Sun Rise Ch. 6

[I do NOT own the character Mimba, she is owned by Zoww The Plump Hyena.

aminoapps.com/p/9gw7gj ]

What an eventful first couple days of the year. It was once again late at night when Kion got back to the Pridelands. His eyes were burning, like someone had blasted a bright light into it for twelve hours straight. His head felt like someone had drained it completely dry, and shoved it full of heavy rocks. Kion had went three days without sleep. The first he stayed up all night worrying about the Backlands, the second he spent just walking to the Outlands, and the third he spent just walking back. He was finally ready to try and get some sleep.. He made his way through the Outlands, and made his way back to Priderock. He only came to the Guard's lair though, before he collapsed to the ground and closed his eyes, finally getting some rest.

He dreamed of vivid hallucinations. Swirls, colors, and patterns all bursting in wonderful displays of imagination and creativity. Polka dots, squares, triangles, ovals, grids. Reds, blues, greens, yellows and oranges. Magenta, indigo, teal and crimson. It all merged together, inside each other and out one another, above and below. It was a beautiful display of soothing chaos, where he fell deeper and deeper into the strange and the unkown.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Janja hadn't been outside his territory in a month. It had been mostly Nne and Tano going out to get food for him and the rest, since they were the best at doing that. This was the first time he would be leaving in a while with Cheezi and Chungu. His paws shook as his mind swirled around like a fierce hurricane of doubt and worry, and was churned together into a sludge in his head. What would everyone do when they saw him? what if Kion was still down there? What if he ran into Jasiri?

"Guys, I-I don't know about this. I mean, I'm not exactly the most popular guy right now." He said with a nervous smile on his face.

"You never were the most popular guy Janja." Tano said.

"Why should you let it stop you now?" Asked Nne.

"I don't wanna go out there. It's too late for me. I should just head back to my den." He tried to walk away, but Nne grabbed Janja's tail in his jaws and started dragging him.

"Hey!" Janja yelled as Tano pushed him.

"You have to go outside Janja!"

The both drug him down the path and to an area down below, just out of Janja's now small territory. He stood up as Cheezi and Chungu tried to escort him away.

"I don't wanna go!"

"Stop pouting!" Tano yelled.

Eventually, Janja had to reluctantly go. He was fighting against four, and they were determined to make him social again. After the three hyenas had walked down the path, and twisted and winded down the volcano. Past dead trees, and magma rivers, the two eventually noticed a crowd forming in the distance, down at the base of the volcano.

"I wonder what's going on over there?" Chungu asked.

"They found me, they're down there to kill me!" Janja said.

"No they're not!" Chungu told him.

Cheezi then said, "Let's go ask Jasiri over there!"

"Wait what?!" Janja exclaimed. What did that fur-brain just say? Janja snapped his head over to see Jasiri laying on a rock, with her head down, watching the crowd from a distance.

"Welp, time to go!" Janja said with a smile as he turned to head back. The two henchmen blocked him though and started pushing him closer to the girl hyena.

"Hey Jasiri!" Chungu yelled they got closer.

Her ears perked up, and she looked over to find an unexpected surprise.

"Janja? Chungu? Cheezi? You boys are actually coming out this time?"

Janja was sweating bullets. He didn't know why, he just didn't want to be there. He wanted to be as far away from that spot and moment as he possibly could be.

"Say, whatcha watching?" Chungu asked.

"I was just looking at them down there. Mshale told everyone to meet down there..."

"Can we watch too?" Cheezi asked.

It was strange for them all to be so nice to one another. After years of rivalry and fighting each other, now it was as though she was friends with the two henchmen. Maybe they weren't really that bad after all.

"Sure! There's some room over here for you three!"

The two walked over and sat down next to a dead tree that was close by. Janja froze in his spot.

"You coming?" Jasiri asked.

"Uh..."

"Oh come on, you can sit right by me."

She patted the spot on the ground next to her. He lifted one paw off the ground, but still did not move.

"I won't bite Janja, unless you bite me first." She chuckled.

Janja suddenly remembered that he was alive, and tried to muster up all the confidence he could. He sighed.

"Ugh... Jasiri..." he said with a disgusted tone to his voice.

Her ears dropped down.

"Hello Janja... nice to have you back..."

He walked over, and sat down next to her.

She laid back down on her flat rock under the tree, staring at the crowd in the distance, so far down below at the bottom of the volcano. She didn't know what she was going to do. The Outlands had come so far. Would Nabii be able to handle it? She mostly had good control over her clan, besides for that incident earlier that day. Even though no one has actually spoken it yet, Nabii was the closest thing to a leader they had. Most of everyone else was more focused on fixing up their own groups, while Nabii seemed to be focusing on a bigger picture.

Jasiri looked at the orange glow of the melting mountain, and watched as it's orange embers and ashes flew into the air, and disappeared into the starless night sky.

"So what's going on down there?" Chungu asked, taking more of a lead in Janja's silence.

"Mshale is doing something down there, I don't know what. Whatever it is though, they're liking it."

