Dunderheads Guide to Climbing the Food Chain

Oh, for goodness--

For a while there, Shenzi had thought she was actually going to get some peace and quiet. Ed had been asleep, Banzai had been off doing... whatever males did when they were alone, that Shenzi didn't particularly care to find out; and she herself had just been taking advantage of the rare silence to ponder the facts of this apparent war they were starting. It wouldn't have been the matriarch's approach to any kind of situation... oh, sure, Shenzi had no objection at all to fighting and killing and all that. But hyena tactics were far more hit and run and steal than actual organised whatever-it-was that Scar and Zira and their allies had in mind.

But that wasn't her concern. Shenzi had the capacity to be a leader, of course; but when it came to lions and their kind, she was perfectly happy to just be told who to kill, and then to go ahead and do it. But she wouldn't be any kind of matriarch if she didn't at least consider what it would mean for her clan.

Such musings were interrupted, however, as Banzai's calls for attention shattered the moment's peace, and were soon joined by Ed's cackling, which was often just as unintelligible to her as it was to anyone else. Sometimes, sure, she understood him; other times, Banzai had to act as interpreter even for her. Shaking her head in annoyance, Shenzi rose from her spot and turned to approach the pair. She had no real intention of scolding them, not if they weren't being bigger idiots than they could help, but she also wasn't entirely in the mood to join in with their shenanigans then and there.

Or at least, she wasn't, until her yellow gaze landed squarely upon the fawn carcass at Banzai's feet. Apparently, he'd caught it himself; and, like any hyena, Shenzi's hunger at the sight of food drove any and every other thought out of her mind. She didn't waste an instant more trotting forward to stand over the catch.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm impressed."

Even if the words sounded dismissive, Banzai surely knew her well enough to pick up that the praise - as fleeting as it was - was genuine. They'd grown up together, after all; at this point, the three hyenas practically knew each other as well as they knew themselves. That included knowing that Shenzi wasn't one for showing extravagant appreciation, even when the sentiment was there.

Besides, she had no more time to waste on words when there was a meal to be devoured; no sooner had the words left her mouth than Shenzi was hunching down to tear strips of flesh from the carcass' loins. That, too, would be the males' signal to start eating; if they did the lion thing and waited for her to finish eating before taking their own portions, nothing would be left for them by the time she was done with it.

Just another demonstration of the fact that lions were idiots when it came to food... and to most other things, honestly.

The hyena way of asserting dominance at mealtime was to eat the most by eating the fastest; and that was a skill that all three of them had down to a fine art indeed.

With Shenzi not immediately forthcoming, Banzai's smirking comment drew Ed's attention, and it didn't take him long, surprisingly enough, to figure out where the globs of drool splattered all over his friend had come from, especially when a glob of droll rolled off his lolling tongue and landed on his own foot. Oops. His tongue drew into his mouth as a broad, toothy grin crossed his face.

"Eh he he he he he he." Splat! He paused for a moment when a retaliatory glob of drool struck him right between the eyes. "Ah hah hah hah hah!" Two could play at this game! Deliberately this time, Ed shook his dead back and forth, sending more drool flying with reckless abandon until Shenzi showed up, and offered Banzai a dismissive compliment. Even he knew it for what it was, familiar as he was with Shenzi's mannerisms.

A soon as her teeth sank into the deer's carcass, he wasted no time in joining the feast. His teeth tore into the fawn's shoulder, and he tore a long strip of meat from it before working his way up its neck. between the three of them, it wouldn't be long before the deer was stripped down to the bone. Or, more precisely, bone fragments, hyena jaws being so powerful. When Banzai started speaking, Ed glanced in Shenzi's general direction, but offered nothing, aside from briefly staring upwards as if half-expecting Scar to materialize, as he occasionally did when spoken about.

But, when the black-maned lion failed to appear, Ed went right back to eating, though one wandering eye kept drifting in Shenzi's direction in case she should say something worth hearing. She always had a way of explaining things in simple terms, which really came in handy since Scar often spoke in a way that made it hard for Ed to understand. He was rather curious what the plan was, now that they'd joined the Cursed Thorns.

Wow. He hadn't thought that he'd actually guess correctly at what Shenzi had been doing. He took a moment to attempt exchanging a surprised glance with Ed, then took another bite of their prey as he listened. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ed looking around like he'd expected Scar to suddenly show up. With the male's track record, that would not at all have been surprising to see. This time, though, he didn't. It still was just the three of them. Probably better that way. Banzai wasn't quite in the mood to deal with talking to Scar.

