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Ahhh, twilight. With the sun gone down behind the horizon, the air was finally starting to cool. Gahiji allowed himself a leisurely full-body stretch and decided to do something about the dryness in his mouth before he headed out on the first hunt of the evening.

Okay, so it was more like a parching thirst after having spent the whole day more or less knocked out by the intense heat, but that didn't sound half as suave as he'd prefer himself to be.

Trying his best not to seem too eager, he trotted down to the watering hole, loooked around carefully, and then finally bowed down to drink greedily from the fresh, clear water.

He basked in the rejuvenating feeling, getting so carried away by it for a while that he completely forgot to remain watchful.

It took Gahiji a little while to react to anything other than the sweet feeling of water running down his throat, But after a few moments the feeling that he had missed something started to form in his head. He kept drinking, but that sensation stuck with him, and started to become more and more pervasive. Then, all of a sudden, his survival reflexes finally kicked in and he remembered what it was: A sound, like silent paws in tall grass.

Oh CRAP!

His head snapped up, ears swivelling around to catch that elusive sound again. He really didn't want to get into a fight, not right now, and especially not with anything that was bigger than himself. If it was sneaking, it could very well already be about to pounce - it might already be right on top of him!

Gahiji instinctively twitched backwards himself when the dark shadow made a noise and a sudden movement at the very same instant that he spotted it, but he managed to hold himself back from bolting off right away. The small, chirpy sound had been a bit too bright and un-threatening, and the shadow itself was a bit too small...

He stood completely still, ears sleeked back against his skull and red eyes glaringly fixed on the long-legged, black-and-white... girl? Jii's frown deepened significantly. He already felt stupid for having let his guard down enough to be startled like this, but that the "assailant" would turn out to be such an awkward, half-grown cub was just adding insult to injury.

Heart still thundering away at a ludicrous speed, the black cheetah let his head drop into a slightly more threatening stance - even though the movement looked more relieved than anything else - and completely ignored her attempt at a cheerful greeting as he breathlessly growled:

"Sweet mother of all things... Are you trying to scare the spots off of me? You don't sneak up on people like that! Jeez, what's wrong with you?"

The girl's meekness appeased him, enough for a tiny glimmer of regret for his own harsh words to soften the blow to his pride a little. He paused thoughtfully, still frowning, and felt the familiar vibration in his legs as the shock of the surprise wore off.

She looked rather small. And kinda pathetic, sitting down and looking up at him like that. What was absolutely clear was that she was harmless, and repentant. Gahiji relaxed his stance a bit, looked away and glanced back again, but never let the frown leave his face. He pulled in a deep breath, and tried to hide his indecisiveness by letting the air out in a huffing snort.

"Pff. I almost thought you was a hungry lion or something..." he muttered, looking around as if said hungry lion might actually be around, just lurking in some other direction. He was still trying to come up with what to say next when he looked back at the girl and noticed the way she kept snuffling in his direction. That, paired with the somewhat funny, wide-eyed look she was giving him, made his frown return to his face.

"What?" he said, flicking his tail in confused annoyance. "Have I stepped in something, or what?"

For the first time in this encounter, Gahiji's frown effectively exited his face. He was genuinely surprised, and it showed. His head went up, his ears forward, and his red eyes widened considerably. He even lifted one front paw in a subconscious gesture of uncertainty.

"That so?" he asked, still trying to come to terms with this new, unexpected information.

A whole family of nothing but females... Could he really be the first male that this girl had ever met? As the inevitable thought insinuated itself to him, however, his confusion was replaced - as quickly as it had come - by a toothy, rougish smirk that fit quite naturally on his dark features. He inspected the long-legged, black-and-white young lady again, this time making sure to be be overly obvious about it.

"...A bit too young for me, though," he snickered, meeting her eyes with a very purposefully mischievous wink.

Oh, what a good reaction! It told Jii two things about the girl: She wasn't all that innocent to the ways of the world, and also, she definitely had NOT been trying to flirt with him. But her strong reaction and the tone of her voice caused Gahiji's snicker to grow into full-blown laughter - an unexpectedly low and quiet thing for coming from a boisterous character like him - and he had to sit down to keep himself from falling over in mirth.

"Oh, relax, kid! I'm just messing around with you. And I mean exactly what I said," he sobered up a little, but only enough to narrowly stop himself from hiccuping with laughter, "You're too young for me: I'm not gonna try anything. Don't worry."

He lifted one paw as if he was about to wash his face in a conciliatory gesture, but gave her another mischievous glance from under his brows just as he was about to begin. "Anyway," he remarked, the smile still very audible in his voice, "You scared me, I scared you. I say we're even now. What's your name, Whitesocks?"

"Hmm-m." Gahiji tilted his head slightly to the side and narrowed his eyes at the girl, still with a smug smirk on his face. "And you were doing so well. I do hope you're not just gonna trust me now, just because I told you that you could." But he couldn't keep pretending that her smile and friendliness didn't affect him. It had been quite a while since he'd been approached in such a non-hostile manner, and... okay, it felt kinda nice. He directed his gaze towards his paws for a moment, trying to hide the softening of his smirk with a quiet chuckle.

"No... I suppose you're too smart for that." He looked up again, his smile somewhat guarded, and cleared his throat. "I'm Gahiji."

Okay. This felt totally awkward.

'Nice to meet you,' huh? Somewhere deep inside Gahiji, a small ache of self-reproach pooled up, but he was used to it, and it was easy to ignore. It was fairly obvious that the girl - Kinanda - was only saying the phrase out of politeness, but he had been messing with her for this exact purpose: Her unguardedness annoyed him. She was too vulnerable, and some part of him was hoping to make her see that. Even though he was only half aware of this, himself.

Her follow-up question caught him somewhat by surprise, and he let an amused chuckle escape him.

"Wow, straight for the kill!" He made a show of dropping his head, flattening his ears and lifting a paw as though he had just been seriously wounded, adding a wince of mock pain that was effectively belied by his unwavering, wide grin. "Nice. Well..." he thoughtfully scratched his ear with a hind paw, considering her question with sardonic earnestness. "...I suppose some are 'better.' Nicer, at least. Yeah, sure, they're out there all right. But." His red eyes sought hers in a sidelong glance as a hint of seriousness crept into his voice. "There are those who are a lot worse than me. A lot."

He let his foot drop and shrugged casually, as if the scar on his forehead wasn't burning with the memories of lessons learned the hard way. "If you're lucky, you'll never have to meet them. But if you're not, well... I suppose you could consider me a good warm-up." He sent her another grin, matching the playfulness in her little smile.