"Psst. Hey! Kid, wake up!"

The whisper-yelling soon wakes up the sleeping lioness who jolts up from sleep like she had been electrocuted.

"Huh?" Dalia slurs as she blinks open bleary eyes. Her vision clears, and she eventually sees Janja looking down at her, his paw shaking her shoulder. Looking past him, she sees the moon still high in the dark, starry sky. "Janja? What's wrong?"

He shuffles from paw to paw and looks uncomfortable, almost as if he slept in a bed of ticks. "I, uh, needa talk to you."

Dalia nods and sits up, her eyes straining to focus in the darkness. "'Kay. I'm all ears."

"Why?" he blurts, "Why'd you do it?"

Both of the lioness' brows raise. "What are you talking about, Janja? If this is supposed to be some sort of weird trick—"

"No; I just wanna know why you saved me from that geyser a few days back."

Dalia pauses and stares at Janja for a moment. His brows are knitted together anxiously and sweat is glistening over his forehead. He looks almost scared, and Dalia can't figure out why. "Why wouldn't I?" she asks slowly. "We're both on the same team, aren't we?"

Janja looks almost frustrated with her answer. "Well, Reirei and Kiburi both saw me going into that pit and they ran off. Why would you stay behind and get me outta there, even though I hated you?"

"I don't know, Janja," she finally says, her shoulders sagging in defeat. "I don't know why I helped you. I know you probably wouldn't do the same for me, but I couldn't just let you die. Okay?" Noticing the way his face practically oozed with disappointment at her answer, she cocked a brow. "Why do you look so upset? Would you rather me have left you there?"

"It's just..." Janja says, trailing off. "Jasiri helped you save me back there, and she really had no reason to. And when I asked her about it, her answer was the same as yours. I'm just wondering if I'm missing something about this whole war that Scar has planned."

To this, her eyebrows raise once more. "Missing something?"

"Yea." His face contorts with confliction, and Dalia can tell that he's debating telling her something. Eventually, he apparently decides against it. He turns tail, his shoulders sagging. Almost lamely, he says a small "goodnight" over his shoulder, leaving a very confused Dalia in his wake.


The day after the incident in which Janja woke her up in the middle of the night, he avoids Dalia like the plague.

She guesses that he's embarrassed by his moment of weakness (and that's why he's avoiding her), but she wishes that he'd be less obvious about it all. For crying out loud, Dalia doesn't think that he could be any less obvious about him avoiding her. Whenever he happens to accidentally brush past her, he'll stutter like a fool and scamper off. He had actively avoided eating next to her at breakfast, and straight-out ran from her when she had tried to him to stop being so weird.

Reirei had been the first to put it together — Dalia knew that from the way the jackal matriarch's dark eyes followed Janja and Dalia around camp.

Then Mzingo had been the next, and he made a small comment to Janja. "You don't look so well, Janja. Are you feeling quite alright, my good lad?" he had asked.

Janja hadn't answered.

Finally, Imba picks up on it. Shortly after noon, the eagle sits Dalia down with a fierce look in her eyes. "Okay, what's going on between you and Moody?"

"Moody?" Dalia repeats though she's got a pretty good idea of who Imba is talking about. To answer her question, Imba jerks a wing in Janja's direction. "Oh, you mean Janja." The lioness' gaze landed on the hyena. "I haven't the slightest clue. He woke me up last night to ask me why I saved him from that hotspot, I told him I didn't know, and now he's acting like I'm infected with fleas or something.

Dalia's voice lowers, "You know, I really think that he's about to redeem himself. I think Jasiri saving him set off some sort of moral conflict in him."

Imba looks strangely pleased. "I hope so. We need all the help we can get."

Dalia is about to say something else, but the words dry in her mouth when she spots Reirei from the other side of camp.

Reirei is currently pacing around camp, her eyes darting around as if she's trying to spot someone. Her brows are knitted together, but only slightly, and she keeps wiping the frown off her face when another member of Scar's Army accidentally makes eye-contact with her. Dalia knows that she's hiding something, but she needs to figure out what. If she were to guess, Dalia would say that she's planning something behind Scar's back. Either way, Dalia wants to find out what the jackal's hiding.

"Hold on, Imba," she says before standing up. "I'm going to talk with Reirei."

Imba stands and stretches out her wings. "Me too. She's been like this since yesterday. I'm betting that she and that lazy husband of hers are planning something behind Scar's back. Something that'll boost their status among the rest of us."

The lioness nods, and together, the duo approach Reirei who suddenly stops her pacing at the sight of them.

The deep-set frown slips off her face and the jackal does her best to replace it with a smile, but it comes across as a grimace. "Newbie," Reirei says with a small laugh. "What can I do you for?"

"Is something bothering you, Reirei?" Dalia asks slowly. She doesn't fail to notice the way the jackal's jaw clenches.

"No!" she snaps quickly, then backpedals. "Nothing is wrong, Dalia." Her tone is forcedly polite, and the strain in her voice is apparent.

"Now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen Goigoi today," Imba adds. And it's true, now that Dalia thinks about it; Goigoi has been gone all day.

Reirei's eye twitches and her jaw locks in place. "I said nothing is wrong," she grits out.

Dalia can see her beginning to lose composure, and she decides to push just a little more. "We can help you, you know." The jackal's eye twitches. "Just talk to us." Sweat glistens. "What're you hiding?"

That does it. Reirei snaps. "Just shut up! You think you're real slick, don't you? I know you're just taunting me about Kijana being missing, and you're going to use this against me later. I know I'm not the nicest jackal in the pack, but I already feel guilty enough about losing my daughter — you don't need to rub it in!"

