[Author's Note]
Welcome back, everyone! And I don't just mean in terms of reading my series, I also mean from what's gotta be the eight billionth site outage in the last few months. I've heard some horror stories about stories that have just disappeared into the void, and of course everyone's stats are still frozen, which is just wonderful.
Anyway, I'm not here to gripe, I'm here to share fanfic with you lovely folks. One last thing, should the day come when FFN ever fizzles out for good, y'all can still find my series on AO3 — my pen name is IncarnateFirefly with no space. I'm posting chapters concurrently there as well, so you're welcome to check it out at your leisure.
The trees that whisper in the evening,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow.
Sing a song of sorrow and grieving,
Carried away by a moonlight shadow.
—Mike Oldfield / Maggie Reilly, "Moonlight Shadow"
Y279 / 6TH MOON, DAY 22
4+ YEARS AGO
The evening sky rumbled sullenly, and despite the sepia-tinged clouds stretching over the cracked and forsaken landscape, Janga knew better than to hope for rain. It was as if the elements themselves were mocking the Pride Lands, every bit as stubborn and merciless as the one who ruled over their misfortune.
Stepping ever closer toward Pride Rock, Janga could now see hyenas crowded around its base, fangs bared into snarls of warning. Or perhaps it was hunger, but she did not so much as meet their eyes as she strode through them, keeping her head lifted even though she barely came up to their shoulders. Mother wouldn't be afraid, she reminded herself. Be like mother. There were more hyenas waiting around the entrance to the royal den, but she skulked between their looming forms without so much as a side glance toward them.
From the centre of the den wafted the lingering scent of fresh blood, and Janga was not surprised to see Scar slumped over the cleanly picked bones of an unfortunate foal. Though her mother had snuck her extra food earlier, Janga endeavoured to appear a little bit hungry if only to avoid making Scar suspicious. Though at the moment the king appeared unconcerned with anything except idly cleaning his teeth with a broken piece of bone.
Among the mess of bones scattered around the den sat a dusty rib cage, and sitting within the bones was Zazu. The majordomo looked none too happy about his predicament, but he appeared content to remain ignored for the time being. Janga stopped to peer into the rib cage, deliberately facing away from Scar as she did so. "Are you alright, Zazu?" she asked quietly.
"As well as I can be at the moment, Your Highness," he muttered.
Something flew past Janga and bounced off the rib cage, prompting Zazu to dart back in alarm. She saw that it was the broken bone Scar had been using and turned to give him a reproachful stare. Scar waved a paw airily. "Spare the honorifics, Zazu, or haven't you heard?" Now fixing his vivid green eyes upon her, he continued in a low voice, "My daughter has foolishly chosen to disown herself from the royal succession."
Janga held his stare unflinchingly. "You keep him in a cage. Of course he hasn't heard anything."
"Janga, my dear, you still have much to learn," Scar groaned in a dramatic lament. "I can't have Zazu flying off unattended. Why, there's so much danger lurking outside our borders."
"Outside your borders," snapped Janga.
She nearly flinched when Scar bolted up to his paws, barely managing to hold her composure as he prowled around her in a circle before stopping to regard her face-to-face. Be like mother. Mother is never afraid of him. So you don't have to be either.
Scar was smiling, but there was no warmth in his eyes. "There's no need for that. As your father and king, I summoned you here to extend an olive branch."
"You wouldn't have to if your 'branch' wasn't so barren," Janga responded snidely.
Zazu put both wings over his beak in trepidation. A flash of anger crossed Scar's face, though it quickly gave way to cold restraint. "Be careful, daughter, be very careful how you speak to me. Your spot will not remain vacant forever."
"And you won't be the king forever," she told him. "When all the animals are gone, and there's nothing left for your hyenas to feed on, they'll turn their teeth on you. Do you know why?"
"Do enlighten me," intoned Scar.
"Because you'll say it's their fault. You can't help yourself, it's like breathing for you. Your own selfishness will devour you one day."
If the king was the slightest bit perturbed by her bold claim, he did not show it. "Such vicious words for a cub," he marvelled in his usual patronizing way. "Here you are, all of four months old, and you think you have it all figured out?"
"The herds have left, and the ones who haven't are starving to death. What don't I have figured out?"
