"...If this turns out to be a trick, Kovu... you will not escape punishment..."
"Yes... I understand. I understand perfectly, Simba..."
"...Now look at what you have done, my son... how will you get out of this one? You can't be forgiven for this..."
"What I have done?... This is your doing! I was so stupid to trust you..!"
"...You'll never be able to escape who you really are, Kovu..."
"...Oh, Kovu... Mother and the whole pride are expecting so much from you tonight. In the morning, when you've come out of this cave, they want to see some change in you... He's dead, Kovu! That's not complicated at all..."
"...Kovu, explain to me why the lionesses came to me today saying that you changed the hunting schedule? They were very upset that you did that."
"Oh... I'm sorry if it..."
"Upset me, too? Kovu, what were you thinking?"
"Well... I just thought the old one deserved an update. I thought it would be smarter to hunt more at dusk or at sunrise when the sun would distract our prey. That's how we did it when we were in the Outlands. It's more efficient. Just ask Vitani and the others, Simba."
"Update or not, Kovu, you don't go behind my back."
"Be fair, Simba, I didn't mean-"
"Remember, you, I'm still the king. You come to me if you have a problem with the way it's run around here. Do you understand?"
"...Yes, Simba."
His heart thundered in his chest, which heaved as he sucked in gulps of dusty air, and the feeling of lightheadedness slowly dissipated as he connected up again with reality. His eyes opened, the wicked feeling of his hazy, jumbled nightmare lingered in his belly and in the back of his throat as he tried focusing on his surroundings.
His very dry, very dismal surroundings.
What's gone wrong here? Why is the land suffering so much? Is it... is it really me? Kovu shook his head. No, that was impossible. He couldn't stand to compare the deteriorated, scabby land to the reign of Scar, and during that time there also were hoards of hyenas ravaging the land and consuming its resources much faster than they could be replenished. As far as Kovu knew, there were no hyenas... But that doesn't explain the lack of rain, and it hasn't rained a drop since... no, none of this is connected! This is just foolish. It's just a harsher than normal drought that came a little earlier this year. It's all a co-
"Kovu?"
Kiara stood next him, the cool light of the sun making her look pretty despite the gleam in her eyes being less cheerful than usual. Kovu had also begun to notice that she was looking gaunt these days. But then again, so was everyone else in their pride. She laid down next to him, and like always, she rested one paw over his. Ever since his troubles has begun, he longed to feel close to her like he was before It had happened. He chalked his removal of himself from her up to be the disappointment he had in himself, and the burden of lies he was carrying that had grown so much harder and more dangerous to keep since Chaka's arrival. He felt like he was festering from within, a walking, sorry excuse for a living creature.
Before he had mistakenly fallen asleep, he had been trying to come up with ways to make Chaka go away. He hadn't come up with anything, but he had decided very early that he just wanted him to leave. He didn't want to have to kill again, especially not Simba's son, if he could help it.
"Yes, Kiara?" Kovu asked, forcing a smile. "Is anything the matter?"
She smiled back and licked his cheek. "Does anything have to be the matter? All I wanted was to be here with you. I've been looking for you this morning. You left the den early again before I could talk to you, and I couldn't find you at all yesterday until you came back to the den to fall asleep. You looked exhausted."
His smiled widened, but the feelings inside him lowered his sour mood even more. "I needed some time alone, is all," he said. "You know how I am... can't stay cooped up for long."
Kiara's giggle sounded hallow to Kovu's ears. "That's an understatement," she said. "But while you were hiding, I went to visit Tswane."
"What for?"
She raised a brow. "I wanted to ask him if he could do something for Asuma's cuts. I want them to heal properly."
Kovu forced himself to correct his smile. "No battle scars for our boy, eh?"
Shaking her head with a wry smile on her face, Kiara replied, "It's probably for the best, Kovu. We don't need to him to worry about that. He has enough on his mind as it is. Have you tried talking to him lately? About my father and his dreams? I can hardly get a word out of him. He's so stubborn sometimes."
"I haven't tried lately, but his guilt remains the same I suspect. I can't make anything out about his dreams, either."
"You think his nightmares really mean something? I know they're repeating, but they're just dreams."
Kovu realized he had slipped. "Oh, I don't know. I just find it odd that they keep repeating. But you're probably right. Dreams can't really mean anything. It probably only has to do with his guilt," he said in order to recover. "He's no Rafiki."
"Well," Kiara said, "at least Tswane and I found something to help his nightmares."
Kovu's fur felt hot. "You talked to Tswane about that, too?"
