“I’m sorry.” Zyanya said sheepishly as she approached. She had disappointed Usiku that morning, and hoped to at least end the evening on a brighter note. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She said, honestly. She glanced at the leopard, and he was looking at her, but he didn’t talk. So she felt forced to go on. “Really, I didn’t. That’s the last thing I wanted. I was afraid…”
“I would leave, you told me.” The leopard nodded, and even though it wasn’t exactly a reassuring response, she was glad he was at least talking to her. “I understand. We don’t need to go over this. You’re forgiven, if that’s what you need to hear.” Zyanya wasn’t sure what she felt more now: shock or happiness. And she also wondered if happiness was even appropriate, because it’s not like Usiku sounded very warm and happy right now.
She inched a bit closer and sat near him, but attempted to stay at a respectful distance. “You still sound upset.” She ventured, ears low.
Usiku nodded. “I am upset. But I’ll get over it.” He was a weird guy, this Usiku. But she supposed she could accept that. She let silence fall for a while, slowly lifting and raising the tip of her tail as she thought.
“Why?” Asked Zyanya, breaking the silence.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you forgiving me?”
There was a silence, and Usiku wasn’t really looking directly at her. Instead, he was looking thoughtfully up at the sky. There was barely a moon tonight, but many stars had already shown up. “You’ll know eventually, but not right now.” Zyanya nodded, she supposed she could accept that. She settled down onto her belly, still close to him, but not too close. He didn’t complain.
It was Usiku’s turn to start up conversation. “I think we’ll reach the highlands soon.” Zyanya tilted her head and frowned. She hadn’t known they were heading anywhere specific, though they had been traveling since she’d been healed enough to walk for longer. He seemed to read that. “I just heard about them. Wanted to see.” he shrugged nonchalantly.
“Isn’t there a pride up there?” Usiku looked at her now, and she frowned. “I heard about it, I think. Seems weird. Why would anyone live there? It sounds like there wouldn’t be real prey or anything.”
The dark leopard nodded slightly at that assessment. “Curious.” Usiku hadn’t heard of a pride up in the highlands, it did, indeed, seem rather inhospitable, a hard place to live in. But it also made him more curious to go there.
“How long do you think it will take?”
Usiku shrugged and looked at the cheetah. “Perhaps another couple weeks, at our pace.” He offered her a smile, because it didn’t escape him that two weeks seemed much longer than “soon”. Zyanya seemed surprised he was smiling at her, but offered a shy laugh in return. Good, he hoped they could restore normalcy soon enough.
“We’d probably do better if we stayed up at the same time.” She sounded almost sheepish. Perhaps even apologetic. He wondered if she’d sound apologetic for a while now. He nodded in agreement to her comment. One of their biggest hindrances was that, as a cheetah, Zyanya stayed up during the day, and Usiku, a leopard, preferred to walk at night.
“We could do that, you know.” He blinked and looked at her again. She didn’t seem to neat him to say his question with words. “I could start staying up during the night.” It wasn’t really a strange suggestion, but it still surprised him that she made it. Maybe Zyanya was feeling self-sacrificing because she still felt he was upset with her. Truth be told, he felt he couldn’t really be upset with her.
“If you’d like to do that, I’m alright with it.” He nodded, because he didn’t really like moving during the day. He was fine with the early morning or late afternoon, but the sun was always horribly hot for him, what with his dark pelt. Zyanya never faced that problem with her warm colors. “When do you intend to start said switch?”
Zyanya didn’t seem to need much thinking. “Today is as good as any, right? I mean, all I got to do is stay up all night with you. And then we sleep during the day, and I’ll just have to get used to that!” He smiled, he liked this cheerful Zyanya more than the one he had saved from wildebeest. Though the weak, small Zyanya still held a special place in his heart.
“I guess I’ll have to keep you busy, then. Are you hungry?”
The cheetah awkwardly looked down. “No.” Ah, right. Because she was healed enough to hunt now, she had eaten earlier. He only shrugged at that memory, no big deal anymore. Over it.
“So we could already start moving north.” Usiku yawned and stood up, stretching. He’d just spent hours lying at the base of this tree, so he was quite happy to be on his feet again. He looked down at Zyanya, who hadn’t seemed to get the idea that she should do the same. At the look, the cheetah bounced up onto her feet and grinned at him. “You’re not going to complain about being tired, right?” He asked, raising a brow. The cheetah shook her head profusely, looking rather childish.
“You will hear no complaints from me! I promise!” He somehow doubted it, but Usiku still nodded. After all, he was getting the good end of the stick; he didn’t have to change any of his habits! In fact, this meant they could do more walking at a time, and he rather liked that. Less time wasted waiting for them to be awake at the same time.
Without another word, Usiku turned and started to head north, following a star he had been keeping tabs on for the past few weeks, to make sure he didn’t get turned around. It wasn’t long into their walk that Zyanya decided to break the silence.
“Hey, Usiku?”
He didn’t speak, but made a sound to indicate he was listening.
“I’m tired.”
Usiku snorted, and he could hear the mirth in her voice. “Zyanya?”
“What?”
“Get over it.”
