A/N: This was a short humor story that I wrote a while back, for the My Lion King writing contest. I only decided to edit and upload it here just recently. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning my Mohatu story for this. :P
The Pressures of Ruling a Kingdom
Upon the early arrival of morning, a ray of sunlight began to intrude on the shadows of Pride Rock's den. It was by no means an unusual sight; every day the sun rose and fell without even the slightest hint of interruption. But this time—this time it was different.
Like the sun's position in the sky, a king's time as ruler was constantly in motion. Every so often, a king would fall and another would rise in his place, creating a generation-long cycle of inheritance.
This morning, that cycle began anew. It had been several years since the unfortunate death of Ahadi, at which point Mufasa ascended the throne of his father's pawprints with honor. For the first time since, there had been a change in the leadership of the pride.
For the very first time, Scar opened his eyes to find that the entire world had slipped in his grasp. It was, of course, very much like the way he had planned it, but the euphoric rush of success only arrived after the first refreshing breaths of dense, moist morning air.
As the incoming rays of sunlight lit up the pride's den with beautiful shades of orange and yellow, that revelation finally sunk into Scar's mind. All his years of tedious plotting and planning had finally paid off, and for a single moment, it was all worth it.
However, the black-maned lion quickly changed his mind.
Not surprisingly, the King's majordomo eventually flew in through the breach of light, which managed to seep through even the darkest corners of the cave, only minutes after sunrise.
"Time to rise and shine, sire," Zazu greeted optimistically. "Today's your first day as king."
Although the hornbill was still mourning the loss of Simba and Mufasa, much like the rest of the pride, it was his royal obligation to treat the lion king with the respect he deserved. The tip of every feather in Zazu's small body quivered with fear of what would become of the situation, but the law was, in fact, the law.
Scar was now the king, and Zazu had no say in the matter. He was merely the majordomo, and that never changed, no matter who the king happened to be.
For Zazu, there was simply no other option than to perform his duties as usual—however, that obviously meant getting Scar out of his elevated throne of superiority, both physically and metaphorically.
Placing his wing over his eyes in an exasperated expression of disappointment, the hornbill sighed, awaiting nothing other than Scar's prolonged response. As much as the blue bird wanted to think Scar could make a good king out of sheer optimism, that obviously wasn't going to happen at any rate.
Oddly enough, the entire den was empty, which was already proving to be a bad sign of the events to come. Not even a single lion slept inside the den with Scar, while only the scent of hyenas tainted the confined space, not the sight.
Scar yawned, stretching his paws out across the throne that had been carved from rock. "Ugh... and as my first decision as king, I'm going to go back to sleep," he said, covering his eyes with his forepaw.
"No no no, sire, it doesn't work that way," Zazu replied with hesitation. "You're the king now, you need-"
Almost immediately, Scar found himself raging with anger through his veins. "SHUT UP!" Scar demanded. "I can do whatever I want."
The hornbill twiddled the tips of his wings nervously. "Yes... sire... that's right... you're the king."
"Good. Now get out!"
Predictably, Zazu wasted no time hauling his feathers as far away from Scar as possible. He flew away with haste, not even leaving a pleasant goodbye for the king.
That, Scar decided, was okay.
Yet, as soon as the bird flew away, something else began to approach the den, at the lion king's expense. Growing even more annoyed with every breath, Scar attempted to cover his ears with his paws as the excruciating sound of grinding rocks grew louder.
The lion nearly groaned in frustration. What could possibly have been going on outside the den to make such an awful noise? Why was he hearing the sound of grinding rocks outside the den? It was his first morning as king, and already, it was nothing short of ridiculous.
Gradually, the vivid sunlight that coated the cave's interior began to fade. Once again, the walls of the cavern turned dark as they hid behind a shadow. It was the shadow of a large, dull object, but Scar remained far too lazy to look up and see what it was.
Despite the lack of a blinding light to keep the lion awake, the same, continuous grinding sound still prevented the king from happily following up with his morning laze.
At last, Scar opened his eyes as his tail twitched rapidly in frustration. "What the hell?" the orange and black lion murmured angrily. An enormous boulder was being moved directly through the entrance of his rocky shelter, almost blocking it entirely.
The lion tried to wipe the rheum from his eyes, while he pondered whether or not he was actually awake. Although the situation seemed too unreal to be true, it was not after long before a familiar laugh convinced him that he was indeed awake.
"Ed?" Scar asked, clearly displaying a tone of irritation in his voice.
"Eh, heh, heh, hah! Heh! Hahhh...cksch," the hyena laughed mindlessly, until he began to choke on his own saliva. The boulder, however, continued to move closer to Scar's throne.
"What is it this time?" Scar asked, the tediousness of speaking clearly evident in his voice.
Scar heard his brainless minion clear his throat, after the boulder stopped moving. Subsequently, he saw the creature step around, revealing himself in the cozy shadows of the den.
Ed had been carrying a stick in his mouth, which he grabbed with his paw shortly after relieving himself with a quick rest. He looked exhausted from pushing the boulder, but that did not stop him from doing... whatever it was that the imbecile was going to do, only seconds later.
After a few quick, exasperated breaths, he used the stick to point to several symbols that had been carved on the rock.
"Good morning, milord. Today I'd like to talk about the stability of the pridelandian ecosystem," Ed stated, inciting a reaction of surprise from the king.
