Characters: Kasirga bint Nesf, Kuhasa
Word Count: 1242

Some time had passed since Kasirga and her family had won their way into the pride, they were all healing but the drought was making things extra complicated. Hunting was becoming more desperate and resulting in frequent injury, water was being guarded by other creatures who needed it (and didn’t care to share).. but most irritating of all to Kasirga, her face was itchy and painful and she had a good guess of why. The worst of her pitiful wounds from the fight with the hyenas had been to her face, though it was hardly noteworthy and easily covered by her mane.. it seemed a face-full of scavenger teeth was a bad idea and she couldn’t possibly have done a good enough job cleaning it.

She stood a short distance away from one of the few remaining water sources. One that was normally under watch due to the water rationing in effect, but that had been abandoned because there was a surly looking reptile basking by the water’s edge. Nobody wanted to take that on again so soon after Mr. Crocodile failed to shoo the last one, it had been abandoned for today in hopes it would be manageable later.

Unfortunately, Kasirga wasn’t eager to show off her problem. So she stood there, waiting for the nerve to approach. The crocodile had looked at her when she arrived but if it was watching now, she couldn’t tell. And there simply wasn’t enough water in there anymore for her to confidently walk over and drink or clean up.

“You can go up there.”

The voice startled her, and she turned around to find herself facing crippled Mr. Crocodile himself. Kuhasa had appeared some time after she arrived and had watched her staring contest with the water for a few minutes before limping over to her. He could see her hesitation but he didn’t know where her determination was coming from. He guessed maybe her water rations weren’t enough- she was still small and growing.. maybe that had something to do with it?

“No thanks,” Kasirga answered with a mild glare, turning back to the water, “I’m not interested in being chewed on by a crocodile.”

Kuhasa stifled an eye-roll and return glare, guessing that was a jab at his currently best known encounter with reptiles.. and decidedly put on a smile- which didn’t do much to improve the young lioness’s sour mood.

“You’ve been staring awfully long to have really made up your mind,” he observed, stepping closer, “I could just remind you about the water rationing rules instead, if you like.”

“I’m aware of the rules,” she said.

“Good, good,” he replied, taking another step-- and finally noticing the angry wound on her face. It made him pause, and he immediately understood what the problem was. It looked worse than his leg, and his wound was much more recent..

Kasirga looked over at him, realizing that he had stopped short and was now staring at her.

“Is there a problem?” she snapped.

“Uh, yeah,” he answered, “Your face.”

When that earned him and even meaner glare, he shook his head and cleared his throat. She obviously knew what he was talking about but was deflecting by acting as though he intended offense, and that was just plain pointless.

“If you don’t do something about that, you could lose your eye,” he said, “Wouldn’t be the first around here, I guess, but you don’t want that.”

Kasirga growled to herself. She didn’t want that. Maybe she’d happily give an eye in a worthy fight but against her own body, losing it to infection.. that was utterly ridiculous. Never mind that it would have to get even worse for that to happen, the bite was not that close to her eye.

“Pardon me for not taking your word on this,” she said sarcastically, “Last I heard, you got yourself and some lionesses mangled trying to convince them and a crocodile to share.”

Kuhasa sighed. Loudly.

“Do you want to clean up or not?” he asked, finally stepping past her and heading for the water’s edge. He didn’t stop until his toes were right at the water.. and his eyes were on the crocodile. The crocodile, for its part, turned its head slightly to get a better look at the lion who approached, but then turned back to continue basking peacefully. Kuhasa nodded, then turned around to Kasirga.

“See?” he said, “If it makes you feel better, I’ll keep myself between you and her.”

Her? thought Kasirga, taking another questioning look at the crocodile before walking up. She moved a couple feet away from Kuhasa but happily kept him on the side closer to the danger.

“You can see her, so she’s not hunting,” he said, even bold enough to take a seat, “And she looks pretty relaxed right where she is.”

Kasirga glanced over at Kuhasa and stepped into the water, leaning down to try to get a better look at her face.

“It’s that easy, huh?” she said doubtfully.

“Yes and no,” he said, shrugging, “They generally don’t hunt lions, so that helps. And there’s only two of us.”

He made it sound like this was all obvious, but it just didn’t seem that way when you considered the kind of trouble they caused for the pride. But then again, it made sense when you considered that the pride had chosen to leave her alone for now instead of trying to chase her off. Maybe there was some obvious wisdom in the crap he was spouting at her.

“So what happened last time?” she asked, waving a paw through the water and beginning her efforts to clean her face. It hurt like a b***h but it wasn’t going to get better if she couldn’t get it cleaned up properly. There had been talk of healers in the pride but she hadn’t actually seen any, maybe she’d have to swallow her pride and seek help.

“Got carried away,” he said, shrugging.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” she hissed, more at the pain of her paw against her face than Kuhasa’s apparent indifference, “You and three lionesses were injured because you got carried away?”

Kuhasa glared this time.

“Believe me, I learned from my mistake,” he said.

“I suppose that lesson wasn’t ‘stay away from crocodiles,’ then?” she asked, stepping back and sitting down at the water’s edge, holding the eye on the sore side closed.

“Nope.”

Kasirga had no idea what to make of the strange Inselelo. Based on the strange, conflicting array of stories about him she had decided he was a useless blowhard but in his defense, he was making an excellent lion-shield between her and the crocodile. He was the one who would be eaten. It made him less useless but quite possibly extremely stupid.

“Alright then,” she murmured, resuming her task and allowing Kuhasa to stand guard while she tried to clean herself up again. He was right about her face- not that she hadn’t known. She needed to get it cleaned up and, if it got any worse instead of better, figure out if there really were any healers around here or not.

Kuhasa shook his head as she seemed to settle on ignoring him, and glanced over to the nearby croc. She made no sign if she was paying attention to them but he could swear there was an amused glimmer in her expression.

Stupid crocodiles.

Fin!