|
Stories by: Mirri |
|
Stories by: Mirri |
Chapter Eleventy
Tika is sitting in the living room, zapping
through the seemingly endless amount of channels and tries to find something worthy of his
interest. He keeps telling himself he definitely does not want this night to end now by
surrendering and limping off to bed, so the poor thing falls asleep right there, the
remote falling to the floor from his paw as he drifts off to sleep.
Suddenly a predatory roar is heard through
the room, not a really loud one, but plenty to reach deep into the leopard and prickle his
instincts. His eyes jump open and he looks around with a start, the first image he sees
being that of a huge tiger leaping at him, but fortunately not getting any further than
the TV screen. Tika frowns and looks down at the floor where Senajit lies, lashing his
tail back and forth and giving the wall-sized TV his undivided attention. The leopard
rolls his eyes and looks around for the remote, finally noticing it between the
tiger’s paws.
”You’d better not’ve scratches
the channel buttons with your claws, Sen.”
The tiger ignores him utterly and watches his
two kindred sniffing and greeting each other the feline way. Tika gets up, grabs the
remote from the floor and sits down again while changing the channel. Senajit gives off a
quick whine and turns around to look at his master with huge, pleading eyes.
”I can’t believe you keep watching
that stuff. I bet it just makes you even more lonely.” He sees the tiger’s
expression and shakes his head, ”Oh no you don’t. Don’t you dare give me
that look. I’m watching something else, got it?” He finds a mediocre show, which
he has no interest in whatsoever and tries to concentrate on watching it, but his eyes
keep springing back briefly to the begging tiger’s eyes.
”Oh, alright!” He grumbles and zaps
back to channel 2461, ”There, knock yourself out.”
Senajit turns his head back and his tailtip
once again starts moving back and forth across the floor as he watches the show. A groan
is Tika’s only comment about this and he watches two tigers fighting over territory
now. He bets Senajit actually understand more of what’s going on than he or even the
narrator do, so he decides to be patient and listens to the informative program.
Unfortunately as with most other informative programs Tika has seen, this one gets really
long in some places and he is soon off to dreamland again.
The first prickling sensation goes unnoticed.
The second prickle makes Tika *mrf* and move his arm a bit in his sleep, but finally the
third time the tickling feeling is enough to wake him up fully. He just has time to blink
once and look down in front of him before Senajit chews on the leopard’s paw once
more.
The documentary seems to be over, and Tika
now finds himself with Senajit sitting in front of him and trying to wake him up by
nibbling on his fingers.
”Oww, stop it, Sen!” Tika grabs the
tiger’s shoulders, firmly pushing him away and pulling his paw back so he will not be
attacked again, ”What’s gotten into you?!”
The tiger rolls to his back and paws up at
the leopard.
”Oh, so first you bite me and now you
want me to scratch your belly?”
Seems like it.
Tika sighs, ”Alright, just this
once.” He slides out of the beanbag to his knees and rubs his paw over Senajit’s
white, furry tummy, instantly getting a pleased purr in response. The living room slowly
comes into focus again as Tika was so abruptly awakened, and he can tell by the taste in
his mouth that he has been asleep for maybe an hour or so.
The leopard lifts his head and looks up at
the ceiling as if trying to see whether the others are already asleep. However, waits for
Senajit to move away before he begins thinking too much. Tika rises to his feet with a
yawn and fuzzles the tiger between his ears. Senajit just purrs happily and rubs himself
against Tika’s legs before padding off to his blanket to catch some shut-eye.
”Not a bad idea.” Tika thinks to
himself, turns off the TV and swallows the sad remains of the candy. He looks around for
telltale misses that Senajit did not eat yet, but cannot find any, not even the tiny
little popcorn shells that always fall on the floor. Not very surprising really. Senajit
seems to have removed every trace of the spectacle. Not even the scent of the candies or
popcorn is left, how the tiger managed to eat that too, Tika has no clue. That makes him
wonder what else the little bugger could have been stealing and eating for all this time
when he can cover his tracks this perfectly.
”Maybe I should try getting Sen to clean
up my room?”, he ponders idly while heading for the kitchen. The leopard throws out
the empty bag and heads upstairs. Halfway up the steps he addresses the cuddled form
underneath the stairs, ”Goodnight Sen..”
No answer.
”Goodnight Sen.”
*Mrrum*
”That’s better.”
Tika partly stumbles into his room and throws
himself on the bed, suddenly feeling the exhaustion overcome him...
