Iago could scarcely believe it; Korofi's plan worked almost to perfection. The blonde 'usurper' was dead, and as his lifeless body fell to the side and Iago stood up, it dawned on the scrappy lion that he was once again able to call himself the King of the Goldlands. As the sun set, and the realization set in with it, Iago looked at his new Pride of lionesses, as well as his reptilian ally, then turned around to look out over the kingdom his father had left him. And he did the one thing he felt like doing all his life, and was finally able to do with the blonde king dead. He roared, and though he was a small, wisp of a male, he was a sub-adult male nonetheless, and this meant his roar was louder and grander than anything a lioness could produce. And as his roar thundered across the soft hues of sunset, it was only a matter of time before the native pride would hear it.
And when they heard it, each one could tell that this roar did not belong to the blonde king. "Dad?" Khari blankly said as the other 6 lionesses looked towards Ivory Tower. "No way that's Mato's roar, and you know it." Jezebel said, though the way she said it betrayed her grim outlook on what hearing a foreign male roaring so grandly could mean. However, Khari suspected that Jezebel knew exactly who that roar belonged to, but before she could make excuses for who she knew she would find at Ivory Tower, Khari raced away from the hunting party. Only Jezebel remained behind to drag the kill back to the den, but the other lionesses attempted to match Khari's pace. And when they got to their destination, every lioness present was aghast at what they witnessed. More pertinently, their noses were assaulted with the smell of drying blood and other smells of death, and when they saw Iago's triumphant, cocky smirk they could almost see exactly what had happened.
"Welcome back, lionesses. So glad you came back empty-pawed as usual." He said with a hard sarcasm. However, the lionesses didn't hear a word he said because they were too focused on the dead lion he was standing next to. Khari's eyes dimmed for just a moment as her mouth gaped with horror and shock. She didn't want to believe it, but there Iago was standing over her father's dead form. "My… father…" Khari said blindly. "What? Speak up!" Iago taunted, and Khari was definitely going to. In fact, she was going to speak up much more loudly, as well as much closer than from the bottom of Ivory Tower. Before anyone could stop her, Khari ascended to where Iago stood, and as soon as she got there she pounced right at him.
The two of them rolled for a bit before Khari could register the smell of leonine blood that wafted from the den, and just as soon as she did, she also heard a roar erupt from that same royal den. When she looked up, her vision was smothered with a strong paw to the forehead, knocking her off Iago and nearly off of Ivory Tower. Although Khari had to take a minute to register what had just happened, the rest of the Pride was greeted with Othello's angry visage. If anyone had doubted who Othello's father was, his face as he narrowed his blue eyes at the fallen lioness made him look exactly as Blood did. Looking at Othello as he was now filled Jezebel with the same fear and trepidation that Blood would instill in her when he was alive, and now more than ever she realized that Othello was well and truly on Iago's side.
"Anyone else have a problem with me?" Iago asked, standing up and grooming his mane back to the way it was before Khari had tackled him. As he said this, Penda lead the rest of the foreign Pride out of the den. Jezebel counted 8 in all, and more pertinently Khari was able to do the same as she reoriented her senses. "Well, in that case, the rightful king has returned to his rightful place. Though you all served the pretender just as Chuma did, I'm willing to forgive you, if and only if you all chose to return your services back to the true king. That is, for some of you dumber broads, me." He looked right at Khari as he said this, and the daughter of the deceased king and queen, simply glowered at the scrappy lion who suddenly found the courage to face her down now that his pride was by his side. "Where is my mother, you bastard!?" Now, Iago cackles loudly, and at once he sounds like a demon and a hyena as he haughtily answers.
"Why don't you see for yourself?" Iago said slyly, yet Khari couldn't think about that as she stepped into the royal den. Seizing the opportunity, Iago turned to Othello. I got move quickly, before she comes back out. He thought as he delivered his orders. "Lana and the others should be coming back soon. Go tell Cobarte that his pack needs to be ready. And this time, Lana is to be brought here unharmed." Iago had put emphasis on that last part, and Othello took the order to heart as he set off. He then turned to Penda. "You want to be a leader? Then have your pride-sisters 'lead' the usurper's loyalists back to the zebra plains. Magnus' pack will take real good care of them." Iago said with a smirk as he entered the den for some alone time with Khari.
And once in the den, he nearly laughed at what he was sure was Khari's expression of horror and mourning. For what she was seeing was the bodies of the Goldlander cubs, killed by the claws of a lion. Some mauled beyond recognition, some had their throats torn out, and still some were torn in half. And in the center of it all was Chuma herself, her unborn cubs ripped out of her in a gruesome explosion of blood around her belly. "Mom. You too?" She said, her voice betraying her suffering as she could only mourn the horrific fate of her mother, unborn siblings and the rest of the cubs strewn about the den. And, most tragically of all, Iago surprising her with a pounce and a blow to the head would force her to shift from mourning the deeds that had been done to horror and disgust for the deeds Iago was currently doing to her.
Unaware that Othello and the outsiders were no longer present outside, Khari dared not fight back.