As was with any day, Fumbi was in love. Today his object of admiration and happiness was a tree, a very nice tree. It stood in the savannah with its branches spread out wide and provided him with shade, and he lay down on his back under it and was very happy. The leaves were so green! And the bark had such pretty patterns, and it seemed to fit him at its base just so perfectly.
Some might wonder how exactly a creature like Fumbi managed to survive. He was very trusting, happy, and carefree. He didn’t even hunt, but rather survived on random things he found around to eat. His favorite was fruit, but that was normal enough for his species. He wasn’t even young, either. Fumbi had been born years and years ago, yet somehow still appeared strangely youthful. Perhaps it was his attitude that was most to blame.
“Today is a good day.” He said to no one in particular, and wagged his tail. Every day was a good day, if you were Fumbi. Even if it was a bad day. He rather liked staying in this region, because the creatures he met here weren’t often very aggressive. Being the way he was, and being a maned wolf and not a lion, he didn’t really care much about the territorial borders of the cats, and many of them often just accepted that they weren’t the only things that populated their territory.
Some, however, didn’t! Fumbi loved them anyways, of course, just like he loved anyone else. But he was wise enough to understand he shouldn’t hang around them. Here in the Pridelands, however, it was different. Lions weren’t usually aggressive. It was very good.
“You’re very weird.”
A voice piped up from somewhere, and from his position on the floor, Fumbi turned his head backwards, and saw two pairs of red paws, upside down. “You are too!” The wolf said cheerfully, because everyone was a little weird.
“I am?”
The voice spoke again, this time sounding a little confused. The dusty-pelted maned wolf rolled over so he could see and talk properly, finding a little red cub standing before him. “Everyone is weird!”
The cub frowned slightly, and tilted her head. That seemed like such a strange, silly answer. She supposed she wouldn’t argue with him. “I meant I never saw anything like you before.” Tala explained, sitting down. Though this creature before her was quite a bit larger, and evidently had sharp teeth, she found herself unafraid. There seemed to be no reason to fear him. She did wonder, however, if she was being a little impolite, and decided that if she was, it was because she had never dealt with such an animal before.
“You haven’t?” The dog-like animal tilted its head, looking a little confused and sad. Tala wondered if she had really upset him, and began to feel bad, but he seemed to cheer up quickly enough. “That’s okay!” She waited for him to go on, but the creature stopped talking, and, as such, didn’t’ give her any satisfying explanation.
So after a pause, se asked “So what are you?”
“Oh! I’m a maned wolf. What are you?”
It seemed strange that he didn’t know what she was, but Tala figured she didn’t have the right to point that out. “…I’m a lion. Are there a lot of maned wolves?”
“Oh, I knew that.” She frowned, then why did he ask? What a weird creature! “I dunno. Not as many as lions, I think. At least not around here.” Well, that made sense. There were a whole lot of lions in the Pridelands, and it might be hard if anything besides prey and insects… and birds outnumbered them. In the end, probably a lot of things outnumbered them, actually!
Even though he was pretty weird, Tala still found it in herself to kind of like this strange creature. Or she thought she could, because he seemed pretty nice! “So what’s your name? I’m Tala!” Because her mommy and daddy had said it was polite to introduce yourself. But then again, they had also said not to talk to strangers. That was a little conflicting! She hoped this animal wasn’t dangerous or anything.
He didn’t look like he was, though.
“My name is Fumbi! It is nice to meet you, Tala!” Okay, someone who was that happy and friendly just couldn’t be bad. Tala smiled at Fumbi, perking her ears curiously.
“So what were you doing, just resting?”
Oh right, Fumbi had already completely forgotten of his lying around and admiring the tree! He rolled back onto his back and looked up at it almost apologetically, but decided there was no harm. This little lion cub deserved his attention too! “I was admiring the tree! Do you want to admire it with me?” He asked, glancing at the cub hopefully. It would be nice to have some company in admiring the tree, and he was sure the tree would appreciate more admiration.
Tala didn’t seem to understand the admiration of the tree very much, and tilted her head, frowning slightly. Hm, maybe she wouldn’t want to admire the tree with him. That was a little sad, but he would be okay.
To his surprised, though, the cub took the few steps necessary to get beside him, then promptly got comfortable on her back, and joined him in looking up at the tree. He almost yipped in excitement, but feared it might bother both the cub and the tree, so he just smiled. Seemingly bothered by the silence, though, Tala spoke up again. “So what do we do? Do we just lay here and…” She trailed off, apparently not knowing what to say.
Fumbi shrugged, though it as a silly thing to do when lying on one’s back. “I look at it, and think about how pretty it is. See how the leaves are so green? And the thorns, and the ants walking on the branches? And do you see how the sky is so pretty and blue where there aren’t leaves? ” The cub besides him stared upwards, and made a small sound, indicating that yes, she saw. “And the bark is pretty, and It smells very good. I just lay here and think about that. It’s very beautiful.”
Tala stared up at the tree. This seemed like a very silly thing to do, why would someone lay around and just look at a tree when you could be doing so many neat things? You could be climbing the tree, or running around the tree, or scratching it and carving little doodles into the bark. But somehow, what Fumbi said to her was very… it was nice, and relaxing.
“Beautiful.” She repeated.
