A/N: Yes, I am still working on Part 2 of "The Shadow". This wasn't a product of writer's block as much as it was just a plot bunny that intrigued me enough to be put down into words. Part 2 is going well, but it will be fairly lengthy...that being said, I'm getting it down as quick as I can, and it should be up sometime fairly soon.

Waiting. Sometimes, it seemed like all her life ever consisted of was waiting.

Whether it was to grow big enough to follow her mother out to wherever all the big lionesses went every morning, whether it was for Nyasi to meet her by the watering hole when the milky light of the moon was their only chaperone or for his return from the evening walk he'd promised would only take a minute. She'd waited all through those endless days on that same shore in silent, stomach-searing agony, the kind that only came from the small empty space just above the heart where hope was supposed to go. The kind that only came from silence, from the polite respect for the grieving and the dead, and for those who could no longer tell the difference. The kind that only came from maddening, agonizing, and yet utterly unavoidable waiting.

And so now, of course, for the last lion left that she might have even cared to see anymore, she had to wait again.

That was Ni for you. Always the impatient one, always the one to go out claws flashing and heart pounding, and to hell with consequences and repercussions and anyone who got in his way. Time meant nothing to him; not a lot did, except the sky and the clouds and everything under it that remained unseen, everything around him that begged to be explored and conquered and taken into him as another drop of memory in a sea of millions. And for a long while, she had thought that maybe she had a place somewhere next to all that. But not anymore. Not after the last year. Not after everything that had happened, everything that he might have been able to stop had he not been so eager to get out and away to gods-knew-where.

But then there was this. There was tonight, when he should've been long gone but instead had looked her in the eyes and given her a look that said every last word he'd denied her when he left before. A single motion, a single whispered sentence.

"Don't go to sleep tonight. You know where to meet me."

And she did. Of course she did. It was her one truly happy memory of them together, before the plague came and swept away their parents like dust blown by an unseen wind, before she became alone in a pride of thirty, before her brother had been chased into the unending savanna by that same force, that same knowledge of eternity that she'd never given a second of thought to. That was what he told her then: that the world was too big and life too short to waste any time surviving, and he wanted to live. But no matter what, she would always have that day from years past, when they went to the river and spent hours wandering through a maze of caves so cut off from the pride that for the time they spent inside, they could easily imagine that they were the last creatures alive in the world. Just the two of them, alone but together, abandoned but hopeful for a brighter future.

That was where she waited now, the blackness inside the yawning cavern beside her just a touch darker than the sky suspended above. That was where he was supposed to be now. But no telltale shadow had shifted against the horizon in the thirty minutes since she'd arrived, and it didn't look as though that would happen anytime soon.

Another minute passed, and the lioness's scowl deepened. It was one thing to disappear without any warning; at least that wouldn't have been a surprise. But to break a promise, to dangle a false hope above her head like a mouse on one of Rafiki's strings…only a rogue would be so cruel. She'd never really believed him when he described himself as one. Maybe it was about time she started.

She stood up quickly, eager to leave despite the screeching complaints of her lower muscles at the prospect. She didn't have time for this. And more importantly, she didn't deserve this. He thought he could toy with her, thought she would just take orders and feed the pride like a good little huntress. Just like every other male she'd ever met. Nyasi and Mufasa had been the sole exceptions, and now they were both dead. And if he wanted to show her up like this, then as far as she was concerned he was dead to her too. Her paws couldn't move fast enough.

"You never were one for patience, were you, Sara?"

It was as if someone had pulled a cord and tightened every muscle in her body. Oh, of course you show up now. Always lurking in the shadows, aren't you, Ni?

"How long have you been watching me?" she replied quietly.

A brown-tinged blur slid around to her front, nearly touching her side as it passed. It was easy to see the toll the seven months of voluntary solitude had taken on the adolescent lion: his ribs were clearly visible through the scraggly brown fur clinging to his sides, and the sparse patches of black mane garnishing his neck and chest were heavy with dirt. He was filthy, but then again, wasn't that what rogues were supposed to be like? Ni seemed the perfect embodiment of devil-may-care...or maybe even the lord of hell didn't pay him any mind either. She doubted Ni would've noticed the difference.

