Kiara walked quietly through the night as the moon began to dip beyond the horizon. It would be a few more hours before the sun would rise. She looked around at the quiet grassland. Most animals were asleep at this time. She walked into a stand of trees and watched as a pair of butterflies passed her face. This evening was a disaster.
She had meant to have fun, but now she felt like everything had just crashed down around her. That Kate, wolf was pretty angry. And Kiara didn't want to admit she was feeling guilt over the whole fiasco. She continued to walk, her mind heavy with all of these thoughts.
Kate was embarrassed. She had left Garth standing by himself on Howl Rock. She was angry at that lioness. She now probably embarrassed her whole pack for fleeing like that. Suddenly her head whipped up when she heard someone approaching. Thinking it was the lioness again she called out, "What back for more? Haven't you done enough?"
"Actually I just came to see if you were alright," a male voice said.
Kate turned and saw her childhood friend, Humphrey standing there. She got up and walked over to him.
"Heard about that whole thing with Barf," he continued, "Pretty messed up."
"His name is Garth and what are you talking about?" she tried to play it off that nothing had happened.
"They're all talking about how Garth accused you of not being able to howl." He plopped down on his hindquarters.
Kate immediately went on the offense, "Well you heard wrong, we were having a good time." She had no idea why she was lying to him, but she didn't want him to know about her embarrassment.
Kiara looked around and found a limb, she jumped upon it and looked up at the sky. She had really goofed up, but she was wondering why she cared about the feelings of some wolf. It made no sense to her. Why should she care about a wolf that embarrassed her when she was a cub? After all she didn't even bother to apologize after laughing at Kiara's wet form in the water.
Humphrey looked at his friend, "So he really did say that to you."
Kate looked at him in shock then went on the defense, "No, he didn't he was just confused and uh..." she trailed off.
He took pity on his friend, "I heard a lioness came by."
"Oh her, yeah she was the one who put that thought into his head," she growled and snapped at the air like her mother when she was mad.
Humphrey scratched at an ear as he listened to her go on about the lioness.
"And she ruined our hunt today, plus she and Candu nearly got into a fight, and tonight's problem." She finished with a flair.
"Maybe you should talk to her about it?" Humphrey suggested.
"What?"
"Come on Kate, are you afraid of a little lioness?" he got up and walked around her.
"No! I am not!" She growled.
Kiara looked away from the stars, not getting any answers from them. She laid down on the limb and looked down at the water. A rustling caught her ear and she looked up. She wondered if it was the wolf moving about in the grass. But only a frog appeared. Kiara felt disappointed and looked away.
"So why not go see her?" Humphrey asked.
"Yeah right. Like I would associate myself with a lion." Kate laughed at him then pondered about it. If she did meet up with the lioness, maybe everything would go back to normal.
Humphrey noticed her pondering and kept quiet. He would wait her out until she decided on her moment of action.
"Fine, I'll go see her." She flicked her tail.
He winked and was rewarded with an angry look before she turned away and vanished into the forest. He sat there and hoped things would become better after this meeting.