Short story: Basically Vitani's view/thoughts/reaction to her mother's death. I'm a bit upset that we don't get much of the characters reactions, aside from a bit of Kiara and Kovu, about their perspective of Zira's death. I'm also disappointed that we don't get Vitani's reaction to it. So I decided to write this story.

All the Lion King 2 and all its content belongs Disney. I don't own the cover image either.

Enjoy the story!

From the safety of the top of the ledge she looked down and watched fearfully as the bodies of her mother and Kiara took to tumble down the ravine. Though both of them tumbling down to the gorge below was frightening to watch, Vitani's eyes could only single out her mother's form.

Just a minute ago she had been ordered to attack her brother, Kiara and Simba, to finish the traitor to the Outsider cause and the royal family that had made them Outsiders. She could had obeyed, lunging forward with teeth and claws ready to slash and cut the enemy trying to win the war.

But she had refused.

Her brother and Kiara had stepped in between Simba and Zira just as they were about to land blows on one another. They had halted the entire fighting on the battlefield. Kovu stood in front of the enemy, ready to protect them if they dared come forward. Both her mother and Simba told the two to step aside, but they were unmovable.

Kiara told her father to stop fighting them, adding in some wise words he may had said to her at an earlier time than this. He had looked around at his pride and the pride they were fighting. Then came the shock to shatter everyone's beliefs.

"Them. Us. What differences do you see?"

She told him that they were the same, just said it like she was correcting him gently. There were no Outlanders. There were no Pridelanders. There was us. She told him to look around at everyone and to look at any differences that could explain why they were not completely alike. She followed their gazes and each look of realization from each of the lionesses of the pride meant that something deep within them, something held, yet locked in the very core of their beings had been realized.

A calm had swept over all of them. No one lifted a claw or bared their teeth at each other anymore. Just a deep, profound wisdom had been shared within the minds of all of them. Expressions of anger and hatred melted away into ones of shock or even sadness. Sadness at the truth of what they had been against all their lives that now longer had no value whatsoever, at all.

The rain had stopped and the sun shown through the clouds. The light blinded her for a moment and when she blinked it away, everything she saw had changed. No longer was reality grey, but now crystal clear, black and white. Everyone now saw with newfound clarity of the life they had been living and what they had missed out on for so long.

But not everyone saw the truth of it all.

"Vitani! Now!"

I had always listened to my mother, obeying orders, completing tasks, all without fail or complaint. No matter how hard the challenge, no matter how difficult the task or orders, I had done them. Over the years, listening and obeying orders had become a habit. A routine. A mantra that repeated in my head constantly "no matter what it is, do it without fail." I was a servant obeying a master, not a daughter obeying her mother. I had hoped for one day to have the opportunity to set myself free from her constant commands. Today presented itself as an opportunity and now it was my chance to seize it.

"No mother."

I felt the stares of everyone around me. Each one of them, from my pride mates to the Pridelanders, each one looked at me with a mixture of shock and confusion. I looked ahead towards my brother and Kiara. Kovu regarded me with a look of dubiety and uncertainty, while Kiara beside him gave me a reassuring smile, just enough to see the encouragement and the truthfulness in the expression. It gave me strength. The strength to decide what the right thing was.

"Kiara's right."

I took no hesitant steps towards the team that I had thought I had despised for so long. I made my way towards the my brother's left side and turned around to look back at my now former pride. I looked at all of them, all those I had trained with, lived with, and grew up with, regarding the surprise in their eyes. I then stared at my mother, making sure our eyes made contact with one another, my lavender against her crimson.

"Enough."

Shock grew more visible on all my pride sisters. Some lost their fighting stances and stared at me before looking at one another, regarding each other with confusion and a silent question, 'what should we do now?' They turned to mother too, wanting to see her answer for their confusion too. I only hoped that they could see the truth as well and come join me in the light outside the dark tunnel. I hoped that they could come out of the dark they had been living and thinking in for so long and come into the clarity of the truth and the light. Most of all, I hoped mother would see and understand all these things too.

And yet... I had never expected her words to be so heartless. I never thought to hear these words from my own mother.

"If you will not fight, then you will die as well."

Her eyes held so much rage that I could only hope would melt away now. But I knew how true she would keep to her words. She meant it, I could not deny it. I so badly wanted her words to not be true, I wanted for her care and love for me to deny that these words coming from her mouth weren't true in the least bit.

But my hopes were crushed, like bird's broken wings prohibiting from ever soaring up above ever again. Her words stabbed my heart and left an ache that could never fade away. My eyelids blinked rapidly as I tried to hold the tears of sadness back. I may had broken free from her influence, but I would still not show any weakness or emotion before her.

Her words were not only a breakthrough for me. The other lioness of my pride understood now how their leader for so long now treated me now, her pride sister and daughter. They realized now that they didn't want to be fighting alongside someone who didn't care about someone so close that now was going to be slain by her family's own paws. And, if she didn't care about her closest member in the pride, then why should they follow someone who cared about them possibly even less.

