Chapter 1-Broken Unity
A/N: I was working on this chapter for quite some time, trying to capture the proper emotion. It was hard, since I have never felt the way that Kiara and Kovu do. It made me think about how much I am missing in life. Enjoy! I loved writing this chapter!
High and distant in the great sapphire sky rose the sun, illuminating a surge of intense heat and blinding white light over the great African savannah. Exposed rock, dotted with the remnants of a crimson metal, baked beneath the warmth, and seemed to boil like a blistering hot liquid. But despite the fact that the sun dropped its' deadly golden rays to the ground, the land was covered with short, shrub-like greenery and the occasional umbrella tree, stretching its' wings high into the sky. This was the Pridelands, a place where the lions and lionesses roamed free, under the watchful eye of their king and queen, Simba and Nala.
From a rock formation, standing tall and proud over the vast expanse of the savannah, the sound of strong voices could be heard. Four creatures, two lions and two lionesses, rose their muzzles high into the pale blue sky, their voices erupting loudly across the rough landscape surrounding them. In unison, voices from fellow lionesses overpowered that of the royalties and even the loose stones shook with the vibration. A battle, once thought to be impossible to overcome, had come to an end, and the unity of the Pridelands and the Outlands was to be proclaimed.
The four lions, born or accepted into royalty and standing elevated on the finger of Pride Rock, called out to their subjects below. In response, the lionesses standing at ground-level, both Pridelanders and Outlanders, roared their acceptance of the new alliance. Across the savannah, where the voices of the lions still held sufficient strength, other creatures heard and rejoiced about the new pact. This day was certainly one to be remembered in the hearts of all.
With eyes glowing in sheer excitement, Kiara looked up into the eyes of her mate and closest friend, Kovu, which shared the same emotion. A heated feeling rushed through her as she stared up into his large, loving eyes, and couldn't help but smile.
"We did it," she whispered, but was almost completely overpowered by the shouts of acclamation sounding from the lionesses below.
Kovu smiled warmly at hearing Kiara's sweet voice, "Yes, we did, my love."
Kiara's smile stretched even wider as she shifted her body closer to Kovu's, closing the gap of space beneath them. She rested her head against Kovu's cheek, purring calmly. His fur felt like cotton against her own, and she was drawn into a world of soft love with the one she cared for most. She brushed against him, feeling his soft fur and the hard muscle encased by it and another feeling ran through her. She didn't want to leave this world that she and Kovu had made together. It was just too precious to lose. She wouldn't give their bond together away for anything in this world and, as she felt Kovu nuzzle her back with his own love, she knew he wouldn't either. A soft kiss, planted with love against the cheek angled away from her parents' eyes, drew her closer to Kovu.
After bathing in her fantasy for what seemed like only a few seconds, a nudge drew Kiara away. It was her mother, Nala, who looked at her with a wide smile of her own.
"Kiara. Kovu. We have matters we need to attend to," She voiced softly.
Though Kiara didn't want to leave the comfort Kovu offered her, she stood and broke the contact between them. To her, it felt as if she was being torn apart, like a bolt of lightning striking through the trunk of the beloved umbrella tree she shaded beneath on warm days. She descended the finger of Pride Rock, following her mother into the cave. She glanced back at Kovu, absorbing his handsome figure before entering the shadow of the sleeping cave.
As she stepped beneath the rocky roof of the cave, Kiara heard Timon state, "Well, congratulations! Another dozen of hungry lioness's that can drool over my buddy, Pumbaa, over here!"
A grunt of displeasure echoed through the cave, from the same direction that Timon's voice came from.
Simba, Kiara's father, laughed with amusement, "You know that nobody here will allow them to eat either of you. You're safe."
"Maybe during the daytime. But when night falls, our bones will be added to the pile of antelope bones right over there! I know they will!"
"If it makes you feel better, you can come sleep over here, just like we used to. Nobody would dare attack you in the midst of the King, Queen, Princess and Prince," Simba suggested.
Satisfied, Timon said, "Fine." Then added beneath his breath, "Carnivores, sheesh. You can never trust them!"
Kiara and Kovu now trotted closely behind Nala, to where Simba was patiently waiting for them.
