I can't believe that it's come to this, thought Nala as she looked out over the, for the most part, dead expanse of the once lush territory known as the Pridelands. The bones of Nala's sleek feline figure were visible on her more than a little gaunt frame. It had been a very long time since she had last been able to eat her fill. Most of the sorry game she was able to find these days went into the bellies of the idle hyenas who did no work and reproduced like a plague, draining the land of its vital nutrients. Dust lifted from the brown, crumbling earth under the lioness's paws, her back facing the distant landmark of Pride Rock as she roamed roamed farther than she had ever yet traveled in search of food. The curse of Scar seemed to linger over all that she could see, its corruption rank, but worse, blinding so that it was hard to remember better times. There was once a prince...

But the memory faded, sucked into the hungry ground which harbored no life. Nala surveyed the twisted branches of dead trees poking up here and there from the swirling dust and could not decide which direction was less bleak. Her weary paws chose for her and she wandered on. It was true that the worst of the devastation had been wrought in the last two years in which not a single drop of water had fallen from the sky. However, Scar's practice of over hunting and placation of the hyena tribe had long since been steadily driving the game animals farther and farther away from the Pridelands. Nala's home was now a cursed husk. The lioness would weep for it, but her tears had all long since run dry. 

She wandered on...