Before and Beyond the Beginning
By Breech Loader
Breech: Yeah, I know it's been a while since the last update. Ironically, it's not because I don't have the chapters - it's because I've been so goddamn lazy.
Chapter Fourteen: Banishment
Ah, happy day. Happy, happy day. This was what Shenzi thought as she considered that now she was the Matriarch, and ran the show. Shortly after she'd been inducted to her role, she'd moved from her bachelorette den to a much larger, better one. And now she was standing there, listening to Banzai, who was frantically telling her why he had shown up so late.
"See, Fisadi really did knock those bones on me," Banzai said, "I nearly didn't get out, but Ed found me and helped me get out just in time! Fisadi said he only cared about you because you were bound to be Matriarch, and he didn't want me to show up so that you wouldn't be my friend any more!"
Ed nodded at all of this, or maybe something else; nobody could ever be totally sure about what was going on in his head now.
"He's a lying sack of shit," Fisadi insisted, "I adore you, Shenzi! I-"
"I saw you sneering when I almost surrendered to Afisa," Shenzi told him, referring to her new Second In Command. It was traditional to make the runner-up your Second. You didn't HAVE to, of course, but then your Second wouldn't be the second strongest female in the pack. Plus, it was always a good idea to keep your near-equals in a place you could see them.
"No! I was sneering at Afisa!" Fisadi lied.
"Then how dare you sneer at my second-in-command!" Shenzi snarled.
"I saw you mouthing off that crap about eyes glowing like amber," Banzai told him rudely.
"And I saw the pile of broken bones, right where Banzai said they were," Shenzi added.
Fisadi hesitated, "Okay, so I pinned him. So what? I never knew it would affect you so much," he told her, the lies spewing forth like a fountain, "I never stopped supporting you for a moment."
"Buck-shit," Shenzi told him, "It all makes sense now. And you're hardly the first male to pull that crap either. I oughta kill you where you stand."
"But... But Shenzi, I'm... your friend!" Fisadi whined, cowering.
"It all makes sense now," Shenzi said, speaking as if she hadn't even heard him, "Your father attacking Banzai... so that he couldn't get in your way. You spread those rumours about Banzai being a murderer, to get rid of him."
Behind Shenzi, a huge and unmistakable grin of triumph was spreading over Banzai's face.
"Please don't kill me..." Fisadi whined.
"Then you could have killed him when you dumped those bones on him," Shenzi said coolly, "I bet it was a real let-down that he survived, huh? But you underestimated the power of friendship. My friends matter to me, Fisadi. Do you even have any friends?" she asked, then turned to face the watching pack, "Is there ANYBODY here who will speak up for him?"
There was a prolonged silence. It wasn't that Fisadi was unpopular. But he'd spent so much time plotting to get Shenzi, that he hadn't made friends.
"Oh, please don't kill me Shenzi!" Fisadi whined, "You're not like me; you wouldn't kill another hyena, would you?"
"Now that's LOW, Fisadi," Afisa spoke up, "Appealing to another hyena's sense of honour when you have none? Real low."
Shenzi smirked, looking Fisadi in the eyes, "Don't worry, I know exactly what to do," she told the watching hyenas, "You'll live, Fisadi."
"Oh, thank GOD," Fisadi sighed, "Thank you, Shenzi, I'll do anything you- ARGH!"
Shenzi had just lunged forward and sank her sharp teeth into Fisadi's right ear until they met, ripping out a hunk of skin, "That for your cowardice!" she barked at him.
The hyenas all set up an excited howling at Fisadi, who was shrieking in pain with blood pouring from his ear. He started to back away hurriedly, blood dripping onto the stone.
Shenzi lunged again, slashing her claws across his face and gouging three deep scars in his snout, "That for your lies!" she shouted. The howling became louder, and now the pack was advancing on Fisadi. He continued to back away.
"You... you're banishing me?" he wailed, "You can't just- EEE-OW!"
Shenzi had lunged again, biting his leg savagely, "That for your journey, every step of the way!" she told him as he limped, frantically backing away.
"But where will I go? What will I do?" Fisadi wailed, bleeding badly.
