"Odd Uncle! Odd Uncle are you at home?" Anushka knew how to be silent when it suited her, but it did not suit her at the moment. She had just had an upsetting experience and she required reassurance. When it came to reassurance her Odd Uncle was probably the very best. Except, of course, when he was not where he was supposed to be, which was the height of bad manners, in Anushka's opinion.
"Odd isn't here," someone rasped from inside her uncle-thing's den.
The voice definitely did not sound like Odd, but Anushka couldn't think who it might be, if not her Odd Uncle. He lived alone, even though there was a lioness everyone knew he liked very much, and so there should not have been anyone in his den, unless one of her siblings had also gone to look for their Odd Uncle. But this did not sound like one of her siblings, either.
"What are you doing in his den, if he is not here?" Anushka demanded, walking into the comfortable den as though she owned it. She was not thinking about doing battle with an intruder, but she was at least subconsciously aware of the possibility, for her fur stood on end along her spine as she moved into the darkened area.
"Dying of thirst," Midas answered. His throat was hot and raw, like the rest of him, but he managed to sound scornful and sarcastic nevertheless. "Could you bring that gourd closer so I can have a drink?"
He probably could have gotten it himself, and if nobody had come by he would have, but then this convenient girl had happened by and she could do it for him, sparing him the excruciating pain of movement for the time being, although the act of drinking would be painful enough on his stung tongue and sore throat.
"First I want to know who you are," the fluffy white girl said imperiously. "And also I want to know why you are dying of thirst in my uncle-thing's den. Do you have his permission to do that?"
Midas sighed and replied, "My name is Midas Brutenson, Ka-nikt of the Order of the Golden Paw. I was wounded completing a task for the Order and your uncle Odd has been seeing to my injuries."
"Oh," Anushka said simply. Most of that had made absolutely no sense to the forest-born girl whatsoever. At least not the bit about ka-nikts. She guessed it was a pride title that she had never heard of. She wondered if her Odd Uncle had heard of it. Then she remembered he had asked for something. "You may have the water."
Midas watched as the pale girl scooted the water-filled gourd across the floor of the den until it was close enough for him to hook it with his own paw and drag it the rest of the way. It would hurt to do that, but she had been obviously reluctant to get too close to him, and he didn't think he had any other option if he really wanted the water.
After lapping at it for several moments while she stared at him silently, Midas looked up and said, "Thanks. I almost died you know. Not just now. Before."
"Yes," she agreed. Then she announced, "I am Anushka."
"One day I will kill you, Anushka," Midas said dutifully before returning to his water. A bee stung body got impossibly hot, even lying on a bed of ice, which wasn't actually very comfortable. He tried not to complain about that, though, since he had overheard Odd talking to the lion who brought it, from which he gathered it had been a hardship to do so, and to continue doing so. Now Odd was off getting more ice.
"Not today," Anushka answered him. It made her smile to have an excuse to use the greeting her favorite cousin had taught her before he left to live in the stronghold. "It is not nice to make pee in another person's den."
Midas was startled by the sudden change of subject and offered an intelligent, "Huh? No, it isn't."
"You have made pee in my Odd Uncle's den though. That is nasty of you. I would get in a lot of trouble if I did that."
For a moment Midas was actually concerned that he had "made pee" without being aware of having done so, but then he realized that she must be seeing the water trickling away from his bed of ice as it melted. He was a little boy. He laughed.
"I didn't pee in the den. It's ice melting. From my bed. Come see."
Anushka tucked her paws under her tail and said primly, "I do not want to come see your pee. It is not nice to try to fool me, either. I know lions do not sleep on ice."
"I do," Midas argued. "Because it keeps me from getting too hot, your uncle says. I got stung by about a million bees, and the bee venom got into my blood and I still have a fever, but the ice bed helps with that."
It also numbed whatever side he lay on it with, but he wasn't going to admit to that, because that would be almost like admitting to pain, and he wouldn't do that. He knew instinctively that ka-nikts did not complain about such things. Neither did regular old Stormborn warriors.
"You are not lying?" the girl Anushka asked, giving him a look of such pure suspicion that Midas almost felt guilty, even though he wasn't lying at all. Except for not mentioning the numbing, which was basically irrelevant to the conversation.
"You can come see, and then you'll know I'm not." He was beginning to tire, so he hoped she would not continue arguing with him. It was a relief when she took a few steps closer and then brought her nose to his bed to feel the icy cold for herself.
"Why did your task for the golden paw order cause you to be stung by so many bees?" she asked, settling down a short distance away and making herself comfortable.
Midas wanted to shrug, to make it look like no big deal, but that would hurt too much, so he kept still. "Well, my brother ka-nikt in the Order of the Golden Paw and I were trying to decide who should lead the Order, and this was a test of our bravery."
Anushka frowned. "What was the test?"
"We each had to climb a tree and then touch the bee hive that was hanging from a branch," he said, obviously proud of his accomplishment despite its outcome. He hadn't died, after all.
"Both of you did this thing?" she asked. "To the same beehive?"
"Yes. First Frjo, my brother, then me."
Anushka kept frowning. "That was dumb. I think your brother made the bees angry, and when it was your turn they already wanted to hurt people when they had not wanted to before. That was very, very dumb."
Midas's feelings were more than a little hurt as he insisted, "But brave, too. It was also brave."
"It maybe was a little brave," Anushka allowed. "But mostly it was dumb."
"It wasn't," Midas argued wearily.
"It was. But I think I like you even if you do dumb things. Next time I see you I want to hear about your brother and ka-nikts." She nodded, then added, as if he could not tell for himself, "I am leaving now. Do not die in bed."
"I'll try," he replied, watching her go and being glad of her timing. He had been wanting to roll over and ice his other side, but he couldn't do it with an audience. Now he could.
Word Count: 1,300