"He has an herb that will help Asuma sleep deeply, and one side effect is dreamless sleep." Kiara grinned more widely. "Isn't that great? He deserves the rest, our poor son. It'll help him so much! He says the herbs will be ready for us to pick up tomorrow."
Kovu's mixture of feelings rendered him without much of a response besides a nod. At least I don't have to worry about Asuma giving me away then if this works and the supply doesn't run out, but now Tswane's aware that Asuma's having dreams. What if he asks to hear about them? Kiara might get curious enough to ask if they really do mean anything!
"You're not too upset about my brother being here, are you?" Kiara asked suddenly said, or seemed so to Kovu. He couldn't quite tell. Her voice had started to die on his ears until now. He jerked his head, and looked at her. He hadn't meant to tune her out. She wasn't looking at him anymore at least, and instead her gaze was transfixed onto some point on the land.
"You don't have to hide it from me, you know, not that you've tried too hard. I wanted to talk to you beforen about this, but when you stormed out of the cave I thought you'd like some time to yourself to think. It's still surreal to me, too, Kovu. I mean... wow, I have a brother and he's alive."
"Surreal... yes..."
"Though... You haven't been yourself for a very long time, Kovu... even before Chaka returned," Kiara went on. "I wouldn't be a very good mate or queen to you if I didn't keep trying to talk to you about it. Vitani already has, I'm sure."
Kovu swallowed. Why did I think I could hide from her. She's certainly no idiot. Did Vitani, or forbid, anyone else, speak to her? He went on guard, carefully gaging Kiara's mood and finding that he'd never be absolutely sure if she knew his secret until she spoke. She was much too calm he thought to be holding onto something of that magnitude without clawing his eyes out. Calm down... she can't know and does not know. Even she couldn't remain this calm is she did know the truth.
"Are you doing alright, Kovu?" she asked him. "You've been so distant since my father died. Are you worried? You always are changing the subject to something else when I ask if you're okay. You can tell me anything, you know that."
It took every muscle, tendon, and fiber in Kovu to not be tempted by Kiara's soft smile, which tore into him deeper than he thought possible. I wish I could tell you everything, but the one thing I'm dying to tell you... it would hurt you most of all, he thought with disgust. He thought he had run out of chances to confess since Chaka had come around, but this was the most blatant one yet.
He looked away while he spoke, shrugging. "It's just hard, I suppose... he's not here anymore and I'm on my own. I keep asking myself 'what would he do?' Our food situation isn't getting any better, either."
He couldn't lose her. He brought forth the promise to himself that he would remain true to his vow. He'd have to take this to the grave with him... Even if it's the thing that puts me down into the dirt.
"First off," Kiara said, a brow raised, "you are not my father, and you never will be. You're Kovu, and a wonderful, strong lion who is my mate, which also means that you are not on your own, Kovu. I am here for you." With this, she nuzzled his mane, leaving her head there as she continued. "The pride has survived during hard times. We'll get through this together, too. Nothing can compare to what we've been through in the past. We're strong, and we'll be able to see it to the end."
"But I don't know if we're strong enough," Kovu replied sullenly. "When I lived in the Outlands, life was difficult to say the least. There were stretches of days where I would be hungry, but at least we knew we could get food if we worked hard enough for it. We'd have to steal it from other territories, but we'd get by."
Kovu paused. His frown deepened. "We can't keep this pace up for much longer, Kiara. Everyone is tired. Everyone is hungry. We're all thirsty, and the watering hole gets more pitiful each day. There is one thought on everyone's mind: who will it be? Who's going to be the first to go?"
"Kovu, won't you calm down, please?" Kiara exclaimed, her eyes wide. "We're just talk-"
"There's no sense in being positive when there's hardly anything to be positive about!"
"Kovu!"
He knew he was overreacting, his concentration compromised by his frayed nerves. He stood up and began to walk away without a word, but Kiara followed.
"If you feel this way, then why don't you do something more about it?" When her mate didn't stop or say anything, she moved into his path and struck one of her paws up onto his chest. "What do you think we should do, Kovu?"
Kovu shook his head in frustration. "Being king is so much harder than I thought it would be..." he muttered, looking away.
"I'm not asking you as my king," Kiara told him. "I'm asking you as my mate and the father of my hungry cubs. If you think we need to change our tactics, you need to use that brain of yours to come up with a plan, which I know you can do."
But Kovu didn't reply. So much for being Scar's chosen one...
Kiara gave a wry smile. She knew the gravity of the words she was about to say, he thought. "May-be... maybe we could take a trip to scout out how far the herds have gone. Just you and me."
