A/N: Hi, everybody! Before I do anything, I want to give a shout-out to all my readers! You all are so phenomenal, and I appreciate each and every one of you. The correspondence has been killer, and I thought I should let you all know just how much I value you before getting into any business at all. You're brilliant, the lot of you!

Alright, so, we'll pick up from where we left off, yeah? I just wanted to mention that I identify Kopa as a rational known as an ENTP in MBTI. I think Simba is ENFP, and I definitely see some close relation in Kopa and Simba's MBTI. But I believe Kopa is more of a problem solver vs a soul searcher. He does seem like a bit of a soul searching guy, but that's mostly Si (him thinking of the past) reflecting on his Ne (him questioning if and how things would be different currently, had things been different in the past). Anyways, let's bring in that disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Lion King and/or the characters. I only own Lela and this plot of this fanfiction, based on the Lion King Six New Adventures.

Fantastic! That's all there is from me, here's the literature. Enjoy!

Chapter 6

Kopa

I open my eyes, awoken by my circadian cycle. I wearily climb to my feet, well aware that once my eyes are open, it'll take at least until sunset before I have any sleep to sleep again. From my own raised pedestal next to my parents' one, I see that the sun is coming up.

I step down from my resting place and carefully weave through the pride of lions scattered about, just as I've done many, many days before. I see Afua sleeping soundly, in the same curled ball that he's slept in many, many nights before. I stare thoughtfully at him, questioning whether or not to rouse him.

Despite my pride, of which I have plenty, I amble to my snoozing friend and nudge him with a paw. "Afua," I start in a low voice. I know he hears me, his ear twitches at the sound of my voice. "I'm thinking about going to the mud pool." He doesn't offer me a response. Right. What did I expect? "Figures," I say, turning to leave.

I sit down and take a moment to watch the sun before I head to the mud pool. I still have to recall where about it is. My uncles and I stumbled upon it by accident.

"Good morning, Kopa," greets Lela, shivering her way out of the cave.

"Morning," I wasn't expecting her to speak to me. I thought she'd still be pretty miffed. "You're up early." She's never up early.

"I am. I just don't go outside," she sits next to me and plasters on a smile. "I don't really like to see the sun come and go," she admits heavily, looking with secretly unhappy eyes to the ground. "More so the going part of it." She's not fooling me with this 'I'm okay' act. There's more to the story, and honestly, I've gotta know.

"Why not?" I pry.

Lela shakes her head and meets my eyes with creased brows in thought but a lingering smile. "I don't know. I just have some bad memories associated with sunsets that's all." I want to enquire some more, but Lela speaks up before I get the chance. "What about you? Why are you always up so early?"

I shrug. "My body gets sick of sleeping I guess," I chuckle. "But I like to catch the sun before I do anything. Call me nostalgic, but it brings back memories of me and my dad sitting up here. And all the tales of my grandpa and my dad resurface… It's just a good time to think."

"You seem to esteem Mufasa greatly," Lela says. "You must really miss him."

"Maybe," I say, feeling that a great part of Lela's statements are true. "I don't know if it's possible to miss someone you never knew."

"Oh," gathers Lela, clarity in her voice. "Well, in that case, I'd say you long to miss him."

I exhale in full volume out of my nostrils. "Yeah." I watch every motion in the Pridelands with mourning eyes, seeing nothing of him, but hoping that Mufasa sees me. "Yeah, I do." I hear all the time about how great Mufasa was, and man, I crave the knowledge the older Pridelanders have – first-hand knowledge of what my babu was like. I feel like I was robbed of the chance to meet him. My parents say that I can still meet him; that we can commute. But I call and get no answer. I wait in vain. It's not that I doubt his interest in me, rather that I doubt his presence. I give a laugh to lighten the mood, "Anyways, I was thinking of going to that mud hole I found earlier." I stand up and face my friend. "Do you wanna come?"

Lela gives me a look, sort of implying that I shouldn't flee from the topic so soon. But she goes along with my question. "It's getting a bit warmer, I guess," she says. "Don't you think we should bring Afua?"

