"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.

"I cannot help you, I'm sorry."

"Kovu, I'm sure you can do more than, 'I'm sorry'," Kiara said gently, her face reflecting the disapproval she felt mingled with the desire to help the small clan of cheetahs who had approached them. They were thin and their fur was unkempt, though they hardly looked pathetic. From the youngest one up, they had her mate fixed in a death glare, and she feared that they were desperate enough to attack without cause.

"You are our king aren't you?" one spat.

Another one muttered to her near companion in a voice just hardly loud enough for Kiara to make out the words, "What do you expect?"

Kovu growled quietly when he heard this, too, and Kiara could easily guess what the cheetah had really meant, but was proud of Kovu when he did not rise to the snub. He remained silent, however, only glaring back at the lithe creatures.

"Look, times are tough right now. We're all feeling it," Kiara spoke up. She carefully monitored her voice and added a sincere smile to her face. "What do you think we can do to help you? We should work togeth-"

One cheetah sniffed in disdain. "I know one thing you can do," she snapped. "Stop bringing more lions into your pride. It's big enough as it is."

"Do you think we live in the lap of luxury?" Kovu said, his tone low, callous even to Kiara's ears. "We're not even sure if we're hunting prey in the Pride Lands anymore, that's how far we go to find food!"

Inwardly Kiara groaned. I wish they all would mind their tempers... or their manners for that matter...

"Now, unless you have a plan other than insulting me, I don't care what you do. Leave if you must. Is this how you treat your king?"

"We don't have to be told more than once." The eldest looking cheetah then turned to her companions and gestured with a nod to depart. Several looked over their shoulders as they went, shooting the king and queen looks heated with hatered that sickened Kiara. She watched them leave and was saddened that the brief meeting had turned out terribly.

"You'd think that respect was a foreign concept to them," Kovu said. "Who do they think they are?"

"Hungry, just like the rest of us," Kiara remarked quietly with a sigh.

"Then they shouldn't have come to me, and acting like they did wasn't going to get them anywhere if I even knew what to do. I have my own family to think of."

The cheetahs went about asking for help the wrong way, but Kovu still managed the matter poorly. She thought about telling him this, but she didn't think he'd accept criticism too kindly while he was in his current state, and she wanted to put the matter quickly behind her. The cheetahs were already gone. "C'mon, Tswane is expecting us. He told me he would have the herbs ready this morning," she reminded him.

Kovu huffed, but followed Kiara as she led the way to the old tree. After a while of walking in silence, he spoke up.

"Hey... uh, would you want to try practicing a few things I've been taught? If we're going to look for food together, I'd feel more comfortable knowing that you could defend and take care of yourself."

"Oh, sure," Kiara replied. The thought of spending time one-on-one with Kovu was pleasing even if she'd be learning skills that Zira taught Kovu in her original plot to kill her father. When she thought of this, she shivered inwardly, but reminded herself that the territories outside of the Pride Lands were a lot tougher and it was quite possible that they could be attacked by rival prides. "We can have some fun like the old days," she added with a smirk. "I doubt all the rhino have left."

But she only got a small, bitter chuckle out of him. "If only it were the 'old days'," he said wistfully.

Asuma lifted his head from his paws and flared his nostrils to take in the dry breeze that ruffled the small, light copper-colored tuft of fur on his head. "Hmmm..." The particular hues in the slightly fluffy gray clouds had caught his eyes. "Do you think it could rain?"

"Could," Natin said. It would have sounded like a scoff if it weren't for the thick tone of laziness. "But it's a matter of will it rain or not. Don't get your hopes up, Asuma. It's depressing."

Asuma rolled his eyes and frowned.

Both cubs were resting at the mouth of the cave. With little to do, most of the pride was spending their time either resting inside the cool cave or trying to sun themselves at various places around the behemoth of Pride Rock. There were plans for a hunt later that night after news came that a herd of zebra had been seen roaming just inside the Pride Lands, and Asuma was debating if he should come along again. He didn't much like the idea, but he was determined to hide any cowardice that he had. With a sigh, he rolled onto his back.

