Chapter XXVIII
And with that, Timon heftily sighed before he sat back down and folded his arms after he unpaused the video once more, now just for the sake of getting it over with.
Okay, so how long has this movie been on? Umm... over a half hour, forty-five minutes? Okay you know what? There you go, Simba. There's a girlfriend. It's a love story now.
"I swear to God, if he says anything about you and I..." Simba said flatly to Nala.
"Brace for impact, everyone." Kopa remarked humorously. "The fire has just been lit."
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, unlike Aladdin and Jasmine who fell in love because although they were both on opposite sides of the social field they could relate to each other about feeling trapped in their lives, or like Belle who fell in love with the Beast because she saw the inner good in him which made him see the inner good in himself and fall in love with her,
"Hey, that sounds exactly like what happened to us!" Kiara said perking up, which got Kovu's attention. He thought for a moment before he said, "Yeah, you know... that is what happened to us!"
Timon shook his head. "Guess it really is a small world after all." He said softly.
Simba and Nala fall in love because they have three seconds of screen time. Because who wants to see a story about someone having to get the girl when you can just drop one on him?
The real Simba groaned loudly at these words, his expression becoming steadily more angered. "You know what?" He said. "I'm convinced. There's no longer any way he could've ever seen the movie at all. He didn't see it, that's all I can say now."
"We knew each other since we were kids!" Nala blurted out. "Simba and I were friends since we were both barely a month old! Maybe not romantically yet, but we were sure as hell close back then! Not to mention I know we were both secretly in love with one another."
She turned to Simba. "And when I found you in the jungle, I was only then ready to tell you how I felt about you."
The lion nodded. "Same here, Nala." He replied. When he did, however, Kopa accidentally let out a loud snicker. Nala turned to her son, trying not to glare at him.
"I guess that's why you two decided to get busy that same night, huh?"
This was able to get a few laughs from the others, making Nala blush. Here Timon commented, "And the fans say Kiara and Kovu's romance was rushed? At least they didn't go at it on day one!"
Kiara cocked her eyebrow when she heard his, leaning in closer to the meerkat now. "They... they really say that about us?"
Timon turned around to face her. "Don't worry about it Kiara, we'll cross that bridg- I mean uh, river when we get to it."
Kiara was about to ask why that didn't comfort her, but then she remembered- this was Timon she was dealing with.
I mean honestly, these two share maybe three sentences together. Most of it is just recapping what's happened in the last few years, and the only thing they have in common is that they both have no personality.
"Uh yeah, you mind mentioning the fact that she thought Simba was dead for years and then she finally had new hope when she found him alive?" Kovu pointed out. "Hell, if the only other male she had to be around was Scar for all that time, I'm almost not surprised she and Simba went at it that night."
"Keyword being almost." Kopa muttered to his brother-in-law.
By this point Simba would've said something in protest, but he no longer saw any point to it. After all, what Kovu said was in fact the truth. As hard of a time he had admitting that, it wasn't a lie or a remark at all.
So Simba has found the love of his life.
"The first sensible thing said in this so far!" Vitani cut in.
And in record time, no less. Are Timon and Pumbaa happy for their friend? Of course not. They're a**holes.
"Hey, you know what?" Timon said with a hint of disgust in his voice. "If I had a dime for every time he said the word asshole, I'd have enough to buy the freaking Pride Lands!"
Simba stared blankly at his friend for a second. He asked, "Am... am I ever going to understand what you just said, Timon?"
"I wouldn't count on it, buddy."
The only thing they care about is that they're losing the once exclusive rights they had to their lion.
"And yet again, logic is thrown out the window!" Timon said, unfolding his arms. "Yes, we were upset at the time. So what? We got over it because we saw Simba as a friend! We still do, that's why we went to help him beat Scar! That's why we went to help him fight the Outsiders later on too!"
"And doesn't he know how low on the food chain we are?" Pumbaa added. "Why would we not want to have a lion to protect us for so long as a bonus?"
So as far as characters go, Nala's character sort of reminded me of the character Lily from Star Trek: First Contact. In that, I'm not even sure what she is doing in this film. She doesn't add or contribute anything to it. I mean is she here to make this a love story? No, that never happens.
"Never happens?!" Simba shouted at the top of his lungs, echoing to the outside slightly. "For Christs's sakes, we've been in love since childhood! Nala's the most important one in the world to me, we've had two cubs together, and I would die if it meant protecting her!"
