The Lion Guard: Without Him ✔️

epilogue

Fuli. The leader of the Pride Guard. The first leader to be anything but a lion and -truly- one of the fiercest creatures to have ever lived.
That was her legacy.
She had long since proven it to herself and to anyone else who dared to stand against her.
She was happy.

Fuli sat beside her husband with a graceful smile on her furry face, resting her head in the crook oh his neck as he snored lightly. She chuckled softly. It used to drive her crazy but now she found herself unable to sleep without the sound.

"Mama, Mama!" She looked up at the sound of her cub's shout, ears flicking in motherly instinct. Tria frowned at her from beside the watering hole where the second two cubs, Ry and Nina, wrestled one another in the water, soaking wet. Fuli knew she should be mad, furious, that her cubs decided to play in the water after being told not to get their coats wet -the King and Queen would be heading this way, after all!- but found herself laughing easily. Ry and Nina paused their play and grinned innocently at her while Tria pouted that her siblings didn't get in trouble.

Soon, the royal family joined them at the lake, as well as the other members of the Pride Guard. The cubs and the hatchlings played in the water while the adults watched, careful of their surroundings. Paranoid as they might be by now, they still enjoyed themselves in the sun.

As the great circle of warmth decended behind the horizon before them, the families started heading back to their dens: Ono's to the trees, Bunga's to the dens, Beshte's up the river, Kovu and Kiara's to Pride Rock and Fuli and Azaad's to the Guard's lair where they spent their nights. The cubs fell asleep quickly, snuggled between their parents while the two cheetahs smiled at them fondly.

"I love you," Azaad reminded her as usual. Fuli liked it; it made her feel special, as though she was more than just a protector of the lands.

She smiled. "I love you too."

Azaad fell asleep soon after that but Fuli found herself wide awake, staring out of the entrance to the cavern with a fond smile, watching the stars shimmer. The brightest caught her eye as it shone, as though a certain young lion was winking down at her from the heavens, reminding her that he, too, loved her, and that he would never leave her side, as long as she remembered to wink back up at him.

One day, one of her cubs would take over from her. They would build a new guard of protectors to keep the Pride Lands safe. But until then, Fuli was content to do it herself, to make a better place for them all to grow up in.