise often pompous drama.

This is a nice addition. Mainly I sometimes prefer the dark and gloomy stuff. Candy like stories can get boring every now and again. It's just good to see something different.

All right, then you'll love the next chapter; it mainly focusses on the hyenas, and they have cerainly lost their cheeriness some time ago.

ps: the non-forum-revised second part of TCoL is now inegraly available on TLK source!

Subtle diplomacy

“Hey? Anyone in here? Yo, Seko, you in here?”

Seko leapt up, startled, panicking. Darkness all around him. For a second, he feared he was out on the plains again, but the damp darkness of the cave around him brought him back to his senses. He was still in his cave. It must have been hours by now since he sought refuge here, angry, scared, and dead tired. But for all his fatigue, he hadn’t slept, not even for one second. He’d been living it over and over again, hours on end: the hunt, the encounter, the fight, the chase… and the return, when he witnessed the seemingly endless struggle, after which death must’ve felt as a release.

“Hey Seko? Come on, spineless creep, I know you’re in here. Come on out, the boss needs a word with you.”

He had no chance but to obey; he felt troubled enough without having to face the boss’ wrath. With all the strength he could muster, Seko got up and dragged himself to the entrance of the cave. Once he reached the exit, he had to avert his eyes because of what seemed like blinding sunlight. That, and Banzaï’s hideously scarred face. You’d avert your face for less. Once his eyes had adjusted to the light however, he noticed the sun was already setting. Dusk would kick in soon. Banzaï looked at Seko with disgust as he emerged from his cave.

“Jeez, you look like you been eaten alive by a lion and puked out again… Than again, that almost happened to be the case, right?”

Seko suddenly felt a new burst of energy, anger. How dared he ridicule that what had happened earlier? Weren’t even the dead spared from being the tools of Banzaï’s ever ongoing effort to humiliate Seko?

“At least I’ll get over looking like a corpse in a day or two. You, on the other paw, are stuck with that ugly face of yours for the rest of your days,” he gnawed at Banzaï.

Banzaï sighed in nonchalance and turned around: he wouldn’t even dignify that with an answer. Seko presumed he had to follow Banzaï to wherever it was they were going. But as every hyena they passed turned around to stare at him, he realized his older clan mate might have had a point when he mentioned Seko wasn’t exactly looking like a bundle of flowers: apart from his usual spot ensemble, he still had splats of dried blood all over his fur, not to mention the terrible state of his otherwise quite fashionable manes. Then again, it made him blend in nicely with his surroundings: the wastelands weren’t exactly eyecandy to start with, and late Shenzi’s husband (by now as dead as she was) hadn’t really picked the least of all evils as founding site for the new capital den. To the contrary, their den was located in the single most eerie rock-formation in the whole Wastelands. “Least we not dilute our anger nor forget the pain, even our home shall serve as a grim reminder for all the injustice that is still being wrecked upon us,” was how Shenzi’s husband (who had chosen this particular den, as previously mentioned) had supposedly put it. ***** psycho, Seko couldn’t help but think as he watched the grisly rocks they called home.
After a minute’s walk, they reached a clearing in the scarce vegetation surrounding the desolate den. Two hyenas had been waiting for them, locked in a tense silence. They looked a lot like one another, both dark off fur, with thick manes and large, fuzzy ears. The taller female however, had longer manes and a face both sly and suspicious, looking more like her mother. Her notorious (not to mention rare) gray eyes followed Seko in a worried and compassionate stare as he approached her.

“Right, ‘ere he is. I guess you want me to bugger off now?” Banzaï grumbled as he presented Seko.

“No please, stay ‘round,” the darker male quickly said before Banzaï got the chance to leave, “I’m sure we’ll need your experience on this one.”

“Besides, we wouldn’t want to keep a good friend like you ignorant. If anyone got the right to know what’s going on at all time, it’s you,” the female added.

“Thanks Vincent, Shenya. What’s all this fuss about anyways? And what’s up with him?” Banzaï asked, pointing at Seko.

“Sis, you wanna tell him, or should I? No, wait, maybe it were fitting if we leave that to the hyena in question, he might have some interesting contributions to make…” Vincent proposes, gazing at Seko.

“What, me?”

They nodded.

“Quite frankly… I’d rather not…”

“You’re not helping here, you know…” Vincent sighed, Come on, do yourself a favour and make yourself useful for a change.”

“Hey, give him a break, will ya?” Shenya snapped upon hearing Vincents thinly veiled insult. She moved closer towards Seko.

“It’s hard enough for him as it is…”

“Apparently,” Vincent noted scornful, “Right then, I guess it’s up to me to summarize the past night’s events… Right, so last night, our sensitive friend over here was out on a hunting trip, beyond the border, with two companions…”

“Keavy and Nya,” Shenya interrupted.

“Yeah, them. Anyway, it seems like they either didn’t quite follow foreign hunting protocol, or weren’t careful enough, because they got spotted by a group of lions.”

“Hey, it had nothing to do with that, it was the tall grass! We were as careful as one could be!” Seko exclaimed to his defense.

“I bet you were. And now stop interrupting me, will ya? To make a long story short: two of ours, Keavy and Nya, didn’t make it back. But fortunately, Seko here was able to flee the field and save the day,” Vincent concluded, suggesting rather bluntly that cowardice was at the base of the tragedy. This, of course, enraged both Seko and his life partner, Shenya, who responded immediately and fiercely.

“For heavens sake, Vincent, shove it! Try showing some ***** respect for a change! We’re talking about our clanmates here, not some piece of prey we lost on the way, like you make it sound. And another thing, our group was outnumbered two to one, what did you expect Seko to do? The only thing he could do in the given circumstances was run for it. And need I remind you he even returned only just after the lions had left? He tried helping out our fallen comrades while he knew those lions were still at large, I’d like to see you do the same.”

“I’d prefer he’d have stayed around when the lions hadn’t left yet…” Banzaï whispered.

It all came back, again. He found himself sneaking through the grass once again, tense, scared beyond reckoning, shaking like a leaf. He looked around, listened, tried to catch the lionesses’ smell, but they were apparently gone. He crept forward. Why hadn’t they known those lions were around? Why did she have to take the prey, why didn’t she just ran? Too late now. He could still hear the screams. The sound of them was long gone, but those shrill screams of pain, agony and fear still echoed in his head. Whose were they? One thing he knew for sure, it weren’t lions’. Then suddenly, he found them. Nya he saw first, her once mighty posture now reduced to a grayish pile of dirty fur, casting no shadows in the pale moonlight. With dead, empty eyes she stared out into the darkness in front of her, her mouth slightly opened and her back lodged in an unnatural twist. But even her broken figure looked peaceful when compared to Keavy.
Seko didn’t see her at first, and he’d long wish he hadn’t: she was laying on her side, eyes closed, and paws lying limply at her side. Gutted. At first, Seko wanted to run away, but then he imagined seeing her chest slowly moving up and down. As he approached to investigate, he saw her head was covered in scars. But she was still alive, he could tell because she was crying softly, breathing irregularly. He sat down next to her, whispered in her ear. She could just barely open her eyes, doing her utmost best to get a glimpse of Seko. He could tell she knew she wouldn’t last long just by the look she gave him. Fortunately, she wasn’t in pain anymore; there’s only so much one can take before your body shuts down your perception of physical pain, Seko had seen it countless times with prey he caught.
Now it was just the knowledge of dying, of never seeing her family and friends again that tormented her. So Seko tried comforting her, keeping her head close to him, softly licking her muzzle and gently caressing her manes to let her know she wasn’t alone. He couldn’t think of anything more fearsome than the thought of having to die alone. And for what seemed like an eternity, he just sat there, as she cried, asking about her mother from time to time, recounting in bits and pieces what the lions had done to her. Only moments ago a strong, proud and optimist hyena trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by making up puns involving mainly cheetahs, now beaten broken, her belly torn open, only to be left to die. Seko continued talking to her and stroking her, until finally, after what seemed to have been the better part of a lifetime, she closed her eyes and stopped breathing.

“I fail to see how that makes any difference,” Vincent sneered at his sister after she was done applauding Seko, “But enough of this. We didn’t call this meeting to discuss the past. I’d rather hear your thoughts on what ought to be done now.”

“First thing of all, we ought to cut this ridiculous secrecy. The clan doesn’t even know what happened to their friends yet, and I don’t find it appropriate to keep them ignorant any longer. We ought to announce what happened, and we need to do it now, without any fancycrap,” Shenya suggested, provocatively staring at Vincent.

“In time, we will, sis.”

“Why not now?”

“Please, don’t play stupid. I get where this is going at, you know. We just have to make sure our ‘announcement’ doesn’t spark too much tension.”

“I knew it!” Shenya exclaimed angrily.

“Knew what?” Banzaï asked, attempting to figure out why the two hyenas he considered closest to him in the whole-wide world were about to enter a fierce argument.

“Come on, Banzaï, don’t you see it? He wants to cower out, again! Our clan members don’t return home, and he wants us to sit and do nothing!”

“It’s called caution, and it keeps most of us alive… Not that you would know, dear sister, as caution isn’t exactly a virtue common to femmes. You prefer to rush in, leaving me to clean the mess.”

