I'm Going on an Adventure!

[Tzarina]

May 10th

Negative told her to “chase the sun”. He always liked to be cryptic, like most of the elders liked to. Tzarina herself wasn’t much for riddles, not having a creative bone in her body, but took the great snake’s words to mean he wanted her to move in the direction of the sunset. Her mate, as he tended to do, agreed with her.

The lioness and hare had been travelling for upwards of a month now. They crossed the great jungle, the mountains and finally came upon a vast expanse of sand. Crossing a desert would be treacherous, especially for animals who, no matter their status as legends of the great jungle, were just as mortal as any other animal. Tzarina decided to wait at the edges of the desert until they had a plan. Negative told her about a “great civilization of two-legs”, and that they were supposedly one of the main warring tribes in this Great Conflict she heard so much about.

Tzarina hated humans. Sparks, although he kept a lid on his negativity better than Tzarina, disliked them as well. Though they were not so proud that when a trading caravan crested the great mountains of the east that they would let them pass by. Humans or not, they knew how to cross the desert better than Sparks or Tzarina, and carried with them the resources to do so. As far as Tzarina saw it, temporarily traveling with the humans was a necessary evil. To Tzarina’s surprise, while the caravan was taken aback by the appearance of the black lioness and massive hare, they were not as horrified as she expected at the prospect of talking beasts. Odd indeed.

After weeks of travel, the caravan came to stop at an oasis to let their camels drink. Taking this pause as an opportunity to get away from the humans for a bit, Tzarina took off running. Pitch black fur stood out starkly against the baking yellow sand in the desert sun. She went running from the oasis to the nearest crest. By then, she was itching to come upon green land so at last she and Sparks could resume their journey... alone. She scaled the hill and, more eager to announce her existence than to look at what was on the other side, parted her jaws and roared at the clear blue sky.

[Zira]

Zira often felt the need to escape the confines of Agrabah, to wander the nearby desert until she came to the seclusion of the small oasis. She found herself stifled by the walls and confines of the city and its human inhabitants. Despite them being her allies, Zira found that she didn't entirely like or trust the strange hairless apes and prefered to avoid them to instead mingle with the other animals, particularly her own pride. Also, she found herself missing the wide grasslands of her home, would that she could return there soon.

The sound of a distant roar made the lioness stop, ears pricked. That was not the roar of a lion. If it had been a lion, she would have assumed it was a member of her pride and not thought any more of it, however this was different. Intrigued, the tan lioness bounded up the last few dunes to see the oasis surrounded by camels and their humans but also, and most intriguingly of all, a black furred cat that resembled a leopard.

Zira opened her mouth and let out a roar in reply to the other cat's, startling some of the nearby camels.

[Tzarina]

Tzarina’s ever-present frown deepened, seeing the towering man-made structures in the distance. This must be that two-leg civilization her elder mentioned. But was this her destination? She hoped not. Was she to keep going?

Her ears fanned and she repositioned her head suddenly. She wasn’t expecting a response. Instead of looking surprised, her toxic eyes narrowed, immediately suspicious. A tiger’s roar was different. This must have been another lion. But it was distinct even then. Tzarina, living deep within the isolated jungle, was unaware of her African cousins. When she spotted the tawny-furred other, she began to trudge closer.

Something brushed her side. Sparks had appeared from the top of the dune, his long feet throwing up sand in his wake and he approached with an unusual gait due to his missing front paw. He came to Tzarina and captured her attention, giving her a quick look. The hare had assumed Tzarina, true to form, would try to start shit. Sparks went into a walk alongside Tzarina as they went to meet the lioness somewhere in the middle of the distance between them.

Sparks felt he was too inept to start a conversation. Tzarina believed Sparks wanted her to hold her tongue, lest she come off the wrong way. There was a palpable awkward silence between these two obviously closely acquainted animals.