"You and me?" Kovu frowned.
"Only for a few days."
"What about the pride?"
Her brow furrowed. "Well, aren't Chaka and my mother capable of looking after them? Your sister could help, too, I'm sure. They won't be helpless."
Kovu balked at the idea of leaving Chaka in charge. And I told Zira I'd rather she kill me than become a pretender to the throne. Now I can't even make the decision to leave my place as king long enough to find food for my pride and for the hungry cubs in it.
"Now I know that you and my brother have your differences..."
That's an understatement... I haven't even said a word to him since he got here.
"But you need to put that aside. This is about survival, isn't it?" Kiara continued.
Why is she always right? He pulled a face. Why does she always have to know the right and just thing to do?
"Survival, yes," he said. But he was still searching for his decision, which was vastly more difficult than he knew it should be. It's not that big of a deal...
"Think of the pride, Kovu, your pride. We have to be brave for them," Kiara pressed on.
"What are we going to do if we find a food source?" Kovu then asked. "It could be so far away that it won't matter, Kiara."
She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know this is hard, but we have no choice but to work with what we've been dealt. So what if we find food elsewhere? Can't we move the pride there until the drought is over? They have legs. We can always come home at the first signs that the herds are returning." Kiara paused to snicker. "Between you and my mother, you act like it's the end of the world. This drought is hardly much worse than normal."
Scar would have threatened her with death for considering such things... but then again, I am not Scar. Kovu met her eyes, his body relaxing slightly. So what if Chaka stayed here? Once Kovu returned, it wasn't like his position wasn't going to be in question. Or at least he wouldn't allow himself to worry about it unless he wished to drive himself mad.
"Do you think that you can leave the Pride Lands? The land isn't as friendly out there beyond our borders," Kovu warned her.
She nodded, her gaze firm with resolution to the proposed mission. "I was the one who thought of the idea, wasn't I? You know how stubborn I can be when I want to make something work."
He couldn't help but smile now, even if it was just a little bit. "Yes, Kiara, I know best of all, don't I? No wonder our cubs are the way they are."
The honey-furred lioness' easy grin returned to her muzzle at the sight of his. "Yep, I know you do, Kovu."
From the mouth of the den, Tanga watchedas the lone figure paced back and forth, his brown mane swishing and shrouding his face with each quick change of direction. The look of his silhouette against the dark sky registered as her grandfather, and she had to keep reminding herself that he was gone. That's Chaka, not Simba.
The den, filled with the sounds of sleeping lions, was calm for the most part. In the evening, she had woken to get a drink, and had noticed Chaka walking back and forth from the outstretched arm of Pride Rock to a spot midway to the den. He obviously hadn't seen her yet, and he jumped when he first became aware of her presence, nearly running into her when he turned to face the den again and she was standing there to greet him.
"Oh, it's just you," he muttered, but not unkindly. Sighing, he whirled around again. He crinkle in his brow suggested he was concentrating on a problem with much conviction. His eyes were darting but distant, too. He had paced four more rounds before Tanga spoke up.
"What are you doing?" Tanga asked quietly. Don't want to wake anyone.
Chaka jumped again as if he had forgotten she was there. "I was just thinking about... oh never mind..."
"Well, what is it, Chaka?" she pressed him. "It's okay."
Chaka's face when he paced back to her was stoic. "Wouldn't want to worry you about nothing. Really, it is nothing. I'm just being foolish," he replied with another heavy exhale.
It took a lot to make Tanga awkward, though since he had been in the pride, she hadn't had a whole lot of interaction with him until now. She perked up, smirking. "I can keep a secret," she remarked.
Was that a ghost of a smile, or is the dark playing tricks on me?
"It's nothing, really," Chaka continued to insist.
"You seem upset enough to me. It's the middle of the night. Everyone else is sleeping."
Chaka made a sound that didn't quite sound like irritation but was close to it. "Well... consider it misplaced anxiety then if you must."
"You're worried about something. What?" She then quickly added, "Please, if you don't mind. I'd like to help."
For a while, she wasn't sure if he had forgotten about her again, but once he came and sat down next to her, it was clear that she had won his interest over.
"Weeelllll...?"
"Silly, really... I just find it odd that I'm back here. Here... where at some point in my life I called this home. I hardly remember it," Chaka began quietly.
"Nothing is really silly," Tanga replied softly. "You've been gone a long time."
Chaka pulled a face. "I'm also worried that I'm not as... sad, let's say, as I should be about my father being dead and all. Just don't remember him much, and it's a shame that I don't feel like I think I should. Neutral is the best that I can describe it."