Instead of responding to her brother’s sexist comment, Shenya just sat there and glared at him. The careful observer could have heard the sound of her blunt claws scraping over the rocky surface below her. Meanwhile, Seko stepped in to his partner’s defense, his temper fueled by his recollection of that one fatal night.

“Caution? You call that caution? Letting those savages pick us off, one by one? Nya left one orphan already, how many more before you finally get it through your thick skull? We’ve waited long enough, now’s the time to stop your fancy talk and act.”

“What do you suggest we do then? We storm the lion den head on? You talk about one orphan; the best we can hope for is twenty more if we were to avenge the damage done this far. Thanks, but no. I prefer we sustain some… marginal losses over absolute obliteration.”

If it wouldn’t have been for his dark fur, Seko would’ve turned pale as the moon. ‘Marginal losses’. In a single sentence, Vincent reduced Keavy’s suffering to mere ‘marginal losses’. Seko just couldn’t grasp it; it felt as if something snapped within him. The creature sitting in front of him was no hyena; it wasn’t even a living creature. In front of him sat the embodiment of indifference, cold and power hungry indifference. He couldn’t care less about his clan’s suffering; they were just tools to further his ambitions. And like all tools, they were susceptible of marginal loss in efficiency. Vincent didn’t care how many died, as long as he could just continue ruling them at his whims, Seko figured. From what Seko could tell, Shenya seemed to think likewise.

“How… how dare you even say that? And all those who gave their lives at Priderock, all those years ago, those were marginal losses as well?” she yelled out in anger. Banzaï tried to defuse the situation, but Vincent brutally interrupted him.

“Please, Banzaï, don’t bother. Femmes are immune to reason. That’s why dad had to take over in the first place, because female dominance failed us. What happened at Priderock weren’t marginal losses; it was just the result of plain old stupidity.”

Insulting females was one thing. Him mocking the clan, Shenya could handle. Even a lack of respect for the dead she might have forgiven him. But in desecrating their mother’s heritage, Vincent crossed the line. Rage enflamed within her, she couldn’t control it anymore nor would she have wanted to do so. Without a seconds notice, Shenya pounced Vincent, her otherwise sympathetic eyes now burning with anger. Whilst uttering various screams and profanities the likes of which I shall not describe here, the two of them engaged in a bitter twist. Banzaï couldn’t bring himself to pick side for either of them, as he felt deeply for both. But when Seko appeared to come to the aid of Shenya, Banzaï was quick to slam him onto the ground. Then, while Seko was still somehow what stunned and unable get up, Banzaï intervened to the aid of Vincent, trying to calm down the much larger and more powerful female. When they finally had her more or les pinned down, she seemed to come back to her senses.

“Get off me already! I said get off!” Shenya yelled yelled, as she kicked back Vincent. After she got up, she cast one last angry glare at both Vincent and Banzaï, before taking off with a final angry whoop. Chances were she’d go sobbing in her personal cave, or grind some bones between her teeth to let of some of her tension.

Seko now knew. He had felt it before, but only now was he sure of it. Vincent’s existence couldn’t be tolerated anymore. That hyena’s mere presence was a threat to him, Shenya and even to the clan as a whole, a threat he could not stand any longer. If he ever was to do anything for Shenya, this should be it: eliminating Vincent, so his sister Shenya could finally surge out of his shadow. And it had to happen fast, before he led the whole clan to ruin.

Vincent, beat up and still in his adrenaline-rush, was just about to turn his attention to the still present Seko, when another hyena, seemingly exhausted suddenly appeared. As one could have come to expect, she was quite surprised when she saw Vincent in his present state: panting, his fur full of dirt, and blood dripping down from his nose.

“And what do you want?”

Seeing as she had just run her paws down to the bone to find him, he could have been a little nicer. However, since the newly arrived hyena was utterly exhausted, she limited her speech to a minimum, for the moment.

‘I-eh…I’ve… I got a message for you, sire,” the messenger gasped, “Real urgent.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much… This better be good news, Sunshine.”

For a moment, it looked as if the newly arrived hyena would start talking again, in her very distinguishably hurried and twitchy manner, but she paused to take a breather first.

“It’s a message from one off Kali’s girls. She said, you’re not going to believe this, they’ve captured a lioness! No kidding, they say they’ve got a lioness! So I was all like, no way, so I went over to check it out and, dig this, there really was a lioness! And the funny thing is, I mean, what are the chances; that lioness actually asked to see you, Vincent! Said she was like, an envoy or something, but I don’t know what the hell that is so I thought like, no way, sod off. But then she said like, tell him it’s me then he’ll certainly come over, and I was still like, yeah right. But I was kinda curious too, and then Kali suggested I’d come get you so I did and…”

“And here you are, right, I get the picture,” Vincent kindly interrupted her, “Calm down, will ya, or you’ll drawn in your own verbal flood.”

“Hehe, that’s for a fact. Anyway, sure sounds like one arrogant furball… Considrin’ what they did to us we ought to eat that lioness alive…” Banzaï grinned, “By the way, you mentioned the lioness said you ought to ‘like’, tell us who she is. I kinda seem to have not heard the part mentioning her name.”

“Oh right, gosh I like, forgot ‘cause I had to tell a lot and I was like hurried and… oh, right… whoops… eh, I think she said her name was… Vitani, or something.”

Vincent and Banzaï paused and looked at each other for a while, partly to annoy the messenger: nothing more irritating than you having to hurry just to find others taking their time, staring at each other. After a while, Banzaï finally addressed Vincent.

“What are you looking at me for? What lioness were you expecting anyway, it’s not like you know that much lionesses, you know.”

“Yeah… still, it’s been a while… Vitani… Didn’t really think she’d remember us…” Vincent shrugged.

“You remembered her, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah, sure did… *****, this blows… I mean, I wouldn’t like to see her get ‘eaten alive’, you know?”

“No? Well, the I suggest you hurry to your lioness: if Shenya decides to make those killings the lioness’ pridemates committed earlier public, I don’t think your lioness will last long.”

“Yeah, especially with that creep Kali ’round…” Vincent frowned, “Figures she had to be the one to bump into Vitani. Better get this over with quick. Meanwhile, do me a favor and try talking some sense into that blockhead Shenya, would you please?”

“You really shouldn’t be calling her names like that, you know. She’s the only sister you’ve got, and besides, she was kinda right: we can’t just let what the lions did pass without a proper reaction.”

“I know…” Vincent mumbled, “That’s what bugs me the most... It’s not like I enjoy having to act all sociopath, but someone’s got to voice reason ‘round here. Well, gota go… tell Shenya I’m sorry, will ya?”

“I’ll tell her you want to talk things out tonight and you’re prepared to admit you were wrong.”

Vincent had the urge to correct that last one a bit, by adding his errors lay mostly in the way he voiced his opinions, rather than in his actual opinion. The messenger, however, all annoyed and worked up by now, practically pushed Vincent from the scene with her anxious stare.
As Vincent disappeared, Banzaï looked around: talking about Shenya made him remember Seko. But where the hell did that weakling sneak off to? Must’ve buggered out when that messenger was all talkative, Banzaï considered.

*

“So eh… what’s up, boss?”

“Don’t call me boss, I ain’t no-one’s boss.”

“Right… but what’s going on? I mean, with the lioness and all.”

Vincent sighed. Seeing as the story of him meeting Vitani involved a lot of not-following-orders, he wasn’t really inclined to share too much information. But the messenger was quite persistent.

“We eh… we met at the border… on patrol, long time ago. And in stead off trying to kill each other, we decided a that it would be more desirable to just have a quick chat and then return to our respective duties, ignoring each other. Things like that were still possible, back when them Outlanders weren’t just another flavor of them murderous Pridelanders.”

“That’s nice… We ought to do that more often, just having a chat instead of like, killing each other.”

“Indeed…” Vincent yawned.

Suddenly, out of the dense vegetation, Seko appeared. He seemed a bit shocked to bump into Vincent, but made his way back to the den without even bothering to acknowledge the other’s existence.

“Nice day to you to, creep…” Vincent grumbled, “What the hell was he doing here?”

“I’m sure he went to check out the lioness, ‘cause if like, someone told me ‘hey we’ve captured a real life lioness’ I’d sure love to go see it.”

“Yeah, probably…”

Vincent didn’t pay any further notice to it, and they continued towards where the lion was kept. Vincent noticed they were nearing the White-Pass cliff. The scenery of the river and the White-Passes across the stream you got there was about the only decent sightseeing one could do around hyena territory. When you do, always watch your step though.
After about half an hour they suddenly spotted a tall, broad hyena blocking their path. Judging by both her size and light fur, it had to be Kali, former heir to the Westclan. As they approached, Vincent also noticed Kiuma and Umwa, the ever present acolytes of Kali. Her other four cronies were nowhere to be seen though, probably guarding Vitani. As usual, Kali seemed a bit disgusted at the sight off Vincent. Kali not getting along with Vincent wasn’t that big of a secret. And who could blame Kali, seeing as how Vincent’s dad was responsible for the death of Kali’s mother, the first and last Westclan matriarch?

“Evening, Vincent. I presume you’ve come to check out our lion-friend over there?” Kali asked. Vincent couldn’t help but notice Kali was trying to act way nicer than he had come to expect of her, but he didn’t pay further attention to it.

