Thousand Yard Stare Zazu -

Simba slid off the dais and padded closer. He'd seen that look before. In his own reflection, after his father fell. In Timon and Pumbaa, during the thunderstorm that nearly swept them over a waterfall. The old warthogs called it the "thousand-yard stare." It was the look of someone who had seen the other side of a very thin line.

Simba reached out a massive paw and placed it gently on the perch, steadying it. thousand yard stare zazu

"Yes, Sire," Zazu whispered. Then, a tiny, almost imperceptible crack in his voice. "The morning report for tomorrow: the water buffalo are calving early, the baobab near the eastern watering hole has blossomed out of season, and… and I believe I might sleep through the dawn for the first time in a decade." Simba slid off the dais and padded closer

Simba sat down, curling his tail around his paws. "Is it about Scar's reign? The hyenas?" In Timon and Pumbaa, during the thunderstorm that

Simba waited.

The hornbill stood on his customary perch—a polished limb of acacia wood near the king's ear. His feathers, usually preened to a glossy blue-grey, were dull. His beak was shut. His eyes, usually darting—scanning the horizon for weather, for gossip, for trouble —were fixed on a point that did not exist.

A long silence. A cricket chirped somewhere in the grass below.