[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[DGFone]

Umeme realized that she didn't exactly know how she had met Hatari. "Well, Muroki introduced me to him," she admitted, "I don't exactly know how they met up the first time though. I think Muroki mentioned that he..." she chuckled. "You know, I don't know how they met. I think Muroki simply quite literately walked into Hatari one day and that's how they met."

"Anyways, he's a nice guy, so I don't see any reason why you won't want to meet him." Umeme grinned when she remembered that it's Hatari they are talking about. "Although I want to warn you: he can be somewhat strange sometimes. Must be from living alone in the middle of nowhere."

She noticed the plant life changing, signaling that they were nearing the waterhole where Hatari lived. "He lives not far from here. In fact, we should see him fairly soon." They moved closer, but they didn't see the lion. Umeme was about to suggest that he was not in his home and that perhaps they should come back at a later time.

A branch snapped overhead causing her to look up, and was rather surprised to see the very lion they were looking for overhead. "Hatari? What are you doing all the way up there?"

---

Delano looked inside the den, wandering what kind of home his brother had found with Umeme. What he saw was rather uncanny. "It's a lot like the one where we grew up in." He walked back outside, and gave Muroki a strange look, trying hard not to grin. "You sure the two of you simply found it like this? You didn't change it?" He was only teasing his brother about it, but he was even somewhat curious about they found the den. There was also one other thing he wanted to learn. "When are you planning to move in with her?"

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina couldn't help but chuckle. "Typical..." Muroki simply running into some random rogue and becoming his friend sounded very natural for her brother-in-law, to be honest. "I still remember how strange Muroki first was when he got here... Especially around you. I'm sure I can handle it." She was a little confused when Hatari's home came into view but with no lion to be seen anywhere. The place he'd found himself was pretty good, there was no doubt about it. It really was like a little paradise in the middle of nowhere with the waterhole right by the den.

She looked up when she heard her sister call Hatari's name, having not heard the branch snap above them, and was rather surprised to see a lion asleep up in the tree (and in quite a high spot too. Wasn't he afraid he'd fall off in his sleep or something?). "Sleeping, I presume..." she said with a chuckle. It was a little strange to see a lion sleeping on a tree. Of course from where she was it was impossible for her to recognize him, not only because she was a little far away from him but also because he was mostly concealed by the branch he was sleeping on.

The lion didn't seem to have heard her sister, so Lina chuckled and rolled her eyes. They didn't know that he was sleeping there was for safety purposes. "Someone's a heavy sleeper... Here, I'll wake him up." Having always been the better one at climbing trees, she went ahead and began making her way upwards. When she briefly looked down she saw that her sister had an uncertain look on her face. "Don't worry. You said he's a nice guy, right?"

Eventually she reached the branch and got onto it, but that was when she also got a first good look at who she was approaching. What in the world was he doing there?! And how come Muroki and Umeme were friends with him?! Instinctively she let out a startled yelp and jumped backwards, causing herself to lose her foothold on the branch and end up hanging high above the ground. It was a pretty big drop and there was no place for her to place her hind legs in order to climb back up to safety.

Hatari, having been woken up by the lioness's rather loud reaction to seeing him, opened his eyes to see a pair of paws hanging onto his branch. He could not recognize Lina right away, but whoever the lioness was he wasn't going to let her fall and possibly injure herself. "Hang on!" He bent over and wrapped one foreleg around her, using his other 3 legs to stand properly on the branch before pulling her upwards, ignoring her protests and thinking of them as her simply not thinking clearly because she didn't want to fall off.

"There, you're-" he paused when he finally got a good look of her face, his mouth dropping wide open.

She, on the other hand, wasn't too happy with how close he was to her. "No! Get away from me!" She's never hit another lion before, but she couldn't help her claws from extending and her paw from launching forward and smacking him across the jaw, knocking him right off the branch.