“I’ll take it from here, Kim,” Kali suggested, looking at the messenger. Kim nodded, and took off, leaving Vincent alone with Kali’s group. Kali apparently wanted to keep the lioness hush-hush too, or so Vincent presumed.

“Right, now where is this mysterious lioness of yours?” Vincent asked, attempting to avoid conversation with Kali, who seemed inclined to do the same and lead the way. After a few meters, they reached a small clearing. There was Vitani, casually stretched out on the ground, trying to look all at ease. Vincent recognized her instantly, as she seemingly hadn’t changed one bit. Apart from the fact she had gotten fatter, that was: an abundance of food undoubtedly was one of the many positive effects to the Reunion of the prides. Vincent still remembered when they had first heard about the reunion, about one year ago. To the hyenas, there had been nothing positive to it, quite to the contrary: it had seemed like a nightmare come true.
As Vincent looked behind him, he noticed Kali had disappeared. Come to think of it, neither her nor her cronies, ‘the last ones loyal to the Westclan’, were anywhere to be seen. Then again, the foliage was as dense as it gets in the Wastelands, so they were probably keeping a low profile: being stuck in the past didn’t stop Kali’s gang from displaying some much appreciated professionalism. Vincent turned to look at Vitani again, and suddenly realized he had just turned his back to a lion and lived to tell about it…It at least proved she wasn’t out to get him.
Not sure what to say, they just stared at each other for a while, until finally Vincent decided to take the initiative and break the eerie silence.

“Awkward?”

“Kind of,” Vitani admitted.

“Well, seeing as you came looking for me, I’m guessing there’s something you want me to know or something you plan on doing to me…”

Vitani sighed. This was harder than she had expected, maybe Kovu ought to have sent someone who was a bit more eloquent… She’d better cut the small talk, hoping to get this official talk over with as quickly as possible.

“Yep… Eh, I’ll be brief, I’m no good at speeches: Kovu wants to cut a deal with you.”

“And who’s Kovu?” Vincent lied. He knew who Kovu was, who didn’t, but he decided to play dumb for a while.

“Hey, come on, I’m cutting the formalities here, you should too. ‘The boss’ not knowing who Kovu is? Go fool the other one.”

“What makes you think I’m some kind of ‘boss’?” Vincent frowned, “I’m just a humble male, ’s all.”

“You ought to know lying only works if everyone is in on the deal,” Vitani smiled, “Out of three hyenas I’ve spoken today, two called you ‘the boss’, and you’re the third one. Busted. What’s up with that anyway? You don’t have a ‘matriarch’, or whadaya call her?”

Busted indeed. Vincent’s spirits dampened further, as this was turning out to be a really tiring day. He figured he’d better stop lying, only to start avoiding. And insulting, as he had been using some of his spare time to find out about the ‘mystery lioness named Vitani’ he met about a year and a half ago. He hadn't liked what he had come to find out.

“It’s a long story, and I ain’t in the mood for talking. Yeah, I know who Kovu is. He’s your brother. And I know who his father is too. What do you call him again, nowadays? Taka? Hey, I guess even the lowest of all beings to ever stalk the plains needs a name. I should’ve known when I first lay eyes upon Kovu, and your other scruffy, now stone dead brother. I should’ve known when I first looked at you,” Vincent grinned viciously, and this time he actually meant his grin to be vicious. Vitani tried to remain stoic: losing her temper would be unfit to a lion. Yeah right, unfit to a Pridelander maybe. She glared back, just as vicious.

“What, you expecting apologies or something? I ain’t blaming myself from being born, and besides, last time I remembered, it wasn’t me who was stupid enough to follow late Taka to a certain doom. If you decide to blame me because your relatives followed Taka all the way into his and their demise, that would come to show a lot about your intellectual capacities,” Vitani noted coldly. Vincent growled at Vitani, barely noticeable, but decided he’d better cut the ‘niceties’.

“What do you want? I’m sure Kovu didn’t just send you here to piss me off, so spit it out and leave.”

Vitani sighed profoundly. She had envisioned this meeting to be a bit more… a bit more what actually? They were enemies, after all, and Vitani’s pride had only just killed two of their friends. She decided it be better if she gave in a bit, reluctantly.

‘Ok, ok, I’m sorry, let’s… Let’s try starting over. Kovu sent me over here to negotiate,” Vitani explained.

“Negotiate what? Getting more of us killed?”

“Try dropping that negative attitude, I like you much better when you’re only mildly gloomy. He has a proposal to avoid certain… unpleasant situations, like what happened tonight.”

“Keavy and Nya.”

“Huh, what?” Vitani frowned.

“Your unpleasant situations, they got names, you know. Keavy and Nya are the hyenas your pride killed. And Nya’s pup growing up without a mom, if she grows up at all, do count her in too… yeah, real unpleasant situation indeed.”

“Hey, drop the pathos already, will ya? Look, I’m sorry for you loss, but I had got nothing to do with that; I’m just trying to make sure it don’t happen again. Just try being a bit constructive, if you please?” Vitani sighed, “Jeez, you weren’t even half the jerk you are now the first time we met.”

Vincent considered responding that the first time they met, they hadn’t butchered two of their clanmates, but he changed his mind. He knew he was acting like a jerk a little too often nowadays. He tried to smile without looking mean, or sad.

“I know, I know… I’m sorry… It’s just… everything... the clan, tonight, your lineage. It’s kinda hard to talk to you as if I nothing were wrong, you know. It would have been a whole lot easier if you weren’t a lion…”

“Eh, Vincent…” Vitani suddenly asked, a bit confused. She was looking at something behind him. Vincent turned around. Three hyenas had appeared out of nowhere, Vincent immediately recognized Kiuma, one of Kali’s subordinate’s. He turned to Vitani again. Four other hyenas had appeared behind her, Kali being one of them. Vitani turned around, saw Kali, then turned to Vincent again.

“What’s going on?” she hissed, suspicious. Vincent couldn’t answer; his mouth had turned dry all of a sudden. He feared he already knew what was going on.

“Kali, what on earth do you think you’re doing?” he uttered, at the verge of panic. Kali grinned.

“Sorry, boss, I don’t do the thinking. From now on I’m leaving that to our sly friend Seko: turns out he’s good at something after all…” Kali growled viciously, “Don’t worry, Vincent, Seko explained it to me: it’s a win-win. I take my payback, starting with you, and your girlfriend here takes the blame. A lioness killing her brother, now that ought to give good old Shenya something to get worked up about… and if I’m lucky, she’ll even smash her own skull on a lions’ paw in her fury, good riddance. But first things first… Time for you to pay for what your murderous father did…”

Vitani didn’t need Vincent’s explanation on this one: she had engaged in enough plots herself to know one when she saw one. It didn’t take a genius to see those hyenas were about to get rid off Vincent, and Vitani was to get blamed for it. Needles to say that involved both her and Vincent getting killed, Vitani considered.

“Turn around, and just run like hell…” she whispered at Vincent, and before the petrified hyena even understood what she said, Vitani already leapt forward whilst uttering an incredible roar, landing on one of the hyenas in front off her, smashing it against the ground. But in stead of finishing the job, she jumped forward again, ignoring the hyena she had knocked down, and took a run for it, closely followed by Vincent. As they ran, neither knowing nor caring where they were going, Vitani noticed Vincent was gaining on her, he even passed her by. That could only mean his clanmates were gaining on her as well. But as they ran forth through all sorts of sharp grass and thorny bushes, Vincent suddenly came to a clumsy, hasty halt. Vitani didn’t react fast enough and slammed right into him. But in stead of feeling the sharp fangs of Kali and her gang gnawing into her flesh as she had expected, she tumbled down a steep, rock-ridden slope, pushing Vincent out in front of her. She tried to get a hold on the slippery surface, to no avail: she kept sliding faster and faster. Then, suddenly Vincent disappeared, and only moments later, so did Vitani as she fell down from the White-Pass cliff, into the roaring stream below.

What, no comments? No matter, I carry on!

You did what – act one

“You did what?”

Kovu smiled casually, or at least that was what he tried. Anyone who‘d have been carefully watching, however, him could have told he was nervous. But Simba didn’t watch him carefully; he didn’t even bother to look in his general direction. He just kept staring north. Then, suddenly, he turned to Kovu, who further reinforced his smile. The aging but still very intimidating lion seemed to pierce Kovu with his bright eyes.

“Well, I have to say I didn’t really expect that much initiative from you, but I like it nonetheless. It’s about time we had some eyes at the border again, we’ve heard way too little for way too long about that area…”

“Indeed, I couldn’t agree more. And Vitani was more than eager to do her duty for the pride,” Kovu added, smiling still.

“Yes, I have to admit her services to the pride have been admirable, she fitted in better than I expected. And now she even scouts the border, on the lookout for our enemy… Quite frankly, I thought those scruffy mongrels had long since disappeared…”

“One can only hope,” Kovu interrupted.

“… but we have to keep our vigilance, and I’m glad you did,” Simba continued, “A king could not wish for a better son, and a pride could not ask for a better king.”

By now, Kovu’s jaws began to hurt from his deliberate smiling all the time; time for a serious remark so he could give his facial muscles some rest.

“Please, father, do not talk as if time had already caught up with us, the only king our pride needs, the only one it has, is you. I just do your bidding to the best of my abilities.”

