mouf!” Kopa called, stick wedged in his jaws.

Vitani nodded numbly, not risking letting go of the stick by replying.

Kopa needed more strength if he was going to pull her out on his own. Trying hard to keep himself balanced on three paws, Kopa hooked his left forepaw around his end of the stick—still holding it in his mouth—and hopped backward, one jump at a time, pulling fiercely as he dug his claws in.

“Ca’ I geh a likkle help here?” Kopa snarled in Nuka’s direction, still gripping the branch.

Vitani was slowly being pulled toward him, followed by a loud sucking noise. Disgusting.

Nuka was sidetracked, scratching frantically all over, grumbling about termites.

He doesn’t even care about her! What kind of brother is he? Kopa thought with a grunt of fury.

Vitani had reached the shore now, tar sticking in clumps to her dark tan fur. She let go of the stick on dry ground and flopped down, panting, exhausted.

Kopa sat down in front of her, trying to catch his breath. He dropped his end of the stick. The branch fell to the ground. “You okay?” he gasped out.

Vitani coughed. “I guess.” She finally stopped panting and gazed at him with glowing violet eyes. “Thanks.”

Kopa blushed. “Uh…no problem.”

Nuka cleared his throat from his spot in the thornbushes. “Yeah, yeah, very touching. Now would y’get me outta here? Oh, and scratch this spot right here for me, huh?”

Vitani sprang to her paws. “Oh, I’ll give you a scratch! C’mere!”

Kopa grinned. His new friends collided and Vitani rolled her older brother over and over in the dust on the other side of the thicket. Kopa squeezed under and followed them, watching.

When Vitani had nearly ripped half Nuka’s whiskers off his muzzle, the lioness cub hopped off of her whining brother and shook herself, trotting up to Kopa with a strange little smile.

Her eyelids lowered, she nuzzled him awkwardly. “Thanks again, I guess.”

Kopa’s fur bristled in embarrassment. “Yeah. Sure. Anytime, Vitani.”

When he left that evening, Vitani’s sparkling violet eyes still fresh in his mind’s eye, his Outlander friends promised to practice playing tag until he visited the next day—and Vitani promised not to let Nuka tell Zira anything.

“Because I won’t,” she had said firmly, with a smirk.

Kopa trotted over the border between the Outlands and the Pridelands. Heading for Pride Rock as the sun went down, he smiled. Maybe having Dad being so busy won’t be boring after all.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Pride Rock was sizzling hot to his paws as the young cub Prince Kopa crept along its red boulders, down toward the plains where he’d be safe from the prying eyes of his parents. They were always watching him now. But maybe these days he could get away to the Outlands for his daily romp with Nuka and Vitani more easily.

“Hey, Kopa!”

Kopa flinched. Unless, of course…

His baby sister Kiara came crawling toward him, unsteady on her still-chubby paws. “Where y’goin’?” she giggled. She had just staggered out of the den.

Kopa crept back to stand over her, hissing between clenched teeth in a whisper, “Keep it down, okay? I’m just…uh…going for a walk.”

“Again?” Kiara whined. Little cubs her age always whined. “Can’t I come?”

“No way,” Kopa snapped. He nudged her back toward the den with his paw. “Just…go back to sleep.”

“But I want—”

Kopa growled. “Just go—c’mon!”

Kiara, still whining, toddled back into the den with a yawn.

Kopa breathed a sigh of relief. Trotting into the grass and toward the Outlander border, he rolled his eyes and clenched his teeth. “Sisters!”

When he got to the Outlands clearing where he met with Nuka and Vitani, no one was there.

Kopa sat down to wait. Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. He glanced at the sun. It was already high in the sky. It’s past lunchtime. They should be here. He had a sudden, panicky thought. Maybe they’re mad at me! Maybe they don’t wanna play anymore because I stopped bringing them food! Then he scoffed at himself. They would never do that; they were his best friends. Or at least, he added wistfully, Vitani wouldn’t.

Suddenly bushes rustled. Kopa pricked his ears. “Vitani? Nuka?”

* * * * * *
(One Hour Earlier…)

Vitani sharpened her claws on a stick as she yawned. Being up this early was such a pain. Especially on hot, dry days like this one. Puh, who’m I kidding? It’s always dry here!

