calm. You feeling ok?”

“No, I’m not. I’m feeling like someone butchered my brother and spat in my face afterwards. And I didn’t even get the chance to say I was sorry for the fight we had this afternoon…”

She suddenly started laughing, though she could have been crying as well. Shetani guessed it was a combination of both.

“And to think we got into a fight because he wants, who were by the way named after her (or to be more precise after the abundance of gray hairs woven all through her otherwise dark manes). They compromised the best the clan had to offer: big, tough and intelligent, not to mention that most of them, like Shetani, were Northlanders. Right after the clan’s unification, Shenya’s father had formed a small band of the best and brightest of the three former clans with the explicit task of reconnaissance and infiltration deep into the pridelands. After a year of constant travel and sneaking, without one single detection by the lions, it’s needless to say they now knew the angle of every leaf on every bush by hard, and they had the stealth to put that knowledge to good use. Shetani, along with three companions, had even managed to study the pride rock (from a distance be it) and word had it they now knew their way around better than Simba himself (that, of course, would be giving them too much credit, but the assessment came pretty close nonetheless).

“You think you could handle that?”

“Probably,” Shetani nodded, “But we’d have to take one big detour, and it’ll be hard keeping eighty of us out of sight for the ed to let ‘em off… They killed the one hyena who believed it didn’t have to come to this… So no, I’m not feeling ok… But there are eight hyenas out there depending on me, and I can’t let them down. Not now. We’ll have time to grieve once we’re sitting atop the rock.”

***

“Hey…”

“Hey, Kim! But girl, you’re looking awful… what happened?”

“Thanks… What happened? I’ll tell you what happened: at sunset I had been up like all night so I wanted to get some sleep, but then all of sudden that arrogant Kali shows up and tells me I gotta go tell Vincent he has to come over, so I was all like ‘go find him yourself, lazy tart’, but then she tells me all this stuff about some lioness, so I’m all like ‘yeah right and...”

Kim paused to yawn, then looked around. Judging by the enormous crowd, the whole clan must have already assembled. Kim had to shout to get over the noise all around her.

“But I’m tired of yelling this… bottom line is I had to run around all day and when I was finally able to get some sleep, one-eyed Banzaï shows up and makes me get the whole clan to come over here… and now everyone’s here… and I still haven’t got no sleep at all…”

“Poor thing… they probably didn’t even tell you why they had you runnin’ around all day, did they?”

“Like, what were you expecting? They never tell us anything, we just have to like, sit, roll over, play dead and then shut up…”

“Ah darling, don’t let it get to ya. We can’t all be matriarchs, and for the better: we’d just mess up if we were, we’re not cut out for all them politics.”

“I wonder… but you don’t know either why like, everyone is here? Or why I had to go and get everyone?”

“Well, word has it there’s gona be a big announcement. No-one knows what it’ll be about though, and the big femmes ain’t talking.”

“It better be good or I’ll like, pass out. I’m so tired…”

“Probably, seeing as they’re making all this fuzz…”

Meanwhile, the noise around them continued to increase, and Kim’s friend tried to peek over everyone else’s heads, when the crowd in front of them suddenly split open, allowing Banzaï to get through.

“Right, here you are,” he told Kim, who had just lain down, “Hey, great job at getting everyone here on such a short notice, Shenya’s real pleased of you.”

“You’re welcome,” she yawned back, “What’s all this about, I’ve like never seen everyone in one place before, ever…”

“Yeah… I’m guessing you’ve already guessed Shenya’ll be giving a speech real soon… and she kinda asked me to come get you so you could come sit on the front row, if you want to.”

“Me? O-ok…” Kim stuttered.

“Well well, someone’s climbing the social ladder today…” Kim’s friend grinned.

“That’d be the day…” Kim commented cynically as she followed Banzaï through the crowd. Everyone had gathered in front of a mildly sloped, half-open cave which had a low boulder near the entrance, round which the clan had formed a semicircle. Kim quickly spotted Shetani and Shenya. When Shenya saw her, she blinked.

“There you are! Thanks again for getting everyone out here,” She smiled a bit nervously, “Whish me luck.”

