Simba watched as Shenzi sat a couple paces away, licking at her lips and paws, cleaning as much of the blood away as she could. She'd placed the food close enough to grab, but even though his stomach roared for him to devour it, he kept his eyes locked on her.
"Don't think I'll fall for that. the moment I reach for it, or try to start eating you're going to–"
"I'm going to sit right here and not move a damn inch, Simba." She snapped.
Simba heard the teeth in her jaw clench. "Yeah right." He growled. "What are you really trying to do?"
Shenzi groaned and sat up rubbing her temples with both paws. "I'm trying to get you to see reason, cub, but that's probably wishful thinking at this point."
Her posture tightened up as she spoke, and then softened, even slouched. Her voice was haggard and rough with emotion. "But this whole situation is all my fault I suppose, so seeds I sowed are now bearing karmic fruit I guess."
Simba frowned and put a paw on his stomach as it grumbled in protest.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked suspiciously. His tongue darted out and snaked around his lips, as the little saliva he could muster tried to escape past his teeth. His claws dug into the wood for control, but he found himself leaning forward towards the split in the wood all the same.
The smell of blood was so tantalizing to him, if he could juuust get it a little close–
"I'm the reason your dad is gone."
Simba 's one lifted paw stopped moving, and his eyes darted to the hyena. "W-what?" He asked in confusion.
Shenzi sort of curled away from him, a vulnerable posture. "I said...I'm the one who caused your dad to go away...forever." Her voice was softer now too, like saying such a thing gently would ease the burden of the statement.
Simba growled, and withdrew his paw from the food. "...So Uncle Scar told you did he?"
Shenzi blinked and looked back at him with a raised brow. "Told me what?"
Simba pinned his ears back and his hackles raised. "Is this a joke?! Are you trying to tease me about it now!?"
Shenzi frowned. "Kid, you've lost me, honestly." When he snarled more she raised a paw. "No seriously, what are you on about? Scar got my brothers and I to chase the wildebeest into the gorge, where you were."
Simba's eyes suddenly widened. "Wait...so it wasn't my roar?" For a few seconds his eyes darted back and forth in confusion, before he violently shook his head and backed his body into the shadows again. His muzzle scrunched tight as he yelled, "Ngh, NO! you're tricking me! you have to be!"
Shenzi sighed and went back to grinding her paw pads into her face. "Kid, you need to tell me what happened to you down there because it sounds like we are biting different sides of the same zebra."
More silence. "Kid, I'm not joking about this. it's serious, you're acting like you caused that stampede, but Scar was manipulating you. I know because he got us hyena to do his dirty work."
She glanced back to see his eyes beadily peering at her from the shadows. "I'm telling the truth. Your uncle was a conniving silver tongued jerk who wanted to take the throne from your father!"
Simba watched her, the queen's words kind of registering. Shenzi stood and paced around, trying to cool the frustration in her limbs. "Look, you remember when we first chased you and Nala in the elephant graveyard?"
He neither nodded nor shook his head. Shenzi soldiered on anyways. "Scar told you about the elephant graveyard, didn't he, even though your dad told you not to go there right?"
Recognition slipped into the cub's expression and Shenzi snapped onto it with all her might. "Scar wanted you to go there, because he told banzai and I to be ready for our meal at the same time in that same location. He told us where to look and where to go, and then slipped away like he had no part in it!"
She lifted a paw and pantomimed Scar talking to her "Why I practically gift wrapped those cubs for you and you couldn't even do away with them." She dropped her paw to the ground and growled. "That's what he said to us when we got back to our den where he was waiting."
Simba shook his head. "N-No, Scar was a good Uncle, he would never–"
"But he did, Simba, he did and he ruined the Pride Lands after you left... He... He hurt the lioness, Nala especially." Shenzi whined, laying down across from the leg and the cub. "He used his power as the new King to destroy the land... We hyena played right into his paws as well."
She scrapped the dirt with her claws. "He was giving us the illusion of improvement, when all we got was degradation."
Simba was quiet, and Shenzi felt a moment was needed for them both, but like a kid would Simba immediately spoke up after she relaxed. "W-wait, Scar said he had a surprise for me... In the gorge, w-was he lying about that too?"
Shenzi rest her head on her paws. "Yup, didja notice how he placed you at that specific spot... Right in the middle of the herd's path?"
Simba slowly went pale.
"I-I just thought it was a shady spot, somewhere to stay cool while he went to get the surprise." The cub's voice was several octaves lower.
Shenzi huffed. "Yeaaaah no. He wanted to use the stampede as a cover up and it worked for the most part. Mufasa was supposed to get to you and then you both would be gone, but he managed to save you, and Scar made us chase you down."
She sighed. "Luckily you escaped and are still alive, otherwise the Pride lands would have to try rogue males for a future king."
Simba was left to his own thoughts after that, and Shenzi rest her eyes a moment, remembering back to when Scar had sat there as Simba ran off. His little grin just visible to her from the side.
"Kill him." The coldest tone she'd ever heard from Scar, yet it hadn't phased her in the moment. Her blood had already been pumping from chasing the wildebeest, so what was one more prey to follow?
Simba wasn't prey. She reached up and rubbed at the mark on her arm, the itch suddenly ticking up a notch. Simba noticed as she nibbled her shoulder. "That mark...how did you get it?"
Shenzi paused mid bite, looked at Simba, then the mark, and pulled back. "Uh, it appeared while I was in the desert. I told the great kings I would fix my mistakes...no matter what it took...even my life I guess."
Simba seemed to mull that over, and Shenzi leaned on it. "What is it? Do you know?"
Simba nodded after a moment, tried to speak and his stomach's roar made him snatch the leg up instantly. As the cub ferally tore into the leg, Shenzi glanced back at the mark, then up at the sky.
A buzzard was circling, A bird she knew.
"You eat that leg kid, don't ah, eat too quickly. I got a visitor from the Pride lands."