Simba stared at Kovu again, and for a moment, Kovu thought he had overdone it. Could the old lion see through his deceit?
But Simba remained oblivious, and averted his gaze again, this time to Kiara, who was sitting nearby. He then addressed Kovu again.

“Well, anyhow, you did a good job: it is good to know your sister is scouting the border for any scavengers. If you keep up this good work of yours, I’ll die a happy lion. But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking some time alone with my daughter: I’m still not used to the idea of having to miss her for weeks on end, not even after all those months.”

Kovu nodded, and Simba strode towards Kiara, who, before she acknowledged her father, turned to Kovu and silently formed the word ‘liar’ with her mouth. Kovu grinned, winked and took off, out of hearing distance.
When Enyi and her gang had given the rest of the pride their pathetic, highly unrealistic story about a leopard attacking their friend (thus causing her wounds), absolutely no-one had believed it, but only Kiara had been bold enough to confront Kovu with his shabby lie. As always, it didn’t take long for her to squeeze the truth out of him, after which she had agreed to join the little ‘conspiracy’. After all, since she had helped reunite the prides in a peacefull manner, Kiara was convinced a little bit of subtle diplomacy could about settle about anything. Unless her father joined in on the party that is, as diplomacy wasn’t his strong point (though he had certainly been making progress); she couldn’t really blame Kovu for wanting to keep Simba out of the whole hyena-agreement.
As he walked away from Simba and Kiara, Kovu spotted Enyi, who looked around suspiciously first, after which she addressed Kovu, her face locked in a seemingly everlasting expressionless stare.

“I’m glad you’re a better liar than I am.”

“Yeah, but you’re still the best eavesdropper of ‘em all. Private conversations are supposed to be private, if I’m not mistaken,” Kovu grumbled.

“You’re not mistaken, sir, but I was overly curious.”

“Now that’s something new, Enyi actually caring about something…”

Of course, Enyi didn’t move a muscle or emitted a single sound that could indicate the slightest form of amusement.

“I just like to keep track of things. The game you’re making me play here is not at all without risk, especially now that you’ve been lying to Simba square in the face.”

“Talking about risk,” Kovu sighed, “Vitani hasn’t returned yet, has she?”

“No not yet. But it’s only been a night, maybe she got delayed.”

“Delayed how? The hyenas asking her out for lunch? Or brunch maybe?”

“Maybe she is lunch,” Enyi suggested without the faintest sign of humorous intent.

“Not funny,” Kovu frowned, fearing she was probably right.
How long could it take to persuade the hyenas to agree on Kovu’s very tempting proposal? The deal was pretty sweet on the hyenas: they got limited hunting rights to the parts of the Pridelands controlled by the Outlanders during the day; and Kovu didn’t ask anything in return, except for them to stay clear of the Pridelands controlled by Pridelanders, and avoid contact with any lions at all times. In effect, Kovu just legalised what they had probably been doing for quite some time without any authorisation. As such, didn’t even have to agree on the deal, Vitani only had to inform them they got the day-shift all to themselves, without lions coming over to confiscate their kills, and the hyenas would probably not even have to alter their routine. Only thing they had to do was steer clear of Pridelanders, which they undoubtedly already did.

“I didn’t intend it to be funny,” Enyi noted.

*

Strange. Stranger than usual anyhow. I mean, it’s not that unusual for something to wash up on the riverbank every now and then, but why oh why does it always have to happen at my drinking spot? Every time I need a drink some dead body turns up, two in this case. Yuk. Maybe I ought to migrate to a place without carcasses lying around everywhere; I just can’t drink with that god-awful smell around. Not that these particular ones are that smelly, yet… Some scavengers better get rid of ‘em soon or I’m outa here.

A small family of vultures slowly circled above their meal, not intent on munching in too fast for any meal could also be a trap. But there seemed to be nothing around but a bored cheetah, which yawningly looked at the vultures as they smoothly soared down, carefully manoeuvring their huge wings for a soft landing. Personally, the cheetah rather disliked vultures, and all other scavengers for that matter. Rough, nasty crowd. But he kept watching them nonetheless, knowing that seeing a lioness getting torn open by the birds would give him some satisfaction at least. If there had been hyenas as well to join in on the feast, however, the cheetah would’ve long since left: hyenas could, from time to time, act rather inappropriate, even when unprovoked. But now, it seemed as if the hyenas themselves were on the menu.
The first vulture landed only inches away from his meal, and then carefully made his way onto the body. Before pinching away the hyena’s eyes, the bird decided it’d be best if he double-checked whether his meal was really dead one last time, however, as those hyena’s yaws could easily rip the huge bird in half. The vulture viciously pecked the hyena’s side, but before it got the chance to tear off a piece of flesh, the animal below him had already emitted a loud whoop, jumping up below the vulture. The bird quickly flapped his wings and took flight, only missing the hyena’s teeth by an inch. The vultures that had amassed around the bodies simultaneously flew up as well, rising up in a chaotic flapping of wings.
The cheetah, shocked at the sudden revival of the presumed corpse, decided he’d stay and watch the show anyhow, even though the vultures hadn’t had a chance to dig in on the lion. But now the hyena could feast on the lioness, and that would mean the show would become a bite more crunchy: all the more reason to keep watching. The awoken seemed to need some time to get back to his senses, however, as he almost immediately collapsed after having jumped up. The cheetah continued observing him.
After about one minute, the hyena got up again, though still a bit wobbly. As it looked around, seemingly confused, his eyes caught the sight of the cheetah, who tried keeping his cool as not to attract too much attention. But the hyena quickly lost interest in the bystander when he noticed the lion next to him. He then trotted towards her, falling down and getting up again halfway. For a moment he seemed to study the body in front of him, but then, in stead of the eating and bone-grinding the cheetah had expected, he just sat down next to her and laid down his head on her chest, after which he closed his eyes again as if he fell asleep.

Strange morning indeed. Why doesn’t that miserable hyena eat her? He certainly looks like he needs a decent meal. Or why doesn’t he just walk away, or why doesn’t he do anything, except for what he’s doing now? Guess I missed something here… It’s safe to presume they washed up together, so they probably fell into the water together as well, but that still doesn’t explain what I’m seeing here, now does it? Relationships between the two of their kinds are usually a bit more chill. Strange, strange... I wonder…

*

Pain. Darkness. Emptiness. No memories, no name, no hunger, no consciousness, only dark, empty pain. And a deep, everlasting silence. Or maybe not? For a moment it seemed like she could here a distant, muted whoop, nothing more than a vague sensation somewhere beyond the darkness. Then another sensation, but no sound this time… more like a faint touch. Then more pain again. As time passed by, time she could hardly come to grasp, her empty universe started filling up bit by bit. More sensations: a faint breeze, a touch of the warm morning sun, the soft caress of water. In time, even the darkness faded to make room for a succession of colours: first brown, then red, orange, yellow and finally a hellishly bright light. Her body came back again too, though only hair by hair and bone by bone it seemed. The pain remained however. Then suddenly, like thunder from a cloudless sky, it all came back: all memories, all recollections, all names, all faces, everything. Especially the chase and the ensuing fall. She tried to react to this sudden shock, but was unable to: although she had regained feeling in all of her body, her muscles didn’t obey her yet. She noticed her mouth was open, not to mention dry, but she could hardly move her jaw. The best she could manage was lifting her eyelids. It took her an unusually long time to adjust her eyes to the light, but after a while, her vision was back again too. First thing she saw were two dark, fuzzy paws. She tried closing her mouth again, which was a success, but when she tried to utter a simple sentence, her abilities appeared confined to a silent groaning. That, however, sufficed to turn the two fuzzy paws into one fuzzy head.

*

After having taken a rest upon Vitani’s chest, partly to check whether she was still alive and partially because he couldn’t manage to stand upright for any longer, Vincent got up again, hindered by a nagging pain in his left-front paw. He seemed to have cut it open somewhere, and the cut was shallow enough not to be serious, but deep enough to be annoying. For a moment he considered his options: waiting, and waiting. Vitani was alive, but she still seemed to be incapacitated for a little while, so best he could do was wait: he wasn’t going anywhere anyhow, not after what had happened earlier. Not on his own. For the time being he tried not to think about what had exactly happened on Priderock, but the obvious plot against him kept clouding his mind nonetheless. Who was in on it? Or who wasn’t in on the plot? The only one he could trust was the one who had been targeted with him. The only one he could trust, for the time being was a lioness. Thinking about Vitani suddenly made Vincent realise she was producing some faint sounds. He bent over to have a look. Her eyes seemed to be open, though the sunlight seemed to hinder her.

“Hey Sunshine, you all right?

More groaning.

“Well, I guess that’s something already. Yell when you’re about ready to begin forming actual words.”

Vincent walked around the lioness, sitting down against her back, resting his paws on her shoulder and his head on his paws.

“I do hope you don’t mind.”

“Jerk…” Vitani uttered slowly.

“Ah, you still remember me I see. Maybe it’d be best if I, while you are still unable to break my neck in a blind rage, stress the fact that I had nothing to do with whatever happened earlier.”

“Yeah, I guessed as much…”

Vincent giggled, although he realised his present situation was far from desirable, let alone humorous.

“By the way, thanks for getting me out of the water earlier, I’m not a great swimmer,” he added.

