He swiped a paw through the murky haze and knocked a hyena from Nala's back. As dawn rose and the sun began to color the sky purple and orange, the battle slowed. Scar did what he could to support Nala as she and the other lionesses pushed back against the force of the hyenas. Warmth bloomed through his body as he watched his daughter, even as he felt the crippling wounds he had endured. Felt himself tittering once again on the edge of nothingness, but he couldn't give in. He caught a hyena that tried to attack Nala from behind and batted it away, his claws sinking into its haunches until it retreated. Simba fought on her other side, Sarabi next to him and they pushed the hyenas back until they reached the cliff face on the eastern side where the battle had first begun. The lionesses lined up in a row, the hyenas had their tails to the cliff.

Shenzi stepped forward, her ear badly torn, her pelt covered in scratches. On either side their ranks were thin and full of holes where their compatriots had once stood.

"Stop," She said. "Stop." She looked at her pack. "No more."

"We can't live like this anymore," Nala said stepping forward, "not in fear of each other, not in fear of death and repercussions and retaliations."

Shenzi looked to her right: Ed was dead, Banzai nowhere to be seen. "You've killed my family."

"And you've killed mine," Nala said her voice not wavering. Scar watched her. Her strength somehow intact, even thought he was sure she was beyond exhaustion. "This stops now. This stops today." Simba came to stand by her side. "No more bloodshed."

"And that means what?" Shenzi asked. "We're banished? Left to die in the outlands?"

"There are events I can never forgive, but I will not perpetuate this cycle anymore."

Shenzi stepped forward to meet Nala. Both sides shifted with apprehension. Bodies were strewn about. A small breeze coming off of the savanna ruffled their fur. Scar didn't know how he was standing. Whatever reserve of strength that was left in him kept him standing watching to see if Shenzi would try anything, but his senses were so dulled he doubted he would be able to intervene in any way. Simba looked worse for wear and also seemed like he wouldn't be much help in a fight.

He tried with his dulled faculties to think of a quick maneuver if it were t co me to that. But Shenzi, her back leg slightly mangled as if one of the lionesses had clamped down on it hand thrown her, limped to the front. Her head still held high, her muzzle slashed and torn and blood dripping from her jaw. In the back a few injured hyenas hunkered down. The least injured standing in front as if to protect them, but none had gone unscathed. Blood mixed with the dry soil on both sides. The surrounding area seemed to fade and reappear with each intake of breath, with every beat of his heart, and he wondered if this would be it: If this had been his life, if it the end it had meant anything? Had enough blood been shed to equal the loss of Sarafina? Would anything ever make her death less painful? if there was anything left in him he would kill Shenzi. He would destroy her. He was close enough to Nala he could see her stance, how her back leg shook as if she were in great pain, as if the stupor she had just come out of still lingered in her mind and the effects of having been in such a state for weeks had drained some of her strength away, rendered her weaker than she normally would have been and yet she was still so strong and that was where Sarafina resided now - in their daughter, because surely there was nothing of him in her. If it couldn't be him in charge then let it be her. He would do with what little strength was left in him to protect her, to support her, to make what she saw fit to be a reality - not that she needed him, but if she would have him he would stay; he would do what he could to make up for his transgressions, but he doubted that she would fight for him, not after what Simba had brought to light in the past. He would have used his actions to prove a point, to show them that he was worth keeping around, that he could be redeemable and if they weren't as cruel, as sociopathic as he, they would let him stay because they wouldn't allow themselves to sink to such a level. It was against their morals and that was what had always made him strong in the past. His lack of morals had given him the advantage, and yet now his reason was completely different. There was strange thought that if he could protect her, if he could help her that was all that really mattered. He had never thought he would care for something outside of himself, but there was an ache in his chest when he thought of his daughter, a desire to do anything for her. Not for Simba, no, but for her he would make sure her kingdom wouldn't fall.