"I tried," I say. "He's still upset."

"Maybe we should give him some space then," Lela reasons. She stands and shoots me a smile, "Lead the way."

"It's a quite a walk," I warn.

"I go to Rafiki's tree all the time," she chuckles. "I can handle a few kilometres."

I begin walking, wanting to say something about Lela constantly venturing off into the blue. But something (I don't know what) fights for me to be silent. I retaliate against it. "Yeah, about that," I begin. "Why can't you just wait for Rafiki to come by?"

She looks at me when she answers. "I enjoy his company."

"I enjoy peeing on hyenas, but I don't just trot off to the elephant graveyard."

"You what?" Lela laughs. "Kopa!"

I give a snort of a chuckle. "I don't do it anymore… that often." I return to the topic at hand. "Listen, all I'm saying is that it would make me more comfortable if you had someone to go with you. I've gotten into too much trouble out here, and I don't think the trouble has simmered. At all." I look at my friend, who's actually taking this pretty well. "But I mean, you don't always have to go, do you?" I say this as a statement, rather than a question.

Let's be clear about this: I'm not a needy guy. My fiercely independent attitude is what's kept me going through the years that transitioned me and my friends into young lions. But there have been moments, far too many, where I've gone on an adventure, and thought 'Man, I wish Afua was here to see this,' or, 'Wow! Lela would love this,' and they're just not there. I want them to have their own lives, but I want our lives to intersect eventually, not run parallel to each other.

Lela smiles at me and shakes her head. "I don't," says she. "I'm sorry that the three of us have drifted apart. I didn't even realize that it bothered you."

"It didn't at first," I admit, looking at the dusty ground underfoot before looking back ahead. "But then it did."

Lela nudges me. "I missed you too." She coos warmly. "A lot."

I smirk, sort of pleased to have my ego stroked. "I expected as much."

Lela snickers and offers me a snarky look. "Believe it or not, I missed your arrogance too." She's about to say more, when the ground gives way under her feet. "Ah!" the ground, seemingly solid on the surface, is actually wet and muddy. Lela's fallen into a quicksand pit. "Kopa, what's happening?" she asks, chest high in quicksand. She's not in the centre of it – which is good – but cusp or not, this is going to be a hard task.

"Don't panic, okay?" I start. "I'll get you out."

I look around me for ways to help. I see a tree, bare of any leaves. I run over to it and pry off a branch. I dash over with the branch between my teeth. At the edge of the quick sand pit, I lean over for Lela to grab the branch. She takes it, and I pull hard, hoping to yank her out. But the branch snaps at the strain, and I stagger back. The mud she's in is tight around her. No branch will be strong enough.

I inch as close as I can to the edge of the precarious pit and lean in again. "Grab a hold of me."

Lela reluctantly ropes her arms around my neck. I ground my hind legs and groan with determination, trying to tug her out. I have to summon every ounce of strength within me, as I do, the mud lets up on Lela. I take a few steps back, dragging Lela out of the pit and onto the dusty floor with each step.

I relax my muscles, panting with exhaustion and Lela with relief. I begin to chuckle, almost surprised that I managed to save my friend.

Lela's arms fall away from my neck and from the ground, she speaks a complaint. "Do you have any idea what could've happened to me?" she looks up at me, sort of furious and sort of disheartened at my laughter.

"But none of it did happen," I remind, a charming smile still bouncing about on my face. "We're fine."

"A moment ago you were berating me for doing something you deemed dangerous," Lela returns. "Now you're laughing at a near death event. I don't think it's funny that someone's life was on the line."

My smile flees, and after holding my stare she looks back down at the ground. She's got the wrong idea. "Hey," I begin. I butt heads with her, aiming to get her attention. She looks up at me, curious to hear me out. "Don't take it like that. I meant it in a totally opposite way. It's not funny, it's just remarkable. Anything could've happened, but the best happened. I'm just happy."

"Heh," after a moment, Lela looks away, unable to resist a smile.

