Chapter 24 – The Long Epilogue

This was something totally out of his experience. Until now, all he knew were the bright days and peaceful nights he spent living in the savannah. Presently it was nothing but the mist and shadow of an unknown, frightening void.

Not long ago, in the midst of silent sobs and heads hung down in sorrow, Kovu ascended the throne of the Pridelands. As far as his memory could reach, he remembered it wasn't easy at first, but still the orphaned lionesses turned to him as a source of hope and consolation. Even the devastated Nala… The war had been won and became a relict of the past. Now came the time of rebuilding what had been destroyed and healing the wounds. And it had been so, for a time. Then, suddenly, because of one short, surprising situation in the darkness of the night…

Kovu found himself where he'd already been- in the land of the dead.

He couldn't really "see" or "hear" anything anymore, as this place was beyond time and space. An immaterial realm, unfamiliar, causing him to shiver whenever he thought about why could he ever be here. He tried to call for help- but there was no answer. He was alone with his insecurity until the ones that wanted to see him, came to him.

He felt their presence more than he saw them. The very essence of their being appearing in front of him suddenly- three shadows of ones he knew, still being very surprised with their coming.

His father was there- Aquila of the Northern Planes, and surprisingly, also the very one who killed him- Zira, Kovu's mother. Alongside, there stood her beloved mate, the infamous king Scar, the young lion's stepfather and predecessor.

They were the most unlikely group. It filled Kovu with limitless astonishment to see them together, laughing, observing him as if they'd been expecting him.

Had the spirits of his ancestors summoned him this time? He thought that at first, but just a moment later he felt that the matter was really far worse…

-"Where am I?" – he asked the question that was piercing his heart like a sting. The trio of dead lions ceased their jest and Scar stood in front of them, addressing him.

-"Oh I suppose you're smart enough to know that perfectly, Kovu. Go on, strain your mind and try to recall the last thing you remember before you found yourself in this place."

Doing just so, the young lion attempted to force his way through a dark cloud that covered his thoughts. And then he suddenly saw himself, waking up in the middle of the night and exiting the cave at Pride Rock silently because of a sound he heard. He thought that might have been Nala, weeping over the loss of her mate and cub. Wanting to console her, Kovu started searching for the source of the sound among the rocks, only to become suddenly and violently attacked by…

-"Splinter!" – he hissed the word feeling as rage filled him to the brim. The three specters before him chuckled, and Scar spoke again.

-"Hmhmhm, yes… If there is one thing a king must constantly look out for, it's treason. Especially from the ones he considers his allies…"

The lion was petrified. As he saw his memory of what had happened returning to him, he fully understood just how serious his present state was.

-"The bastard… he took me by surprise…" – he gasped. - "So that must mean…"

Scar grinned, not restraining from finishing the sentence for him.

-"… that you are dead. Yes, as awful as it may sound, it's true."

Kovu could not utter a word. He just shook inwardly, disgusted with the joy in his stepfather's voice.

-"Oh it's not all that bad. Don't feel ashamed- as you said, your brother-in-law took you by surprise. I know, at first it feels humiliating to have been assassinated… but you get used to it, eventually."

-"I don't see why this is so funny to you!" – Kovu finally lost his nerve, feeling furious for letting himself get tricked. If he only could, he'd tear Scar to shreds right now… but the already dead old lion just kept on laughing.

-"Hmhm, but please don't be mad at me. Even I couldn't prevent this from happening. And as for our merry mood… well, let me just say that we have our reasons to be happy despite all" – he looked at Zira and Aquila who stood beside him smiling with equal joy.

-"And what are those reasons?" – Kovu roared a second time.

-"Don't let your emotions get the best of you. We have all the time in the world over here. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the sure thought that your sacrifice wasn't at all fruitless. For one thing, I can say you can be happy that you were not left unavenged…"

Suddenly, Kovu started to see something. A vision of some blurred place he knew, and a lioness who was also familiar to him. As the scene became more and more clear, he could also feel it's rising tragedy and horror… What Kovu saw was the vision of his sister, sitting on the ground in shock, panting, covered with blood both her own and somebody else's, her eyes as wide as ever… Vitani was standing over the dead body of Splinter, her former mate and the assassin of her brother- the king of the Pridelands.

