It was late already in the Pridelands, not to late though, as the sun was slowly leaving the sky to let the night settle, but was still visible.

A big lion with a brownish colored pelt was laying on a small cliff, watching as the sunset began. He seemed tired, surely from a patrol. Beside his big body, he was still young, too young to be the king of theses lands. But he was being old enough to soon start his own pride. For now, he was just a surrogate male, patrolling borders to help his birth pride, but he had already made his mind about leaving and ruling over his very own pride.

As he seemed lost in his thought, another male climbed on his part of the cliff and without asking, layed on him with a smile on his face. It was clear that the two knew each other, as the bigger male didn't seemed to mind the prescense of the smaller one. This one had a dark pelt, he was way slimmer and smaller, and had cubs marks on him still. He started to purr softly as he layed on his friend, and started to gently clean his mane, wich seemed to annoy the big male a bit.

"Hey! I don't need you to clean me Kibaya!"
The big male complained, but only made his friend chuckle and smirk.

"Oh really now? It seemed to me that you needed my help. You are as dirty as a cub who can't clean himself properly yet Dhoruba!"

The young male named Kibaya said, which made his friend Dhoruba roll his eyes playfully, and just gave up, like he knew that the darker male wouldn't stop anyway.

Kibaya now continued to gently lick of the dust of Dhoruba's mane, with great care and tenderness, which was a bit unusual for a male to do this to another one, but Dhoruba still didn't seemed to mind it, and even started to relax and purr too now. Only a few minutes later, the dark male was done, and now just layed on his friend and watched the sunset with him. Their breath were matching and they were both relaxed, and purring at each other, will their tails tangled together.

After a long while of only silence, Dhoruba broke it by speaking to his friend with his usual confident and warm voice.

"So... You made your choice for real? I mean, I don't want to force you to leave the pride, you worked so hard to be accepted and-"
He started to say, but then got shushed by a gentle lick on his cheek from Kibaya.

"Of course silly, why wouldn't I follow you? You are my king after all, I would not leave you for anything in the whole wide world."
The dark male replied with a tender and gentle voice, a smirk still on his face. He had a seductive gaze, which made Dhoruba laugh a bit.

"Oh you dork, do you always have to be this flirty?!"
He asked still laughing, and Kibaya just stared at the sunset and nodded.

"Why of course! I know you love it..."

And as the sunset kept going, the two males who's relationship was beyond friendship, kept admiring the sun, laying together and purring, will their tails tangling in a heart shape.

What will they decide will Dhoruba leave the pridelands with kibaya to start his own pride? Or will he stay so all the hard work kibaya went through to be accepted by the pridelanders wont be wasted?
Artist and owner of Kibaya: Mkuu on TLK Amino