"Not too long," he murmured. "You thought I wasn't coming."

His last sentence was a statement, not a question. Her prejudice was deep and, in her opinion, well-founded, and it seemed that he was well aware of its hold on her heart. In light of that, she didn't bother to respond to him.

"Why did you come back, Ni?" she asked, unable to keep her bitterness completely restrained. "What could you possibly want from me?"

"Who said I wanted anything from you?" From the very tone of his voice, she could tell he had an eyebrow cocked. "How do you know I'm not just passing through?"

"Because I know you, Ni. I know when you want something, and I know that whatever it is, you're going to get it without ever thinking about what it might do to someone else."

"So I'm selfish, huh? Is that why I came back?"

"Why the hell are you asking me?"

"Well, you sound like you already know. Seems a bit redundant for me to say it too."

He always did this: turned every conversation into a battle. And she always lost.

"Do you want me to apologize, Ni?" she said, every word spoken at something close to a growl. "Is that it? Should I be sorry for not accepting you for who you were or whatever particular way you wanted to destroy your life?"

"I don't want to hear an apology, Sara."

"Well, that's good. Because I wouldn't have given you one."

"Sara, you're being irrational…"

"And you know what, maybe I have a right to be irrational!" Her outburst seemed larger than life in the vast oblivion of midnight. "I can't believe you think you have any right to be here, Ni! You left us, Ni, you chose to leave us!"

Ni stared unblinkingly at her as she raved, some unidentifiable secret flashing in his eyes. "This isn't a game, Ni," she hissed. "Life is not a game, and I don't know how long it's gonna be before you realize that."

The moment stretched and was upgraded to a pause, and then Ni nodded. "Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he intoned. And he turned away and began to walk away.

She didn't understand what he was doing. She didn't want to admit that she wasn't sure what she was doing at this point. But she also was so far beyond caring that those thoughts only kept her mouth shut for a fraction of a second.

"Don't you walk away from me, god damnit!" she screamed, her claws extending invisibly beneath her. "We're not finished here!"

"Oh, we're not?" he said suddenly, whipping his head around and stalking back to within paw's reach of her in seemingly a single motion. "There's some other way that I've ruined your life, and you haven't reminded me of it yet? Well, then, let's get on with it, Sara. Because I've got a lot of things I'd like to do, and I can think of a lot of them that'd be more productive than talking to you."

Now she knew what that spark in his eyes had been: fury. He was angry with her too...but he couldn't be. He had no right to be. She hadn't done anything to wrong him as long as he'd lived, and he knew that. So how the hell could he justify being angry with her?

And yet, somewhere deep inside her, in a place she'd long since sealed off and hidden away, she was aware of something else in that look of stone-cold rage. Truly, not something that could be seen in his eyes; rather, it was something that she felt, that was transmitted between the two of them as easily as if it had been spoken aloud. And perhaps she wouldn't have known it even then if it hadn't been so fresh, so memorably familiar to her. But there it was again, the same feeling she'd endured every day for the last seven months and felt seep through her bones as she'd stood up just a few minutes before.

The loss, the pain, the blinding fear of a sibling's hatred. Of knowing that someone's love you had thought was implicit and unending was now vanished into nothing, and with only hollow blackness left to commemorate its existence.

All this flooded through her in a trio of heartbeats, and on the fourth one she realized that her own anger had dissipated. She let out the breath that she'd unwittingly trapped inside her lungs, and shut her eyes tight so her fatigue wouldn't drip out without her consent.

"Why did you come back, Ni?" she asked, and this time there was nothing in her words but a need to know, a need for some shred of validity to her emotions. "Please, just…tell me why you're here."

Almost a full minute had passed before Ni spoke up. "I wanted to see my niece," he said in a low voice, one that would have been unintelligible if said at any other time of day. "I just…I wanted to see her."

"She doesn't know, does she?"

He shook his head without looking up at her. "I didn't tell her."

She sighed, and forced herself not to look away towards the distant outline of Pride Rock to the north. "You're going to confuse her, Ni. You can't just show up unannounced and expect me to be…"

"Expect you to what? Approve of it? Of course you wouldn't. You never would've let me see her, Sara. I saved her life today, and that was the only reason you played hostess long enough for all your friends to go on about dangerous I looked. I saw it in your eyes. You hated it."

