HOME | DD

Description
Merah ("bitter" in Swahili) is the daughter of Vitani and Masilo, the adopted daughter of Imara, the sister of Fathiya, Thabiti, Shahida, and Nukta, the adopted sister of Kitu, the mate of Daman, and the mother of Kanan and Kamika.

Merah and her brother are born alongside their half-sister Fathiya shortly before the Royal Twins are. She is a BIG cub, nearly killing her mother on her way out, and as she grows it's clear that she's inherited her great-grandfather Ahadi's and great-uncle Mufasa's large size. This is something she uses to her advantage when she and her two friends, Tawa and Shahida go around and bully the other cubs in the pride, especially young Prince Zamani. She often teases him about being second-in-line to the throne, a "useless spare."

Merah hates Zamani, because not only does Zamani steal away her parents' attention (something she doesn't get all that often anyways as they're on the Guard), she also sees him as weak and useless, especially for a future Lion Guard leader. In fact, she thinks that she should be the next leader of the Lion Guard. She's got the strength and the smarts, so why Zamani instead of her? Because of some stupid tradition saying the second-born of the King and Queen was to be leader of the Guard? Ugh, how stupid. Didn't her mother already prove how stupid that tradition is when she took over the Guard from Kion?

Well, if she can't be leader, she could at least be on the Lion Guard as one of it's members, right? Like maybe the Strongest, like Mama Imara, or the Bravest like Auntie Shabaha.

But that dream is quickly dashed as well when Prince Zamani announces who he's picked to be on his Guard. She's not on the list, but guess who is? Her stupid, weak brother, Thabiti. This, of course, infuriates her. She refuses to talk to Thabiti from there after, and nothing her mothers' or siblings can do will change her mind.

She stews in her anger and jealously for years. She's jealous that her brother is in the Guard, and that her half-sister has been chosen to be the next Queen. She's furious that her mothers' did nothing to help her secure her future, and that Zamani didn't even think about her when picking members for his Lion Guard (nevermind the fact that she had been his biggest bully for years now). So when it comes time for her first solo hunt, she plans on securing a place in the pride as a lead huntress by using her large size to take down the biggest prey she can find. That should prove to the pride that she's not some useless spare. Not like Zamani.

This ultimately seals her fate, though, as the prey she decides to go after is an old but large and mean water buffalo.

The hunt starts off well enough. She picks out the old male quite easily; he's heavily scarred from other hunting attempts and has a slight limp from an old injury on one of his front legs. As soon as he's seperated enough from the rest of the heard, she makes her move. She leaps out from the brush, landing on the surprised old bull's back. Immediately everything erupts into chaos.

The rest of the herd disperses as the large bull bucks harshly, the back of his head slamming into Merah's chin, causing her to bite her tongue and lose her grip on him. She lands hard on the ground, barely managing to get back to her feet when suddenly the old bull swipes at her head with his horns. The blow connects, slashing a deep gash into her maw as she's sent flying into the air like a ragdoll. She slams down onto the ground, smashing the side of her head into a hidden stone in the ground and immediately blacks out afterwards.

Luckily for her, her peril is spotted by the new Keenest of Sight on Zamani's Lion Guard, who are on their first patrol by themselves. Zamani and his Guard leap into action, yanking the unconscious Merah from the path of the raging bull and calming the bull and his herd down. Merah is then taken to Rafiki's tree, where Rafiki and his new apprentice, his nephew Nefu, treat the poor lioness's injuries. For days it's touch and go on whether she'll live or not. Rafiki fears that even if she lives, there might be damage to her brain that he cannot fix. What kind of damage, he won't know until she wakes up (if she wakes up.) Everyone waits with bated breath when Merah finally does wake up, over a week after the incident.

As expected, she has absolutely no recollection of the incident, or of the days leading up to it. But other than being a bit confused at first, everything seems to be fine with her. After a few more weeks, Rafiki gives her a clean bill of health and allows her to go home. Everyone, but especially her mothers' and siblings, are relieved to see that she's okay and shower her with love and affection. Queen Kiara even tells Merah that once she fully recovers she can redo her hunting assessment. Everything seems to be fine, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It starts gradually, at first. Faint whispers that only Merah seems to hear, or a flash of green or red eyes out of her peripheral. Nothing too serious. Merah just chalks it up to not sleeping well or to the migraines she seems to get a lot or maybe even the seizures she gets on occation. But soon things get worse. Much worse.

The whispers become louder, until they sound like they're right in her ears. And the eyes she sees, she sees them everywhere now. In every shadow, behind every corner, in every crevice. And what's worse is what these strange voices are saying to her. They tell her that she should be the leader of the Lion Guard, not Zamani. That she should have all the fame and glory that comes with the position. That she deserves it, that she should take it, by any means necessary.