“Huh?”

But in stead of replying, Shenya strode towards the flat boulder.

“Shhhsss…” Shetani hissed at Kim, who realised Shenya was gonna give that speech Banzaï had been talking ‘bout. Shetani then signalled all the other graymanes scattered throughout the crowd, who in turn urged everyone around them to keep quiet. Eventually, all background noise subsided and everyone’s eyes turned towards Shenya who was now sitting atop the boulder. As hyenas were gathered in front and beside her, it looked from a distance as if she was standing amidst the crowd, and judging by her ever increasing nervousness, Kim guessed she felt like that too. An uncomfortable silence set in. Shenya, eyes filled with mild panic, stared at Banzaï first, then at Shetani, and then at Kim, who tried to smile back as a means of encouragment. Finaly, she spoke up, hesitating, stuttering and not loud enough at first.

“Hi… I-eh, I appreciate you all being here… Sure are a lot of hyenas out here…”

She paused.

“You-eh… you’re probably wondering why I wanted you all here tonight… It’s been a while since we last gathered… I’ll try cutting to the chase here, I’ve brought you all here ‘cause I’ve got some bad news… Hell, no, not bad news… bad doesn’t even begin to describe it… It’s tragic, terrible even… Where do I begin...? I-I guess it all started yesterday evening, or no, it didn’t start yesterday evening, it all started five years ago. But I’ll get back on that.

I’d better start telling you a story, a story ‘bout three of our sisters ‘n brothers. Their names were Nya, Keavy and Seko, but it could’ve been anyone of us, and yesterday, they had to go out hunting. Hunting out into the pridelands, not because they were decadent, lazy or thieves. They had to because they were hungry. Hungry, as we all are ever since those lions, consumed by their burning and never ceasing greed, forced us to live our lives in exile, out in these barren wastelands, of which they knew could not support us, thus forcing us to organize raids on their lands simply to be able to continue existing. But are we to expect any compassion, understanding even?

No, for us they have nothing in store but hate and blind, murderous rage. So we do the only thing we can do: we hide, we creep, stalk and hunt in the shadows. Alas, it appeared we could not hide forever, because yesterday, one of our hunting party’s got caught: they ran into a bunch of lions. What happened then, you probably already figured out. The lions did not leave them be. They did not warn them, nor did they chase them off. They attacted, not as to chase them away, but for one purpose only: to kill them, relentlessly butcher them. Only one hyena escaped, Keavy and Nya however… They did not make it back.”

The crowd became noisy again, as everyone was shocked at the news. Especially the closer relatives of both deceased became quite emotional. Not that hard to understand really, as their deaths hadn’t been mentioned before, even Kim had been left in the dark, and as she herself had known Nya personally, she to was quite upset. And to think only one week earlier she had been babysitting Nya’s daughter… thank heavens she was already old enough for the communal den. The noise ensued, and some began to openly question why they’d been left in the dark for almost two nights. But Shenya spoke up again, now loud and confident as she had finally found the right tone.

“I know we should have brought you this awful news sooner, and I wish apologize personally, especially to the relatives, Nya’s daughter in particular. But we had to wait until everyone was gathered here, for an even worse tragedy has unfolded since the brutal murder of our dear sisters Keavy and Nya…

You see, immediately after the butchering, the lions sent an agent or an ‘emissary’ as she called herself. Indeed, they sent someone who pretended she wanted to ‘discus’ the tragedy they had caused… You now probably ask yourself who might, seeing as how previous experiences have made it painfully clear no lion is to be trusted, even bother to acknowledge the emissary’s plea in stead of just making her pay for what her pride did to our sisters, not to mention the years of misery they condemned us to?

But there was one hyena, one who still had faith that somewhere in their black and tiny hearts the lions would still have one speck of decency left. One who believed in a future where we might one day coexist… a future where there is place for both lion and hyena, a future we could only reach if we ended the bloodshed here and now. One who was compassionate enough to even be willing to forgive our worst enemies, and for the better of both our species was willing to reach out. You all know of whom I speak. The only son of great-matriarch Shenzi, my brother Vincent… Some of you might be surprised to hear me praise my brother, it