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She seemed shocked by the sudden intrusion. Her tongue reached up to lick the place where he'd touched her, her eyes wide with surprise. For a moment, Kovu thought he'd gone too far. Then she smiled. "Thank you Kovu." she said. Then she looked away, her eyes taking in the bloody carcass of the mostly devoured ostrich, the tall wavering grass and the green of the trees surrounding them. "You're different than any lion I've met, Kovu."

He grinned back at her. "I could say the same about you."

She brought her face back around and hesitated, unsure. Then, on an adventurous streak, she nipped out with her snout and licked Kovu across the face.

He laughed and wiped his eye with a paw. "What was that for?" he asked jokingly.

She turned her eyes down slyly. "I think I like you."

They both looked into each other's eyes for several long moments. But it was clear that each was too full of meat to keep sleep at bay any longer. Kovu broke the contact with a massive yawn.

"Kovu..." said Mipa shyly.

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if I just... roll over next you you a bit?" asked the heavy female.

Kovu snorted, his tail wavering in mild excitement. "Of course not, Mipa." She giggled and chuffed as she began to shift her weight

However, when the wide female began to roll over towards him, Kovu thought at the last instant that he might have gotten more than he bargained for.

Mipa's belly bulged roundly, sagging below her rib cage. It was an impressive sight to see on a grown lioness; though to be fair, Kovu was bulging roundly now as well, though his stomach was almost a sphere while Mipa's was much more massive and saggy. She got her paws against the ground and shoved, having to fight against her own fatty torso. She was even more clumsy that usual, her belly literally brimming with a heavy burden of meat. She grunted as she moved over her stomach, bringing her back to belly with Kovu. Over that hurdle, she almost threw herself down on her side, bringing her back to Kovu... Too close!

Kovu clenched his teeth as her flabby flank and thick bat fat buried his paws. He didn't dare make a sound. "Kovu, you OK, back there? Am I too close?"

He took a deep breath and extricated his legs one by one, pulling against the heavy bulk of Mipa's body. She was much wider than him, especially at the waist, her flank rising over the ground higher than his own lean profile even though he was still longer and thicker of chest than she. "I'm fine..." he managed and let out a quiet breath as he pulled his last leg free. "You're alright, Mipa."

"That's good... Thanks again, Kovu..." she said sleepily, her breath already starting to even out.

Kovu smiled wryly and snuggled up against Mipa, her back against his belly. She was soft all over, softer than the woven grass mat under them; her bed, he remembered. He rested his forepaws against her shoulders and his thighs against the thick shelf of fat at her tail head. With his toes, he could feel the cute little roll that spilled over her tail, right at the base. She wrapped her tail around his foot silently, letting him know that she knew what he was doing. Kovu would have laughed, but he was too tired. His last thought was that he still couldn't believe that he was sleeping with such a bizarre lioness, but also, that he was glad for the company.

It was daylight when Kovu came partially awake. His belly still filled to bursting with ostrich meat, he only cracked open his eyes, sleep pulling at him strongly. He had planning on sleeping the entire rest of the night away as well as the following day. He wondered what could have woken him from his food-induced coma. He blinked in the fierce sunlight and flexed his paws. They stretched out across the grass. That was his first clue. Where is Mipa? he wondered, his mind in a haze.

Then came the sound of the soft tearing of flesh and Kovu looked out across the glade. There he saw the chocolate brown furred female. She had discarded her cloak and stood in her unobscured natural beauty, although this was washed out slightly by the oppressive glare of the sun. Kovu squinted. She had her head down to the still bloody remains of the ostrich. Her big belly quaked and emitted small churning groans of complaint that took sharp ears to hear. The male lion looked at her perplexed. The meal that he had gotten out of the ostrich would keep him sated for the next two or three nights without hunger. He figured that this sort of gorging made sense if you were worried about hyenas or buzzards or other lions stealing your prey, but they were alone out here. There honestly wasn't any need.

Then, as Kovu's eye sight became more adjusted, his pupil squeezing tight to filter the sunlight, he saw the look of abject pleasure on her face. Her eyes shut as her chin and throat dripped with blood. "Mmmm..." she moaned under her breath and went down to tear the remaining meat away from the nooks and crannies of the bony ostrich. Kovu thought that this was different from last night. Whereas they had been sharing a meal together to continue living as predators did, now Mipa just seemed to be eating for the sake of eating. "Or was it any different last night?" thought Kovu. "She made the same noises and she ate a lot more than me..."

Kovu thought that the cause of her weight problem was pretty obvious. It even had to be obvious to her. He wondered why she'd lied to him. He didn't feel hurt so much as confused. though he could understand if she was embarrassed.

Showing an impressive display of intestinal fortitude, Mipa polish off the remaining meat on the carcass, leaving nothing but clean bone and gristle exposed to the air. She belched loudly before waddling back over towards Kovu. He hadn't moved during the entire time. He could pretend he'd been sleeping this whole time and not make a big deal out of it.

