A quick note about the timeline of this chapter: this chapter takes place over a large amount of time. This chapter probably spans over a few weeks.
The days stretched into weeks, leaving Dalia restless. Imba seems to be on nerves as well. Despite the uncertainty in the air, the spies eventually slip into a routine of sorts. They wake up, lounge around in Kilio Valley for a little bit, occasionally pretend to terrorize the Pridelanders, sometimes meet with Scar, and then go back to sleep. Dalia tries to limit her nightly meetings with Kion, but she enjoys his company whether or not she's willing to admit it.
Imba tells her not to sneak out as much, but Dalia largely ignores the advice.
In their time in Kilio Valley, they begin to pick up on the dynamic between the packs that make up Scar's Army.
Starting with the crocs — Kiburi himself is something of a meathead, but his goons are far worse. They're strong, Dalia knows that much, but boy is they are dumb.
Moving on to the jackals — Reirei is a royal pain in the butt. The jackal matriarch will always jump at the opportunity to make a snippy comment as soon as it arises. But she's also clever. Her mate, on the other hand? Is a lazy deadbeat. In Dalia's opinion, Reirei would be much better off without Goigoi or the little gremlins she's always running around after.
The vultures are a pain, and Imba in particular finds them a nuisance. But if you're able to get used to their parliament stuff, they're actually not that bad.
And lastly, the hyenas. Where to start with the hyenas? Janja seems to be smarter than he gives off, but Cheezi and Chungu are the probably biggest morons Dalia has ever come across. She actually doesn't mind Janja. She understands him in a way, and she truly feels bad for him.
There are some days that Dalia even thinks that maybe, in another life, they could be friends.
And today is not one of those days, Dalia thinks with a silent groan.
The moment she sees Janja angrily stomping towards her, annoyance contorting his features, she knows that it's going to be a long day.
"Where were you last night?" Janja demands angrily.
Dalia sighs, watching as the morning sun begins to rise over the savannah. "And good morning to you too, Janja. What a lovely mood you are in."
The hyena locks his jaw. "Don't act coy with me, little lioness," he snaps, "Where were you last night? Because when I woke up, you weren't there. Then I saw you sneaking back into Kilio Valley right before everyone else started waking up."
"The watering hole," she replies coolly. Her eyes flash with amusement. "What? You gonna report me for drinking water?"
In reality, she had snuck out of Kilio Valley to meet with Kion again. Last night, Kion had given her an update on the situation. Apparently, after a talk with his father, Kion realized that the prejudice the Pridelanders hold against the Outlanders runs deep. The pair both quickly realized that change is going to be a slow and fickle process. It's not going to be easy to make peace.
Janja stares at her for a hard moment, trying to determine whether or not she was lying. Of course, Dalia, being the lioness she is, gives no indication that she is being deceitful.
After a beat, he rolls his eyes and gruffly says, "Fine. But next time, tell someone before you go."
"Sure," replies Dalia.
"Stick around camp today," Janja says, "Maybe go on patrol in the Outlands. Make yourself useful."
"Yeah," sneers a voice from behind them. Dalia turns around to find the owner of the voice smirking at her: Reirei. The jackal brushed past her and look at Janja. "C'mon, Janja. Let's go attend the meeting that somebody wasn't invited to." The matriarch gives a pointed glare at Dalia.
Scar wanted to meet with basically all the pack leaders, which excluded Dalia and Imba. By extension, it also meant that the pair would be stuck in Kilio Valley with the weakest links of each pack. So essentially, a day stuck in Kilio Valley spent with the biggest idiots of Scar's Army. Sounds absolutely enthralling.
Dalia wants to slap the silly smirk off the jackal's face, but before she could do anything, Janja lets out a sigh. "Lay off her, Reirei," he muttered, to the surprise of both Reirei and Dalia.
The lioness suddenly feels Imba swooping down from her perch in a nearby tree. The eagle then rests evenly between the blades of Dalia's shoulders and gives a glare to Reirei.
"Yeah, leave her alone," Imba adds.
The jackal scoffs then starts to move away from the group. Janja quickly follows the jackal into the Outlands, soon followed by Kiburi and Mzingo. Watching the pack leaders leave Kilio Valley and leave her behind only sparks more jealousy in the lioness. It wasn't so much that Dalia wanted to see Scar, but she did want to be valued as highly as the rest of the pack leaders.
"That was close," Imba murmurs as soon as the Outlanders are out of sight.
Dalia cocks a brow. "What was?"
The eagle furrows her brows together. "You know what I'm talking about, Dalia." She glances around Kilio Valley to make sure the remaining Outlanders wouldn't hear their conversation. "You need to stop meeting with Kion. It's getting way too risky. Besides, now that we've got Kinyonga, you really don't need to."
Kinyonga turned out to be quite the little spy. Dalia and Imba, over the past few weeks, have been utilizing her mightily. With her help, the Lion Guard can anticipate and prevent a lot of the attacks before it happens.
"There are some things that Kinyonga can't convey as well as I can," the lioness rebuffs. And to some extent, it was true.
Imba growls. "Don't let this little crush of yours blow our cover," she says.
Dalia immediately feels heat rising to her cheeks. "I do not have a crush!" she replies a bit too emphatically to be convincing. "And I'm not going to blow our cover."
But it's true; she didn't have any sort of non-platonic feelings for Kion. Yes, she enjoys his company. But she views him as she views Tombie — a friend.
"Right. Well, whatever it is, you better be careful, Dalia."
And with that, Imba takes flight.