"How hard it is to be me!" Scar snapped. "You've no idea the weight that rests upon my shoulders, the uneasiness with which I sit upon the throne. The royal blood we bear is our burden, a birthright neither you or I asked for, and yet we must–"
"We have no birthright!" shouted Janga, fed up with his vain posturing. "You haven't got any royal blood, mother says you're not even Ahadi's real s–"
Scar's paw lashed out from the corner of her vision, and pain erupted on the side of her face. Staggering away, she felt warm blood pooling in her mouth and became aware that one of her teeth had sliced the inside of her cheek.
"Princess Janga!" shouted Zazu.
Janga straightened, glaring at Scar through watering eyes. "I am not a princess," she growled, blood trickling from between clenched teeth, "and I'd rather be a hyena's bastard than call myself your daughter."
A pair of cubs rushed to her side, a stocky mass and a taller figure that Janga could recognize as Jeraha and Kivuli even through her swimming vision. They stood at her shoulders, still-growing teeth bared fiercely at Scar.
The king's head whirled back and forth between them. "I did not give you permission to enter. Get out!"
The hard look in Kivuli's eyes was equally murderous. "Don't you touch her."
"You dare make demands of your king?" seethed Scar.
"I'll dare do a lot worse," Jeraha threatened. "Raise a paw at her again and you'll find out how much worse."
Scar reared back with a roar of fury. "I'll feed you both to my hyenas, you insolent brats!"
"That's enough." Into the den marched Sarabi, placing herself decisively between him and Janga. "They're just cubs, Scar."
"And you, Sarabi," the king snarled with a raised claw in her direction. "What unseemly things have you been telling our daughter about me?"
"She didn't tell me, I overheard it," declared Janga.
"Janga!" Her mother shot her a warning look.
Scar observed Sarabi beadily, though she did not turn to look at him. "And who were you speaking to regarding my lineage, I wonder? Sarafina? Your sisters? Or perhaps someone who didn't know until you informed them?"
"Send the cubs outside and I'll tell you," she responded stiffly, still refusing to make eye contact.
"Damn you, Sarabi, I must teach our daughter a lesson since you clearly refuse to!"
Her gaze snapped to meet his. "And how do you think their parents will feel about that? Do you really want to lose four of your inner circle so you can teach this 'lesson'?"
Scar's ire finally abated, although his scowl did not grow any less pronounced.
Sarabi relaxed a little, evidently sensing that the danger had passed for the time being. "Their parents will discipline them. I'll make sure they know what happened."
"They had better," muttered the king, now the one averting his gaze, "or the lot of them will answer to me. Get them out of my sight." He waved one paw dismissively.
Sarabi gave her daughter a nod, and Janga wordlessly turned and led Jeraha and Kivuli out of the den. There were more hyenas gathered outside the den than when she had entered, many of them looking disappointed at the outcome. Janga stopped to peer over her shoulder to see Sarabi quietly speaking into Scar's ear, and stopped to observe his reaction.
She suddenly felt a pair of paws on her shoulders, and gave a start as Jeraha pulled her back as a trio of hyenas rushed past where she was standing. They stumbled to a halt inside the royal den, and it wasn't until one of them spoke that she recognized the voice of Shenzi in the darkness. "Scar! Scar! We got trouble!"
"Yeah, it's those insurgents in the Outlands again!" shouted Banzai.
Scar whirled upon them, his attention diverted from Sarabi instantly. "Quiet, you imbeciles! I told you never in front of the pride!"
Janga felt a nudge from Kivuli, and noticed that the surrounding hyenas were now glaring tautly at them. She continued down the side of Pride Rock with her friends. The insurgents... could they be the animals who left not long ago?
The day the herds walked out of the Pride Lands had been the day she saw everything differently – realized Scar was not a hapless king forced on hard times, but a selfish dictator who used the threat of scarcity to coerce others into loyalty. The day she decided he was no longer her father.
There has to be an end to this. Whoever those insurgents are, that's gotta be what they want, right? Not for the first time in the last few days, Janga wondered why no one in the pride was doing anything about their predicament. Even Sarabi had resigned herself to plodding on through day after dreary day. The only time she would ever show strength was to protect Janga, as she had just done.