Nala turned to him, cracking a smile. "I was just going to say the same thing about you, Simba."
With that, Simba and Nala tenderly nuzzled together as the king placed his paw on her shoulder. Despite the annoyed groan this got from Kovu, they did this for several seconds.
Vitani cleared her throat. "Yeah, sure doesn't look like love at all to me." She said sarcastically.
They fall in love automatically, it's neither deserved or earned.
"They both found someone they could depend on for God sakes!" Kopa said. "And I've gotta say, that has to be the most heartless thing I've ever heard about my own parents! If they weren't in love, explain how Kiara and I even exist then!"
Kiara nodded to her brother approvingly. She said with a sly smile, "He wouldn't be able to, Kopa. He's not smart enough to know how that works."
"Boy, would that explain a lot." Kovu remarked beside her.
Simba goes off to pout by himself for a while and then we're introduced to the character Rafiki, who... barely qualifies as a character as far as I'm concerned
"Just when I thought this couldn't get any worse." Simba muttered to himself.
I said this after I saw the movie for the first time
"No you didn't!" Kiara shouted. "Stop saying you were that critical when you were a kid! I don't know how humans think, but I sure know they aren't like that when they're young."
Timon snickered. "Some of them aren't even like that as adults." He remarked.
and I think it's true even to today. You could just skip Rafiki's part and go right to Simba seeing his dad in the clouds and it would be exactly the same.
Simba cocked his head. "So he's saying that if he never told me the past can hurt but I can learn from it, it would've been the same?"
I mean what's the point of introducing this character so late in the film?
"He wasn't!" Timon cut in. "That wasn't the first time they showed him, he was there right from the opening scene!"
He turned around and faced Simba. "Hey Simba, do you remember when that crazy monkey held you up off of Pride Rock when you were a baby?"
The lion nodded. "Well for the humans, that's one of the most famous movie scenes in the world! And Rafiki was the one doing it to begin with!"
Simba, Kopa and Kiara all shook their heads in disbelief.
This is the first time this character has ever verbally interacted with any other character in the whole film, and as if that wasn't odd enough, it's also the last time he will do so.
"So when Rafiki said 'it is time' to me, that doesn't count at all?" Simba asked in a very unimpressed tone.
We're never going to know anything about this person as a character, and we're never going to know anything about the relationship he had with Mufasa or anyone else.
"Has he ever heard of the term 'actions speak louder than words'?" Pumbaa asked. "At the start of the movie he came up to Pride Rock and hugged Mufasa. Obviously that means he was good friends with him, right Simba?"
Simba nodded. "From what I remember, yes, they were very good friends. And I'm friends with him now! If I wasn't, do you think he would be the one to present the new heirs?"
Timon snickered. "No, but if that were the case I'm sure he'd be happy to drop them over the edge... as some of your fans like to think, of course."
And then of course we have the famous scene where Simba sees his father in the clouds. Now I don't want you to think that I'm holding this film to some kind of adult standard, I thought this as a kid.
"Why wouldn't you?" Kopa suddenly questioned. "It's the story of my grandfather being brutally murdered right in front of my dad when he was a child! They'd never show that to kids, what the hell are you talking about?"
Kiara chuckled to herself. "Is he seriously saying that the movie is okay for kids of all people? Come on, they'd never let anyone that young watch that kind of dark stuff, am I right?"
Kovu laughed. "Yeah, that's like saying my mother's song about bloody murder is totally appropriate for them."
"What an idiot, right Timon?" Simba asked, clearly being humored by this. But then Timon simply turned around and tried his best not to sound suspicious, which failed pretty badly. He replied,
"Oh, um... y-yeah Simba! They'd never show this to children, pttf! What are you nuts?... ugh..."
Why is Mufasa only appearing to Simba now? Why didn't he appear when... oh I don't know, when these two a**holes were corrupting his kid?
"You just can't understand any of this, can you?" Simba asked flatly. "If he appeared to me when I was a cub, what good would that have done? I was a kid, I couldn't fight Scar back then! How could I have taken on not only him, but a hundred bloodthirsty hyenas too?"
What was keeping him? Were he and the kings of the past partying up there and just lost track of the time?
Nala said to this, "That has to be the worst joke I've ever heard in my life."