----------

Muroki smiled as Delano mentioned that the den he and Umeme had chosen looked a lot like the one he and Delano used to live in with their parents. "I know. That's the first thing I noticed about it when we found it." He looked at his brother, raising an eyebrow. "We didn't touch it. It was exactly like this when we first came across it." As unlikely as it seemed that two dens looked almost completely like each other without having been shaped to look like each other, that was the case.

"Actually, we haven't really talked about when we were actually going to move in here..." he said after a short silence. Now that he was thinking about it, they must have been too excited with having found a den and with thinking about what their lives would be like from now on that they'd completely forgotten about this little and yet important detail. "Really soon, I think. Well, I kind of hope." he smiled, taking another look at his den. "I have a feeling like everything's going to be just great from now on."

[DGFone]

Sure, Umeme wasn't sure how Hatari would react to being woken up by Lina, but what she did not expect at all was to have her sister strike him across the muzzle, hard. The lion fell off the tree from the blow. "Lina! Why did you do that?" Umeme demanded angrily. Her anger instantly vanished when she heard Lina not react with anger, but with fear. What was going on?

As Lina made her way down and stood behind her sister, Umeme looked at Lina, then at Hatari and back again. Not only did Lina glare at Hatari with pure hatred, Hatari himself did not look confused either. Instead, his expression was quite different, but Umeme couldn't figure out exactly what. "Lina, why did you hit him? Did he do something? Wait... Do you two..." She frowned, thinking hard, as well as noticing how Lina was basically hiding behind her, making sure that Umeme was in between her and Hatari. "Do you know him?"

She looked at the lion who she thought was her friend. But can he really be, if Lina reacted with such hostility to him? "Hatari? How do you know her? What's going on?" She felt like she didn't know what was going on, and she wanted answers. Now.

---

Delano grinned. "Very soon, huh? Well, it certainly is getting crowded back home. We could certainly use the extra room" He mentally mapped their run, trying to figure out the fastest way between this den and the old one. "And it's not too far from here, so visiting won't be too much of a problem."

This caused him to think about something else that was on his mind for quite a while now. He cleared his throat rather nervously "Listen, Muroki, there is something I wanted to talk to you about... It's about Lina." He noticed right away the look of concern on Muroki's face. "Oh, no, everything is fine between us. It's actually about that..."

He grinned sheepishly. "Well, it's just that I was thinking. We both love each other, and I was wondering if I should already just go ahead ask her to marry me?" He grinned sheepishly. "I tried before, but I always lost my nerve before I could say anything."

[TheWhistlerify]

Despite how likely it seemed to fall off that branch while asleep, Hatari had never fallen off of it even once. Because he wasn't used to what it felt like, falling directly onto his back after Lina swatted him across the face was quite a painful experience (not that he could blame her for reacting that way). It took him a few moments to regain his bearings and he saw Lina standing behind Umeme, glaring at him with hatred but mostly with fear. "Yes, in a way." he said with a grunt of pain, suddenly not sounding as apprehensive as he had been whenever he had spoken to Umeme and Muroki before.

Because what did he have to worry about? He knew that he's been discovered. He also knew that there was no place for him to go. This spot he'd found was the last option he had, and with that gone there wasn't really anything to fear anymore. The worst had already happened. He tried to get up, with a lot of effort, but decided to just stay down when he noticed Lina take a step backwards when she noticed he was trying to rise to his paws. "Okay then." he said slowly, lying back down and ceasing his efforts to stand. He didn't want to make her even more frightened than she already was. "I'll stay down."

"Surely Lina's told you all about me." he said after a short silence, looking down at the floor with shame. "And what I tried to do..." He did not for a moment disagree that what he had almost done to Lina was absolutely terrible, but it wasn't nearly as bad as other things he's done in his past. "Surely she has. I can tell the two of you are friends at the very least."

Lina, meanwhile, while very afraid that he might attempt to attack them, was also very confused. He did keep his distance as if to stop her from getting more nervous than she already was, and the look in his eyes when he told Umeme who he was... It looked like he was actually regretting what he has done... No. That couldn't be true. Underworld lions could not be trusted. She knew that quite well. Chances were it was all just an act.