“My pleasure…” Vitani mumbled.

“Where are we anyway? I kinda lost track about when my head banged into a rock.”

“Dunno, I just grabbed you and tried to get us ashore. But I’m pretty sure we’re on the wrong side of the river... Exciting, no?”

“I’ve had my share of excitement for this year…” Vincent grumbled.

Vitani started laughing, as her pain started making way for relief.

“You wouldn’t know how much I’ve missed this…” she suddenly smiled happily, after about a minute.

“Missed what?”

“This! Excitement, running for your life and talking it over while feeling absolutely mangled. Life! I’ve missed life!”

“Once you’re born an outlander you’ll die an outlander, I guess…” Vincent shrugged.

“You bet. This is your life too, isn’t it? The hyenas’, I mean. Don’t you guys have to fight for it too? Really fight for a living, like we Outlanders had to do?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Hey, you’d be surprised how quickly you’re tired of the easy life,” Vitani yawned, still laying down.

“At least you‘ve had both lifestyles, some of us can’t afford to be so picky…” Vincent grumbled, meaner than he intended, and he quickly realised.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he appologised

“No, you’re probably right anyway…”

For a moment, both animals just stared out in front of ‘em, tired and confused, until Vincent took the trouble of really looking around for once. He quickly noticed they were stranded on a small depression between three steep hills and the river, flowing by slowly as it was now deep and broad, as opposed to the thin rock-ridden wild waters they had been flushed through after they had plunged into the river. As he gazed south, he found himself looking upwards to be able to see the whole of the white passes, whose cloud-covered flanks seemed only a few kilometres away. That could only mean they were indeed on the wrong side of the river where he had never been before.
He suddenly noticed one of the hills surrounding them had some grass and trees on them, much more comfortable than the rock bed they were in now.

“Wouldn’t you fancy lying down somewhere else? The sun is killing me, and having to sit on these nasty rocks ain’t helping either,” the hyena suggested.

“Sure… but first, I got to try getting up…” Vitani mumbled. With a tired groan, she got up, and both her and Vincent dragged themselves up the hill, to a spec of shade below a couple of low, thorny trees. Lying down again, they didn’t notice the cheetah that had been discreetly following them. Vincent did see him, but didn’t actually notice him as his thoughts were elsewhere: what had actually happened the previous evening?
Kali had tried to ice him, that he already knew, and if she had been the only one in on it, her motives would have been crystal clear: avenging her mother by killing the descendants of her murderer, a plain old blood feud. But she had mentioned Seko. And Shenya. Were they in on it too? But why? Shenya had beaten him up pretty nasty, yeah. But that’s what she does: she beats you up, then leaves you be, and if you’re lucky she’ll apologize for it later. But Shenya, his own sister for crying out loud, a murderer? And he could hardly believe Seko had the stomach (let alone the authority) to order a hit. But Kali mentioned them, and it was neither her style nor fitting of her intelligence to blame someone else for her finest hour. Plus, she had also mentioned ‘Shenya would break her neck on a lion’s paw’ or something, what the hell did she mean by that? As he contemplated on that, it suddenly hit Vincent. He knew why Shenya would have wanted him dead, and why Vitani taking the blame would have been so important, and what Kali could have meant. No… she wouldn’t… Would she? She couldn’t possibly try to… Suddenly, Vincents thoughts were interrupted by Vitani.

“So… what do we do now?”

“Huh? Stay here and chill out a bit longer for all I care…”

“Yeah… but after that?”

“I‘ll try getting home, and you’ll probably do the same.”

“You’re kidding me right?” Vitani frowned, “You’re not seriously considering going back to the same guys that tried to kill ya?”

“What other options do you think I have? It’s not like you’re relatives would be any less murderous if they met me. And I don’t fancy wandering around in the wilderness all by my self, so that only leaves a trip back to the clan.”

“Probably… So here’s where our roads part?”

As he could tell from the look on her face, she wasn’t really looking forward to that, and neither was Vincent, for some reason he could quite point out.

“Well, not at once, I mean, we still need to find a crossing and stuff…” Vincent argued.

“Then one of us will be making a detour, if we use the same route across the river.”

“I doubt it…”

“Why, you plan on moving?”

No, but Shenya might, and she‘d be taking the whole clan with her, Vincent had come to realise. And he already guessed what their new home would be. Better not to tell Vitani, as not to make her panicky… or hostile.

“No, eh, nothing… I’ll tell you on the way to the crossing, hyena stuff, long story. Boring too,” Vincent lied. As Vitani was still feeling like shed been thrown of a cliff, which happened to be the case, she didn’t notice Vincent was lying time around, “Besides, we ought to get moving, I don’t think there’s a lot to eat around here, and It’d really suck starving, or having to eat one another…”

“Yuk,” Vitani growled with mild disgust.

The cheetah, which was still watching them, suddenly had a hard time suppressing a loud yawn, and Vincent spotted him again. He turned to Vitani.

“You noticed that guy? I think he’s been watching us all morning already. Come on, get up, let’s remind him who’s boss ‘round here…”

“Why not,” Vitani yawned, “Nothing like ventilating some anger upon an unsuspecting bystander.”

That was, of course, easier said than done, as Vincent still limped a bit, and Vitani’s muscles still felt as supple as limestone. Vincent reached the cheetah first, but to his amazement, the skinny predator didn’t flee in panic, which it ought to have been doing.

“Ain’t it about time you buggered off, you’re looking awfully tired.”

No response. Vincent positioned himself right in front of the big cat, and then exhaled his intolerably foul breath into the cheetah’s face, which turned his head in disgust.

“Having problems with my dental hygiene, are we?”

“Not at all,” the cheetah noted stoical, “I just couldn’t help notice your breath stinks of death even more than your fur does.”

His brutality and lack of being intimidated started annoying Vincent. Vitani sat down next to him.

“If you like what his mouth smells like, you’ll really love the interior of my stomach. And from what I’m guessing, someone’s haggling for a one way trip,” Vitani smiled, so polite it became vicious. By now, the cheetah already seemed a bit more reluctant to defy then he had been earlier, cowering back a little bit. But the way he spoke still tasted a bit offensive.

“Comrades, I’d be the last one to criticize a bit of diversity. We’ve all got to do with the genes our parents gave us, now don’t we? Even when it comes to very pronounced personal odours,”

“Look here, comrade, how ‘bout telling us why you’ve been spying on us the whole morning, and you might even live to see a next dawn,” Vitani suggested, getting a bit annoyed at the cheetah’s defiance. As one could come to expect, the cheetah seemed to be the longer the less at ease.

“Now now, let’s try leaving threats behind us for the time being… I was just being a bit curious: it’s not every day you see a hyena and a lion having a polite chat…”

Though the cheetah had a point, Vincent felt he was a bit too much of a know-it-all.

“Are you going to tell us, the uncontested rulers of the plains, what we can and can’t do?” Vincent grumbled.

Vitani wanted to make a vicious addition to that, but suddenly realized they were making a mistake trying to chase the cheetah off. Thus, she tried to calm it down a little.

“Us having a chat only comes to show we’re actually nice guys, now don’t it, Vincent? You’re from around here, cheetah?”

“Judging by the way he’s talking to us I’d say he’s way off…” Vincent mumbled, not aware Vitani was trying to pacify the conversation.

“Well, do you or don’t you know the area?” Vitani asked again, ignoring Vincent, who suddenly realized where she was going at. He didn’t like it, but lacked a decent alternative and felt a bit rushed, so decided to go with it.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m from around here. I’m a man of many places; I go where my paws take me. But I know my way ‘round in these parts, if that’s what you mean.”

As she looked at him, Vitani could tell Vincent was still not fond of the idea, but as he didn’t protest openly, she went ahead anyway, trying to enlist the cheetah.

“Look, it’s just we’re in a bit of a situation here… We washed up here by accident and we have to find a crossing. Problem is, we don’t know our way around. So if you’d be nice enough to take us to a crossing…”

“And why would I do that, might I ask?”

“It’ll benefit your life expectancy greatly,” Vincent suggested, now smiling overly polite.

“So does running real fast. And I’m quite adept at that.”

“Hey, I ain’t stopping ya. Yet.”

The cheetah grinned, and then nodded politely.

“Of course, leaving you two out here would be unfit to a gentleman. Plus, I’m always ready to help a fellow predator in need.”

For a moment there, Vincent thought he noticed something strange in the cheetah’s otherwise uncaring eyes, a sudden glimpse of cold and dark thoughts, immediately swept away by his ever present arrogance. Vincent hadn’t liked the idea of him guiding them in the first place, and now found it even less appealing.

“I happen to know a crossing not too far from here. Only one problem though. It’s on the other side of the passes.”

“I do hope we can go round?” Vitani complained, as she couldn’t begin to imagine what a hike over the White-Passes, a stretch of low mountains, could be like. But Vincent had realised they didn’t have time for that. Not if he wanted to try and stop Shenya, which he still thought possible. The thought of what would happen if he wouldn’t was enough to both make him forget about his initial distrust for the cheetah and his gut-feeling he had about crossing the passes.

“We ain’t got time to go ‘round. Can you get us over them passes?” Vincent quickly asked.

