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Zuka was busying himself by a watering hole, just taking a moment to clean his fur. He had been practicing his battling style all afternoon, and now that it was finally getting dark it was time to call it a day on training and get down to some serious business- he needed to start hunting soon or he wouldn't be able to find anything remotely delicious for his somewhat large tummy.

He wasn't a small lion by any means, and needed regular meals to keep his energy up with all the fighting he liked to do.

But first- he needed to not be sniffable from fifty feet away. Taking a breath, he stuffed his head under the surface of the water, holding it there as he tried to let the dirt drift away from his fur. Whether or not it was an effective method, he didn't know. After all: his head was underwater.

Fushigisou sniffed something gross on the air, like stale lion. Wondering what it was, though he imagined it was exactly what it smelled like, the green and blue lion padded toward the source. He spotted a pool of water, large enough to be decent for a swim, he imagined, and a lion near its bank. At least, he thought it was a lion.

Hard to tell when its head was under the surface of the water like a fish.

He walked over, flicking his tail behind him.

“Hey, what are you… oh you’re under water, you’re not going to…” he sighed, realizing he was just talking to himself. That was almost was bad as trying to spar alone. He decided to get the other lion’s attention by splashing into the water, pushing it in a wave toward the big purple blob.

Feeling water splash over him, and seeing the disruption of the surface from under the water, the lion let out a gurgled protest, bubbles exploding upwards as he quickly came to realize that he probably shouldn't be trying to speak with his head submerged under the water.

Pulling his head up quickly, the large male coughed and sputtered, huffing in an attempt to get the water from his nose. It felt like it was burning in there all of a sudden! Strange, since he had been in water.

Once the feeling started to fade, however, he was able to look over at the lion that had disturbed him, the large lion offering a wide, toothy grin in greeting. Friendly, but a little creepy as well. "Hello!" he hummed, "I was just... trying to clean up... been training and I needed to get the smell of a hard day's work off of me! Did you... want to use this watering hole?"

He'd spar the other for it if need be.

Fushigisou saw all the bubbles rushing up from the lion under the water, grinning at the sight. He knew that meant the lion had noticed his little effort to get him to surface again. What was a lion doing with his head under the water anyway? Was he trying to drown on purpose? None of that: there were better ways to solve problems than that.

Tilting his head at the purple lion, Fushigisou felt a shudder creep down his back at the way the lion grinned. That wasn’t the friendliest smile he had ever seen… or was it? He found he couldn’t really tell. But he smiled back, with a distinctly less creepy air about him.

“Hi,” he said. The other was answering his question before he could ask it, though, and he nodded thoughtfully. It made sense: sometimes the only way to really get clean was to use water rather than a tongue.

“Training? What kind of training? Uh… no, I don’t need the water. But… training?” he grinned, interested in this lion now. More so than before, at any rate.

Zuka, who wasn't even aware of his own creepiness, found the returned smile warm and friendly, which made him feel like he had done a good job at making the lion feel like he didn't have to be afraid. Good! Because he wasn't going to hurt the guy. Not unless he did something that left him no choice but to fight with that killer instinct. Like attacked him first or commented on how smelly he was in a mean way.

Then it was on.

"oh well training for battle, of course!" Zuka replied brightly, "I run a pride based around learning how to battle! We teach each other moves and help one another improve as much as possible. But it can get kind of smelly if you don't groom yourself often enough... as I learned today. Do you like to train?"

It seemed as if the word had gotten his attention.

“You do, do you?” Fushigisou asked, tilting his head in surprise. The purple lion certainly didn’t look like he was much of a fighter. But then, neither did Fushigisou, considering he had a tuft of pink hair and a mostly dopey expression. But he could be fiercely stubborn and unflappably loyal when he had something to fight for.

He wondered if the same thing could be say for this guy.

“I do! I train all the time. You know, sparring stuff. Or I just practice moves on my own. I think I’ve got some good ones, you know. I work on them all the time, when I’m just walking around. I don’t have a pride, or anything like that. Don’t lead one, don’t belong to one.”

He flicked his tail behind him, which sent droplets of water flying because he had a wet tail.

“This pride thing sounds cool, though.”

"Yeah? It's cool to know that there are animals outside of the pride who train and stuff too! You make your own moves too? That's really impressive! Do you think you can show me something? I mean, you can't say you have good moves and then not show one to me! I think that would be terribly unfair," he said lightly, tilting his head to one side as he watched the other. This lion didn't seem like the sparring kind, but he supposed he had seen weirder animals showing their teeth.

It was a little weird, in a cool way.

"The pride thing IS cool. We're all real big on the battling, though we don't like to really seriously hurt or kill each other... if that's you're kind of thing. We're more into training and preparing for encounters with non pride members, you know? Pretty sure no one would be able to take us in a war!"

Fushigisou considered the other lion for a moment, then a broad grin spread across his face.

“I’m not going to just show you my moves. That’s no fun for either of us, right? But I don’t want to be unfair, either. You’re right, I do have to show you my moves now, but not in a ‘here you sit right there and watch’ kind of way. How about you show me this pride of yours, and we can spar there?”

He thought that was a very good idea. It allowed him to see this place, and to see if he wanted to join up, and it would give him a good match if the other really was anything close to worthy of leading a whole pride based on fighting. Win win, right? Unless he loss. But even then it would still be a win.

Right.

“The pride sounds like something I would like. I mean, I don’t get to spar very often, but if I were in a pride of folks who liked to train, and not trying to kill me, that would be awesome.”

"Ha! That's fine with me! I'd be happy to show you where I train and we can certainly have a sparring match! That works a lot better than you just showing me what you can do, I must agree." He hummed lightly, tail flailing at the prospect of having a match. If had been a while since he felt he could really challenge himself against someone, but he held out hope for this one.

Something about him told Zuka that he was a strong warrior and wouldn't go down easily.

"I'm glad to hear it! I'm sure you'll like the pride, and even if you don't there's no reason you can't come visit. We won't kill you for not wanting to stay, promise." He turned and started the way he had come, heading back towards the boundaries of his pride. Why he hadn't just used the watering holes in the land, he didn't know, but he was kind of glad he had made the absent-minded choice.

The blue and green lion nodded his had, grinning still. He was very eager for this match up, but more so to see this pride and, maybe, find a place to live. He couldn’t really fathom it, after all that had happened to him while he was wandering the rogue lands, but maybe, if he proved himself, he could finally be a part of something.

But he tried not to get his hopes up too high. It might just be disappointing in the end.

Or maybe not!

He followed after the purple lion with all this in his head, batting the ideas of good and bad results back and forth. He wanted to believe things would work out for him, and things were certainly leaning that way at the moment.

He would just have to wait and see.