[PRIVATE] A Rogue's Light

[oXButterflyKissesXo]

Imani drew her paw in the ground and smiled, then looked back up at him for the compliment. "Thanks..." she replied.

Her paws stood still on the ground as she listened to him talk about his little bits of past and talk about how he only had herself and Auni as his friends. She nodded, and listened more to what he had to say and then formed her response in her head. "You know, what's in the past, I guess is just...in the past. So we should focus as much as we can on the future or...we get...stuck" she told him with an innocent tone and cub eyes like before.

The lioness then looked to Auni and peered into his golden hues. "Any ideas?"

[AustralianChaos]

Tang listened to her idea that what in the past is in the past, but to him, it just did not seem quite so simple. He desperately wanted to explain to her the full story to make her understand that it was more than his parents' deaths that were haunting him, but he couldn't do it...the truth would only tear apart the friendships he had just managed to form...and that was something he could never, ever do. He just had to accept that Imani was not, at least for now, going to be able to fully understand what was eating away at him so badly, and do his best to move on.

In an attempt to bring his focus away from his past...and the guilt that went with it, Tanga returned to the conversation, finally managing to remember, through his blissful haze of his memory, Imani and Auni's conversation about Neru. She did not trust this latest lion, and even though Tanga sympathised with the lion's problems, he tried to understand why Imani was so cautious over Neru's intentions.

And as he looked back on how events had turned out that afternoon, he saw what he thought Imani saw. The timing of Neru's arrival, the story of loss and death...it was all a little too neat, almost like Neru had intended to come to them then to assist them. And what's more, his story of loss mirrored Tanga's rather closely, almost as if he knew what Tanga had been through, knew what would get him to sympathise with him...

And then it all clicked...the pieces came together in his head, and he saw it all. His mind shot backwards in time, back to when he was just an early adolescent, and he saw that fateful day as if he were re-living it. His first solo hunt, with his parents watching on...the warning calls they gave him...a ferocious, savage roar...his parents locked in a fight with another lion, screaming at him to run...

"Oh, Kings above," he whispered weakly as everything came into place. He had wandered into this particular area of the plains because it had seemed familiar to him...and now he knew why. A violent urge to run clashed with his trembling limbs as the shock of the sudden series of revelations set in. "He...he...no, it can't...just can't..."

Finally, his body gave up, and he collapsed to the ground, the shock mixing with his despair, rage, sorrow and guilt. The tears came thick and fast, along with the heaving sobs, as the vision of his parents being killed replayed itself over and over in his head, along with the faces of the two that killed him. The first was easy to recognise...he had seen it just this morning, but his memory of the day had been so violently suppressed it had taken until now for him to see it. The second was even easier to recognise...this was the killer he saw every day...himself.

But while he was responsible for sending his parents to their fate, he finally realised that the one who had taken claws and teeth to their bodies, and ended their existance once and for all...was Mufalfa!

[oXButterflyKissesXo]

"Tanga!" Imani exclaimed seeing the male fall over and have a complete meltdown. She practically jumped to his side and layed her paw on his side, looking at him and his water-struck eyes. "Are you okay?" The lioness eyed him over to see if he was fatally wounded, but she was able to see nothing from the angle he was on in her line of vision. All she could do was wait for him to tell her if something was troubling him.

[AustralianChaos]

Tanga barely registered Imani's cry, and physically flinched away from her touch. It was all too much, just too much for him to take in. "I-I..." Tanga struggled to string multiple syllables together, let alone words. "I n-never...never saw it...h-he was right th-there, this w-whole time...how did I miss it? And now...now he's got Ra, and..."

Tanga froze. He had met his parent's murderer, and what had he done? He had let another lioness full into his clutches, and done nothing to stop it! His guilt intensified enormously as he looked up at Imani's worried face, feeling his guilt rise even higher at the sight, knowing that what he was about to say was almost certainly going to erase what friendship he had gained with her.

"I...I've betrayed you," he said to her softly, his guilt making his voice extremely small and weak. "I had a chance...and all I did was let him take another one. I betrayed you, Imani, like I betrayed them..."

[oXButterflyKissesXo]

Imani took in the lion's words and his body language. He was going insane by the minute, but she didn't know how she was supposed to calm him down. She finally found the words to speak to him with, "you didn't betray me. We all make mistakes, and you're not at fault for not making the correct move all the time".

