The walk to the back of Pride rock was...tense, to say the least. For Sarabi, it was confusing and suspicious. Shenzi occasionally glanced back, and every time she did, her eyes had hints of fear and trepidation in them. The hyena Queen's ears would flick erratically as they stepped farther and farther away from the pride and her fellow mates.

For Shenzi, it was a constant internal battle to keep her tail from instinctively tucking between her legs and her nape from shivering as Sarabi's gaze followed her.

It's not like my life and reputation are all on the line here, noooo. I'm just going to tell the Queen of the pride lands that me and my brothers have been the cause of her son's disappearance...and that we chased them before...n-no biggie. She giggled nervously, and reactively looked back to see more confusion on Sarabi's muzzle.

"Shenzi, I believe we have gone far enough." Sarabi's voice cut through the air. The Queen sat down firmly, letting her tail curl around her legs. "Whatever you have to say, speak it, please."

Shenzi could hear the clipped and hard edge in Sarabi's voice. The conversation hadn't even started and already she was frustrated.

Great...Wish me luck mother. She sent a silent prayer up to the sky, before turning and sitting as well. "Okay, ah, first off I need two promises from you."

Sarabi's brow instantly rose high on her face. "Two? That is a lot of trust you are asking for right out the gate, Shenzi."

Shenzi nodded, a slight whimper escaping her mouth. "Y-yeah w-well the pact we made is new, and ah...I need reassurance you won't just, ya know...go back on it. Lotta trust issues between our kind...and all that."

Her defense was weak, but Sarabi seemed too interested in the actual topic to fight it. The Queen twisted her muzzle into a sort of sneer-slash-frown, before speaking. "Alright...Name these two promises."

Shenzi sighed gently. "Okay, first, promise that no matter WHAT we talk about here and now, you don't hurt the hyena clans for the actions of a few. Revenge got us where we are now, both the lions and hyena...so I want to kill that issue here."

Sarabi only nodded, her eyes staying firm on Shenzi. "I promise I shall not judge all based on a few."

Another sigh of relief. "Okay...okay, secondly...I ask that after what you hear from me, you promise to let me fix it myself. The lions did a lot worse to us, but we also lashed back in our own way, and as Queens it is our duties to make amends, to...right the wrongs, yeah?"

When Sarabi nodded again Shenzi stood and started pacing back and forth. "Right okay, well I'm going to right a wrong we committed...and I promise you Queen Sarabi, that I am sorry."

That got a deeper frown on The lioness's face than Shenzi hoped, but it wasn't unexpected. "Very...well. I promise to allow you repentance for...whatever it is you've done."

Shenzi let her whimper turn into a full blown hyena laugh now, as she let out all her anxiety. "Alright, great! Good!...Okay...now um..."

Shenzi's brain had over the span of the day figured out all the right words to say in this moment. She'd watched the royals talk, seen how they used their words, and what specific choice of wording could do to help lessen the severity of a conversation.

Scar had been despicably at it, Mufasa deceptively so, and even Sarabi had her own way of using "the words", as her mother had once put.

So of course after spending all that time prepping her speech...it had flown out her ears the moment she needed it. "I uh...You know...L-look, Sarabi...Ah..."

Sarabi's suspicion rose higher. The fact that Shenzi was genuinely shaking now, and her tail was crammed so far under her legs that the Queen could barely see it, gave the lioness good reason to believe whatever secret Shenzi was trying to let out was harder than ever.

She closed her eyes, and slowly breathed in, the air trasfered from outside her body, to within her bosom, in, and then out. I will need to stay detached and grace in this conversation it seems. Shenzi didn't judge me for my secret...so I am going to try and remain calm for--

"Wechasedyoursonoutofthepridelands!" Shenzi instantly clapped her paws over her mouth and shrunk low to the ground in horror. "Fuck fuck fuck! I didn't mean to say it like that!" She mumbled the words rapidly through her paws.

Sarabi was stalk still. her eyes were still closed, but her jaw had slowly clenched. Shenzi could see the muscles of the lion's jaw flexing and bulging as the teeth grit together. For several seconds Sarabi was quiet, but her body spoke volumes.

Her claws sort of shot out of her paws and stabbed the ground, her tail immediately whipped around behind her and started thrashing, and her nape shivered violently as her ears pinned back.

Then the Queen growled. "...I'm...sorry, REPEAT THAT...please." Here eyes finally opened and Shenzi felt her self yip before she even knew she was moving.

The Queen's glare was like death itself staring the hyena in the face. Mothers and murderous rage went well together it seemed!

Shenzi had already made it all the way around Sarabi, and she carefully slunk back as the Queen's paw rose shakily. "Shenzi...repeat what I am pretty sure you just said." The Queen nearly snarled.

Shenzi gulped. "W-we, Banzai, Ed, and I, I mean, chased your son o-out of the pride lands..."

Sarabi's expression darkened considerably. She growled, her paw slapped the ground a few times, and then the Queen whipped around faster than Shenzi was ready for. Shenzi flailed backwards as claws flew at her in a flurry of blows.

"R-Remember your promise! Remember your promise!!" She screamed as she fell to her side in submission. The lioness's jaws came down around her nape and Shenzi inwardly cried and outwardly yelped as Sarabi's claws gripped her haunches and neck and dug deep.

Dammit...I knew this wasn't going to work...she's too angry, too hurt. She can't see anything but rage.

