Chapter one:
The lioness settled down next to the golden colored male beside her. They sat in a comfortable silence. Talk about the past would quickly turn to talk about home, and talk about the present would bring about more tension and arguments.
I'll leave in the morning, Nala thought regretfully. The Pride Lands need someone to save them, and Simba isn't that someone like I had thought.
Nala rested her chin on Simba's thick furred shoulder and drew her gaze to the sky. The lights of the Great Kings twinkled down at her.
I promise you, Mufasa, your kingdom shall be restored soon.
Nala closed her eyes.
"Why do you have to go? We've been separated for so long!" Simba whined.
"Someone needs to take down Scar," Nala growled. "I had hoped you would, and take your rightful place on the throne. You can come with me, if you want."
"I don't!" Simba blurted. "I can't. I'd be a terrible king, I'd let you all down." Nala puzzled over the guilt in his eyes. She remembered how Scar had said Mufasa and the Prince had died.
"Simba," she began slowly. "Weren't you at the gorge when the stampede happened?"
"I was the reason my father was there," he said miserably.
"But why were you there?" Nala asked.
Simba blinked, his eyes screwed up as he tried to remember the tragedy from years ago. "I felt I'd let Mufasa down after we went to the elephant graveyard. Scar gave me an idea to make it up to him, that I find my roar. He told me that the gorge was where all the lions went to find their roar."
"Whoever told you that?" Nala asked, perplexed. "Lions don't go to a place to find their roar. My mother told me their roar finds them."
"Then Sarafina must have been wrong," Simba growled, his eyes flashing.
"Simba, you don't think Scar is good, do you?" Nala accused. "He has brought a curse upon the Pride Lands! The Rainy Season has ended early ever since he became king, and it is late in coming every year. I fear that if Scar isn't banished, the Pride Lands may not see another Rainy Season."
"You've got bees in your brain," Simba scoffed. "Curses? And what about Scar is so bad?"
"He's brought the hyenas to the Pride Lands, and they're killing and chasing off everything. Sarabi refuses to become Scar's king, and he's declared the lionesses shall eat last," Nala explained. Simba noticed for the first time, Nala's ribs poking out beneath her pelt.
"Hakuna Matata," Simba said. "The Pride Lands aren't my problem anymore. What's past is past, so why worry about it?"
Nala stared at him in shock, before anger hardened inside her.
"You truly have changed!" She spat. "We need a king, not a lion who's happy to lie around while his family suffers!"
"So you're a little hungry, I wouldn't call it suffering," Simba rolled his eyes.
"A cub, Nuka, is very weak, it's a struggle for the lionesses to find enough food to feed him, let alone for themselves," Nala said. "I fear he will die."
"'He?'" Simba asked. "A male cub? Surely Scar will kill him? What's the point of starving yourselves when he'll be driven out anyways?"
"Nuka is the son of Scar and Zira, and we need an heir. I expect Scar will only kill him if he becomes a threat, should he make it to adulthood."
"You're talking about overthrowing Scar, yet you want to save his cub?" Huffed Simba.
"If we succeed, we will need a king," Nala murmured, eyeing him pointedly.
"Then you get a cub for a king, I'm not going," Simba declared, sitting down.
"Goodbye, Simba," Nala dipped her head to him. Part of her heart longed to be with him, yet her head and another part of her heart told her that her Pride needed her more than she needed to be with him.
Nala bared her teeth at Simba's friends, a fat warthog and a meerkat.
Stupid creatures, she thought. It's their fault. They put these thoughts in Simba's head.
Nala trotted away from the trio, and broke into a run at the edge of their forest home.
We don't need a king for us to fight Scar, she reasoned. I'll lead the lionesses to battle myself.