"Well, I couldn't have told them the truth…"

"Why not, Sara? Tell me why not, and you never have to see me again. Tell me."

The answer was there, sitting right at the tip of her tongue. She could open her mouth and let it out, and it would shatter him. And although she'd had every intention of doing just that a moment before, she was paralyzed at the very thought of keeping that promise to herself now.

But he knew what she was holding back, and the light that went out of his eyes when he realized it was like a red-hot coal against her stomach. "Do you just not want me around, Sara?" he said softly. "Is that all?"

Oh, gods above, the words were burning like fire! Her mind screamed to let the word free, but her heart only tightened the manacles around them. Was it just anger, or was it the truth?

His short, resigned sigh brought her back just in time to see a look of pitiful agony flood down Ni's face. "Okay," he whispered. "You know, I guess this is what I get for…running off on you. And I…I guess I always knew that, and that was why I stayed away. And maybe that was what I should've done this time."

He stared at her again, with his awful, affectionate hazelnut eyes. He tried to smile, and then she supposed he tried to say goodbye, but in the end he did nothing. Nothing but turn around and walk away, his shoulders sagging just the tiniest bit. She was still dumbstruck, her head still ablaze and her heart slowly fighting to take control, slowly winning out over the raging wildfire. But it wasn't until a moment later that a change finally occurred. Because it was at that moment that Ni turned around one last time. Because it was at that moment that he looked her in the eyes, and his pain was so vivid that it punched through her with more force than a hundred hyena claws. Whether it was to bide her farewell or good riddance, she didn't know, but by then she didn't care either.

Because it was at that moment that, in the middle of the night by an abandoned cave on the riverbank, Sarafina finally broke.

"Ni, don't go!" she coughed, stumbling forward with feet made of wood. And then she was sobbing. There was no slow transition, no gradual growth from mist to shower to flood; just an instant deluge of pent-up sadness, rejection, denial, and above all, abject heartbreak. "Please, I'm sorry…"

And what made it all the worse was when Ni unsteadily backed away as she crawled feebly toward him. It was too late. He was lost.

"Sara, this…this isn't your fault, Sara," he said, his eyes still dry but no less despondent. "I wanted to do my own thing, and I never thought about whether you would want me to stay, and…and I never apologized for that. I ran off, and I never even said goodbye…and I knew it was horrible and I thought you wouldn't forgive me. So I…I just ran, and the farther away I got from you the worse I felt about leaving you."

Was that a tear on his cheek, or just the moonlight shining off his fur? "I'm sorry, Sara," he said shakily. "I know it's much too late to say it, but I'm…I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, and I thought maybe if you could just forget about me, then I couldn't hurt you anymore. And that was stupid and I was wrong, and I'm sorry…"

She could hardly breathe anymore through the boulder in her throat, but still Sarafina managed a smile. It had taken her seven months to realize what that hollow space in her chest had truly been, and just now had she discovered that Ni's heart harbored the very same void in the very same spot. They'd been so afraid of each other's hatred that they'd ended up feeding their own, so convinced that their sins were unforgivable that they hadn't even bothered to test that conclusion. And now that she knew that, all of it was exposed for the charade it truly was, and though her face was streaked with tears and her head still throbbed with the occasional bolt of lightning, she was happier than she'd ever been in her whole life. Her world might still be shot to hell, but she finally had her brother back.

That is, if he didn't run away first.

"Ni!" she shouted after the quickly receding figure in the distance. "Ni, wait up!"

So he didn't turn around. So what? She was a huntress, wasn't she? And he was just a scrawny, underdeveloped rogue. She stretched her legs and flew over the savanna, and in ten seconds she had him flipped onto his back and trapped beneath her clawless paws.

She knew he would speak first and never stop if given the chance, so she cut him off right from the start. "I'm sorry too, Ni," she said. "I thought you left because you didn't care about me, and you're right: I wouldn't have forgiven you if you had just come back again. And that would've been the worst mistake of my life."

Something akin to shock blew through Ni's eyes, but soon enough it was completely overshadowed by relief. He was definitely crying now. "But you want to know something?" she continued, dropping into a softer, more personal tone. "No matter how far you run or how long you're gone, I would never forget about you. I never forgot about you after you left, and that was why I didn't want to see you. Because I was so afraid that I was right about you. That you really did run away from me."

