Timon filled the hollow pumpkin with cool water from the pool at his feet. It was not very clean, but it was the best thing he and Pumbaa had found on the way.
The warthog watched his friend in silence, pondering the story he had just heard.
"I didn't talk to Tesma again after that" said the meerkat, more like a thought out loud. "Neither Basu."
"So, did you run out of friends? What were you doing then?" Pumbaa arched an eyebrow.
"Oh, my dear Pumbaa!" he exclaimed, with a slight touch of his typical humor. "At home I had enough meerkats to talk to... all the time they came to complain about my blunders in the tunnels."
He approached his companion to climb on his back with the pumpkin brimming with water. Pumbaa resumed his walk toward the end of the canyon, only a few meters away.
"Didn't you just say you had a lot of good ideas?"
"Yes, but they didn't always work on that dry land," the meerkat sighed. "Besides, I got away from all that after Tesma and Tay, and when I wanted to go back... I lost some practice."
"Did you ever try to talk to her again?"
"For what? I was just another meerkat from the colony. I had no case."
"Well... it's what you do when you love someone."
Timon was silent for a moment.
What would have happened if he had done what Pumbaa said? Would something have changed? Perhaps Tesma... no, it was better not to think about the possibilities that no longer existed. Things had been that way for a reason. It was in the past, and that was no longer his problem.
"But now you're afraid of meeting them again," Pumbaa added, as if he could read his mind. "That's why you didn't want to come."
"Your powers of intuition amaze me," Timon snorted.
"At least he has something. I always knew that warthog had more potential than you," Uncle Max's voice broke in.
Pumbaa stopped. He had not even realized that he was about to head out of the canyon toward the desert. The two older meerkats were sitting on a stone by the side of the road, waiting for their arrival. Both carried large bundles of tree leaves where they kept the beetles they had managed to gather.
"Did you at least find water?" asked the male, jumping down from the stone.
"Of course, Uncle Max," Timon replied. "Fresh and wet, your favorite."
Max threw the pack of beetles in his face as a warning for his mockery. Timon hugged it, just like the pumpkin with water, and then waited for his mother to give him the package she was carrying.
"What did you two talk about on the way?" she asked, before throwing the beetles into her son's arms.
"Things," he said, downplaying it.
"Timon told me about the place where you used to live. And from his childhood friends," Pumbaa explained, earning a punch from Timon.
"Childhood friends?" Max repeated sarcastically.
Ma climbed with Timon's help onto Pumbaa's back.
"Yes, I still remember them," she exclaimed, lost in her memories. "That boy, Basu, who you always played with..."
"And you almost killed us," Max added, climbing onto the warthog's back.
Once there, Pumbaa resumed his walk.
"Basu? I don't remember any Basu" Timon lied in order not to start a conversation about the past.
"But he was your best friend," she remembered.
"Didn't you just tell me about him and Tesma?" Pumbaa asked, prompting Timon to nudge him again.
"Oh, sure, that Tesma girl. Do you remember her, Timi? She was the only child of Kuba. Did I tell you that she's getting married?"
YOU ARE READING
Once Upon a Timon - ENGLISH
Fanfiction(Based on the Disney movie, The Lion King) The insistence of a group of meerkats forces Timon and Pumbaa to return to the Hakuna Matata jungle for a few days, but Timon is notexactly thrilled to see his colony again. Or more specifically, to see aga...