But then, how was Mipa going to change her habits if no one confronted her? Kovu was undecided. Who was he to tell her how to live her life after all? She seemed to get by well enough even with all the extra weight. It was she who was responsible for dinner afterall...

His indecision decided for him as Mipa came over, waddling heavily with the heavy load in her abdomen. Her belly was bloated so much that it rounded out much of its normally sagging surface, taking up the give in her hide. Her flanks stuck out at her sides so that she almost could pass for pregnant and her gut hung down lower than her chest, in fact, almost to her knees. She sighed and let herself down as gently as possible her back to the "sleeping" male lion. She shuffled her blubber on the ground backward until her back was against Kovu's belly again. Then she let out another sigh of absolute contentment. In the time it took Kovu to register that she knew nothing of his farce, she was fast asleep

Kovu frowned, slowly stroking Mipa's soft shoulders as she slept. Her warm back felt good against his tummy, currently rounded like a ball as well. Her dark brown coat, darker than his own, rasped softly under his rough paw pads. "Is it so wrong to carry a little extra weight?" he wondered as he stroked her. "That's not a little extra weight." he corrected himself, "It's not a little anything!"

Kovu grimaced with conflicting feelings. Mipa was certainly a different sort of lioness, brilliant, independent, but also crippled socially and distrusting of others. She seemed to have a lot of baggage she wouldn't mention either. A day ago, he hadn't even considered the possibility of staying here more than a few days, two weeks at the most. But, as his paw moved across her back, pushing deeply into the fat and feeling nothing below the thick padding, he knew that he liked her as a friend... and perhaps as more than a friends. "But she's so fat!" Kovu scolded himself. And he recognized the fact. Mipa was very fat and she still seemed to be gaining weight, if this current binge was any indicator of her regular diet. But her fattness did not imediately repel him... it just looked different, and also interesting.

Did he find her attractive? It was a possibility, as Kovu tried to organize his warring emotions.

But of course he did, he'd really known it the first time that he'd laid eyes on her corpulent frame. Kovu pushed his forepaws into Mipa's thick back. His claws extended just enough to make her shiver in her sleep. She sighed softly and stretched, pushing harder into his paws. Kovu sighed as well, this time with pent-up desire. He did find Mipa attractive as a female, fat thick body and all! The extra bulk swaddling her body was soft and supple, a marvel to caress and to touch. And Kovu found himself wanting to touch her, to press his body against hers as he was doing now. Mipa was the first fat lion that he'd ever seen and she seemed to possess an exotic form of beauty that he hadn't even realized was possible.

Granted, females were expected to be a little soft. They needed some extra weight on their bodies to raise healthy cubs. Mipa, however was well beyond that level, passing from overweight into the clearly obese category. Still, as Kovu traced his paws down her back and over her bulging flank, he saw artistry in her exaggerated curves and in the folds of flesh at her neck and the base of her tail. She smelled exquisite, her coat rich with natural oils secreted by her skin.

There was something about her that wormed its way into his head and refused to let go of his thoughts. Mipa was different from any other lioness he'd met and it was those very differences - the difference in her shape and in her personality - that attracted him. He let his paws rest and rested against her back, sleep again pulling him back into its lightless depths. He found himself trying to imagine Mipa with even more weight on her... how she would look in a few months if she kept up her display of gluttony. He dreamed of her by his side, flanks bowed out and belly hanging low, a special mate, a unique lioness in all of Africa. He was eager.

After her last binge, Mipa slept for 25 hours straight. She got up twice to relieve herself off in the trees, but the rest of that time, she slept heavily in the shade of her bed, favoring her back or her flank for sleeping. She snored quite loudly.

Kovu himself was hardly less guilty. He slept for 14 more hours after waking to see the lioness polish off the last of the ostrich, Mipa snoring in his arms most of that time. It was the middle of the night, a half moon illuminating the glade when restlessness forced Kovu to get up from the relaxing warmth of the fat cat lying next to him. He stretched fluidly and made off into the trees for some pressing personal business. He returned to find Mipa sleeping like a rock. He sniffed her and decided that she would get up when she was ready. It would turn out to be a long wait.

Kovu whiled away some time chewing absently on and licking clean ostrich bones. Mipa had been in too much of a hurry to clean them well. It took hours to really clean a carcass well, as Kovu knew from first hand experience during lean times. bits of meat clung to the bone and had to be scraped off with the rough part of his tongue. Gristle and chewy tendons held the skeleton together even when the meat was all torn away. And inside the bones was the prize of succulent marrow, good for storing during the lean times. Kovu was half hoping that Mipa would awak after a couple hours, but the night deepened and she showed no signs of restlessness. In fact she seemed intent to sleep away another whole day. Probably a wise move, considering that she'd consumed, in two meals, almost 100 lbs of raw meat.

