The scorpion and the lioness. Part 1

PREFACE


The basic message of this fairy tale is that even two very different species can find a way to get along well and be happy if they approach each other with love and respect.

Another point is how they are aware of their own dangerous nature and how they deal with it not to hurt their loves ones in anger.

In our cosmopolitan world those topics are up-to-date and we can learn a bit from the cute animals from the coming story.

Enjoy!

...

 
THE SCORPION AND THE LIONESS

(Excerpt)
 
 
Every now and then the little lioness went back to the forest, but when she missed her friend scorpion and returned, everything looked like he had been super busy the whole time.
 
With great concentration he dug holes in the ground and made beautiful, identical-looking sand piles. As quickly and precisely as a scorpion only could.

The lioness waited for him to greet her or start conversation. She was from a royal family and felt uncomfortable inviting herself.

So she sat at a little distance and watched him.

The Scorpy smiled and dug even faster. Without admitting that he saw her or was happy to.

Once she came a little closer and said: "Let me help you. I like digging too and I'm quite good at it".

"Thanks, but I have to do it myself," replied the scorpion.

"Come on, together we will finish it quicker and could play," wouldn't give up the lioness.

"Play? Hmm…" It felt like the scorpion was making a very big decision. "Just come in the evening when the sun goes down. I will wait for you."

Lioness did exactly as he told her. After all, they were dangerous predators who wanted to get along.

So they met in the evening and played.

After running around, hiding and catching, the two laid together and looked in the starry sky.

"Ouch, my leg!" suddenly screamed Scorpy as the lioness turned herself a bit clumsily.

"What? Where?" the lioness looked very concerned. She apologized and paid more attention not to roll over the scorpion again.

"What a Fidgety Philip* you are today!" complained the hurt one. (*Common German nickname for an uncalm person.)

"It’s not every day that I lay like this," bit the lioness back, "I need to figure it out."

"Sorry that I'm so sensitive at the moment," the Scorpy quickly saved the mood. "After so much work, you know."

"How did your hunt go yesterday?" wondered the lioness after a while.

"Exhausting, but good." As a real guy, Scorpy never gave too many details.

"I heard that the long-eared hedgehog is in your area again, looking for scorpions." The lioness couldn't help but mentioning this, as she was worried. "I hope, he doesn't meet you."

"Otherwise he will be unlucky himself, as I am big and skillful," said Scorpy with no hint of concern. "And how did your hunt go?"

"Good as well. I enjoy hunting." said the Lioness with possibly modest voice. "But I would love to watch how you hunt! Very inconspicuous and invisible, and then I go again."

"No! Right now I'm too stressed." Scorpy got unexpectedly cold. "Next year, next hunt, okay?"

"What causes you unnecessary stress is no fun for me either," said the lioness thoughtfully and immediately began to look forward to the next year.

"Would you like to go to a waterfall with me?" she asked after a while.

"Sure, just not today," Scorpy knew how to be diplomatic. "Maybe next time."

So the lioness went to the waterfall alone, again and again, and she was so happy that the butterflies flew in front of her in a heart shape and the clouds also formed a heart, or even 2 hearts, and the sun joined the game and lightened up those self-made hearts, so they looked like magic burning lamps.

"Yes, yes, I love you too," smiled the lioness at all of them. "You are so cute. And soon I'll show you to someone."

The time ran by, and the little one was wondering when the scorpion would offer the tour to the waterfall. But he simply forgot it.

The lioness forgot neither her own promises, nor those of the Scorpy. But she didn't mention it to him yet.

...

Once, when she came to their common meeting place, instead of the usual sand piles there was a new tall wall.

"Oh no!" thought the lioness. "What did he do? Why? But how cool! Such a nice wall." She noticed her friend at the very top of it, laying and enjoying the sun.

In order not to disturb his harmonic mood, she greeted him with soft, friendly roaring, "Hello!"