My pride sisters began making away over like I did, snorting and regarding Zira in disgust for her attitude and loyalty back to her daughter as they moved past her. They didn't want to serve her anymore. They wanted to discover what life was without anyone constantly ordering them around and didn't care and show any loyalty and trust back to them for their dedication. They didn't want someone leading them who was willing to sacrifice and destroy her own daughter for a cause so weak and useless to go by now.

My mother's army had crumbled, leaving her left to fight against everyone now.

Her eyes had widened in shock as she saw her once-loyal followers desert her and go into the other team's forces. She had called back to them, yelling orders for them to come back that fell on deaf ears. She was an army of one now, none staying behind to help fight a battle that had already ended.

Simba spoke then, trying to convince my mother to do the same as the rest, to let go of past and see the truth of the light.

"I'll never let go!"

A crack could be heard down in the gorge as more logs floated down the river that was blocked from the present dam of logs that was beginning to break apart from all the liquid pushing against its side. Simba turned his head to look for the source of the sound, leaving him distracted and an exposed target to my stubborn mother. I could hear her words, even though she whispered them and was a few yards away.

"This is for you Scar."

She roared and leapt at him, but his daughter jumped before him and took the weight and blow of my mother's charging body. The weight of her leap was enough to knock Zira and herself off course from Simba, but also off the side of the gorge. Simba screamed Kiara's name and rushed over to the side to find her, followed along with Nala and my brother. Other lionesses came over and watched over the edge, but blocked my view of the two falling.

Desperate to see, I rushed over some ways to the left of the pride and peered over the edge, making sure my feet were still firmly planted to flat ground. My mother tumbled and hit the slippery sides of the hard, rock walls as she plummeted with Kiara close behind her. I could hear her scream, even from the distance away. She finally caught hold of a vertical edge of a slab of rock protruding from the wall. Kiara used her claws to slow down her descent on the slope above the drop and she slowed to a halt before she went over. Rocks fell down the gorge behind my mother, pushed by Kiara's back legs as she clawed her way from the edge.

Another crack filled the air, but it was deeper and louder this time. My vision turned to the log dam and saw that enough water had built up from underneath it and was overflowing the top and flowing into the gorge. The river below became rapidly treacherous as the extra amount of fluid rampaged down the gully, quicker than a cheetah and more ferocious than a stampede of angry elephants.

Looking back to my mother, I saw that her claws were beginning to scrape down the ledge as her grip was failing. I then saw her lift one of her paws off the granite and take a swipe at something over her head, but the movement only made her slide down more. I looked at the thing or object my mother was trying to claw. My body froze in shock and my breathing hitched as I realized that the object was Kiara with a paw extended down to mother in an act to pull her up out of this situation.

Even after what happened before, Kiara still wanted to try to help my mother. Despite everything, she was willing to forgive her and reach out to her, first now with words and now from this deadly situation she was in. To help her from plummeting into the log-infested rapids just below them.

"Go on mother. Take her paw" I silently begged.

Mother skidded down a few inches more while Kiara still held out her arm for her to take it.

"Please mother. Let it go and take her paw. Don't keep refusing it. Let go of your hate for them. Take her paw."

Mom's body swung from side to side as the length between her and Kiara widened. I caught a glimpse of her face as her weight began to take toll on her grip. Anger above to fear. Her mouth turned into a frown and her eyes widened as she realized the real danger she was in now. Her occupation with Kiara above then turned to the water below and the danger of falling into it. Her eyes looked up at Kiara, still holding her arm out to her as her form began becoming less and less close with each inch lost.

The world then became slow, or at for me it did, as my mother's grip finally lost to gravity and her body fell through the air. Her scream was the only thing that pierced my ears, no rumbling of the rapids, no screams from the other lions watching, just her fear-filled voice. Her form slowed in the air through my perspective, still holding her paws up towards the wall as she fell.

When she approached the water, her back feet entered first. I saw the water splash up as it took her in through gravity. The sun glinted off the water and towards my eyes, forcing me to blink to clear the light from my vision.

It took only a second, but when my eyes opened again to see my mother, she had been swallowed up by the water. My eyes darted back and forth, searching for her between the longs and waves in the river, but they made it impossible to see anything. She had been swallowed up by the water. I had lost her in my sight, I couldn't find her.

She was gone.

My mother was gone.

My last living parent had been taken away from me.

As I mentioned before, I try not to show my emotions. For an Outsider, showing emotions to an opponent or to another creature is considered weakness. I was taught how to hide my emotions from sight, eventually learning to quell them as soon as they started. All but two were insignificant, anger and hate. Anger made you strong and fierce during a fight. Hate gave you a purpose to fight. Together, they made you a more powerful warrior then if you fought without them. Any other feelings shown made you lose your focus and your advantage in the fight, making you the losing side.

Holding emotions back in a fight and using both hate and anger to your advantage was the sure way to win.

There weren't any more fights now. Nothing left to fight for, no one to attack and destroy, no cause left to uphold. It was done. Finished. Nothing left. Nothing left of my fighting spirit except a gap in my being where it had once been.

