Simba waited.
Simba sat down, curling his tail around his paws. "Is it about Scar's reign? The hyenas?" thousand yard stare zazu
Zazu's beak finally curved—not into his old, performative smile, but something smaller. Something real. Simba waited
Zazu's beak opened, then closed. He looked back at that invisible point on the wall. "Do you know what I remember most, Sire? Not the fire. Not the famine. Not even the little skulls near the elephant graveyard." The hyenas
"Very good, Your Majesty," he said. And this time, when he looked at the cave wall, he saw the stone.
The torches of Pride Rock flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across the royal chamber. Simba, now a young king with the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders, sat on the edge of the great stone dais. He wasn't looking at the stars. He was looking at his majordomo.