"After a long absence, I have remerged. A Birthday, a hell of a lot of work, then more chaos, of which I do not feel comfortable revealing online - has kept me away from the PC for weeks. I hope you know what it is like.

Once you get out of a habit, it is a killer to get back into it... Anyway, I hope that with a little effort – and with some of our reviews, I can get back into the rhythm – we are past the half way point of this book, to here is to the second half. My writing feels a little rusty, but I hope it is of the standard quality you are used to. Anyway, here goes.

Also, a word to the wise, check out my brother Kaladion's work: Legends of the Lion Lords, if you're interested in a different kind of read. I am just throwing that out there.

Oh, and one more thing, this chapter sees the return of the Musical Chapters that appeared in the last Book. Like last time, there will only be one or two in the book – but it will help to keep the flavor of the original series of which this Story is based upon.

So enjoy!

Cheers: Haradion"

Chapter 11: Heaven's Eyes

"Here you go – that's it!" Sundar exclaimed, and with a great effort, Danyal collapse onto the ground, gasping for breath. He was sweating heavily, perspiration forming on his head, and he was breathing heavily. Sundar looked past him. In just under six minutes, Danyal had managed to drag himself from where he had lain in the cave. Using only his fore-paws (with Sundar propping up his behind) he managed to drag himself from where he slept, motionless, for days. And it felt as though it had nearly killed him again. Dried blood cracked open along his wounds and old blood and puss dripped from the injuries. Were it not for his paralysis, it would have sent spasms through his body. Even that would have been better than the constant numbness that he felt instead.

Danyal sighed, heavily.

"All of that… Just to move a few feet." He said, dismayed. Despite it all, he had clung to the hope that eventually his injury would heal. It didn't seem likely, and each day he spent with no change only served to reinforce that notion.

"Sundar, Slayer – Helio has been hunting again, King – I mean, Lukaan wants to know if you want anything to eat?" A Lioness asked him. Danyal remembered her name. She was Harten, a dark chocolate colored lioness, not dissimilar to Sundar, though she was far more formal in both her attitude towards him, and towards other people generally. Sundar had mentioned that she found the habit to be worse now than when they had lived in their previous home, but even so, Danyal could not bring himself to dislike her. In fact, Danyal liked all of the lions in this tiny Pride from across the great ocean. Each one was respectful, gentle, considerate and good natured. Even Helio, who tended to speak without thinking, had a certain easy-going attitude which Danyal envied.

"Slayer?" Harten asked him again, jolting Danyal out of his thoughts.

"Don't call me that." Danyal said in annoyance. That bothered him. The other Lionesses in this strange Pride seemed to hold him in a higher respect and regard then he felt he deserved. It had been a difficult job to get Lukaan or Sundar to call him by his real name. Getting the other lionesses to call him Danyal instead of Slayer was next to impossible, but he had not given up yet. Sundar, noticing his brooding, answered for him.

"Harten, Please ask my Father to leave some meat aside for us – we'll be returning a little while later". She said. Harten nodded sympathetically and turned around, slinking back into the den to where Lukaan presumably sat. Once she had gone, Sundar turned to him.

"Alright." She told him, sounding concerned. "What's wrong?" She asked.

Danyal eyed her cautiously.

"Nothing." He said, shaking his head in annoyance. Sometimes he wished sh would just leave him alone. Sundar frowned.

"Something's bothering you?" She asked. Danyal smiled darkly.

"Oh no – nothings bothering me. It's not the fact that of the four cubs I was supposed to protect, two are prisoners, and probably dead by now. It's nothing to do with the fact that that the other two have gone without a trace and are now likely being followed by the impossibly reanimated spirit of a historical murderer and cub-killer, who has supposedly been dead for decades.

Aside from the fact that they are gone because of me, everything's just peachy! Then, there is nothing like a spot of permanent paralysis to let a little sunshine into your life. How's your life going? Recovered from the slaughter of your homeland yet?" He asked flippantly. Sundar listened as he vented his frustration, completely unoffended by his remarks. He seemed to be like that now, flipping between fiery rage and ice cold depression at random times. The other lionesses from his Pride had left three days ago seemingly abandoning him and since then, his mood had soured even further. Sundar sighed.

"Danyal, you need to stop blaming yourself. There was nothing you could have done differently." She said. Danyal snorted.

"How do you know? I could have done something… I could have killed Sekmet faster, or I should have gone after Kiava!"

"That you even survived Sekmet was nothing short of a Miracle - I have seen a few of your memories, remember? I know what happened from the others anyway, and trust me; no one blames you in the slightest! Stop beating yourself up over it!" She said angrily. Danyal fell silent.

