Disclaimer: I don't own the Croods or the characters except Jharii, she is mine.
Jharii awoke lying on the grass looking up at the sky that was no longer the light blue but a darker blue with orange and pinks mixed in. She had a thumping headache and she noticed the back of her head was sore but she couldn't remember why. She sat up quickly when she realised how late it was and remembered how she hurt her head, she wished she hadn't moved though it just made her headache worse. Jharii put her head in her hands as she thought back to before she passed out.
'I was bending down to look at some strange looking sticks; I heard a noise behind me so I stood up and turned around. I must have slipped on something; I remember falling and hitting my head hard then a blurry shape leaning over me' She gasped when she realised that the blurry shape was probably what caused the noise a few days ago, she tensed as looked up to see if anyone was around and then relaxed when she couldn't see anything. That's when she realised that her family would be back at the cave and would know she's wasn't there. But before she could get up and leave, Jharii heard someone or something coming.
Instead of trying to get up and leave she moved backwards until her back hit a large rock, she tensed as she waited for whatever it was to reach the grassy area. She waited a couple minutes before she saw anything and what she did see shocked her. It was a teenage boy about Eep's age; he had brown shaggy hair with part of it tied up on the top of his head, he was wearing a type of animal skin around his legs and his feet were covered in an unknown animal's feet. Jharii noticed he kinda looked like her; he was tall, skinny and his forehead didn't slope. She also noticed that skin was slightly darker than her pale skin and on his chest he had stripes painted on. He wasn't paying attention to Jharii at that moment he was more focused on the bundle of sticks he was holding. He looked up and finally noticed Jharii sitting up against the rock, she saw that he had brown eyes which was showing slight confusion then happiness.
"You're awake, sorry to scare you earlier, are you alright" he spoke with a soft and light tone as the bent down to put his bundle of sticks down. As he stood up Jharii saw that the bottom parts of his arms were wrapped up with fur and an unknown plant or animal sinew. She was still shocked about seeing someone else like her that she didn't answer him; luckily he noticed this and calmly waited for her to respond to his question.
"I'm fine, my head hurts a bit but the pains going away slowly" Jharii replied in a bit of a dazed tone when she realised he asked her a question.
"That's good to hear" he said while sitting down across from her. He looked happy and relaxed, Jharii didn't know how to react as she was used to seeing her family slightly happy but never relaxed.
"Who are you and what are you doing here" Jharii finally asked after a few minutes of silence.
"I'm Guy and this is belt" he said while pointing to a small brown and red creature wrapped around his waist "and I'm here because it's the only place in the cliffs that I've found so far that has sticks" he said like it was obvious.
"So what's your name" he asked Jharii while he picked up a few sticks and started putting them in a pile.
"'My name's Jharii" she replied cautiously. She didn't know what to do, she was outside the cave without her family, it was getting darker and she was with a strange boy. Jharii knew her father Grug would look for her but she doubted he would find her, even though she could reach the small places dotted and hidden around the cliffs Grug could not. He simple wasn't as good at traversing the cliffs and his body was too robust to go through the smaller areas. Jharii knew she would have to get back to the family cave before dark, if not she would have to spend the night outside the cave and go back in the morning, if she survived. She also didn't want to worry her family; they already had plenty of problems to be anxious about. Jharii stood up and went to walk around the rock to go back to the cave when Guy stood and caught her arm.
"Where are you going?" Guy asked with a hint of sadness in his voice.
"Home" Jharii replied sadly, she didn't really want to go back, she enjoyed being outside and even though she just met him, she felt bad for Guy. The sad look he was giving her making her want to stay with him and keep him company.
"Why don't you stay here, it's getting too dark to traverse the cliffs" Gut pointed out with hope colouring his voice.
Jharii noticed that he was correct, the sky was now a darker blue than before, and all traces of the oranges and pinks that graced the sky earlier were gone.
'If I try to navigate the cliffs now I'm going to get lost or hurt, with my luck it would be both. At least larger animals can't reach here and the smaller ones are easily dealt with' she thought while trying to extract her arm from Guy's grip. She wasn't successful; he was stronger than her and his eyes shone with hope so she gave up.
"Fine" Jharii sighed, inside though she was thrilled, she didn't know why but she wanted to send more time with Guy. Jharii knew Guy was happy that she was staying because he screamed 'Yes' than started jumping around, and because he hadn't released her arm Jharii ended up jumping around with him. Once Guy had calmed down he let go of Jharii's arm and they both sat down, Jharii observed that Guy sat quite close to her. She giggled when she thought of what her father would do if he saw how close they were. Guy either didn't notice or didn't care because he pulled out two rocks and some dry grass. He started hitting the two rocks together over the dry grass, Jharii didn't know what he was doing that for but she didn't interrupted. Jharii noticed little bits of light coming off the rocks when Guy hit them together, he later explained that the little bits of like were what he called sparks.
After a few tries a spark landed on the dry grass and started to smoulder, Guy blew on the smouldering grass then transferred it to the small stick pile. The sticks ignited and Jharii moved back a bit.
"What is that" Jharii said with panic seeping into her voice.
"I call it fire" Guy excitedly said while gesturing wildly at the small fire. Jharii relaxed when she realised Guy wasn't scared, she reached out to touch it but was stopped when Guy grabbed her hand and shook his head. Jharii withdrew her hand but Guy didn't let it go, they looked down at their joined hands and blushed. They quickly let go and looked away, once both of their blushes disappeared they started talking.
"Hey Guy, why are you around here, all the other families that used to live around here are gone, I don't get why you would want to be around here" a confused Jharii asked
"The world is ending" Guy replied without the usual happiness in his voice. "I'm calling it The End" this was said with Guy's normal cheerfulness.
"Dun, dun, dun" this was said by belt in his quite but cute voice.
"How do you know" Jharii asked curiously. "And he can talk" an amazed Jharii said while pointing to belt.
"Yes he can talk and I've seen it, first the grounds going to shake then break apart and everything falls in fire, lava. I don't want to sound dramatic but ahhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhh". By now Guy was standing and gesturing wildly and speaking slightly crazily.
"I'm heading to a mountain, it's that way" he pointed behind Jharii.
"Right now it seems to have stopped but it won't stay that way for long, The End never stops" with that he calmed down a bit and sat down next to Jharii again.
"You can come with me" Guy said with hope while looking at Jharii with wide eyes that shone with hope. Jharii thought of what she could see if she went with Guy but the thought of leaving her family troubled her.
"I would love to come with you but my family lives around here and I can't leave them" replied Jharii sadly.
"They can come too" Guy quickly replied, his eyes still shining with hope.
"If you can convince my family to leave the cave and go on this journey then of course I will come with you, but be warned my father Grug won't be easy to convince, he believes we should stay in the family cave and live by never doing any new or different and the rule 'never not be afraid', and to him your new and different" Jharii said miserably. Guy noticed this decided to talk about something different while planning on how to get Grug to agree to join his journey to the mountain before The End started again.
They talked for about an hour about few, the fact that Jharii's family were cave people was the first thing that came up, it shocked Guy because Jharii didn't look like a cave person or cavy as he called then, but he said he could handle that. After that the conversation was about fire and how Guy discovered it, then how he became friends with belt. Jharii wanted to ask about Guy's family but she didn't think it was the right time for that. After that Guy added more sticks to the fire then they both lay down, Jharii thought the sky was beautiful with the many little suns. Guy started to tell a story that didn't end in death, but Jharii didn't hear the ending, she had fallen asleep halfway through it with a smile on her face. Guy smiled at the site of Jharii sleeping then he too fell asleep.