Warnings (for the whole fic): OC/minor character death, mentions and effects of child abuse.

Notes: This was originally started way back near the original conception of Klaine AU Fridays. I can't remember exactly which week this was for (animated, maybe?) but basically, I couldn't get out my head the image of ND singing Not One Of Us to Blaine (and if you say you didn't have a crush on Kovu as a kid [or now] I call you a dirty, rotten liar because everyone did and James Marsden) and couldn't make it into a vid and then my brain insisted on backstory. So, without (much) further ado, here is The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, if the lions were human and the African desert were a pseudo-European forest.

This is complete and I'll be posting a chapter every day. If you want to listen to the LK2 songs while you read, there are links to them on LJ (and the link to my LJ is on my profile). There are six chapters, one for each song in the film. The title is from the Prince's Opening Soliloquy of Romeo and Juliet (which is, as you all probably know, the story LK2 was based on ;) ).

He Lives In You (or, Prologue)

In a time long past, there was a large village (or a small town, depending on who you asked, though most people agreed it was, in fact, a large village) named Pride Rock after the large boulder in the main square. It was three days' journey to the nearest sign of civilisation, though the surrounding area was so fertile that it rarely mattered. The villagers were quite content with their lifestyle, and they knew that problems would be quickly and justly taken care of by whichever member of the Hummel family who was the practising chief.

However, there was one family who wanted power. Recent generations of the Sylvester family had become jealous and greedy and restless of always being second-in-command to the Hummels and so, thirty-six years prior to the beginning of our story, they staged a coup d'etat. They killed Marcus and Alison Hummel, but the attempt on nine-year-old Burt Hummel's life was intercepted by the newcomers of the village, Thomas Puckerman, a recently married young man, and Olivia Beiste, a single mother of a daughter named Shannon.

The entire Sylvester family was exiled from the village, and sent with them were all their supporters and accomplices. With nowhere to go, they were forced to build a hamlet on the other side of the river; it was barely half a day's walk away, yet the ground was hard and cracked, and the people struggled.

For the next eleven years, Emma Pillsbury, Burt's guardian, was acting chief of Pride Rock and taught Burt how to look after the people who remained. He took over when he was eighteen, and within ten years he was as beloved as his father had been and had his own child on the way. When Kurt was born, the village rejoiced, and he grew up loved, if sheltered.

By this time, the only surviving Sylvester, a woman named Sue, had become bitter from growing up in the harsh conditions of the other side of the river. Her parents had died some time ago (well, her father had died; she'd killed her mother when it became clear that no one would listen to her as long as the older Sylvester woman was still alive) and Sue was determined to get revenge on the Hummels, and all the villagers who had sided with him. When she heard of Kurt's birth, a plan formed in her mind. She poisoned the parents of an infant called Blaine Anderson and adopted him (and, reluctantly, his older brother, an insufferable ten-year-old named Cooper) as a Sylvester. She showed him nothing of the good of the world, yet she was never quite able to blacken the gold of his heart.

And so, now that you have been caught up, our story shall begin.