go bleach your roots creep

After being kicked out, Mpishi settled herself in the far end of the Backlands. (see the very end of the Harmattan.) Similar enough prey to the Pridelands, just close enough to occasionally sneak in and pick off new samples. She and Mwoga secretly start long distance dating, with him visiting and helping her hunt. When Scar is defeated, he goes to see her, thinking he’ll get to see her more often now that he wasn’t committed to the Outlands. Imagine their surprise when just a few days later they stumble into the Lion Guard while they were hunting monkeys in some mountains. (ideally I plan to replace the macaques with something more location accurate, but they can stay monkeys for now.) They run into Makucha not long after and would be the first of his army he recruits.

Their presence doesn’t drastically alter the course of the show, other than giving the army two sets of eyes in the sky, and giving Ono and Anga more things to do (and two extra fighters means at least slightly more interesting fight scenes.) Mpishi and Mwoga aren’t really malicious animals, to the degree of Makucha and Mama; they just do what they wanna do, which makes it easier to toss them around and for them to back down.

When the army are roared away they land somewhere around that canyon seen in Friends to the End (I gotta go over my hc for the roar one of these days.) while a setback, they were close enough they could have gone back to the Tree, but at that point they just… gave up. After so many tries, it just wasn’t worth it anymore, especially not with Kion’s roar able to so easily sweep them away. (they of course have no way of knowing Kion would almost immediately leave the Tree and his replacement would have a roar not nearly as powerful.) They decide to simply. Go back home.

Mama and her porcupines go back to her forest, but in their absence, the forest animals had rallied together to oppose her; what had they been so afraid of anyway? She and her boys decide to double back and make their way to the pond that was just before the canyon, where she’ll spend the rest of her days living a quiet, if boring, life. Ora and his dragon friends return to their island with little fanfare, leaving the birds and the leopards to return the Backlands.

As they make the longest stretch of the journey together, they would begrudgingly have to admit they were all becoming… more tolerant of each other. Fond, perhaps. (Dare they say friends? Ew. And yet. Makucha and Chuluun seemed to be becoming particularly close, as much as they played it off.) Mwoga brings up how before he left, the Outlanders, including his flock, had agreed to set aside their differences and try to actually behave themselves. Following the Circle of Life worked for everyone they met; the Pridelands, the Tree, Jasiri’s clan. Even Janja’s clan seemed to improve overnight, and he only saw them for one day. Clearly they were doing something wrong. Maybe they could… try it?

Mpishi is open to it; she’d never been out to make animals miserable just for the sake of it, she just wanted good food. The leopards are more reluctant; it just sounds so goody goody and lame. But they also can’t deny, all those goody four paws did seem so happy and fed. They weren’t starving in a wasteland like the hyenas had been, the Backlands were relatively fine, but they weren’t necessarily happy. And it had been… nice. To care about each other.

They give it a try. They hunt a little less, eating only what they need. They don’t immediately chase down every rare creature that crosses their path (turns out, rare animals become slightly less rare and more available to eat when you leave them alive to breed.) They leave travelers who are minding their own business alone. They don’t suddenly become angels, but they slowly find going with the flow of nature instead of swimming against it to be.. more rewarding than they’d thought it would be.

The birds end up the most reformed of the group, as they visit his flock often, who are thriving in their new companionship with both the Outlanders and Pridelanders over the years. Mpishi isn’t happy when Mwoga points out that she actually could have hunted in the Pridelands the whole time if she’d just politely asked. After all, his flock had been allowed in. (She wasn’t with him for his smarts.) The two of them do go and apologize to Simba and Kion; it doesn’t make them suddenly hunky dory – they did attack a sacred tree – but it does a lot to smooth things over. Kion is very forgiving to anyone who genuinely tries.

(Has anyone else noticed that Mzingo’s vultures seem to be fully allowed in the Pridelands? They’re never treated like invaders, and only come into conflict with anyone when they hunt children or one of the Guard. They don’t really become Outlanders until season 2. maybe they got kicked out after going after the baby baboon.)

Chuluun lives in the same mountain range seen in The Accidental Avalanche and Makucha lives in the more foresty area at the base. They see each other often, migrating between locations as needed when one gets too hot or cold.

I’m totally rewriting their dynamic to give them Larxel vibes.

Right now I am tentatively having Tabari be Makucha’s father, unless the comics do something with him that makes that not work. I’ll be lazy and have Jiona be his brother, and Fahari is their cousin. Makucha is about 10ish years younger than Simba, putting him in his late 20’s, not much older than Nuka. Chuluun is mid 20’s. The birds and Ora are, idk, in their 30’s or 40’s, Mama is in her late 60’s.