The cheetah smiled, for the first time that day, and before Vitani could ask why Vincent was in a hurry all of a sudden, the cheetah answered Vincent, his eyes again showing a faint touch of frost and gloom.

“Why yes, that was what I had in mind from the start… I’ll take you both to the passes, and over them.”

Maybe there is no comments, but there are readers, me for example;)
For now I’m after [You did what – act one] – just refreshing what I’ve read on site. I like it, but more comments will come when I read some new chapters (from the second part)

Good - you keep on reading and I'll keep on posting. Works fine by me.

Now, we take a look at the conflict that spans the Pridelands form a different angle...

You did what – act two

“You did what?”

“Hey, don’t look at me. It’s not like I pushed them off personally, you know; they were tumbling down before I knew it!” Kali reacted defensively.

“So they both just ran off the cliff?” Seko asked, still a bit confused.

“Well, not exactly… I mean, Vincent stopped just in time, but the lioness bumped into him. A long fall ensued.”

“Hehe, guess she’s the one who killed him after all,” Seko giggled, “Talking about playing her part nicely. Saved you a lot of mess, and me a lot of lying… That reminds me: keep the story straight when Shenya gets here, got it? We might have done that which was necessary, that which was the one right thing to do, but if word gets out about what we did... lets just say it won't exactly make our day.”

“Don’t worry; my girls won’t slip a word. And I’ll keep to the explanation you gave me. Let’s just hope it sticks.”

Yeah, let’s hope it does… Only thinking about what would happen if it didn’t made Seko's stomach turn to stone. He wanted to tell her, he should tell her, he just had to tell her! After all, he had taken the bold move of eliminating Vincent only for her, for Shenya. From all his days spent with her, each one more brilliant than the one preceding it, he had learnt one thing: the clan belonged to her, her and only her. She had it all: charm, compassion, intelligence, charisma, determination… If anyone could ever lead the hyenas to greatness once more, it would have been Shenya... if not for her cold hearted, power hungry brother, who had been prepared to do almost anything to follow in his father’s blood-soaked pawprints. But since Shenya just couldn’t bring herself to stop loving her only brother, or see his through his manipulative schemes, Seko had had no other option than to bide his time and plot with Kali, until the opportunity presented itself. Seko had been reluctant to see his plan through to the end, though, as he knew how much it would hurt Shenya if he were to execute his plan. But after this day’s events, Seko had realized he was out of options. So he did what he had to do, to save the clan, and to save his one true love who could now finally step out of her brother’s shadow and arise to become the greatest matriarch as of yet.
That said, he still had to break the news to her. He quickly silenced Kali as he saw Kim, the messenger, approaching.
Poor Kim, who had hoped to finally get a good nights rest after half a day of running everywhere and nowhere, hadn’t really been to enthusiast when she had seen Seko and Kali rushing her way, and even less so as they ordered her to assemble Shenya and Shetani. Shenya, accompanied by Banzaï, hadn’t strayed too far off, and in a stroke of fortune, it appeared Shetani had been around the capital den as well. For the better: otherwise Kim had had to search for her far north, where Shetani had been the Northlander’s matriarch for a while, or down south, where she might have been spying on the lions again.
Shenya was the first one to appear on the rocky plaza, at the edge of the rocks and caves that compromised the den, where Seko and Kali had called the meeting, away from possible listeners. She looked a bit confused when she saw Seko and Kali. Meanwhile, both Banzaï and Shetani had approached as well. Kim halted at the edge of the plaza.

“Now can I like, get some sleep, please?” she complained, even before Shenya had had the chance to ask what was going on. Seko nodded, and Kim took off with a big yawn. Shenya addressed Seko.

“Seko? Kali? What’s this about? I heard Banzaï saying something about a lioness and Vincent, but I didn’t really get what they were on about. Where’s Vincent anyway?”

“Lioness?” Shetani frowned, looking at Banzaï, who was still trying forming a coherent sentence when Seko interrupted him.

“I think it is best we talk this over from the start, seeing as how some of us are not exactlky up to speed, or so it appears… Kali, can you tell ‘em what happened this afternoon?”

To make sure she gave them the ‘official’ version, Seko cast one last glare at Kali, and she nodded compliantly in return. She started telling them about the 'hunting incident' first, as Shetani hadn’t been informed about that yet, followed by a detailed account of how they had encountered the lioness. She subsequently told of how the lioness had been pushing for a meeting with Vincent (who had agrreed to stage one), up until the point where Kali claimed that Vincent had, after being introduced to the lioness, ‘inexplicably’ asked Kali and her girls to get out of hearing distance. That last scentance was about the only weak point in Kali and Seko's whole make-believe story, and Shetani didn’t fail to notice.

“He asked you to back away? That’s dangerous, why would he do that?” she asked Kali suspiciously. Kali hesitated for one second, but was then saved by Banzaï who, without knowing it, filled the only gap in the conspirators’ story. Nervously, he told them about the border-meeting with Vitani and her brothers, way back, and how he had gotten the impression Vincent had gotten along quite well with the lioness.

“He probably trusted her, and I can imagine that when she would have asked him for a bit of privacy, he’d have been trustingly enough to allow it…” Banzaï concluded.

“What? Is he out of his mind? Alone with a lioness, talking about taking a risk…” Shetani sighed. Meanwhile, Shenya hadn’t said a word since Kali had started recounting that day's events. Then suddenly, with a slight hint of panic, Shenya addressed Kali.

“But if you are all here... where is Vincent then? Why isn’t he…”

She looked Kali in the eyes, who almost immediately averted her head away from Shenya’s grey, steel gaze. She then turned to Seko, moving towards him.

“Seko, where’s Vincent? What…”

Seko forced himself to look his partner straight in the eyes, knowing that the only thing which would hurt her more than his lies was the truth. He even tried to put some sincerity in his voice.

“He must have known he was taking a risk when he was alone with the lioness, but still… I’m afraid he misjudged her... He’s gone, Shenya.”

Both Shetani and Banzaï growled in disbelief, then anger. Shenya, on the other hand, just remained motionless, paralysed it seemed. Shetani demanded an explanation from Kali.

“He’s gone? What do you mean? How? What happened?”

Kali sighed, hoping she had remembered the ‘official’ account of what had happened.

“Well… as soon as we had left Vincent and the lioness, or maybe a minute later, I’m not really sure, we heard this terrifying roar. Of course, it didn’t take long before we knew what was going on, so we rushed to Vincent’s aid. But we couldn’t intervene as he tried to run of towards the cliffs; the wrong way. Then, when he stopped only inches away from the edge of the cliff, the lioness caught up with him. But before we got a chance to help Vincent, his struggle with the lioness had already pushed them too far… before we knew it they plunged down into the river… We then immediately ran here to tell you what happened…”

As Kali finished her story, Seko suddenly realised something he hadn’t noticed before, not even when Kali had told him what had really happened. A pretty essential detail.

“Wait, you didn’t check if they were…”

“What’s the use, nothing can survive a fall from there, not into that rock-ridden river…” Shetani interrupted. But Seko didn’t listen: he panicked. Genuine panic.

“He’s not dead!” he exclaimed.

“If he fell, he’s dead Seko. I know it’s hard to accept…” Shetani continued.

“He’s really dead, isn’t he?” Banzaï stuttered, alternating between anger and sadness while Shenya remained motionless and silent still.
But Seko on the other hand was neither angry nor sad. He was frightened. Kali hadn’t seen the bodies! She had explicitly told him she had rushed back to Seko immediatelyafter Vincent and the lioness had dissapeared. What if Vincent was still alive? Impossible… but it was a risk he couldn’t afford. The only question was what he could do about it, and he had to figure out real quick. Working in overdrive, his brains quickly produced the second improvisatory scheme of the day, the first being the hastily organised (and possibly failed) assassination of Vincent. But to make that second idea work, he had to act swift, before the initial confusion and anger that had taken possession of the others had faded away.

“He’s not dead! I won’t believe it! Not when there is still any chance he’s alive,” Seko shouted out again, now back in control. But then, suddenly, Shenya erupted, her voice filled with anger and her eyes full of tears.

“He’s dead! He’s dead! Don’t you see, he’s gone, Seko! They killed him! Those rotten backstabbers murdered him! They butchered him in cold blood. He trusted them, he gave the lions his trust, and they slaughtered him in return. He’s…”

Before she could end her sentence she burst out in tears. But Seko kept on playing his game.

“I tell you he’s not dead! I won’t have it! And I’ll get him back, even if I have to swim down the White-Pass river myself,” Seko uttered with the necessary pathos to fit the act. He then walked over to Shenya, and whispered in her ear while lovingly stroking her manes.

“He’s alive, I know it! And I’ll get him back, I promise.”

But Shenya turned away, continuously mentioning whilst crying “No! He’s gone, they murdered him…”

“Face it Seko, he’s gone…” Shetaini tried to calm him. But Seko didn’t calm down, as he had everyone right where he wanted them.

“He’s alive and I’m going to try and find him, whether you like it or not. Kali, get your pack together, I’ll need all the help I can get if I were to run into a lioness myself…”

“Stop it!” Shenya suddenly commanded. All of a sudden, she sounded calm and confident, although still a bit shaken, her eyes still gleaming with tears “Stop it! No-one is going anywhere. We’ll need every hyena we can get…”

“Ma’am?” Shetani asked confused.