For another several seconds, the lioness held Shenzi's life in her jaws, her huffing, her growling, her twitching, all of it up close and personal as she held the hyena down in her teeth and paws.

Her eyes like little pin pricks of fury leveled on Shenzi, even as tears began streaking down the Queen's cheeks. Shenzi dared open her eyes and look back at the Queen as best she could. "R-remember...your promise...Queen Sarabi. Please." She pleaded.

Sarabi's eyes darted away for a second, and then back to hers. So she kept speaking, even as the growling got louder, even as she felt Sarabi's canines gently puncture her hide. "Y-you know Simba is alive, I know you do."

She felt Sarabi shift her paws, felt the lioness as she angled her body more towards a killing position. "None of us smelled like him, did we? No one had his scent... Not the hyena, not scar...that's because we didn't kill him...Scar ordered us to...but he escaped our jaws...and now I'm asking you to let me out of yours, to remember your promise to me not moments ago."

Shenzi glanced away at the nearby lands, the trees, the grass, the sky. If it was the last thing she saw, at least it'd be beautiful. But no, she wouldn't go without fighting for success. Turning her eyes back to the Queen, she spoke once more. "I only know the pain of losing my mother, and you know the pain of losing your son, but...but he's still out there...somewhere beyond the pride lands...and I want to right my wrong..."

Another tense few seconds passed by, and then Sarabi suddenly loosed the hyena from her jaws, letting the female drop to the dirt like a corpse. Her claws came loose too, none to gently either. Shenzi supposed she deserved that, and didn't fight it. She accepted the pain, knowing this wouldn't be easy from the start.

Sarabi shuddered, she shook, and then she slowly stepped over top of Shenzi. her glare was molten as her glowing eyes burned down onto the smaller female.

"Roll over onto your back." She growled. When Shenzi looked up at her in confusion, the Queen snarled in her face. Her large teeth fully on display. "NOW!"

Quickly doing so, Shenzi instantly felt fear rise in her heart as the Queen set her clawed paw on Shenzi's throat, She pushed down until Shenzi had trouble breathing.

Sarabi then lowered her nose until they were nearly touching muzzle to muzzle. "Firstly you wretched bitch, don't try to relate to my pain, It's an insult!" She then let her gaze calm only a fraction as she clenched her eyes and held back tears. Then the anger came right back, but cold and sharp.

"And secondly, how dare you. You give me nothing but false hope. My son has been missing for weeks! He wasn't yet weened off my milk, and a cub cannot survive that long without proper sustenance. Nala had to get food from banzai for her to even make it, and she was lucky her mother was still present for milk, Simba didn't know how to hunt, he has no one to nurse--"

"He's still alive though..." Shenzi grit through her teeth. She placed a paw on Sarabi's paws, even as her claws dug deeper into the hyena's fur.

"How can you possibly know that?" Sarabi growled. "If he is as far away as you say then how?"

Shenzi coughed, and pointed her paw up. "Buzzards." Sarabi blinked, looking up to see three of the birds circling high in the air.

"What...do they have to do with this?" Sarabi said looking back down. Shenzi turned her head to the side.

"A few days ago...I turned in a favor from them, back before Scar was king, he made a lot of promises. To the hyena, to the buzzards, to most of the carrion eaters. Sadly, he was lying through his teeth. One of those promises I ended up fulfilling, and in return I got information."

Sarabi's eyes betrayed that she was listening intently now, but she growled and held the Queen down all the same. "Go ooon."

Shenzi sucked in a breath, and pointed back up at them. "In return for sharing meals with them for the next six kills, I had them fly over the desert and explore the region for the past few days. I told em to look for lions, specifically cubs that might be weak or ill, or...less than 100 percent healthy..."

"And? What did they find?" Sarabi said, her eyes now alight. Her voice gave away that she had regained a semblance of hope.

Shenzi gently tapped Sarabi's paw, and the Queen finally relented, removing it from her throat so she could breath and cough. "They didn't just find a cub...they actually found Simba."

The hyena lifted her paw and pointed past the canyon. "Beyond the desert is an oasis jungle, a different biome completely. They said it's huge, vast, and deep...now, they told me he looks a little under the weather, ribs showing and what not, but alive and mobile. When they asked him how he was still kicking, though, he got...awkward and wouldn't talk to them more. Kid ran off into the jungle and hid from em, so they returned."

Sarabi's eyes were wet, they were pearls of hope and sadness and fear, but the hope seemed to be winning out. "My son...he's really..."

"Alive, your highness. And I intend to bring him back, as repentance for my pack's actions."

Sarabi gave Shenzi an odd look at her claim. "This is what you meant by your second promise then?"

Shenzi nodded. "If a deed goes unpunished, the wicked take control, and I'm not wicked. I promise you Sarabi, I will bring him back to you, and your lands will have their rightful king once more."

And it rained on Shenzi's muzzle as Sarabi cried.

Shenzi smiled, letting her fear ebb away as Sarabi got off her and sobbed into a paw. Her mother did used to say. Rain always did darken the sky before the land could become beautiful again.Don' worry momma...I'm gonna make home beautiful again for you too. Shenzi said, eyes to the sky.

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Comments make me fwoofy and happy! let me know what ya liked!

Next series is already up on substar, and involves shenzi ands simba!

https://subscribestar.adult/backlash91