Could you really rush in like a knight in shining armor when your girl need rescuing? Wouldn't it be far more easier to walk the other way? Well, Simba?

Chapter 6: A Royal Redemption

"Are we... there... yet?" Nala managed to groan out after what seemed like an eternity. Simba was but a few feet in front of her or at least something resembling him. The wasteland's dry heat was literal murder upon the furry felines as they were quickly running on empty. "Between this... and... the Hyenas... being devoured to the bone... doesn't seem too bad..." Each step felt like they were carrying a ton of coconuts and made their body's sway from side to side, both on the verge of collapsing.

"Depends on... where there... even is," Simba panted out with his body exhausted from the initial run from the brambles alone. The guilt grew in his heart as he couldn't see any sort of shelter or even water as far as his eyes could see. His suffering was one thing but Nala didn't deserve to endure this punishment. "It... might not be too late," the dethroned prince began hopefully. "If we turn back now... you'd be back... safe and-" A loud thumping noise cut him off, scaring him to near death.

Simba soon found his fears intensified when he turned around to find Nala laying listlessly on the wasteland's hard ground. "No no no no," he repeated while rushing towards her frantically. "Please not you too..." The former prince of the Pride Lands felt a burst of adrenaline carry him forth as fresh bad memories of his own father's corpse replayed in his mind. He came up to Nala's head, her eyes both closed shut with her mouth making groans and mumbles in her overheated state. She was alive.

For now.

"Nala..." Simba panted out in his grief, his chest heaving and his eyes tearing. "I'm so sorry." Whether she could hear him or even response didn't matter to him as his highness continued to sob, looking at how Nala's body was all sprawled across the ground. If she didn't at least get rehydrated, vultures would come down to pick her dry. All because her knight in shining armor dragged her into all this. For all he knew, the famished female either had an hour or a minute remaining to breath her last.

Simba desperately looked around for anybody or anything at all. "Help!" he cried out at the top of his lungs. "HELP!" However, his pleas only screamed into the void as it became plain as day that he was on his own. The former prince looked upon Nala's fallen form once again and swallowed hard before lowering his head towards her belly. He managed to pull himself under his beloved's chest and rise back up with her draped across his back. His paws took one step after another despite the weight.

Simba's guts gurgled audibly as his hunger and fatigue began to catch up with him with his fear settling down. He managed to shift Nala's body around so she was all over him from his head to his tail, mitigating the weight distribution ever so slightly. Even then, every step felt unbearable as the prince moved forth to a seemingly endless horizon. A small part of him was urging him to ditch the dead weight and at least save his own skin. To that part of his soul, he gave a firm, "Absolutely not."

Simba could hear Nala's groans and mumbling with her mouth near his left ear, her mind drifting in and out of consciousness like a tango with the Grim Reaper. "I got you into this mess so I'll get you out of it," he vowed with every bit of resolve it took to take even a single step more. "I won't let anybody else die because of me." The prince prayed that something would appear upon the horizon soon. "Especially not you because... because I..." He steeled his soul to finally say three words for himself.

"I love you."

Nala could physically feel herself reaching the end of her rope with the steady strangulation the coils continued to put her through. Both eye-lids slowly drooped as she fought the urge to pass out. Her throat was practically closed shut with not even the bare minimum of oxygen getting through. The rest of her body felt the painful grip the coils had her in actually increasing. This was it. Her final moment alive. The lioness cub soon realized that death had finally come to claim her.

"Sssssuch arrogant thingsssss, you lion cubssss are," the purple python hissed, rubbing salt in Nala's wounded pride. "You tresssspassss on my territory assss if you own the placcccce like sssssome king and queen." He made sure that his smug mug was all she could see as her strength began to give out. "Ignorant of the pricccce you would have to pay." The sadistic serpent took a good look at his victim's choked up expression. "And pay for it you sssshall with interessssst..."

Nala felt the dread within her soul reach new heights when the purple python opened his mouth and put his wide maw out on full display. The black hole that was his gullet stared back at her as the entrance to her eternal resting place. The most horrifying part was that the sadistic serpent was intent on ingesting her alive, allowing her to live through the painful digestion process. The lioness cub could only accept her grim fate with tears that soaked into her furry cheeks.

Nala looked on breathless as the purple python brought his maw up to her face close enough to let her smell his horrible halitosis. However, the exact second he came in to engulf her head was interrupted by Simba's right clawed paw batting him away with all his might. Despite being a cub, his right hook was enough to send the snake's head slamming into another branch just above with a very audible thumping sound and make him cry out like a baby. All in but five seconds.

The sensation of actually breathing felt unreal as Nala gasped in precious oxygen like her life depended on it. Mainly because it actually did. The two coils looped around her neck had relaxed when the purple python had gotten knocked away. The pressure around her body had let up as well but the cocoon of coils still kept her contained. Even if she couldn't move much, it didn't detract from the lioness cub's pure elation. She smiled for what seemed like the first time.

"You still hungry?" Nala heard Simba's vengeful tone of voice. "Because there's more where that came from." She felt utterly spent from the constriction putting her through the wringer yet managed to lift her head up to see the previous prince of the Pride Lands standing right before her. His piercing scowl was aimed up at the purple python but it told the lioness cub that he was ready to defend her to the bitter end. Her heart skipped a few beats at the very valiant image.

"Simba..." Nala managed to croak out as her face turned bright red. In those few seconds, her best friend's bravery and courage had captivated her heart just as it had back in the Elephant Graveyard. However, this time, he truly had managed to save her life before it was too late. She had always admired the fearless hero behind his admittedly cute cockiness like with most males yet this was awfully... different. It felt as though she could truly tell herself the truth at long last.

"I love you..."

The two lovebirds aren't out the woods left with a pissed off python to contend with. Has Simba signed his own death warrant with his reckless heroics?