[Author's Note]
Welcome back, everyone! We're approaching the middle of the series now, and a lot of exciting things are about to happen. Your continued interest is as always a blessing to me, and I hope you'll find it above and beyond your expectations. And while I am resuming school in a fortnight (I've never felt weirder about using this word for its original meaning than I do now), I only have two consecutive days of classes a week. I will try and complete chapters as frequently as possible, assuming my assignments don't drive me to the brink of collapse this year. Anyway, here's Kopa's Legacy: Heirs of the Pride!

I'm a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm
And the scars that mark my body, they're silver and gold.
My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones,
It keeps my veins hot, the fire's found a home in me.

3 MOONS AGO
"So how did it go?"

Mheetu halted, surprised his pawsteps could be heard over the roar of the waterfall. Janga did not turn to face him, but he could tell she was suppressing a smirk. "About as well as you said it would," he grumbled, eliciting a chuckle from her. He sat down beside her, staring across the lake before them. The Viridian Falls flowed gently down into the watery expanse, which stretched out across the entire horizon. "I'm glad you're enjoying my misery, Janga, I really am. But he's not caving, so I'm open to suggestions."

Janga shot him a reproachful look. "I gave you one. You didn't take it."

"Fine, fine, sorry. I'm open to other suggestions?"

"Mheetu," she said sharply. "I know why you don't want to do it, and I understand, alright? But you're never going to get past this if you keep avoiding it."

Mheetu dropped his gaze and said nothing.

She edged closer to him. "Come on. He's your father."

"Don't remind me," he growled, but he did not pull away.

"He seems like a decent lion."

Mheetu gave a short, barking laugh. "Didn't look like you felt that way when you had him imprisoned."

"He thought Scar was still King of Pride Rock," snorted Janga. "I needed him out of the way and he didn't surrender, although he's not stubborn enough to refuse food. But the guards who bring him his meals all tell me the same thing—he wants to talk to you."

"He has been talking to me," he muttered.

"You know what I mean. He wants to talk to his son."

An old familiar flicker of anger ignited in Mheetu's heart. "I never had a father!" he yelled, not even caring as his voice echoed over the lake. "Neither did Nala! He left us there, Janga...he saw what Scar was doing and he left my mother and my sister to rot. And now he's trying to convince me that he cares about me, when everything he ever did was for himself?"

"You said he wouldn't attack Pride Rock," Janga countered, "because he has family there."

Mheetu shook his head profusely. "That's just his excuse. Where was he when Scar tried to force himself on Nala? Or when my mother was pregnant and needed a home to raise her?"

Janga shrugged. "I suppose you'll never know," she said, with the air of someone who had cornered her prey. "Not unless you open up to him."

He opened his mouth, trying to think of an argument against this. When he was unable to, he sighed. "You really think this could help us?"

"I don't know, but I know it'll help you," she said firmly. "You need to get your head on straight, Mheetu. If we're really going to pull this off, then we have to sort out the personal complications first. We'll have plenty more to deal with as it is," she added, and Mheetu knew she was thinking of Simba.

He hesitated, but gave in and decided to ask. "Janga, do you...do you wish Simba hadn't survived?"

Janga, usually so sure of herself, appeared just as hesitant. "Yes," she admitted. "It would have made all of this easier." After a pause, she asked, "Do you think that makes me like Scar?"

Mheetu chewed his lip, contemplating this. "I guess it depends," he said finally.

"On?"

"On whether or not Simba is a good king."

"The Pride Lands have regrown," Janga said dully. "From the sounds of things, the kingdom is balanced again."

"Has he made peace with the hyenas?"

"Hyenas?" She raised an eyebrow. "The hyenas were the ones who ruined the Pride Lands. Why would you—"

"Forget it, it was just a thought," Mheetu said quickly. He turned his gaze to the sky, dwelling on her question again. "I want to trust Simba. And I want to believe so badly that my sister knows what she's doing. But I haven't been there in years, Janga, and if they've restored the kingdom then they might not want us to put an end to it."

Janga narrowed her eyes. "We won't be giving them a choice," she muttered angrily. "Simba played dead all those years while we lived in squalor, then he reappears and thinks claiming the throne sets everything right, all because he's Mufasa's son? How can my mother forgive him so easily?"

"Now you're getting it," said Mheetu with just a hint of smugness. "Not so easy to practice what you preach, is it?"

"Go talk to Ni," Janga snapped. "Not the King of Viridian Falls, but your father. At least he isn't pretending you don't exist. I'd call that some semblance of love."

