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Clumsiness didn’t really make friends. It wasn’t because she wasn’t friendly, or because she didn’t want friends. She’d love to have friends! It was just hard to get close to other lions when you were constantly running into them, falling on them, or accidentally tripping them. She had found that after a while others tended to get annoyed and tired of such behaviour and took off.

Her lack of friends was why she was confused when she found herself feeling lonely. It had been maybe a week and half since she had run into Tindika and gotten stuck in the rainstorm. Since then she hadn’t seen him, the two had parted amicably enough. She had even thought about asking him if they could travel together, but she wasn’t sure how she would even approach that question. So, instead she just smiled at him and wandered off.

The last few days she had been regretting that decision. The loneliness was a new feeling. Of course she still had Painti and Tooki to talk to, but it wasn’t quite the same. Tindika wasn’t only a lion, but he was a God as well. It was different talking to him than it was the genet or the avian. He also made her laugh more than her two companions. She wondered if that meant they were friends. It would be nice to have a friend. The only problem was she wasn’t sure if she’d see him again.

Sighing she angled her body downwards, gliding towards the ground. Of course the nice, smooth landing she saw in her mind wasn’t what happened at all. Her paws touched the ground and then she tripped falling forwards and sliding into a bush. “Not again,” She groaned and began to try and pull herself out, but her scarf had gotten snagged in the branches leaving only her back end hanging out of the bush. It was awkward to say the least.

Tindika had much the same problem as Jazi suffered, often driving other creatures away from him because of his penchant for having bad things happen whenever they tried to accomplish anything. Failed hunts. Failed tree climbing. Failed naps. Failed anything one could think of. If it was something worth trying, it was something Tindika was capable of failing at.

But such was life, he rolled with the punches and did his best to take everything in stride.

“Oh,” he said, hearing some rustling somewhere below him. He looked down from the tree he was in, tilting his head. It seemed the tree climbing endeavor was what had caught him today: he had climbed up a tree to help a bird that seemed to be stuck, but it had flown off and he had fallen. His instinct was to open his massive wings which, of course, got him stuck very tightly into the tree. The branches refused to let him go, and he was dangling there now, trying to think of a way down that did not involved dropping him to the ground like a stone.

He saw the backside of a familiar lioness and wiggled his paws. It seemed she would not be able to help him, as she was just as stuck as he was. What a pair they seemed to be, though he was immediately glad to have run into her again, even under these circumstances.

“Oh! Jazi! It’s me, Tindika! I’m behind you! Well. Above you. Are you alright?”

After a particularly hard tug nearly choked her Jazi stopped trying to pull herself out. Maybe she should try to crawl out the other way instead? She was contemplating doing just that when she heard a familiar voice. Her head shot up, or it would have if she hadn’t been trapped. As it was she just choked herself making a strangled sound. Coughing she lowered her head so she could breathe and then speak.

“Tindika?!” She tried to look for him, but again she was limited in her movement. She managed to catch a flash of brown between the branches of the bush but then it was gone. “I’m okay! I just tripped and tumbled into a bush…again.” She sighed her tail twitching outside the bush. “Could you help me, please? I think if you pull hard enough I’ll get torn free.” She didn’t realize that the other God was also stuck.

Even stuck in a bush she found herself smiling. She had gone from thinking she wouldn’t see Failure again to falling into a bush next to him. For a moment she had to wonder if that was a coincidence or not. Even if it wasn’t she didn’t really mind, unlike mortals and even some other Gods she was used to accidents happening constantly, an extra one here or there because of Tindika’s domain wasn’t going to ruffle her feathers.

He heard her choking and wondered what was going on. He was worried about the noises and wiggled in the tree, producing noises he didn’t like as well. The branches groaned unhappily and he felt his weight slip downwards. It wouldn’t be a bad fall, but he was worried his wings wouldn’t follow him, and he would do some damage to his muscles.

He wanted to get down to her if she needed help, though. Those noises really were unsettling.

“Well, at the moment I’m… I mean, I would love to help you but I’m kind of stuck myself. When I said I’m above you I mean literally… I am stuck in this tree at the moment. But I’ll try and get down as fast as I can, okay?” He wiggled a bit more, and she would hear a very heavy thump behind her, and even feel the ground jump. After a long moment, his voice returned, though it was strained, “okay, I’m down. Hold on.”

Crawling over to her, he examined the bush and tried to extricate her from it by pulling on her tail. He realized what he was doing and released it, scurrying to the side to try and see if he could get her scarf free. “Are you caught by anything but the scarf?”

Jazi didn’t really notice the sounds she made as she nearly choked herself more than once. She was used to it, she got in a lot of accidents that resulted in injury or near injury. But the sound of his straining concerned her. The Goddess frowned, fruitlessly attempting to look for him again. “Are you okay?” She hated not being able to see what was going on.

His explanation of his predicament had her laughing. She was a little less concerned now that she knew that he was just stuck. Getting stuck wasn’t so bad, it happened to her a lot. But still, she didn’t want him to get hurt. “How did you get stuck in a tree?” She was genuinely curious, she usually ended up in trees via crash landings, but he had seemed very competent in the air from what she had seen the last time they ran into each other.

