AN: I kind of ran out of ideas for the title... :P I KNOW AFRICAN WILD DOGS HUNT ALONE. Now that it's said, back to business. Might not be too good to start with… It'll get better, I promise. Reverse situation! Nala is the princess! Hope you enjoy this… It's hard to come up with original SNLs nowadays, there are so many already O_o I tried my best to make it kind of original, though I do give some credit to Nala's Secret Mate for the basic idea of Simba being a rogue/runaway.
Chapter 1: Pride
"Ouch!" Yelled young Nala, as she was exploring the Outlands, even after her Father, Mufasa, clearly told her not to do so. She had stepped on a small thorn and her paw started to bleed lightly. She noticed and quickly started licking the blood as she could not stand having a too dirty paw. She saw a big blood splatter on the ground.
"Probably mine" She thought to herself. But after close examination of her paw and of the splatter, she realised that there was too much blood there for it to be her own. She had only suffered a small cut, whilst that looked like a big wound, perhaps a bite.
Although she got very scared from the blood, she figured that whoever dropped it would be too wounded to fight her, if she even appeared to be a menace. So she continued on her felonious walk, well aware of the consequences.
All of a sudden, she started hearing footsteps, getting louder, they were. Nala started panicking a little, could it be a pack of Hyenas? She quickly made her way into the eye of a nearby elephant skull and hid, while still looking down at whatever would be there.
"Why did I have to come here…?" She asked herself, as she started regretting her decision and despising her curiosity.
As the beasts came closer, her heart started beating. She did think that they would keep running, as they did not seem interested about slowing down the way Nala was hearing the footsteps.
Nala heard a small roar, which could only have been made by a lion. She lift her head up, letting her curiosity get the best of her once again. What she saw then horrified her.
A young, golden-furred cub was being circled by a pack of 7 African Wild Dogs, which were considerably taller than the cub was. She had always thought that Wild Dogs fought on their own. Maybe this group was a young family of sort. Nala watched helplessly as the cub tried to fight off all the Wild Dogs.
He dodged one's charge, and then slashed at his back leg making it scream in pain and smashing to the ground for a short period of time. He counter-charged an enemy, jumping and grabbing a hold of the Wild Dog's back, followed by numerous slashes to its back.
Nala watched in amazement as the cub slashed at a dizzy enemy's face, making him fall to his back and yelp in pain. The cub had not killed one Wild Dog yet, only hurt, wounded or made unconscious.
"I can't just stay here and do nothing" She thought, taking pity to the Cub's situation.
She lifted herself out of the elephant skull; she managed to find eye contact with the small cub, where she saw two beautiful and hazelnut colored eyes. That brief moment distracted the cub long enough for him to get tackled to a rock by one of the dogs followed by a quick slash to his left side. He fell, dizzy by the strength of the hit, incapable of lifting himself up.
One of the dogs saw Nala and yelled "Hey! There's another one!" with a big smile. Nala wondered why he was happy, she stood on the head of the skull.
"Oh great…" she said out loud.
The dogs circled to the other side of the skull, where it would be easier to scale, and attack from. Nala did not take her eyes off the leading Wild Dog. She had not yet learned how to defend herself from other carnivores, only to attack her prey.
A dog jumped in her direction, she dodged and the dog fell to the other side of the elephant, which was apparently impossible to scale to them. As she looked to see if the jumping dog would be coming back up the other way, another one pounced on her from the other side; she was completely helpless, impossible to dodge it. She was done.
As it was getting near her, a golden spot filled her eyesight.
The canine had been tackled by the golden cub from before; the pounce was followed by numerous scratches at its face. The other Wild Dogs, afraid of getting disfigured, as two of them had already been, ran to the other end of the wasteland.
The unknown cub started walking the other way, wanting nothing more to do with them.
"Hey! Wait!" Nala said, while chasing him down.
The cub stopped and turned to look at her "I-I would like to thank you" she continued.
He simply shrugged. Despite his grave wounds, the young cub turned and kept going, amazingly ignoring the pain.
"Wait, do you have somewhere to go?" she asked to him.
"No." was the simple answer that he gave her.
"Then please return with me, to the Pridelands" she pleaded.
"Why should I trust you?" he asked, serious to death.
Nala quickly thought of an argument "Well, if you can't trust me, then please come to heal your wounds, they will surely kill you on the long run" she said, being completely right about the case.
The cub took a look at the deep gash on his left side and to the numerous scratches and burns on his body and face "Maybe you're right.." admitting defeat to Nala. She alone seemed to notice that his body was battered and bruised all over.
