[3rd POV]

(Nala's Journey)

And off she goes.

Away from her home, away from everything she had ever known. Although she left for a good reason, there was a bittersweet feeling in her heart. It was not easy to run from your whole life.

No longer the daughter of Sarafina, no longer the subject of Scar.

She was Nala, a lone lioness on the run. And that was the only silver lining.

The Pridelands were an elevated region, almost like a huge plateau that sustained a whole different ecosystem on top. It was akin to a small paradise hidden from the rest of the world.

Therefore, it was not easy to leave the kingdom. You could not just run in a straight line and expect to find yourself in some other places. There were specific paths and routes you had to follow if you wanted to leave the kingdom and make it out alive.

Otherwise, you would end up like Simba, and since you have no plot armour like he does, you would die.

Luckily, Zuri was able to show her the routes to follow, so even at the initial part of her journey, she encountered no serious setbacks.

But the problems she already had before she left the Pridelands intensified. A problem that plagues almost every creature in nature.

A problem called hunger.

Nala had starved for more weeks now. The only thing keeping her alive was the small bites she got now and then. She was at her very limit.

It's already been a full day since she left the Pridelands, and unlike what Nala initially expected, the outsider world was just as, if not harsher than, the Pridelands.

It has only been rough terrain one after the other. There was not a single prey to be found. Even the sky was vacant of birds. The dry shrubs, bushes and frequent trees were the only vegetation for as long as she had travelled.

The world was yellowish grey, the hills were rocky, and the earth was more pebble than soil. It was the first time Nala had ever seen such land. It took her some time to get used to the prinky feeling under her paws whenever she walked.

But after travelling all this time, probably over a hundred kilometres away from the Pridelands, she finally caught hope in the air.

Her nose twitched and she stopped walking immediately to investigate that smell. The scent carried by the wind was wet and had a nice hint of mud.

"Water," Nala said while she moved her head towards the source of the scent.

The sun was bright in the sky. It was past noon, but still felt like the peak of noon. The world was bright, perhaps too bright, as she had to squint when she tried looking at the horizon.

"Finally," she said after confirming that smell. Forget about hunger, she was dying of thirst as well, so she headed towards the water.

Water also meant life. Maybe she would get lucky and finally find prey there.

It took her longer than expected to reach the water. It was because of the rough terrain and the hills she had to climb to move forward. But half an hour later, she finally spotted the small pond.

She went there but unlike her hopes, there was no life to be found. The only thing she saw was the dried leaves and the wood that floated at the top of the pond.

"No prey to be found as well. Is there no life in the outside world?" Nala whispered to herself.

She crouched down near the edge and drank to her heart's content. She was not satisfied with just that, so she plunged her head into the water to cool herself down from the heat.

But as she was playing in the water, the slightest movement on the water caught her attention. It was not intentional, more instinctual. It was the instinct of a predator to lock on to any movement around them.

And then she saw it.

Nala felt her fur stand on end when she saw the wild creature. A giant snake with greenish scales and a pattern that looked like giant eyes when looking briefly. It was as thick as her forelimb and as tall as trees.

Upon a closer look, it was a rock python. But this one was bigger than any snake Nala had ever seen.

The snake swam away, gliding on the surface of the water like a living scar. After the initial scare wore off, Nala's eyes locked on the snake with the hunger of a predator.

She had never eaten a snake before, but she reckoned it could be eaten.

Nala jumped into the pond immediately. She barely missed the snake, but she was able to catch the tail of the python with her jaw.

She then pulled the 5-meter-long snake towards land. The snake struggled fiercely at first, trashing and rolling but Nala had her jaw tighten.

And when the python realised it couldn't escape, it began attacking. Nala had never hunted a snake before and didn't know what to expect. They rolled around on the dry land. Nala bit and clawed at the snake but it wouldn't die.

As the struggle went on, the python slowly but surely wrapped itself around her body. In just a minute, Nala felt the snake completely wrap around her. Moments after that, the pressure came to life.

It was unlike anything she'd ever felt. It was not claws, it was not fangs, it was only sheer pressure. Nala felt the air knocked out of her lungs and breathing almost became impossible.

But in the heat of the moment, she was able to get the head of the python. The small head was crushed under her jaw and the snake trembled violently before going limp around her body.

That was it. She won the fight and earned a long-awaited meal.

Nala did not eat immediately and instead headed towards a nearby tree. She sat down under the shade, the snake still wrapped around her body and she began eating inch after inch.

The meat was thin, had a weird smell and the skin felt leathery. But food was food.

While eating under the tree, she noticed old claw marks on the trunk and the bark of the tree that caught her attention.

She put her own claws beside those old, worn-out marks and realised they were bigger than hers. It must be a lion that left the mark, not a leopard or any other feline.

"That's odd," she said between chews.

She observed the marks closer and saw others as well. The claw marks were going up the tree, meaning the lion had climbed the tree she sat under.

That was even odder to her.

There was only one lion that she knew in her life that had the habit of climbing trees. She imagined in that moment, Leo climbing the tree almost two years prior to her.

She imagined him resting under the same shade, perhaps drinking from the same pond. Maybe he even caught something just like her.

Whether Leo really left those claw marks or not was not important. What was important was that it gave her a much-needed hope that she was heading in the right direction. Hope at the beginning of their travels.

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(3 days of travel)

After three days of travelling, the environment finally changed for the better. At this point, she must've covered hundreds of kilometres, so it made sense she finally reached good land now.