The sound of a thud and then the resulting tremor made her jump and this time when she spoke she sounded concerned again. “Tindi? Please don’t hurt yourself on my account, I’m sure I can wiggle out of here eventually.” She wasn’t sure how, but the Goddess didn’t want him to injure himself. When he finally spoke again she twisted attempting to spot him, but again her movement was constrained. “Thank you for helping me.”

She was quiet then waiting for him to pull her out. She really should have been paying attention, maybe then the tug on her tail wouldn’t have hurt as much. As it was she was caught of guard and she made a loud, startled sound. That had hurt more than she thought it would. His words distracted her from the pain though. “It’s just the scarf, I think it snagged on a branch. I don’t mind if it tears.” She paused and then added on quietly. “It’s nice to see you again, well not see you, since I’m in a bush, but...” She wrinkled her muzzle making a mess of her words. “It’s nice running into you again. In a non-literal way.”

Tindika felt like a jerk for pulling her tail. He should have warned her, should have done something else. He would have to make it up to her, certainly, though how was not too clear for him at the moment. Still, he still had one stuck goddess to worry about, so he could think about the rest later.

He would tell her how he had gotten in the tree after she was free, too.

“It’s nice to see you again, I agree. And I can actually see you. Well. Half of you. Let me see if we can free the rest of it.” He tugged at the bush itself, trying to pull the branches away from her scarf. That did not work like he wanted it to, and he decided to just bite the branches until they let her go. He did just that, poking the inside of his mouth and yelping, but continuing his efforts until he felt he had broken enough.

“Try now?” he asked, hoping that had worked. He was the God of Failure, but things usually worked out in the end anyway. That was the whole point. Failing, but keeping on. Always trying. He was inspirational in that simple way: he liked to think he was imparting the ideal of never giving up.

It was mostly just for his own comfort.

She felt the bush moving around her, but she didn’t attempt to move just yet. It was becoming clear to Jazi that moving before she was loose would just result in her getting choked.

Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of yelping and Jazi shifting against the ground, a bit panicked but unable to look for the source. “Tindika, what’s going on? Are you alright?” Her voice was worried. She didn’t want him to hurt himself in his quest to free her.

After the branches had been broken and she was instructed to free herself she frowned. She was still worried, but it wouldn’t do any good to stay in the bush. Slowly she started to wiggle backwards, her scarf looser than it had been before.

There was moment where she thought she was stuck again but then the cloth tore and she was free, slipping out from the bush. Finally out of the bush she shook herself, but the twigs were still stuck in her mane. She turned towards Tindika, smiling but still worried. “Thank you for saving me, again.” She stepped towards him, looking him over, trying to check if he had gotten hurt while helping her.

Tindika was moving his mouth oddly, but he smiled at her brightly. He had twigs in his teeth.

“There you are! I was worried I wouldn’t get to see the front side of you this time, which would have been disappointing. That’s not to say your backside isn’t. Uhm. Mhm.” He shut himself up there, shaking his head and moving his thoughts away from the downward spiral of awkward that had nearly caught him. He smiled at her again.

“I think I like being able to save you. Usually I don’t succeed when I help people, but there’s something about you, it seems, that makes it different. I’m glad for that. So, whenever you need help, I will do my best to be there for you.” He chuckled. That was what friends did, right?

He was very glad to see her, and he couldn’t quite explain why. Yes, she was his friend, and he did feel different around her, but it was still new. He had only seen her twice now, and both times had been bumbly, but fun. Sweet. Memorable. Something he wanted more of, certainly, if she didn’t mind him making her day just a little bit harder than it needed to be.

As she looked him over she decided he didn't seem hurt, but for a moment Jazi was distracted by a bit of twig sticking out of his maw, it wasn't so much the twig that distracted her- she got twigs in her mane all the time- but that it was in his maw. Which was odd even for her. His words pulled her away from staring at the twig though and she couldn't help but smile. “Well, without your help it would have just been a backside so thank you!”

When he spoke again she felt her insides warm up and she looked at the ground, her smile widening. He wanted to help her, whenever she needed it? She'd never been told that by anyone, most lions didn't want much to do with her after they found out how much trouble she managed to get herself in.

After a moment she looked up at him and stepped closer, her face lit up. “I'd like that. And I can help you! When you need it, I mean.” It seemed she really had made her first friend.

Tindika noticed her staring and ran his tongue over his teeth, which got poked by the stick. He sputtered and got it out, wincing at the taste of nature in his mouth. He was a carnivore for a reason: he did not like the taste of plants. And sticks weren’t exactly delicious to most herbivores, either.

“I’ll keep you to that promise,” he said, smiling at her as she stepped closer. He found he liked her being that close, and he moved his nose out to rest it against hers. He smiled softly, then grinned at her, a little cross eyed as he opened his eyes to look at her.

“Well, I guess you’re stuck with me hanging around sometimes, now." He liked that idea a lot.