"He's a lion," Timon protested loudly.

Pumbaa glanced at him at the sides of his eyes, as he could not move his gigantic head while he balanced the small unconscious figure on his equally gigantic tusks. "Well, yes, Timon, I would have thought you'd know what a lion is, with meercat being at the bottom of the food chain and all..." He apparently did not think Timon was making a protest.

Timon's resisted punching his new-found friend; Pumbaa was bigger after all. "He's a lion and he's carnivorous," he stressed out. His steps were small and faster, in order to keep up with Pumbaa whose steps were large and fast. "He eats meat."

"Oh, so that's what they're called," Pumbaa mumbled, shifting a bit. "So what do you call us?"

Timon did not answer immediately as the figure on the warthog's tusks bounced precariously when Pumbaa stumbled slightly. It was all skin and bones as if he had travelled for a long time, and there were dust and some brown stuff that Timon thought was blood gathered on his whiskers and his neck...the meercat shuddered and looked away.

"We're vegetarians-�that's not the point!" Blowing out a frustrated breath, he stopped walking and glared at his friend. Pumbaa slowed down to a stop and turned to him inquisitively. He ignored the look. "You're a warthog, and you're just saving a lion."

"He's just a cub," Pumbaa explained but Timon interrupted quickly.

"He'll eat us! Kids like that, they eat anything! You know you never see them coming until they have their claws around your neck? He's a cub, but he's a lion cub, and he eats meat. We're meat, Pumbaa! You, a warthog. Me, a meercat. He doesn't see that. We're just meat."

"And he's just a kid," Pumbaa pointed out. He seemed tired but underneath the dust-coated fur that tickled his nose, Timon could sense that he was smiling. "Can't let him die."

"Oh yes we can!"

"No we can't!" In a second, Pumbaa was looming above Timon and the meercat had to take a step back as the warthog's shadow fell over him. For the first time, he remembered that Pumbaa was a bigger animal, and that his step could crush Timon's bones easily. "I won't let him die alone!" As an afterthought, he added, "I always wanted a pet."

"He's not a-�oh, what's the use?!" Timon threw up his front paws in a gesture of surrender and resumed walking. "Fine. Save him. Be that way. Don't let me say I told you so."

"If he doesn't eat us," Pumbaa solemnly replied as he too resumed his trot next to the meercat, "I won't tell you 'I told you so'."

Timon sighed. "For once, I'd be happy if you'll be able to say that to me. While we're still alive. And talking about this mutt." He poked a patch of fur and realized with a pang that the cub seemed to be barely alive. The streaks next to the tightly shut eyelids seemed recent, and for some reason, disturbed him immensely. They can't be real, he thought. Lions don't cry.

They walked on to their oasis and newfound home in complete silence. Only when Pumbaa lowered the cub on their makeshift nest of leaves a few meters away from the falls, he sighed happily and turned to Timon with a beam. "So I can keep him?"

Timon growled. The cub, as if hearing this, whimpered softly in his sleep as if battling nightmares, and shifted slightly. Not helping himself, Timon cast a small smile and replied, "When he's awake, ask him if he's potty-trained. Then we'll talk."