The lioness ran swiftly, her paws light against the dusty ground as she moved. The night had a chill to it, and the moon was partially hidden behind a slew of clouds. Thus the ground was ill-lit, darkened, grim. The Pride Lands were the type of place that one could traverse at night quite easily, if the lighting was right. Especially if one wanted to avoid detection.
And that was just what the lioness wanted to do.
Her name was Kayra. She was an adult; had been for five seasons. Unmated. Hunting party. Mother dead seasons before. Part of the kingdom of Scar.
Kayra was a bit of a nuisance, one might say. She questioned things. Held grudges. Liked to have a bit of fun here and there. But above all, Kayra was a dreamer.
She dreamed of a better place. A place she could vaguely recall from the days before Scar’s reign. The other lionesses only spoke of such a place in hushed tones, but Kayra could tell that these were times quite longed for. Mufasa, the king before Scar, had been a right and just king, and his son Simba had been in position to follow in his wake.
Alas, the game had changed. Both were dead and Scar was king. Kayra had disliked Scar even when he was just another lion in the pride – found him odd and unsettling – but her hatred had increased tenfold since he had taken power in the Pride Lands.
Scar had been brutal. Ruthless. Unwavering in his vehement control of the lands. Possibly even homicidal, though nothing had been proven. Kayra was tired of being treated in such a manner, and she knew she was not alone. In fact, she had the hunting party’s full support.
And so a plan began to form. A plan that, while simple in its intentions, would be difficult to execute at first.
The plan? A mission to find help.
The lionesses knew that Scar would be heavily protected. He had his loyal subjects, after all, and even if they broke those defenses, the hyenas would be on them immediately. Hundreds of hyenas, there were. Ready to pounce for a scrap of meat at Scar’s command.
And so, suggested Kayra one evening in as muted a voice as possible to one of her most trusted friends, Sarabi, they would search for help. And given that the sleek, golden brown lioness happened to be one of the youngest and most agile, Kayra would be the one to make the journey – slightly winning out over Sarafina’s daughter Nala, who had become a formidable young lioness in her own right.
She had waited until the dead of night, when she had been certain Scar was asleep. Hyena patrols were present but scarce. This was it. Her moment.
She would travel north, traversing the rough terrain to find a far-off pride that allegedly existed there. A lioness of the hunting party, Zira, had recommended this, claiming she had heard of such a pride in stories throughout the seasons of her life. If Kayra could locate the pride, perhaps they could help the Pride Lands. For the lands were in a drought and famine, and without regular sustenance soon, they would surely perish. One by one.
Kayra loped quickly, trusting that the darkened grounds benefitted by the lack of moonlight would take her beyond the Pride Lands and to the place of which she dreamed. Once she was outside her homeland’s boundaries, surely neither hyena nor lion would follow. She would instead become a rogue, at the mercy of nature.
The lioness stared down at the quickly-moving ground below her. According to her memory of the terrain, the land’s boundary was approaching. She was nearly free.
She reached the ravine, through which water had not flowed in at least a season. It was desolate and barren, a far cry from the majestic waters that had once coursed through.
“Beyond here,” said Kayra aloud, her normally-strong voice quivering due to both nerves and fatigue, “is freedom.” She was nearly there.
But in her admiration of her goal nearly being reached, Kayra had lost track of her other surroundings. Thus she completely missed the trio of hyenas, one of which – the first to attack from her left – immediately dug into Kayra’s hindleg with her razor-sharp jaws.
Kayra howled in pain, her legs buckling underneath her. She skidded to a halt against the dirty ground, mere paces from the edge of the ravine. A look of confusion and horror spread across her muzzle and she began to panic, her gaze darting from left to right to find her attackers.
