A/N: After several years of work, I am ready to introduce this fanfiction to the community: my largest undertaking to date, a sort of "proof of concept", if you will. Four years ago, I started this story as a hobby. It then evolved to a sort of personal journey, a proving that I could indeed stick to a story of this magnitude, showing myself that I am ready to move on to bigger and better things. I would like to personally thank my wonderful beta reader, Ex Nihilo ad Omnia, for all her incredible patience, hard work, and critique, and I would also like to thank my friends and family, who put up with me working on/talking about this story for so long. It's definitely been like nothing I've ever done before.
This story will be updated twice a week—on Mondays and Fridays.
Rating:T for some mild language, and some dark and non-explicit sexual themes.
Warning:I do not claim to own The Lion King or any of its characters. All credit for the creation of this universe, including but not limited to the characters of Scar, Nala, Simba, etc., goes to the Walt Disney Corporation.
"People say friends don't destroy one another
What do they know about friends?"
—"Game Shows Touch our Lives", The Mountain Goats
Prologue-
This is a story about five lions.
Everyone knows about Simba and his epic return home just when the Pridelands needed him most. But no one has ever heard our story. And our story didn't end after Simba came home and defeated Scar.
No. Our story goes further. Much further.
There were originally seven of us—Me (Tojo), the twins Chumvi and Kula, Tama, Malka (who actually came from a pride beyond the mountains, but I think he spent more time with us than his own family), Prince Simba, and his betrothed princess, Nala. But more often than not, especially in the days leading up to the Tragedy, Simba and Nala went on their own adventures alone, turning the seven into five. I never blamed Simba for this. I knew he and Nala were best friends, and they also had to take lessons from Zazu, being the future royal couple. I know it might be mean to say, but I sort of preferred not having them with us. When they weren't, Zazu didn't follow us everywhere. He could be so annoying.
And since, more often than not, there were only us five—always together— we acquired the name "The Friendly Five". I'm not sure where this name came from, but it just appeared, and soon everyone knew us by this moniker.
"Hey, look! There goes the Friendly Five!" a lioness would often say as we went out to play.
"Don't get in too much trouble today, Friendly Five!" another would call.
I think the name suited us. It's what we were. Five friends, always together.
We would soon learn that life wouldn't be easy for us. Our friendship would be tested over and over again. Sometimes it seemed like it endured. Sometimes it seemed like it didn't. We had to fight for each other, and ourselves. Some of us paid severely for it. Though, we all had to give up something at some point. As our lives unfolded around us, we had to learn that sometimes the things you treasure most are the things you don't mind paying for.
This is our story. A story about five ordinary cubs who had to learn to be extraordinary.
A story about five, forever.