"Kiara, Kovu, you're here," Simba began, "Good. Before the ceremony today, Vitani approached me with a problem that we need to deal with. Since the Outlanders have just moved in with us, they don't know the lay of the land very well. Some capable lionesses will need to act as capable tour guides for them, to show them where the herds graze and where the watering hole is. We need to find someone who is willing to help them."
Nala stated, almost immediately after Simba finished speaking, "Kiara, would you and Kovu volunteer to show them around the Pridelands?
"Nala, you can't be thinking-!" Simba protested. His brow curled downward, in what seemed to be anger. But Kiara knew that her father was only trying to protect her.
Nala remained calm, and maintained her controlled volume of tongue, "Simba, have faith in your daughter and her Prince."
"But you know what they could do to her, when she's so vulnerable."
"Think about this logically, Simba," Nala said, "Kiara, to them, is as much of a blood relative as Kovu is. She's like one of them.
"They trust Kovu with their lives. They trust that Kovu made the right decision to take our daughter as his mate and to bring our kinds to live together. If Kovu accepts her as a lioness to be trusted, then they will too. Kiara is safe in their paws, Simba."
As Nala finished speaking, Kovu voiced his opinion, "The Outlanders won't raise a paw to anyone without the command of their leader. That leader, Simba, would be you and Nala. I've been raised as an Outlander myself, the same way, if not harder, than every one that rose their voices today and proclaimed you as king. We were strictly taught the importance of loyalty to the Royal Family. They are the ones that keep us strong and alive, and in return, we offer you complete loyalty. Unless their life is threatened with no justified reason, they will not attack any of you."
Simba grunted, but Kiara knew that he wasn't convinced, "Kovu, you speak as if you followed that rule perfectly. But aren't you the one that betrayed your pride?"
Kovu closed his eyes, as if hurt by the memory of his past. "I did that because I realized that mother was wrong. The sun began to shine upon me when Kiara brought me out from underneath her paw of foolish obsession of revenge."
"How do you know they won't do the same thing to us? Betray us for some reason they think is right?"
"If they didn't think that peace with the Pridelanders was right, then we'd have more lionesses dead than just my mother. They joined with you because they saw that mother's ways were wrong."
Kovu moved closer to Kiara and nuzzled her, "They realized the same thing that I did when I fell in love with Kiara. If they wanted to hurt any one of you, then they would have done it during the battle."
Simba sighed, "But you were trained to fight all your life. Your kind is violent."
"Have you seen me hurt Kiara yet?" Kovu asked, "I've devoted my soul to her. If a claw scratched her fair and beautiful body, I would feel it just as much as she would. Their souls are devoted to you. They share your pain, and will feel it whenever you do. They won't harm any one of you."
"Fine," Simba said with disapproval clear in his voice, "you two can show them around the Pridelands. But you must promise me that you will take four other Pridelander lionesses with you."
Kovu and Kiara nodded. There was no sense in arguing further.
"The sun is getting low tonight. There is no sense in you starting when you will be returning only partway through the tour. Our lionesses will hunt for everyone tonight, then you can begin tomorrow at sun-up."
Kiara stood up and walked toward her father and brushed her head through his thick mane. Individual strands of hair tickled her neck as they fell. "Yes, father."
With Kovu, Kiara departed the sleeping cave. At the mouth, Kovu turned around and met Simba's eyes, which were following him.
With a wide smile, Kovu reassured, "Remember, Simba, that the Outlanders are your allies now, not your enemies."
"Your father doesn't trust my kind very much, does he?" Kovu asked, laying his body on a sun-baked stone. Grasses, standing tall but crusty and brown, rose in a ring around the stone. With one his left paw, he swatted at them like a cub. His other paw pressed softly against Kiara's, who was sitting beside him.
Kiara stared down at Kovu with a smile, and said, "He still think about Scar when he looks at the Outlanders. To him, your kind represents the pain that Scar gave him. It's only natural for him to still hold hatred for the one that killed their father, and almost my father himself. That hatred has blinded him from seeing that, without Scar or Zira leading you, you are just as peaceful as we are.