"You are strong. They are WEAK! Take what is rightfully yours. It's what we would have done, my dear grandchild." The voices whisper-yell. And, as if to add on to the horror, the eyes finally have faces to go with them. And they belong to her evil dead grandparents, Scar and Zira.

She tries to fight it at first. No matter how angry she is, or how jealous she gets, she's no murderer, she argues to them. She won't stoop to their level and murder an innocent lion just to get what she deserves. But they keep talking to her, taunting her and goading her on. "It's in your blood, my dear. Don't try to fight it. Accept yourself for what you truly are, and you'll be so much happier for it." She tries ignoring them, or drowning them out by going somewhere loud. But it doesn't work. They just keep getting more and more persistent. It gets to the point that even the pride is noticing something is wrong when Merah will suddenly just out of no where shout at something that isn't there.

Her family try to gently coax her into telling them what's wrong, but she refuses to tell them anything, claiming she's fine and just tired. She doesn't want them to think she's crazy (even though she's convinced she is at this point). She withdraws from the pride, her friends, and her family, keeping to herself so they don't see her talking to nothing. But slowly she does lose her sanity, and after hearing their voices for so long, she soon starts to believe them. Yes, she does deserve better, doesn't she? She deserves to be loved, to be worshipped. She deserves to have the glory Zamani ignores. She deserves to be the leader of the Lion Guard, like her mother before her. Maybe, just maybe, she even deserves more than that. Maybe she deserves to be Queen.

And she's decided she'll do whatever it takes to get what she deserves.

She decides to go after Zamani first, thinking if he dies then she can take her place as the Lion Guard's Fiercest and get one step closer to becoming Queen. She attacks the Prince in the middle of the night when he leaves the den to get a drink of water. She expects him to go down easily, as she's bigger and stronger than him, but she underestimates his strength. He manages to get himself free from her grasp and calls out for help. Merah leaps on him again, shoving him face first into the watering hole, hoping to shut him up before anyone hears him, but alas, it's too late.

Her former friend Tawa is the one who hears the Prince in distress and comes to his aid, knocking Merah off of him. Together they pin the large lioness down, who is now writhing and screaming bloody murder, frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. The rest of the pride quickly come running, and soon learn about what has happened. Vitani and Imara are horrified that their daughter would do something like this, but it quickly becomes clear to them and everyone else that poor Merah isn't in her right mind when she starts screaming about how Scar and Zira, two very dead lions, are telling her to do this, that she NEEDS to do this.

Kion, who is visiting with his mate and cubs, states that he'll take the mentally ill lioness back with him to the Tree of Life, to see if they can treat her. If not, they can keep her there indefinitely. She won't be a danger any longer under their care. Vitani and Imara reluctently agree. This is for the best. The next day, a tied up Merah is taken against her will to the Tree of Life, where their healer, Nirmala, and the Royal Mjuzi, Makini, work on a solution to cure Merah.

Through trial and error, and lots and lots of therapy, they finally find a mixture of herbs that work to help make the voices in her head almost disappear completely. Merah, once back to her senses, is absolutely horrified about what she did. Kion assures her that it wasn't her fault and that no one blames her, but even if that's true, she blames herself. She's not a murderer, and she's thankful that Tawa stopped her before she became one.

Eventually she's given a clean bill of health once more (or as clean of one as she can get). As long as she stays on her regiment of herbs and therapy, she should be okay to go home. But Merah decides that she doesn't want to go back to the Pride Lands. She's still ashamed that she nearly killed Zamani, and though she's come to a point where she believes that it wasn't her fault, she still doesn't feel like she'd be welcome back. Plus, here at the Tree of Life she can make herself useful as one of it's guards. It's the least she can do after everything they've done for her.

Merah becomes a full member of the Night Pride, settling down into her role as a guard. She eventually reunites with her family briefly in the Pride Lands when she comes to visit with her cubs, Kanan and Kamika, and apologizes for her actions to Zamani, who has fully forgiven her. The two become good friends while Merah rekindles her friendship with Tawa, and they send birds to one another, updating each other on their lives and the lives of their growing family.

The voices never fully go away, and some days are worse than others, but Merah is finally at peace with herself and her condition.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

NOTES: Merah's new design was designed by . As for Merah herself, she has changed a lot. Originally I had her as a bad guy in my TLK-verse, someone who took after her Grandma Zira a little too much. But I grew to dislike this story. It was a bit too...cliche. So I decided to change it up. She's no longer a main baddie like Kopa or Nyingi, but a more sympathetic character who suffers from mental illness due to her head injury. She also suffers from seizures and migraines that leave her bedridden for days at a time.

