paixaorpg | Backlog: Simba's intro [Active]

For someone who had refused to ‘get up even if the apartment was on fire’, Timon had no trouble pulling himself out of bed and out the door upon word that Simba had returned to the city. This was just the sort of news he needed, something to lift him out of the slew of mishaps and misfortune he had found himself bombarded with as of that time. True, Muspelheim would take the meerkat time to reach, even with the extra bounce in his step, but even then, of all the gates it was undoubtedly the closest to his home. One of those royal dead guys must have really been smiling down on him.

Timon moved as quickly as his little feet would carry him through the crowds, eager to see his friend once again. What would he remember this time?

Waiting with Pumbaa at his side, still pretty confused, Simba was running through his head all of the information that had been presented to him. A new, strange place with strange animals and strange devices. It was pretty overwhelming in a lot of ways, and it made things a little harder to grasp. Really, all he wanted at that point was to find everyone he knew and get comfortable.

He saw Timon in the distance, and stood up, calling to his meerkat friend. "Timon! C'mon, Pumbaa, I see him. Let's go get 'm."

Pumbaa followed his buddy happily, still beaming just from having Simba around again. He'd really missed him a lot.

"Hey Timon!" the warthog bellowed with a big grin.

By the time Timon had joined the two he had been completely out of breath. However, that did not stop him from having the first word – er, sort of. The first 'say', perhaps? He held up his paw, instructing his friends to wait before speaking. The meerkat had a lot to say but would need to catch his breath first. Or, perhaps, there was a simpler way to express himself; the joy, the sadness, the excitement and longing. Simba may have thought he had arrived to the city for the first time, but Timon had watched the lion come and go before. This had been far from his first appearance.

The meerkat blindly reached for Simba’s mane and did his best to embrace his friend. No sooner than he had done so did he begin to disappear into the sea of red fur. He cared little for how strange it looked or confused Simba may have been by the act. Timon needed this to prove in fact his friend was truly there.

Timon had thought he had lost him... again.

Edited 2012-03-08 05:44 (UTC)

Simba was surprised by that, but seeing Timon reaching for him, it didn't take anything to hug him back, careful to be gentle. He rubbed his cheek a little against Timon, letting out a little laugh.

"I'm here, buddy."

After a moment, Timon pulled away from his friend and cleared his throat. “Alright, alright,” he began, waving his arms in the air. “That’s enough of that. You’re gettin’ me all emotional here, kid.” Timon didn’t do the whole ‘mushy feelings things’. Besides, this was not the time to dwell on the past. With Simba’s return they had plenty to celebrate. His friend was safe and once again Timon would find his Hakuna Matata to be complete.

With a smile, the little meerkat looked between his two friends and rubbed his paws together. “So, who’s up for lunch? We got a lot explainin’ to do that just won’t happen on an empty stomach. And who knows, maybe the folks here can actually cater to that appetite of yours, huh?” Timon elbowed the lion teasingly, referring to his large appetite in comparison to the two. However, it was true in more than one aspect. Should Simba have dared to, he certainly could order meat. The question was whether or not he could eat it with the meerkat glaring at him from across a table.

"Ooh, yeah! They have lots of yummy food here Simba, you'll love it!" the warthog chimed in after Timon's hug with the lion. Pumbaa hadn't interrupted because he thought it would be rude, after he'd gotten time with Simba all to himself already. But now that Timon was done with the hugging, it would be the three of them again, just like old times! And maybe with so many people around, they could find more people in other places too, who could join their Hakuna Matata!

"Sounds great to me! I'm so hungry I could eat a whole zebra," Simba jests, smirking. When he was spending time with Timon and Pumbaa, he always snacked on grubs, like old times. Now would be no exception.

Timon had heard the expression but that did not prevent him from cringing. Zebra, they were definitely fresh out of zebra. “This place ain’t like that.” He explained, unsure whether or not Pumbaa had told him the full extent of their new inheritance. “You don’t catch your lunch, they catch it for you. You just tell them what you want and bing-bango, it’s yours!”

