It was a beautiful evening on the open savannah.
Yes, beautiful-- that was both a splendidly generic and utterly appropriate term to label it! The air was balmy, but not too humid. The sky was cloudy, but not too overcast. The earth was dry and crispy beneath her feet, but oh so warm, and that same warmth was leeching up through her pads and into her arms and through her very bones and just making her muscles tingle with excitement.
Eshe loved evenings like these the very most, and this one was particularly pleasant, seeing as she'd found such a wonderful half-bare tree to sit under and observe by. It had rough bark that the lioness took full advantage of to rub up against, scritching spots that her claws couldn't normally reach and just enjoying the texture for no other reason beyond that she could.
Although it did manage to scritch a few thoughts right out of her brain, too.
Like why is Yaxha sleeping at such an early hour?, glancing over at the dozing green lion a few feet away. Sure, it had been a rather eventful day beforehand, but just because he'd managed to step on a particularly displeased anthill (while shoving her away from it) and gotten his paw stuck in a meerkat hole (cutting in front of her for SOME odd reason) and wound up running from a troupe of angry babboons with her (she'd only asked for directions to the best sunset watching spot!) was no excuse to be crashing so early! Such a shame, really; he was missing the most beautiful part of the not-quite-day like that!
But... no, he was always doing funny things like that, wasn't he? Funny, she'd never really noticed how often he tugged her away from things like holes or rocks or cliffs, or nudged her off from incensed herds of GODONLYKNEWWHAT beast... Observing him in that dead-as-a-log tuckered out torpor, she could only think of what a funny lion he was, and how she'd never understand it.
"... He's missing such a pretty nightfall, too," she mumbled to herself, ears flicking back and turning her gaze back up at the clouds. Lots of reds and golds in there, with a hint of lavender, all striated so beautifully in a curry-combed cloudmess. No greenish, though. That was a shame.
(She liked the greenish most-- though it was a terribly lovely color. Just not the brightly saturated stuff; that was too much like fresh squishywet grass.)
Then again, thinking on it further, perhaps it was alright that there wasn't any greenish to look at tonight. She had plenty of that flumped over next to her and, come to think of it, the nice balmy warmth of a companion's side was more pleasant still than the balmy warmth of the open air, wasn't it? Looked about the right size for her, too.
And so she wandered over to take up that more appropriate sp-- ... wait, no, something was missing! His mane looked just a little too plain, and that just wouldn't do for pleasant dreaming!
So like a sneaky little elf the colorless lioness sidled off, pawsteps light and smiling, to go snuffle through the dry grasses. Sure, finding flowers was never easy (some silly things liked to eat them, hmm) in this kind of territory but, surprisingly enough, it took just under ten minutes before she found a good patch, plucked them off, and came jogging back with a delicate mess of petals in her jaws for delivery.
One, two, three, four and seven, all tucked neatly into the male's fur and behind his ears-- another set near his muzzle so the sweet smell could invade his dreams, and a last one for herself, carefully pawed into place by her forelock before she felt satisfied, curling up against his side to watch the remainder of the skylights dwindle.
All the reds and golds and violets were fading, but now plenty of greenish to keep her company.
Yes, it'd be a lovely, lovely night.
::FIN::
