I don not own anything of the Lion King franchise! Just my own concepts, characters, and storyline.

This story follows after the events of LK2. What happens to the blood-lusting Zira after her fall from the cliff? Washed away from all she knows, and alone, Zira faces her greatest fight for survival against new foes.

Any advice, comments and reviews would be most appreciated!


"Zira, give me your paw." Kiara outstretched her forearm. With a snarl Zira swatted, losing her footing against the cliff.

"Zira, come on!"

The sun had set for Zira long ago.

"I'll help you."

The water crashed below, frothing and boiling from the unleashed dam, threatening to swallow her whole. The young lioness had held out her paw, her voice sincere as she attempted to aid the older lioness. Zira's claws scathed the harden rock face as her own weight drug her further down, dozens of frightful eyes watching from above. Her daughter Vitani agape in disbelief. Kovu's green eyes wide. The lot of lionesses gawking. And Simba, rushing towards them from rock to rock.

With a grunt she tried to dig in deeper, water spraying against her hind quarters and making the rock below slick. Fear and hate had never gripped her tighter than now, her muddy muzzle pressed against the warm stone. The swollen river scoured the canyon, echoing against the curved walls. Zira swore she could hear a mighty howl from the murky deep, the long lost voices of sweet Nuka, of Scar's bellowing deep roar…Could they be urging her on to fight, or beckoning for her to join them in the afterlife?

She slid again, but this time she didn't stop. Her heart pounded in her ears, beating so hard she could feel her chest thump against the cliff that she clung so hard to. Wildly her back legs swung forward, searching for something that wasn't there. Kiara's eyes went wide and wet, whether from the mist of the splashing water or if they were tears, Zira would never know. With one last surge of her fading strength, the older lioness dug in deeper than she had ever before in her life, panting with exertion as the rock crumbled between her claws.

Then she was weightless, plunging towards the raging waters ripping through the gorge that beckoned for her. A fine mist bathed her, like a cold rain that came before the thundering storms after a long drought. She should have been calm, her sins absolved as she fell to her ultimate demise, knowing she'd join those she had lost to the great starry grass plains above. The entire world was slow and soundless.

But the horror of her own death robbed her of peace. As she fell helplessly through the air, suspended between the void of heaven and earth, she gasped and cried out. No life flashed before her eyes, no wave of regrets, no overwhelming sense of fulfillment or tranquility. Nothing from the raging hate that fueled the dark fires that burned in her very core provided relief. The only thing she felt was the absolute clutch of primal fear as she plunged to her death. Out of futile desperation she clawed at the empty air, as if something were there to grab and save her hide.

Death had never been so slow, and simultaneously so fast, as it was now. The cliffs drifting further away, the roar of the waves becoming louder as it drowned out the moans of the other lions above. A final crash of cold unlike any other broke upon her back. When she hit the water, it was like slamming into solid rock, knocking her final breath from her. Zira's teeth gnashed at the water, water filling into her lungs as the current drug her under.

And like that, Zira, the terror of the Pridelands, was no more.