Memeth lifted his back paw from the random pool of mud. it hadn't rained in WEEKS, HOW was there a mud hole there?! He shook his leg thoroughly and wrinkled his nose. At least the mud didn't show off against his already brown fur.
Ahead of him, the brightly coloured splotch of purple and white and rainbow bounced ahead of him in the jungle. It went in and out of the green foliage and gave that happy, yapping sort of 'roar' his kind of lion made. Memeth rolled his eyes. "Could you hold on for five seconds?!" He snapped at Mehayye's back.
The hyena, no older than he was (in fact, they'd been born at almost the exact same time) turned and gave him a blissful look, belying exactly how unaware he was as to Memeth's annoyance. "What's the matter?"
"YOU are the matter! If you keep running away like this we're going to get in trouble! We should be back with mom and dad."
By that he meant, of course, both their sets of parents. Even Mehayye's rather unconventional mother was referred to by Raylan's bunch as "mom." And vice versa, for that matter. "Awwww," Mehayye gave a little pout that quickly was evaporated by a grin. "You're just sore from running so hard. Its okay, lets stop and then we'll go on! I'll bet there's all sorts of interesting things to see here, don't you?"
"No. No I do not." Memeth dead panned. "Unlike you I don't relish the thought of dying young."
"Don't be so dramatic," Mehayye giggled--yes, giggled--and trotted back to chew on his cousin-sibling's ear.
As was common for the young male, Eros had wandered off on his own sometime earlier in the morning, probably following some fuzzy creature that happened to capture his attention. He was always bringing home less fortunate little buggers, sheltering ragged little animals a little bit down on their luck. As it was, he was closeby when his brothers began to make such a fuss, or at least when one of them did.
"Hey, look at this," he called out to them, trudging through the jungle, pushing his way through underbrush. He pushed his way out of the trees, coming out into area where they were sitting, his face turning towards them. Only, instead of his face, a butterfly's great wings stretched out across his eyes from where it sat perched on his nose.
He giggled, trying to find his blind way towards his brothers, until he slipped and landed with an 'oof' noise. Giggling as the large blue insect fluttered off into the canopy, he glanced up the two members of his odd family that stood before him, completely oblivious to Memeth's bad mood.
Memeth backed off a pace when the younger boy came towards them covered in some foreign insect. It was probably poisonous or the food of something just as bad, after all, and he didn't want to have anything to do with that! "Ugh. Really, Eros where do you find these things--"
"OH PRETTY!" Their 'special' brother interrupted and leapt towards Eros. When the butterfly flew away he chased after it, leaping to try and catch it with obvious futility. Memeth groaned.
Eros pushed himself up, stifling his giggles, even as he watched Mehayye go chasing after the butterfly. He followed him with his eyes, letting his tail flicker, then realized that Memeth had said something to him.
"I don't," he said with a frown, turning his eyes towards his brother, reaching up with one black tipped paw to rub at his nose, rubbing away the sensation of the insect's tickling legs, "they usually find me."
He pushed himself up onto his paws, walking closer to his brother, a slight skip to his step. "There's a whole bunch of them near here, all in this one tree, want to see?"
"YEAH!" Mehayye abruptly left off in his chasing to turn and bark excitedly at his brother-cousin. "Whole colonies huh? I bet that's a wonderful sight! Maybe we can find a dead one and take its wings back with us. They'd be great souvineers!"
"Great WHAT?" Memeth snapped. He stared in complete exasperation at Mehayye, more than a slight part of him wondering where the kid got his ideas. Of course, he seemed to take very much after his mother. "No. No we do NOT want to see great swarming colonies of insects. They could be dangerous!"
"They're just butterflies, Mehayye."
"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT."
Eros grinned at Mehayye's suggestion, his tail flickering excitedly. "Yeah, we could take them back. Maybe we could give them to momma as a present, yeah?" He didn't specify which mother, probably both, or whichever one they ran into first. "I bet they'd like a present, it'd make them happy."
Although, at Memeth's words his tail and ears both drooped and he turned to look at him with furrowed brows. "They are just butterflies. What're they going to do, flutter you to death?"
"Yes. Yes they will." Memeth replied just as seriously as he took everything. "They'll probably manage to eat my whole corpse so that there's not even a drop left of me too, for all I know!"
"Oh come on Meme! It'll be fiinne!!" With that last reassurance, Mehayye bumped his head against Eros' and panted in excitement, "Where are they?"
Eros snickered slightly at Memeth's newest objection, whipping his tail behind him with a bit of amusement. "I don't think they even eat meat, Meme, let alone live meat." Of course, this wasn't the first time he had had to deal with Memeth being a spoil sport because of his own ridiculous notions.
At Mehayye's encouragement he grinned, took a happy leap and then nodded in the direction he had come from earlier. "This way," he purred out, glancing overhead to see if the butterfly that had taken a ride was still about.
Before Memeth could utter another protest, Mehayye had gone charging off after Eros into the underbrush. Memeth's yelp echoed over their ears, but the hyena knew he wasn't about to respond to it, at least. This was an adventure, and Memeth was sure to follow along no matter what he said against the whole thing.
For his part, the pale pink lion cub grumbled under his breath and began to trudge along the easy trail the other two had broken through the jungle. Most of this was inaudible, but ever so often something stood out. "...-utterflies never.... just because normally... -an't believe.... this stupid... Aughtta ju--OW... -cking pinecone."