Not me though, Janga thought, jutting her jaw resolutely against the cloudless night sky. I won't sit around and wait for Scar's time to run out. "Hope you both got enough sleep last night," she said, glancing around to make sure there weren't any hyenas nearby.
"Time for another late-night adventure?" guessed Kivuli, eyes gleaming with anticipation. Jeraha groaned.
"Mom says I do most of my growing while I'm asleep," he groused.
Kivuli smirked. "You could use a little less growing, unless you really do want to get fed to the hyenas."
"You're hilarious." Jeraha glanced about, noting their direction relative to the grassland they were wading through. "So where are we going, Janga?"
"The Outlands," she murmured, dropping her voice just to be safe.
"Uh, the Outlands are that way." Kivuli jerked her head to their right, indicating south.
Janga nodded, acutely aware of this. "We're still one lion short."
The grey-furred cub tilted her head warily. "Nala won't approve," she cautioned.
"Nala doesn't have to know," retorted Janga, cuffing her lightly on the shoulder. "Live a little, Kivuli. It's not like playing by the rules has ever done much good for any of us."
•••
Y284 / 1ST MOON, DAY 30
PRESENT DAY
The sound of clattering rocks echoed through the desolate gorge, near still if not for the frantic paws digging through the countless piles of rubble and dust. Although they were making far more noise than Jeraha would have preferred, he resisted the urge to order everyone to quiet down. With no way of knowing whether their presence had been noticed – and more importantly, reported – the only certainty was the increase of risk the longer they were here.
With an irritated growl, Jeraha swatted a growing dust cloud away from his face, only to have it swirl in every direction including into his mane and fur. He strode through the half-score of lions who had arrived at the gorge just after nightfall, staggering a little unevenly due to the injuries he had sustained in the rockslide. "Pick up the pace," he barked. The inside of his mouth was already dry and coarse from the dust. "Simba could be on his way right now."
Seeing that Sajin and his team were having some trouble with a particularly well-buried boulder, Jeraha hobbled his way over in a flash. Fighting to maintain his own flagging strength, he planted one shoulder against the rock and shoved in unison with the others, sending it tumbling free with a dull crash.
A limp foreleg flopped out from the opening, and without hesitation Kiza grabbed it. He let go almost immediately. "No pulse."
"Leave it," Jeraha ordered. "Prioritize the ones that can be saved."
Without question, Sajin's team hurried to the nearest pile of rubble and promptly redoubled their efforts. Jeraha stepped around them and moved on, nose and ears honed intently for any sound or scent of a potential survivor. A muffled moan came from his left, and he turned to see a battered figure reaching through the hole excavated by Wivu and Masao. He recognized her as Saka, the last remaining member of his original team, and rushed forward to grasp her by the front paws.
Gritting his teeth, Jeraha pulled as hard as he could while the others strained to hold the opening in place. As he dragged Saka out, the scent caught his nostrils even before he spotted the blood trail dripping from one of her hindlegs, and it was then that he saw that her footpaw was missing. "Keep digging, Masao," grunted Jeraha, setting Saka down with the utmost care. "Wivu, stabilize her."
Wivu gave a shaky breath as she took in Saka's injury. "I don't think I can save her," she fretted.
"I didn't ask for your opinion," Jeraha growled. "You go back to digging if she dies and not a moment before."
He darted away without waiting for a response, nearly losing his balance when the rocks shifted unexpectedly beneath his paws. The burly lion managed to right himself by bracing his weight against a tall stack of rubble, sending another shower of stones flying away in the process. It's no good. How are we even supposed to know where to dig? If there was any sign of life coming out of these rocks, there isn't anymore.
The commotion gradually settled around Jeraha, and as his vision cleared of dust once more, he caught the sound of rapid digging near the edge of the gorge. His sharp eyes soon caught the umbral form of Kivuli scrabbling into the very end of the rockfall they were wading in. He hopped his way over to her, careful not to disturb the rubble any more than he had already done. "What are you doing?" he asked calmly. "The others are turning up lions over there."
"She won't be there," intoned Kivuli with the utmost conviction. She did not look up or slow her efforts in the slightest. "She made it farther than we did, I saw it."
Jeraha took a moment to draw in the cleaner air, hoping it would help clear his other faculties as well. "Take it easy," he reminded, sidestepping a spray of rocks she had knocked loose. "We barely made it out alive the first time."