"Hello, come up and join me," - smiled the host. "There's just enough room for the two of us."

The lioness jumped up the wall and laid down next to the scorpion.

"So high and so big!" murmured the impressed female guest.

"I'm big myself," said Scorpy proudly. (For a scorpion, he was really a giant!) "How do you like it now at my place?" he asked with a beaming face.

"It's gorgeous. Very elegant and tasteful," realized the lioness, the more she looked around. "But where are your beautiful sand piles?"

"All gone. It was time."

"Oh man, I wanted to count them and now it's too late," thought the lioness to herself, because she was still too shy to say what she was thinking.

"You could have kept at least a few piles as a nice memory," she sighed quietly.

As if she wasn't jealous of those little piles before! Instead of playing, jumping around, swimming and sunbathing with her Scorpy built his piles!

And now he got rid of them all at once and the lioness missed them. But that was okay. He must have changed himself, and then he changed his environment accordingly. Everything was fine with Lioness, as long as her Darling was happy.

"And what do you need this wall for?" She asked.

"It's very simple. If you see me upstairs, it means that everything is fine and you can come," said the Scorpio, "otherwise try to call me. If I don't answer or don't show myself, then you have to wait. That means I'm busy, or absent, or ... have to be alone."

“Again new rules,” thought the lioness, “but a good sign that my favorite puzzle told me that much."

...
 
"What do you like about me?" the scorpion was a genius in confusing questions.

The lioness didn't want to give a simple answer either, so she smiled and said, "The pleasure of finding this out I leave to you."

"Come on, tell me." demanded the scorpion.

"I like your voice," she said after a very long pause. And then she sneezed, because she always sneezed when she was about to ask something very touchy and exciting. And this time it came out as 2 harmless looking words, "And you?"
 
The Scorpy took his time, perfectly aware that the scene was now all his and the whole theater was watching him without breathing. And said, "Also".
 
The lioness wasn't sure if he meant that he liked his own voice or hers, but she was already emotionally exhausted to clear this out.
 
"If I ever write a fairy tale about us, will you read it to me?" asked the lioness some days later.

"You
write
about
us?"

The scorpion was taken by surprise. Didn't he recently think that the lioness surprised him already in so many ways that nothing new was possible? "Sure, I'll read that to you." he replied. "You are very creative, do you know?"

"Thanks to you, once in a while I dare to try something new." said lioness warmhearted. "Because you always encourage me. Even if you can't understand everything directly or if it doesn't go as planned."

At that moment they both thought of the surprise that the lioness once sent with a pigeon. Back then, the bird was so overwhelmed with the route "from lions' claws into the scorpion's nest" that it handed out the package to a wrong recipient. At the end, when Scorpy got his rather personal present, it was already unpacked and seen by others. Yet the surprise surely worked, everyone was a little embarrassed.

-----

Why embarrassed, you would ask yourself, dear reader? The story is worth chapters of its own, but I'll clear you up shortly.

As already mentioned, the lioness was still a bit small and liked games, pranks and ... loved the toys of the human children. Of course, that was a secret, because for the forest and the desert she was a very decent and respected queen of animals! What should she do with human things? But they got along so well with her Scorpy that she told him about it. He thought it was okay, if not cute.

So she managed to get him a tiny spaceship toy, very pretty and beautifully painted in blue-white-silver. Because they were both secretly very romantic and loved looking at the starry sky. And so, if the lioness hadn't been there, the scorpion, after his busy day, could lay the spaceship next to him and fall asleep happily.

When the lioness gave that package to the postal bird, she instructed it to make the following joke when handing over: "Your personal cosmic monster. Tame it."

And now?! Not only was it very embarrassing that someone else found out that the lioness had sent someone a present, it was also that it was apparently the scorpy's family that didn't even know about her, and then they also noticed what exactly that was !

Scorpio felt the same as the lioness, and on top of that, he never intended to admit how much he loved the gifts in general. And then even from a girl ?! No way! He was way too strong, independent and just too much a real man for that!