"But now I know better," she smiled, her own vision beginning to blur again. "Now I know that you made a mistake, and that I made a mistake because of that. And I forgive you." She paused for a moment, then added one last sentence. "And I think I forgive myself too."

She let her eyes bore into Ni's—into her brother's—and tried to put forth all the love and confidence that the big sister in her could manage. "So…are you gonna forgive yourself too?"

A true smile doesn't start at the lips; it ends there, as the manifestation of a greater process that starts in the eyes and quickly springs up to the ears and back down to the throat and chest, making a brief stop by the heart before taking a transfer down the spine and spreading all throughout the limbs. Then, and only then, does it work its way back up, all in the split second it takes for a broken family to be made whole again, and make its final stop at the mouth, where it pushes the lips back up towards the eyes to complete the cycle. That was the kind of smile that Sarafina had seen only three times: on her own face when Nyasi had proposed to her, on Nyasi's face when he had first beheld his infant daughter, and now on her brother Ni's face as he comprehended the depth of his sister's love for him. And it wasn't long before she experienced it for the fourth time, as the look of peace in her sibling's eyes told her that her final request had indeed been complied with.

She wasn't sure which one of them realized how much time had passed first, but whoever it was certainly hadn't been paying much attention before that. A full quarter of the moon was already wedged behind the rim of black earth where the stars met the grass by the time the two of them finally stood to leave.

"So I guess you're gonna leave again now, huh?" she asked, though it wasn't with any regret or bitterness that she did so. He was a free spirit, and were it not for the lack of communication between the two of them, he could've been one his whole life.

"Only if you're okay with it," he answered somewhat tentatively. She was glad that he had asked; it was yet another sign that his previous disappearance had been fueled by a desire to explore rather than a desire to escape.

"I'm okay with it," she assured him with a faint smile. "Just promise me you'll be safe, okay? And that you'll come back every once in a while?"

Her smile was returned tenfold. "Promise," Ni said. "But can you do one thing for me?"

"What's that?"

Once again, she perceived a hint of hesitation, but this one was much less evident than the first. "Could you just tell Nala who I am? I mean, that I'm her uncle?"

"Sure, I will…but you don't want to tell her yourself?"

"Well, you said it would confuse her…"

Sarafina's grin took on a devilish tinge. "You're scared, aren't you?"

Ni scowled. "I am not!"

"Yes, you are!" she giggled. "Flaky little rat…"

"Look, will you just tell her for me? She'll probably believe you more than she would me."

Sarafina sighed and stifled another laugh. "I'm kidding," she murmured. "I'll tell her."

Now his smile was back again. "You just had to tease me about it, didn't you?" he sighed.

"Hey, I'm your big sister. It's part of the job description."

"Figured it'd be something like that." He shook his head and laughed, and then turned to gaze at the half moon that was still visible behind him. "I gotta say, I did miss the sunrises out here…"

Sarafina looked as well. "Well, maybe you could stay for one…" she began to say. But she soon realized that she was talking to an empty patch of earth. Ni was already gone.

Or so she thought.

"Goodbye, Sara," she heard someone whisper from somewhere close by. "See ya 'round."

Sarafina couldn't help but smile. Always lurking in the shadows, aren't you, Ni?

"Goodbye, little bro," she whispered back. "And good luck."

She couldn't have sworn that he had heard her, but a feeling inside her heart, inside the previously empty spot that had miraculously been filled again during the last few hours, told her that he did. And she had to admit, it was a great feeling to have, and she didn't ever plan on giving it up again.

As the horizon began to glow in anticipation of the morning sun, Sarafina started off for Pride Rock, feeling only a little bit tired from her sleepless night. But then again, she hadn't really missed out on much at all, had she? Because for most of the night, and most of her life, she had just been waiting for something to happen…and what was sleep but just a calmer waiting for a new day to arrive? So she didn't miss her spot in the den nearly as much as she would've thought, because even without sleep she still felt completely at peace with herself.

And for the first time in her entire life, she thought that maybe she was ready to stop waiting.