"So not only does he think he could've taken on Scar as a kid, but he also thinks crap like that?" Kopa questioned, sounding clearly unhappy from these words. Pumbaa sighed.
"You know", the warthog said. "He's exactly like the people who think Kiara's a completely bad hunter just because of her first time- the expectations are too high too early, only here I think it's worse!"
"Personally, I don't know which of those I should be more mad at." Kovu remarked, gently placing his right paw upon Kiara's left one which earned him a sincere smile from her.
What makes this worse is that Mufasa doesn't even say anything useful or applicable to the situation to Simba.
"That's it, now I'm convinced!" Simba said. "I had my suspicions before, but now I'm sure of it- he didn't watch the movie at all. My father told me I needed to remember who I am! He was saying I had to remember I was the future king so I could take my rightful place and face my past! That perfectly applies to the situation!"
"He gave you the confidence to come back!" Nala said. "If it weren't for that, God knows what could've happened!"
Timon said to himself, "Yeah, your fan base probably wouldn't be nearly as big as it is now... even though at this point I think we'd all welcome that."
He says, remember who you are'. Well, who's that? The a**hole or the cucumber because I don't think that either one of those are good for this situation.
"Yeah, they wouldn't be if I was ever either one of those to begin with!" Simba cut in.
He ends up back at Pride Rock, and then discovers that a few people have come to help him. One of these people is the useless cardboard cutout Nala
Simba growled when he heard this. "Don't you dare insult my mate like that!" He said. Here Vitani turned to him and added, "That's all he's been doing this whole time: insulting every single person who was alive at the time this happened! Hell, I wasn't born when this happened and I feel insulted!"
"So say we all, Vitani." Kiara nodded to her.
And the other two... are Timon and Pumbaa. Even though nothing that we've seen or heard from them in this film justifies this decision.
"What the hell is there to even be justified there?" Timon said flinging his arms forth. "We just wanted to help him because he was our friend, and friends stick together to the end!"
They never had a epiphany where they learned Hakuna Matata was bad. They never learned not to be stupid and lazy and selfish.
"That is literally the precise reason why I went back!" Timon continued. "Sure, I'll admit was selfish about it at first and I was ready to let Pumbaa go on his own. But I did have an epiphany about Hakuna Matata! If I didn't, I probably wouldn't have gone at all!"
Kopa placed a paw on his forehead in disbelief, shaking his head as he did so. "Did he just fall asleep when the movie was playing or something? Is that it?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." Vitani said to her mate. "A lot like how that jerk-off who wrote Lion of the Rings fell asleep during the movie too."
Here Timon turned his head and faced Vitani, turning his body slightly. He chickled to himself. "You know, Vitani, I've wanted to say this for a while now... if you had a hard time following Lion of the Rings, I would love to see you try and follow something called The Silmarillion."
"Oh great, did he write that too?" The lioness asked flatly. Timon shook his head.
"No, but the confusion levels are definitely still the same."
They never even had a moment where they apologized to Simba for emotionally grounding him in the dirt this whole time, and maybe using that as a justification for being here.
"What does that even mean?" Kovu asked with a very confused tone. "They don't apologize for giving him food, shelter and friendship for years... and he thinks that's a reason for being there in the fight?... what?"
There is nothing in this film that justifies these two being here to help. They're here because they're main characters.
"I refuse to waste my precious breath saying it again!" Timon shouted, folding his arms back up.
Now, I feel dirty just giving this credit at all, but I would also be very dishonest if I didn't give it the one genuine compliment it deserves.
"You mean you weren't being dishonest before?" Vitani said jokingly.
Then next in the video, he showed stills from Timon's hula dance.
This was funny. I laughed at this hard.
"Ha! I knew it!" Nala said standing up. "I knew there had to be something else he wouldn't beat into the ground here!"
Simba nodded beside her. "I had a feeling he'd say something about what Timon did there. Hell, when he actually did it, I had a hard time keeping a straight face."
"Why thank you, Simba, I try." Timon said with a smug look on his face.
So Simba finally faces Scar, and all the lions in the kingdom realize that Simba is in fact alive. You know, Scar told you guys that both Mufasa and Simba were killed in the stampede and seeing Simba alive here kinda seems to contradict that story. Does anyone feel like bringing that up?... anyone?
"Well at the time we thought the body was just missing." Nala pointed out. "He actually took us to that gorge and showed us Mufasa's body! If Simba weren't there, what the hell were we supposed to believe?"
