Kimondo looked down from where his feet were. His yellow toes were tickled by green, lush and life filled grass but suddenly the grass ceased and dropped down into a barren wasteland that looked to be nothing but bones. The lion gulped. This was dangerous, and somewhat stupid. He had gone and convinced himself that earlier that morning he wouldn’t worry over the fate of the Romano stranger, yet here he was.
To be fair Kim had nothing better to do. This was exciting and thrilling and new, an adventure! He didn’t get to have many adventures that actually involved adventuring away from his home, but this was a bit of a risky mission all by itself. He had been warned that this was home to hyenas and these hyenas were not exactly friendly towards lions. He imagined his pink mane made him stand out like a sore thumb, but nevertheless Kim slinked his way down into the death-smelling gully. A rock came with him as he lowered himself into their territory, and his tail swayed uneasily as he assumed a stalking posture.
“Romano.” He whispered. The area was drenched with a thick sort of fog, he noticed that the higher the air got the less of the fog there was, and that was both a good and bad sign. It meant things above him could see him clearly, but it also meant things lurking in the fog were as blind as him.
Something snapped under his foot and Kimondo flinched, fearing to look down. He tried his best to mentally prepare himself for what he had broken, but he still let out a shrill yelp when he saw it was a lion’s skull under his foot. The yellow lion jumped a foot back. No way, this was in no way a good idea. He should have been eating lunch at this time, not worrying about his impending death.
Kimondo shot his head straight up into the air, his ears curved forward for better listening. Something… Laughed. Someone had giggled in the distance. It filled the yellow lion with fear, oh no, oh no, they found him, the hyenas. Now he was going to die and it was all because he was such a stupid idiot who wanted to make sure that stupid idiot leopard hadn’t gotten his stupid self killed.
His throat was dry and he swallowed to wet it. “Romano?” He asked in a hushed tone. “Romano, is that you?”
----
No, it actually wasn’t Romano. Had Kimondo had been unlucky enough to cross the path of any other hyena his worst fear would have come true. The others surely would have loved to have sunk their teeth into his lion-skin and watch as he was chased away with his tail between his legs. Nuru had other plans. He wasn’t exactly a mean hyena, he was actually rather nice.
Stupid as far as most of the pack was concerned, but nice. He was kind and thoughtful and always had something positive to say. He made it his duty to make everyone happy some days, and even if practically jokes sometimes ended with him getting hurt Nuru also would laugh along simply because it was funny. He laughed now, because this lion was the second non-hyena he had spotted today. It was incredible, were all the felines just migrating towards the graveyard? Animals really only came to his pack when they wanted to die, but maybe this lion was looking for his maneless lion friend? Ah. What had he called himself. Nuru hummed while thinking… Oh yes! Leopard. Maybe the lion was here for his leopard friend!
Nuru was glad, because there weren’t any guards in this area today. For now at least, after they had eaten a nice big lunch they’d come crawling back to their posts. Usually they’d be here already, but really there wasn’t much of anything worth guarding at the border. Lions hadn’t invaded them for a long time, and rogues were usually very friendly and easy to get along with. Except for Vellamo, of course. But she had a personal bone to pick with Nuru, so she wasn’t much of a concern for the rest of the pack.
Nuru emerged from the fog from where his temporary den was this morning. “Hey Traveller!” He sung his words with glee. “What’cha doing here?”
---
Romano heard… Something. A whisper maybe?
The leopard was lying inside of Nuru’s makeshift den, his injuries still sore but as he had predicted everything was according to plan. Euanthe’s “Boy-toy” had been kind enough to let Romano stay, but was keeping him hidden for safekeeping or something. Honestly his hearing was a bit daft since one of his pride mates had slashed him across the ear. It wasn’t so bad, and up until now he hadn’t really noticed it.
Boy he must have looked miserable if a hyena mortal took pity on him like he had… Romano was alright with that though, he needed pity points and time to heal.
He crawled forward a few steps, and turned his gaze outside. Nuru had a daughter apparently, but she was out today and had not encountered Romano. The leopard wasn’t certain he was reassured or not that Nuru hadn’t told his own kin about Romano yet. If she was upset she’d tell the pack about him and… That wouldn’t go well. Then again, Nuru seemed to always be on the move around his home. He had several dens, but always was sniffing out a new one. So long as Nuru kept this one secret, and maybe slept in another Romano would no doubt be fine…
Now, who was outside? The sparkly coated male peered through the fog. It was difficult to see clearly but in his sense of smell was still an aid. Some of the fog cleared for a brief moment and in that moment the leopard widened his eyes. That was… The Kimondo lion who had helped him to begin with… What on earth was he doing here?! Was he insane?! Romano tried to lean further in, to listen.
---
Kimondo nearly screamed when the someone who had been singing and humming earlier came popping out of the shadows like a hare out of a burrow. “ARGAH!” He screeched and leap away from the hyena, causing himself to fall on his back, and this surged a belly full of laughter from the cackler before him.
