As the long night wore on, Nala and a few others had eventually fallen asleep. A few lionesses stayed awake, talking softly between them.

I lay in my corner, wide awake.

After a while, I noticed mother and two other lionesses get up and leave the cave. After giving it a thought, I got up and followed them. A lioness called me back, but I ignored her.

Not far from the entrance, I watched as they went to where I had seen Sarafina and Ni. That part wasn't in my sight, but I waited there for a few minutes.

Eventually, I saw them carrying, two bodies with them, walking in the other direction.

I followed them quietly at a distance, making sure they didn't notice me and send me back to the cave.

They came to a clearing, a distance away from Priderock. The clearing had quite a few mounds scattered around.

I watched as they took Sarafina and Ni to a flat space and placed them on the ground close together.

I couldn't see what they were doing, since one of the lionesses were blocking my view.

It was a while before the two other lionesses got up and left, leaving mother sitting in front of two freshly made mounds.

As soon as they were gone, I went up to mother and put my head against her shoulder. Mother didn't seem surprised to see me.

We sat there in silence for a few moments, until mother spoke. "Shani," her voice sounded tired and hoarse. "There's something I've been meaning to show you. But I want to know if you could handle another stressful thing tonight."

"Yes, mother," I answered. "I can."

Mother got up and made her way not in the direction of Priderock. Wordlessly, I followed.

We walked in a slow pace. The lands were empty and quiet. We reached a dry gorge and mother made her way down it.

The place seemed even emptier and quiet than the areas on our way here. There was something eerie about this place, but at the same time, I felt as though something was hugging me gently and urging me to continue walking along.

We kept on walking until we reached a dead tree that was snapped in half. Underneath it was a mound, much like the mounds I had just seen.

"Shani," mother spoke, breaking the silence. "This is where your father was buried after he died."

I looked at the mound, a thousand thoughts floating in my head that I couldn't quite comprehend. I looked at mother, who was staring at the mound, looking older than I've ever seen her.

I looked up and down the gorge. The only comprehensive thought in my head formed into words.

"Where was my brother buried?" I asked.

Mother looked away before answering. "We never found him," she said. "A scavenger must have gotten to him first, since he was so small..." her voice broke off as a tear run down her cheek.

My stomach turned and my heart cried out for the brother I had never met. He'd been younger than me. No one deserves to die so young.

I nuzzled my head on mother's chest and we sat their in silence for a long time.

The sun began to show its first rays when mother finally got up and made her way home. I rested a paw on my father's grave before I followed.

Goodbye, father.

As soon as we arrived at Priderock, mother entered the cave, but I didn't follow. I sat outside the entrance and closed my eyes, thinking about my father and brother.

As I sat there, a warm breeze blew through my fur. It felt like I was being hugged by something warm and fluffy.

I could almost hear a voice whispering in my ear; I'm here. Everything will be fine.

And I believed it deep in my heart.

A year passed. I was in my mid-juvenile months. Nala and the others were already young adults.

Despite my age, I was already in the hunting group. Food was becoming near impossible to find, so I hadn't caught anything, yet.

Nala's hatred for hyenas had intensified dramatically since the death of her parents. Whenever a hyena would come within a two metre radius, she would pounce on it, often lightly injuring it. We were all worried that Scar would have her exiled for her aggressive behaviour, but, on the contrary, he seemed rather amused by it. I don't know why, but this made me extremely uncomfortable.

One day, Nala, Tama, Kula and I were out searching for something to hunt. So far, we hadn't found anything and our stomachs were growling.

"Got a scent yet?" Tama called out to Nala who was at the front.

"No," she sighed.

My feet were hurting and I was hungry and tired.

"It's getting late," Kula said. "I think we should go home."

Nala sighed. She hated admitting defeat, but what could we do?

"Maybe our mothers have caught something," I said.

When we returned to our cave, mother called Nala and I over.

"We had to eat what we had caught before the hyenas came," she said. "But I managed to save you two something."

Mother gave Nala and I each a bone with some meat on it. I immediately tucked in. Nala wasn't as enthusiastic, though. She played around with the bone, barely nibbling it. Mother knew what was upsetting her.

"Don't worry, Nala," she said. "You'll catch something next time."

"No we won't!" She snapped. "There's nothing to catch! We are all going to starve because of that pathetic excuse for a lion!"

"Well," I mused. "If it comes to it, we can just eat the hyenas. There are so many, Scar wouldn't miss a few."

Nala wrinkled her nose. "I'd sooner starve," she muttered.

Before anyone could reply to that, there was a loud roar summoning us to the ledge of Priderock.

"What does that moron want now?" Sighed a lioness as we all congregated outside of the cave.

Scar was standing at the edge of the ledge. Next to him stood a lioness with blood red eyes and a stripe going from her forehead to her shoulders. Behind them stood a small pride of lionesses whom we didn't recognise.

"I have an announcement to make," Scar roared. "We have some new members joining our pride. Their leader, Zira, will be your new queen. She will be mothering my heirs."

We all stared wide eyed at each other. Scattered muttering broke out.

"That is all for now," Scar continued. "You may go."

No-one said anything out loud before entering the cave. Once we had entered, all the lionesses rounded on mother (who they still saw as queen despite Scar's announcement). There was a lot of "we have enough mouths to feed" and "his legacy can't go on forever " and stuff like that.

Mother called for silence. "Listen," she said rather calmly. "There is really nothing we can do, but grin and bare it. This era we are currently going through can't go on forever. Often things get worse before they get better. We just have to stay strong and, when the time comes, we will know."

The lionesses calmed a little after hearing her wise speech. Everyone broke off to get some sleep. Mother and I lay at our usual corner, but I noticed she took a little while to fall asleep.

Over the next few months, Zira became pregnant before we even got used to her and her pride's presence.

My pride didn't exactly take the news well, but we kept our thoughts to ourselves.

Meanwhile, food was becoming more and more difficult for my pride to come by as Scar insisted that Zira and her pride needed the food more than us.

As time moved on, I noticed that I was becoming less and less energetic. Seeing as I was younger than everyone, getting food was becoming near impossible for me. Everyone literally had to fight for their food. I was the weakest, so naturally I got the least. Mother tried to give me her food, but I refused to take it. I was getting frequent headaches and dizziness. Mother left me off the hunt, so I wouldn't waste any of my energy that I needed to survive.

If things didn't get better, I would likely die.

So, I was planning on writing more, but I think this chapter is long enough. Idk. Anyway, I am sorry I didn't post anything in a while, but I was incredibly busy. Things should be calming down now.

Also, next chapter should be about Nala leaving the Pridelands as well as Shani will learn a dark secret about her father and brother. Yikes , I hope I didn't give away too much;p .

Also, there will be a few SimbaxNala moments in later chapters , but those will have to wait a while. Plus there will definitely be sibling bonding time between the siblings that have never met.

I just want to clarify that I am sticking to the canon stories of tlk 1 . I am merely just adding a character in. Sorry guys, although I have added Kula, Chumvi and Ni into this story, there will be no Kopa, so a warning in advance. The same goes for tlg fans. I want to make the story through the eyes of a lioness that could have existed, but without adding too much complications.

Also, I hate the story title(lol).

Until next time