“We’ll need everyone who still has the strength to grind a bone, if we ever want to make them bloodthirsty savages pay for what they did to us…” Shenya spoke determined. Seko on the other hand was on the verge of panic again, as his plan seemed to have been thwarted. But he had no choice to try and push it through either way.

“Shenya, I’m going through with this whether you like it or not. Vincent is alive, and I’m going to find him. If you want me to do that on my own, that’s your choice.”

“Ridiculous… Vincent is dead. You going out searching for him, alone or with a group, is just a waste of good yaws. And we’ll be needing those if we’re going to do what I think we’re going to do: get back at those stinking lions on their own ground,” Shetani frowned.

“I can’t believe you’re all just giving up on him!” Seko shouted out again, as he knew how important it would be for him to find Vincent, if he were still alive. After all, if Vincent would just show up again all of a sudden, Seko’s days were numbered. So if there was even the slightest chance of Vincent still being alive, Seko had to find him:.... and do something about that. Problem was he could use some extra jaws to take the load off of him, and securing those was only possible with Shenya’s permission.

“Come on, Shenya, don’t you at least hope he’s okay?” Seko whispered in Shenya’s ear.

“I do… but I know he’s not… they killed him, and I’m going to make ‘em pay. No false hope can get in the way of that,” she whispered back, “But I can't let you go on your own either. I wouldn’t want to lose you as well…
Certainly not now, not now you’re going to be a dad…”

Overflow. Too much information to cope with. Seko needed a couple of seconds to realize what Shenya had said: for one, she was allowing him to search for Vincent, and she was lending him some protection as well. That alone was enough to rejoice him. But that gratification was instantly shoved aside by a deeper, more intense and more sincere feeling of absolute joy. Finally she knew for sure! Finally he knew for sure! He absolutely forgot all about the incidents with Vincent, lost his calm and lost control, but still kept on whispering, probably to the annoyance of Shetani and Banzaï.

“A-are you sure? Are you really expecting?You-you’re absolutely sure? It’s finally happening? When?”

“Soon, not overnight, but soon.”

By now, Banzaï was fed up enough about the whispering to declare his annoyance.

“Hey? How ‘bout letting us in on the news too? Is he going to search for Vincent or isn’t he?”

“Huh? Eh… yeah… yes… I’m… going any minute now… no time to waste,” Seko grumbled as he fell back into reality, “And I’m taking some of Kali’s packmate’s with me…”

“I suggest we keep Kali here. We can use a set of yaws like hers…” Shetani suggested.

Kali, who had been feeling very uncomfortable throughout the entire meeting, felt relieved as she was offered both the chance to quit the meeting and not go along with Seko on his search (or rather hunt). Taking her vengeance she could handle, but the scheming to cover it up afterwards she wanted to get away from as soon as possible, not to mention the fact that Seko’s swift and effective response to the possibility of Vincent being alive scared her. She got the feeling Seko was a bit too dangerous to hang around with.

“Well, that’s for a fact. But no time to waste: Seko, I’ll introduce you to your new companions, so you can begin searching for Vincent immediately. And I’ll stick around while you’re gone,” Kali quickly replied.

Seko, still a bit confused, nodded and turned to Shenya.

“She’s right, I gotta go, no time to waste… Just watch yourself, okay?
I can’t imagine going on without you, not now that you’re gonna be a mom,” Seko quietly told Shenya as he licked her muzzle. That was his manner of saying goodbye to his partner, who had just declared she was carrying their offspring. What joyous news, if it hadn't been for all the trouble Seko had just gotten himself involved in.

“Stay safe. And… and if you find him…”

Shenya hesitated.

“No, why bother… you won’t find him, he’s dead…” she uttered, and for a moment there, her sadness overcame her calm again. But while looking in Seko’s large, yellowish-green eyes, she regained her confident tone again. She quietly whispered in his ear again.

“Don’t turn this into a farewell, ‘cause it isn’t. I'll see you in three sunrises time – at Priderock… dad.”

So she was actually going through with it. She was bent on taking the Priderock, and if they would ever meet again, it would be under its shadow. If. And even though she told him it wasn’t a farewell, Seko couldn’t help but lick her muzzle one last time, stare into her compassionate gray eyes one last time, and tell her something he actually really meant one last time.

“Love you,” he quietly whispered, after which he and Kali took off without further ado. To Shenya it felt like a farewell after all, at least until she could convince herself they would indeed meet in three sunrise’s time, at the Rock. She was sure of it; nothing would get in the way of their happiness now. But she was equally sure her brother was dead... and she would make his alleged murders pay for that, starting now, or at least when Seko would have ventured out of sight. Seko looked back however, and for a moment it seemed as if he wanted to turn around and head back to Shenya, but Kali, who accompanied him, applied some mild pressure, pushing him out in front of her.

“Watch yourself!” Shetani shouted as Seko took of.

“See ya…” Banzaï grumbled as well, even though he couldn’t stand the sight of Seko. But Seko meant a lot to Shenya, and that’s all that mattered to Banzaï. When both Seko and Kali had disappeared, Shetani addressed Shenya.

“Ma’am, maybe now is a good time to decide how to react to the lions’ aggression.”

“Not a whole lot to decide there I’d say…” Banzaï mumbled, “We make ‘em bleed.”

“Indeed. And it’s happening in three sunrises time, when we take Priderock” Shenya replied, suddenly calm and confident again.

Shetani seemed a bit disturbed at the idea.

“Isn’t that a bit… well, ambitious? In such a short time?”

“We’ve trained years and years for this, we can take ‘em,” Shenya noted, “And the sooner we do it the better: I’m confident that with their murder, they were hoping to disorganize and confuse our clan, so we wouldn’t retaliate after what happened on the hunting trip. But we’ll prove them wrong… dead wrong.”

“But going after the Rock? It is too risky: the Outlanders’ pride is in between us and Priderock; we ought to take them out first.”

“No, that’s what they’d expect us to do, if anything. And besides, they’d just pull back and amass at the Rock: the Outlanders’ den isn’t worth a rat’s *** to them, they won't risk losing lives to defend it. But if we assault the Rock first, the residents there‘ll defend it to the end, they’ll never give up their precious home. And then, in stead of facing one big pride, we can crush two small ones, one at a time.”

“But we’ll need the whole clan to pull that stunt… It’ll be hard getting them to Priderock undetected, certainly if we set a timetable.”

Shenya smiled.

“And that’s where you come in, you and your gang.”

“Yeah, that’s the perfect job for you Graymanes,” Banzaï grinned at Shetani.
Shetani was the leader of the so called Graymanes, who were by the way named after her (or to be more precise after the abundance of gray hairs woven all through her otherwise dark manes). The 'Graymanes' compromised the best the clan had to offer: big, tough, well-trained, intelligent and loyal hyenas, not to mention that most of them, like Shetani, were Northlanders. Right after the clan’s unification, Shenya’s father had formed a small band of the best and brightest of the three former clans with the explicit task of reconnaissance and infiltration deep into the Pridelands. After a year of constant travel and sneaking, without one single detection by the lions, it’s needless to say the Graymanes now knew the angle of every leaf on every bush by heart, and they had the stealth to put that knowledge to good use. Shetani, along with three companions, had even managed to sneak up to and study the Priderock (from a distance be it). Word had it they now knew their way around the Pridelands better than Simba himself (that, of course, would be giving them too much credit, but the assessment came pretty close nonetheless).

“You think you could handle that?”

“Probably,” Shetani nodded, “But we’d have to take one big detour, and it’ll be hard keeping more than eighty of us out of sight for the duration of a twenty-four hours march, not to mention we’ll have to take a rest in enemy territory if we want everyone combat-ready.”

“Right then. That settles it. Banzaï, you assemble the clan at the den, as quick as you can manage. Don’t tell them why; leave that to me: I’ll address the clan myself. Just get everyone at the main den. Go!” Shenya commanded. Banzaï, who had been sitting down for the better part of the meeting, got up compliantly and took of towards the main den. As he left, Shetani addressed Shenya again.

“I couldn’t help but notice… you’re handling Vincent’s death pretty… well, calm. You feeling okay?”

“No, I’m not. I’m feeling like someone butchered my brother and spat in my face afterwards. And I didn’t even get the chance to say I was sorry for the fight we had this afternoon…”

She suddenly started laughing, though she could have been crying as well. Shetani guessed it was a combination of both.

“And to think me and Vincent got into a fight because he wanted to let the lions go free after their previous butchering… The lions killed the one hyena who believed it didn’t have to come to this… So no, I’m not feeling ok… But there's an entire clan out there depending on me, and I can’t let them down. Not now. We’ll have time to grieve once we’re sitting atop Priderock.”

*

“Hey…”

“Hey, Kim! But girl, you’re looking awful… what happened?”

“Thanks… What happened? I’ll tell you what happened: at sunset I had been up like, all night, so I wanted to get some sleep, but then all of sudden that arrogant Kali shows up and tells me I gotta go tell Vincent he has to come over, so I was all like ‘go find him yourself, lazy tart’, but then she tells me all this stuff about some lioness, so I’m all like ‘yeah right and...”

Kim paused to yawn, then looked around. Judging by the enormous crowd, the whole clan must have already assembled. Kim had to shout to get over the noise all around her.