They listened to the crowds cheering and laughing. Shrieks of pleasure and good times could be heard.

"Why aren't you down there?" Chungu had asked Jasiri.

"I didn't feel like going down there..."

Janja listened to them talk. He listened to his two henchmen try to make a conversation with who was once their enemy. He listened to Jasiri talk about the project her and Nabii had been working on. He listened to the sound of her voice, the sweet sound of her voice. He listened, and remembered her caring yet snarky attitude. He remembered her laugh, her bubbly laugh. He hated it. He hated her. He felt anger in his heart, anger at Jasiri. He wanted so badly to hurt her, to jump on her right now and hurt her. Why couldn't she just go away, why couldn't she just leave him in the pit, why couldn't she just let everyone come and rip him apart so it would finally be over with. Why couldn't she just let him suffer in peace like everyone else, now he lost everything, he's alone and useless, he would be better off dead, instead he's living a life of regret, sleepless nights, and bubbling blind fury boiling over over with feelings of unhappiness, unhappy, unhappy at...

At...

At...

...

No

He didn't hate Jasiri...

quite the opposite in fact...

He hated himself. Sevaga's words still buzzed around in his head like an angry bee. "Once a criminal, always a criminal". Sevaga was right, Janja was a screw up. He couldn't listen to the roaring crowds down below without hearing the chanting in his head again.

"CRI-MI-NAL!

CRI-MI-NAL!

CRI-MI-NAL!"

Jasiri was just looking out for him, something he didn't ask for, and something he never expected to receive. He wanted to hug her. She didn't have to hug him back, all she had to do was know that he was thankful. For what goal though? What would that achieve? Nothing, that's what opening up would achieve. Look at this. Look at this pathetic little man. He didn't want to admit it, but he did this to himself. He was going to die alone, might as well make the most out of what he can.

"Hey Jasiri." He asked.

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing this close to my turf..."

Not this again. Was Janja really about to nag about his territory again? He looked at her with a serious and angry tone.

"Well?" He said, waiting for some kind of response. Suddenly though he put on a happy smile and said, "I'm just yanking your tail."

She chuckled, "You almost got me."

There, he made the move.

Janja looked around, "I don't see Kion anywhere..."

"You saw him earlier?"

"Yeah I did, where did he go?"

"He went back to the Pridelands earlier on today, he had something important to do."

"Why was he here?" Janja asked. He had been wondering about that ever since they had locked eyes for the first time in a year.

"The Pridelands are in danger again. This rhino called Thimba has attacked the Backlands, and Simba got pretty badly hurt by him. The guard has no clue what to do."

Mzingo had mentioned that earlier. Should he tell her? He did anyways.

"Mzingo came by earlier and told me about that."

"Mzingo did? How does he know?" She asked with a curious tone in he voice.

"He lives in the Backlands now."

That was all Jasiri needed to hear. Mzingo lived in the Backlands now, with Thimba! Of course!

"Where in the Backlands does he live?" She immediately asked him.

Janja was taken off guard by how quickly she asked that.

"What do you mean?"

"Does he live in the Eastern region in the Jungle? Or does he live in the Western region closer to the Pridelands?"

The Southern part." He replied.

"Janja, tell me you and Mzingo are still friends!"

"Of course we are. He's gonna stop by every week to check up on me."

Oh course! That's how they'll beat Thimba! Mzingo was friends with Janja! Mzingo could spy on Thimba and his forces! She grabbed Janja and said, "Janja you're a genius and you don't even realize it!"

"Well of course I've realized it." He jokingly said with a smile.

"Don't push it." Jasiri said with a chuckle in her voice.

"We need to tell Nabii, she can round everyone together. We're gonna go take down a rhino." She said with determination in her voice.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kion walked to the tree of life to visit Beshte and Simba. When he arrived there, he was once again taken away at how big the tree was. Its thick wood stump looked impossible to destroy, and the top spreading out into multiple arms that supported life above the tree. Itlooked as though it was supporting the sky itself. The towering behemoth of a tree stood as a true testament to the gradual creative power of nature. Beshte was laying in a small pool of water next to the tree.

"Hey check this out Kion, they gave me a pool to lay in!"

"It's important to keep the body hydrated." Makini said climbing down from the tree.

"I didn't know how long he would be out, so we moved him over there. Looks like he's doing better sooner than I expected though."

"That's my Beshte, always staying strong!" Kion told him.

"How's my father doing?"

"He might take longer to get better though, come look."

Makini took Kion over to another area beside the massive tree. There Simba was laying down on a smooth rock, with Nala standing beside him. Simba looked up, "Kion! I'm so glad you're here son."

Makini quickly explained what was going on, "Thimba hit him pretty hard, his rib cage is broken. If you guys hadn't slowed that rhino down in time, Simba might not have made it."

"Is he gonna be ok?"

"Hopefully. Give him some time and he should heal up, but he has an increased risk of becoming sick, so watch out for that."

"Oh no..." Kion said outloud.

"I'll be fine." Simba said trying to calm his son down, "I'll tough it out."