"Seen Tanga anywhere, by the way?"

Asuma rocked his shoulders and closed his eyes. "If I had to guess, she could be off with Chaka... wherever he is."

"He keeps to himself most of the time," Natin said, almost in agreement. "Your sister's the only one besides Nala and Kiara that he talks to, and you. Your dad hates him."

"Soften the blow, why don't you..."

"What? It's true, right?"

Though he hadn't been there for more than four nights, Chaka had only slept in the cave the first night he had returned to the pride. He had either slept just outside or was no where to be found. It unsettled Asuma that his father was showing so much resentment towards the lion, who not only was the brother of his mother, but the lion who had saved his life. Now is not the time for petty differences, he thought to himself.

He was on the verge of sleep, his body already beginning to tense with anxiety in preparation for the onset of his nightmares, when he heard the shuffle of footsteps just by his head. He cracked an eyelid and at first thought the two hairy feet belonged to Tswane, but after a surge of activity in the cave, he sat up. Rafiki's returned? What's that in his paws?

Natin kicked him on his way into the den. "Asuma, somethin's up. C'mon."

Many of the lionesses gasped, their eyes irrepressibly drawn to the thing that Rafiki was cradling in his palms as the old, hunched mandrill shuffled into the center of the den. Nala was there, and she went to stand up.

"No, lie down." Rafiki's craggy voice echoed off the rock walls. She did was told and he placed his small burden in the ring Nala's forelegs made.

"Oh, no..." Asuma breathed when he realized that Rafiki had been carrying a bird that didn't much resembled the pride's majordomo.

"What's this about?" Nala asked, her brows arched and her face etched with worry. She gently nosed the fragile-looking bird. Zazu's eyes were scarcely open, his feathers dull.

"He's very weak, but he insisted I bring him heah," Rafiki began to explain, his voice quiet. "It was a hope of mine dat I could nurse him back to health, but I'm afraid dat I have failed."

"Well, what happened to him?" one of the lionesses asked.

Everyone in the cave could see that Zazu was speaking, but only Nala could hear him faintly when she moved her ear close enough to his crooked beak. The bird hadn't taken a beating half as bad since Mufasa's death, and that had been when he was still young. Nala lifted her head, a deep frown on her muzzle that spread its pain throughout the rest of her face. A puzzled fury entered her sapphire eyes.

"I'm afraid that I might have heard him right," she said to the old mandrill. "Why is he saying that Kovu killed Simba?"

"What?" his cousin gasped along with the rest of the pride. Asuma's body heated up when he heard these words. He didn't know whether or not to approach the bird or not, lest his grandmother decide to send him and Natin away from the cave. Natin must have been thinking the same thing, as he motioned with a nod to move towards the back of the cave where the older lions would hopefully not notice them. The pair peered through their elders' legs as Rafiki confirmed Zazu's chilling words as truth.

"He told me dat he was dare the day Simba was murdered. He told me dat Kovu tricked Simba into seeing his mother, who had survived until den. He told me it was an ambush. He told me dat he was going for help when Kovu struck him down."

"I knew he was acting weird!" another lioness explained. "So it wasn't my imagination playing tricks on me!"

"Traitor!"

"That idiot! He's been hiding this from us for all this time?"

"Who's been hiding what?"

"Oh, no..." Natin groaned beside him, crouching down further. "Doubt he'll take this well."

"Chaka, Rafiki and Zazu tell us that Kovu killed your father," a lioness reported quickly, her voice coated thickly with disdain. A common rise of growls could be heard, too. Many continued to mutter the words 'traitor', and 'murderer'.

"What?" Chaka exclaimed. When he had first entered the cave, his expression had been a mixture of caution and distrust, but it was now replaced with shock, and then quickly pushed away by anger. "Thought he was killed by rogues?"

"My son, come here," Nala called Chaka to her side. She had remained the most calm while surrounded by her furious pridemates who were only growing more irritated by the heartbeat.

As Chaka moved forward, a couple of shadows caught Asuma's eye. It was Tanga and Vitani, who were now lingering at the mouth of the den. Without pausing to think why he was doing so, Asuma stood up and quickly made over to his sister, Natin just behind him.