He watched Shenzi: she moved like someone who had been defeated, her legs shaking, her muzzle dripping blood onto the ground, and he suspected that without what was keeping him standing: some sort of battle adrenaline she too would drop. Her pack flanked her on either side.

"There has been great loss on both sides." Nala's voice rose despite the perceptible shake in it, her mental and physical exhaustion evident. "My mother was killed here and part of your pack is dead now as well. My lions are worn and we are all injured. We could fight until the very end, but I don't know what would be left of us. What would be the point but to create more bones for this place? I was locked in the darkness for a while, the death of my mother took me to a place I couldn't process and I fell into my own mind and a mire as deep as the mud pits that I couldn't find my way out of it. I let the pride down when I should have been the leader they needed. I was sulking. I was locked in my own grief and in there I confronted everything that had gone before and the two lions who have made me who I am. Even if I didn't want to know, I can't put my head in he sand and pretend it isn't the truth. What I believe is that we can change - that a dark and corrupted heart is dark and corrupted for a reason - that hunger or pain or jealousy or something you were born with can define you but it doesn't have to.

"You can break away from where you came from or from what you are perceived as being. And I know there is a reason for what you've done, for everything that has separated us for years and years. We have segregated you to this land and pushed you towards the acts we have committed against each other. Shenzi, I know now your actions were in direct retaliation to how our pride has treated you. I have heard of time when it wasn't always this way. When we worked together, and I offer you the chance, rather I'd like us to come to an agreement because there is no victory here today. There is only death and bloodshed and there will only be more if we continue in the same way we have. We need to break free from what has come before us and move forward in a new direction."

Simba cast a quick worried glance across the savanna and Scar couldn't quite read his expression, but there seemed to be a part of him that didn't agree with Nala. He stepped forward as if to say something - maybe to contradict her because it had always been Mufasa's policy to never work with the hyenas. He had played a large role in keeping them in their place, not that Ahadi had been particularly receptive of them either. He always thought the rift had grown stronger because of the relation that Scar had cultivated with them.

He saw himself as an outsider and they were too. It wasn't difficult to strike up a conversation when he had slipped through into the elephant graveyard years ago, leaving behind his bright companions. It wasn't even a place that Sarafina would follow him. It had been a territory he had had claimed for himself completely on his own. It had been his own downfall that he had made such a partnership on his own. If he could have brought them together, maybe he could have created a kingdom that hadn't fallen to their glut. If there hadn't been a reason for them to act in such a way, if they hadn't been cut off from the food supplies, if they hadn't formed their own small communities instead, maybe things would have been different. They should have worked together and all the better if Simba found it an unlikely cause.

"There will have to be forgiveness on both sides for it to work, but we will lift our regulations on our borders if you will allow us to reclaim this land. We will set up hunting schedules so as not to deplete the land and to hopefully over time bring life back to this area as well. It was cruel of us to claim the best land as our own and consign you to an area that was depleted in resources. All along we should have been working together. There were a few confused roars and voices from the back and Nala turned to cast her gaze above them.

She waited and she meant for them to voice themselves, it wasn't only rhetorical, even though her fur bristled. We are all tired of the bloodshed and the feud and the fear it creates, why couldn't we live in peace?"

The murmuring from behind her dropped away.

"It's true. I'm tired of fearing for my cubs," one of the lionesses said. "I'm tired and saddened to think what might happen if I allow them out of my sight for one moment. But how can we trust these mongrels?"

The hyenas growled and whined behind Shenzi. "If we are to get along, we can't speak of each other in such terms. We must bridge the gap. Tonight I suggest we return to our respective camps, we treat our wounded and there is a vast number and then we move forward with discussions tomorrow - on equal terms. We come to an agreement that suits us both. We find a way to work together. What do you say Shenzi?"

Shenzi turned her head slightly as if taking in her pack. Her fighters bloodied and injured, their tails drooping, their ears low against their heads.