"Maybe he was just wrong! You ever think of that?" Kopa said. "No one's always right, especially if we're taking about Scar of all lions!"
So Simba and Scar have a little back-and-forth an then finally Scar pulls the 'admit it Simba, you're responsible for Mufasa's death' routine.
"How the hell is that a routine?!" Kiara cut in.
You know, Scar told you guys that both Mufasa and Simba were killed in a stampede and now he's trying to turn it around and say that Simba was responsible, which really contradicts his original story. Does anyone want to bring that up?... anyone? No, in fact what does Simba's mom say to him when she hears this? 'It's not true, tell me it's not true'.
"Crap, first he insults my father, then me, then my mate, now my mother!" Simba said angrily. "She didn't sound anything like that!"
"Probably because she didn't have the voice of a twenty-something male." Timon said under his breath.
Okay, come on. This is stupid! Not one of these lions, not one of these lions is even remotely curious as to how a two pound cub could have possibly been responsible for the death of a six hundred pound lion? They're not even gonna ask?
Nala said here, "We didn't ask because look at it this way: The one who we thought was dead for years, the one I fell in love with, and the one I even had sex with with said straight out that he was responsible for Mufasa's death! Even if it wasn't true, that was a lot to take in!"
"You wouldn't ask questions right then!" Kovu said. "They would let the shock wear off and then start to think about it! Do you have any idea how big of an impact that wold probably leave?"
"This is so typical." Timon said shaking his head. "Once again, his expectations are too high too early. Just like the fans who say Kiara sucks because she failed her first freaking hunt!"
"Okay don't push it, Timon." Kiara said to the meerkat.
Of course not, because if they did ask, the writers would have to immediately conceive that the motivation Simba has for thinking he's responsible for his father's death don't exist! here's how this conversation would've played out if logic were applied.
"Oh joy." Vitani said sarcastically and flatly. "My curiosity is just so piqued about how he's gonna do this."
"This is going to suck big time." Kopa added. And from here, Confused Matthew started imitating each character with his voice.
Scar: Admit it Simba, you're responsible for Mufasa's death.
Sarabi: Wait what do you mean he's responsible, you told us Mufasa was killed in a stampede.
Scar: Oh, he... he was.
Sarabi: So why are you now saying that Simba's responsible?
Scar: Well... he was on this rock you see and-
Nala: What was he doing on a rock?
Lioness: Yeah, how do you know he was on a rock?
Scar: Uh-I... I sort of... told him to stay there.
Sarabi: Oh, so this is your fault!
Zazu: Hey you know, now that you mention it, Scar did smack me across the world when I said I was going for help, and yet somehow I never put the pieces together on that! But now that you mention it, yeah this is Scar's fault!
Sarabi: Okay come on guys, let's get at him!
"He did not disappoint." Kopa muttered to Vitani, where she nodded in agreement.
"Okay, even if it did go like that, it would've taken longer." Nala started. "Sooo, Scar told Simba to stay on the rock in the gorge... how would that indicate Scar was responsible? That wouldn't automatically tell us it was him! He did tell us all about how Mufasa was supposed to have some kind of surprise for him and that he left him on the rock so he could get him! We at least knew about that at the time!"
Simba decided to add, "Hey, remember when he thought I was responsible because I was just there?"
Nala nodded. Simba went on, "That's exactly what he just made Scar say there! Just because he was there and told me to stay on the rock, he thinks the lionesses should've known who was responsible just from that that! Because he was just there!"
"That has to be the biggest contradiction I've ever heard!" Kiara said. "He demonizes it for one reason and then goes for it in another as long as it helps his nonexistent point!"
Kovu shook his head in disbelief. "What a hypocrite." He said.
But since everyone in this film is either evil or a complete idiot, they all just take his word for it.
"Hey, didn't he say exactly the same thing before?" Kiara pointed out. "He literally just used that same line from earlier!"
"So he's not only a hypocrite, but he's lazy too." Kovu added. "He just can't let us like this review, can he?"
Timon cleared his throat before he turned and faced Kovu. "Well in that case kid, I've got both good and bad news for ya'... the good news is that there's only two minutes left in this."
He sighed a collective sigh of relief. "Thank God."
"Well what's the bad news?" Kiara asked him. And to this, Timon replied, "Well Kiara, here's the bad news... There's still two whole minutes of torture before we can face the sun and the outside world with clean minds once more!"