Base:
Base (c)
Merah's design:
Merah's design (c) and
TLK and TLG (c) Disney

Description
Merah ("bitter" in Swahili) is the daughter of Vitani and Masilo, the adopted daughter of Imara, the sister of Fathiya, Thabiti, Shahida, and Nukta, the adopted sister of Kitu, the mate of Daman, and the mother of Kanan and Kamika.

Merah and her brother are born alongside their half-sister Fathiya shortly before the Royal Twins are. She is a BIG cub, nearly killing her mother on her way out, and as she grows it's clear that she's inherited her great-grandfather Ahadi's and great-uncle Mufasa's large size. This is something she uses to her advantage when she and her two friends, Tawa and Shahida go around and bully the other cubs in the pride, especially young Prince Zamani. She often teases him about being second-in-line to the throne, a "useless spare."

Merah hates Zamani, because not only does Zamani steal away her parents' attention (something she doesn't get all that often anyways as they're on the Guard), she also sees him as weak and useless, especially for a future Lion Guard leader. In fact, she thinks that she should be the next leader of the Lion Guard. She's got the strength and the smarts, so why Zamani instead of her? Because of some stupid tradition saying the second-born of the King and Queen was to be leader of the Guard? Ugh, how stupid. Didn't her mother already prove how stupid that tradition is when she took over the Guard from Kion?

Well, if she can't be leader, she could at least be on the Lion Guard as one of it's members, right? Like maybe the Strongest, like Mama Imara, or the Bravest like Auntie Shabaha.

But that dream is quickly dashed as well when Prince Zamani announces who he's picked to be on his Guard. She's not on the list, but guess who is? Her stupid, weak brother, Thabiti. This, of course, infuriates her. She refuses to talk to Thabiti from there after, and nothing her mothers' or siblings can do will change her mind.

She stews in her anger and jealously for years. She's jealous that her brother is in the Guard, and that her half-sister has been chosen to be the next Queen. She's furious that her mothers' did nothing to help her secure her future, and that Zamani didn't even think about her when picking members for his Lion Guard (nevermind the fact that she had been his biggest bully for years now). So when it comes time for her first solo hunt, she plans on securing a place in the pride as a lead huntress by using her large size to take down the biggest prey she can find. That should prove to the pride that she's not some useless spare. Not like Zamani.

This ultimately seals her fate, though, as the prey she decides to go after is an old but large and mean water buffalo.

The hunt starts off well enough. She picks out the old male quite easily; he's heavily scarred from other hunting attempts and has a slight limp from an old injury on one of his front legs. As soon as he's seperated enough from the rest of the heard, she makes her move. She leaps out from the brush, landing on the surprised old bull's back. Immediately everything erupts into chaos.

The rest of the herd disperses as the large bull bucks harshly, the back of his head slamming into Merah's chin, causing her to bite her tongue and lose her grip on him. She lands hard on the ground, barely managing to get back to her feet when suddenly the old bull swipes at her head with his horns. The blow connects, slashing a deep gash into her maw as she's sent flying into the air like a ragdoll. She slams down onto the ground, smashing the side of her head into a hidden stone in the ground and immediately blacks out afterwards.

Luckily for her, her peril is spotted by the new Keenest of Sight on Zamani's Lion Guard, who are on their first patrol by themselves. Zamani and his Guard leap into action, yanking the unconscious Merah from the path of the raging bull and calming the bull and his herd down. Merah is then taken to Rafiki's tree, where Rafiki and his new apprentice, his nephew Nefu, treat the poor lioness's injuries. For days it's touch and go on whether she'll live or not. Rafiki fears that even if she lives, there might be damage to her brain that he cannot fix. What kind of damage, he won't know until she wakes up (if she wakes up.) Everyone waits with bated breath when Merah finally does wake up, over a week after the incident.

As expected, she has absolutely no recollection of the incident, or of the days leading up to it. But other than being a bit confused at first, everything seems to be fine with her. After a few more weeks, Rafiki gives her a clean bill of health and allows her to go home. Everyone, but especially her mothers' and siblings, are relieved to see that she's okay and shower her with love and affection. Queen Kiara even tells Merah that once she fully recovers she can redo her hunting assessment. Everything seems to be fine, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It starts gradually, at first. Faint whispers that only Merah seems to hear, or a flash of green or red eyes out of her peripheral. Nothing too serious. Merah just chalks it up to not sleeping well or to the migraines she seems to get a lot or maybe even the seizures she gets on occation. But soon things get worse. Much worse.

The whispers become louder, until they sound like they're right in her ears. And the eyes she sees, she sees them everywhere now. In every shadow, behind every corner, in every crevice. And what's worse is what these strange voices are saying to her. They tell her that she should be the leader of the Lion Guard, not Zamani. That she should have all the fame and glory that comes with the position. That she deserves it, that she should take it, by any means necessary.

