Scar of the Outlands Ch. 1

Chapter One: Early Life

For as long as I can remember... my life was different from everyone else's.

Have you ever felt like you could be different. Like if maybe that one thing in your life had been different, that one tiny little thing, you could be a completely different person?

Let me start off with my name. My parents named me Nabii. A lot of people tell me I'm insane, but it kinda works for me. I guess I'll begin with the farthest memories I have.

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I was born during the time Scar was still king. Shenzi's clan use to be absolutely crazy about the guy. "Oh he actually cares about us hyenas!" They would tell us. Scar... didn't think much of him then since I was a cub, but he's not the main character in my story, I am.

The earliest thing I can remember is my sister... Buibui. Our parents named her that because of her love to climb things, and also because of her overall timid nature at first. She also grew obsessed with bugs, shows how little her attention span is if you ask me.

I remember her trying so hard to get me to play with her. She could barely even talk back then, and I could only say simple sentences. I didn't really think much of her, but eventually I caved in when I saw other cubs playing with one another. It was "normal behavior" for children to do, and I didn't want to look different. It also taught me a valuable lesson... how to pretend.

Months past and my sister and I got a bit older, and we started to learn more things about the world. I learned about the previous king, Mufasa, and how him and his son "disappeared", though now we all know what actually happened. I learned how Scar ran the place. He was mostly a lazy ruler, having the lions do all the hunting, and Shenzi's clan followed his every word like it was gospel or something. I admired it really, gave me a couple ideas. I remember watching him stand up there on Priderock, giving us all this big speech, and I told myself, "I want that".

If there is one thing that has remained true about me to this day, its that I'm not a good fighter. However, I do have the brains. I did something no other cub was able to do. I learned how to fend for myself, starting to steal food from others. Let them do the hunting and catching for me, and then snatch it away. I would only take what I needed though, I didn't see the point in getting greedy. There I was, waiting in the bushes, I have my eye on that zebra leg. I'm completely quite. As soon as the lion, or hyena, or any one else who hunted food at the time would look away for even a moment, I would crawl out of the tall grass, grab what I needed, and escape back into the underbrush.

I felt so proud of myself! Others were doing the same thing, but only adults, I was one of the few cubs to pull stuff like that off. At one point, everyone started to get more defensive of their food, so you would either have to give up and hunt for your own, or get smarter.

Eventually, I wanted someone else with me. I wanted someone who could help me out, someone who was impressionable and followed orders. So I went to my sister.

My schemes started to quickly get more elaborate. We would get quicker, I would work on my planning. Buibui and I would do multiple different things, I didn't want anyone finding out our methods. Looking back, some of it might have been overkill, most other animals are dumb anyways.

I would use everything in our power, misdirection, making use of the environment, she would tell them funny jokes and have a conversation with them or act all cute while I took everything I could hold. A couple times I even designed traps out of vines, limbs, and rocks. Imagine my surprise when it worked!

We did everything together back then.

Our parents didn't even know about the stunts we pulled off as kids. They were so proud of me back then! Those times were a bit more simple, but I'm glad we moved on.

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We weren't part of Shenzi's clan, but at the time we were on good terms with them, so they let us join them in the Pridelands back when Scar was king. My mother is named Asha, and she was the leader of the clan. Her mate was Zane, my father. He was known for probably being the most noble of our clan, I've heard all kinds of stories about him, and how he met mother. My mother was like every hyena clan leader, greedy. My father is trying to help her with this though, wanting to "change the clan for the better". Good luck with that.

There was this one night when I woke up for a little bit, and I overheard my parents talking about whether or not we should move back to the Outlands. My mother was going through a lot of changes in her life at the moment.

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One day when it came to my schemes... I slipped up. Things were going as planned, my sister had two hyenas distracted while I was making my move. The drought that was occurring during Scar's reign though had caused the area to become very dead and dry, as droughts do. There was some dead grass beneath me that had cracked.

''Oh of all the cliche things to happen! '' They both quickly turned around, both male, looked like brothers. I remember their voices. One was scratchy, very husky as well, had a giant gash on his side that he got from a fight, obviously older. The other was a bit more high pitched, and less scratchy, sounded more normal, he didn't have and cuts or scars, obviously younger.

"Hey, those little goblins are trying to steal our food!" Said the younger one.

"Well, maybe they need to become part of the menu as well!" Said the older one.

My sister immediately started to run, something I told her to do if something went wrong. I started after her and ran past the two adult hyenas. The younger one bit at me, I quickly dodged it and kept running.

All I remember after that was running through the tall grass as fast as I could, still hearing there voices behind us. They were hot on our trail, and being cubs at the time, we couldn't run very fast, so I made use of the tall grass to keep distance.

Eventually I caught up to Buibui. I could tell she was scared, this was the first time something had went wrong in one of my plans. I was scared out of my mind, but I had to stay strong. But how could I? I was just a kid, a young kid.

We eventually ran into a rocky area. We kept running until we hit a dead end.

No where else to go.

The two knuckle heads caught up to us.

The older one spoke up, "Alright ya little runts! No more running! You two are good, but not good enough!"

The younger one came in with "and now we're gonna eat ya!"

They backed us up in a corner, my mind running through different things we could do as they were talking.

It all happened lightning fast. I looked around at everything, they were blocking the only way to run out, and the small rock cliff face was too steep to climb, but maybe not for my sister.

I thought of something.

I quickly whispered to Buibui to climb the cliff face, I'll do the rest.

Then she looked at me.

"You're not gonna leave me are you big sister?"

Her eyes were filled with tears, she was terrified... I told her "no, no of course I'm not going to leave you"

She started to climb the wall.

The two bone heads took notice, "hey, the little twerp is trying to escape!" Yelled the younger one.

After that they both dove past me and started trying to climb the wall. They weren't as good climbers as her though, so they had trouble getting to her.

Then... I did that one thing. That one stupid thing that affected me for the rest of my life. If I had not done that one stupid thing, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now.

I had suddenly became overwhelmed by fear. I was scared, and there was a chance I could escape, and so I did. I made a run for it. I dodged the younger one who jumped at me, and I ran back into the grass. I ran as fast as I could, remembering Buibui yelling for me to come back.

I didn't look back at my sister, I couldn't bear to see the look of betrayal she probably had on her face.

I didn't care, they were her problem now.

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I continued running until I got back to my home. I was completely out of breathe by the time I had made it back. My parents were wanting to know where my sister was at and why I was out of breathe. It took a little bit to catch my breathe, and after I did, I described how we had to run from these two fur brains, and how I left her behind. I admit that I was being cowardly, it was a horrible thing and I shouldn't have done it. I remember having long and sleepless nights thinking about it...

What I had done plagued the rest of my childhood. However, that's in the past now, and sometimes the past is just best left forgotten.

My parents were immediately terrified, charging into the distance as soon as I finished talking. They returned not to long after with Buibui, who wasn't hurt. They were hugging her and checking her all over, making sure she was ok. All three of them were crying, it was so strange for me to see someone care so much about someone else. They turned to me, my parents furious, I could see the anger in their eyes, didn't phase me one bit. My father yelled "Do you have any idea what you almost did?! We could've lost our daughter! And you could've lost your sister!"

My mother came in with "do you have anything to say about just leaving your sister to die!"

All I could do was sit there and watch, I felt numb. I felt like I couldn't breathe. What were they going to do to me? What was going to happen to me? Would my life be the same again after this?

The looks on their faces, it was a new one... disappointment... something I would grow to know all to well after that moment.

However, our attention was quickly drawn to Pride Rock... it was on fire.