That last part he said in an extremely melodramatic tone that came off as more humorous than sad. Kiara grinned and turned to Kovu.
"Yep. That's Timon for you." She said.
So Simba is backed over a cliff without a foothold and... I guess Zeus is against him too because a bolt of lightning happens to strike under him and starts a fire. Then for absolutely no reason Scar tells Simba the obvious: He was responsible for Mufasa's death.
"Uh, that wasn't for no reason." Simba commented. "He wanted to kill me both physically and mentally by telling me I wasn't responsible after all right before he was going to kill me! If it weren't for me jumping after him it would've worked!"
This gives Simba the ability to fly and he lands on top of Scar
"Speaking of which..." Simba said flatly.
Then he has Scar tell everyone else what they should've figured out by virtue of the fact that Simba's not dead. So in fact the only thing Simba actually learns in this film is that he wasn't actually responsible for his father's death. Which he should've figured out years ago.
"Uh, not a chance in hell!" Simba cut in. "That isn't all I got from the whole thing at all! I learned to accept responsibility and to face my past instead of running away from it!"
"Which was made explicitly clear with Rafiki and the Mufasa ghost scene!" Timon added.
But this is The Lion King, so now the writers are going to wrap this thing up not with any kind of moral or lesson
"What did I just say?!" Timon and Simba shouted in unison.
but with violence. So they fight, fight. Fight fight fight, fight fight fight fight,
"Okay, we get it!" Vitani stated. "You don't need to say it a hundred times, just say it once and we'll still get the same thing!"
Then finally the hyenas take care of Scar for everyone and then disappear into nowhere I guess.
"So he isn't going to mention how I almost died personally fighting Scar and how I flipped him off of Pride Rock, which is what allowed the hyenas to take care of him?"
Kopa said loudly, "What the hell, man?! He isn't even going to tell the most crucial point in that whole thing at all? The thing that caused Scar to die?!"
Nala said, "And besides, the hyenas didn't just disappear out of nowhere! Those that didn't burn to death ran back to the Elephant Graveyard! Hell, I think some of them even went to the Outlands after that!"
Simba takes his place as king, and then all's right in Pride Rock. No one learns anything, no one experiences anything, and- wait a minute! What the hell are those two doing cheering up there? They didn't do anything!
"Is he trying to drive everyone insane now?!" Vitani shouted. "Nothing about that was right! Not a single sentence of what he just said was anywhere near accurate!"
"Vitani, don't bother saying why at this point." Timon said to her. "If you do, you'd sound like a broken record."
"Whatever that is." The lioness muttered to herself.
Timon continued, "He's saying that charging into hyenas like a tank, doing a distracting hula dance to get them away, and proposing to one of the hyenas counts as doing nothing?!"
"I could've died from that!" Pumbaa said loudly.
They're partially responsible for what happened at Pride Rock since they're the ones who were holding Simba back this whole time!
"Yeah, from death!" Pumbaa said.
You know what? F**k this, take them out of there. That's better.
"He can't honestly be passing that off as a real effect, is he?" Timon asked, pointing out the very poor attempt to edit him and Pumbaa out of the frame. "Lazy with a capital L!"
So what's the moral of this story? Well, it turns out that there are actually two. One- Anyone who tells you to turn your back on the world is your friend, and two- don't turn your back on the past because it's very possible that someone was just taking advantage of your stupidity the whole time. The end.
At the very second that these words were finished being uttered, Simba instantly shut his eyes and collapsed to the ground, his head and mane landing right at Nala's paws. He groaned. The video was finally over.
"Nala...?" He said with his exhausted muffled voice. The lioness looked down to him.
"Do me a favor and drown me when I wake up, okay? Just take me to the water hole, and just hold my face underwater until I stop moving."
Nala shook her head as she stood up and then kneeled down to her mate, helping him back up to stand on all fours once more. Simba cringed.
"I... I just have no words." He said tiredly. "I've got nothing... nothing at all to describe what I just saw."
"Well I've got a few words for you then, dad." Kopa said, with a certain force building up in his voice. "That was the most insensitive, insulting and abysmal thing I've ever heard! I can't believe how unsympathetic that was! How do humans even come up with those kinds of things to say about us?!"
Vitani said, "How is it that he manages to act like he's so smart and yet know so little? I understand everything that happened and I wasn't even born yet!"
