[PRIVATE: DGFone & Thewhistlerify]

[DGFone]

Seeing that there was no reason to worry that Muroki or Umeme suspected anything had happened, Delano shrugged and continued the story. "The two of them mostly chased around each other, much like he is doing with your cubs right now." He then grinned and blushed as well. "Lina and I weren't paying too much attention with our aunt and uncle watching over the cubs." His blush only deepened when Umeme threw him a knowing grin. "What?" He demanded, "We're married! It's not like you don't do that with Muroki all the time! Much like you were trying to do when we just came here!"

This caused Umeme to burst out laughing. "I wasn't going to say that you did anything wrong, dummy!" She said in between laughs, nudging Delano in the nose with a paw. "Although if you didn't go anywhere, I take it you didn't get to do much."

Delano's ears fell. "Well, no... um, we did go somewhere... Our waterhole. Just that we didn't do anything much there either. Swam around for a bit, and then, well, I uh... didn't have the best of nights before, so I took a nap as well. Then we had to go back to fetch Akili, so no, not much happened." He then glared at Umeme. "Thanks for asking."

[TheWhistlerify]

Noticing his sister in law's growing embarrassment at the developing conversation between her mate and sister, Muroki couldn't help but snicker inwardly. "No need to glare, Delano." he said, shrugging his shoulders with a grin. "But if you're that impatient, I wouldn't mind taking Akili off your paws for a few hours." Seeing both Delano and Lina blush and glare at him, he couldn't help but feel satisfied. Lina's reaction was the most interesting. That's right; two could play the teasing game. "Or, even better, you could drop him off at his grandparents' place." Yeah. He really did just say that.

Before either one of the two of them could attempt to counter what he'd just said, the sound of Akili's irritated voice reached their ears. "Daaaaaaaaaad!" Looking at the cubs, they all saw the three of them running in their direction. "Dad, they don't believe me when I say you're the fastest!" he complained, glaring at his two cousins, Ubawa in particular. Marini meanwhile didn't look too interested by the arguement between the two silly boys, and quickly decided to occupy herself with a nearby cricket.

[DGFone]

Delano found it very amusing to find out what the cubs were arguing about, although strictly speaking, did they really need to argue about it? Giving all three cubs a stern look to tell them that he was not going to be argued with, Delano raised his voice and said "You better listen to him. I AM faster than Muroki, so you better get used to that idea."

The cubs only bickered on for longer, but Delano decided to ignore them from that point. Although he did grin at Muroki and added, "No, we're not going to test that. I just chased after Lina this morning, so I feel like taking a break from running." For the second time in the day, he got a paw to the muzzle, this time from his brother. "It's still true!" Delano argued. "I'm faster and you know it!"

[TheWhistlerify]

While Muroki was quite amused at first to find out what the cubs were arguing about, he soon found himself raising an eyebrow at his brother's careless, thoughtless and totally untrue statements. The two of them haven't gone on a run together for a very long time already, but that didn't give him the right to instantly conclude that he was faster. With how lazy Delano was, Muroki felt quite cerain that he was far more practiced and, therefore, faster. Rolling his eyes, he booped his brother's nose with a paw.

"Please, as if." he countered, rolling his eyes once more. "If you're going to go around proclaiming yourself to be something you aren't, at least have the dignity to try and prove it." When Delano continued to protest in a similar manner, he once again pushed his nose, only this time hard enough to send his hrother backwards and onto his back. "Sorry, Akili." he continued with a sly grin, practically lying on top of his nephew's father and clenching his muzzle shut with one of his paws. Yes, being slightly bigger did have its amusing advantages. "But your dad's too scared." Delano had made statements he was refusing to prove - and now he was paying the price.

"Uncle Delano only sleeps all day anyway." said Marini with a giggle, obviously entertained by her father's antics. "There's no way he's faster." She walked away, only to immediately get pounced on by her younger cousin, who obviously wanted to get her to take what she'd said back. Ubawa also joined in, and soon enough the three of them seemed to have forgotten about their earlier bickering altogether.

With the cubs out of the picture again, Lina looked at her brother in law with a playful glare. "Let him go, Muroki." By that point her mate was squirming about rather restlessly. As amusing as that was, somebody had to come to his rescue. Muroki only seemed to ignore her, since he was most likely enjoying what he was doing, causing her to roll her eyes and look at her sister. "Boys..." she muttered, smiling as he finally did let Delano go.

[DGFone]

If there was one thing Delano hated about his brother, it was when Muroki would use his extra size to quite literally push him around. As much as he tried to argue against what Muroki was telling Akili, his brother made sure that Delano wasn't able to, both by pressing him down to the ground as well as keeping his jaws shut with a paw. But no matter how much he struggled to get free, Muroki simply wouldn't let him up, not until Lina told him to.

