As much as it pained him, Scar knew that the only way he could get Nala to pay any attention to him was to strategically withhold food. He certainly didn't want to starve her, and he knew that he would have to walk a very fine line between getting her head out of the clouds and making her resent her the same way she resented her parents. It took him a few days, but eventually he came up with a plan that he thought would work.

Scar always attended to his kingly duties in the same open area where Nala was, to show the pride that he was a powerful and prosperous enough ruler to keep such an obese mate. To set his plan into action, he let her food run out while he was hearing testimony from a lioness who was accused of abandoning the pride's cubs in a dangerous situation.

When Nala couldn't find any food, she looked around in something like a panic, making eye contact with her mate for the first time in weeks. "Scar!" she cried desperately, feeling the guilt creep in at the edges of her mind. "I need more food!"

"In a moment, darling," he said dismissively. "I'm right in the middle of some very important business." Nala moaned impatiently. In all the time since she'd become the queen, this had never happened before. "If you would help me deliberate, I'm sure the process would go more quickly." She acquiesced petulantly, and he explained the situation to her, then sent the other lioness out of the room so they could talk it over.

Nala couldn't understand why Scar was making her get involved in the pride's stupid politics. He knew how uncomfortable she got when she wasn't eating. But then she saw the wicked smirk on his face, and she realized what he wanted from her. Scar was a cruel lion (never to her, of course, but she doubted if he valued anyone besides the two of them), and he liked it when she was cruel as well. But despite her best intentions, she always felt awful afterward, which in turn made her few lucid moments so much worse.