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The carcass of the snake took weeks to eat, even with Mipa's impressive appetite. Seeing as the carcass was too heavy to move, even with the large felines' combined strength, they both decided to hunker down there around it. It was an easy decision, given that both were pretty banged up after the deadly encounter.

Kovu came away with gashes on his paw and shoulder as well as what felt like a couple of cracked ribs. He was sore all over for a week and never went more than an hour's walk away from their temporary abode while he was recuperating. It didn't seem like Mipa should have been as badly off as Kovu, but she malingered, coughing and complaining of pain when she breathed in too deeply; a result of the rock landing on her belly perhaps. She abandoned her traps, leaving them to rot while there was plenty of snake to eat, preferring instead to spend her time around Kovu while he limped here and there, sometimes staring out into the jungle for hours. But mostly both of them just slept as cats do.

The meat spoiled, naturally, but they had strong stomachs and with Mipa there, they were able to compete with the natural process of decay, eating it almost as quickly as the exposed flesh decayed.

Mipa...she showed Kovu the depths of gluttony she was capable of sinking to when there was literally unlimited food available. She ate herself into a stupor that first night, giving herself such a bad stomach ache that Kovu had to rub and massage her in an effort to make her feel better. After that, Kovu usually found Mipa either sleeping or sampling at the huge carcass. Her sleeping hours became erratic. Kovu would sometimes wake in the middle of the day to find her hunched over the scaly beast, feeding. It seemed almost that she never slept more than a few hours at a time, waking constantly to the need to top off her burgeoning belly.

After two weeks of keeping herself constantly full, Kovu noticed a visible increase in her general capacity to eat, as if her stomach were expanding to keep up with the new digestive demands. And her stomach was not the only thing expanding.

They were both injured after the fight and neither felt up to venturing very far from their makeshift home on a flat piece of grass near the carcass. The abundance of food and the lack of even her nightly laps around the oasis quickly had a pronounced effect on Mipa's waistline, and his own, Kovu had to admit to himself. They both put on weight, but with Mipa regularly eating twice as much - and later easily three times as much - food as he from the snake, she began to show it sooner and just kept adding to her personal stockpile of adipose. Kovu said nothing about it, though honestly, he loved every minute of watching Mipa eat and having the gift of the snake around that they had both earned.

They both treasured the free availability of food while it lasted, though they both knew it couldn't last forever. The boon was enough to sustain them as they recovered from their injuries, but Mipa more than even Kovu understood that it would be back to business as usual before long. When the great snake was half gone, she began to spend her waking hours weaving, that is, when she was not busily stuffing her face with the ever ripening meat. Kovu did not join her at first, complaining of his hurt paw still although it had more to do with a lack of interest in the art. However, as she spent more and more time at it, he eventually joined her. And they talked as they both lay in the grass, stockpiling cord. Mipa showed Kovu how to bind tree bark also, however Mipa always took it upon herself to strip it from the trees, the strands needed to be delicately separated, and the task required great delicacy from her paws. Kovu couldn't gather the bark, but he could save Mipa the labour of turning it into usable cord and then winding that cord into stronger rope. Later, Mipa began gathering a stockpile of smooth twigs and branches as she began wandering father and farther from the diminishing corpse. She assumed she would have to remake all of her traps already out in the jungle, those existing surely having broken or rotted by now. Kovu, once he learned what features were useful to her, began to assist as well although it struck him as odd to be gathering dead wood rather than looking for prey.

After two moons, the giant snake was reduced to little more than bones and scales. Still the two lions picked at it. However, by then, Mipa had begun building and setting traps again, walking out into the woods eve afternoon as she had done for the past year. However this time, she had Kovu along as well. The big lion helped out with his strength, making it easier for her to lift things up and string the ropes though the high branches where she could not easily get to; what with her climbing ability pretty much reduced to nil. It seemed so natural, so easy for Kovu, like he'd been doing this all along. Mipa usually finished in the early evening and settled down to her various crafting projects. During this time, Kovu stalked the forest interior, a natural predator. Later in the night, he and Mipa would meet again at the glade and talk some more, sometimes snuggling or grooming each other, sometimes going down to the lake to look at the moon's reflection on the water. It was all so serene.

And Mipa made it possible. By the time that they had abandoned the bones of the snake, their wounds had mostly healed, though Kovu found that he still had pain in his shoulder which forced him to limp as he walked. But also, Mipa had grown to double Kovu's weight, which itself had increased with the freely available snake meat. She had rounded out nicely, growing a huge sagging paunch and a deep shelf of fat at her tail head. She waddled as she moved, her hips swaying in a way that pleased Kovu immensely. He himself was heavier than he had ever been. His ribs were finally hidden from plain sight and he had some meat on his shoulders and thighs as well. The dip under his rib cage to his stomach was less sharp now and the ground did not feel so hard under him where he slept. However, Mipa still complained of the bonieness of his shoulders and the ridge of his spine when he slept against her. He loved when she complained about it though, it was only a greater contrast between their two physiques.

And Mipa did not stop there, either. The weeks grew into passing moons and eventually it seemed like they were simply meant to be together. Mipa caught the vast majority of their food in the form of a constant selection of small animals - mostly birds and monkeys - while Kovu was able to bring in the occasional boon of a warthog or something larger that had wandered in from the larger desert. They shared everything, but Kovu always insisted that Mipa get the 'lion's share.' She seemed fine with it and didn't question the policy, just as he didn't question her different quirks or even the fact that she accepted the sheer amount of food that she did.

Her frame continued to bow out, the pounds piling on her almost just from the smell of food. The bigger she got, the more irresistible she became to him. Slowly, she began asking more favors from Kovu. Simple things, like fetching objects or fastening branches, things that she used to do herself, but now... Well, Kovu didn't mind in the slightest, in fact he enjoyed the additional work, further validating his reason for being here with her. Mipa didn't talk about the matter of her increasing dependence all that much. Kovu just did his best to understand wordlessly and to always be at her beck and call, so that she never would feel constrained by her growing bulk. Apparently he succeeded.

The wet season came to the oasis with a booming clap of thunder one evening. It brought the monsoon storms that Mipa said would double the size of the oasis and turn the desert into a vast flowering prairie for a few beautiful weeks. They celebrated the coming of the raised with a long bout of sensual massage, Mipa having grown far more comfortable with Kovu caressing her over the last months. About a moon later, Mipa had tripled Kovu's weight, making her into a huge lioness of unheard-of proportions. Her handicaps had grown along with her 'waist'-line and she'd begun talking to Kovu more and more about how she might bring her growth to a halt at last. So far, however, they hadn't done much more than talk about it.

The moon was a curving, ghostly crescent in the sky and thunder pealed in the east, heralding a storm. Kovu awoke in the late afternoon and then woke up Mipa with a gentle jostling of her fatty shoulder. It was time for their daily inspection of the traps. Little did Kovu know then, however, that that night would bring about changes for the both of them...