Chapter Six: Midnight Meeting

As Kion lay in the Lair of the Lion Guard that night, every little noise seemed to bother him. Bunga was snoring, Ono was ruffling his feathers, Fuli was purring, and Beshte was making ripples in the water below. Normally, Kion would have been asleep by now, but he just wasn’t tired. He could not stop thinking about the hyena he’d met earlier that day named Jasiri. His father had always told him that you were never to trust a hyena-ever-but Jasiri had helped him out, and Kion felt like if he couldn’t trust her, who could he trust? Kion felt that it was for the best if he didn’t tell Simba about Jasiri just yet. He didn’t want to get in trouble for making friends with a hyena.

Kion wasn’t the only one sleepless that night. Jasiri had gotten home late, and unfortunately for her, she had missed dinner. She had to go into the hyena den that night hungry, and her own fault. She tossed and turned, but no matter which way she rolled, the ground felt hard and her stomach kept growling. She sighed, and decided to get up and go for a midnight stroll. What else was there to do?

Jasiri walked out of the den and into the clearing. She took a breath of fresh air and exhaled loudly. Then, she heard a noise, like footsteps, above her. She looked up, and in the gleaming moonlight on the edge of the hill stood a lone male hyena. Janja. His eyes glimmered in the moonlight as he stared at Jasiri. But something about him looked different. He averted his gaze away from Jasiri, and turned around to walk in the opposite direction. What was Janja doing here at this time of night? Was the rest of his clan with him? Jasiri had to find out.

Jasiri climbed on top of the hill and found Janja staring up into the night sky. She had never seen him without his clan. With an area this wide open, there was no place his clan could be hiding, so knew that she wasn’t going to get ambushed.

“Janja, what are you doing here?” demanded Jasiri.

“I want to know something,” said Janja. “How did you and Kion ever become friends?”

Jasiri’s eyes widened. “Well, I kind of wandered the same thing myself,” she said. “But then I realized that we had a lot in common. We’re all part of the Circle of Life. Just because I am a hyena and he is a lion doesn’t mean we can’t be friends in this great world.”

“This world is not great,” said Janja, “and neither is the so-called ‘Circle of Life’. That’s what our elders want us to believe. It is what they’ve been trying to tell us ever since Simba took over the Pride Lands!”

“Is that such a bad thing, that Simba took over the Pride Lands?” asked Jasiri.

Janja turned around, his eyes blazing with fury. “You tell me, Jasiri!” he burst out. “You tell me if that is a bad thing! I lost my parents in that war against Scar and his hyenas! I lost my close friends! I was just a young cub! You don’t even understand!” He turned away; his eyes began to tear up. “Jasiri, Scar promised us a new era. Simba-and the lions before him-never did-not Mufasa, not anyone. I’m not saying Scar was a good king. But I am tired of being second to the lions-the kings of the jungle! I am sick and tired of lions, and no one is going to change my mind! And what I cannot seem to understand is how you, a hyena, can call yourself a friend to the son of a lion who banished your entire species!”

Jasiri was speechless. “Janja I-“ She started, but Janja cut her off.

“All I want is a future” he continued, “where my family and my friends-my clan- can live-and not starve. I want a future where I- a hyena-can have some fun, ya know? Who says it’s such a bad thing to chase a hyrax? Or a zebra? Huh? Well, no one until that dumb Lion Guard!” He snarled, and kicked a rock down the hillside with his front paw. “I just want to be a hyena! And I can’t even feel free to be one! I’m telling you, Jasiri-what the monarchy is doing is wrong. You and I-we’re hyenas. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do. This is the Circle of Life. We eat, and so do they. I don’t know what kind of “Circle of Life” Kion sees, other than sunshine and rainbows. It’s much darker than that, Jasiri. My clan understands. I don’t understand why yours doesn’t. You eat meat, so do I. It’s in our blood. It’s how we were created. Kion eats meat too, I guess. But it’s like he doesn’t even enjoy it! I enjoy it, and is that so evil? That I enjoy eating meat?!”

“Well no,” said Jasiri. “It’s not evil. But you have to understand that we hyenas aren’t as strong as the lions. They rule over us because of their strength and that’s just how it is. You can’t change nature, Janja.”

“We weren’t meant to just ‘clean up’ after what the lions leave behind,” said Janja. “We weren’t put onto the earth to starve while the lions get everything and we get nothing. We were meant to fend for ourselves! If the lions would just leave us alone, then maybe we could!”

Jasiri wasn’t sure what to say to Janja. Here he was, pouring out his feelings to her, and she didn’t want to say the wrong thing to him. She started to talk but Janja continued.

“Jasiri, there’s something else I want to tell you,” he said. “I’m sorry for the last few days. I’ve just been very upset. My clan hasn’t got a bite to eat for I don’t know how long. I don’t normally attack another hyena, and when I saw you on my land, I got carried away. I’m sorry.”

“I am only grateful that I am alive to forgive you Janja,” said Jasiri. “You know, you don’t seem like the hyena my mother warned me about. I think that deep inside, you’ve got a passion that could lead you to do great things, provided you learned how to use it.”

Janja smiled. “Well what do you know?” he asked, “More compliments coming from a hyena that managed to make friends with a lion.”

“Well you were always brave,” said Jasiri. “You’re not afraid to stand up to your enemies. You keep going back for more. That takes a lot of persistence.”

Janja just shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He began to walk away in the direction of the smoldering volcano burning in the distance.

“Janja!” Jasiri called after him. “Good luck.”

“Good luck?” asked Janja. “With what?”

“With getting food!” Jasiri replied. “I’d hate to see you starve!”

“That’s nice of you to say Jasiri,” said Janja. “But don’t think I’d fall for a trick as dumb as that!”

“Trick?” asked Jasiri. “What do you mean, trick?”

“That sympathy trick,” said Janja. “You want me to reveal my plans to you so you can run off and tell the leader of the LionGuard. Well, I’m not revealing anything, so you can just go home.”

“Janja, it’s not like that,” said Jasiri. “I-“

But Janja had vanished into the darkness. Jasiri knew that if she could find a way to get rid of Janja’s burning hatred, deepinside, he was just like her. “Sisi ni sawa,” she whispered into the night breeze. Someday she’d convince him that both she and Janja were indeed, sawa.The same.