Kiara nodded to her. "You took the words right out of my mouth, Vitani. That video has to be the most heartless thing I've ever seen! He spent half of it unfairly ripping on my father and then the other half misinterpreting everything that could possibly be misinterpreted!"
Kovu looked down to his mate as he said, "Zira even understood half of what he didn't! And you know what? This whole video or whatever it's called has gotta be the second most offensive thing I've heard from the entire Internet so far!"
Pumbaa perked up when he said this, raising an eyebrow. "Oh uh, then what's the first most offensive, Kovu?"
The lion narrowed his eyes. "You know damn well what the first is."
Finally, Nala spoke. "I just don't know what to say. I can't remember the last time I've actually heard someone say things that are so misunderstanding and so terrible! I mean I don't know if he's like this at other times, but that review was just... ugh!"
Finally Timon stood up and unfolded his arms again. He stretched himself out a bit and turned around, only to be met with six enraged and disgusted looks. He truly couldn't blame them.
"I'm... I'm not even gonna ask what you guys thought of that."
Simba nodded. "Seriously, someone please kill me now." he muttered.
Then Kopa stood up and looked next to him where he met with Vitani's disgusted gaze. "Hey, do you hear that, Vitani?" He asked softly. The lioness raised an eyebrow. "If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of my faith for our fan base slowly dying, collapsing and burning to the ground."
Beside them, Nala placed her paw upon Simba's shoulder and brought her face in closer to his. She smiled as best as she could. "Well, we made it through, Simba." She said in an encouraging voice. "We survived it."
Simba exhaled loudly. "Just barely." He replied.
A moment of silence passed among them all before Kiara broke it. "Well that was one hell of a wakeup call." she said, stretching herself out and standing up. She looked over to Kovu. "And just when things were looking up for today, huh?"
Kovu thought about that for a moment before, unexpectedly, he perked up and his eyes widened. Kiara looked somewhat confused.
"What? What is it, Kovu?" She asked him. The lion smiled at his mate for a moment before he looked over to Nala. He said to the old lioness, "Speaking of this morning by the way... Nala, did Simba tell you what we told him this morning?"
She raised an eyebrow at her son-in-law. "What? What are you talking about Kovu?"
Instantly, Simba perked up also. His exhausted expression then changed to that of a smile, his eyes returning to normal upon remembering what had happened beforehand. He turned to his mate. "Oh, that's right... Nala, I was going to tell you something this morning."
"Simba, what's this all about?" She asked with her curiosity rising. And then, Simba uttered his next sentence loud enough so all of the others could hear. His excitement rose dramatically after he hesitated for a moment.
"Nala... Kiara and Kovu are going to have a baby."
Without even letting a second pass by, all of the others stood up and turned their attention to Kiara and Kovu, their eyes widening.
"What? For real?" Vitani asked, happiness rising in her voice.
Nala gasped happily. "Really?" She asked her daughter. "Is that true Kiara?"
With a moment of calm silence, the lioness nodded, blushing slightly while she did so. "Yes mother... we are."
Instantly, Nala, Kopa and Vitani left their spots and walked over to the two of them with Simba simply smiling proudly upon them both. Nala came up to them with an incredibly radiant expression and embraced them both happily, placing her left paw on Kiara's back and the right one on Kovu's.
"Oh my God... oh, Congratulations you two!" she said earnestly, giving her daughter a soft nuzzle. "I'm so happy... oh, it's finally going to happen!"
She looked over to Kovu now, where they both gave each other a thankful smile. "Thank you... thank you both." Nala whispered to her son-in-law.
As Nala said these words, a very subtle tear of joy fell from her eye and ran down her face. It took everything she had not to outright sob with glee at the wonderful news, in fact. Kiara and Nala hugged each other happily for several seconds, embracing one another very lovingly. Then Kiara felt a paw rest upon her shoulder from behind, and when she looked behind her she saw her own brother's very loving and sympathetic expression. She brought herself closer to Kopa.
"I knew this'd happen eventually." He said softly. "Congratulations, Kiara... you'll do just fine."
She chuckled before she replied to her brother, "Thanks Kopa. I look forward to having my own cubs."
Kiara walked over to Kopa and rested her head upon his shoulder, where she pulled him in closer with her paw. He did the same, and the two siblings embraced each other very sincerely for the happy news. Kovu was radiantly watching this go down next to him before he felt Vitani put her paw against his back, getting his attention. He turned to her now.