"I used to be a member of the Underworld." he continued, still staring down at the ground. "But I bet you probably don't believe my whole use of the past tense. I don't blame you." he kept his head looking in the same direction but raised his eyes from the ground to look at Umeme. "Nobody would want anything to do with someone like me..." he was silent for a short moment before his eyes moved onto Lina, much to her discomfort. "I'm not going to hurt you if that's what you're worried about. I don't do these things anymore. Just go."

------------

Because Muroki still remembered Lina and Delano having their rows or going through a hard time, when he heard Delano say he wanted to talk about Lina he immediately thought that something had happened again, and was relieved to hear that everything was alright between the two of them. "Really? Is that it?" he smiled, unable to hide in relief. "Sheesh! You really know how to make somebody worry... Just ask her. I'm sure she'll say yes. She waited for you when you rejoined the police, remember?"

[DGFone]

Umeme was bewildered. Her eyes narrowed at Hatari. "Just exactly who are you?" Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Lina slowly backing away, and she chose to move closer to her sister. After all, while she knew Hatari as a nice lion, this new information was causing her to seriously doubt what she knew about him. And yet, looking at him, she could see hurt in his eyes, and it wasn't one of pain from getting hit or even from falling from the tree. It was almost as if he was... ashamed.

For some reason, even though her loyalty lay unquestionably with Lina, Umeme felt that Hatari was not lying when he said that he doesn't hurt others anymore. She wanted to say something to the lion, but Lina was having trouble keeping her composure up, so at Hatari's urging, she nudged her sister away from the area, and back home.

Walking back slowly, Umeme didn't know what to say. Muroki would never play such a trick on her as to introduce her to someone dangerous, which meant that he didn't have any idea who Hatari was either. Should she tell him? But she was much more concerned about Lina. The last thing Umeme wanted to do was to reunite Lina with the lion who almost killed her, and yet that was exactly what happened.

Things did not go well, to say the least.

---

Delano nodded, feeling very embarrassed. "I know, I know! But I always lose my nerve... I will try to ask her, and I just... keep getting scared off. I don't even know why! I know she'll accept! But I just..." He looked at his brother, pleadingly. "I don't know what to do," he finally admitted. "Or rather, I don't know how to do it."

He sat down and groaned. "I have no idea why I get so scared... Not even scared, it's something else, and I can't really describe it... anxious?" He looked back at Muroki. "I guess what I am saying is... can you help me?"

[TheWhistlerify]

For a moment back there Hatari considered answering Umeme's question but he eventually chose to remain silent. He had pretty much already told her who he was. The only thing he could have done was to maybe sum it all up by using the word monster or murderer. As the two lionesses walked away and eventually disappeared, the lion could feel the frustration rise within him. Just for once in his entire life it seemed like things were finally looking up and now it has all been ruined in an instant.

He knew more than well that somebody like him did not deserve any of that. The place he now had (or used to have up until a few minutes ago by the looks of it), was far too good for the likes of him. And having friends? He wasn't worthy of any of those things. And yet, deep inside, he still wished that he could spend the rest of his days living an actual life, even with all of his guilt. After simply lying there for a while he got up, with some effort, and when he realized his back was still too sore for him to climb up the tree he let out a sigh and walked into his little den.

------------

Muroki almost found the situation to be a little ironic. He still remembered how, when he'd wanted to ask Umeme out for the first time, he'd asked Delano for encouragement. It felt really weird that he, being the more timid one of the two of them, was now the one in Delano's shoes, in a manner of speaking. "That's an odd thing to say since you claim that you believe she'll say yes." he said after a short silence, thinking for a moment. "Technically, I don't think there's anything you should be worried about..."

"I can't help you to not be nervous," he said with a chuckle, "that's entirely up to you." Muroki then brought a paw to his chin when something suddenly came to his mind. "Hmm... Remember how I told you about the decision to move in with Umeme and everything? You said you weren't ready for that yet. Maybe asking Lina to marry you is making you think of this specific part of marriage, which you feel a little more reserved about." he fell silent for a short moment, looking up at the sky. "Did that make any sense?" he placed his paw back down on the ground and shrugged.