"You're upset that you're not upset enough?"
"Yes."
Tanga could never imagine having lived without her grandfather. Though he'd been in her life for a short time, she was grateful to have known him. "But it's not your fault," she pointed out. When Chaka looked down at her with a little confusion showing in his brows, she offered him a smile. "Feel the way you want to feel. I don't think that your wrong."
"The heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose."
"It's not your fault he was killed by a rogue."
"Yes, well, I have regrets about not being around to protect him. I should have been there to help." A pause. "The life of a rogue isn't much fun," Chaka muttered, and Tanga thought that it was half to himself the way he looked away, his eyes drifting over the expanse of the withered Pride Lands. Distantly, Tanga's ears picked up the cry of a bird, and her nose prickled from being a little too dry.
Tanga felt self-conscious about what she had said. "You were a rogue, too, weren't you."
"Yes," Chaka replied shortly.
The question itched on Tanga's tongue to be asked, though this time the silence made her a bit uncomfortable. Curious, she finally mustered up the courage. "What... what was that like?"
Chaka smiled a bit. "Dangerous and lonely, Tanga. I don't suggest it."
"Do you like being home now? Even if it bothers you?"
It surprised her when Chaka was quiet for a while, and Tanga wondered if her uncle would continue speaking to her, or just tell her to shut her trap like everyone else seemed to do. Finally, he said, "I'm not sure yet. It's a mixed blessing."
"You're home with your family now."
"They sure don't feel like family, more like strangers sometimes, and I still feel like an intruder. The pride I had was barely a family and they kept their distance from me."
Again, Tanga tried to wrap her mind around this. Family was everything to her. Her heart went out to Chaka. This whole time I've only been makign his feel worse instead of better... She opened her mouth to invite more conversation, but Chaka started this time without prompting.
"But I do believe that the past shouldn't matter now."
Baffled, it was Tanga's turn to return Chaka's growing smile with a wide-eyed look. He then lifted his face to the stars, and so did Tanga. One saw The Great Kings of the past, while the other just saw twinkling dots amidst a grand blackness that seemed to engulf anything up there.
"When I was young, I remember someone telling me that being a real lion meant being brave, and that bravery meant sometimes doing things that you don't want to do, no matter how frightening or aggravating they may be. You can't run from who you really are, and you can't just hide and wait for all of it to go away. Doesn't work like that. You have to learn to forgive those who ask for it and accept what has been done. Bad things happen, but in order for them to go away, you have to do something about it. Do you understand that, Tanga?"
She nodded. "Yes, Chaka," she replied softly. She looked thoughtful for a moment before she whispered tiredly, "Are you able to forgive Nuka and Zira? They can't beg forgiveness. They're dead."
"Yes, I do," Chaka replied, his tone firm. "In accepting what happened to me, I do. I'd kill myself with worry and hate if I didn't. What happened was just unfortunate, but it did happen... you can't change the past as much as you try. Everyone needs to move on."
Tanga was beaming. "Looks like we helped each other a little," she remarked. She then quirked an eyebrow. "Do you remember who said that to you?"
Chaka thought for a moment. "My father said that to me."
Nodding, Tanga said, "He was very wise and very kind. You... you remind me a lot of him."
He grinned easily in appreciation. "Why are you awake? It's the middle of the night, you know."
Tanga giggled and shrugged. "I wanted a drink, but found you."
"Shouldn't be out alone."
"I can take care of myself, and what they don't know won't hurt them. It's not the first time, though Natin sometimes goes with me."
Chaka stood, and like always she was amazed at his size. "C'mon, can't have you roaming the night like some wild animal. I'm thirsty myself and the water source is far enough away as it is."
Tanga followed eagerly after her uncle, hoping deeply that the drought would lift soon and that her father's kind temperament would return. She had noticed that he hadn't been as warmly accepting of Chaka as the others were, and she suspected that the drought wasn't helping much either. Her parents had mentioned to the pride that they would leave on a scouting trip in a few days, too. She hoped they would return quickly and safely to them with a solution. Nala and Chaka were going to be in charge in the mean time.
Things aren't going to completely return to normal once the drought is gone, but... I hope Chaka doesn't have to leave after what he's been through. That would be terrible.
Another update for you guys! I finally got the motivation up and the inspiration to put the final touches on this chapter. I'm still having trouble with the middle/end however, but I'll keep working on it. Mostly it's deciding what's necessary and what order to put events in. Anyhow, thanks for keeping up :)