BRAVESPIRIT ~ A Lion King Fanfiction

Chapter 8: Journey

The Saharan sun scorched all that it touched. Any creature to survive living here was burrowing deep bellow the surface. Traveling across this brutal terrain was especially dangerous. The journey across the land of Africa was a long and difficult one, but Noelle knew it was vital for the fulfillment of Rafikis prophecy, and the survival of the little one. Speaking of which...

"Aunt Noelle, are we almost there?" Koda said, his throat as dry as the sand beneath his paws.

"Patience little one, we will be there soon." She replied, also tired.

Noelle had no cubs of her own, so this was her first experience with a little one. Though she always wanted a family, she knew that her destiny had to come before everything, anything else would be a distraction. Especially a little guy that was barely strong enough to make this journey. Distracting him with stories was the best way to keep his mind off the long trek.

"Aunt Noelle, what was he like?" Koda said in reference to the uncle he never met.

She froze, she had just told stories of myths up to that point, nothing about the father she never got to formally meet. She looked back to him, eyes starting to water and sadness growing ever present on her face. She lays down and let's Koda crawl onto her back, letting her have his full attention as she continued walking.

"I never got to know him. But my coalition always told me he was fierce in fighting, but very gentle with me and my sister, even my mother. He cast himself out from the Pridelands in his early adult life, presumably because of some corruption, but no one really knew except for my mom." She paused, understanding that history soon would repeat itself in the Pridelands.

"What happened next?" Koda asked, his ears perked up with anticipation.

"He traveled this path that we walk now and was stranded not far from my home. My coalition attacked him once they found him and recognized him as a lion, but he fought back in a way that no one had seen, gravely wounding many and rumor had it, even killing one. My coalition accepted him after judging him, and he married my mother, and she would later give birth to me and my sister." She pauses again, this time thinking about how long it had been since she had seen her sister.

"Where is your sister?" Koda asked,

Noelle couldn't speak. The thought of her sister, the only family she had left being so close to danger broke her heart.

"The Pridelands." She heaved, now looking down.

"The Pridelands? I must have known her! What was her name?" Koda said with excitement,

"Her name for the time I knew her was Hope," she looks back to Koda, "..we were separated as children, and she changed her name. We had to be with our own kind. Besides, the prophecy called for it, if we were together, it would be easier to be hunted down." She turned back and kept walking.

"I've got to know now, what happened next?" Koda's excitement for this story was growing.

"Not long after my parents married, the old coalition leader, my grandfather, wanted to return our family and his coalition to the Pridelands. When they did, even though it was against my fathers wishes, they were attacked by a beast from the past."

"Beast from the past? What does that mean?" Koda interrupts.

"Scar.."Noelle hisses grimly, and an angry look encapsulating her eyes.

"He had poisoned the mind of King Simba, and my Father. He corrupted every ounce of the King until the light had left his eyes. It's sickening to think about. That was when your Father, Kovu came to our aid and brought us out of the Pridelands. Once we gathered our bearings, both sides made their final stand. At the end of it, my grandfather, and the lion king were both dead, my father was missing, me and my sister were separated, and your father assumed the throne. I returned to my homeland and have lead my coalition ever since." Her breath was now heavy again, either the walk or the pain of her family's story had drained much of Noelle.

"He sounded very brave, and so do you..." Koda said quietly, starting to feel the journey get to him, longing for rest.

"... thank you, little one." Noelle said quietly, not really understanding how to respond to the compliment.

Meanwhile, in the outlands

Lionesses joined in a sorrowful roar to commemorate those that had been wrongfully massacred. As the Prides roars of sadness echoed all the way to the outlands, the hyena clans would bark and cheer that nothing is stopping them from overthrowing priderock. However, King Sumu would not know that his rash order was for nothing, nor would he enjoy the cries of the lionesses, or the planned overthrow of the Pridelands.

He's Dying.

His last paranoid act, is on his son Bwana. The execution of the prince for presumably plotting against his father.

"Bring him here!" Yells the king, sweating profusely with sick red eyes and a sagging jawline dripping with sweat and drool.

On command, two hyenas drag Bwana into his chamber and stomp him down as to keep him from escaping. His fearful eyes are drawn to the sick elder that sits down mere feet away from him.

"Father... please!" Bwana begs with scared eyes, not enough to persuade his father, who gives a nod to the hyenas behind him.

Within seconds of that nod, one hyena bits his neck, while the other goes for his throat, both ripping back at the same time, allowing the hyena prince to bleed out.

"Slash, I trust you will carry out my plan for our people?" The king spits at the hyena dragging who begins dragging the lifeless body of his son away.

"It will be done, my king." His says through blood in his mouth.

When Sumu dies, some of the lionesses sense an opportunity to fight back, the Pridelands and the outlands explode. Try as they might, the Pridelands had no king, and the hyenas had numbers.

The revolt is crushed.

Nearly 20 lionesses are captured and flayed alive by the hyenas. With the uprising pride in ruins, the Hyenas establish a foothold on priderock. A great night falls upon the Pridelands, lasting many years.