"Maybe you're not ready for that but you want to be because the two of you have been together for a long time?" he asked. "Perhaps you're actually ready but you're just nervous about what will happen? I mean... Starting a family does require a lot of responsibility and hard work..."

Spoiler: show

Darn it. I came back way too late than I was originally supposed to... The military is so retarded <_>

I had some extra dialog for Hatari that I wanted to put in so maybe Umeme could come back on her own the following day or something? (before either Muroki or Delano find out, because I want Hatari to discover that he killed Muroki's parents before he's confronted by either / both of them. Also, I want to talk to you about bringing Sanders back in. I might make a temporary OC for the pride's king or something to act as Sander's target, or something like that)

[DGFone]

Walking back home, Umeme looked worriedly at her sister. "You alright, Lina?" She didn't really know what else to say, but the silence was beginning to agitate her. She now had somewhat of an idea of what was going on, but there were still many questions that flew around in her head. Did Hatari try to kill Lina? If so, why did he change? How can the nice, if somewhat strange, lion who she and Muroki made friends with also be the same lion who could have done such evil things?

Did he really change, or was that an act?

In the back of her head, Umeme knew that she will have to come back to Hatari and find out more answers from him. She at first thought about taking Muroki with her, but she hesitated about that idea when she remembered how involved Muroki and Delano were with the whole deal.

Still, right now, she needed to know that Lina would be fine after the encounter.

---

Delano listened to what Muroki had to say, and knew that a lot of the anxiety he felt did in fact come from these fears. "Yeah, I think that's why I feel so nervous," he said hesitantly. "It's just that, you are already married, and now you are even planning to move out soon..." He sighed, feeling the nervousness begin to creep in. "I'm... not ready for that. I-" He hesitated, not knowing if he dared to mention something that he felt rather ashamed about. Well, there goes nothing. "I fear that Lina might wonder why... that we will need to catch up to you two." He groaned and placed his paws over his eyes. "I don't even know why I feel like that, I just do!"

He felt Muroki's paw on his shoulder and looked at his brother. "But now that you mention it, I know that we won't have to... I guess I'll try asking her tonight." He grinned slightly. "If you see me losing my nerve, can you take me aside and help me get my confidence up?"

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina had thought that it was all over. After the underworld disbanded she thought she would never have to think of anything related to it ever again. Yes, it was a little difficult to move on at first because of Delano's trial, but once he came back the past seemed to become of so little significance... At least until she realized that the lion who had caused her such a trauma was living not so far away from her. Having expected (and hoped) to never see or even hear of him again, coming across him after all this time was quite a shock to say the least.

What would have happened had she run into him on her own? What would have happened if it weren't for her sister being there? "Yeah... No... Maybe..." she said quietly, feeling too upset to speak properly. "I could just stay in the den, right? With you, or with Delano or with mom and dad... It's safe there..." She felt like her question was a rather dumb one, not only because Umeme wouldn't know the answer to it, but also because Hatari's behavior just a few moments ago has left her really confused.

How could she even consider that Hatari was truly sorry after all that he's done? No matter how hard she tried she couldn't forget the genuine shame she could see in his eyes. Not only had he almost forced himself upon her, but he also killed- The lioness came to a stop and froze. "Delano..." With all the shock and confusion she'd completely forgotten that Hatari was also one of the two involved in killing Delano's parents. "Umeme, this lion... He killed Delano's parents..."

She fell silent and looked down at the floor. Delano would obviously want to know that the lion who'd hurt her and killed his parents was here, but a small part inside her didn't want to tell him because she knew what Delano might try to do if he found out. "What are we going to do?" she asked, looking at her sister with an uncertain expression.

---------------

Muroki smiled and placed a paw on his brother's shoulder. "I'm sure Lina won't pressure you into anything." he said, thinking that it was a very unlikely posibility as long as Delano wouldn't take too long to come around. "You could try to either wait and see whether you're really just not ready or try to figure out why you feel like this. Perhaps both." He chuckled. "As for the whole confidence thing, I could try... But don't expect any magic to happen."

