"Kopa?" Nala's soft voice trembled at the name. Her head raised backwards as she stared into the young lion's brown, shrunken eyes. They sparkled with a youthful desire for knowledge.
"It can't be..." Her voice croaked with emotion. Here he stood, the lost cub of the ride. She still remembered that dreadful day. She stared him in the eye, watching as he smiled softly, his brown eyes illuminating the depths of her heart. Her vision blurred, dripping with emotion.
Her heart raced as she uncontrollably pounced at him, pinning him to the ground. At the same time, many of the older lionesses surrounding them stood up, trotting to where the pair were exchanging nuzzles. Kopa's face had turned from one of shock and horror to one of comfort. His muscles relaxed, feeling his paws bury their razor-sharp claws.
Simba looked on as his mate pounced upon their visitor. His mind shook with shock as she began to nuzzle him, licking the top of his forehead as other lionesses joined in.
"What in the Outlands is going on?" Simba practically roared, the walls of the cave thundered with his echo.
Nala shot up, obviously hearing her mate's building anger. "It's okay, Simba." At the same time, Kopa turned his head away from the sea of fur surrounding him. "He's family."
Simba's face scrunched up, his trail of thought on the matter was only wrapping and tying around itself, like a curl of elephant trunks. How could Kopa be family, even if Simba didn't know who he was?
"How can he be? He's not from OUR pride. Nowhere near it in fact." The king retaliated, hoping to stretch even more information out of his mate.
"Simba, do you remember Tuli?" Nala stared into her mate's eyes, her question forcing him to turn away in thought. It had been many years since he heard that name, not since he was a cub, at least.
"Your sister?" Simba responded. "The one that was always tattling on us, if I recall." Nala had stepped towards him, within nuzzling distance. She rubbed her fur through his, stretching down the side of his body before turning back around, sitting beside him.
"That's the one." Nala replied. After one final nuzzle, she turned back to Kopa, who was still being caressed by many of the lionesses in the cave.
Kiara, Tiifu and Zuri, who until now had nestled far away from the young lion, approached slowly. Tiifu brushed her back against his scarred, yet smooth fur followed closely by Kiara. Their soft, welcoming purrs dampened by the larger, mature purrs of the lionesses above them.
Nala turned back to her mate, his face still stunned at the sight before him. "Kopa is her son."
Simba's eyes shot fully open. The fur on his forehead wrinkled upwards as they did so. His once anger drenched, confused voice had become swept with a tone of pure shock, mixed with a hint of happiness. "Wait! You mean-"
"Yes, He's your nephew, Simba."
...
Deeper in the caves, in the Lion Guard lair, the Guard tended to their injured members. Rafiki had joined them.
"Over here!" The aged mandrill signalled to the rest of the guard, pointing towards the small ledge over the central water pool.. Beshte, who's back was carrying the two injured members of the team, trudged up the stone ramp leading up onto the ledge. He rested slowly so as to not cause his friends to slip. As Beshte did so, Bunga and Rafiki lowered the lion and cheetah to the ground, resting them each on a pile of leaves which Rafiki prepared earlier in the day.
"I still can't believe both Kion and Fuli are injured like this." Beshte looked down at the couple as Rafiki began to bandage their broken limbs with layers of leaves and sticks to support them. "What are we gonna do? Who's going to lead us?"
Bunga, confident in his friend's recovery, seemed to not worry much as to their current situation. "Ahh don't worry Beshte. I'm sure Kion and Fuli will be okay," He crossed his arms, nodding his head as he did. "They are Kion and Fuli after all. They've got to be okay."
Rafiki, Beshte and Ono gave Bunga a few worried, serious stares.. Flicking his claws between one another, he carefully tried to ease conversation.
"They will be okay, right?"
"Don't worry, little honey badger." Rafiki replied, binding the lion and cheetah's injuries. The mandrill approached the trio. "They'll be ok, after some rest."
He continued to walk towards the lair's exit before stopping to turn at the remaining Guard members. "Perhaps King Simba has the answer to your leadership problem, hmm."
"Of course!" Ono exclaimed, now resting on Beshte's back. "I bet Simba could lead us for a few days." An intelligent, pondering smile scuffed over his beak. "Let's go everyone!'Till the Pridelands end!"
"Lion Guard Defend!" Beshte, Bunga and Ono declared as they all left the lair. Rafiki walked not far behind them, leaving Fuli, alone with Kion as they slept. The cheetah awoke with a smooth, half dreamy purr.
"Huh?" Her small, soft-furred head arose from its paw cushions, blinking around the lair. She started to wonder if all that had happened was merely a dream. But, as she turned to her left, she laid eyes on the unconscious adolescent lion, lying a few steps away. A layer of leaves covered his right hind leg.
"K-Kion?" Fuli uttered.
No response.
As she tried to rise to her feet, a sharp, unbearable pain shot through her own right hind leg, sending her slender, streamlined body crashing back to the rocky ground beneath her. The pain continued for some time, spreading from her leg until it reached her head, throbbing in constant bursts until numb.
As she looked at her hind legs, Fuli noticed she also had her left leg bandaged. A leaf cover padded and held the limp, pain-stricken limb in place.
"Oh no!" Fuli cried. A small, shallow river of droplets rolled down her face from the corners of her eye, especially when she looked over at Kion. Deep down, she couldn't shake the realisation of the day's events: how the young lion had clambered in front of her, taken most of the zebra stampede's might onto his side... how he had risked his life and paid the price.
"Kion!" Fuli tried once more to crawl towards the lion, kicking her healthy right leg outwards while shuffling her body forward. As her left leg scraped across the rocky, rugged rock below her, the pain only jolted as she inched closer to Kion. His right paw spread outwards on the cold, rugged floor. With one last push from her leg, she was able to reach out to him, pressing her paw against his shoulder.
"KION!" The young cheetah screeched, her voice barely recognisable as an overflowing flood of tears erupted from her face, splashing onto the ground. As her paw brushed against the lion's cold, motionless body, she felt his back rise... with the slightest motion of breath pumped from within. He was alive, but just barely.
This did little to ease Fuli. Seeing her friend, her leader in such a state, and because of her own recklessness in trying to stop the stampede.
'Did she cause this?'
This thought grew in her mind, consuming and corrupting every spot of her head. Fuli weighed herself both physically and mentally onto the frozen, hard floor below. As she fell, she nuzzled her friend's front leg, draping it over her muzzle. His fur quickly became drenched in the cheetah's tears as she cried.
Unbeknownst to her, the lion's eye also began to water. A small, single droplet formed in the corner of his closed, auburn eye
'Those sight catching, fierce auburn eyes of his.'
Guilt consumed Fuli's mind as she fell back into a deep sleep, unaware of the changes swaying through the air.
The Pridelands were about to change forever, and the Lion Guard would be at the centre of it...