He tried to stand up, but the crushing pain in his chest game back. He felt like the bones in his chest were falling apart, and the ones that didn't were stabbing into his lungs. He fell back down to the ground.

"Simba, lay down, take care of yourself." Nala told him.

Kion could not believe everything. Why did this happen? Why did this have to happen? Kion slapped his paw on his face.

"Why couldn't we just keep you away from the fighting dad... now you're hurt."

"No... don't worry about me son. I will be perfectly fine. You were really brave out there, and you took charge of the situation very quickly. You're not as dumb as you think you are."

That helped a little, but he was still worrying.

"I need to speak with Rafiki..." Kion told them.

Makini turned to him and said, "Oh he's over in that direction meditating with his friends." She pointed to the west.

"Ok, thanks."

Kion walked off from the group, and trotted off into the distance. Through the grassy plains, he eventually came upon Rafiki sitting on top of a tall boulder, legs crossed, meditating with the Chin Mudra hand position. Rafiki appeared to be a wise and old monkey, with a friendly face, and a large white mane. His bones looked ancient and fragile, like they could shatter at any moment.

Sitting on the ground in front of him was an adult white lioness, who looked very young and pretty. She also seemed to be expecting some cubs soon.

"Uh... hello, am I disturbing something?" Kion asked.

Rafiki's eyes opened as the lioness turned to face him. She spoke to him, "No, not at all. Come, sit down."

Kion walked over to sit next to her.

"I believe I've seen you around here before, but I never got your name." Kion told her.

"My name is Mimba, but you can call me friend." she replied

"Cool, so what are you two doing?"

"Well, the Three of us were just catching up with life."

"Three?"

Suddenly, a white moth he hadn't noticed had flown off of her head and around Kion's face. It landed on his nose, and said, "I'm Mstari".

His voice sounded like a healthy, yet kind of awkward young man.

"Nice to meet you."

"I don't think I've ever met you before Mstari, where are you from?" Asked the curious lion.

"I'm from around. It doesn't really matter where I'm from, just that I'm here. I mostly live in the Outlands. I'm the shaman there."

Some more about the Outlands he didn't know about? Mstari had began to crawl from his nose and between his eyes, up is face and around the back of his left ear.

"Hey now." Kion said, vaguely warning the bug with the tone of his voice.

Mimba spoke up, "Oh don't mind him, he likes to crawl around."

Mastari took off from the back of Kion's neck and landed on Mimba's paw.

"He's an adventurous little thing." She said as he crawled around in between the toes on her paw.

Rafiki spoke up, his voice sounded brittle and trembling. He was getting older, and the sight was almost kind of sad to see.

"Is there something you need Kion?"

"Yes actually. It's about the coming war."

He raised one of his eyebrows.

"I heard about that. Some people just don't understand do they?"

Mimba replied, "There's always someone out there who wants to try and lead without having earned that right."

Mstari added on, "Forcing others to do what they can not do for themselves."

"Yeah." Kion continued. "Anyways, I don't feel good about this. We won a war before, and avoided another one, but this one just feels funny. You think we could've avoided it? Like we could've tried harder to handle it peacefully?"

This had been bugging him the whole time, and wanted to get it off his chest.

Rafiki closed his eyes.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

His eyes opened up again.

"In life, you'll encounter people who want to hurt you, and it's important to defend yourself. One thing you don't want to do though, is to become just like them in the process."

Mimba elaborated a bit further, "Through the years I've been alive, I've seen a lot of things. Groups of people go to war and fight, you can't avoid that. You can't stop it from happening. Bad people will always be around. Just don't let those bad people scare you though. Don't let fear consume you, and don't give up the things that made this land great in the first place."

Mstari flew up to Kion now, fluttering in the air, his wings flapping so fast he looked like a white blur.

"Remember who you are, take control of your own life."

Rafiki looked down at Kion and told him, "We know you tried your best Kion, you always do. Now is time for you to do the best you can for this land." His voice was straining. Rafiki began on uproar of hysterical coughing and hacking. He climbed down from the rock as Mimba began to escort him back to the Tree of Life.

"We can't talk at the moment, Rafiki isn't in the greatest state of health right now. You can come back some time later though." Mimba told Kion as Rafiki continued to cough his lungs out.

Kion's ears drooped down, and his eye sight grew fuzzy with tears forming. His mouth slightly hung open in a look of sadness. He didn't know why, but he felt like he was lost. What could they even do? His roar didn't work this time.

That's when he noticed that Mstari hadn't left, still fluttering in the air.

"Being brave and just roaring isn't going to fix everything this time. You're gonna have to put some things at risk. You can do it though, you're a brave lion, and we all trust in you. Please remember that when making decisions." The white fuzzy moth said, then flew off in a white blur. Kion looked around, and couldn't see the fuzzy moth anywhere, like he had disappeared into thin air.

Rafiki's words still swirled around in Kion's head.

"Do the best you can for the this land."

Do the best you can for the Pridelands.

Kion was going to do the best he could for everyone alright.