"I will meet with you in the morning," she said. "But only you." Simba moved to step forward, to protest, but Nala looked at him, murmured something Scar couldn't hear and he stepped back, a low growl still in his throat, letting her know that he wasn't happy with this arrangement.

"Very well," Nala said. "At dawn we'll meet at the border."

The fight ended as abruptly as it had started as the parties broke away, a few roars and growls as they passed by each other but no one drew their claws or barred heir fangs, mostly they kept their heads down, exhaustion and injury taking the verve from them. Lionesses brushed past Scar and he wavered on his feet, blood dripped from his side ran through his fur and mixed with the dusty earth. His vision wavered. There was a light rain falling and it dripped from his snout onto the ground. Simba looked back at him with lowered features, his tail lashed through the dirt, but there was still a slightly dazed pained expression across his features.

Scar thought he might fall, blood ran through his fur from the grievous wound to his side that he thought was probably fatal. The sound of his bones snapping under Ed's teeth still echoed in his ears. He thought if he lived it would be something that would haunt him at night; the pain and the sound and the strange fear that had run through him; a fear almost not for himself, but for what would become of his daughter locked in her mind, stuck in the cave. It seemed like maybe that had been enough to call her forth. She had appeared there fighting over him, pulling Ed away from his side. She had saved him when he deserved nothing of the kind. She had leapt in when she had the chance to be rid of him forever: the murderer, the outcast, the father she had never wanted and he had never cultivated a relationship with her either; never wanted to know her because of her closeness with his brother's child. Because of all the goodness he perceived in her, just how much she was like Sarafina, he couldn't stand it. And now once again she was standing next to him, a reversal of the when he'd stood by her side after they found Sarafina's body.

"Don't," he said but he didn't know for once why he was saying it, what part of him or for what purpose other than he didn't think she should get her coat any dirtier. That he didn't deserve what she had given him - that he didn't deserve the chance at life she had given him.

He faltered, his paw slipping out from under him but instead of falling to the ground, she caught his body against hers. "I saw what you did earlier," she said. "I saw how you fought for us."

He didn't say anything, just stood there leaning against her, remembering how before it had been as if Sarafina was standing before him. It had been Sarafina hadn't it? He'd spoken with her. He could feel himself fading, his consciousness along with the blood dripping from his side and spattering against their paws. Sarafina's words echoed in his mind, "Look after her. If you must go back, look after her. Keep her safe."

If he was too live it would be for her. He would put everything he had into seeing that her plan would succeed because his own ambitions no longer mattered. He felt before the darkness washed over him something he didn't' understand, something he'd never felt before: a contentment, a knowledge that in this he would succeed. For once in his life his plan would come to fruition. He heard Nala saying his name, but he couldn't truly make out her words. The desolate scenery spun about him, only that small contact between them keeping him rooted as they walked slowly away from the battleground and back to Pride Rock.

The negotiation began the next day. Nala was flanked by a few of the pride. Sarabi with a torn ear and a bloodied flank but otherwise uninjured stood by her side. Shenzi arrived with a few of her bloodied pack mates, Banzai by her side looking worse for wear.

"We really did a number on each other," Shenzi said looking over the lionesses. There was a tense air between them.

Simba didn't know what to think, he'd tried to discuss the matter with Nala the night before, and he'd been surprised by how strongly she held to her belief. But thinking of his uncle it wasn't conviction that part of the family lacked. He could agree that something different needed to be done though. They were both different lions now, changed by what they had experienced in between their cubhood and the lions they had grown into. He could understand now that it wouldn't be as simple as coming back together and expecting everything to be the same. No, they would have to grow to know each other again. The first step he needed to take was trusting her. He would even if that meant supporting her with her plan: to trust them again, to give them part of the Pridelands, to setup a hunting schedule that they would both work to maintain, to have weekly meetings where they would go over the terms and make sure it was still working. It was a small truce that would hopefully build, that was what Nala had said.

