"My paws hurt," Ijuba complained, for the umpteenth time that day. The burgeoning Te'a-Nakhun had finally decided to make camp for the night - a full two hours past sunset! - and it was about damn time. The feather-marked lion flopped down in the grass and groaned as he rolled over on his back, elevating his sore paws and closing his eyes. Leaving with his friend Ataullah to march off into unclaimed lands and follow her half-aunt to some mysterious new home where, once they'd arrived, he could then spent his life doing a big, fat, glorious nothing with himself had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he was no beginning to wonder if his hopes had been too good to be true. Never before in his life had he walked for more than an hour or maybe two at a time, and now he was walking from sunrise until well past sunset, and had been for days. It was absolutely horrible. The Te'a-Nakhun had seemed like a dream come true when Taullah had pitched the idea to him, but the travel had turned into his worst nightmare. He groaned again.
"You're such a big baby," came Ataullah's voice, in a tone of amusement that made it obvious that she was smiling. She thought this was funny!
"I hate you, you know," he responded, rolling over onto his side but keeping his eyes firmly shut. "How are you not as miserable as I am? You don't even sound tired."
His friend huffed out a breath of laughter. "No, I'm not miserable, but I am tired, but that doesn't matter because I'm excited. Just think of it, Ijuba! All those stories we always loved, and now we get to be part of them! Not just that, but we'll be making our own! I may be tired, but I'm so excited I can't sleep. I just keep thinking about it all. Sataa's told me what it's like where we're going, but I know what I'm imagining can't possibly be as good as what it will actually be like. It's going to be beautiful!"
"Well, at least one of us doesn't need a full night of sleep," he grumbled. He truly wasn't angry with his friend - he couldn't be and she knew it - but he was definitely at the end of his patience for all this travelling and physical exertion. While Taullah occuppied herself with visions of what their new life would be like, he was having trouble thinking past how sore his pawpads were, how exhausted he was, how much he just wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep some more. He felt like he could sleep for a week and it still wouldn't be enough. Maybe two. Supposedly, as a male, he wouldn't be required to do anything in their new home, so he could feasibly sleep for however long he wanted to...
"So, at the risk of sounding like a whiny cub," he continued, "How much longer until we get there?"
A puff of displaced air and the rustling of grass beside him signalled that Ataullah had flopped down beside him, and her pink-tufted tail flicked its way close to him and then away again. "Oh, not long! Another few days or so, probably, and we should be there. And then you can rest, and soon enough you'll forget all about all this walking!"
"Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen," he snorted. "But alright, sure. In the spirit of wishing I could forget about how much my paws hurt, how about you tell me more about where we're going?"
Another breathy laugh. "I already told you, or are you so tired that you've forgotten?"
"No," Ijuba refuted, "But you're too excited to sleep, which means you want to talk to me, which means I'm not going to get any sleep because conversation requires me to be awake, but if I can get you to talk about soemthing that I don't have to respond to, maybe I can actually fall asleep. Consider it a bedtime story, if you will. Or else I won't get nearly enough sleep, I won't be able to wake up in the morning, and you'll have to leave me behind, and I'll be lost out here forever and it will be all your fault for stealing me away from home-"
A paw cuffed him gently on the side of the head, and he cracked one eye open to mock glare at her and wrinkle his nose. "Ugh, hey! Was that really necessary?"
Taullah stuck her tongue out at him. "Big baby."
"Yeah, yeah." Ijuba closed his eyes again and curled in on himself, into a comfortably tight ball. "Well, this big baby needs his sleep, so unless you're going to tell me a story to help me out with that, you should find someone else to talk to. Speaking of which, aren't you worried about how it looks that you're hanging around with me?"
"What, because you're male? No, of course not." Ataullah regarded him with gold eyes, wondering if he was asking seriously or if he was just poking because he was tired and that was how he was. "There's nothing that says we can't be friends. I wouldn't have asked you to come, otherwise. I probably wouldn't have come, if it was like that. You don't...you're not having second thoughts, are you?"
He could hear the sudden concern in her voice. He'd upset her. Great. He sighed and opened his eyes again. "No, I'm not. Not really. You're my friend, and I trust you. I'm just tired, that's all. You know all this walking and stuff isn't my thing, never has been. I'm sure it'll be alright once we're there and I get some real sleep, and the skin on my paws comes back."
"Sorry about that. So...we're okay then? You don't really hate me?"
The teal and white lion sighed and laid his head back down. "Yeah, Taullah, of course we're okay. We're always okay. Now get some sleep, alright? You need it as much as I do."