"Hey, Imba, wait!" she calls after her. When the eagle doesn't even pause her stride, Dalia lets out a sigh.
Dalia has no clue where the eagle is heading off, but she knows that in a few hours, she'd reappear. Imba and Dalia had been butting heads more often recently, and the former has a little habit of just leaving in the heat of their spats. And after a few hours, Imba returns with a pleasant smile on her face. The lioness wishes that her flighted friend would stick around to actually discuss their issues rather than just ignore them.
"Trouble in paradise?" Goigoi slurs from behind her.
She turns to see the lazy father peering at her from half-lidded, bleary eyes. From her short time of knowing Goigoi, Dalia's come to realize that the male jackal always looks like he's gotten zero sleep the night before and/or accidentally eaten fermented fruit.
"Tell me about it," Dalia says with a sigh.
The espionage job isn't going exactly how she had planned. She thought it would've been easy. Sneak into Scar's Army, earn their trust, and learn their plans. In reality, she's spending her time bickering with Imba, learning that the conflict between the Outlanders and Pridelanders isn't so one-sided, and dealing with some of the biggest dunces she has ever encountered.
It's almost laughable how things have played out.
"I've thought about what you said," Dalia says softly.
Imba's brows raise and a soft smile spreads across her beak.
By now, several hours have passed and the Outlanders have all regrouped back at Kilio Valley. Nobody will tell Dalia what was discussed at the meeting, and that slightly annoys her, but she decides to drop it. Around the time the Outlanders returned, Imba had too. And just as she had during their previous arguments, she didn't talk about it much after she left.
"Have you now?" Imba replies.
"I have. And I think you're right," the lioness adds. "I'll limit my sneaking out."
Imba gives a pleasant smile. "Good." She tilts her head towards Goigoi and Cheezi, who were currently squabbling over which creature — hyena or jackal — were the most intelligent. "So, how did your day with them pan out?"
She makes a face. "Lovely, thank you very much for asking."
The eagle lets out a mighty chuckle but was quickly cut off by Mzingo clearing his throat.
Mzingo, perched on a nearby tree, coughs into his clenched wing, effectively getting everyone's attention. The setting sun behind him gives him an ominous effect, and Dalia wonders if that was the look he aiming for.
"Pardon the interruption, but I thought to utilize this time to reconvene and discuss the plans for tomorrow," Mzingo explained. When nobody gave protest, the vulture continued. "As I was saying, today we deliberated and concluded that we would be far more successful if we struck together as one. As a cohesive, well organized—" he pounds one clenched wing against another flattened one "—force."
"Therefore," he continued, "Tomorrow, the hyenas and the crocs will attack the Pridelands from the western entrance. That will be the first of many attacks of the day, you see. The first attack will serve as a distraction. Later, when the Guard is tired and weak, we will formulate a three-sided attack between the crocs, jackals, and hyenas to invade Mizimu Grove." He cleared his throat once more. "Uh, that is all. You are dismissed."
Dalia and Imba both exchanged glances at the new piece of information. And as soon as everyone was retiring for the night, Imba found Kinyonga hiding amongst the dirt and sent her straight-away to go warn Kion.
The next morning, by the time Goigoi had finally woken up, Janja and the crocs returned unsuccessfully. However, nobody seemed to be bothered by their lack of success as their loss was according to plan. According to the plan that Scar cultivated with the pack leaders yesterday, Janja and the crocs were to retreat from their attack. They hoped the Lion Guard would be tired after the distraction, thus allowing the next attack to run without a hitch.
Fortunately for the Lion Guard (and unfortunately for Scar), Imba and Dalia had made sure Kinyonga would go and warn Kion about both attacks.
And both Janja and Kiburi seemed to pick up on this, as well.
"The Lion Guard seemed... more prepared," Janja explains, his dark eyes darting about as if he thinks there's a mole right under his nose. And, well, there are actually two. "As if they were expecting us."
"Yeah," Kiburi says with a nod.
Mzingo shrugged. "It's probably a mere coincidence, my dear compatriots," says the vulture. "After all, Scar did select the best entry point into the Pridelands."
Janja eyes the bird suspiciously but doesn't say anything further.
Instead, Reirei takes a step forward. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. Even if the Lion Guard had anticipated the first attack, there is no way they would be able to anticipate the next one." The jackal matriarch takes a look at Dalia. "Come on, kid. You can tag along with the jackals."
Dalia smirks and stands up. "Sounds fun," she says breezily.
A small part of her is glad as she follows Reirei and the jackals out of Kilio Valley. At least there is finally going to be some action around here. She's been so bored lately (spending most of her time hanging around camp), that she's eager for any change in scenery. This would be her first time "facing" the Lion Guard since she took on this espionage role. It would be interesting to figure out how to make her fights with the members of the Lion Guard seem believable.
Very interesting, indeed.
Author's Note: So, as you may or may not have noticed, I did skip over a few episodes (The Cave of Secrets and The Zebra Mastermind). Just a fair warning for the future: this fic isn't necessarily a strict LG rewrite with the addition of an OC. There may or may not be a few episodes in the future that I'll skip over if I think it doesn't add much to the plot. Either way, thoughts on this chapter? I know it was a pretty basic filler chapter but I hoped you enjoyed it. And, yes, we'll be seeing Tombie very soon! (I was missing him!)
Oh, side note: it recently came to my attention that a new Lion Guard-related series is coming out on Youtube this winter. You can take a quick peek at the content we might be seeing on both Youtube (Night Pride) and Instagram (nightprideseries).