"So what's your name?" she asked as he turned around and started following her.
"Simba" he said.
"I'm Nala… Where are you from?" she asked, unaware that it was a soft subject to the cub.
Simba simply looked down and kept quiet, not answering the question "I'm sorry, I could not have known that it was a soft subject…" she said, following Simba's silence.
She respected his silence for some time, until Priderock was in sight "There it is" she said.
"Wow… You live there?" Simba asked.
"I do, and so does the rest of the Pride" she said, smiling at the injured Simba.
He returned the smile. Nala flinched under it and looked in front of her. It was not long before they passed the waterhole, at which Simba had been able to drink to his delight "I don't usually drink all that much" he said.
"Why is that, Simba?" she asked surprised.
"No water" he said with a quick laugh. Nala could not figure out why he was laughing about his own situation, which was a lot worst then anything she had seen before. She let out a giggle nonetheless.
Nala took a look at the sun, it was way past the appointed time for her to come back to the den, the lionesses would probably be searching for her by now "Simba, let's hurry to Priderock… I'm supposed to be back by now, they might send searching parties to find me" she told him.
Simba had a surprised look on his face "What are you a princess or something?" he said with a laugh to himself.
"Actually, I am the princess" she said, and was quite amused to see Simba's shocked look.
"What were you doing in the outlands, then?" he asked her.
"Curiosity got the best of me" she said and giggled a little "Luckily; you were there to help me, Simba"
He shrugged, not wanting to be reminded of that situation, where he had been tackled by a mere wild dog.
They arrived at Priderock, where the den was nearly empty, except for Nala's mother, Sarabi, and all of the Pride's other young cubs, which were all sleeping by now. The other lionesses, were most likely gone to find the princess. Sarabi saw Nala entering the den with Simba behind her. She quickly ran to her daughter, grabbed her before bringing her back, away from Simba.
"Mooomm! What are you doing?" Nala asked with a quite confused look.
"Who is he Nala?" Sarabi asked, calming down a little, seeing that Nala was not in danger whatsoever.
"I wandered in the outlands and…" she was cut off by her mother's protesting.
"You disobeyed us? Wait until your father hears about this Nala" She nearly screamed, risking to wake the cubs, but they didn't.
"… I stumbled across Simba, whom was fighting with a family, or pack of Wild Dogs alone… I hid in an Elephant skull until I felt the urge to help him, but my intervention only distracted him and caused him a wound" she looked at Simba's side, where a formidable gash was.
Sarabi examined the wound with attention "Then, while he was dizzy from the first blow, the Wild Dogs turned on me instead, one of them was about to bite my throat when Simba tackled and disfigured him"
"Well young one, we owe you my Nala's life… We will get you to Raffiki, our healer, once the Pride returns." Sarabi said.
Simba nodded and left the den to go lying down outside, besides a rock. He heard footsteps coming from inside the den "Simba, I have a question… When the Wild Dogs saw me, some of them smiled…" Nala asked.
"They did… What about it?" He replied, curious as of why that was of any relevance.
"Why would one smile when fighting?" Nala said after lying down next to him.
"Getting food isn't easy in the outlands… That is why they seemed happy, they thought they had gotten two cubs for diner" he said with a quick smile.
"What about your wound, is it painful?" She asked, beginning to worry as blood dripped down to the land.
"Well, it does hurt a little." He said, looking at the horizon.
They both waited there, enjoying each other's company until the King eventually came back with all the other lionesses "Nala, where have you been!" her father asked.
"In th-the outlands… Father" she responded, while lowering her head to the ground.
"What had I told you about going to the outlands? You could have been killed!" The king said while lowering his head to gain eye-contact with his daughter "Who is he?" he finally asked, with a quick head move towards Simba.
"He saved me dad, I would have died without him… His name is Simba" Nala said.
The king then turned to address Simba "Where might you come from, Simba?"
Simba remained silent for a moment; he still did not want to talk about his old Pride "I… am a rogue" he said.
"A cub like yourself? A rogue? Since when?" he asked.
"Since I was left to myself, Your Majesty" Simba said, while lowering his head more.
"Well Simba, I will get you to Raffiki, I will have some questions for you when you are feeling better" The king abruptly finished.
AN: Funny start isn't it :L I find Simba to range from overly serious, to overly playful… Sounds like a good Simba to me :P It'll get better over time, trust me. Nala's adventures are only beginning… I wonder what Mufasa will say about Simba tomorrow… You'll just have to wait and see.