A/N: Chapter two!
Again, I only own Kreeve, Mira, and Lucera.
Mira watched Kreeve and Lucera playing together with a small smile. She felt she could definitely see who Kreeve's mate would be when he was king.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice cut through her thoughts.
"Timmy? Oh, there you are, Timmy!" Mira turned towards the voice and saw a small, plump, but decent-looking meerkat pull Timon into a tight hug. A meerkat whose fur had turned mostly gray followed her with a scowl plastered on his face.
"Ma! Uncle Max! Err, what are you doing here?" Timon exclaimed, pushing her away from him.
"We just came to make sure you didn't get eaten or so-"
"Who's that?" Max interrupted.
Mira was slightly startled to see that Timon's uncle, Max, was watching her with a critical eye.
"Oh, that's just Mira," Timon stated absently.
"She's albino."
"I know."
"She a friend of yours?"
"Nope."
"Good."
Mira scowled slightly, and turned back to Kreeve and Lucera, who were with Kiara now.
"I've never met an actual albino before," Timon's mother's voice came from right next to her, startling Mira. She jumped and turned really fast, accidentally falling backwards. "Are you from around here?"
Mira quickly composed herself and sat up. She replied, "No, Miss, I am not from around here. I am a rogue who left home recently in order to find somewhere I belong and don't have to worry about blending in. I am only here due to young Kreeve's request and I will be leaving shortly."
"Oh, so you left your home? Your parents must be so worried!"
Mira did not reply to that, but Timon noted the fact that a shadow seemed to cross her face as his mother said this. Ma seemed to notice it too.
"They do worry about you, right?"
"My father found a new mate after I was born, wanting nothing to do with me or my mother. My mother blames me for his leaving. The only reason she kept me was because I was her daughter. I have three brothers and two sisters; she's better off without me," she stated coldly.
"Wait... do your parents even know you're gone?" Timon suddenly questioned, surprised.
Mira rolled her eyes. "I'm sure after being gone for a few days, they'd have noticed."
"You didn't have permission?"
"Nope. I just left. Why should I need permission from someone who wants nothing to do with me? I'm just a reminder of a failed partnership."
Mira scowled and looked back at Kreeve and Lucera, refusing to let them see just how much growing up an albino meerkat hurt her. Kreeve and Lucera calmed her mind a little for some reason she couldn't really explain, and-
"Oh, that's terrible!" Suddenly Mira felt herself drawn into a tight hug.
"Choking, not breathing!" she gasped out, trying to get away from her grasp. When she finally did let go, Mira noticed how Max and Timon watched Timon's mother in a way that suggested she was insane.
Mira coughed and flattened her snowy hair before quickly standing and saying "I should be going now. Excuse me."
She turned and went over to Simba and talked to him for a few moments before smiling slightly and going to the exit.
Kreeve noticed her starting to leave and immediately began chasing her.
"Kreeve! Come back here!" Kiara called, getting to her feet.
"Don't worry, Kiara. It isn't dark yet, he'll be okay," Simba stated with a small smile.
Kiara frowned, then said "It will be dark within an hour."
Simba and Kovu convinced Kiara to calm down, that everything would be fine. After about ten minutes of sitting around, they heard a shriek. No just one shriek; two. A female, high-pitched shriek, and a childish male, slightly-high-pitched shriek.
The four adult lions, Lucera, Timon, Pumbaa, and Ma were on their feet within a second and rushing out the cave to see what was happining. It was evident that at least one of the shrieks belonged to Kreeve. Uncle Max followed but not as quickly.
They stopped by the watering hole, where there lay a certain small albino meerkat, covered in blood. Kreeve was nowhere in sight.
Amazingly, Mira was still alive despite the attack. She was struggling to sit up, muttering a string of unfamiliar words under her breath.
"Where's Kreeve? He followed you, didn't he?" Kiara asked, worry in her voice for her young son.
Mira quickly got to her feet upon hearing Kiara's voice and ignoring her wounds. She looked at Kiara, anger and frustration in her eyes.
"I told him to go back, okay? I was telling him the whole freakin' time that he needed to go back to Pride Rock, but he insisted on following me! I have been at this waterhole for eight minutes waiting for and telling him to go home, but would he listen to me? No! And he wouldn't listen to me when I told him to run when the hyenas came from nowhere!" she ranted, for once showing more than her polite and sarcastic sides. "Now the hyenas got him! He isn't hurt, they just took him! He's too small to be out so late anyway! Why'd you all let him follow me?"
But Kiara, Kovu, Simba, Nala, and Lucera all stopped listening after the word "hyenas". They were already going over plans of how to rescue the heir.
Timon glared at Mira as she continued ranting and his Ma tried to calm her down enough to see her wounds. Truthfully, Timon was wondering why they didn't either kill or eat her.
But suddenly he knew. The hyenas needed a witness to deliver the horrible news.
Timon went up to Mira, stating angrily, "This is your fault!"
"My fault? My fault? I didn't do anything but tell him to go back home! You can't blame this mess on me because of your stupid, irrational descrimination for albinos! I was there, yea, and I tried to tell him to run, but he didn't listen to me, so don't you be pointing your dirty finger at me!"
"Calm down, Mira, and let me make sure you're okay," Ma commanded, grabbing the albino by her shoulders. "Timmy, you stop it with this ignorance, you know it wasn't her fault. She's a lonely, young meerkat, how would she have been able to defeat a hyena?"