-"NO!" – Kovu screamed. – "How is this supposed to make me happy? This is going to drive her insane! She's just lost her whole family, and now she also had to kill the very one she'd once trusted!"

But the trio of dead lions only continued to laugh.

-"Don't worry about Vitani" – this time, Aquila took the voice. – "She's strong, you know her. She can take anything."

-"Not this time, father…" – Kovu mumbled, gazing at him with hate.

-"Nonsense, kid! I'm surprised that you're so concerned about her. Shouldn't you be more worried about your beloved mate?"

The youngest of the dead lions gasped. It was true. Now his dear queen was to be left a widow, in charge of a pride that lacked a king…

-"Kiara… what's with her?" – he inquired sorrowfully.

-"Hmhm, she's going to be mourning you for a long time, that's for sure!"

A new vision appeared in Kovu's mind. Yes, it was Kiara, caressing his own dead body, engulfed in an ocean of tears.

-"Why are you torturing me with this…" – his voice shook as he was close to breaking down himself. Aquila however still stayed enthusiastic.

-"Foolish kid! You don't know half of how lucky you are, nor half of how proud you made me. Your death doesn't bring you shame. You will be praised and respected for years… as well as your successors."

Kovu gazed at him again, pain and anger mixing inside him.

-"I don't have any successors! Splinter's dead, his plan failed. Now the pride is probably gonna get taken over by some stupid rogue…"

His father laughed mysteriously.

-"Do you really think so? Do you really think Kiara would let some other bloke become her king? No, Kovu- the only one who's torturing you are your own black thoughts. As I said, you don't know half of what's happened. That's why I would want to thank you- for making me, just before your death, a happy grandfather of the new king of the Pridelands."

In shock, Kovu marveled over the power his ancestors possessed- to show him hidden things that happened in the world of the living. Or were going to happen. He wasn't sure, but the next vision he saw was really a relief to him- an inexpressible joy when he saw Kiara again, consoled from the mourning after the death of her mate by the birth of their son.

-"This is… I don't know what to say!"

Truly, it was really hard to express how strange it was for Kovu to be so drastically struck by both tragic and happy news. All he could do was to keep silent, observing Scar, Zira and Aquila's amusement as the vision faded away and all he could see were just their grinning faces yet again. For some time they kept laughing, but since their young relative sensed there was more to that than just celebrating the fact that he did not abandon the world without leaving a successor, he neither did nor said anything. Finally, his mother became interested, deciding to add her voice to the conversation.

-"What's the matter? Don't you feel happy for what happened, Kovu? You have no idea how proud I am that, in the end, you did exactly what momma told you to do…"

-"Well, I am happy because of my son, but I would very much prefer if he had a chance to grow up having a father! And to tell you the truth, I'm starting to think that things would be different if I haven't listened to you!"

Unoffended by her son's angry resentment, Zira chuckled.

-"Ha, I see that death hasn't taken away your clever mind, my child! As a matter of fact, there is some truth in what you say…"

-"What?" – Kovu gazed at her, demanding an explanation. And so she did, revealing the dark spirits' plan in which he got himself entangled from the very beginning.

-"You see, the three of us who are present here before you advised you to take a certain path. And even though reluctantly at first, you followed it, surrendering your fate to what was destined for you to do- to following your dark legacy. Don't look so surprised! You knew perfectly that it was this way, you always knew. All of this lead to just two things, the very goals of your life that had been written down before you were even born."

Zira uttered the words just after Kovu named them himself in his mind, burdened with his own blind obedience to the fate he could have escaped, but chose otherwise.

-"You had to kill Simba, and you had to become the king of the Pridelands. To make you do that, we were forced to use all that was necessary. For this vengeance to take place, we had to make you hate Simba just like we hate him ourselves… and you have not failed us. Even though it took a lot of effort. Because, to tell you the truth, you didn't need to establish an alliance with the hyenas in order to trick them and make wiping them out easier. Teaming up with Simba and fighting against them would have been enough to save Pride Rock… but this way Simba would survive and you would never become the king."