"You are strong. They are WEAK! Take what is rightfully yours. It's what we would have done, my dear grandchild." The voices whisper-yell. And, as if to add on to the horror, the eyes finally have faces to go with them. And they belong to her evil dead grandparents, Scar and Zira.

She tries to fight it at first. No matter how angry she is, or how jealous she gets, she's no murderer, she argues to them. She won't stoop to their level and murder an innocent lion just to get what she deserves. But they keep talking to her, taunting her and goading her on. "It's in your blood, my dear. Don't try to fight it. Accept yourself for what you truly are, and you'll be so much happier for it." She tries ignoring them, or drowning them out by going somewhere loud. But it doesn't work. They just keep getting more and more persistent. It gets to the point that even the pride is noticing something is wrong when Merah will suddenly just out of no where shout at something that isn't there.

Her family try to gently coax her into telling them what's wrong, but she refuses to tell them anything, claiming she's fine and just tired. She doesn't want them to think she's crazy (even though she's convinced she is at this point). She withdraws from the pride, her friends, and her family, keeping to herself so they don't see her talking to nothing. But slowly she does lose her sanity, and after hearing their voices for so long, she soon starts to believe them. Yes, she does deserve better, doesn't she? She deserves to be loved, to be worshipped. She deserves to have the glory Zamani ignores. She deserves to be the leader of the Lion Guard, like her mother before her. Maybe, just maybe, she even deserves more than that. Maybe she deserves to be Queen.

And she's decided she'll do whatever it takes to get what she deserves.

She decides to go after Zamani first, thinking if he dies then she can take her place as the Lion Guard's Fiercest and get one step closer to becoming Queen. She attacks the Prince in the middle of the night when he leaves the den to get a drink of water. She expects him to go down easily, as she's bigger and stronger than him, but she underestimates his strength. He manages to get himself free from her grasp and calls out for help. Merah leaps on him again, shoving him face first into the watering hole, hoping to shut him up before anyone hears him, but alas, it's too late.

Her former friend Tawa is the one who hears the Prince in distress and comes to his aid, knocking Merah off of him. Together they pin the large lioness down, who is now writhing and screaming bloody murder, frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. The rest of the pride quickly come running, and soon learn about what has happened. Vitani and Imara are horrified that their daughter would do something like this, but it quickly becomes clear to them and everyone else that poor Merah isn't in her right mind when she starts screaming about how Scar and Zira, two very dead lions, are telling her to do this, that she NEEDS to do this.

Kion, who is visiting with his mate and cubs, states that he'll take the mentally ill lioness back with him to the Tree of Life, to see if they can treat her. If not, they can keep her there indefinitely. She won't be a danger any longer under their care. Vitani and Imara reluctently agree. This is for the best. The next day, a tied up Merah is taken against her will to the Tree of Life, where their healer, Nirmala, and the Royal Mjuzi, Makini, work on a solution to cure Merah.

Through trial and error, and lots and lots of therapy, they finally find a mixture of herbs that work to help make the voices in her head almost disappear completely. Merah, once back to her senses, is absolutely horrified about what she did. Kion assures her that it wasn't her fault and that no one blames her, but even if that's true, she blames herself. She's not a murderer, and she's thankful that Tawa stopped her before she became one.

Eventually she's given a clean bill of health once more (or as clean of one as she can get). As long as she stays on her regiment of herbs and therapy, she should be okay to go home. But Merah decides that she doesn't want to go back to the Pride Lands. She's still ashamed that she nearly killed Zamani, and though she's come to a point where she believes that it wasn't her fault, she still doesn't feel like she'd be welcome back. Plus, here at the Tree of Life she can make herself useful as one of it's guards. It's the least she can do after everything they've done for her.

Merah becomes a full member of the Night Pride, settling down into her role as a guard. She eventually reunites with her family briefly in the Pride Lands when she comes to visit with her cubs, Kanan and Kamika, and apologizes for her actions to Zamani, who has fully forgiven her. The two become good friends while Merah rekindles her friendship with Tawa, and they send birds to one another, updating each other on their lives and the lives of their growing family.

The voices never fully go away, and some days are worse than others, but Merah is finally at peace with herself and her condition.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

NOTES: Merah's new design was designed by . As for Merah herself, she has changed a lot. Originally I had her as a bad guy in my TLK-verse, someone who took after her Grandma Zira a little too much. But I grew to dislike this story. It was a bit too...cliche. So I decided to change it up. She's no longer a main baddie like Kopa or Nyingi, but a more sympathetic character who suffers from mental illness due to her head injury. She also suffers from seizures and migraines that leave her bedridden for days at a time.

Base:
Base (c)
Merah's design:
Merah's design (c) and
TLK and TLG (c) Disney