when you were young | kovu & kiara flashback.
There are only so many days in a year that Zira lets him off his training (that is, none) and so every so often Kovu decides to give himself a rest day. These days usually coincide with the days that Nuka looks after him. It’s not that Kovu wants to get his older brother into trouble, it’s just that it’s so much easier giving him the slip than any of the lionesses in Zira’s pride who also get roped into babysitting duty.
Today was one such day. Kovu had left Nuka scratching and biting at a particularly vicious infestation of termites, as he slunk away behind the older boy’s back. The den, and all the other ramshackle buildings surrounding it, soon disappeared behind him.
The bliss of freedom lifted his feet as though they were in flight, and after some time Kovu came across a rocky shelf he had never seen before. He had never ventured so close to the border between the Outlands and the Pridelands; frankly, he couldn’t even be sure he hadn’t already crossed it. It would be nice if there was a conveniently-placed sign - “You are now entering the Pridelands” - but he doubted there would be one. There wasn’t a hint of civilisation for miles around here.
Kovu could hear the loud roar of the waterfall close-by, but could not see it; perhaps it was hidden around the corner. He ventured closer to the edge; though the cliff opposite was close enough that one could maybe leap to it, it was still a precipitous drop. Of course, no one in the Outlands had the money, the means or the will to build some sort of bar or railing to stop people falling. Now he was standing right at the edge. The water down below was calm, and he could even see his reflection blinking back up at him.
Then, suddenly, another face appeared, above his and upside down. Kovu lifted his head quickly before spying a girl standing on the cliff opposite. His immediate impression was that she seemed incredibly clean - in comparison to his dirt-smeared face and hand-me-down clothes. There was no doubt she was a Pridelander.
As was his wont, Kovu smirked and shouted something obscene at her. The words might have been lost over the waterfall’s roar, so for good measure he made a gesture equally as obscene.
This went on for sometime, and Kovu was almost beginning to be bored of it, until he saw that the girl had come rather too far out on the cliff’s edge, where there was loose scree underfoot “Hey, watch it-“
Panicking, Kovu did the first thing he could think of and leapt after her. It seemed as though she had hit a rock on the way down, and if she had fallen unconscious…
Thankfully, Kovu managed to miss hitting anything on the way down, but the impact of the water was still strong enough to force the air out of his lungs. He reached the water’s surface with a gasp, before quickly looking around for the girl. She was close by, almost sinking beneath the water’s surface, and Kovu quickly propelled himself over to clamp a hand around her arm.
Though the current was not slow, somehow, Kovu managed to get them both on a bank. They had floated quite a ways from where they had fallen. Seeing that she had regained consciousness, Kovu couldn’t stop the disdain from entering his voice. “What the hell were you thinking, Pridelander?”
Kiara didn’t immediately answer the boy’s demands, barely heard them at all over her coughs. She was bent double on the bank, clearing the water from her lungs and shivering fiercely, her head pounding where she’d struck a rock during her fall. She’d only wanted to sneak away for a little while, just until Simba and Mufasa had finished… whatever it was they were doing. She hadn’t really been paying much attention, and in the end had been sent home, just to get out of their hair, and she’d gone, and just kept going, until she got to the waterfall. It was the first time she’d ever actually seen anyone around it, and she wasn’t especially happy someone else had discovered her spot, especially not when he was talking to her in that tone of voice. Pushing her dripping hair out of her face, she coughed once more before turning to face him, remembering what Simba had told her. Never turn your back on an Outlander. She wasn’t going to make a mistake like that.
"What was I thinking? You were on the other side of the cliff!" She snapped, thoroughly annoyed. First he spent half an hour shouting at her, and now, after falling off a waterfall, he was going to keep on? No way. No dirty Outlander was going to talk down to her. "You were on the wrong side of it, too. What were you doing, thinking of taking a bath?"
He did seem a lot cleaner after the dip in the river, but not enough to endear Kiara to him, especially not when she noticed where they were - they’d been washed quite a bit downstream, and anyone from the Pridelands could stroll past and find them. What would her uncle say if he found her here?
"What did you bring me here for? I didn’t need your help! I was doing just fine without you, Outlander. Who are you, anyway?” Although she was asking the questions, she wasn’t intending on sticking around for an answer. Striding forward, she almost walked right into him, refusing to walk around him, or put her back to him for fear of… well, for fear. No-one had ever told her what exactly an Outlander would do to her if they ever caught her with her back turned, but they didn’t need to. Her imagination was over-active enough to fill in the gaps.
"Move," she demanded, the authority in her voice lessened quite a bit by her half-drowned appearance. "Or else."
Kovu was honestly completely taken aback by her response. He managed to work his jaw back up from where it had fallen to the ground, and spluttered out, “…Who am I? I’m the guy who just saved your life!” Water dripped down into his eyes, and Kovu pushed his hair back in irritation.
It seemed as though she was trying to intimidate him into moving, but Kovu didn’t move a muscle, still shocked by the complete lack of gratitude. Maybe he had been expecting too much from a snooty Pridelander. He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you doin-“
A sudden, enraged roar sent a group of birds flying up above the horizon. Kovu knew it instantly as his mother’s - which meant that Zira had found out he was missing. (Which also meant that Nuka was probably currently getting torn a new one.)
Kovu turned back to face the girl. He was reluctant to be the one to back down, but he was also reluctant to let his older brother take the fall for him. “I gotta go.”
"Get your head checked out," were his last words as he departed.