The meerkat ran up Pumbaa’s back and perched himself atop the warthogs head. There he could continue his conversation at eye level with Simba. “It’s pretty convenient if you ask me. I don't know what you'll think of the seats but if Pumbaa can fit 'em, you can too.”

The warthog smiled up at Simba, then beamed even wider when Timon climbed on his head. But then the meerkat lost him.

"But Timon, Simba's a lot bigger than me. I think he'll fit anyway, but shouldn't use be comparing him to something closer to his size?"

Then it dawned on him.

"Wait, you were calling me fat, weren't you?!" There wasn't much he could do to Timon while the meerkat was on his head, but that didn't mean he couldn't yell at him.

"Whoa, hey, you two, you been fighting without me here?" Simba snorted a bit, giving his friends a playful elbowing. "And what kinda seats do you mean?"

Timon rolled his eyes. After all these years, how had it never dawned on Pumbaa that such a thing was considered a compliment among pigs? “Pumbaa, it’s natural for you.” He calmly explained. “You were born big boned. Of course you’re fat. I’d be concerned if you weren’t.” Any warthog without meat to them would suggest they were sick or possibly worse.

He sighed and turned back to Simba. “Just you wait, Simba. You’ll see what I mean.” Watching the lion struggle to balance himself on one of the chairs (should they find themselves without a booth) would surely prove a fine source of entertainment.

"...Oh." Pumbaa got what Timon meant after a few seconds, and smiled. "Okay then!" Didn't take much convincing to get the warthog to take it the way the meerkat wanted him to.

"Where should we take him, Timon?" Pumbaa asked now that he wasn't tempted to throw the meerkat off his head and make him ride in Simba's mane instead.

"Well, lead the way, then," Simba said with a casual shrug. "Hey, can you guys tell me a little more about this place? I kinda got the whole communicator thing-er-ma-jig, but..."

Timon took the warthogs ears and used them as reins to indicate that Pumbaa should begin moving. “There’s gotta be a place to eat around here somewhere.” He told his friend. “If we start walking I’m sure we’ll find something.”

Paixao was hard to explain. There were many new things, different concepts and ideas to explain. Restaurants, Supermarkets, things that simply did not exist where they’d lived. “Gee, Simba. I don’t know where to start. These monkeys here have sure been busy though. Do you know about the different caves here?” Caves being buildings, of course.

Pumbaa snorted at the meerkat, but started trotting along nonetheless.

"There are lots of really good places to eat all over!" he said to Simba enthusiastically. "Oh, Timon! Do you think we should have Simba try some ice cream?"

It would be weird getting ice cream without any of the kids, but it had been a really long time since they'd gotten it at all.

"This place looks like one big, weird cave to me," Simba said, following right behind his friends. "What's ice cream?"

The meerkat stuck his tongue out at the idea of ice cream. He had endured more than his share of ‘brain freezes’ in his efforts to find the winning stick, if there even was one. Timon had begun to have his doubts. The entire thing just felt like one big money making scheme. He scratched his head. “I dunno, Pumbaa. Now that I think of it, neither of us really have anything to buy it with.” Unless, that was Pumbaa didn’t mind carrying a bunch of leaves in his mouth.

“Well, it kind of is.” Timon called back to Simba. “Think of it as a cave with a bunch of little caves in it. I mean, personally? I think it’s a little crowded – and that’s coming from a meerkat. But I don’t think Pumbaa minds. As for the ice cream, it’s…” The meerkat frowned, unsure what to compare the dessert to. “It’s kinda like… You need to try it for yourself.”

"But if we can't buy the ice cream, how are we gonna pay for any of the other food, Timon?" They usually had one of the kids with them, or Gwen or Vyers. Someone who wore clothes so they could stuff the leaves in their pockets. He had been wondering for a long time about why they all wore clothes, but he finally got the idea when he saw them stuffing the leaves in their pockets enough times. He still didn't get why they always got so embarrassed when they didn't have any clothes on and someone saw them, though. Timon never wore clothes at all and he didn't get embarrassed when other people looked at him. It left the warthog a little confused.

