"Ah...this is the life."
The previous statement belonged to a hefty white lion currently on his back, his beautiful, iridescent mane rippling in the nighttime breeze, well-toned arms crossed comfortably behind his head. His wide, muscular chest expanded then contracted as another sigh of content pleasure escaped his lips. The coolness of the wet emerald grass underneath him kissed and tickled his broad backside and rotund waist as the light of the campfire enveloped his being in its warm glow, especially his feet since they were the closest to the gentle inferno. Thousands upon millions of stars glittered and dotted the ebony heavens high above. Silence, save for the occasional cackling of wood burning and distant chirping of crickets, skipped into the cat's large ears, almost lulling him to sleep...
"Larry, honey?" a silky yet reasonably loud enough voice suddenly called out. And here Larry thought things couldn't have been more perfect...
A gorgeous lioness with the same fur color as the male crawled out from underneath a shadowy tent in the background and marveled at the miasma of sparks dancing in her sight. Her mouth went agape for a split moment before morphing into a wideset grin. She arose from her crouching position and lithely stretched her body like a, well, cat then waltzed over to the larger figure. A seductive smile appeared on her muzzle when her feet were right at the lion's forehead. She slowly crouched down and slid her legs beneath her husband's head then cradled the man's noggin in her laps and hands, her fingers relishing in the furry softness of the male's cheeks. The woman's smile grew even greater at the resultant and arousing sound of purring that soon emerged from her spouse's throat. Her paws slid down to his collarbones and gripped under his chin as she nuzzled Larry's forehead with her nose.
"Wow," she breathed in awe, looking back at the fire, "...I have to admit, honey. You sure know how to set up a good campfire."
Her final sentence registered in Larry's mind. His steel blue eyes shot open in surprise. He waved a correcting paw in response. "Oh no, that's not a fire, Kate. That's just my own personal screensaver."
Kate lifted her head up and stared down at him in utter frowning confusion, switching her gaze from him to the fire then back about three times, not quite believing what she'd just heard. "But...," she slowly raised a claw to point at the flames, the speed of said action well reflecting her disbelieving state of mind, "...it looks so real."
Larry rose up from his reclining, draped an arm around Kate's shoulders, and stuck a paw to the flickering firelight before the lioness could shout in fright. Instead of receiving serious burns, his fingers met a hard, transparent screen. "Exactly...! Pretty realistic, if I do say so myself...! And the built-in air conditioners behind this baby just sweeten the deal all the more," he commented with a gigantic grin.
Kate was just about to open her mouth to awkwardly respond when a derisive huff suddenly shot through the air, cutting off her remark and gaining the attention of both mates instantaneously. Larry and Kate eventually landed their sights on a lean, sourpuss-faced elder lion that had just emerged from underneath another of the tents, only the old man's tent was opposite of the seated couple. Larry sighed through his nose heavily and deeply at the abrupt appearance the cantankerous feline-Sarmoti, his father-in-law (unfortunately).
"Too lazy to even make a fire," the elder's croaky, deep voice sounded in disapproving disappointment. 'And he calls himself a camper.' "Tch, all boast and no action...!"
Arm still around his spouse, Larry snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "Hey, hey, hey...would you rather have a smoking, charring building around you as the campfire, hmm? There's a reason I'm going artificial here." Larry calmly retorted with a smart-aleck grin and tone to match; he even gestured to the stars that could be viewable from beneath the massive glass skylight. Sarmoti's scowl only deepened.
Kate merely rolled her eyes, long used to the daily quarrels between her overeager husband and cynical father. For full-grown males, these two could be such cubs sometimes.
Speaking of cubs...
BOOM! CLICK! CLICK! CLANG! BOOM!
At the ear-deafening, metallic-sounding rancor of multiple objects falling and colliding against one another, all three adults went erect and shot their lines of sight down the nearby, dark hallway.
Kate put a paw to her face. 'Oh boy...'
Larry blinked in both apprehension and confusion. 'What the...'
Sarmoti rolled his eyes. 'And this is what happens when you let the kids out of your sight. Nice move, boy genius.'
"Hunter, Sierra," Kate called out wearily as her eyes scanned the lengthy hallway for any telltale signs of her and Larry's offspring, "is everything alright, kids?"
She already knew what the answer would be the moment two younger lions stepped out into the computer's far-reaching light. One was a curvy female slightly shorter than Kate; the other, much shorter, meek-faced and wearing a strange sort of cone around his neck. The latter youth, with his right hand, rubbed his left arm up and down continually due to the embarrassing situation. There lay no clear telling how his folks would take his latest blunder...
Especially after his older sister teasingly remarked, "Oh sure, Mom, I mean besides the fact that Hunter just managed to destroy a decent-sized number of the cameras Roy and Siegfried use for the show in one false swoop, everything's peachy!" She clapped a hand on her sibling's delicate shoulder, earning an immediate, mild glare from the boy as a result. The teen didn't even so much as flinch.
"Oh come on, Si, you know I was only trying to look for my Two Towers book!" Hunter complained. 'Besides, I didn't ruin the stuff that bad...right?'