"Well, she hasn't." With those three words, Kivuli clawed and tore at the rubble even more ferociously, as if trying to wrest death itself from the stones.
"You'll be no help to Janga if you keel over. We're both in bad shape, and ignoring that will turn you into a liability."
At this the grey-furred lioness finally let up, panting heavily for several moments. Upon regaining her breath, she peered up to give Jeraha an irate look. "I'm open to suggestions, since you've clearly put so much thought into this."
"Then why don't you start by telling me how long he's been here?" Jeraha jerked his head past Kivuli to the unmistakable form of Fujo, who was sitting prone beside the cliff wall with his eyes closed.
She followed Jeraha's gaze. "He might have been there when I started digging, I can't be sure." She craned her neck, frowning when she saw that Fujo did not react or appear to notice them. "What is he doing?"
Kicking aside a few stray pieces of stone, Jeraha strode toward the black-maned lion, scowling impatiently. "Save whatever wily scheme you've concocted this time. If you're not here to help, then make yourself scarce or–"
Fujo opened his eyes blankly and pointed over Jeraha's shoulder. "She's under there, about nine paces from me in that direction. Well, perhaps eight paces for you, Jeraha."
Without hesitation, Kivuli bolted straight for the indicated spot. Jeraha fixed Fujo with a suspicious look but quickly bound after Kivuli as well. He gave an authoritative roar, and the other lions stopped and peered about at him. "Duara Vunja, form up on me!"
Stones and pieces of broken rock flew in every direction as everyone came and joined in the excavation effort. Despite the haphazard nature of their task, Jeraha was pleased to see them remain calm, a few lions pairing up with one another to methodically shift the larger boulders aside. Their efforts sent even more dust flying into the air, but no one paid it any mind.
Finally, Jeraha felt the stones bunched in his paws shift and give way to a narrow crevice. Two thick pieces of boulder had braced against one another, miraculously stopping the cataclysm above from burying the opening, and nestled inside was the bloodied and unmoving form of Janga. Jeraha's breath stopped in his throat, not daring to reach out to see if his friend was alive.
"Took you... long enough..." came Janga's voice in a slow rasp. Her head slowly turned to face them, blinking feebly in the moonlight. "Must've... must've been too soft... on all of you..."
Kivuli exhaled in relief, and Jeraha felt his throat unclench before the two of them expediently hauled Janga out to relative safety. The Duara Vunja broke out into smiles and tired cheers, and a few of them hurried to help Kivuli place their injured leader on Jeraha's back. Janga's breath settled into a slow, even rhythm as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Kivuli placed her paw upon her foreleg, checking to make sure there was still a pulse. "Hurry, we'd better get her somewhere safe."
Jeraha stared back into the depths of the gorge, trying to ignore the frequency with which he had to blink away the dust. "She'd want us to keep digging," he murmured.
"And they'd want us to save her," Kivuli said pointedly. "Now come on, we have to cover our tracks and be gone before sunrise."
Looking about, he realized that Fujo was nowhere to be seen. A little farther in, Wivu rose from where she had been crouched, Saka's lifeless body sprawled at her paws. Wivu gave a slight shake of the head, and Jeraha finally turned away from the gorge.
Kivuli cleared her throat to get the others' attention. "We're leaving, Duara Vunja."
As the lions filed out in practiced formation, Jeraha considered bringing up Fujo's disappearance with Kivuli, but decided against it upon noticing that her usually measured pawsteps were pressed and fretful. I doubt she cares about anything other than treating Janga right now. We got her out alive, but we still have to make sure she stays that way. He pushed aside the thought of what would happen after their predicament, even if Janga were to survive. None of that matters right now. She'll figure it out, but only if we figure this out first.
Jeraha noticed the direction Kivuli had chosen for them, and right then he knew what refuge she had in mind. "The Outlands? We're going to the Keepers' old hideout?"
"It's the only safe place close enough," she said firmly. "And Simba wouldn't know about it."
"No, but there are others who might. The overseer, for starters, and she's a hyena."
Kivuli grinned, and he saw a hint of her unflappable demeanour return in that moment. "We broke all the rules to get as far as we have. Why change that now?"
Stars move slowly in the silvery night,
Far away on the other side.
Will you come to talk to me this night?
But she couldn't find how to push through.