And now his next found out that he had a girlfriend who even sent him something cute as a surprise!

That was the day when the new Scorpy's wall became very useful. The scorpio hid behind it and informed the lioness to wait until he calmed down. Very loving and clever prevention so as not to sting anyone out of sheer anger.

But the lioness had imagined it to be completely different! And waited for a warm-hearted "thank you", and that he would play with the spaceship and think of her happily when he fell asleep.

She was totally upset and didn't want to do anything anymore. Only once she sent a bird to see what was going on behind the wall. The bird came back a little tattered, but, to be professional, reported that "the hell was going on there".

After a few days the scorpion came out itself and they got along with the lioness again. He couldn't do anything with the present, but didn't want to give it back to the lioness either. And although he never said thank you, his girlfriend believed he digged it into a very safe place as a special memory.

-----

"But you understand me," whispered the lioness to the Scorpy without looking at him. "And you like my unique surprises, even you don't admit it."

The scorpion kept silent, but sighed deeply and happily.


One day, when the lioness was in her forest a little longer, she sent a messenger to the Scorpio. The content was as follows:

"I want us to stay in touch forever and ever, no matter what. Can you confirm that?"

The answer came the same day, when it was already dark and the lioness was almost asleep.

"I totally agree with that," replied the Scorpio as soon as he was sure he understood her question correctly. The lioness could rarely express herself clearly with him, especially when she was very excited.

"Why suddenly in French?" She thought. "And what exactly did he mean?"

"Should anything be reached back?" asked the messenger politely, as he was still waiting.

The lioness was too overwhelmed to put anything into words. She was surely very touched and thought: "I am too much for any man because I am a lioness, and every man is too less for me, or has it been so until now ...? And nobody can understand me or endure in the long run. And Scorpio promised me to stay in my life no matter what."

"Please pass the Scorpio my heartly kiss," she said to the messenger and fell asleep.

When she woke up in the morning, two Scorpio messengers were already waiting for her, not daring to disturb.

The first one probably came in the middle of the night and also brought back a heartly kiss from the Scorpio.

The second messenger brought nearly a whole sentence that said: "Absolutely."

"Tell him from me:" That's the way it is and it will stay"", said the lioness and suddenly realized that she had promised something very important.

She was happy, and when she went swimming, the sun reflected in the water in the shape of a heart.

---

"Why do you never come to my forest?" the lioness asked her friend after a while. "Then I would know that I am special to you."

"You are anyway", thought the Scorpy very, very quietly, because he knew that she could hear his thoughts.

The lioness heard even that, but did not show it, so not to embarrass him.

Why? Because she had told Scorpi herself at the very beginning that she wasn't ready for anything solid. Back then she was alone for the first time in life and that was just the right thing for her to be happy. "At no cost do I let anyone into my closet!" She thought allegorically and smiling, "and I also like to have time for myself because that's how I am."

Scorpio thought that was all right and then replied that he was just the same. And the more the lioness discovered that it was the truth, the more interested she was in studying Scorpy. Only he allowed almost nothing. The little lioness was wondering and missed his affection. She was only a diva in public, but in her heart she was very reluctant and needed regular recognition and constant evidence of loyalty.

And if she guessed correctly, Scorpi needed exactly the same thing to be strong and happy.

"If I sting you, you will die," said the scorpion once thoughtfully and very seriously, because he cared for the lioness' well-being and because he was aware of this deadly quality of his. "But I'll never do that. Just be careful and don't accidentally step on my tail yourself."

"Thanks. I'll be careful," purred the lioness while cuddling carefully on Scorpy's shoulder. "You have in fact an extraordinarily beautiful tail. How big is it in centimeters?"

"We'll measure it together when you come next time."

 
.........
for continuation see http://proza.ru/2021/06/29/1670

The new illustrations are coming up also.