"Not only that, but he's overprotective of me. He tries to keep me in his sight at every time of the day. He doesn't think that I can be trusted to take care of myself, to protect my self from any possible threat. When it was time for my very first hunt, I thought that my father's promise to finally be allowed to do something on my own meant that he had some faith in my. I was disappointed when he broke his promise and sent Timon and Pumbaa to keep an eye on me. I went to the Outlands to hunt alone.
"That was when the fire caught up with me, and when you saved my life. We had such a dramatic reunion, didn't we?"
Kovu ignored Kiara's question and went on to tell his own side of the story, "I'm sorry that my mother put your life at risk to fulfil her foolish ambitions."
Kiara's smile faded away, and a serious expression etched into her facial features. Kovu sat up and turned his head to look directly into her eyes. His eyes were swimming with sadness.
"What do you mean?" Kiara asked.
"It was all a plot to-" Kovu sighed "-kill your father. I was a part of it, but I didn't want to be! Not after I fell in love with you. Vitani and Nuka set the savannah ablaze in an attempt to catch you in it. That worked, and I was to save you. Which I did. By saving you, I would be able to gain admittance into your pride, and I would have a chance to kill your father, like my mother wanted. But when I fell in love with you, I intentionally ignored my responsibility to kill your father.
"I did something that was worthy of death within my pride. I betrayed my king and queen, for the love that you gave me. I guess that, when you've never felt the power of love before, it can make you do anything."
As she listened to Kovu's story, Kiara's eyes widened with surprise. Her father had been right. Back then, she was being used as a path for the Outlanders to get to her father.
She managed to silently whisper Kovu a question, "Why didn't you tell me?"
Kovu broke his gaze with Kiara and stared down at his paws, "I tried to. Really, I did. But your father got to me first, to talk to me, and that was when he was attacked by my mother and her pride. I was banished after that. Remember?"
"I remember."
Kovu lowered his voice and Kiara could hardly hear what he was saying, "After that, I thought that it was all over. I thought that you and I would be separated forever. You would hear that I had betrayed your father to my mother, and you would hate me forever."
Kovu looked back at Kiara and a warm smile of love stretched across his face. The happiness was contagious, and she smiled with him.
He nipped at her ear, then said, "But I underestimated the power of love then. You came after me, despite what you were told. You brought us together again, as one, and we created what we have now. A perfect unity of our two prides."
Kovu giggled childishly and stared deep into Kiara's hazel eyes, "I don't think I can ever underestimate your love again."
He gently pounced on Kiara and pushed her to the ground. A number of dying strands of grass snapped beneath the sudden pressure. Kovu brushed against Kiara's soft neck and she responded with a passionate kiss to his cheek. To Kovu, her kiss felt like the core of all happiness. After a lengthy period of time, of exchanging the sight, scent, touch and taste of the other, Kovu stepped off of Kiara and lay beside her, with his head resting across her upper chest and arm across her soft waist. His tail ran along the soft curves of her leg, following the direction of her fur.
As he lay silently with Kiara at his side, Kovu thought about his love for her. Just recently he'd almost lost her, and it felt as if his heart, what he'd known of love, had been stolen away from him. Kiara was the only lioness that he had ever loved, and the only lioness that had ever loved him. To him, their relationship was the most precious possession, the thing that he held closest to his heart. To have the only good thing he had torn away from him left him a wreck.
To have Kiara come back to him made him value her and her love more than he had done before. He would never give her up for anything in the world. He would sacrifice his own life for hers, if the need ever came.
Kiara's soft, sweet voice interrupted Kovu's thinking, "Kovu, I love you. I just wish that Daddy could see that you and your family are not a danger to us."
She kissed him on his ear. It tickled, and twitched his ear. Kiara giggled.
"I love you, too, Kiara," Kovu whispered passionately, "and I wish the same thing. I should introduce you to our lionesses. You can see first-hand how loyal and trustworthy they really are."
Kovu pushed himself off of Kiara and began walking back toward Pride Rock. Kiara caught up in a short sprint, and they walked together, giggling.
A/N: I never wanted to stop writing this. I felt completely thrust into my writing, my soul and all, and I just couldn't stop. Even with the homework I need to finish. I wish that I didn't need to worry about school, and I could just do this all day. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Originally I was going to combine this chapter with the next, but that would take too long. I didn't want you to wait to read this! I might still combine the two chapters, I don't know.