"It is not the first time you know…" He said. Sundar paused. She looked at him. He was focused at the sky, burnt read with the sunset. The first stars coming out. The skies were oddly different by, some stars remained the same, no matter where you looked at them from. The brightest stars of the sky, The Warrior. The Hunter. The Lady and The Queen. And The Father. The five brightest stars in the sky were solidarity, singular and without order. Rouge Stars. Alone and distant. He stared at them.

"What isn't?" Sundar asked, probing him to finish.

"Me… Getting it wrong so badly. It's not the first time." he said, pain leaking into his voice. Real, genuine emotion, raw with hurt and grief and the agony of regret. Her powers made them, clearer and she could sense the tempest of emotions he felt.

"You didn't get it wrong!" She said. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair the way the universe had treated this lion. This brave warrior… She didn't know him in the slightest but those few brief moments having touched his mind meant she knew his feelings… she had touched the surface of his soul… Much was hidden, but a lot of it was evident to her eyes in that moment. She knew the lonely cub, who never had any one to play with. The reckless child, eager to fight for his home. The desperate youth, thrust unprepared into a world of responsibilities, responsible for not just one, but for four cubs, before he was old enough to be called a father. She had glimpsed it in seconds. He turned to her.

"I did then… I wasn't much older than a cub then anyway. It was in the first few months of the Invasion… back when we still thought we could fight back. When we took our own survival for granted… I was on patrol, and I heard screams. A Young leopard family had been running from the Shai'tan's thugs. I shouldn't have interfered… But I did. I killed one of the Wilddogs before he even knew I was there… I committed murder to save the life of a stranger. I didn't kill for meat, or for food… I just wanted him to die. So I killed him… and that felt good… To have the power to help people. To punish the wicked." He said. Sundar didn't know what to say. For the last three days, his conversation had been limited to one word responses to questions she had asked. And now he was speaking openly to her, and she was lost for words.

"It sounds like you made the right choice. You chose to help those in need." She said.

"To risk a kingdom was wrong, but to defend it with cruelty, by abandoning the helpless… That would be worse, I think." She said.

He slammed his paw into the ground.

"But that's just it, Sundar! Now I am helpless – and there is nothing, NOTHING, I can do about it! I can't fight – I can't hunt – I am useless! I am crippled! I am Broken! Even my death would have been better for my Pride!" he said bitterly. Sundar paused.

"To seek death… is to abandon hope. There is always hope." She said, thinking back to something her mother had told her once.

She thought he might have snarled at her. Snapped, or else ignored her completely. Instead he laughed. A Painful, cynical, mad laugh. He voice cracked and broke as he did so, sounding almost like a cry.

"Ahahahaha! HAHAHAHA! That's the best joke of them all! Hope?" He asked her. He pointed to stars.

"You see those stars? To you know what they used to tell the cubs in the Pridelands? I was almost an Adolescent when I came to them, but I remember hearing those stories… The King used to tell them to cubs, his own, and any of the younger cubs who would listen.

"Those stars he would say, are the spirits of the great Kings of Past. The ones we love never truly abandon us, but remain in the heavens to guide us and help us when we most need it. The Souls of Mufasa, Mohatu, Judai are there for us. Always." He said. Sundar listened, and looked up at the skies. She briefly wondered if her uncle was up there… watching her every move. It was comforting… to see them. Danyal lashed out, and slammed his paw into the ground, scattering dust, and jarring it with such force the rock cracked.

"It's all a filthy lie. One that we tell children when they are small. One we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night. The Promise of Immortality in the next life, just so we can come to terms with death in this one!" He said angrily. Sundar flinched.

"No Danyal… It's not…"

"IT IS! If there were Kings above with the Power to help us, then they would have never let Pride Rock Fall! They would never have allowed the Shai'tan out of your blasted homeland! They would never have done this to me!" He roared. And he roared. Not the childish growl of a cub, but the loud, echoing, rage of a Lion. Bitterness and loss echoing into the dusk.

"If there are Kings up there – then they forsook us long ago! Either they do not exist, or they simply don't care! Where is your Hope in that, Sundar!" He snapped. Sundar hesitated. Then she lay down, turning her belly to face the sky, motioning for him to join her. He pointed with a claw.

