Information

Habeeb
Legacy Name: Habeeb

The Chibi Archan
Owner: Sobolan

Age: 8 years, 9 months, 1 week

Born: July 12th, 2015

Adopted: 6 years, 2 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: February 4th, 2018

Statistics

• Level: 20
   
• Strength: 48
   
• Defense: 47
   
• Speed: 47
   
• Health: 48
   
• HP: 40/48
   
• Intelligence: 262
   
• Books Read: 262
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Funnel Cake Fryer

Well past the shifting purple sands of the Sacred Lands is a much broader stretch of desert dotted with acacia trees and thorny shrubs. Wild archans rule in this place where festers feast on the carcasses of young hikei that stray too far from their mothers.

The tip of Habeeb's skinny tail twitches in anticipation as he lines up his pounce just right. His rump wiggles in the air, launching him past his mark to tumble through the dust with a little growl of annoyance. Leo has gotten very good at anticipating the cub's every move. His own bushy tail remains unruffled by tiny cub teeth.

Leo lets loose a roar of amused laughter, his golden flanks heaving as he tries to catch his breath. One look at the cub's face negates all his efforts.

"It's not funny, Leo the Goliath. It's not fair that you're so much bigger."

Leo's tail tip hangs at a tantalizing height, drawing the cub to aim another failed swat at its majestic strands of auburn hair.

"You'll need practice before you can sneak up on me. I'm not an empty-headed beetle seeking the next mound of dung, young Habeeb. If you want to catch prey, you must learn to outthink it. Catching a predator means twice as much thought."

Habeeb sits for just a moment as if pondering his friend's words. A wide-winged yellow butterfly chases all other thoughts from his head. He lunges at the pesky creature until it cheats, flying high into the branches of a tree. Habeeb's small claws do not even leave scratches on the bark as he plants his paws, looking up wistfully at a piece of prey beyond his grasp. His attention cannot be held for long. He gallops back to Leo, nearly slamming into the older lion's chest. "Can we go now, Leo the Goliath, huh, can we? You promised we would go to Split Rock by the little watering hole today."

Leo sighs, looking toward the horizon. "The sun's not even halfway up yet."

"Come on! You said there would be other cubs to play with and I'm so tired of the home tree." Habeeb leans against Leo's side, getting a grip on the adult archan's ear and giving it a gentle tug. He lets go as Leo rises to his feet with a massive yawn. Leo is starting to understand why most male archans don't bother with cubs. One look at Habeeb's wide brown eyes forces him to quickly shove the thought away.

"Alright, I'm up. Just stay close to me this time or I swear we won't leave home tree for three cycles of the moon!"

Habeeb behaves himself right up to the point when he spots a pile of leaves shaken loose by a browsing grazer. The cub dives into the pile, sending rusty red leaves scattering in all directions. He gathers up just a few with a paw tip, trying to work them into his ruff to form a makeshift mane. "Will my mane be as thick as yours, huh? I'll bet a tree could fall on your head and you wouldn't even notice 'cuz your mane's so thick."

Leo rolled his eyes. "I'd be just as happy not to find out."

"Hey look, it's Split Rock! Wow, it sure is crowded."

"Habeeb, come back here! Leave those hippotus alone!"

Habeeb is going much too fast. He slams into a young hippotu, sending the little one away with a snort of fright. It hides behind the massive boulder that is cracked right down the middle, bawling for its mother. Habeeb comes to a stop, tilting his head in confusion. "Why are you making that awful noise? I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to play." He paws at the hippotu's ears, a standard form of archan greeting. A puff of air on his shoulder makes him turn.

Mother hippotu is not happy. It's bad enough her precious baby has to share water with so many filthy creatures that could give him some horrible infection. She certainly will not tolerate the unwanted attentions of an archan cub a third her size.

Habeeb cowers beneath the massive hippotu cow, waiting for her to stomp him into the crusty ground. For the first time in his life, he knows what it feels like to be prey.

Leo was nowhere in sight and suddenly he's there. The archan lands before Habeeb, his massive teeth bared in a snarl. His roar shakes the pebbles on the ground, sending a family of manchus into their home grove of trees with shrieks of alarm. The mother hippotu backs away, taking a protective stance above her calf but paying no further attention to the cub than to the flies that cannot penetrate her thick skin.

Habeeb's tail trails in the dust as he follows Leo home. "I'm sorry, Leo. I didn't mean to cause trouble, honest."

Leo sighs. "Someday you'll be a full-grown archan with all my strength and size and all of this will be yours to roam. Until then, you must learn not to leap into things and put yourself in danger. I promised your mother I would never let anything bad happen to you but I can't be everywhere. Habeeb, are you even listening?"

In reply, Habeeb executes a perfect pounce, holding up his best friend's tail tip with a small growl of pride.

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Overlay & Art by User not found: kurt
Story by ever amazing Pureflower
Fanpet for The Lion King's Simba.

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