With that, Reirei stomps away, leaving behind a confused Dalia and Imba. The nomad had known that Reirei was hiding something, but she hadn't expected it to be this. She thought it was maybe a new plan of Scar's or something along those lines. She can't help but feel a little guilty too. Though she hadn't been meaning to, it obviously came across as if she was taunting a panicked mother.

After a moment of stunned silence, Dalia turns to the eagle. "Her kid's lost?"

Imba nods slowly. "I guess so. That's probably why Goigoi's been missing today; he's looking for Kijana." She quirks a brow. "But what I don't get is why Reirei would keep it a secret from the rest of us. We could have helped her look for the kid."

"Well, it's been said before that Reirei isn't equipped to be the leader of the Army because as it is, she's struggling to keep up with her children," Dalia points out. "I'm guessing she didn't want anyone to find out about this so that her leadership chances wouldn't be lost."

Imba nods once more and then begins taking flight. "I'm gonna see if I can spot Kijana from the sky," Imba says, "I may not like Reirei, but Kijana's just a little pup."

"Yea, you do that," says Dalia, nodding her agreement. "I'm going to go find Reirei."

...

Within a few minutes, Dalia finds Reirei pacing anxiously once again in another part of Kilio Valley. The jackal stiffens at the sight of her.

"I thought I had made it very clear to you, leave me alone," she snarls, glaring daggers at Dalia.

For her part, Dalia takes a step back. "I, uh, wanted to say sorry? I think?" says Dalia, though it really sounds more like a question. At this, Reirei looks at her in disbelief and Dalia sighs. "I'm not that great with apologies, but I didn't mean to offend you back there."

Reirei snorts. "Then what were you trying to do?"

"In all honesty, I didn't know about Kijana being gone. When I saw you pacing about like that and Goigoi missing, I put two and two together and figured that you were going behind Scar's back or something."

The lioness grins when she sees Reirei's eyes softening. Yes, Dalia did come over here because she did feel somewhat bad about the situation and wanted to apologize. But she also wanted to gain Reirei's trust. She already had a conflicted Janja, now she needs to get through (very subtly, mind you) to Reirei. At the very least, earning the jackal matriarch's trust will be beneficial in her plan to taking over Scar's Army from the inside.

"I guess that makes sense..." Reirei mutters, and Dalia wonders if whether or not she's saying it to herself. She sighs shakily before looking back up. "You know, I would never normally ask for help. Especially from you—"

"Ditto."

"—but my kid's missing and I don't really have anyone else to turn to," Reirei finished.

Dalia understood the real message behind Reirei's words. I can't let anyone else find out, is what she really meant. If she had wanted to, she would've ordered the Outlanders to search for her kid. But Dalia's willing to bet that the jackal matriarch feels like her family's only shot at thriving is with Scar's Army. And she can't risk losing the little authority she has.

Earn her trust, Dalia. Gaining Reirei's trust is just one step closer to the goal.

"I'll help you, Reirei," Dalia says after a moment. "Help you find Kijana, I mean."

Reirei eyed her suspiciously. "What's in it for you?"

"I don't know why everyone around here seems to think otherwise, but at the end of the day, we're on the same team," says the lioness.

"That's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard," Reirei scoffs. "Why are you really offering to help me?"

Dalia sucks in a breath, realizing that Reirei was by far the cleverest out of the lot. That'd make it more difficult for her to convince the jackal to switch sides in the end. From her experience, the smartest tend to be the most thick-headed.

"Well," Dalia says, drawling as she tries to figure out a good reason. "Losing a kid, I imagine, will only weaken you. And, honestly, I can't lose the second-best fighter in this army if I still want my revenge."

"Second-best?" Reirei repeats, but the suspicious look has already slipped from her face. "I'm assuming you mean you're the first?"

"Naturally."

A dry, short laugh escapes Reirei's lips, but the mirth in her eyes is quickly replaced with worry. "My daughter has been missing since yesterday afternoon," she says suddenly. Apparently, her worry for her child outweighed her apprehensions of Dalia. "I searched for her last night, and Goigoi's been out looking for her this morning but I'm not sure how well Goigoi's staying on top of things."

"Do you have any clue of where she could be?" Dalia asks.

"No," Reirei croaks, her voice breaking, "I have no idea! She was being quippy the other day, and we've been kind of butting heads. We got into an argument the day she went missing, and now she's gone!" Her voice goes shrill at the ends, and her eyes begin watering. "I joined this army so that my kids could live like Kings and Queens! I can't have done all this for my babies, only to lose one."

Dalia is suddenly so strongly reminded of her own mother. Her mother, who was about to dive into the floodwaters to save her ungrateful daughter. Her mother, who had sacrificed her home and her comfortable life as a former Queen to protect her unborn child. Yes, Reirei and Nyla are different in every way. But at the end of the day, the strong maternal instinct is shared amongst both females.

"I'll help you find her," insists Dalia, "I already sent out Imba to search for her from the skies. I figured that it'd be easier to look for a little pup from the sky than from the ground."

Reirei tips her head into a nod, but her eyes are wary. "Don't you dare breathe a word about this to anyone else," she growls.

"Sure thing."

Before either of them could start the search for the lost jackal pup, Imba swoops in from the sky. Her eyes are wide with fright, and her breath coming to her in ragged breaths.

"What's the matter with you?" Reirei demands, quickly realizing that whatever got Imba frightened was somehow related to her daughter. "What happened?"

Imba gasps for air. "I flew over here as fast as I could," she pants, "It's Kijana. Me and Goigoi found her." She grimaces. "And... well, you need need to see this for yourself."


A/N: Agh, a cliffhanger! Either way, this was sort of a break from the heaviness of the last two chapters. I really wanted Dalia to form a bond with the other Outlanders, and trust to be placed in her. Thoughts on this chapter? As always, any feedback/criticism/reviews are always happily welcomed.

~Maddie