"I have never heard of that story… or the Ancestors in the Stars… We didn't believe in the Stars as you did…

But we did have our own beliefs… The story in Asiantica, is that before the earth was formed, in that first empty void of nothingness, there was the Mother. And we say that the Moon, is her Eye, through which she sees the whole of creation. The stars are the souls of the first generation of beings to have ever existed… Before time or space or light or dark… before the earth was formed. The Mother created the beings of light and spirit alone. But they fought amongst themselves, each eager to prove themselves greater than the other. Smarter, stronger, greater. Their power nearly rent the Universe apart.

So the Mother of Universe, angered at the folly of her children, took their power from them – all of them apart from The Shadow, who fled in fear, hiding in the Void, cloaking himself in the night, in order to avoid her sight, lest he lose what little power he had. But the Mother took the remainder of her children's Power and formed their power into the earth, the sky, and the sea, stripping her children of their power and casting what remained upon the earth. Her children, powerless, took new forms, and grew into the life we now see. Lions… Zebra… Tigers… Vultures, plants, everything. And the Shadow fled to the earth, hiding on it, and hiding it, creating the night to terrorize his now defenseless siblings.

So the Mother rejected her son, The Darkness, and set the stars of the night, against the void, and Herself as the Moon, to dispel the darkness of the night.

The Stars are all that remains of their power, without form or direction, set against the darkness so that even in the darkest of night the Children of the Universe may see the light. The power of the First Generation that had been used to destroy, instead was used to comfort, to bring peace and guidance.

And when we die, we are reunited with that same, lost, power. And it is used to either to depart the universe, with greater wisdom, than before, and the lessons of mortal life learnt, or else to reemerge upon the earth. IN this was, as long as there is life on earth, there will be a star in the heavens. And when all stars fade, and the light of the universe dissipates, it will only be because, they are no longer needed. The day is over, and all life has returned to the heavens, abandoning heaven and earth, for the final world… Neither Day, or Night, but a new state of being, where light without darkness., Leaving the Darkness alone in the Universe." She said, completing the story.

Danyal, who had listened, seemingly captivated remained silent for a long while. Then he turned to her.

"That's the most ridiculous story I have ever heard. The Moon is the creator of the whole Universe? Inconsistent, changing, waxing and waning, never still and always vanishing… Foolishness." He said, but his words were without malice. Sundar only laughed.

"I told you it was a story! I never seriously believed it… But its important all the same, that there is always light in the darkness? No matter where you look? When there is life there is light – and when there is light, there is hope." She said. Danyal paused.

"Perhaps…" He said. "But Light isn't good… Light can destroy. Fire brings both light and it devours all it can, I have seen the Shaman Marsade make Fire his slave. And Light too, can betray ones location to enemies, where darkness can be your ally." he said. Sundar laid a paw on his.

"Only when you have to hide. And we shouldn't have to." She told him. Danyal smiled at that, but pulled his own paw away. It was night time now, and not for the first time, Danyal thought about the other cubs. Desperate, alone. He was being selfish, he knew it. His self loathing and pity didn't help anyone, and was trying for those who were his friends, but it didn't make his own pain any easier to bear. He was amongst allies at the very least – although not the family he wanted. But then he was used to being alone, used to being without a family. He sighed.

"Arguing Philosophy? Not quite the conversation I was expecting to overhear…" Lukaan said. Sundar jumped to his feet, and Danyal made a jerking movement, which might have been an attempt to move quickly, but was rendered not just sluggish but wholly ineffective by his injury. Lukaan chuckled to himself.

"Father!" Sundar snapped in annoyance. Lukaan, pleased at getting the jump on his daughter simply smiled.

"I saved you some food – its in the Den if you want… But before we get to that, there is something you should know." He turned to Danyal.

"Princess Vitani told us –"

"Just Vitani, she always hated that title…" Danyal interjected. Lukaan paused. It was rude, but at least he was talking. Perhaps Danyal would heal in time. Maybe not the use of rear legs, that would never heal, but perhaps he would learn to accept his injury as part of himself.

"Vitani said that she would focus her efforts on rescuing the twins. However, she was at a loss as to how to help the other Two cubs. Although we didn't discuss the issue, I have been giving the matter some thought. It might be not be possible to trace where the cubs went, but they will be tracked by more… unearthly predators by Vitani's account. I don't know what to make of an undead Wilddog…"

"Lunch?" Danyal suggested. Lukaan laughed but shook his head.

"I don't particularly savor the possibility of that thing regenerating in my digestive system, do you?"

"Do you think it could do that?"

"How would I know? I just wouldn't risk it… My thought however, is that such a thing would almost certainly leave tracks. If we can't trace the cubs, we can in the least get the general idea of the direction the cubs are going. And if we can do that, then we can possibly predict where they will end up…" Lukaan said. Danyal nodded.