"You know what, Fisadi?" Shenzi drew herself up regally, "Frankly, I don't give a damn. You'll leave today, and you'll never come back, on pain of death. You can find some other clan, if they'll take you. Or you can team up with some outcasts if you need to. Hell, you can hunt on your own for the rest of your miserable life, if you please. But you can't come back here."
"But I'll die out there alone!" Fisadi wailed, "Mercy!"
"Never!" Shenzi barked. She couldn't take back her order now. And she didn't want to, anyway, "Out! Out! Out!"
The other hyenas took up the bark, and as one, the pack began to chase Fisadi; not with intent to kill, but with intent to chase him out of the Graveyard. Fisadi ran for it.
"Well, that's the garbage disposed of," Shenzi said confidently as she stood on the edge of the Pride Lands and watched Fisadi flee. Most of the hyenas had only chased him half-way, but she had chased him all the way out. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon, "Time to get down to the business of running the pack."
"You gonna pick an Alpha Male now?" Afisa asked her. The new SIC was busy trying to get into her good books – not that Shenzi blamed her for that, "I know a few males who are actually decent-"
"No, not right now," Shenzi replied, "I think I'll take a little break from males. Figure I'll have enough of them coming after me now I'm Matriarch anyway."
"All the more for me then," Afisa grinned. She'd have quite a few after her too, considering her shiny new rank.
"Your loss!" Shenzi told her. The two females burst into howls of laughter.
"Ahem. Excuse me?"
Shenzi looked up to see a self-important looking hornbill on a tree branch, "Who are you?" she asked him rudely.
"I sir, am looking for the new Matriarch."
Shenzi scowled, "And you're looking at her," she informed him.
Zazu's look of horror was unforgettable. He'd just insulted the ruler of the Graveyard Pack to her face. The smile now crossing her features would haunt him in his nightmares for a long time. She wasn't going to forget this, "Ahem... that is..."
"Now, you were about to tell me who you are and why you're here," Shenzi prompted.
"I am King Mufasa's major-domo," Zazu informed her, "Here to request a peaceable audience with you, the Matriarch, in order to discuss a new peace treaty between the hyenas and the lions."
"Hmmm... Afisa, remind me what Ahadi's treaty with my mother was?" Shenzi asked Afisa.
"Didn't it go something like, as long as we starved to death in the Graveyard with its lack of food and water, the lions wouldn't enter our territory?" Afisa grinned.
"What a deal!" Shenzi agreed, and started to laugh, eventually grinding to a halt and looking up again, "Well, I'm Matriarch now. I'm going to do what I think is best for my clan. The old treaties died with my mother, little major-dodo. You can flutter on back to your boss and tell him that. Or you can stick around for dinner, if you'd prefer."
"You're sure you don't want to talk?" Zazu asked hopefully, "It's always worth talking."
"Not when you always get the arse-end of the deal," Shenzi told him. Zazu opened his mouth, but was interrupted, "Goodbye."
Shenzi and Afisa turned their backs on Zazu abruptly, walking back into the Graveyard. Zazu sighed and shook his head. This was not going to go down well.
"Fisadi's GONE! AWESOMENESS!" Banzai almost screamed, laughing until he almost wept with joy.
Ed began to dance around and laugh at his brother's happiness, and for once Banzai didn't yell at him for it. Then he forgot why he was dancing, but didn't stop anyway. Was it just him... or was the laughter in his head getting louder?
"Now I've got a serious chance with Shenzi! I can get her! I can-"
"Hello again..." a smooth voice told them. Both brothers looked up sharply. Ed started giggling.
"Oh, hey Scar," Banzai grinned, "I s'pose you heard the howl last night? New Matriarch?" he saw the look on Scar's face, "You got anything for us, buddy? You know, like food? Somethin' good? I haven't eaten for eight hours!"
Scar looked down at the two males with barely-concealed revulsion even as Shenzi and Afisa walked back into the area, "Ah, it's the new Matriarch," he spoke to her. Lunatics, gluttonous fools, and ambitionless freeloaders, every one of them. But they were his to command just the same.
"What's this lion freak doing in our territory?" Afisa asked, snarling.
