The baobab grove loomed like ancient sentinels, their gnarled trunks pocked with hollows where shadows pooled thick as ink. Sunlight filtered through their sparse canopies, dappling the ground in fractured gold, but Taka's empty stomach churned with a hunger that turned the world sharp and brittle. The baboon perched on a low branch ahead—scraggly fur matted with red clay, eyes glinting with unnerving calm—scraped a gourd with a claw, the scritch-scritch grating like teeth on bone. "Move," Taka hissed, his voice sandpaper-rough. The baboon yawned, revealing yellowed fangs, and hurled the gourd at his paws. It shattered, spraying sour pulp.

Sarabi's gentle nudge against his flank felt suffocating. "Taka, we'll hunt soon, I promise—"

"Enough!" He whirled, hackles raised, the ache in his muscles sharpening his snarl. "I'm done waiting for we."

He stalked into the underbrush, thorns snagging his fur like spiteful fingers. But then—a thread of scent. Her. Frost and iron, pine sap and something wilder, cutting through the cloying sweetness of baobab flowers. His pulse roared in his ears. He ran, heedless of Mufasa's booming shout ("Taka, stop!"), the savanna blurring into streaks of ochre and green.

The river appeared suddenly, its current gnashing over rocks, foaming like a rabid beast. Taka skidded on the slick bank, mud squelching between his claws. Dead leaves spiraled past, brittle and brown, and for a heartbeat, he saw his reflection—a lion gaunt with hunger, eyes hollowed by obsession.

Then the growl.

Lira stood across the water, her fur glowing bone-white against the murky foliage. Behind her, Akajua's scarred muzzle twisted into a smirk, while a hulking male lion with a torn ear watched, his gaze predatory. The air reeked of musk and old blood.

"Lira!" Taka's voice cracked, raw with hope.

Her ears flattened. "You reek of desperation, Pridelander," she spat, the word a curse. The river's spray misted her pelt, clinging to her like armor.

Akajua stepped closer to Lira, her tail flicking possessively. "Lost your way, cub? Outsiders eat little fools like you alive."

Taka ignored her, his eyes locked on Lira. "You said the Outsiders slaughtered your pack. Why stand with them? Why... lie to me?" The last words frayed into a whisper.

Lira's snarl faltered. For a heartbeat, he saw it—the flicker of memory. The night she'd told him of her pack's massacre, her voice trembling like wind through frostbitten grass. "They left no one. Not even the pups."

Now, her claws dug into the earth. "Survival isn't loyalty," she said coldly. The male lion rumbled a warning, circling behind her, and Taka's chest tightened. Too close.

The river between them felt like a chasm. Taka's tail lashed. "Come back with me. Please."

Lira's laugh was a hollow thing. "To what? Your brother's shadow? Your pride's pity?" She turned, Akajua and the male falling into step beside her. Over her shoulder, her blue eyes met his one last time—glacial, yet blazing. "Leave, Taka. Before this place claims you too."

The river's roar swallowed Lira's retreating footsteps, leaving Taka stranded in a silence that pressed against his skull like a claw. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one colder than the last, as if the northern winds she'd carried in her fur had seeped into his lungs. Across the water, the imprints of her paws lingered in the mud—sharp, deliberate, already crumbling at the edges as the current gnawed the bank away.

Forsaken.

The word echoed, hollow and cruel. He'd braved thorns, hunger, Mufasa's warnings—all for this? For her to vanish into the shadows of lions who reeked of carrion and contempt? A fly buzzed near his ear, drawn to the sweat matting his mane, and he swatted at it with a snarl. The motion jolted the half-healed scar on his shoulder, the one Lira's teeth had gifted him during their first clash. It burned now, a phantom ache mirroring the raw tear in his chest.

Above, vultures circled, their shadows stitching a macabre tapestry across the ground. Scavengers, he thought bitterly. They know weakness when they smell it.

"Lira..." Her name dissolved into the humid air, unanswered. He'd imagined this moment a thousand times—her muzzle brushing his, her frost-blue gaze softening, the two of them defying the borders of prides and species. Foolish. A cub's fantasy.

A leaf spiraled down from a skeletal acacia, landing atop the water. He watched the current seize it, drag it under, and spit it out broken. Like us.

The scent of the Outsiders still clung to the bank: musk, rot, the acrid tang of territorial markings. But beneath it, lingering like a taunt, was her—the crisp bite of snowmelt, the faint sweetness of edelweiss. He crouched, pressing his forehead to the damp earth where she'd stood, as if he could divine some truth from the soil. Instead, his claws found the mangled corpse of a fish, half-eaten and forgotten. Flies seethed around it, their drone merging with the river's growl.

You're an idiot. Her words, sharper than Akajua's claws.

Mufasa's voice suddenly cut through the haze, distant but closing fast. "Taka! Taka!"

He should answer. Should rise, shake off the mud, and slink back to the grove with some half-baked lie about chasing gazelles. But his limbs felt leaden, his pride ash. Let Mufasa find him here—kneeling at the edge of a foreign land, his foolishness laid bare. Let him see the truth: that while he'd been chasing phantoms, his brother had become everything a king should be. Strong. Certain. Unbroken.

A droplet splashed his paw. Rain? No—the sky glared, cloudless and pitiless.

When Mufasa's shadow finally fell over him, Taka did not look up.