[DGFone]

"I can stay with you until Delano will come back," Umeme answered. It would be very foolish of her to leave Lina alone after such a fright. She then thought of what else they were going to do when Lina spoke again.

"He what?" Umeme stopped in her tracks. That just made things a lot more complicated with this new revelation. Now, if anything, her doubts about coming back with Muroki were greatly increased. Taking Delano along with her was out of the question entirely. "What are we going to do? I don't know..."

So many different ideas were floating around in her head. But there was one that she knew had to happen. "We can't tell this to anyone else," she cautioned, "we don't know how they will act... They can easily make things even worse." She hesitated. "I mean... you saw him hesitate. He didn't attack you again or anything. Something's not right." She shook her head. "This is too much for right now. Come on, let's go home."

---

Delano nodded, feeling some of the anxiety go away. "I'll see what I'll do. I'll try to ask her. I've been meaning to for so long now, so I don't see why I should keep waiting on that. As for the rest... I'll still need time."

While feeling somewhat better, not all of the nervousness left him as the two brothers began to make their way back to the den. Delano just hoped that he would find the courage to ask Lina to marry him, and that he won't mess it up.

[TheWhistlerify]

As much as Lina's instincts were yelling at her to ensure her own safety by telling someone, anyone, of what had happened, she knew that Umeme was right. Even without Hatari's palpable regret, knowing that she might get another lion killed, even if he was a killer himself, was enough to make her hesitate. "You're right... Until we decide what to do I'll just... I'll stay in the den, that's what I'll do..." The last part sounded like she was talking to herself rather than to her sister. The two of them kept walking and soon the den came into view.

---------------

Muroki smiled as the two of them began making their way back to the den. Muroki still wasn't sure whether he will be spending the night there or in his and Umeme's new den, but he knew that Umeme would most likely come there with Lina sometime soon. "You do that. I'm sure it'll be fine." After a minute or two of walking the two brothers could see two other lions walking in their direction. The adult one appeared to be doing most of the talking while the younger one, a teen male with golden fur, a not fully grown brown mane and blue eyes, seemed to be doing his best in paying attention. (You could say his mane is similar to teenager Simba's in regard of length)

"Have we seen this lion before?" asked Muroki quietly, looking at his brother. After a few moments he remembered; the lion had been present at Delano's trial. But he wasn't just a regular observer... "That's the king! Remember? After he saw the lack of evidence against you in your trial he demanded that you were set free." He knew that Delano didn't like to talk about that, but surely his brother didn't have anything against the lion that set him free.

The four continued to walk towards one another until the king noticed them and came to a stop. The younger lion took a moment or two to notice the fact that his father had stopped. Muroki didn't know what to do. He'd never spoken to royalty before. "Why, if it isn't the two nephews!" Muroki blinked in surprise a few times as the king smiled and walked over to them. "I just happen to be coming back from visiting your aunt."

"You are?" asked Muroki with his usual quiet voice. He was a little surprised that the king and his aunt knew each other. "Um, thank you for your concern..."

The king nodded before looking at Delano. "Is your leg better?" Delano nodded. "Good, it sure looks like it. That's lovely to know." He looked at Muroki. "Your aunt told me that you and your mate are moving in together. I wish you both the best of luck. If you'll excuse me, we must be going."

The king then carried on and walked passed them. His son followed, "Nice to meet ya!" he said with a smile, soon catching up to his father.

"You know, Kato, I heard that you're spending time with Desta instead of attending some of your lessons..." said the king. (Random African male & female names).

"Oh, er, so you know about that, huh?" asked Kato with a nervous chuckle. The king sighed.

"Wow, the king talked to me..." said Muroki with a blank expression as the two walked away before blinking a few times and looking at his Delano. "I wonder if Lina and Umeme are back already." he smiled, nudging his brother in the shoulder. "Come on, I'll race you there!"