"That was just uncalled for!" Delano hissed at the other lion, only to shrink back when he realized that he was letting his anger get the better of him. Perhaps he really wasn't as recovered as he thought he was. He roughly brushed the dust off of him with a paw, trying to calm down from the anger and embarrassment of being pushed around like a cub.

"If you want me to prove it to you, I will." He glared at his brother, "Sure, I sleep around all day, but you seem to forget what I do every morning. You also forgot who had to run across the entire savanna to save your sorry-" He had to stop as he was rudely interrupted by Lina.

Sighing in frustration, Delano lay on the ground, realizing yet again that his temper was getting unchecked.

[TheWhistlerify]

While having quite enjoyed his little stunt, which had allowed him to reconnect to his more playful side, Muroki was slightly taken aback by his brother's reaction. Yes, he'd expected Delano to be annoyed, but talk about agitated. "Sheesh, Delano, I was just kidding..." he said after Lina had cleared her throat to get her mate to stop talking. "I was going to tell Akili that you're the faster one later anyway; you know how much he looks up to you." On another note, he didn't know that helping him back at the gorge had been such a burden.

He could have easily said that he too still went on runs in the mornings or that his brother shouldn't be talking that way because, if it weren't for Delano himself, his life wouldn't have been in danger to begin with, but he really did have no intention to actually outrun his brother in front of Akili, nor was he in the mood to make some sarcastic comeback of any sort. His brother was clearly ticked off as it was.

[DGFone]

Delano let out a sigh, his ears flat on his head. "I'm sorry Muroki... just that... I didn't exactly have the best few days recently. They placed me on the edge... I didn't mean it, honest." While he still wanted to race his brother for real, he never would have said the things he just had normally. Let alone in front of the cubs where they can easily overhear by accident.

Groaning quietly, he sat back up, but didn't say anything else. An odd uncomfortable feeling settled over the adult lions, while the oblivious cubs continued to play with one another near bye.

Umeme, wanting to improve the mood, quickly asked, "So what made you three want to come over? Akili looked very excited when he saw Ubawa and Marini." She didn't feel that it was a good idea to inquire why Delano wasn't feeling well, because from what she just saw, he was really under-representing "not the best few days". However, if he wanted to say what had happened, he would have done so already.

[TheWhistlerify]

Muroki gave his brother a short nod, letting him know that it was okay. He couldn't help but think, however, that while he himself was old enough to understand that sometimes other lions just weren't in a good mood, Akili or the other cubs might not react very well if one of the adults lost their temper in such a manner. But, of course, he had no intention of saying that out loud. His brother probably knew that anyway.

Lina, meanwhile, was more than grateful for the opportunity Umeme had presented to change the subject. "Oh, no reason in particular." she said with a smile, looking at her sister. "Figured Akili would like to play with Ubawa and Marini." At least, from the looks of it, neither one of the cubs had noticed her mate's unintentional loss of temper just now. That was the last thing they needed Akili to witness at the moment.

[DGFone]

Deciding that he better relax before he did something that he would rather not have the cubs see, Delano simply sat next to Lina and watched as the young trio played with one another. How they always found the energy to run around all day after one another was beyond him, but he did have to tell himself that when they were growing up, he and Muroki were very much the same.

He still found it odd that out of all three of them, it was Marini who tended to get into the most trouble. Delano always thought that it would be Ubawa or even Akili who would be the pawful, but it was the young lioness who gave her parents, or anyone else looking after her, the most trouble.

Umeme grinned at Lina. "Well, you certainly figured right. Little Akili really didn't have any trouble announcing to the whole world about what he thought of you two bringing you here, and while Ubawa and Marini weren't as loud about it, just look at them-" The sight of the two young lions teaming up on Marini was very amusing, along with the fact that for now, she was able to hold her own. "I don't think they are complaining about it either."

[TheWhistlerify]

Lina looked at the cubs when Umeme diverted her attention to the free little fuzzballs, unable not to chuckle at just how much they were all clearly enjoying themselves very much. The three young ones did pretty much the exact same thing whenever they got together and yet they never seemed to grow tired of it. Not that Lina could recall being any different herself when she was their age. Sure, not as big a pawful as a certain niece of hers, but still somewhere along the line that was common for all cubs.

Watching Akili and Ubawa join forces against Marini was always amusing, especially because she wasn't doing too badly most of the time. Every once in a while she would come complaining to her father and tell him that the boys were cheating (while emphasizing her brother's name with the hope of getting him into trouble) but, most of the time, all three cubs were enjoying themselves very much. "I love watching them fool around, you know?" she asked, smiling at her sister. "As loud as they can be, it just never gets old."