"Good to see you took my advice, Kovu." She said with a warm smile. "I knew you'd pull through."
The lion replied, "Yeah. Thanks for helping me out last night, Vitani. I owe you one."
Vitani blushed. "Ah, it was nothing." She replied, sitting down beside him. "I'm really happy for you, Kovu... congratulations."
Kovu nodded in approval before he looked downwards to her for a moment. When he did, he gasped very subtly. The lion looked back up to her and smiled. "Hey, look." Kovu said softly, moving his paw down to Vitani's stomach and resting his paw upon it. He saw and felt that it was much larger than what he had noticed before, which indicated that it wouldn't be long before she would officially become a mother. "Your bump is starting to show now... Looks like your cubs are gonna be born first then."
Unexpectedly though, Vitani growled at him as another mood swing set in. "Oh, so you think I'm fat, huh!? Is that it?!"
Kovu sighed contently. "Yep. That's definitely you, Vitani."
Then Timon took a deep breath as he looked up to Pumbaa from past the laptop's screen, moving his gaze away from the beautiful moment in front of him. "So Kiara's finally having a kid, huh?" he said proudly.
Pumbaa nodded, tears beginning to form in his eyes while he looked upon Kiara with joy. "They grow up so fast, don't they, Timon?"
"Yeah buddy." He said earnestly. "It feels like just yesterday when Kovu's mom tried to brutally murder Simba and bloodily rip apart everything we ever knew and loved."
Pumbaa then gave his friend an awkward look and cleared his throat. "Too soon, Timon."
Back with Kiara and Kovu, Nala Vitani and Kopa all crowded closely around the happy couple and each embraced one another warmly. It was a truly beautiful family moment that had come to pass amongst them all. Kiara was on the verge of tears out of elation. Never before had she been so excited, and was absolutely delighted now that she was soon to become a mother. Likewise, Kovu was also exceptionally happy about the prospect of becoming a father to his own cubs, now finally having the chance to give them the lives he himself never could live. The day would soon come when they would both be able to hold in their arms a living breathing child that they themselves had so confidently brought into the world. None of them could've been happier.
Simba simply sat where he was and watched this wonderful moment go down amongst his family, with an incredibly happy and proud look on his face. The king thought to himself, I'm proud of you two, you're finally deciding to have your own cub... Sheesh, am I really getting that old?
Nala took her head off of Kiara's shoulder and released her from her soft grip, where the mother and daughter looked each other in the eye. Nala said softly, "You know, this is exactly what I needed to hear after what I just saw from that computer, Kiara."
Kopa nodded. "Yeah, you've got that right, mom. As long as I don't need to listen to that crap again, I couldn't be happier to hear this."
Unexpectedly though, Timon snickered. Taking a step forth to them all, he cleared his throat rather loudly which got their attention. And in perhaps the most unwise move he could've possibly made at that moment, he said,
"Hey, uh... this might be a bad time to tell you guys this, but about that guy you just watched on the first movie... did I mention that he reviews the second one too?"
Author's Note: I am dreadfully sorry about not getting this chapter out sooner. I've recently had two of my teeth pulled at a dentist appointment (I'm getting my braces very soon), and I've been getting a lot of pain killers and medicine that's been making me exceptionally sleepy, so I haven't had much energy to write as often as I'd like to. Whenever I tried to, it would come out horrible because of my drowsiness. But with that said, I will continue to write this until it's finished, so don't worry about too many more delays.
Also, I will not be covering Confused Matthew's review of The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. I officially finished working with his first review here, and I don't think coverage of his second one is necessary. I feel that would just drag this whole thing out longer than I intend for it to. (Plus it helps that his review of the second film is light years less offensive than his first. Still not really good, but better).
On another order of business, I have a bit of an announcement to make: This story will no longer be covering other people's fanfics. In an experiment to try and keep things fresh with the premise of this whole thing, I will be moving away from fanfics for a while and shifting the focus on other aspects of the Lion King fandom. There's loads of non-fanfic material I wish to cover, and they will be looking at many different things now. If I feel it to be appropriate I might cover another fanfic after this, but only if I think there's enough material to work with in it. Although I have planned out everything they'll look at to the end, I'll gladly consider any suggestions you might have.
I hope you enjoy, and please review!