The hyena continued to read aloud from what he had written hours before, starting from the very beginning. "The Stability of the Pridelandian Ecosystem - Written by Ed the Hyena, Ph.D."
Scar leaned forward, flattening his ears. "You've got to be kidding me."
Ed moved the stick he carried along the boulder as he continued to read from it. "Before we talk about the stability of our ecosystem, we first must consider what an ecosystem is. An ecosystem is a community of living organisms and their environment..."
Almost immediately, Scar's eyelids began to expand. It was hardly a matter of seconds before the hyena's lecture soared to tremendous levels of boredom, if not a little bit beyond that.
"The stability of an ecosystem is determined by many factors, which include but are not limited to: climate, soil, and topography. But today, I will be covering how the stability of our ecosystem can be affected by your actions as king."
Scar's eyes shot open as he heard the word "king." He scratched his mane with his paw as he considered interrupting his minion. "Uh... what was that?"
"What was what?" Ed asked.
"Repeat what you just said," Scar commanded.
"Oh, okay," Ed replied. To Scar's apparent frustration, the spotted hyena started over from the very beginning. "The Stability of the Pridelandian Ecosystem - Written by Ed the Hyena, Ph.D."
"Oh, good God..." Scar shuddered.
"Before we talk about the stability of our ecosystem, we first must-"
"Nevermind!" Scar yelled. "Just get on with it!"
Ed twisted his head to the side, until he looked at Scar with his eyes perpendicular to the horizon. "Are you sure?"
"Yesyesyes!"
The spotted hyena shifted his stick down a bit, to where it was before he had originally been interrupted. "Today, I will be covering how the stability of our ecosystem can be affected by your actions as king. But first, we must briefly understand the idea behind the Lotka-Volterra equations."
Scar leaned his head back hopelessly, and his eyes eventually fixed themselves on a small, mundane pebble on the ground.
"The Lotka-Volterra equations are a pair of first order differential equations which represent predator and prey relationships as they evolve over time." He pointed his stick to a list of equations that he had written on the enormous boulder. "This may look like a foreign language, but bear with me for a minute..."
The lion king kicked the pebble around with his paw, only amusing himself with the odd fact that Ed took little notice that he wasn't actually paying attention.
"This is the exponential growth model, which represents the growth of populations x and y over time. Assuming that predator y is solely dependent on prey x, a relationship can be drawn between our two favorite animals, x and y."
The hyena continued to blabber on for several minutes, and his voice eventually faded off into a constant mumble of strange, unrecognizable sounds. Meanwhile, a small puddle of drool began to form on the outside of the lion king's mouth.
"Now, let's make the assumption that there are initially a few hundred prey in the Pridelands, and can reproduce indefinitely at a rate proportional to-"
"Ed?" Scar asked monotonically.
"Yes?"
"Please. Get out of my cave. I need to... clean my-"
"I... ugh... can't do that, sire," Ed apologized. "I still have to explain the dynamics of the initial conditions and various other arguments of the system..."
With an explosive burst of anger, the lion suddenly lost all of his patience. "Wrap it up. Now!"
"Okay... just bear with me here," Ed muttered, as he attempted to rotate the enormous rock. Several charts and graphs were marked on the other side of the boulder, which remained only slightly visible under the shadows of darkness that engulfed the throne room.
"Shown left is a diagram of the slope field of the predator-prey relationship, given the known conditions of the Pridelands under Mufasa's reign."
Scar clenched his teeth together in anger. "What did you say?"
Ed repeated himself. "Shown left is a slope field of the predator-prey relationship, given the known conditions of the Pridelands under Mufasa's reign."
Scar brought his paw up to cover his face.
Completely ignoring the lion's reaction, Ed continued to kill his almighty king with boredom. "As you can see, the ecosystem converges to a point, which represents the hunters being a pride of no more than a few dozen lions, greatly outnumbered by the amount of prey."
At long last, the lion was motivated enough to walk away from his throne. Hastily, he stood up on all four of his paws, stretching his back out for the first time in hours. Then, he approached Ed slowly, and with pure hatred in his eyes.
The little spotted idiot was going to get the hell out of the den, that much was certain.
But the hyena didn't know it. "But," he continued, "if the initial condition for y is increased to a value more than a hundred, which is an accurate representation of the lion-hyena coalition that has been created, the ecosystem does not converge to a specific ratio, without altering the initial amount of prey or their birth rate."
Scar stared at the cluelessly ignorant hyena for seconds, trying to think of a reason not to kill his worthless follower. After each passing breath, he found himself unable to think of such a reason.
All the while, Ed never ceased his pointless lecture. "We can thus assume that we're all going to die unless we import prey from Botswana, or unless our food is born pregnant. I would guess we would need somewhere in the range of hundreds-"
"I would kill you," Scar interrupted coldly. "But I need you to get this filthy rock out of my cave."
Ed gulped, immediately dropping his stick. "And that concludes today's lecture! Tomorrow we'll discuss emigration, migration, immigration, and mitigation, and how they can interfere with the predator-prey model. If we have time I'll also cover the basics of Zebra microeconomics! See you then," Ed replied, trying to fake a cheerful tone.
The hyena used all his strength to push the massive boulder away as quickly as he could. But, before he could leave, Scar slapped him across the head violently.
"Don't you dare do this again tomorrow!" the lion hissed, spitting across the den. "I plotted to lead, not to read."