"What going on?" Tanga asked, her young face wide-eyed and curious. "We heard yelling."

"We can't stay here," Asuma said to his sister though he was looking up at Vitani. "It's nothing really, though."

"Wha- Tell me now, Asuma," Tanga insisted.

While she was distracted, Natin pounced on her. She protested and fought against him as he began to drag her away from the den by the back of her neck, growling playfully despite the anxiety in his eyes.

"Asuma, tell me what happened," Vitani demanded, her voice sharp.

The light-furred cub cringed, but shook his head with a glance at his sister. "You'd best go into the cave to find out. I... I don't want Tanga to hear if I can help it."

"Chaka-"

"How can I calm down when I hear things like this!"

Asuma almost missed the flinch his aunt gave as she turned and dashed into the cave without a word, leaving the cubs to their duty to Tanga at the exclamation of Chaka. Natin hadn't moved far, but he had pinned the young princess to the ground to keep her from running to the cave.

"Tanga, can you come with us? We want to get you away from the den," Asuma asked pleadingly. He noticed his sister had a few scratches on her. Her green eyes were fearful as she bit into Natin's foreleg.

"Why should I? What's going on, I want to know!"

Asuma shook his head. "Sorry."

"C'mon, help me move her. She'll be more relaxed if she's farther away." Natin was still pinning the tan-furred, young lioness when he stood. He put his jaws as gently as he could on Tanga's right ear, and Asuma did the same for her left. She struggled a little, but soon she was allowing them to carefully guide her along with little dragging. When she realized it was futile and important that she do as she was told, she was walking on her own.

"What is it that you don't want me to hear?" she asked. "Is it really that bad?"

Natin sighed, shooting Asuma a look of sympathy. "Yes, it is," he remarked.

"!"

The three cubs barely had the time to scatter out of Chaka's path as he raced down the side of Pride Rock. Many of the other lionesses, including Vitani, were right on his heel. Nala followed behind them more than a dozen slow heartbeats later.

"Oh, no..." Asuma groaned as he sat up. He hadn't seen that look of fury on Chaka's face since he saved him from the wild dogs, and even then he'd been missing the dedicated hostility that he had now.

"Dead lion walking," Natin remarked.

Asuma frowned. "This isn't the time for jokes, Natin! He isn't going to stop until he finds-" He made sure to cut himself off before he uttered the name of his father.

Natin glared back. "I wasn't joking, just stating a fact."

"Tell me what's going on!" Tanga shouted. "Now!" She struck Natin in the shoulder with a paw so hard that he almost fell over. "Now, or I'll find out myself!"

"No!" Asuma shouted. "It's for your own good. Believe me, you don't want to know."

"I'll believe what I please," Tanga sneered. She then looked like she was going to run off, but Natin made sure to grab her. He knocked her to the ground.

"Geroff of me!"

"Tanga, just listen to him. Something bad happened today, and something even worse is going to happen. Just relax and-"

"No, I won't! Tell me!"

"Tanga!" Asuma shouted. He got into his sister's face. "Just look at me! How bad do you think it has to be for me to not tell you? You're making it very hard for me to keep you safe. You. Don't. Want. To. Hear. About. It."

For the first time, she must have noticed the urgency in her brother's face, which she had hardly heeded the last time she had calmed down. She said nothing at first, but she stopped struggling again, a look of shame on her face.

"Okay, Asuma," she said quietly. To Natin, she muttered, "You can get off, now."

Natin rolled his eyes. "Don't call me stupid, Lewa."

Tanga mimicked his eye roll, but was silent.

Asuma sighed. Dad? A murderer? I know he wasn't Zazu's favorite lion, but still... why would he say such things? He wouldn't...

Something frightening arose in Asuma's mind. No... that, that couldn't be... he said he was hunting, burying a kill... he wouldn't lie to me... Would he?

Asuma's mind was awhirl, uncontrollable and overloading with thoughts he knew he shouldn't be thinking up.

Perhaps my father isn't the lion I thought he was...