King Kion and Queen Rani's Love

Chapter 2: Friend or Foe?

The scent of the unknown lions was rapidly getting closer, Kion gets ready to lunge at the lions that are about to emerge from the trees. As soon as Kion sees one lion jump out from behind the tree he immediately lunges at him pinning him to the ground. The other two mysterious lions appear from behind the tree. They see that Kion has him pinned and they immediately shove Kion off of him. The Guard were surprised to see that Kion had lunged out first.

As Kion growls he asks "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Hey, I'm not here to pick a fight." the lion says trying to de-escalate the situation

"So why didn't you just say that in the first place!" Kion says in an angered tone

"I didn't have the chance to because you pounced on me!" the lion replies in an annoyed tone seeing that he was in the right.

As Kion sat there for a second he realised that the mysterious lion was in the right and he was in the wrong "Oh you're right, I'm sorry I pounced on you. My name's Kion."

Kion felt a bit lightheaded and off today. He normally would never do something as stupid as that.

"It's fine, the name's Matuso by the way and these are my friends Selia and Wilpo." Matuso says

Fuli realises that Kion is not in the right frame of mind right now and sees that he can't continue on with patrol right now and needs rest.

"So why are you guys out here?" Kion asks

Wilpo begins to tear up "Our parents were killed and we had nowhere else to go until we were told that the Tree Of Life is the safest place to go to so we were on our way there and we ran into you."

"Oh, I-I'm so sorry." Kion says as he begins to feel bad for them

"It's no problem, it's not like you knew so I can't blame you." Wilpo replies

"Well, I'm the king here at the Tree Of Life, I can find you a place to stay." Kion suggests 

Selia and Wilpo look at each other with their mouths wide open hearing Kion say he's the king of the Tree Of Life

As Fuli steps in front of Kion she says "No Kion you need rest. You don't seem to be your usual self, I'll take care of this."

As Fuli and the rest of the guard begin to show Matuso and his friends around and where they can stay Kion is on his way back to the lair when he spots Rani finishing up with the rocks at the mountain pass.

"Hey Rani." Kion says softly

"Hey Kion, how was patrol?" Rani says as she begins to walk up to Kion and nuzzle him

"Not so great I jumped on a lion that wasn't even a threat and I don't know why I did that. Fuli decided that I should go get some rest because I'm not feeling my usual self." Kion replied

As they both began to walk to the lake to get some water, Rani wondered if Kion liked him but she decided to save that for another day since Kion was already feeling odd. Meanwhile, Fuli and the rest of the guard were still looking for a place for Matuso and his friends to stay. Beshte noticed that Selia was looking all over the place as if she was looking for something or someone.

"You okay Selia?" Beshte asked

"Oh-uh, yeah I'm fine" Selia says with a smile

Beshte didn't know what her intentions were but he had a bad feeling and decided to keep an eye on her. Fuli found a cave-type den for them to stay in.

"You guys can stay here for as long as you want." Fuli says

"Thank you, we are really grateful for this." Matuso replies

As the guard began to head back to the forest to continue patrol Ono saw something out of the corner of his eye, he decided to take a deeper look and saw two leopards slowly and silently moving up towards Kion and Rani from behind. 

"KION, QUEEN RANI, BEHIND YOU!" Ono shouts

Kion and Rani quickly turn around noticing the two leopards that attempted to sneak up behind them.

"Leopards! I'll give you one chance to leave." Kion states

"Let's see..... Um, I don't think so." The leopard replies

Kion gets into his roaring stance as the leopards begin to charge at them and roars them far away from the Tree Of Life.

As the leopard was flying he said "Thank you Kion!"

Kion was at the time confused as to why the leopard thanked him for roaring him away but didn't think much of it. Ono and Fuli came rushing down to Kion and Queen Rani's aid.  

"Queen Rani, Kion, are you guys okay?" Fuli asked

"Yeah, we're good." They both said

"But where did they come from?" Kion asked

"We-" Ono said before he was interrupted by Kion

"I thought you guys were on patrol!" Kion said in an angered tone

 Rani was surprised by the tone in Kion's voice as she had never heard or seen him get angry at his friends like that before let alone Fuli. 

"Kion relax, we were taking Matuso and his friends to their new home, remember?." Fuli says

"Oh, yeah, sorry Fuli I didn't mean to-" Kion sighs

"I need to go" Kion says

Kion heads back to the lair whilst Rani trails behind. Rani is confused as to why Kion is acting like this all of a sudden. 

"Kion, are you okay?" Rani asks in a soft voice as she walks up to Kion and puts her head under his

"I don't know anymore. I can't even think straight. First I pounced on Matuso then I was rude to him and then I was rude to Fuli." Kion says as his ears drop

"I don't think I should be king" 

Rani paused for a second and was in shock at what she had just heard.

"Kion, you can't be serious." Rani replied with a chuckle

She noticed that Kion actually wasn't joking and he was serious. 

"Kion, remember that time I said that you weren't fit to be a leader? You proved me wrong!"

"Yeah but-" 

Rani stayed assertive and kept telling Kion reasons why he was fit to be king.

"And Kion don't forget that the guard still needs you and that.... you're my king and I still need you." Rani says with a smirk

Kion finally came to his senses and realised that what Rani was saying was actually true and that he IS the king and needed to help Rani.

As Kion was enlightened by Rani's words he stood up and said "You know what, you're right Rani. I am king and leader of The Lion Guard and I need to start acting like it."

"Thanks Rani." Kion said as he nuzzled her

By the time Kion and Rani finished talking it was already night so they decided to go to sleep. They both hopped up onto the rock and layed down. Rani got closer to Kion and slept right next to him, Kion put his head on top of Rani's neck and Rani placed her head on Kion's paw and they both fell asleep.

Next Chapter coming out soon!