“Furthermore, there are a few more things we have to sort out before alarming the king because... well... eh... that hyena attack didn't exactly occur spontaneous, you know...”

“Wait a minute, you don't mean that...”

“I mean to say that Kovu had planned to, after a minor incident involving some hyenas, do some dealings with the hyenas behind Simba's back,” Vitani reluctantly admitted, “If Simba found that out, he wouldn't exactly be amused, I reckon, especially not if word got out that those dealings indirectly caused the hyena attack...”

“What?” Anana gasped in shock.

“I mean, it's less sever than it sounds. It's just that when I was over there negotiating (by the way, Simba thought I was away to be spying, another thing we'd like to keep under wraps), some hyenas chose to topple their leader and blame it on me, a lion, thus setting the hyena clan on a path to war... and to Priderock...”

“You mean to say you are the cause of the hyena attack?”

“No, not at all! I mean, if any other lion had been sent to talk with them, it would have turned out pretty much the same way...” Vitani mumbled in her own defense, “But it is true that if Kovu hadn't sent anyone over there to cut some deals, the hyena attack wouldn't have occurred as it has now...”

“But it probably would have occurred eventually,” Enyi quickly added.

“Sounds like a whole lot of excuses to me,” Anana grumbled, “You're going through a great deal of trouble to save your own skin here... and you expect me to lie for you too? For the Kings' sake, we just lost half our pride, Vitani! And if it turns out you had anything to do with that...”

“But that's the whole point,” Vitani interrupted, sounding quite annoyed by now because of Anana's lack of cooperation, “I didn't have anything to do with it! But we just don't want Simba to be getting the wrong ideas here...”

“Sorry, Vitani. I mean, I like you, your a good friend, but you can't just ask of me to lie to our King for you, that's wrong of you.”

“But...” Vitani wanted to reply, when she was suddenly cut short by Enyi.

“Anana, you do realize that your attitude could get Kovu in a lot of trouble?” she asked, taking a very serious tone, almost threatening.

“Oh... right, he wanted to cut a deal with the hyenas,” Anana remembered, “Yeah, but...”

“So you say you are willing jeopardize your own King’s position?” Enyi snapped.

“And do you want to betray your king, Anana? Do you want to betray the King of the Outlanders?”

“No, I don't!” the young lioness shouted back, sounding both scared and outraged at the same time.

“Are you a traitor, Anana?” Enyi growlingly asked. Without knowing it, she had stuck a chord with that remark: it instantly brought Anana back to the cave at the Priderock where she had, during her detention, had to endure an endless stream of insults, suggestions and accusations of her being a traitor. Failing to differentiate between what had happened in the cave and the present situation, Anana found herself wanting nothing more than to dismiss those false rumors of her being a traitor of any sort.

“No! I am no traitor! Don't you dare calling me that!” she shouted.

“Well then, are you loyal to your king, are you loyal to Kovu?”

“Yes! I am not a traitor,” the young lioness firmly stated.

“If you want to serve your king then, if you want to serve Kovu, you'll have to do as we say. Remember, we're all doing this for our king; for Kovu, King of the Outlanders; it’s his skin we’re saving here. We couldn’t care less about our own reputation. Got it?”

“All right... I think I understand now...”

Behind Anana's back, Vitani signaled Enyi she was quite impressed by her performance; thumbs up! After that little round of convincing, it wasn't hard to persuade Anana she had to tell whatever it was she had to say to Vitani, Enyi and Kovu first, in stead of walking right to Simba, as she had previously envisioned.

“Okay, now that we've got that over with... now, about that info we needed... first of all, how many of us actually survived the battle? What happened to the survivors?”

“We've been beat up pretty bad: only me, the queen and about four others remain. Except for me, all other survivors were badly injured...”

“Ah, some good new at last! Nala's still alive! And what about the others? I don't suppose anyone is missing?”

“No, I'm sorry,” Anana whispered, “We're the only ones left: Nala had gotten the chance to identify all the deceased before they were taking to the Royal Tomb... All others are gone, no doubt about it.”

