“Azizi!” the seal brown mare barked, stopping the boy roaming ahead of her in his tracks and tugging him back to her side. “Stay close to me, please,” she rasped, dropping her head as he meekly drew near. As always, so much was said in the silence that blanketed them, things that no-one else would ever understand.

“Always, mama,” Azizi murmured in reply, jostling against her side gently, snorting softly as he sought to tuck his muzzle beneath the curve of her chin, mindful always of the scars that laced her throat, and how sensitive they were. How often they stood like this, in silence and stillness. But never before had Shenzi pulled away without purpose.

The dark mare regarded her son with a quiet sort of curiosity, but when she spoke, there was a guardedness threaded through her voice “Where were you going?” Where had he wandered, when she hadn’t been here to watch over him? (When she had left him, briefly, to find solace at Nyimara’s side.)

“To the stream, so you can drink,” came the answer, ringing with such earnestness that Shenzi felt her heart tear just a little. (He was too good, too good for her. She didn’t, she didn’t--) But she snorted softly, disconnecting herself in an attempt to keep herself grounded, held together.

“You found water?” A hint of admiration mingled with her appreciation, covering over the small trickle of anxiety that she felt blooming from one of the cracks in her heart. And her eyes never wavered from Azizi’s face, so that she alone was witness to the way he seemed to change - becoming more sure of himself than she’d ever seen him, like he felt settled in his skin.

And it hurt so deeply that it was here of all places that he found belonging without her.

“Mmm-hmm.” Something wasn’t right, and it almost had Shenzi taking another step back, so that she might be able to better gauge in what way her boy was different. She well knew how disorientating the terrain was here, with the canopy above, and so few distinguishing features to serve as guides. It was the dense undergrowth that did it, depriving one of clear sight. And the unpredictableness of the low lying terrain, which could quickly become marshy after a heavy rain, or a high tide.

As much as she longed to believe Azizi capable, that he could survive even in a place like this, she doubted, and she wanted the truth. “Little one, I’ve taught you many things, but lying isn’t one of them.” (Didn’t she deserve the truth?)

For all the softness of her voice, all sharpness from it carefully removed, Azizi wilted under the weight of the disappointment buried in the heart of his mother - even though she’d dug the hole deep, it was still not enough that it did not smother him. It reminded her, painfully, of the truth being with Nyimara had taught her - she was fire. And if it turned out Azizi was not, she feared that someday she would burn him.

Azizi’s gaze dipped, and tilted his face away, but he did not lower his head, because the truth - when he spoke it - gave him no cause for shame. “Um, I asked Rehoboam to show me where I could drink, and he, uh, he lead me this way.” With a swish of his tail and a shift in his posture, pointing with his muzzle to the path he’d been leading Shenzi towards. He sensed, more than saw, her stiffen, and instinctively, a tightness spread across his own shoulders, caused an instant ache.

“Rehoboam?”

Nodding, gulping air, intuitively seeking to change the subject, in his haste Azizi found himself floundering, and what was meant as reassurance only served to stir the ire of his mother. “He’s the one -- ”

“I know who he is!”

(...He’s the one who told me about the mountains.)

The silence that followed Shenzi’s snarl seemed to echo in Azizi’s ears, deafening, and he stood still, submissive, skirting around the edge of the reason for the sudden burst of anger (that ran deeper than he knew. He was more than just a shadow that had trailed them across the sea. He’d been there, to watch as things between Shenzi and Nyimara had seemingly fallen apart. Rehoboam had seen her in a great moment of weakness, and she feared it cast her in a dark sort of light, so that he could perceive her in a way none of the other bachelors were capable of).

Unseen by her son, Shenzi had taken that second step away, struggling to breathe for the heat burning in her chest - residual anger, lingering shame, and a desperate longing that made her want to cry. But she wouldn’t, she couldn’t. Not in front of Azizi. Not in this place, where there were monsters of men always lurking in the trees, waiting for her to show them where to strike and how to break her. Eventually she found her voice, kept her composure long enough to rasp; “You go ahead, go to your stream. I’ll find my way shortly.”

And only after she had watched, with eyes that glittered like embers, Azizi’s lithe form vanish into the scrub ahead did Shenzi collapse in on herself. Like a wolf leaning back into its powerful haunches, or more accurately a hyena with head bowed, mouth spread in a crooked toothy grin. Not submissive at all, never that. Not smug either. But there was a sense of her heading towards an ever more crowded corner. Time would tell if she was the one backed ever further into it, or if she might somehow gain the upperhand (and maybe then, the men of the Lagoon might come to understand a fraction of what it felt like for her).

But for now, she quietly simmered in the darkness, alone, and a growl rumbled deep in her chest, the word so sharp and heavy as the syllables of it were forced through clenched teeth. “Rehoboam.”