"Black Keep? Ohhh... the big weird structure thing. Yeah, I seen that," Banzai said. "Must be a lion thing. They got that Pride Rock, they got that Black Keep, I think Zira had like a giant termite mound?" What was it with lions and needing to be inside big weird places? The elephant graveyard hadn't exactly given them a lot in terms of a structure, but it wasn't big and imposing. It just was deep, cavernous, and kind of damp. His head bobbed up and down in agreement with Shenzi, though. Even if they didn't know what Scar was playing at with the war, it was potential to get them out of the elephant graveyard for good. Plus, no one could tell them what to do or what to eat anymore. His head bobbed up and down even quicker, sending more unintentional drool Shenzi and Ed's way. Belated retaliation for Ed's last attack? Perhaps so.

"Yeah! He may be scrawny, and smelly, and hairy, but he got us here! We got food and all this space!" Banzai grinned. All that was just what he had wanted. The plus side was, of course, not having to worry about Mufasa constantly trying to kick them out whenever they hunted. They had gotten bolder in the past, but the last incident where they'd tried and failed to off Simba and Nala in the graveyard had left a bad taste in Banzai's mouth. He wasn't about to do anything like that again.

"So uh..." He took another big bite from the carcass and swallowed it. Then his head tilted. "What is your plan, Shenzi?"

By now she was working to tear open the carcass' abdomen, intent on prying out the organs within. Mealtimes, for hyenas, were a very speedy affair; it would take the three of them a matter of minutes to pick the deer completely clean, both inside and out. Any bones that got in the way were simply crunched by her powerful jaws as she tore her way into the stomach region, devouring whatever was in her past; and an unplanned bonus of keeping her head down was that she avoided the worst of Banzai's next drool shower.

"'Eah, lions are weird. Who needs places like 'at, or 'ose weird human creatures?"


Having torn her way into the fawn's stomach, she finally paused for another moment, licking blood off her muzzle. Banzai's question was a good one; what was their next plan? They had everything they wanted... one might wonder if they even needed to do what Scar said anymore. They'd played their part in his schemes, and had got this choice bit of real estate as a reward; what more, honestly, could Scar promise them? And what could he do about it, really, if they just wanted to live in the jungle and stuff themselves an' not play along with him anymore?

Still, while Shenzi's main loyalty was to her clan, she had enough of it towards Scar to know that a deal was a deal. She'd pledged the clan to his side, they'd stuck with him through thick and thin... and now that he'd come through for them, Shenzi knew it would be borderline treachery to turn their backs on him now. Her loyalty to the big man was certainly not unwavering; but he'd got them this far, and she respected him more than she did most others.

"Ah, we keep doin' what Scar tells us, for now. He kept his end of the bargain, so we should keep up ours for a while too. Go where he says, kill who he says to, that sorta thing. Try not to get our asses handed to us by Mufasa again."

Was that a jab particularly in Banzai's direction, given that his ass had borne the brunt of Mufasa's ire the first time they'd crossed him? If it was, Shenzi didn't give any indication. Rather she shrugged, returning to gorging herself on the fawn's stomach; and it was only once that organ was completely devoured that she added the next part.

"If we start getting the short end of the stick, we let him know it. But as long as that doesn't happen, we play along, see what else he's got in store for us, okay?"

As Shenzi outlined what the plan was, Ed munched contentedly on the bone in his jaws. It really wasn't his say what they did or did not do, even if he'd possessed legible speech. He simply wasn't given to a lot of thought. he ate what he could when he could, he tussled with Banzai, and rarely with Shenzi when she deigned to join their antics, and otherwise did what she told him to do.

So, without immediate orders, he largely focused his attention on eating as much as he could, at least until Shenzi mentioned Mufasa. He couldn't help but laugh, though it was muffled by the bone between his jaws. At least until Banzai asked him his opinion about tangling with Mufasa soon. His grin remained, though it slowly slipped away as he stared into space, though his teeth grinding back and forth against the bone between them showed such wasn't the whole case.

He considered the question for a moment, then vigorously shook his head in denial before biting the bone in his mouth in two with a sudden clenching of his jaws. He was quite certain it wouldn't be the hyenas facing off against Mufasa any time soon. Giving the great lion no more thought at present, he abruptly ripped the deer's head from the rest of the carcass with a sudden bite and twist of his neck. he used his paws to pry its jaws open so he could get at its tongue.