That was the best she could come up with on this spur of the moment that she hadn't expected to come. All she could do was smile like she had confidence in the words she was excreting, and make sure she wasn't upset or angry with him in the least. She really wasn't. How could he have known anything like this and expect to be blamed? Maybe some other lioness would have found that an excuse to pick on him, but Imani was not one of those lionesses to do so.

[AustralianChaos]

Tanga forced himself to tear his gaze away from Imani's face. He was having trouble thinking straight with those calming eyes, and the soft, comforting expression on her young face. She seemed to believe that he had not betrayed her, but how...how could she believe that?

He did not know why he was arguing with her...he assumed that it was just a desire to tell her the truth. "But I...I should have known," he said, his voice still shaky, but his meltdown over...for now, at least. "I mean, I should have seen it...I should have recognised him. If I had, I would have known not to let anyone stay with him."

He soon realised that all of this would probably be doing nothing but confusing Imani further. He was trying to explain his guilt to her...while at the same trying to avoid mentioning its source. "Look, Imani...my parents, they..." Once again, he found himself unable to admit his greatest failing to her...unable to confess to the metaphorical blood that was on his paws. For the first time since he met her, he found himself bending the truth in order to avoid confessing it. "...they were out hunting, and they...they met Mufalfa."

The very mention of that lion, along with that fateful day, caused Tanga to go silent. His body once more shook with restrained sobs, but this time he managed to avoid a complete meltdown. All he could do was take slow, deep, shaking breaths, and wait for his voice to return to him once again.

[Skittakallista]

Auni lay down next to Tanga and butted him in the flank with his head, encouragingly. He guessed what had happened to his poor parents. "It's not your fault that you didn't recognise him. If you have a small problem remembering names you probably can't remember individual faces all too well, unless they've been around you for a while. And it's not your fault about Ra either. We were all there. It's partly my fault too, I could have gone in her place. But I didn't, my cowardice prevaled. It's okay, it's okay" He comforted Auni as best he could, talking softly, as if to a young cub.

Looking up at Imani, he replyed. "And in answer to your question about Neru, I'm afraid I not sure. He seems to be genuine and I really can't bear to see a lion in so much pain. But there's something... Fake about him. Like he's rehersed it. I bet if you asked him his parents names it would take him a while. But I wasn't b;lessed with brains unfortunatly. So I'm not sure." He dwelled on what Neru had said, trying to remeber if anything didn't add up.

[oXButterflyKissesXo]

Imani nodded at Auni's words to Tanga. How could he be putting himself under so much stress when it was an honest mistake? She couldn't help but feel sorry and bad for the lion who was beating himself up on the inside over not remembering something like this and she was feeling so bad for him that she was starting to get teary-eyed herself. The lioness tried her best to keep the tears in and then looked down at Tanga, "Tanga," she sniffed, "stop crying or I'm just going to cry too". She always had this issue with her friends crying; if they were crying then she would start to as well. "I'm not angry with you or even the least bit upset. Really," she slowly leaned her head down to the lion and nuzzled him like a cub would, "please don't be so upset with yourself".

She was never one with words, so she was hoping he would accept these as words to cheer him up as opposed to the words that she could have heard come out of Ra's mouth if she was even here.

[VitanisMate]

Mufalfa looked at Ra. "I must confess how that cowardous fool seems familiar. I must confess how everyone of the people coming for you look familiar like I knew them in a past life or something." He smiled cruelly and said, "No matter soon those fools shall taste blood. Do I need to worry about you? Will you have the courage to kill your own sister in cold blood?" He grinned noticing how she even acted more evil now. He knew he had nothing to worry about. He looked at her and said, "Soon my sweet I..." he stopped noticing something was amiss, "Let us look to see where these fools are! They are taking too long!" He thought to himself, Blasted Neru you imbecile.

===

Neru was behind the whole group and although he did not know of their words he knew they did not trust them. No matter by the time they knew the whole truth he would get his reward from Mufalfa.

[Nakisisa]

"I, my mate, Will be fine. It is you I worry about, you will be taking on two lions, I will only be taking on a cowardess." she laughed, givving him another kiss, as he spoke. Let us look to see where these fools are!... She grinned Evily. "They deserve to be exterminated... Wait I have a plan." Ra said laughing to herself, "What if, when we find them, you hide in wait for the ambush, I then stagger towards them and say I escaped, you charge forwards and attack the lions, I attack my sister and we let the bloodbath commence?" she said, sounding ever more sinical.