Why the hell was life so boring?

Always the same, always the same...

Tariq's pink eyes roamed the earth ahead of him--miles and miles to go, but he didn't know where he was going. Where was he and what was he doing? He didn't know anymore.

Maybe he didn't know to begin with.

The black-furred male yawned, droplets of spit flicking into the air--surprising, considering how dehydrated he felt. The sun was unforgiving. Why did it hate him so much? Why the hell was his mother black? His father was white as snow, why couldn't his mother have been blessed with that type of fur?

Curse his whore rogue mother and his stupid, overbearing b*****d of a father.

Tariq was in a bad mood.

Gogo, on the other hand...was doing very well.

Giggling as she raced through the savanna grasses, the leopardess's gold eyes were bright shining orbs of childish excitement as he pretended to chase a herd of undead gazelle.

"One, one, one, one, two, two, two," Gogo counted them. Why she was counting them that way was hard to say, but whatever the reason, she knew exactly what she was doing.

Limbs lifting and falling, lifting and falling in the beat of her own racing time, Gogo's paws barely touched the earth as she sped along chasing her invisible herd. Not the skinniest of leopardesses, though she'd be the last to say that, Gogo was a bit on the chubbier side. When her paws landed, they landed firm and hard, her surprising amount of muscles rippling under her brown fur.

"There, there, there!" she gasped to herself, so lost in her speed that she was in serious danger of spiraling out of control if her focus unhinged.

Unfortunately for a black lion, Gogo had chosen him as her primary undead gazelle target.

"DIE~!" Gogo roared as loudly and as seriously as she could, body and face taking on an entirely unexpected predatory appearance.

Tariq'ra'd had felt the earth pounding as something was approaching him at great speed. He scarcely had time to turn his body before he heard a vengeful-sounding battle cry calling for what he only assumed was his own death.

Body seizing in on itself, Tariq braced himself and lunged out of the way, flipping in an awkward somersault. He heard and felt something heavy land in a heap on the spot he had just been standing in.

Heart pounding, the male scrambled immediately to his paws and took on the stance of a warrior, eyes daring to find whatever had just attempted to take his life.

"WHO--?!" he hissed through his clenched fangs, slitted pupils locking on a mostly unexpected source--a rather chubby adult leopardess with an underbite. She was on her face in the dirt, body trembling.

Tariq stared, waiting--gauging...

When the leopardess turned to look at him, she was grinning with the innocence of a cub.

"Oh," she exclaimed, face smothered in savanna dust, "hello!"

Tariq felt his jaw loosen as he looked on in confusion, wondering what the hell was happening.

"Have you seen any undead gazelle?" she asked breathlessly, trying and failing to get to her feet.

A small gap of silence passed, neither one saying a word. Tariq wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond, and Gogo was honestly waiting for a genuine reply.

"No," Tariq answered slowly, body stance plainly showing his caution.

"HMMMMMmmmmmmmm..." the leopardess drawled ponderously, staring the male directly in the eye. Nothing in her posture hinted that she was in the least bit worried of being around a large male lion, despite her being a bit of an overweight leopardess who, by species and gender, was considerably smaller than him.

"Well, oh well~," she sighed, sniffing dust out of her nose loudly. "Maybe I'll see them again tomorrow."

Tariq did not understand.

He was more confused than he had been about someone in a long, long time.

It was both refreshing and scary. Mostly the latter. But it wasn't fear so much as it was...a sense of unknowing, which was a more or less new sensation to the male.

"I saw them yesterday," the leopardess suddenly piped up, startling Tariq out of silence. "and today..." she drawled, seeming pensive.

"What are you." Tariq asked, his tone more like a statement than a question. The leopardess looked puzzled and after several attempts to stand up on her stocky legs, turned to face him completely.

The two were a good fifteen feet apart, but to Tariq, that didn't seem to be enough. He wasn't sure of what he was supposed to be doing. On one paw, she had just tried to attack him. On the other paw, she seemed so foolishly cub-like--as if she wouldn't even be capable of damaging a paralyzed wildebeest.

So he just stood there, staring like an utter moron. He sure felt like one. But what else was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to know...?

Gogo licked a clump of dirt off her lip and swallowed. After a brief pause, she looked up at the sky, pupils thinning in the sunshine. Her jaw seemed to unhinge itself and fell open, and she proceeded to gaze in complete blankness at the blue African sky.

The clouds were rolling gently, and the birds were fluttering and flitting here and there, speaking with one another in shrill tones. Gogo smiled gently and closed her eyes.

Tariq was utterly bewildered. He blinked and continued to observe the strange leopardess, enthralled and put off at the same time. He had no idea what to make of her. Then again, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to make anything of her.

Before he had time to decide, however, the stocky leopardess stretched her body tightly before recoiling, taking a deep breath, and bowling off into the savanna grasses once more.

Within a matter of seconds, she was gone, leaving Tariq to stand baffled in her dust, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Seriously, what the hell...had...

Oh, nevermind.