"You're lucky old Rafiki is here to help, otherwise you'd have to do this all by yourself," the monkey said as he mashed some items in a bowl. Ed watched with some curiosity as Rafiki spoke, wondering just how the hell this was supposed to work. He was in a lion's den, seriously injured, and a monkey was tending his various wounds. No, something was definitely wrong with this.

"No, no, this won't work," Rafiki suddenly said, pointing to Ed's legs. "You'll have to take those off."

Ed nervously looked down at his pants. Yeah, he was wearing boxers underneath, but what if he had to take those off as well? This did not bode well… Not having any other choice, however, Ed complied, undoing the belt and slowly pulling the pants down. He'd have to fix them with alchemy later…

"Those too," Rafiki said as Ed finally pulled his legs out of the leather. Ed groaned. The monkey was pointing right at his boxers.

He reached for the fabric, figuring this was why the monkey had sent Mufasa and Sarabi out of the cave, but suddenly a hand stopped him.

"Ha ha! Just kidding! I just wanted to see if it's true that humans don't like revealing that part of their bodies."

Ed rolled his eyes and fell back with a scowl, ignoring the twinge of pain in his head. Rafiki picked up the bowl again and stuck his fingers in the concoction before gently applying it to one of the cuts on Ed's leg. Ed let out a pained hiss. He must have landed on some pretty sharp rocks…

"These look more like claw marks to me," Rafiki noted as he continued. "Are you sure you only fell?"

Ed twitched in pain as the monkey continued applying whatever it was. "That's what I remember happening, at least…"

"So you don't know?"

Ed shook his head before lying back and staring at the cave ceiling. This was just too weird, he felt like he was inside some children's story…

"Count to three."

Ed blinked. "Wha?"

"Count to three."

Ed frowned for a moment as he complied. "One, two, three…"

"Now backwards."

"Three, tw-"

"Nope! Wrong!" Rafiki cackled, putting Ed even more on edge than he had been before. "Eerht, owt, eno! That's how you do it!"

Ed scowled. "And the point of this is…?"

"Testing your ability to think. You hit your head, but your mind still works. You'll be fine. But now, you rest."

Finally…

"But before I go, I have a question for you."

"Okay…"

"Have you ever wanted to become a lion?"

Ed blinked. "Yeah, I guess I did a few times when I was a kid, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"It has nothing to do with nothing. Just a question."

"Okay…"

"Go to sleep now. Things will be better after you rest."

Ed let out a resigned sigh and closed his eyes. It wasn't as if he had much of a choice… "Fine. Thank you."

Ed thought he heard a response, but he was already fading. Soon, he knew nothing but the black emptiness of a dreamless sleep.

---------------

After a while, Simba saw Rafiki come out of their den, and he immediately got Nala. Together, they snuck up in order to hear the conversation being held, but it was impossibly hard with the two of them together, so Simba ended up having to go alone. He approached just as the conversation ended.

"That spirit is still intact. He will become aware of it eventually," he heard Rafiki say before his name was called. Simba cringed and backed away a good distance before trying to casually walk up to his father.

"Yes, dad?" he asked, hoping that he wouldn't blow his cover.

"Don't mention what you just overheard to Edward. He has to find out on his own."

Simba cringed. So he had been found out. "Okay."

-- --- .-. … . / -.-. --- -.. . / .-.. --- .-..

Cold.

That was the main sensation that caused Ed to come to his senses. He looked out to the cave opening. The sun was setting, something that would have been more intriguing if Ed weren't lying on a cold stone floor with nothing to cover him. No, this was not a happy occasion.

And once again, he thought of the more pressing issue: where the hell was he? Seriously, there was no way any of this could be happening. If he weren't injured, he'd do something about it, but…

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Ed started and looked up. Mufasa was standing over him, looking down at him with a friendly smile.

"Can't sleep," Ed finally muttered, turning back to look outside. He decided to ignore the fact that he was having an intelligent conversation with a giant cat that could easily bite his head off. Hell, he was surprised he was still alive at this point in time for that same reason.

It was at that moment that Ed had a revelation.

"Is something bothering you?"

"Actually, no. I've got it all figured out."

"Really?"

Ed nodded. "Yep. I can't be dead, otherwise I wouldn't be thinking clearly or feeling pain. The same goes for being unconscious. And since there's absolutely no way any of this could actually be happening, the only possible explanation is that I'm in a hospital and I'm hallucinating. Now I just need to wait for Shuichi to show up and I'll know I'm right."

There was a momentary silence in the cave. Then Mufasa roared, and boy, was it loud.

Ed was in shock for a good minute. Then finally, once he regained his hearing and his ability to move, he stared at Mufasa for a very long time. He didn't quite know what to say.

"Still think this is a hallucination?" Mufasa asked.

Ed scowled and continued to look outside. Okay, so either someone had realized he was hallucinating about lions and had decided to play a little joke on him, or this was real. However, he decided not to say anything, in case this was real and saying something offensive would result in Mufasa biting his head off.

"Get some rest. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to eat, I'm afraid."

Ed let out a sigh and closed his eyes. He didn't really care about food right this minute. He was hungry, sure, but he wanted to sleep more. He pulled his jacket around him as best he could and waited for sleep to come.