THE LION GUARD: LIFE IN THE PRIDE LANDS

A TLG fanfiction

by DBROWN13

As I sat in the principal's office with tears rolling down my cheeks, I began to wonder if it was all worth it. Aileen had been my crush since the first grade. My whole world was reflected in her eyes and her smile gave meaning to life and always lit everything up. I confessed my true feelings for her in the fourth grade during recess. We were hanging by our arms on the bridge part of the playground where all of the kids played during that time, and sweat was all that my body knew how to process at the time. I was shitting bricks.

"I-I-I-I," was all that was escaping my mouth. "Yes," she asked with a smile across her face in a high squeaky voice. It was like she knew what I was trying to say. "I like you" finally spat out as I panted. What she said next even made my heart skip a beat. "I like you, too."

We were pretty much inseparable ever since. Then came the day that kept me attached to her forever: my first kiss. We were getting out of choir practice when she grabbed me by the sleeve and yanked me over to a part of the gym where nobody would see us. "Can you kiss me?" I gulped. I was completely in love with her so of course I had to. I leaned in close and my lips collided with hers. Her hand started caressing my hair and we closed our eyes. The kiss lasted 7 seconds but it felt like 7 years. We ended the kiss with all of our closest friends that we gave permission to watch gasping and squealing. She gave me a sweet smile and told me bye with one last quick peck on the cheek.

I was only 9 at the time and that's why the kiss had drawn me completely into her. It had felt like she was going to be the one I'd be with forever. Until the sixth grade, where I was currently sitting in an office with my mom and her boyfriend. It started out as a good year. Me and her were eating lunch together and playing games just the two of us. Both of us made a new friend named Sean. He seemed like a nice guy who had similar interests as she did. He started to hang out with us and our friend group a lot. Then on November 3rd, I was having some issues finding Aileen and Sean, so I did some looking around and what I saw almost made me vomit. I saw her and Sean kissing behind a wall where nobody would see them. Similarly to the way she kissed me.

"What the heck is going on here?!" They both jolted their heads at me with surprised expressions on their faces. My eyes were getting a bit teary. "Dylan, this is not what it looks like." "Oh, really. Because it seems like you were giving OUR kiss to this bozo. I thought you liked me." "I do." "Well this is not the way you treat someone you like. I thought that we had something really special. Why would you backstab me like this?!" A few tears escaped from my pupils.

Sean walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her. "Well it's not my fault that she finds me more attractive than you." That's when a bonfire lit itself inside of me. I had never felt such rage in my entire life. I then did something that I never thought I would do: I attacked him. I literally attacked him. I took a deep breath, ran over and tackled him to the ground before I started taking multiple swings at him. The little scenario attracted a crowd of chanting kids, some older and some barely in kindergarten. They were yelling FIGHT! FIGHT! After a few hits, I noticed a little plant growing inches away from where I had him pinned to the ground with blood rushing out of his nose and lips. I kneeled over and ripped off a branch from the little shrub and attempted to impale him with it. That's how much he pissed me off. The chants got the attention from the vice principal, Mr. Perez, who just happened to be in the area at the time of some serious ass-whooping.

"Move! What is going on here!?" He shoved his way through the crowd and saw me with the sharp branch in my hand and an injured kid beneath my knees. I had the drop on him. But before I would successfully stab him with the branch I had ripped from the plant, I felt a tug on my hoodie and was pulled away from him. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, YOUNG MAN!? YOU, IN MY OFFICE, NOW!"

And here we are. Back into the office where my mom has a stern look on her face, while at the same time trying to hold back tears. Mr. Perez was shuffling through some fancy looking documents and signing a couple of papers. "What you did today would've put you in jail. Your terroristic actions against Sean today had me thinking of putting you in juvie. But by what your parents and Aileen told me today, I understand that you were doing it in the name of love. But there are still going to have to be some consequences for this incident. So, you're going to have a three-day suspension and you may return Monday."