“Don’t be tryin’ to get up an’ go anywhere, hon!” called a female hyena Kayra knew as Shenzi. The hyena glanced beyond the hurt lioness to find her most formidable accomplice, Banzai, sprinting toward Kayra, a small branch of a long-dead tree clenched in his gritted fangs. “We’d loooove for you to stick around…”
At these words, the branch Banzai carried within his jaws smacked into the side of Kayra’s head. The lioness was rendered unconscious and immobile almost immediately, her body a heap on the ground still near the ravine’s edge.
Banzai dropped the stick from his mouth. “Blegh!” he growled, spitting out a few woodchips. “That was the best line you could come up with?!”
“I’d like to see you come up with something better! Besides… Ed loved it! Didn’t ya… Ed?”
Ed, the third hyena, grinned toothily, his maniacal laugh echoing through the night.
“You know Ed’ll laugh at anything, Shenzi. But whatever,” said Banzai. “When’s ‘Oh-Fearless-Leader’ going to get here? He is coming, right?”
“Of course he’ll be coming, Banzai. What, do you think he’ll miss out on a chance to set one of his lionesses straight?”
“Oooooh, I hope she resists,” chuckled Banzai, his teeth bared as he looked down at Kayra hungrily. “And he decides to… well, you know…”
“Kill her?”
King Scar’s voice had been expected by the band of hyenas, and yet it was startling in its deep tone, a menacing growl that pierced the night silence. The hyenas jumped, Shenzi being the first to turn to face her king and offer her sincerest apologies.
“Oh, no, your highness, I’m sure that’s not what he meant! You have so much more class than that, how could we—”
“Silence!” boomed Scar before Shenzi could get in another slew of words. The hyenas whimpered before him, looking into the solemn eyes of their leader with the utmost fear.
“I shall do with our traitor what I see fit,” Scar said calmly. “In the meantime… I suppose a showing of gratitude is in order for the three of you… for being able to actually take down a lioness this time. You should be thankful. I would not have tolerated failure this time.”
“Y-y-yes, Scar, whatever you s-say…” stammered Banzai. Ed was inching away, attempting to remove himself from the king’s sight.
“Now, someone wake her up.”
Shenzi and Banzai looked at each other and, both wincing, padded over to Kayra.
“…c’mon, wake up,” Banzai muttered, prodding the lioness’s side with a paw.
“He said… WAKE UP.” Shenzi, claws extended, tore into Kayra’s stomach, dark red blood immediately forming around the wound.
Kayra gasped, her consciousness reacquired but her pain worsened. Her head was pounding, and the gash on her stomach left moments prior, though not too deep, still stung and bled quite noticeably. She was seeing double from the pain; concentrating, she finally willed off some of her discomfort, enough to look into the eyes of her aggressors – and growled.
“Evening… your majesty,” said Kayra, putting an almost sarcastic emphasis on the final word, nodding only slightly in recognition. She noticed briefly that Scar had not come alone, either – seemingly the entire hyena population of the Pride Lands had come to back up the king. A few lions seemed to be present as well, though Kayra could not make out their identities in the dark.
“Get up,” commanded Scar. Grudgingly, yet obediently, Kayra rose.
Scar aimed a paw against the side of the lioness’s head, another blow that rattled Kayra’s mind. She was able to retain consciousness that time around, but the blast jarred her nonetheless, forcing her to the ground. Kayra wheezed, catching her breath but retaining an intense look upon her countenance. She was not going to let Scar intimidate her.
The old king bent low to the lioness, circling her, the sound of his paws against the earth the only sound around. “My, my, Kayra,” murmured Scar. “Quite the troublemaker, aren’t we? Certainly not the way your parents raised you, is it?”
“My… my mother taught me to stand up for what I believe in… Scar,” shot back Kayra. “And I believe that you, like most authority, need to be put in your place.”
“Kayra! No!”
The lioness lifted her head from the ground, and Scar swiveled his. The hyenas had opened a path between them, and through walked the rest of the lioness clan of the pride, Sarabi at its forefront. She had a truly worried expression across her
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