While those thoughts prevented him from paying attention to the rest of what Timon was saying, Pumbaa perked up when his buddy tried to explain the treat. "It's like the sweetest, juiciest bugs, only not as crunchy, and really cold. Oh, and if you don't eat it fast enough it melts and gets really messy. But it tastes really good too!" His enthusiasm, as always, was accompanied by his beaming smile.

"Hey, what's all this about 'buying' or 'paying'? What's that all about?" Needless to say, Simba was a bit flummoxed. But at Pumbaa's description of ice cream... he wasn't sure he wanted to eat it. Cold bugs were pretty gross as they were.

Timon had never thought of how they would pay for food. He had grown so accustom to only buying ice cream he had forgotten completely about the other venues need for payment. The meerkat scratched his head and considered the idea of stuffing Pumbaa’s mouth with leaves until they reached a restaurant. Otherwise, there was always the possibility of that company of a big scary lion would earn them a meal on the house. Timon looked down at Pumbaa, certain the warthog would disapprove of such an idea. That pig and his morals, oi. He shook his head and sighed.

“No, no, no. That’s not it at all.” He said, waving his paws in the air to elaborate. “Ice cream ain’t juicy, it’s creamy. You know, like the bugs you find under those red flower bushes. Not to mention sour, eugh.” Timon stuck his tongue out in disgust, the all too familiar taste having returned to him. “You couldn’t pay me to eat another one of those – by which I mean give me something in exchange. To ‘buy’ something you have to give someone something of equal value in return, which is what humans consider ‘payment’.”

"Oh, right," Pumbaa said when Timon corrected him. Then he made a face when Timon mentioned the sour bugs, and nodded when the meerkat explained the weird paying thing that humans did.

"But don't worry, Simba! Ice cream doesn't taste like those yucky bugs at all! It's really good!"

"Oh, so it's a trade set up sort of thing? I guess that makes sense," Simba nodded, mulling it over in his head. That would make sense of a lot of the interactions - to see all of these humans so close together, and clearly not of the same pride or pack or herd or whatever a group of humans was supposed to be. They didn't fight for territory or resources, they shared. Sort of.

"Well, where do we get this stuff they want for the trade?"

The meerkat slid down from his spot atop the warthogs head and lounged on his snout. Arms crossed behind his head, Timon propped one foot over his knee and sighed in content. “That’s the real laugh. These mooks use the leaves from trees to pay for stuff! They’ll accept anything so long as you can convince ‘em it’s worth something.”

Grinning ear to ear, he looked back at the lion the best he could from his position. “Just you stick with me, kid. I got your back.” Looking back up at the blue painted dome above them, Timon began to close his eyes before suddenly forced to open them again. “Oh! And, uh, yours too, Pumbaa. Just in case you were wondering.”

Pumbaa had been wondering, and it was really easy to see that if you looked at him, but as soon as Timon said that the warthog was smiling again. He started to trot toward where he thought the ice cream was, but then he stopped.

"Uh, hey Timon? I think I forgot where it is..."

"I think I can see why. This place is huge. I'd get lost no problem around here," Simba grins at Timon all the same. "Man, even if you guys have been here for a while, you never change. Can't tell you how relieved that makes me."

Timon laughed in response to Simba, slowly shifting his gaze away from the pair. “Yeah… That’s us.” He chuckled, uncertain of his words as he spoke them. They came out even but deep down the meerkat questioned whether the city had truly made a better impact on him or worse. He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled back at his friends. One thing for sure, it would do him no good to worry about it now. For the time being, he was better to avoid further thought of such thing all together.

The meerkat looked down at his friend and patted his snout. “Not to worry, Pumbaa. We meerkats are exceptional navigators and can find our way through anything. I’ll find us our ice cream.” He took the warthog by the ears and began to steer him in the ‘right’ direction. “It was ice cream you wanted, right?”

The fact Pumbaa could get lost going just about anywhere and to get pretty much anything wasn't one that even crossed the warthog's mind. He'd gotten lost plenty of times going to the same places they always went back in the jungle.

He let Timon start steering him,, as the meerkat's little pause went totally unnoticed. "Yup! We have to show Simba all the good stuff around here, and ice cream is definitely really good!"

Backlog: Simba's intro [Active]

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