The Lion Guard: The Northern Crocodile

Chapter 24

After their night of fun, Kiburi and Zula returned to the clearing just as dawn was arriving. Luckily for them, they seemed to be the only crocodiles around, aside from Makuu, who was still asleep on his rock. Unbeknownst to Kiburi, Makuu did see him leave with Zula, and now knows about the dwarf twins as well.

"You good?" Zula whispered.

"Yeah, of course!" Kiburi responded. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Dunno. Guess I just thought it would be polite to ask."

"Zula, I don't care if you're polite to me or not. Like I said before, I don't do pleasantries, and I certainly don't care about being nice."

"Really? Well then, if that's the case, why were you friendly with me tonight?"

Kiburi does not want to answer Zula's question, but that's not a problem when the silence is more than enough of an answer for Zula.

"Oh, I get it. You have a crush on me, don't ya?"

"No! That's definitely not it!" Kiburi replied, flustered.

"Yes you do! Don't bother to deny it!" Zula exclaimed, trying and failing to hide her amusement. "However, considering you're almost but not quite exactly like my brother, I'm willing to give you a little leeway on this."

"You know what? I take back what I said about you being decent. You're actually quite the little devious devil. Has anyone ever told you that?"

By now, Zula was laughing so hard that even saying "First I've heard of it!" was a challenge for her. After she managed to calm herself down, Zula took a moment to just look at Kiburi.

"Well, I should really get going before somebody comes looking for me and finds us," Zula stated. "I'm sure you could already tell, but I had a lot of fun. If you want to, we can do it again tonight, or tomorrow night, or something like that. We can talk and have fun and do whatever we want without anyone there to disturb us. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"...Looks like the two of us were right," Kiburi said as he placed his head on top of Zula's.

"About what?"

"You were right about being a professional regarding many things, and I was correct in saying that you were a little devil."

"Ha! Just shut up and get your tail back in the cave, Kiburi."

Kiburi wore an amused grin as he slipped into the water. Turning in his place, Kiburi faced Zula once more before she left.

"Hey, Zula!" Kiburi hissed, just loud enough for Zula to hear.

"Yeah?" Zula asked, turning her head to look at Kiburi.

"That suggestion of yours? My answer is yes."

Zula smiled at Kiburi's answer and nodded her head, then turned back around and left.

"Seems like you two had an exciting night."

A new voice broke the silence and nearly scared Kiburi half to death. He quickly spun around, and was absolutely horrified when he saw Makuu still on his rock, but very much wide awake.

{Oh, no. Please don't tell me...}

"Were you awake this entire time?" Kiburi asked, dumbstruck.

"If you're talking about from the point when you woke me up with your restless sleeping, again, to right now, then, yeah, I was awake the entire time," Makuu responded irritably

Kiburi tried to explain himself for whatever reason to Makuu, but the other crocodile just raised his tail to silence him.

"No, Kiburi, I don't need to hear it. It's not really my business, so I'm just going to stay out of it."