"Is that a smile that you're hiding?" I enquire. "I thought I was the one with too much pride?"

Lela stands, smiling without shame now. "Oh, you have too much pride," she snickers. "I'm just glad you have plenty of smarts and wisdom too," she prods me. "Thank you for saving me."

"Anytime," I say, my charming smile coming back into play. I give a proud swish of my head. "I can't have anyone dying on my watch."

"Hmm," she smirks. "Come on, let's go find that mud pool. Preferably one that won't swallow me."

After wandering for a few more moments, we find Afua already marinating in a mud pool – the very one that we're looking for.

"Hey!" he beams confidently. "What took you two?" We share a look before dashing off to join him. I jump into the pool with a loud splash, spraying clumps of mud on Afua. I resurface, mud masking my whole face, for a world of complaints. "Ugh! Gross, man. You don't know how much it took for me to actually get my tail in this mud." He wipes off his face with his still clean paws. In fact, Afua's only got mud up to his waist.

"Oh? Did that bother you? Me spraying mud on you?" I say, flicking mud onto Afua. He flinches with each splosh I toss his way. Afua tries to press in words of objection, but with a devilish smile, I interfere with his bids for me to stop. "This is a problem? You don't like this, huh? I can stop it you want me to."

"Kopa-" I cut him short again, but play it off as an accident.

"Sorry, Afua, you've gotta speak up," I don't stop hammering him with mud. "I can't hear you over the amount of fun I'm having."

"You're going to get a royal noogie if you don't stop," Afua laughs, raising a daring brow. I'm about to defiantly flick mud at him again, when I'm distracted by Lela climbing into the pool behind me. She lets out a shivering, silent shriek. "Cold!" she breathes. She's more open minded than Afua. In fact, she seems very eager to try out a mud pool that doesn't eat things. She's just taking a century to find out what it's like in here.

"Oh, c'mon," I begin, swimming over to Lela. "You've gotta just dive!" with that statement, I yank Lela into the mud.

Lela pops back up, taking in a deep breath. She wipes off her eyes and is welcomed by my pestering grin. "Oh bugger off!" she laughs, impishly shoving me.

"Can we give him to the rhino's?" asks Afua. "They can't see very well. They won't be able to tell that he's a lion, will they?"

Ah, man, how I've missed this! Just the three of us, stirring up trouble in any and every direction. I head over to an edge, between Afua and Lela, and lean my back on it leisurely. "Ahh," I moan, feeling the tension flee from every muscle, even the ones I didn't think were being stressed. "Man," I begin, looking from one friend to the other. "Let's just admit how right I was, scratch that, how right I am about this mud bath."

"Must not be because Lela had a dip elsewhere," Afua points out. "I saw the mud on her."

"You should've seen it!" I beam. "She got sucked into this pit of quicksand. I was so cool, Afua," I continue with a smirk and a quirked brow. "I got this branch, but it didn't work. Then, I just grabbed her and pulled her out. It was insane."

"What a hero," humours Afua. We chatter a bit more about the event, then Afua starts again. "Look, Kopa, I'm sorry about not hanging out with you and Lela. I've just got a lot to be ready for, you know?"

"I don't know," I say. "I'm not asking you to be less busy, Afua. You've got other priorities and I get that. I don't want you to dedicate a day to me, just stuff like this every once in a blue moon." I motion to the mud bath.

"Well," Afua takes in a deep breath, shaking his head. "I'm not crazy about the mud," he grabs me in a headlock, disregarding my complaints. "But you can count on moments like this!" he looks up to Lela. "Lela! Quick, tickle him while I've got him in a lock!"

"You'd better not!"

My friends and I spend a whole day doing nothing but soaking in the mud and soaking in the sun. A waste? Maybe to some. I'd like to think of it as a successful reconciliation.

Thank you all for reading! I appreciate you all so much. I'll see what I can do for chapter 7 – nothing to be said thus far in regards to that – but we'll let time do the talking. Else I'll just be here typing till 2031. Hehe. Until then!