Banzai looked down at the cooling corpse of the antelope, his expression betraying hit bemusement.
"You got this from where?" he asked.
"A lion gave it to me," Shenzi repeated. Neither of them had eaten from it. She was going to bring it back to the clan but first she needed to discuss with her only confidante how exactly she was going to explain this.
"Is there a snake in it or something?" Banzai cautiously nosed over the antelope's flanks.
"I checked for that," Shenzi said. "He said he hates the other lions too and that makes us friends." Even the word stuck in her throat. Hyenas didn't have lions as friends.
"What's in it for him?" Banzai asked.
"I think he's waiting to tell me until we're already committed," Shenzi said.
"Don't commit, obviously," Banzai said.
"Obviously. But how do we explain where the food is coming from?" There were no antelopes anywhere near the elephant graveyard. Such a catch even once would be nearly impossible to explain, let alone if it happened again. But abandoning a food source was also impossible. The clan needed to eat and Shenzi needed a way to explain something inexplicable.
Banzai sat on his haunches and pondered. "Why would a lion help us..." he pondered aloud.
Shenzi thought of everything she knew about lions. They thought they owned the land and were entitled to royalty. The males were content to laze about and let the females do their work, except for this lion. Her best guess was that with his strangely-colored mane and undersized form he was unable to attract a harem and had learned to care for himself. That he had survived so long implied a keen and cunning mind that worried her.
"He said he was the enemy of the other lions. He probably wants to destroy them," Banzai said.
It all came together for Shenzi. The lion wanted their help to destroy the lions of Pride Rock. He hoped bribes of food would gain their loyalty. There was a fatal flaw in his plan already if he thought hyenas had loyalty. She had half a mind to drag the wildebeest back and tell him if he was going to kill himself he'd do it on his own.
Or...
Banzai spoke her thoughts aloud. "Let's tell him we'll help him and just take his food."
Free food. A daft lion who thought he was getting what he wanted. One final meal when he asked something they didn't want to give.
"Call the others."
Shenzi looked out from the base of the spindled rock where she and Banzai had discussed their dilemma. The other hyenas were filtering in from their various vain attempts to find food. It didn't escape Shenzi's notice that Usaliti came at the front of the pack, already trying to position herself as leading the others. One by one each hyena halted in shock as they saw the dead antelope.
"Where did you find that?" Sahihi blurted, in surprise and not as a challenge.
Shenzi braced herself. "A lion gave it to me," she said.
"What?!" Usaliti demanded. "What are you talking about?"
Everyone in front of Shenzi looked upward at a movement behind her. She followed their gaze and saw the dark-maned lion slipping out of a crack in the stone she'd overlooked until that moment.
"Allow me to explain," he said.
Really short chapter because this is the logical place to end it. I'm working on the next one right now so really it's like a split chapter and it was either awkwardly add filler or awkwardly short chapter.