Chapter 1

The sun shined brightly over the expanding blue sky of the Pride Lands. It had been over two months since Scar was dethroned by Simba and killed by his own hyena henchmen, and the Pride Lands were recovering nicely from when the hyenas wreck it. Animals weren't scared or frightened anymore, the grass and trees started growing a clean green color, and the grayish colored sky had started to become blue again.

Queen Nala, Simba's mate and Queen of the Pride Lands, was out for a morning prowl. Her mate was away on business with a group of elephants who were arguing about eating from a fruit tree and she was getting restless, so she decided to go for a walk around the pride lands.

Nala was only a month pregnant with her cub and she wanted to get out and around for a little bit before her stomach started swelling from the growing cub inside her. Although she could still move when that happened, she couldn't run or do anything active for a while.

Nala climbed on top of a rock on a large hill and surveyed the landscape. Over in one direction were the outlands, where the lions loyal to Scar were banished when Simba took over. In another direction was the stretched out plains and a large forest that took up a small part of the pride lands. The forest was like a maze and it was hard to get through. If you could get through it, it would lead to the outside of the Pride Lands.

Nala climbed down from the rock and began going near the forest, spying a lone gazelle that had wandered away from the herd. Feeling a twinge of hunger, Nala crouched down low in the tall grass and began making her way to the gazelle, slowly. When she got close enough, she began running at the gazelle, roaring.

The gazelle, hearing a roar and seeing the lioness approaching him at a great speed, began running into the dense forest with Nala at his heels. Nala jumped over fallen trees that been knocked down during a storm, branches, bushes, and the other residue of the forest in order to catch the gazelle.

However, she paused when she heard a faint wailing noise and that short pause sent her headfirst into a tree while the gazelle bounded away. Nala shook her head and recovered from the crash. She was about to continue the chase when she heard the wailing noise again. "It has to be a bird or an animal…" she thought to herself. "But what if it needs help?"

She began making her way towards the wailing noise and, after pushing through some bushes, came to a large clearing within the forest.

And right in the middle of the forest was the charred remains of… something. It was narrow shaped and large, bigger than an elephant, and was colored a silver color with a long red stripe on the side. It had several holes in its side and black charring all over it. It used to have wings, but now it was missing them. The middle of it was split in half.

The wailing noise subsided and Nala walked towards the large thing slowly. When she got close to it, she sniffed. It didn't smell like anything on the savannah, and it definitely was living. It smelt hard smelling and burnt. Nala went into one of the halves of the thing and went to the head of it. It smelled of rotten and burning flesh and in the head was a bunch of little round dials and buttons. It also had two U shaped things on the left and right of a large black thing the buttons were on.

Also in the head were two… Man! Nala backed up a little bit in surprise but then came forward when realizing they were dead. The bodies were charred and their flesh was rotting away. They both were males, and were dressed in Airplane pilot uniforms.

Apparently, Nala was inside the crashed remains of a plane and the two corpses were the pilots. But there was no sign of the passengers. The wailing began again and Nala turned around; It was coming from the other halve of the plane.

Nala walked into the other halve of the plane, climbing over torn up suitcases and passenger chairs that were unhinged from the crash.

She then saw a small lump moving in a suitcase underneath a women's coat. The wailing was coming from the small lump. Nala pushed the small lump with her nose, but that caused the wailing to intensify. Nala then closed her teeth on the fabric of the coat and pulled it off carefully.

The wailing was coming from… A man cub! Or what was called a baby, in the human's tongue. The small, naked, hairless thing stopped wailing and looked up at the lioness with big inquisitive eyes.

Nala didn't know what to think of the small thing. She hadn't seen humans before, but had heard the tales from her parents and grandparents. She was told that the humans once came to Pride Rock and tried to take the Pride Lands, but a fever swept through the lands and they died out and left (Nala's grandparents called that a punishment for disrupting the circle of life).

Nala began nuzzling the baby curiously, which began giggling. Nala pulled back in surprise, but then continue nuzzling it. The small baby, who was a boy, giggled and reached out with one of its tiny hands and touched Nala's muzzle. She licked its small hand and then began licking it, which sent it into another uncontrollable gale of squeaky laughter. Nala didn't understand why her grandparents showed great disdain towards these humans. In her opinon, they were cute when they were like this.

But then Nala stopped and became serious. She knew that this small little baby boy would not survive out in the wild like this. He was bound to be picked off by a predator and eaten if he left the plane, and he would probably die of starvation. She would have to take it with her. But then she remembered that after the outsiders left, Simba didn't like anything coming into their pride. "Maybe he'll make an exception…" Nala thought. "He wouldn't let a cute little man-cub wander around like this…"

One thing lions could do was carry their young without breaking their skin and that's how Nala carried the young baby. She clamped her teeth gently around the skin of the baby's neck and began carrying him out of the plane. Now there were the two tasks of getting him back to pride rock and getting Simba to let her keep him.

…

Nala came out of the plane and began heading through the forest the way she came. She climbed carefully over the trees and bushes, trying her best not to damage the baby she carried with her mouth. She then heard a noise of a twig snapping and stopped. She set the baby down on the ground gently and got into the defensive stance of a mother lioness protecting her cubs.

"Relax, will ya?" a crass and sarcastic sounding voice spoke. "It's only me."

Nala located the source of the voice and its owner came out of the bushes.

The owner of the voice was a large male lion. He almost looked like Simba. The lion's fur colored was a pale tan color, his mane was black as coal, his eyes were yellow and they danced with sarcasm and hatred.

Nala let a growl lose from her throat. She knew who this lion was: His name was Braun. He was a rogue that was hated by both the Pride Landers and the Outsiders. He loved to encourage the feud between the two sides, so he snuck around both sides of the landscape, collecting secrets from both sides and then trading them for his own purposes. He also, for some reason, had a crush on Nala and would spend his time trailing her, to her annoyance.

"What do you want, Braun?" Nala asked as a hint of anger came into her voice.

"You're a real beautiful Lioness, Nala." Braun replied, his voice sounding crass. "Simba's a real lucky lion to have you as his mate… but enough with the romance for now. I believe that's my prey you are standing over."

Nala growled defensively and stood over the man cub, which hid behind her leg in fright. "You're not touching him!"

"You know, that large silver thing you were at fell out of the sky a couple of days ago…" Braun continued. "It had a bunch of those men and women, as they are called, in it. It must have eaten them or something, because they came spilling out…" he chuckled darkly and began walking around Nala. "Too bad that they didn't know they were walking into my trap… Boy, were they delicious! And they way they scream! Talk about loud!"

Nala was mad at him then she ever had been. The baby's parents were gone thanks to Braun. "You're a monster…" she said quietly and angrily.

"Well what would you do if you were hungry?" Braun asked, his voice having no trait of repentance or remorse. "You would have done the same thing if you were in the same place. Isn't that what your great circle of life is about?" He then started shouting. "You hear this Mufasa?! I'm calling you out on your stinking circle of life religion! Go spend your eternity in the darkness!"

Nala let out a roar of anger, causing Braun to quiet down and the man-cub to start crying. Braun smiled. "Don't worry, my love." He said towards Nala, who gave him a look of hatred. "I won't be eating your precious cargo yet… but when he gets old enough, I'll harvest him like I harvest the older wildebeests… See you later."

Nala kept an eye on Braun as he began walking through the forest until he went out of her sight. Nala then went back to the baby, who was crying in fear. "Shh…" she gently shushed, nuzzling him to calm him down. "It's okay…" she said softly. "I won't let him hurt you…"

When the baby had calmed down, she picked him up and began carrying him again. She then headed towards Pride Rock.