“But I’m tired of yelling this… bottom line is I had to run around all day and when I was finally able to get some sleep, one-eyed Banzaï shows up and makes me get the whole clan to come over here… and now everyone’s here… and I still haven’t got no sleep at all…”

“Poor thing… they probably didn’t even tell you why they had you runnin’ around all day, did they?”

“Like, what were you expecting? They never tell us anything, we just have to like, sit, roll over, play dead and then shut up…”

“Ah darling, don’t let it get to ya. We can’t all be matriarchs, and for the better: we’d just mess up if we were, we low-enders are not cut out for all them politics.”

“I wonder… but you don’t know either why like, everyone is here? Or why I had to go and get everyone?”

“Well... word has it there’s gona be a big announcement. No-one knows what it’ll be about though, and the big femmes ain’t talking.”

“It'd better be good or I’ll like, pass out of fatigue. I’m so tired…”

“Seeing as they’re making all this fuzz, it'll probably be something huge…”

Meanwhile, the noise around them continued to increase, and Kim’s friend tried to peek over everyone else’s heads, when the crowd in front of them suddenly split open, allowing Banzaï to get through.

“Right, here you are,” he told Kim, who had just lain down, “Hey, great job at getting everyone here on such a short notice, Shenya’s real pleased of you.”

“You’re welcome,” she yawned back, “What’s all this about, I’ve like, never seen everyone in one place before, ever…”

“Yeah… I’m guessing you’ve already guessed Shenya’ll be giving a speech real soon… and she kinda asked me to come get you so you could come sit on the front row. That is, if you want to.”

“Who, me? Well I... eh... o-okay…” Kim stuttered, seemingly confused.

“Well well, someone’s climbing the social ladder today…” Kim’s friend grinned not at all without envy.

“That’d be the day…” Kim commented cynically as she followed Banzaï through the crowd. Everyone had gathered in front of a mildly sloped, half-open cave which had a low boulder near the entrance, round which the clan had formed a semicircle. Kim quickly spotted Shetani and Shenya. When Shenya saw Kim, she blinked.

“There you are! Thanks again for getting everyone out here, you did a real good job at that,” she smiled a bit nervously, “Now... whish me luck!”

“Huh?”

But in stead of replying, Shenya strode towards the flat boulder.

“Shhhsss…” Shetani hissed at Kim, who realised Shenya was goint to give that speech Banzaï had been talking ‘bout. Shetani then signalled all the other Graymanes scattered throughout the crowd, who in turn urged everyone around them to keep quiet. Eventually, all background noise subsided and everyone’s eyes turned towards Shenya, who was now sitting atop the boulder. As hyenas were gathered in front and beside her, it looked from a distance as if she was standing amidst the crowd, and judging by her ever increasing nervousness, Kim guessed Shenya felt like that too. An uncomfortable silence set in. Shenya, eyes filled with mild panic, stared at Banzaï first, then at Shetani, and then at Kim, who tried to smile back as a means of encouragement. Finally, she spoke up, hesitating, stuttering and not loud enough at first.

“Hi… I-eh, I appreciate you all being here… Sure are a lot of hyenas out here…”

She paused.

“You-eh… you’re probably wondering why I wanted you all here tonight… It’s been a while since we last gathered… I’ll try cutting to the chase here, I’ve brought you all here ‘cause I’ve got some bad news… Hell, no, not bad news… bad doesn’t even begin to describe it… It’s tragic, terrible even… Where do I begin...? I-I guess it all started yesterday evening... or no, it didn’t start yesterday evening, it all started decades ago... but that'd be stating the obvious, I guess.
I’d better start by telling you a story, a story ‘bout three of our sisters ‘n brothers. Their names were Nya, Keavy and Seko, but it could’ve been anyone of us.
Yesterday, they had to go out hunting. Hunting out into the Pridelands, hunting in the lion's land. They didn't hunt on others' lands because they were decadent, lazy or thieves. They had to, because they were hungry. Hungry, as we all are ever since those lions, consumed by their burning and never ceasing greed, forced us to live our lives in exile, out in these barren Wastelands, of which they knew could not support us, thus forcing us to organize raids on their lands, simply to be able to continue existing. But are we to expect any compassion, understanding even?
No, for us they have nothing in store but hate and blind, murderous rage. So we do the only thing we can do: we hide, we creep, stalk and hunt in the shadows. Alas, it appeared we could not hide forever, because yesterday, one of our hunting parties got caught: they ran into a bunch of lions. What happened then, you probably already figured out. The lions did not leave our sisters be, even though they didn't pose a threat to the lions. The lions did not warn them, nor did they chase them off. No, the lions attacked, not as to chase our sisters away, but for one purpose only: to kill them, relentlessly butcher them. Only one hyena escaped... Keavy and Nya however… They did not make it back.”

The crowd became noisy again, as everyone was shocked at the news. Especially the closer relatives of both deceased became quite emotional. Not that hard to understand really, as their deaths hadn’t been mentioned before, even Kim had been left in the dark, and as she herself had known Nya personally, she to was quite upset. And to think only one week earlier she had been babysitting Nya’s daughter… thank heavens she was already old enough for the communal den. The noise ensued, and some began to openly question why they’d been left in the dark for almost two nights. But Shenya spoke up again, now loud and confident as she had finally found the right tone.

“I know we should have brought you this awful news sooner, and I wish apologize personally, especially to the relatives, Nya’s daughter in particular. But we had to wait until everyone was gathered here, for an even worse tragedy has unfolded since the brutal murder of our dear sisters Keavy and Nya…
You see, immediately after the butchering, the lions sent an agent or an ‘emissary’ as she called herself. Indeed, they sent someone who pretended she wanted to ‘discus’ the tragedy they had caused… You now probably ask yourself who might, seeing as how previous experiences have made it painfully clear no lion is to be trusted, even bother to acknowledge the emissary’s plea in stead of just making her pay for what her pride did to our sisters, not to mention the years of misery they condemned us to?
But there was one hyena, one who still had faith that somewhere in their black and tiny hearts the lions would still have one speck of decency left. One who believed in a future where we might one day coexist… a future where there is place for both lion and hyena, a future we could only reach if we ended the bloodshed here and now. One who was compassionate enough to even be willing to forgive our worst enemies, and for the better of both our species was willing to reach out. You all know of whom I speak. The only son of my mother, Great-Matriarch Shenzi. The one I speak of is my brother Vincent… Some of you might be surprised to hear me praise my brother so, it is common knowledge we didn’t always get along…”

Why all those past tenses? Where is Vincent anyways? A worse tragedy… she couldn’t possibly mean…

“But even though we had our differences, I do know one thing about my brother: he was good at hearth, in ways a better hyena than I am. But… in all his kindness and understanding, Vincent made one mistake: he reached out to the lions. He reached out to the emissary, even trusted her enough to lose his guard… and facing that much trust and compliance, the lioness they had sent did what lions do best. She attacked. She murdered Vincent.”

Silence. The entire clan descended into a collective muteness. Maybe it was because Vincent had few relatives – only Shenya remained. Or maybe it was the fact the clan had to cope with three grave losses in succession. But the real reason they all kept silent was because they had lost their actual leader. Sure, he had never been proclaimed matriarch (or patriarch), his sister wore the title. But even though he never got to eat first, Vincent had always held the power: he had been the one to, as his father had done before him, keep in touch with all the leading families, befriend anyone regardless of their social stature, clear out all arguments that arose between clanmembers, organize hunting trips, welcome or decline any newcomers and most importantly, keep the clan in fighting shape and train them to defend themselves against the lions. And now gone? Dead overnight without warning? Shenya continued, although now that she had mentioned her brother, she sounded a bit more emotional.

“I-I can hardly believe it myself really… Vincent gone… I have to admit, it’s hard to bear… But as heartless as it may sound now, after the loss of so many lives, we cannot afford to grieve now. We cannot afford to stop and mourn about the losses we suffered, for now we have to act. Because let us not forget what has happened: Vincent offered the lions a paw, but they shamelessly gnawed it off. Vincent died believing there was still something good in lions, that we might one day live without having to fear them. But in their vicious, murderous blood-lust, they have once again proven him wrong. There is nothing good in lions, there is nothing reasonable in them, save their cunning. We’ll never live peacefully side by side. Not now, not now that they’ve once again showing their ugly, disgusting nature. No sisters, it pains me to say it, but my brother was wrong: we can never live in peace with the lions. We will never live in peace with the lions, we will never coexist, I even fear that the lions’ mere existence is an ever ongoing threat to ours. We can no-longer tolerate their presence. As long as the lions keep these lands in their choke-hold, we shall never live at ease. Twisted and perverted in nature these lions are, and as such we can not and will not surrender our future generations over to their mercy, to live at their whims. No, the time has come, sisters, now that the lions’ behaviour has reached a new low, to finally, after all these years of living in fear and oppression, to take matters in our own paws. Now is the time, after yet another provocation, to finally claim our rightful place, by force. Now is the time for vengeance!”

Silence.

“Vengeance!” she shouted out again.

“Vengeance!” a part of the clan angrily replied. They shouted that single word gain, and again and again... some even raised their paws, clenched in a fist, along with the almost rhythmic shouting until finally everyone shouted out as one, their voices full of anger and bitter hate, their eyes filled with a dark fury.