"Oh, sorry..." Shenzi pointed between Scar and Afisa, "Scar, Afisa. Afisa, Scar. Second In Command, Mufasa's brother. Mufasa's brother, Second In Command. I think that covers it."
"Congratulations on becoming the new Matriarch, Shenzi," he told her coolly.
"How did you know?" Shenzi asked him. She glared a little. Scar was sitting on her balcony.
Scar considered reminding Shenzi that she'd just told him she had a Second In Command, but decided not to bother. Mystery was an excellent inspiration for fear, and fear was a great method of control, "I have my ways," he shrugged and held up a large wildebeest haunch, "You don't really deserve this," he told them. Suddenly even the ruler of the pack was slobbering for the meat he held, "All you had to do was kill a lion cub."
"Well, that we can do," Shenzi caught control of herself sufficiently, "But then Mufasa turned up, and it was all, hey, what you gonna do?"
"You never told me you were pals with any lions," Afisa said, staring at the meat Scar held.
"I haven't told you lots of things," Shenzi informed her.
"If you hadn't let that little lioness cub and the bird escape she wouldn't have found Mufasa," Scar told them once again. He swung the meat from side to side, watching how their gaze followed it.
"You didn't tell us no lioness cub was gonna be there," Banzai pointed out, before getting a glare from Scar, who casually dropped the meat to them.
"It's a real shame you let her go, too," he commented as the hyenas gorged themselves, "You see, it was Nala's mother who killed your father. You couldn't have better revenge."
Banzai nearly choked on his mouthful, "HER mom did that?" he asked, before returning to eating.
"It matters very little," Scar told them, "I should tear the three of you apart for being such an abysmal failure," he watched them gulp with satisfaction.
"Hey, it wasn't Ed's fault," Shenzi pointed out, "He was kinda preoccupied with those termites. So there was only two of us to do it."
"Oh, well... I'll just have to engineer another plan," Scar rose slowly, "I will return in a few days. And so help me Shenzi, you and your goons had better not fail me again..."
The four of them watched him leave. Shenzi's expression grew sour. He knew she was in charge of the entire pack, and yet he still pushed her around like some kind of lackey! She turned away and headed back to her den.
"Hey, cool down Shenzi," Banzai followed her, leaving Ed and Afisa to continue chewing on the bone of the wildebeest, "I guess not all lions are so bad... I mean, it's free food!"
"But it's not respect!" Shenzi snapped at him, "I don't like the way he treats me. I'm in charge here; he's in my territory. Who the hell does he think he is?"
"I dunno... King's brother?" Banzai asked. He stepped forward to that he was shoulder to shoulder with Shenzi. She was glaring at her feet, "For what it's worth, I respect you," he told her, "I've always respected you."
Shenzi sat down on her haunches, staring at the entrance to her den. Her huge, empty, den, "I know you respect me, Banzai," she told him, "You don't need to tell me so."
"Shenzi?" Banzai stood next to her quietly, "If you were attracted to a guy... I mean, are you attracted to any guys right now?"
Shenzi looked at him, "Banzai, I just barely escaped from that scumbag Fisadi. I'm not so stupid as to fall for another guy now!" she smiled, "But thanks for worrying anyway."
Damn, Banzai thought, Why'd I have to confuse the word 'respect' with 'love'? "No, what I meant was..." he swallowed, "Shenzi? You know we've been friends for like, ages. You made sure I could take care of Ed, and you never cared that I'm practically a nobody..."
"Well, you're my best friend, Banzai," Shenzi told him, "And now that I'm Matriarch, your ranking just went up a few notches." She stood up and walked into her den, glancing back at him as she entered, with a friendly grin.
"Yeah..." Banzai muttered, managing to flash a grin at her, "Best friend..."
He turned away again with a sigh, heading back to his brother.
Shenzi wandered to the edge of the Elephant Graveyard, "Oh mom... I just wish you could have seen my victory..." she said softly, "But then, if you could see this, the whole battle wouldn't have taken place and... whatever..."
She lay down and stared across the Pride Lands... those lands she fully intended to one day have for herself and her people. Even becoming Matriarch didn't soften the very recent pain of losing her mother, and the shame she felt for being tricked by Fisadi.
"Shenzi..."