“That is bad...” Vitani sighed, “And I suppose all survivors were detained? You wouldn’t happen to know what the enemy… well… eh… man, the thought of it alone makes my stomach turn… what… what happened to the cubs?”

“Oh, darn, I forgot, right!” Anana suddenly exclaimed, “There's some good news too: they spared all cubs, each single one of them! They're all fine!”

“What? That’s unbelievable! Great! Phew,” Vitani sighed, clearly relieved, “That's something at least... I mean, you were the only Outlander near Priderock anyway, so now that you're here, at least I know all my friends are safe... Still, glad to hear the Queen and the cubs are okay; we might still be able to resolve this as long as they're around. I don't even want to imagine how Simba (or Kiara, for that matter) would react if we told him Nala was gone... Now, one more thing. About the hyenas...”

“Oh right, I almost forgot!” Anana suddenly interrupted, “There was this big-shot hyena asking about you...”

“Really? Who?”

“I think his name was Vincent...”

“Really? So he made it to Priderock?” Vitani eagerly questioned.

“Yeah, that's the least you can say...”

“How do you mean?”

“He didn't exactly make a quiet entrance... As soon as he appeared, the hyena clan seemed to fall apart in two groups... And one of those groups got it really bad...”

Anana could still feel her stomach turn when she remembered what had happened to that poor hyena called Kiuma that had tried helping her. She still couldn't believe someone as nice as her could have done something so bad to deserve the fate to have befallen on her.

“That figures; Vincent was the hyena that got toppled in the coup I told you about, the starting of this war was supposedly about him. He was probably taking care of the idiots that started this whole mess. Good riddance...” Vitani noted coldly.

“I suppose...” Anana mumbled, not at all convinced of Vitani's outlook on things.

“Anyway… Vincent was okay?”

“Okay’s a pretty modest way of putting it: from what I heard and saw, he was pretty much in charge, him and that corpulent green hornbill of his. Being the de-facto ruler of a clan that controls the Priderock ranks pretty high on the ‘okay’-scale.”

Now that Anana mentioned it, Vitani indeed remembered Tiko as having a rather full figure when compared to Zazu, for example. She always figured it had been his feathers, though.

“That's good to hear. With him in charge, we might still get out of this without more fighting...”

Or so I hope...

“If you say so,” Anana frowned, again not at all convinced: from what she’d seen of him, that Vincent-guy wasn’t exactly scared of a little violence. And that had only been against his own kind… Then again, she still remembered the almost naïve look in his eyes when he had taken her separately to give her his little message for Vitani. That reminded her…

“Anyaway… He also wanted me to tell me that eh... he wanted you to know he… eh... he misses you... kinda... I didn't really get it...”

“Oh, now isn't that sweet?” Enyi grinned deviously, finding that corny remark utmost amusing, to Vitani's annoyance.

“I liked her a lot better when she never smiled...” Vitani muttered to no-one in particular, “Okay... that's good... that's nice of him... eh... anyway...”

Vitani was obviously embarrassed, but pleased at the same time: after having hit Vincent in the face because of  the incident at the river, she wasn't too sure he still… well… liked her. But she was now sure he obviously did. Why that mattered to Vitani, seeing as her and Vincent were now part of two warring factions, she didn't really know. She just didn't like the idea of Vincent hating her, even though chances were they'd never see each other again, save for the possibility of encountering each other on the battlefield (something she desperately hoped to avoid). And quite frankly, she missed him too: she had after all pretty much enjoyed every moment with him, especially the cuddling at sunset whilst munching rotten fruit. It had all seemed so surreal, ideal even... the eternal enemies at peace, if but for a day… But that was all over now: she was back in the day to day reality of constant feuding between Pridelanders, hyenas, Outlanders and pretty much everyone else that happened to venture in between hem. But that was how things were, nothing to do about that. She'd just try making the best of it all.

“Now... hmmm… actually, that's all I needed to know... I guess I'll hear the rest once Kovu questions you; he’s better at all this secrecy-stuff. We should get going; no time to waste. Enyi, keep a lookout here, ” Vitani quickly concluded, “Make sure no-one passes the river unseen...”

“Why,