My feet grew tired with the sudden weight coming over my body, so I placed them over the side of the edge and lowered the rest of me on the ground. I felt something rushing over me, flooding my chest like the rapids and going up through my neck to my throat and lastly my face. I choked on the cool air and dipped my head into my paws to breath the air that had gained heat from my body. My body suddenly shivered from a quick change in the temperature around me. It had suddenly become cold, colder than it had been earlier. The sun's rays that peaked out from the clouds and shone on me provided no warmth.

I pushed my head harder into my arms and I took in a short intake of air. I could feel my nose becoming runny. The air sucked in from my nostrils made my nose cold and the cold air entering my lungs hit it hard, causing me to seize up in sudden pain and hold my breath. My lungs began to hurt and I felt the need for another breath of air. I counted the seconds.

1. 2. 3. Three seconds till my lungs burned so much and I lifted my head out again and gasped for breath. I shut my eyes tightly as each intake of air I took brought coldness into my chest cavity, but cured me of the dizzy pain coming over me with each icy shock it gave. I shut my eyes tightly as I breathed and I felt something warm build up from behind them. I opened my eyes suddenly as I felt my eyelashes begin to grow heavy with something.

I unsheathed one of my claws and brought it to my eyes, quickly swiping the long, thin hairs on the end of my eyelids and brushing away the liquid that was sticking to them. I took my claw up to my face and peered at the fluid gathered on the black curve on my paw. It was clear, like water, but it didn't feel like water. I opened my mouth slowly and placed my claw in. My tongue reached out and licked the fluid off my claw.

Salty. It tasted salty on my tongue. Salty like something that I had tasted long ago. I take my claw out of my mouth and shut my eyes tightly, causing more fluid to gather on my eyelashes and behind my eyelids as I searched for that memory when I last tasted salty liquid.

"But mom!" A young cub with golden-tan fur and lilac eyes called out to a lioness with red eyes, a striped forehead, and orange fur in the setting-sunlight over the Outlands. The lioness trotted towards some termite mounds in the distance while the cub tried to follow beside her.

"Momma," she cried out again and tried to grasp onto her mother's front leg. The lioness finally reacted. She turned and snarled at her daughter before finally swatting her to the side some distance away. The cub cried out in pain and fluid began to streak down her face from her eyes. The lioness pinned both of her legs on either side of her, trapping the cub underneath her chest and staring up at the gaze of her angered eyes.

"Shut up! You will learn how to keep on your emotions and you will spend the entire night out here and more than that until you learn this lesson. Until then, you will sleep outside the den," the lioness barked and left the cub whimpering on the cracked, dusty ground.

With the lioness now gone, the cub turned onto her side and sobbed into her paw. The liquid in her eyes dripped off her nose and face and onto the crack, lightly wetting them down. A dry wind blew over the land and over the cub, sending shivers down her spine. Time passed till the cub stopped shaking and looked up, her eyes rimmed with red, her face sticky with the clear fluid and her nose sucking in air in short intakes.

The cub's eyes tightly squeezed together, trying to rid of the cloying fluid that flowed down her eyeballs and gathered behind her eyelids, but her eyes were dry, her water reservoirs were empty. She squeezed her eyes close tighter and from out from one of them fell a tiny drop of fluid that soon went following down the path ot predecessors made down the cub's left cheek. The cub's eyes opened again, her eyes filled with a determination replacing the sadness that was there before.

"For as long as I live, this will be the last tear I ever shed mother. I will never cry again," the cub announced before getting on her feet, quickly rubbing the tear marks off her face and heading in the direction her mother went.

A tear. That was what it was. Vitani dipped her down into her arms as her body shook with sobs being released from her lungs and with a multitude of tears dripping from her eyes. It had been years since she had last released so much emotions, the years of holding it back like the log dam now broke apart inside her, releasing the emotion held back for so long like the water being held back just awhile back.

She had no idea how much time had passed or where the others had gone or even if they stayed there, all that mattered was she was crying and shedding tears for the loss of her mother, the one who had told her not to show or release her emotions.

Her tongue and throat felt parched from her body fluids being directed to her eyes rather to her salivary glands. She suddenly lifted her head up, tears staining her face as she looked towards the sunsetting sky, the exact same hue and vibrancy it had been all those years ago when she declared she would never cry again.

"I'm crying not because I'm weak. I'm crying because I am trying to be strong for you," she whispered before renewing her cries of sorrow, weeping for the loss of her mother.

I actually began to cry a bit as I wrote the end. I was really surprised how it turned out. I think I really improved my writing skills with this story.

I believe that Vitani doesn't really get much time in the movie, I mean we do know she's the duero-antagonist and Kovu's sister, but we really don't know that much about her. With Kovu we know his original goal from cub to adult, with Nuka we understand that he was pushed out of the way by Kovu as the 'chosen one' and he tries to get back his mother's attention and you know the rest, but what about everyone else? Huh? Where did Zira come from, what exactly happened to make Simba exile her, the cubs and the Outsiders? Wha-what happened here? We need more info here Disney!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading and please leave a review telling me how I did. I'll see you next time. Sincerely, v.t.7