Sometime past midnight, Kovu tired of worrying the pathetic skeleton and stood. With a last glance at a lioness whose round, bloated form he found unique and attractive in its exoticness, he turned and strode off down the mountain for a walk.

He had to be cautious, he knew. The last thing he wanted was to be caught in another of Mipa's traps. He kept off the game trails and smelled for bait of fruit and aromatic nuts she used to attract monkeys and birds. Away through the mountain opposite the lake, the land quickly dried up and died. There was some long grass growing between the rocks and boulders, but the hills rose much higher than the prominence where Mipa made her abode. They were dusty and dry, but Kovu hiked up their sides, content at least that Mipa would not have booby-trapped this far out of the forest. Showing the same stamina that had gotten him across the desert relatively intact, he made his way to the top of a tall cliff fairly easily, though he doubted that Mipa could have followed him. This high up, he saw the other side of the oasis for the first time, and his heart sank.

Over the mountains, in the direction in which he had been heading, more dry desert stretched for as far as he could see by moon and starlight. He could not judge the distance well for the terrain remained rocky, unlike the flat plain which he had traversed from the wastelands just outside the Pridelands. He wondered if that was the waste that Mipa had had to cross in order to find this place. He also wondered about "Jobie."

Jumping from boulder to boulder nimbly, Kovu made his way back down into the moister depths of the oasis. It seemed an island of life amidst a vast ocean of dry death in every direction. Mipa had managed to make a life here and Kovu was now content to spend time here if only for Mipa's sake, but he could not imagine himself circling this same few dozen acres of land, like a fish in a bowl, for the rest of his life. Eventually, they would have to leave. Mipa would surely understand... in time.... he hoped.

Kovu wandered down into the true jungle, the marsh and the edge of the lake, sometimes walking and sometimes swimming. By his stance and the way he walked, he advertised to the other animals that he was not hunting. By common law, he was allowed free passage and the other animals did not so readily retreat from him; though most remained guardedly cautious, as well they should, being in the presence of a King.

Three old alligators - two female and one male - and a mated pair of hippos made their abode in the lake. The hippos were fast asleep and the gators floated languidly in the dark, even more turgid than usual because of the waning heat. Still he managed to snag one's attention with his splashing.

Laughing, Kovu jumped back from a half-hearted charge. He looked to the large reptile who sat in a few inches of water waving its tail back and forth. "Better luck next time, scaly-water-brother." said Kovu in terms of ancient respect for each other's skills.

The gator hissed its reply as it slid a little more out into the water. "Come for another drink and we'll sssee whose fastest!"

Kovu grinned, "Maybe another time..." The alligator blinked in appreciation. "Say, I'm new here. Can you tell me anything about the lioness who lives here?"

The alligator clucked a guttural hiss, "I th-think you already know much about her, new-comer land-brother. You have her ssscent all over you."

Kovu cocked his head, "I'd just like an outside opinion. What do the gators have to say about her?"

The big gator clapped her fanged snout in the water, splashing Kovu's feet. "She is a disrespectful heathen! She has no ressspect for the way things are sssupposed to work! She sssets traps for anything that moves, nothing is too big or too small to fill her greedy gullet. She even tried to trap me! I made her think twice. I nearly got her foot last time she came down here, playing with her rocks and vines... Crass youth..."

"I'm sorry to hear that she'd do that..." said Kovu, feigning sympathy.

The big old alligator swarmed forward then, resting its jaw on the moist ground. "Don't you associate with her, young King. She is cursssed, an outcast. She darkens everything she touches."

Kovu frowned in anger, but he kept his voice calm for now. "Why do you say that?

The big gator hissed emphatically, "This oasisss, this place of life. It should be a peaceful quite place. But the animals here live in fear. The lioness's shadow lurksss in every corner and the animals here live in fear of twigs and vines Because of her, death can spring up out of the ground, rather than rightfully by another's teeth. It isssn't natural, I say. You'd do well to distance yourself from her."

Kovu let his teeth show with a small frown. "I can handle myself and my own business, thank you very much."

"As you wisssh, Lion Cub." said the alligator as it slithered back into the lake. Kovu batted its thick tail with his paw as a parting gift.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful as Kovu traced the borders of the oasis. He didn't care to traverse the jungle's interior without Mipa's guidance, but he was able to create a map of landmarks visible in the distance from the edges of the small pocket of life in the desert. The best time to leave will be in the wet season, a few months from now... thought Kovu. I have until then to figure out which is the best way to go.

He made his way back to the glade. He found Mipa lying heavily on her side in her bed, only a few feet from where he'd last seen her. The morning was advancing and so was the day's heat. With a small sigh he settled down near her in the shade of the trees overhead. He wondered if she'd wake by this evening and what she would want to do. He closed his eyes and nodded off into a light doze.