Kovu's eyes went wide when he heard that.

-"You… lied to me!" – he screamed.

-"Oh no, not me" – Aquila mumbled to explain himself. – "Joining Simba was the first thing I advised you to do, remember?"

Now Kovu felt as his rage reappear inside him in a devastating new wave. Especially because he knew that he should really be mad with himself…

-"How could you fool me like this! What's Simba's death worth to you now, anyway? What's it worth to you that I was king for a few days, since now I'm dead myself?"

This time, Scar addressed him very seriously.

-"You see, we are nothing but sparks in the world, Kovu. We shine for a moment and then we fade away. Our duty is to use that short amount of time to complete our destiny. Some sparks might be destined to bring light. Others, like us and you, for instance, are made to cause fire. And so you did. You have avenged us- did something we could not do ourselves. Truly, we could not wish for more."

-"But what is left for me now? And what will become of my family?"

-"If you mean your son, I guess you have nothing to fear. Behold."

A new vision appeared before the eyes of the fallen young king. He saw his mate again, deeply asleep, aside Nala, Vitani and all the other lionesses, caressing her newborn cub in a tight embrace. But right there by her side was also someone else, closely observing her and especially her baby son.

Elkanah.

-"No!" – cried Kovu, already imagining how his son would be sentenced to a similar fate as his and Scar's. Now he understood everything- what a fool he'd been, failing to recognize the dark fate that overshadowed his life, or rather failing to escape from it when he had the chance, instead choosing to listen to the old ghosts and follow their ways straight into darkness.

Scar, Zira and Aquila started laughing again, their figures becoming blazing fire in front of their interlocutor's eyes. Their voice changed, becoming more a shriek of horror and madness than joy, and then they spoke simultaneously, creating a horrifying choir of judgment.

-"You have brought this on yourself, Kovu. Now you must face the consequences. You are one of us, you have shown this by your acts. Your fate is not to shine. Your fate is to BURN! HAHAHAHA!"

Terrified, paralyzed, the lion saw his ancestors disappear from before him in a ball of fire.

And then he became blinded by light- light that came from all around, emitted by a multitude of luminous sources he wasn't able to recognize. Bright light he was afraid of, a kind of which he himself had little inside him. It was some time before he recognized to be surrounded by lions- ghosts, just like him, also dead long ago, but yet so very, frighteningly different.

He recognized some of the faces. Their presence made him scream and want to escape, but it was impossible. Once again, he saw the brown eyes of king Simba, his victim, standing right beside his famous father… There was no anger in both expressions. Only deep, overwhelming sorrow.

Kovu flinched, begging them to let him go, seeing one particularly luminous and ancient lion approach him and stand before him like a mountain that was about to fall on his head. When he halted, for a moment the assembly froze in silence, and Kovu was able to glance and ponder with awe over who he stood before. And then the lion spoke.

-"I am Kwanza, The First One. I am the bearer of Judgment and the keeper of Justice. To me is given retribution, and vengeance is mine. You, Kovu, son of Aquila and Zira, who have been called before the Council of the Great Leonine Kings- prepare to be judged."

AN: Aww, another bad ending! But hey, Kovu should have been more careful…

So this was actually a much longer version of the first fanfic I ever wrote, 'The darkness in me', which is still among my favorites. A meditation over what would happen if Kovu actually returned to Scar and Zira's path after almost breaking away from it at the end of TLK 2. I didn't do much but use the ideas already partially present in the movie- after all, Kovu does see Scar's face for a while, and it's not hard to imagine that it was actually his stepfather's ghost. Since Simba could see Mufasa's spirit, why can't there be evil ghosts as well?

Anyway, this was the concept. Did it work out well? In this case, judgment is yours, my friends. I hope you had a good time. I might publish some shorter stories in the future, but it's hard to tell since I'm probably going to be moving to Italy in about two weeks and I'll need to prepare.

So be well, Lion King fans! Remember to always follow the right path, so that after this short life ends, you'll become the ones who shine, not the ones who burn.

Arrivederci! XD