Although the place was not as good as the Pridelands back in the day but it was much better than its current state. The plains here were actually green now, although trees and other vegetation were still rare.

The land was still hilly, unlike her home, and trees hung in groves along the hillsides. Nala's nose picked up multiple scents of other animals in the region, although all were hidden from her view.

It's been two days since she had the python, so she was still decently full, but when she caught the scent of blood in the air, she did not miss the opportunity.

But as she got close to the scent, she heard the violent sounds of fighting. Upon listening closer, Nala could hear the familiarly distinct sound of hyenas screaming and roaring. She bared her teeth almost instinctively.

She could've left; she wanted to leave. But curiosity got the better of her, so she sneaked towards the scene.

When she finally saw what was going on, she was shocked.

There were nearly hundreds of hyenas on the grassy slopes. But unlike what she remebred from the Pridelands, the hyenas were battling among each other.

The stench of hyena blood was heavy in the air. Some of them lay dead or exhausted on the ground, but most of them were fighting.

She had stumbled on a war between two clans of hyenas.

The mouse-dog abominations were much smaller than what she remebered from the Pridelands but were arguably more fierce. They seem to give no shit about their health and fight tooth and nail with each other.

Nala was initially confused but after another scan of the area, she found a dead prey in the middle of the battle. It was not a prey she saw often; it was the carcass of a Hartebeest.

"They are fighting for that?" Nala asked herself in wonder. She was so used to hyenas staying and working together back home that seeing them fighting now felt wrong.

Nala did not intervene immediately; instead, she watched the fight until the end. An hour, nearly two. That was how long it took before one clan finally decided to retreat from the prey.

Although victorious, the other clan were all injured and exhausted beyond belief. Nala saw that and smirked to herself.

When half of the hyenas left and disappeared on the horizon, she crawled out from her hiding place and ran towards the hyena.

Seeing her approaching, the hyenas had no choice but to run. All of them spent their energy fighting in the battle, with most of them covered in wounds. A lion, even though female, would easily be able to take them on in their state.

They ran. Nala did not follow them; her focus was on the carcass instead.

She shamelessly stole their food. The hyenas could do nothing but stare from a safe distance, hoping that Nala would leave some for them.

Nala did not wait for the ceremony; she dug into the fresh carcass and ate to her heart's content. Although most had retreated, there was one hyena in particular that suffered a serious injury to its leg.

The hyena lay right beside the carcass and Nala, trying but failing to crawl away. She slumped limply on the floor, seeming to resign to her fate.

But Nala didn't kill her. She was not cruel enough to kill someone who posed no threat. Although she hated hyenas, she understood that these guys were not the same as the ones back in her home.

"You are smart," the injured hyena said suddenly after it realised Nala was not going to kill it. The voice was female, meaning it was a she.

"Waiting for others to fight and waste their energy, so you could swoop in at the last second and reap all the rewards. I thought that was only a hyena thing, not something a dumb lion could think of," she said.

Nala swallowed. She raised an eyebrow, not expecting the hyena to talk to her. Perhaps the hyena knew she was going to die anyway, so she stopped fearing.

"You can't call us dumb when you were the one fighting among each other when you could just split," Nala said while shaking her head, "You waste so much energy and strength, the food you earn basically goes to healing you and regaining lost strength,"

The hyena laughed, "A privileged species like you wouldn't understand."

"Lion scums," she spat out haftefully.

Nala's ears perked up; the hate in her tone was like when she cursed Scar. She saw a story there. Curioious, she asked, "Then tell me, let's see if I understand or not,"

The hyena just scoffed.

"Who knows, maybe I will leave some food for you," Nala added while she tore off another chunk of meat from the carcass.

The hyena perked up her ears and stayed silent for a long time before she eventually submitted.

"We are not from around here. None of us are. The battles are more than just about one meal; we are building dominance in our new home," she said.

"Oh," Nala blinked, surprised that they shared similar stories. So they were outsiders like her who were trying to settle in the new land.

"Why did you leave your home?" Nala asked.

"We didn't," she said, "We were chased out...no, run would be the truer word."

"You ran away from your home?" Nala asked, more surprised now because she did the same thing.

"Not just me, Everyone."

"So what were you running from?" now Nala stopped eating. She was more curious than ever.

"Him, of course," the hyena said, but when she saw Nala's puzzled face, she elaborated, "A lion like you, but bigger. So much bigger that you would look like a cub next to him,"

Now that, Nala doubted. No lion was big enough to make her look like a cub.

"For whatever reason, he hates our kind. He killed anyone he could find, he starved us, and he terrorised us. It got to the point that leaving was the only choice, or else our clan would've been eradicated," she said.

"Couldn't you fight back? Maybe unite the other clans against this common enemy and fight him instead of fighting amongst each other," Nala said.

After that was silence.

Pin drop silence. Even the world seems to hold its breath for the absurdity of what she just said.

And then the hyena laughed. A laugh that was everything except humorous. A laugh sadder than a cry, a laugh more helpless than a scream.

"Oh, you have no idea, do you?" she said.

"What?"

"Once upon a time, we did. Four clans of the Serenegti band together to protect one meal from him. By the end, the meal was lost, buried amid the bodies of dead members," she said.

Nala was stunned speechless.

"The scariest part was the ease with which he tore through us. I don't think he would even remember it. His greater achievements pile over something as insignificant as us. One swing was enough to take the life of three, his jaw was certain death, and his roar was a thief that robs hope," she said.

"He killed nearly half of us that day, but all of hope. We never dared rise again,"

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