"Huh?" Shenzi looked up sharply. The clouds were forming. Just like in her dream, except she was awake... right? She pinched herself, "Ouch! Who's there?"
"Shenzi, I have seen your victory," Kiruu told her daughter, "I've been watching you all this time, from the very moment I passed away."
Shenzi stared up. She was awake. And the moon and stars lit up the forming image of Kiruu, Matriarch of the North Clan, and leader through the Great Drought. But somehow it was an infinitely more beautiful image than it had been when she had merely been dreaming.
"Mother?" Shenzi gasped, "This... this can't be real... This has to be another dream!" she pinched herself again, "Ow!" The image in the sky remained stubbornly where it was. Not Kiruu as she had last seen her, lying deathly still in her cave, or even Kiruu as she remembered her alive and in her dreams, with greying patches and a dismal, tired look.
No, this was Kiruu as she had been when Shenzi was very young and her grandmother was still Matriarch; this was Kiruu glowing with a power and a strength and a pride that had brought her swaggering to the position of Alpha. It was a strength no other hyena in the pack had commanded. She was a Matriarch from her angled hunch to her four paws. And yet even more beautiful than that; she somehow glowed with a beauty that no living creature could achieve.
"This is real," Kiruu told her, "This is important. I have come to give you the advice I had not the time to give you when we were together."
"You've come to give me more lessons?" Shenzi realised she was weeping with the realisation that this was no dream; this was really her dead mother looking down at her, but not dead; somehow she was more alive than she had ever been before, "But... there's so many other things I want to ask you!"
"The important things first," Kiruu admonished her daughter, "You are the Matriarch. But that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want."
"I don't understand..." Shenzi managed.
"Remember who you are," Kiruu told her, "You are no longer the same person you were when I lived..."
"How can that be?" Shenzi asked her mother, gazing up at the night sky, "How can I not be the same person I was yesterday?"
"You have changed much, but you will change more. You will change all your life. All things are subject to change," Kiruu told her, "You have become Matriarch, but you will become more than that. You are the strongest of all my children. And you must always be the strongest. You must always do what is right for the Clan, no matter what the consequences may be for yourself..."
"But mother..."
"Remember who you are, Shenzi," Kiruu commanded her, "You are the one true Matriarch. You are the Alpha Female. You are the Mother of the Clan, and they are your children. You must treat them as such, from the oldest female to the youngest male cub. You must lead them from this moment, to the day you die. That is Clan Law."
"Clan Law?" Shenzi asked, confused.
"The Matriarch's bound by the law, for it's the law that makes her a Matriarch," Kiruu told her daughter, "No matter what, you must command the respect of your Clan, and that can only be done by following and enforcing Clan Law."
"But a Matriarch can do what she wants!" Shenzi hesitated, "Right?"
"I must tell you what my mother told me," Kiruu told her, "Respect is the most important thing in the world. If you don't got respect, you don't got nothing..."
"Respect?" Shenzi realised tears were pouring down her face, "Mother?"
"The most important thing," Kiruu repeated, "Remember to command respect, remember to follow Clan Law, remember who you are, and remember what you must become..."
Shenzi could have sworn that she felt the softest of kisses on her forehead, as light as the wind, even as Kiruu's voice and shape started to fade.
"No! Mother!" Shenzi pleaded, "Where are you going?"
"Where I can watch over all my children... until we can be together again..." Kiruu whispered softly, her beautiful image breaking up, once again becoming clouds.
"But mother... there's so much about leadership that I don't know!" Shenzi pleaded with the fading clouds, "There's so much I have to ask you!"
"No, my most precious child..." Kiruu replied softly, "There is so much about leadership... that you must remember..."
Shenzi stared after the retreating clouds, tears pouring down her face, "Remember what?" she asked.
"Leadership is in our blood, Shenzi..." Kiruu told her, "Remember..."
"Mother!" Shenzi chased the fading image, not caring that she was entering the Pride Lands, "Don't leave me!"
"Remember..." Kiruu whispered.
"MOTHER!" Shenzi screamed at the clouds.
"Remember..."
Breech: Yeah, kind of a rip of the big Mufasa scene but hey, hyenas do it differently.