Sierra merely raised an eyebrow. What sort of idiot did this squirt take her for? The petite lioness leaned a bit in Hunter's direction with a deadpan expression. "In the camera room...?"
'Okay, I've heard enough,' Larry decided as he coughed his throat audibly enough for his kids to hear him authoritatively bark out, "Alright, settle down; settle down." Hunter, wisely clamping his mouth shut, proved more than willing enough to obey; the boy had always been the sensible type. Sierra, on the other hand, looked more prepared to send a biting remark down her father's way. She had always been the rebellious type...a fact Sarmoti liked to hold over Larry's head (repetitively), commenting on how "the dummy's need to be reckless rubbed off on the girl."
Larry put a swift end to the possibility of defiance, however, by adding on, "Otherwise, we'll just have more marshmallows to ourselves." That warning, odd as it would've sounded in any other context, shut the girl's mouth up quite nicely. All of the snowy lion pride knew how much Sierra adored the taste of smores, even though the teen would be the last one to ever admit such a fact. So predictably, Sierra sighed deeply before walking up to the pseudo-campfire alongside her brother and planting her rump on the solid concrete ground.
Sierra's usual teen ennui failed in escaping the grandfather's sharp eyes unnoticed, but the older cat wisely kept that observation to himself. No point in breaking the peace and quiet for something so commonplace...
Sadly, two seconds of blissful silence is all the elder lion managed to enjoy before his boisterous son-in-law obnoxiously cheered with an equally disruptive and cringe-worthy clap, "Alright, who's got the smores?"
Realization sparked through Kate as she perked up momentarily then swiftly made a brief roundabout trip from her tent and back to the fire. At the sight of the hefty bag of marshmallows cradled in her paws, the other lions brightened up instantaneously—Larry rubbing his paws and licking his chompers hungrily, Hunter holding his hands in front of him in patient anticipation but smiling nevertheless, and Sierra positioning herself straight in rapt attention (though the adolescent tried not to appear too enthusiastic in her actions). Even Kate's normally stoic-faced father allowed a genuine smile to grace his wizened countenance at the appearance of the confectionary sweets.
"Alright, there's plenty of enough for everybody, so for now you all get two each." Mother Lion wagged her finger as if everyone was a cub needing reminder. That action didn't stop her family from quietly groaning. "Nobody gets any more until everyone's at least had two smores, alright? Sierra, sweetie, did you and your brother find the chocolate and graham crackers?"
"Correction: did I find the chocolate and graham crackers?" She ignored the look of parentally wary exasperation on her mother's face to revel a bit in the satisfaction of seeing the annoyed expression of her younger sibling before looking back at her mother with a toned-down but still sly grin. "And yeah, I did."
The items she proudly bolstered in the air with one paw proved testimony to that statement.
Kate beamed at the job well done and accepted the bars of chocolate and box of crackers her daughter gingerly tossed to her. "Thank you, sweetie; okay, everyone, remember: two and only two smores for now."
All in all, the "snackage," (1) as Larry so affectionately called it (much to his wife's tickled amusement, his kids' expected embarrassment, and father-in-law's scorning irritation), proved an overwhelming success. For once, something planned by Larry had actually gone right! (2) No explosions, no unnecessarily long chase trains, no Sarmoti screaming his head off—a camping trip planned meticulously for since two weeks ago truly managed to proceed without a hitch.
Okay, so fishing at the shark tank nearly cost Larry his tail and a good chuck of his fur (and earned him a scolding reprimand from a certain lioness as a result), but seeing the flash of excitement mixed in Hunter's eyes instead of the usual trepidation, in the father's opinion, at least, was worth all the danger. And maybe taking a ride on Roy's private motorcycle, Sierra in tow, would have gotten them in deep, hot water had any humans caught sight of the feline pair. He swore he couldn't remember his daughter being so ecstatic since her childhood.
Surprisingly, Sarmoti, usually raring to strike his son-in-law down with a sharp insult, had been conducting himself, ever since this campout began, to be less sarcastic than usual. Granted, a few witty quips at Larry's expense were launched every now and then. That was just Sarmoti being Sarmoti.
Besides, he was family.
And family members, for better or worse, dealt with each other's problems and stuck together no matter what. Reality and failure could push Larry around and around until the two concepts were metaphorically blue in the face. At the end of the day, the lion knew, with not even the slightest trace of doubt, his family would always be right behind him, whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually, ready to support him (or at least semi-support him, in Sarmoti's case).
But the best part of this whole trip, perhaps, ended up being the copious amounts of precious alone time with Kate.
The love of his life...
The core of his heart...
His arm found her waist and pulled her body closer to his. His lips found her forehead as slim hands found his waist and slowly caressed it up and down. All the while, happiness and eager munching permeated the air, the sounds of soft laughter and raucous chuckles echoing in the vast darkness long driven aback by the aura of joy and love radiating from the close-knit pride. Larry merely breathed in pure content and bliss.
'Oh yeah, this is definitely the life.'