They hadn't discussed Scar. She said they would after he recovered and Simba hadn't had the energy to argue - his head aching, his body bruised. Rafiki had pronounced that Simba would be just fine. He'd cracked his skull, and even when he said some of his memories were hazy the mandrill hadn't seemed too bothered.

"They'll come back or they won't, but they are in the past."

Simba tried not to read anymore into his words but thought he was probably prodding him to look forward - to let the past rest. Ever since he'd returned it was where he'd been turned - the anxiety he'd felt since stepping on Pride Rock, since seeing Scar return - the thought that he wasn't fit to rule - that he didn't belong here - that those were the things he should put aside - it was those hazy thoughts that followed him into sleep the night after the battle. In the morning he had a clearer perceptive. There might very well be some truth in Rafiki's statement, even if the Mandrill had only been telling him something mundane. It was a new direction and he was ready for something different. It would be slow - this truce, the hyenas had always been a nuisance, and he feared their capacity for evil, for their connection to his uncle, and he stood warily next to Nala as she spoke, her coat shining in the midday sun her eyes vibrant and alive.

Scar stood at the edge of the Pridelands looking out over the empty savanna. He hadn't made contact with the hyenas. He'd never trust them again, not after how they'd betrayed each other. He'd watched Nala negotiate with them, afraid for what might come of it. He knew how they could turn, how they were fickle in their companionship to anyone outside of their own kind, and yet she seemed to have a grasp on what was going on.

The mandrill had saved his life. Again, he thought. He owed so many debts. His fur bristled when he thought of it. He didn't like being in the open, but he didn't like being with the pride either, nor with the hyenas. He was still the outcast and yet to be there for Nala made everything worthwhile.

He watched her race across the savanna, her lithe form pushing through the savanna grass as if it were water. When he'd first awoken after being lost in some twilight haze for so many moons, he'd awoken in the dark. He'd heard Sarafina - but no it had to be Nala - and he cast his gaze upwards, craning his neck to see where she was. In the black expanse of the night, there'd been a single star, a pinprick of light in an otherwise cloud covered night. "Fi," he'd said and closed his eyes. If the kings weren't there for him at least she was.

Nala stopped in front of him. "I thought we might play a game of Bao," she said. She'd told him she'd heard everything he said when she was in the cave. It was if she'd been lost in some place she couldn't get away from. She could think and hear but not move; her grief so deep that it enervated her limbs, made every notion seem useless and every reason to get up and move pointless. She'd wanted nothing for herself or anyone in those few weeks. But in her dreams, in her twilight state, Sarafina had come to her, had urged her to get up, to live for herself, to use her grief to her advantage, to not let anymore bloodshed come to this land - so much waste - so much violence and discord, but why did it have to be that way? Why continue it? Why not change it, and she'd felt herself come back to life. She'd rushed towards the sound of battle.

"You remember how to play?" he asked looking at her, recalling his failed attempt to teach her Bao. He tried to take in her expression but she was as hard to read as anyone he'd ever known.

"Yes, I lost but for some reason I feel like you had a bit of an advantage. " She gave him a wry smile and turned away and gestured for him to follow her. "You said Sarafina was the better player between you, and well I hope to take after her."

"I hope you to do too," he said. He hadn't meant it to sound so melancholy. She turned to look at him. "I mean it," he said.

A/N Can you believe I finished this? I started this back in 2014 and I'm ashamed it took me this long to write the ending. I've appreciated all the kind and encouraging comments you've left me during the time when I wasn't writing. It inspired me to finish this up. Thank you for giving me the drive to finish this and I hope the ending is adequate. I could see myself maybe one day writing a sequel. I have a few ideas for a new direction. Anyway thank you to anyone who is still following this story and to anyone who started reading after this was finished I hope you found it enjoyable. It's a story I've always wanted to write. Scar has stayed with me since I first saw the movie in 1994 and now at least in my mind and in this story he gets a second chance.