Mheetu rolled his eyes as he got up. "Setting low standards for love, aren't you?"

"Like it or not, he's the only father you're ever going to have," she told him. "We're going to be on the move before long, Mheetu, and who knows how all of this will end. It's your choice, but if I were in your place I'd make peace with the ones I cared about, if I knew I might not always have the chance to—and find out if they care about me too. At least you'll know for sure."

"And what about you and Simba?" he pressed, stretching now that he was standing up. "How are you gonna make him see it from your side of things?"

"I'm not," Janga responded without hesitation. Her voice had become cold, just as it had when Simba's name first came up. "He's lost a great deal to Scar, just as I have—he must understand. If he doesn't, if he fights the change I intend to bring to the Pride Lands...then I must kill him."

"They'll despise you," murmured Mheetu, feeling ill at ease from how matter-of-fact she sounded. "Not just Nala and Sarabi, but the whole kingdom."

Janga did not turn to meet his gaze, even as he continued to stare at her in consternation. "They've always despised me," she said quietly. "From the day I was born, everyone saw me as nothing but Scar's unwanted daughter. It didn't matter that I hated him more than any of them could fathom, or that I tried to do right by my mother every day in the Pride Lands. The Keepers are no different—you heard what they called me when we first found them."

"But Zamaradi and the others—" he began.

"Are not enough to sway the rest," she interjected. She turned her head, now locking eyes with Mheetu. "If Simba won't back down, you understand what we have to do."

He said nothing.

"Mheetu, you know how much is hanging on this plan," Janga reminded him fiercely. "We have to follow through, or else all of this will be for nothing. I need a little more time to find what we need, so can I count on you to keep an eye on things until then?"

"Yeah," he muttered, turning to leave. As he tried to recall exactly when he started wondering if they were doing the right thing, he heard Janga's voice from behind.

"Hey." Mheetu halted, glancing over his shoulder at the lioness who had been by his side since they first left the Pride Lands. Her expression was more conflicted than she had initially sounded, and he was surprised to find it strangely comforting. "This isn't always easy for me either. But no one understands except for those who've suffered as we have. They'll resist change, they always do, but if we let this go—if we let the things we've experienced die with us—then the cycle will come back around one day. Nothing will be different."

A smile appeared on his face. "That almost brought me to tears," he admitted, pretending to wipe his eyes with one paw. Janga laughed and swatted a small stone at him. "I trust you'll do the right thing, you know. You haven't steered us wrong yet."

"Then stop stalling and go talk to your dad," replied Janga impatiently. She was flipping another stone in her paw. "You can tell me I was right all along when I get back."

Mheetu laughed ruefully as he began walking. "Yeah, probably will. Thanks."

"And don't mention Fujo to your father," she added. "Not unless you actually want him killed."

He slowed for just a moment, jaw clenched as he recalled the scheming lion from Mount Tempest. Whatever he wanted with Janga, Mheetu would bet his whiskers it wouldn't end well for her. Once again, he wondered how many lines they had already crossed, and how many they had yet to cross. "I won't," he responded evenly, striding lightly away from the falls despite how heavily his conscience weighed on him. "I've kept it between the three of us for this long, haven't I?"

•••

PRESENT
"I hate secrets," muttered Janga. "They turn every close and trusted friend you have against you, sooner or later."

The only response she received was the unsteady drip, drip, drip from the opening in the ceiling. Her eyes were fixated on the flat stony surface covering the hole from above, which let in only a slight trickle of water in between the cracks that fell into the central conduit before her.

The lion standing behind her gave no reply. Unperturbed, Janga strode off to the opposite side of the chamber. Where the stone ceiling met the crudely circular wall surrounding them, no more than twenty paces from one end to the other, there were three smaller apertures, although at the moment there was only sunlight flowing through them. "It wouldn't shock you to hear that I've had to keep many, many secrets myself."

"'Had to'," the lion repeated with no small amount of disdain.

"I don't expect you to understand," Janga said unflinchingly, taking in the chamber's every detail. She ran a paw over an unusually smooth section of wall, directly beneath one of the openings, and drew back as her paw came away damp. Glancing down at the small pool carved out of the floor, she noted that its surface was also wet despite the fact that it was empty. "And what about yourself, Afua? How many secrets are you holding onto in there?"

