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Nala was my daughter. I was never very interested in Sarafina, but she expressed an interest in me and I decided to mate with her to spite Mufasa. I thought that he would have revealed his darker side by shunning Sarafina and Nala and shown the pride that he wasn’t fit to be King, but instead he forbade either of us from saying that Nala wasn’t his cub and he refused to let me interact with her at all.

After I became King, I fell in love with Zira’s devotion to me and together we had Kovu, who was to be my rightful heir. The only reason I didn’t kill either Luka or Vitani before mating with her was because she likely would have despised me for it and my standing with the pride was on thin ice as it was.

Most of the pride understood that the drought following my crowning wasn’t my fault. I was harsh on the lionesses because I was desperate to prove that I could be a good King, but there was little opportunity to do that when there was no food to be found, due in no small part to the hyenas chasing off the few herds of prey that remained. I had discussed plans with Zira to move the pride in search of more bountiful territory, but Simba returned before we could do anything about it.

I survived my fight with Simba after being thrown to the hyenas. I managed to squirm my way out of their pack and they chased me out of the pride lands entirely. Eventually I found myself in a jungle that I didn’t recognize, exhausted and starving. This jungle was, apparently, the territory of a leopard named Jelani. We were rightfully wary of each other at first, but she seemed to take a liking to me despite her taunts and allowed me farther into the jungle she called her home.

Jelani’s best friend was a timid cheetah named Anaya. Her other friends that she introduced me to included a gelada who often rode on the back of a large gorilla, a vulture and a crow who spoke in riddles and finished each other’s sentences, and a jackal that had gotten separated from his pack at birth and firmly believed he was a feline.

Jelani had a very protective and ill-mannered brother named Ebo who tried several times to scare or threaten me out of the jungle. Jelani put a stop to that quickly enough, but he always held a grudge against me for gaining his sister’s favour.

Another lion pride I had never met nor heard of before lived on the outskirts of the jungle. It was less...dare I say organized as mine was, indulging a more barbaric lifestyle that focused more on keeping their own alive than that “circle of life” motto that Mufasa loved to drone about. It was led by a strong, dark-maned lion named Sadiki.

Sadiki had three sons, one much older than the others. He was nearing the age that he would have to leave the pride to start his own soon, or fight his father for the throne. From what I gathered of his personality, I assumed that he intended to fight Sadiki. His brothers were innocently ready to back him up, but Sadiki assured them that they had much longer before they would have to fight.

Sadiki had a very persuasive way of speaking despite the generally blunt attitude of his pride. He agreed with my ideals that lions were a superior breed, or so he said. In truth he had only spoken to me to figure out a way to separate me from Jelani and discover her weaknesses. When I told him not to tell her what I thought of lions compared to other felines, he correctly assumed we had feelings for each other and he abused that fact by telling Jelani anyway and driving a wedge between us.

No doubt feeling betrayed and hurt, Jelani abandoned me outside the jungle. Sadiki’s pride wanted nothing to do with me for associating with a lesser breed. I was alone, again.

I wandered the savannah on my own in search of food until I came across a lone, unconscious lioness by a riverbank. I couldn’t see or smell her well through all the mud that caked her fur, but when I nudged her awake and she opened her eyes with a feral snarl, I realized it was Zira.

She told me about her valiant battle against Simba’s pride up until the moment her own lionesses betrayed her. She pleaded with me to understand that she wanted to bring back my days of glory through Kovu, then proceeded to ask me how it was possible that I was alive. I returned the question after hearing about how she fell into the rapids of a flash flood. We agreed to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were.

Seemingly just as we became comfortable in each other’s company again, even growing close once more, Jelani’s vulture friend sought us out. She had been flying for days, she said, and she desperately needed my help because Sadiki had led his pride into Jelani’s territory and killed Ebo. Jelani was taken captive as a result to discourage a counter-attack from the jungle animals who viewed her as their guardian.

I returned to the jungle sanctuary with Zira in tow. Despite our differences I mourned Ebo’s death with the other animals, finally understanding a bit of what my fool of a brother had tried to teach with the “circle of life” spiel. We were all the same in the end: lions, leopards, monkeys, birds. Eventually we all became one with the earth, where our differences held no more meaning.

Having come to this new realization, I rallied the animals into action, Zira all too eager to lead the attack against Sadiki for my sake. My main purpose in the mission was to make the plans, weak as I was, but while Sadiki’s pride was distracted with the assault, I was able to slip into his lair to find Jelani guarded by Sadiki himself. She was severely wounded and only half-conscious, but when it seemed that Sadiki was gaining the upper hand in our ensuing battle, she used all the strength she could muster to attack him from behind. We delivered fatal bites to his neck at the same time, promptly bringing him to his end.

When we emerged victorious, my roar was powerful enough to silence those who were still fighting. I hadn’t been able to roar like that since I was a cub, but as suddenly as it came, it disappeared. Nonetheless, Zira headed the call of triumph amoung the other animals as Sadiki’s battered pride withdrew. I caught a glimpse of Sadiki’s sons on the horizon, the eldest sparing me a final glance before they bounded away from their late father’s failure.