"The same way my father did!"
Max suddenly cut in, exclaiming "That's exactly how your father died, Timon."
Neither Mira nor Ma missed the undertone that suggested Mira should have tried to fight back and get killed. Ma rolled her eyes.
Suddenly, Mira pushed Ma's hands roughly away from her. "I don't need help, I'm fine!"
"Your fur is turning red from the bl-"
"I said I'm fine, okay? I've been hurt worse than this before, I can take care of myself."
"Don't talk to my Ma that way!" Timon shouted.
Mira glared at him. She refused to associate with them any longer. Right then, the pain in her stomach where one of the hyena's nails had penetrated was stinging and she could taste the blood in the back of her mouth that accompanied the wound. She just turned around and began walking away.
But as soon as she did, Ma grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
"Now listen here, you need help, and don't deny it," Ma stated matter-of-factly.
"I don-"
"Yes you do. Now come on." Ma began pulling Mira towards Pride Rock, where the lions had returned to speak with their pride.
"Timon?"
"Yes Simba?"
"I need to ask you a favor."
"Ah, yes, a favor, like always... what is it?" Timon asked, dreading the answer to his question.
"Well, I was hoping you and Pumbaa could help with the search of Kreeve," Simba replied.
"I thought that was a given," Timon stated dryly.
"Well... with Mira."
Timon sat up straight, anger flashing over his face. "No way! Nuh-uh! I'm not going anywhere with that albino!"
"Timon! She's too small to come with the rest of us lions, and she's smaller than you, she could fit in places you couldn't. If there's only two ways in, and one way is too small and the other can only be moved from the inside, she could possibly get through," Simba explained. "You don't have to like her, just tolerate her. Please?"
"There is no way you're going to convince me to work with an albino meerkat who'll get us all killed!"
"I can't believe they convinced me to work with an albino meerkat who'll get us all killed!"
Timon was sitting on Pumbaa's head, absolutely aggravated, as they made their way to the elephant graveyard.
It was just him, Pumbaa, and Mira. His Ma had wanted to come, but she and Max had to return to the colony to make sure nothing had happened. Both Timon and Mira insisted they stay there, but for two different reason.
Timon had wanted her to stay because one, he didn't want to be forced to be nice to Mira and, two, he wanted her to be safe.
Mira, on the other hand, just wanted to be away from her over-protective smothering care. Ma had forced her to ride on Pumbaa's back, and had told her before she left to stay there, but as soon as they were away from the oasis, she jumped to the ground and walked alongside him.
Pumbaa had reminded her what Ma had said, but Mira paid him no mind. Timon had remained silent.
"Well, this is no walk in the park for me either," she stated coldly. "And you could refer to me by my name, not as the albino meerkat."
Timon glared slightly at her, then repeated "This is all your fault."
Mira ignored him this time.
As night fell, Timon and Pumbaa settled down in a small, shallow hole. Timon had curled up on Pumbaa's stomach.
Mira, on the other hand, dug her a short tunnel after they'd fallen asleep. She curled up in the small chamber she made and stared out the tunnel entrance, thinking about her colony.
Sighing discontentedly, she curled up tighter and fell into a fitful sleep.
The next morning, Timon awoke as the sun began rising. He stretched with a yawn, looked around, saw nothing out of particular, then curled back up. After a moment, he realized something. He didn't see Mira. He lifted his head again and looked around.
Still, he didn't see her.
He sighed, slid off of Pumbaa's back, and looked around. Where is she? he wondered silently to himself. He began walking forward, but his foot went into a hole, and he went tumbling into said hole.
He landed right on top of a certain white meerkat, who woke with a small shriek, thinking something was attacking her.
Upon realizing what had happened, she roughly pushed the dazed meerkat off of her.
"Excuse me, can't you find a better way to wake someone up?" she demanded, dusting herself off.
Timon finally got his wits together. "What were you doing in a hole anyway?" he shot back, standing up and going back up the tunnel. She huffed indignantly and followed.
"Well, sorry for doing what meerkats naturally do!"
"Digging is for chumps," Timon stated with a scowl. "No one in my colony digs."
Mira rolled her eyes. "That's because your colony don't need to dig. Duh. Besides, what with my white fur-"
"Don't get started with that mess," Pumbaa interrupted, startling both meerkats. "Don't you know you could have infected your wound?"
Mira rolled her eyes, stating "I'm a meerkat. Dirt won't infect my wounds. I've lived forever with my wounds in the dirt."
Pumbaa watched her for a few moments before asking, "And... how often did you have wounds?"
Mira was silently staring at Pumbaa with a passive face, but Timon easily noticed that shadow pass across her face, if only for a few moments.
"Not often," Mira stated. Pumbaa believed her, but Timon noticed an undertone to her words that suggested otherwise.
You're lying, Timon mused to himself, but didn't say aloud. After all, she wasn't any of his concern. She was only there because she was at fault for Kreeve's disappearance...
However, Timon was starting to become curious as to how an albino meerkat was treated by its peers. After all, there had no been an albino for many, many generations in his own colony. Even his Uncle Max never knew an albino meerkat.
Is there more to this albino than meets the eye? I have a feeling there is.
To Be Continued
So, there's chapter two. In a few chapters we may delve into Mira's past a little, but next chapter starts with the hyenas and Kreeve.