"What? No, please! If you can just give me one more chanc-." "You are out of chances, Dylan. You, and your parents, may leave now." I stuttered before my mother whispered for me to let go with one of her salty tears falling onto my scalp. I picked up my backpack and walked out of the building to my mom's car. The drive home was pretty silent, but I should've enjoyed it because as soon as we got home the quietness was broken by my mom's yelling at me. "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WERE YOU THINKING!" Crap was being handed to me for over an hour and a half before I was given the ultimate punishment: no electronics until my mom said so.

"Just, go to your room. I can't do this anymore." I slumped my way to my bedroom with my head hanging low and multiple tears running down my face. I was in a real tight pickle that I couldn't seem to get myself out of. I was known as a real good kid by parents and friends and teachers up until that fateful day. Slamming the door and more yelling was the least of my worries. I ran and crashed my body onto my queen-sized bed where all of my stuffed animals were laying. I cuddled up near Lotso and Bing Bong while drinking a Chick-Fil-A sweet tea that I had left on my nightstand a few nights before.

That's when an idea popped up in my head. A plan that would solve all of my problems: I would have to run away. It wasn't the most rational plan, but it's all that I had in order to try and have a carefree life. I grabbed my Samsung phone from my nightstand, plugged my headphones into them and threw both of them into a backpack that I had underneath my bed. I then tiptoed my way to the kitchen where my parents had cried themselves to sleep on the couch and packed myself some food that included turkey, bologna, some water bottles, etc. into the bag as well. I was going to start packing clothes, but then noticed that it was past my bedtime. The last bedtime that I would ever have. I put all of my stuff against my nightstand and laid down, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers my mom put up there to help me sleep better when I was little.

"I just wish that I would go somewhere where I wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore." And like that, I was out like a light.

I could already tell it was morning by some of the sun's burning rays shining down onto my closed eyelids, but I didn't want to wake up just yet. It was getting a little nippy, so I reached for my blankets, only to find there was nothing there. They probably fell off the bed's end like they always did sometimes. I tossed over to the side to try and get more comfortable, but something about my mattress seemed odd. It felt like I was laying down on a hard lawn of grass or something. Then I heard the strange sounds of birds chirping. It's a normal thing to hear, but they sounded so close and their chirps are usually muffled by me being inside of a house, curled up in bed. The sunshine was getting stronger and that wasn't quite possible with my curtains only being slightly opened. That's when I heard the slightest sound of two people talking. "Gee, Timon I don't know." "Do you think it's still alive?"

I moaned and slowly opened my eyes. It took some moments for my vision to fix, but when it did, I thought I had to have been dreaming. I actually was laying down on a lawn grass. Actually, an entire valley of grass. I jerked my entire upper body up to find that I was in some sort of strange location. I saw a waterfall running into a small pond of water and trees and lots and lots of green life around me. Like bloomed flowers and vines that made it almost look like the jungle. There actually were birds chirping and they were swarming all around me. I turned my head and saw that I was in the presence of a meerkat and a warthog standing in front of me. They stared at me for a couple of seconds before they did something ordinary meerkats and warthogs don't do where I came from: they talked.

"What kind of-." I just screamed the moment human words came from an animal's mouth. My scream triggered them to scream and we all kept on screaming for 10 seconds before they came to a stop. "Did you just talk?!" "Well, I certainly wasn't not talking, so yes."

"This has to be some sort of nightmare. You shouldn't be talking." "Well, if that isn't the rudest comment I've ever heard. Right, Pumbaa?" Why did that name sound so familiar? "Right." "No, you don't understand. Animals do not talk! They can't. It's impossible."

"Well, it can't be that impossible because I'm doing it right now, aren't I?"

I couldn't believe that I was having a conversation with a freaking meerkat! That is the most abnormal thing I think I've ever said that was actually true. How would all of that be even remotely possible? There has to be some sort of crazy, mystical, totally unbelievable explanation to the fact that I was not at home, but I was in the middle of somewhere talking to an animal. "How is this all even happening?" I stood up. "And where the heck am I?" "You're at Hakuna Matata Falls, silly."

Wait a minute. The name, the fact animals are talking to me, and Hakuna Matata Falls? Oh no. No no no no no. It couldn't be. But it was.

I was in the freaking Pride Lands!