Characters: Ebha (Healer), Eione (Duchess, Healer), Ua (Healer, late stage plague), Fearghal (Guard), Pingana (Spy)
Word Count: 1178
Setting: Watching the Ambush on Facio & co from a distance.

Ua was not having a good day today, but his den had finally moved farther into the pride where he could be watched more closely and it put him in exactly the right area to notice the buzz of activity going on around him. Ebha had been having a meeting with some other healers just outside his den and he completely ignored them, but he caught wind of what was going down.. and had been thoroughly rejected in every offer to help. So he had seated himself a good distance away from Mittere’s old den, watching as the group approached.

Ua’s breathing was impossibly loud, and despite knowing why that was, Pingana couldn’t help but be annoyed by it. He set aside that feeling, though, knowing the lion would be there with his family if he was able.. and he was Maji’s brother, after all. The King was safely away from all this chaos but surely his brother ought to be minded. Especially as he got worse.

“So, they’ve made it,” Pingana said, not moving from his spot some feet away from Ua and the healers that had followed after him. Fearghal, a guard that had been nearby, stood at his side, watching the lions as well.

“Do you think they’ll run?” Fearghal asked.

“Maybe,” Pingana said, “Not the eldest, but the younger ones. The hybrids have all dispersed..”

“Hmm.”

Fearghal knew the plan. Pingana wasn’t even really a part of it because he was just a Scout but he started it so he apparently wanted to see it through, all of which was fine with Fearghal. The intruders could try to run, but if they were injured they would have to be stopped. Master Warrior Kestven and Mittere’s daughters were likely capable of containing them if necessary, but this was a precaution. The only thing Fearghal didn’t like about this was that there was a wheezy lion standing nearby with two healers.. and one of them was his mother.

“That’s him,” Eione said, standing by Ua’s side, “He’s the one I met on the border.”

“He does look like Granny,” Ua commented, “Hairier, though.”

Ebha was a few steps back from her patient. It wasn’t a coincidence that she and Eione were both on duty with Ua today, but Ua hadn’t seemed to notice it yet. They had lost a healer, actually, in the short walk from his den to their spot in the audience. Poor Nyesha, she probably jumped at the chance for a distraction and went to check on the family that didn’t immediately get involved.

Eione chuckled at Ua’s comment, giving him a smile and glancing back to Ebha.

“How long ago was that?” Fearghal asked, looking back from spectacle to the healers.

“It’s been a while,” Eione said, “Now we know why.”

There was a pause as everybody looked back out at the pink and purple crowd and watched as Facio stepped forward to go into the den. Ua was so intent, watching the quickly but carefully laid trap unfold, that it took a beat to realize he didn’t know what Eione meant.

“W-why?” he asked.

Eione didn’t know how much to share about what Sedare had seen, especially in such a mixed group. But.. by now they were all beyond the assumption that this was going to lead to trouble. By the way Pingana spoke of Facio, he was being careless. If they really knew Mittere, and of course they all had, they would never believe a kindly estranged brother would brave the plague just for a visit.

“He had to wait for backup,” she answered.

“So they were probably spread out,” Fearghal added to the explanation, his eyes not moving as Facio disappeared and the scene erupted into chaos, “And they came together for this.”

Pingana gave an affirmative grunt at the assessment, watching as they were all proven correct.

“This seems a bit much for a group like that, don’t you think?” Ebha said, finally breaking her long silence since they arrived, “Do we all have nothing better to do?”

Finally, Fearghal’s attention moved from the fight to his mother and he scowled.

“This is what we do,” he said defensively, “We can’t let aggressive outsiders just wander through.”

“No, and if they’re anything like Mittere, of course we should be wary,” Ebha replied sternly, “But surely Master Kestven and the others are capable of handling such a threat without an audience like this.”

“Mom, stop,” Fearghal said with a sigh, earning a glare from his mother.

An awkward silence fell. Pingana wasn’t the chatty type and he sure as hell wasn’t getting involved in whatever the guard was starting with his own mother. Eione and Ebha only shared a silent look before their gazes moved back to Ua. He was starting to shake, and his breathing was somehow getting louder still.

“She’s right, Ua,” Eione said gently, breaking the silence, “They’ll be fine.”

The Duchess finally sat down, hoping that Ua would follow her lead if he was going to insist on staying right where he was. She understood why he’d dragged himself out of his den, but her heart ached watching him suffer.

“I know,” Ua answered, glancing over and taking a seat as well, “I still think I could be useful. No better deterrent than a glimpse of what happens if you do get infected, right?”

His half-serious joke was slow as he struggled to keep breathing, but he smiled.

“I suppose not,” Eione agreed.

“Not how your Granny would handle it, though,” Ebha remarked, a small smile appearing on her face as well as she deliberately turned herself away from her son and focused on Eione and Ua. It felt silly, referring to Mittere as ‘granny’ .. disrespectful, almost, now that she had passed away. But she knew that was why Ua liked it.

“No,” Ua agreed. Mittere had been sick for a long time but it was hard to tell right up until she was actually dying. Not like him, he’d looked and felt like he was dying for months now. He wouldn’t acknowledge it, but he knew that’s why Eione was here now. Ebha took one look at him earlier in the day, sent an apothecary for a complicated order and called for a hushed little meeting outside his den. He wasn’t ready to accept that it was time for a Dusk Healer to take over, so Eione was just another Healer and a family friend here to watch as Kestven, Sedare, Arantza and Aella expertly handled some cousins they never knew they had.

“We’d have a bigger audience if Master Warrior Mittere was here like they wanted,” Fearghal commented, earning another glare from his mother but a chuckle from Eione, Ua and Pingana. He wasn’t wrong.

And the group went silent again, watching.

Ua smiled to himself. He hoped he was remembered like this, too. Maybe he never became anything terribly important, but when he died he wanted to be remembered as himself and not the sick, shaky, wheezing lion he had become.

Fin