---
“Oh man, oh man, oh man!” Nuru chanted between breaths of laughs. “You’re a funny stranger! Pff, ahaha!” He snorted a few times, but Nuru didn’t really care. He wasn’t scary at all and here this lion was, falling over and guarding himself as if he was in the face of real danger! It was simply too much!
“Hehe.. You… You’re a strange one!”
---
Kimondo looked up, he hadn’t noticed he had squeezed his eyes shut and even put his paws up to guard his face until the moment he noticed he wasn’t going to die. “W-what?” The pink maned lion gazed upon the hyena. Why! He was just a little thing, and he was hooting and howling in laughter over Kimondo tripping backwards!
“Nnnargh!” He rose to his feet. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but if this hyena was looking for just that Kimondo was persistent in wars too. “Who are you?!” He demanded. “Where is Romano?!”
---
Oh dear, was the stranger angry? Nuru didn’t like it when people got angry with him because that meant they were inclined to beat him up.
He didn’t really like getting beat up.
Nuru had to convince himself to somehow stop laughing. It was difficult, he still replayed the scene in his mind over and over but he managed to keep his voice muffled. He still chuckled now and then through his sentences as well.
“Oh mm… hmmumm. I’m Nuru. Nuru Moyo. Romano is my guest. Who are you strange lion-guy?”
---
Kimondo found it hard to keep his serious-menacing face around this Nuru. He seemed so happy! At some point the lion sighed and looked at ease. “I’m Kimondo. I was just here to…”
What was he doing? Checking up on Romano? Looking for adventure?
“I just wanted to make sure my friend made it. He was kind of hurt, are you sure he’ll be okay?” He didn’t even know the leopard but… Something about Kimondo was protective, protective and caring for others.
---
What? Romano blinked. This lion was ridiculous. He tried to growl or roar or something, but no words came from his mouth. ’Go away’ He thought. Maybe Kimondo would get his telepathic message somehow and turn around and go home. He knew that the pridelands and the graveyard were right next to one another, but that didn’t mean Kimondo was given permission to visit. Romano didn’t even want the guy here, he wanted to be alone to sulk and come up with a way to make his home accept him again.
He really, really wasn’t in the mood to deal with happy-go-lucky lion and hyena pair at the moment. If he was stronger Romano would have been calmer and nicer. Of course, he was stronger he’d be ten miles away from this creepy place and already working on a plan to get his ticket back into the pride. Was this the case however? No, no it wasn’t. He was weak and he was pretty sure he was deaf and worst of all, the monsters had chased him away. They called him a traitor and banished him.
Sure, he didn’t believe in Hanma, and he was pretty sure he was a mortal at this point all things considered. He still liked his home though, he liked having a place to welcome him after long travels and a place where essentially he was considered family.
Out here he was just another dying leopard. He was a nobody. Which is why it bothered him to no end why Kimondo was chatting it up with laughing-mc-laughter hyena over there. They didn’t know he was a monster, or ex. Monster now he supposed… So why? It made him snarl viciously while stewing in his thoughts.
---
“Yep, yep, yep!” Nuru said happily. He wasn’t sure why he had said yep three times, but he had and he did and that was that. “He’ll be save mr. lion-sir! You can count on me!” At that Nuru had somehow decided the conversation was done and he turned to leave. He stopped when he heard Kimondo shout at him to wait.
“Hmm?”
“You… You’re not going to attack me?” It couldn’t be helped, he wanted to ask that since the very moment he had heard Nuru laughing at him.
----
“Hmm.” Was he? He could but Kimondo looked very strong and despite being a hunter Nuru wasn’t very strong at all.
Besides, why would he even want to attack the lion-guy? It made no sense really. He hadn’t done anything to deserve being attacked, so simple as that Nuru wouldn’t.
“No. I don’t want to, but if you don’t leave my pack-mates will attack you. So you better leave Mr. lion guy.”
Nuru began to think of what to do now? Hunt maybe, hunting was always a fun thing to do…
----
Kimondo breathed out. Alright. He was safe, but only for this moment. “I’ll leave the leopard in your care then.” He nodded, turned and began to climb his way out of the gully. He could rest easily now. Something about that hyena was spirit lifting and that was reassuring enough to make the lion leave. Besides, this place was super-creepy and really didn’t want to be here any longer.
Kim wondered if he’d tell anyone about his visit to the graveyard. After a few moments he shook his head.
He probably wouldn’t.
---
Romano sighed and retreated back into his temporary dwelling. It looked like pinky was leaving, and about time for the guards to return. They would return, he was sure of it. Romano also could rest easy. Kimondo was out of his hair, he had a place to sleep for the night and now all the leopard was left with was how he was going to address his lack of access to his pride problem.
He blinked… Then it came to him.
Sundai. Capture Sundai and all his problems went away.
First however, he needed to rest. Rest and formulate his plan even further. He wasn’t really a planning type of guy, but in this case? He’d make an exception. Getting back into his home was as important to him as water was to dirt.
Very, very important.
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