She turned around to face Afua, meeting his eyes for the first time since he was brought into the chamber. He glared back with a stubborn defiance in spite of his flagging stamina. Fatigue was written all over his bruised and battered body, with pain still etched into his tight-knit brow; between his labored breaths, a droplet of blood trickled from his cheek and into his night-black mane.

"We'll start easy. Why have you been in the Pride Lands all this time?"

His only answer was more silence.

"I didn't have you brought here to judge you, Afua," Janga said exasperatedly, narrowing her eyes. "You could say I did almost the same thing; I just want to know why you would abandon your home and royal title, in exchange for—"

"I didn't abandon them!" shouted Afua. Beneath the anger in his voice, she could hear an agony that had nothing to do with his injuries. "Simba and Nala wanted to know after they found me and brought me back to Pride Rock. I owe them a life debt, but I still didn't tell them. I dug my way out of those rocks until my paws were bloody—I've earned my freedom."

Janga nodded. "You possess a rare kind of strength. You could put it to much better use."

"I'm not joining your invasion, if that's what you're suggesting," the black-maned lion said tersely.

"No, you're far too loyal to Simba for that," she agreed. "And yet you came back not for him, but for your estranged family."

"Maybe I just don't like the idea of what you're doing," snapped Afua.

Janga gave him a dubious look. "You can't fool me, kid. We both know you're not even fooling yourself...you think I don't recognize that look? You wish you hated them—it'd be easier to hate them, to make them think you were dead, even. It serves them right, doesn't it, for what they put you through."

Afua was pulling away with every word, his eyes scrunching up as he tried to shut her out. "Stop," he growled, flattening his ears against his head.

Janga did not let up, pressing closer as he backed against the chamber wall. "But you came running the moment you heard they were in danger, and do you know why?"

"You don't know anything about me," he said between gritted teeth.

"It's because you care about them. You wanted them to be sorry, you wanted them to lose you. But that changed when I took the choice away from you, when you realized they might be dead before they knew that you weren't—"

Afua's eyes snapped open. "I was a cub!" he yelled, slamming a paw against the wall. "They trained me to be a killer before I'd learned how to walk, but did I ever have a relationship with my parents?" His jaw clenched. "Pride Rock was where I made friends, where I could be whoever I wanted to be for the first time. And you're looking down on me as you're about to attack it, like you attacked this place."

"I," responded Janga coldly, "am the only one who's doing something to change our course in history. You're resilient, but you never tried to face your problems...you've only run from them."

"If I ran, I wouldn't be here right now," Afua retorted.

"Very true," she said, frowning. "When you were first captured, you refused to disarm the traps on the upper levels. But once freed, you had every opportunity to escape. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that the upper levels were indeed reopened—and you, Afua, who should have been the last lion I'd expect to find there."

He looked away, clearly unwilling to say anything.

Janga fought to keep her temper in check. "Fine, I'll jog your memory. Of the four water basins sitting above us, all of them are empty except for the one feeding into the central conduit. You came up here and emptied them, the proof is on the walls. And if it wasn't, every one of my lions—inside and outside Mount Tempest—could hear how much water was going through the mountain."

"Sounds like you have it figured out," he mumbled.

"It's not the 'what' I want to know, it's the 'why'," she growled. "Last chance. Spill."

Afua let out a long, slow breath of resignation. "Or what? I know you're going to kill me when this is over."

"Janga!"

A lioness hastily entered the chamber. It was Kupinga, the security captain, and Janga turned her attention to her, keeping Afua in the corner of her eye. "Go ahead, Kupinga."

"We got them," Kupinga reported in between gasping breaths. "Kivuli cornered the two from the forest, they're in the caverns under the mountain. The other captives should be down there too, the tracks all point that way, but there's been no trace of them so far."

"Never mind them," said Janga impatiently. She nodded toward Afua. "Bring him to Kivuli, then escort Kopa up to the basins. I'll be waiting."

"Yes, Janga." The other lioness paused. "Anything else?"

"Have Kivuli take Kopa's friend to the water pool along with this one. She'll know what to do." For the first time, Janga saw a flicker of fear in Afua's maroon eyes as he realized what had happened. To him, she added, "If Kopa can tell me what you won't, then I'll just get it out of him instead. In other words...you and your brother may have just become expendable."

I'm done with it, oh, this is the start of how it all ends
They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.
I'm speeding up and this is the
Red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.
We're at the start, the colours disappear
I never watch the stars, there's so much down here.
So I just try to keep up with them,
Red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.
—Lorde, "Yellow Flicker Beat"