She entered the den she and her mother and Nuka—and the little baby cub Kovu, the “ChosenOne” as Zira liked to call him, the adopted baby brother—lived in.

What she saw when she entered made her stop in her tracks, suspicious.

Zira sat on a rock in the shadows—it was always dark and cool and creepy in the den of termite mounds—with Nuka sitting, a sheepish grin on his muzzle, in front of his mother.

“So, anyway, Mother…” Nuka was sniveling again.

“Silence!” Zira roared. She turned and sprang majestically off of the rock and prowled toward her daughter. “So, Vitani…”

Vitani swallowed, trying not to be afraid. Her mother was angry. A very dangerous sign. Why? What could make her so furious this early in the day? Had Kovu been playing around the den again? Vitani had grunted the first time her mother had rebuked the adopted brown cubling. Apparently Chosen Ones weren’t allowed to play.

Zira’s tail-tip whisked back and forth irritably as she circled Vitani with a sneer on her muzzle. “Care to tell me where you’ve been?” she rumbled.

“Getting a drink.” Vitani answered truthfully, frowning. “It’s hotter than usu—”

“Oh no no no,” Zira snarled. “I mean these past months. Where have you been sneaking off to?”

Vitani stiffened.

“Not to meet the young Prince of those pathetic Pridelanders?” Zira’s voice rose in another roar.

Vitani backed up a few steps, hind paws clattering on the dusty pebbles of the cave ground. “I-It wasn’t just me,” she said, knowing that lying would do no good now. “Nuka went with.”

“Did he now?” Zira cackled sarcastically. “Because that isn’t what I heard. You went alone. Isn’t that right?”

Vitani felt her heart pulse with the bile of hatred as she glanced at her still-sniveling big brother. Nuka was grinning like a lunatic—an unattractive sight, especially on him. He told. She knows about Kopa. No!

“But he went too, Mother,” Vitani protested, backing up again. Zira was cornering her again. “Every time.”

Zira swung her head around to face her son. “Nuka, is this true?”

Nuka’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “No, Mother, honest,” he said, giving a nervous chuckle, “I only know where she’s been going.”

“Only because you went with me!” Vitani snarled.

Zira shoved Vitani onto her back with her nose. “You think you can sneak about without my knowing? You believe you won’t be caught?”

“N-N-No, Mother, I—”

“After today, my dear Vitani, you won’t be seeing him any longer.” Zira snarled. With a warning swipe at her rebellious daughter’s ear, nearly touching it with a lengthy claw, the moody lioness stalked out of the den and into the skeleton trees.

Vitani turned, eyes sparkling with fury, and glared at Nuka. “You lied! Kopa’s our best friend! How could you do that? We promised—”

“Oh, give it a rest, y’little termite,” Nuka sneered in his whiny growl. “Once Mother takes care of that rotten little runt, there’ll be room for one more chance at the throne.”

“Yeah,” Vitani smirked nastily at him, hitting him where it would hurt with her next words, “But you’re not the Chosen One.”

Nuka curled his lip at baby Kovu, who slept soundly on that twisted mound Zira had made as a bed for him. “She never even gave me a chance!” he whined. “I could be a leader if—”

Vitani cuffed a paw at him and he ducked out of the way. “Just shut up! You ruined everything!”

Then she stopped.

Nuka was still grinning.

Vitani shuddered. “Wait a second. What do you mean, she’ll take care of him? What’ll she do to Kopa?”

Nuka opened his mouth to smugly reply, but Vitani didn’t wait to hear it. She turned and vanished out of the den, heart pounding. I’m comin’, Kopa! Hang on!

* * * * * *

(Present Time…)

Kopa twitched an ear and gazed at the leafless bush. “Er, who’s there? Nuka?”

A dark tan tail swished from the bush’s top.

Kopa’s ears leaped straight up on his head, a wide grin spreading across his long muzzle. “Vitani?”

Suddenly a huge lioness exploded from the bushes, crouching over him. A long, dark brown stripe stretched across her forehead to her nose. She bared her teeth in his face, catlike yellow eyes glinting with an emotion that Kopa couldn’t read, but as he lay on his