"Simba!" Nala cried through laughter. "Stop it! It tickles!"
"Does it?" Simba teased, pretending to act surprised as he tickled her on her stomach even more. "Even when I do it like this?"
"You… know… I'm… ticklish… there!" she exclaimed, laughing even harder. "Come on, stop!"
Simba smiled in response, rolling onto the ground and snuggling up beside her. "Don't mind it when I'm touching you now, do you?"
Nala's eyes narrowed, and she began to tickle him behind his left ear – the part of his body that made him laugh the most when it was tickled. He immediately erupted with laughter, rolling about on the floor and trying to get away from her.
She just kept on tickling him calmly, ignoring his desperate attempts to escape her.
"Nala, stop it!" he cried. "Please… I'm sorry for… tickling… you!" He hated it when he was tickled behind his left ear – it was his weakest spot, and one of the most sensitive to touch. This basically meant that Nala was torturing him right now.
Nala stopped tickling him and smiled. "I hope you've learnt your lesson now, Mr I-Think-It's-Fun-To-Tickle-Nala."
"It was just a little bit of fun," he told her. "I thought you liked fun!"
"Not when the fun means almost laughing to death!" Nala shot back, frowning. "Try to think of something fun that doesn't, you know, involve torturing me!"
Simba looked a little upset. "Nala, you're not… mad at me, are you?" he asked, worrying that he might have made Nala angry – something he most certainly didn't want to do. He didn't exactly know how she reacted to things like that. After all, she was a very sensitive person…
After a few seconds of seemingly endless silence, Nala replied with a glare at him, looking absolutely livid. But after a few seconds, the livid glare soon turned into a smile, and she ruffled the tuft of fur on Simba's head playfully. "Of course I'm not mad, silly! Just try to be a little less… tickly, next time, okay?"
Simba smiled back at her. So she's not mad at me, Simba thought, relieved. "Okay. Anything for my Princess."
Nala laughed. "Good one, Simba. You really had me going there for a second."
"No, really, I'm serious," Simba insisted. "You are my Princess."
Nala put a paw to her mouth, letting out a little gasp of surprise. "Really? D-do I really mean th-that much to y-you?"
Simba nodded. "Uh-huh. Why wouldn't you mean that much to me?"
Nala just stared at him for a few seconds, before grinning and hugging him tightly for the second time that day. "You never stop being so sweet, do you?" she said as she continued to grin.
Simba chuckled. "Do I get a prize for that or something?" he joked, before Nala surprised him by pinning him down and staring into his auburn eyes, smiling alluringly.
"Oh, you'll get a prize, all right," she replied, before collapsing on top of Simba and connecting her muzzle with his, kissing him. Simba's eyes widened in surprise momentarily, before he surrendered to the romance of the moment.
Princess Nala, Nala thought happily as she kissed her boyfriend. I love the sound of that.
"Have you quite finished your little swimming session?" Tojo asked Tama, who was floating lightly on her back in the water hole with a smile on her face, eyes closed. "Well, I say little, but I mean big. Really, really big. About two hours you've been in there now. Can I get up, yet? I might have a little bit of trouble with that, though, considering I can't feel anything below my neck now."
"Stop your whining," she replied, keeping her eyes closed. "Can't you see I'm trying to have a little nap here?" Tama wished Tojo would stop bothering her. She was only making him lie there for two hours in the boiling hot sun – was there really a problem with that?
"Can't you see that if you take a nap in the water hole then you'll sink and drown?" Tojo retorted, a cheeky little smile forming on his face. Sometimes Tama failed to take certain things into account – mostly because she believed that everyone and everything should obey her when she wanted it to. It surprised Tojo that she hadn't decided to try and make herself Queen of the Pride Lands yet.
"I won't drown," Tama assured him confidently. "I'll just… sink to the bottom of the water hole and stop breathing. That's not drowning, is it?"
"I think you'll find it is," Tojo told her, causing her to open her eyes and stare at Tojo angrily.
"Are you trying to annoy me?" she asked in an irritated tone. "Because I'm feeling pretty riled up right now!"
"I might be," Tojo answered, his cheeky smile widening. He knew Tama wouldn't do anything to him if he annoyed her, because she needed him. Each and every threat she made towards him was empty. In fact, about seventy-five per cent of all the sentences she spoke were empty threats. She really made it sound like she wanted Tojo dead, but he knew that she would never be able to cope with such a thing if ever happened.
"I'll take that as a yes, then," Tama said as she swum over to the side of the water hole where Tojo was, grabbing his hind legs and pulling him into the water hole, causing a large resounding splash!
Tojo rose from the water, taking a deep breath and sighing as the cold water enveloped him. He could see why Tama was enjoying her time in here so much – in this heat, the water hole was a haven. Tojo could already feel all the parts of his body rapidly cooling down.
"Thanks for that," he told her, causing Tama to stare at him, confused.
"'Thanks'?" Tama repeated, sounding outraged. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"It means thank you," Tojo replied. "I was waiting for you to pull me in here. I needed something to cool me down after lying in the hot sun for two hours. If you hadn't pulled me in then you'd set yourself on fire the next time you touched my back."
Tama frowned, realising she had made a mistake in pulling Tojo into the water hole. "All right, I'll admit I made a little mistake in pulling you in."
"There's a surprise," Tojo remarked. "You never admit it when you make a mistake."
"Why you little…" Tama angrily grabbed Tojo's head and dunked it underwater, causing him to kick his legs in every direction to try and escape as Tama tried to drown him.