Furaha's life was usually quiet, peaceful, and routine, with little to think about or focus on beyond how she was going to handle her next hunt. Or at least it had been until recently. Ever since she had made her deal with Ndale, she had found it difficult to concentrate on much of anything without her mind darting back and forth to how she was going to handle this situation and what she could do to ensure that any cubs were raised well and able to grasp their limited lives to their fullest extent... and to Ndale himself.
This irritated her to no end - she was not some weak, simpering fool to let a male and cubs occupy all of her waking thoughts! As a result, her mood grew ever more sour and she snapped at everyone she came across, the the point where no-one seemed to want to approach within five lengths of her, let alone speak to her.
Kubwa was taking a break from her duties as a nanny to take a walk. She did this fairly often and almost always found someone to talk to during these visits. And today, she had spotted someone in the distance who looked like she very badly needed some cheering up. Well, that was what she was good at, so Kubwa altered her path so that she could run into the other lioness for a brief chat.
As much as Furaha wanted to be left alone, in a pride like this private time was nearlyimpossible to obtain. Thankfully, nearly the entire pride knew to avoid her lately, and she hadn't had to deal with anyone at all today. Unfortunately, it appeared that one ever-cheerful, far too dense ball of bright blue, pink and white fur hadn't gotten that memo, because here she came now, despite Furaha warning her away with a low growl and laid-back ears. She didn't want company, no matter what the annoying idiot might think!
The bubbleheaded lioness didn't even appear to notice Furaha's threat, witch only served to make the dark-furred female’s mood even worse. Great, it looked like she was going to have to put up with an imbecile today. Just what she wanted while her thoughts were troubled.
Kubwa had no idea of the rude thoughts Furaha was thinking about her; she only thought that the dark-furred lioness looked rather lonely and like she could use some company. So with a happy smile, the nanny trotted across the clearing towards the other female, humming a happy song under her breath. She hoped that she could help Furaha feel better; the other lioness always looked so upset about everything the few times that she had glimpsed her around the pride.
”Hello, hello!” Kubwa called cheerfully, taking a seat in front of the more sober female. ”How are you today Furaha? I know we haven’t spoken much but I thought I would come say hi and see how you were doing! You don’t mind do you I mean I guess you could a little but even if you mind you look like you could really use the company deep down so here I am!” She punctuated her sentence with a bright, happy smile, hoping it would encourage the golden-eyed female to do the same. Unless… what if she didn’t know how to smile?
There were a lot of creatures in the pride who were like that – they’d been so sad and so hurt for so long that smiling was as foreign to them as the skies were to a fish! It hadn’t occurred to Kubwa that this lioness might be among them, but if she was, then… well then Kubwa would just have to teach her! Spreading smiles was something she was particularly good at, after all – so what if some of them were from others laughing at her? A smile was a smile, and that was all that mattered to Kubwa.
For her part, Furaha was so taken aback by the wall of words flowing out of the other lioness’ mouth that she momentarily forgot her irritation. How could one creature talk so much and yet say nothing at all of importance? The brightly-colored female wasn’t’’ just annoying – she was positively touched in the head! Furaha almost felt a little pity for her, but then Kubwa gell silent and just started staring at her with a smile, and all of a sudden those dark eyes looked somewhat blank and kind of creepy.
Kubwa didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss, even as her temporary companion flinched and began to back away. She just kept smiling, confident that sooner rather than later, the darker lioness would smile back. She had to eventually, right? Kubwa thought she was being particularly nice and friendly, so she had to fight a bit to keep the smile on her face as she saw fear growing in the black lioness' eyes. What could she possibly be frightened of? Was there something behind her?
No, if there was, Furaha would tell her! Confident of this, Kubwa widened her smile a bit further.
There was nothing to this lioness, was there? Everything rolled right off of Kubwa’s back and Furaha was starting to realize that it was because, for whatever reason, nothing affected her. It was downright eerie, and quite unexpectedly, she was slowly becoming frightened of the disturbingly happy female. Something wasn’t right about her – she was insane or – or fake or something! Furaha hissed and backed away on suddenly-shaking paws, casting about for an escape route.
”W-well, I – I – it was nice meeting you I guess but I really have to go! I have work to do!” She didn’t give the creepy lioness a chance to reply before turning tail and running away as fast as she could, only stopping when she was finally well out of sight of the other lioness. As soon as she stopped, however, she felt rather foolish. Why had she run away? There was nothing frightening about Kubwa; the lioness was stupid and overly-friendly to be sure, but not a danger. Then again, Furaha admitted to herself, perhaps that was the very thing that had frightened her. She was so unused to genuinely happy, nice creatures that when she could find no ulterior motive for such behavior, it terrified her.
…Or maybe she was overthinking this a bit too much. Shaking her head and taking a seat, Furaha panted for a moment and resolved to go out on a hunt so that she could clear her thoughts. All of this stress must be getting to her if she was really so afraid of an obscenely cheerful creature that didn’t look to have a lick of sense in her body. Still, she thought that she had better steer clear of Kubwa from now on, just for the sake of her own peace of mind.
Kubwa’s smile dropped from her face as the darker lioness ran off, and she stared at the spot she had been in for a long moment, trying to work out what had just happened here. Had Furaha been frightened by something? Or just not in the mood to talk right then? Yeah, that was probably it! She had just caught her at a bad time! Giggling to herself, Kubwa climbed to her paws again and trotted off, back the way she had come.
She would just have to track Furaha down again and talk to her at a better time! She would spend so much time with the other lioness that she would learn how to smile, and would never have to worry about forgetting ever again! With this plan fully in mind, she started humming again and went on her way, content to believe the best out of this encounter and all of the future encounters she would have with the sad black and orange lioness.
After some time had passed and Kubwa didn't reappear, Furaha fully relaxed and promptly started in on berating herself. Ugh. She needed to go hunt something and she needed to go hunt it now. She had to get those dark eyes and that wide, disturbing smile out of her head! But at least shewasn't thinking of Ndale again, and how his golden eyes seemed just as hardened and bitter as her own... She kind of wondered what he would look like when he smiled.
... Crap.
Still humming cheerfully, Kubwa decided to go look up the routes Furaha usually took when she went hunting. It would be so much easier to cheer her up if she knew where she usually went! Finding her again would be easy-peasy that way!
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