"Great Plan! Only one, tincey, wincey, tiny, microscopic little detail… I CAN'T BLOODY WALK!" Danyal snapped. Lukaan paused, and Sundar glanced at him apologetically.

"What's your point?" Lukaan asked. Danyal stared at him.

"How the hell am I supposed to go after the cubs, if I can barley move out of that blasted cave!" He snapped again. Lukaan shrugged.

"Is a Lion measured by how strong he is? Or by his ability to fight?" He asked. Danyal frowned.

"That is the traditional practice… All the Great Lions were great a might warriors…" He said. Lukaan shook his head.

"That is where you are wrong. You didn't kill Sekmet by being stronger, you killed her by being able to sacrifice yourself for a good cause. You saved those cubs before and you can do so again – not because you can fight, you're not even an adult – but because you have courage, will, and compassion! Sundar, you've seen his mind, correct me if I am wrong, but those qualities are what makes you a great Lion, not you ability to decapitate enemies." Lukaan said. Danyal gave a short laugh.

"The decapitation sounds a little more useful than useless, bag of meat!" Danyal said. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I think my part in all of this may be finished." Danyal said sadly. Lukaan shook his head violently this time.

"No, you don't yet understand…"

Lukaan

A blade of grass in a meadow green

Though its color brightly shine

Can never know its purpose

In the pattern of the grand design

And the stone that sits on the very top

Of the mountain's mighty face

Does it think it's more important

Than the stones that form the base?

So how can you see what your life is worth

Or where your value lies?

You can never see through the eyes you have

You must look at your life

Look at your life through heaven's eyes

Danyal paused.

"Very poetic Lukaan, but we need to be realistic here! I can't do anything to help then – I told Sundar already! I can't fight, I can't hunt I am useless and Broken! I told her already, my death would have been better for my Pride!" Danyal said.

Sundar answered him, continuing her fathers song.

Sundar

A lake of gold in the desert sand

Is less than a cool fresh spring

And to one lost cub, a mother's touch

Is greater than the richest king

If a lion lose ev'rything he owns

Has he truly lost his worth?

Or is it the beginning

Of a new and brighter birth?

So how do you measure the worth of a lion?

In strength or skill or size?

In the lands he gained or the food he gave?

The answer will come

The answer will come to him who tries

To look at his life through heaven's eyes

Lukaan

And that's why we share all we have with you

Though there's little to be found

When all we've got is nothing

There's a lot to go around

No life can escape being blown about

By the winds of change and chance

And though you never know all the steps

You must learn to join the dance

You must learn to join the dance!

The rhythm of the song echoed through the night, as a few of the other Lionesses emerged from their den at the sound of commotion, adding their own voices to the symphony. Danyal began to snort at their idiocy. If they wanted to make fools of themselves, it was their own affair. Helio looked almost as dismayed at the whole spectacle as Danyal did, but neither said anything. Instead, Danyal gave up trying to reason his point.

Not the regular dance – the dance of life, the rhythm of the Jungle, the heartbeat of time. The dance that made up the harmony and balance that was the world. And then, Danyal understood. It was no different to the supposed circle of life. Lukaan moved up to him, holding a chunk of meat in his paw which he had promised earlier. Now it was nighttime, but above a hundred billion stars lit up the sky. Perhaps they were the vestiges of the some long lost power. Perhaps they were the souls of departed. Perhaps they were simply lights in the sky. It didn't matter to Danyal now… They were just a fact of the universe. And another fact of the universe was the fact he was crippled. Wallowing in self pity would not help anyone – and in doing so, he had abandoned the principles that had led to his maiming in the first place.

Sekmet… I hope you burn in seven hells for this! Danyal thought bitterly. But Lukaan and Sundar were right. He was more than the strength of his claws and his ability to kill. He was so much more. And he had been blind not to see it in the first place.

So how do you judge what a lion is worth

Throughout his lows and highs?

You can never see with your eyes on earth

Look through heaven's eyes

Look at your life

Look at your life

Look at your life through heaven's eyes!

AN:

As always, please, leave a review if you enjoyed it. The Song was called "Heaven's Eyes, from the DreamWorks animated musical, "The Prince Of Egypt". I felt the lyrics were poignant, and I hope you all enjoyed my reemergence onto the screen. The Faster I get my (undisclosed) amount of reviews, the faster I will update this story – So get to it, tell me what you think. Hopefully, Danyal should be climbing out of his depression a little…

The second creation myth is just another little way I am differentiating the two different Prides. Even so, I hope you enjoyed it!