As it turned out, Frjokorn was not busy the next day, but it still took the two brothers a while to meet up to discuss Order business, as neither one of them had specified a time or place to meet, and so they had each gone to a different place at a different time and waited until they got frustrated and stalked home, grumbling about how annoying brothers were. Then their actually litter brothers got all offended and they had to explain that they weren't talking about them, and Stormlords, just go away.
Truly. Both of them had pretty much identical experiences the following day, except for the time and place of their failed meetings.
It actually took several days for them to happen to be in the same place at the same time after founding the Order. They had both gone to watch the older reavers and aspiring reavers train, and both of them had been watching the same match. They did not notice each other at the same time, however. Frjokorn noticed Midas first, and sneaked up behind him to swat him on the butt.
"Jerk!" he exclaimed as his paw connected.
Midas had whirled around, ready to fight without having much of a clue how to go about doing it, except for what he had seen older lions doing. He did manage a mostly convincing snarl.
It was the snarl that prompted Frjokorn to explain himself: "You never showed!"
"I did," Midas argued, all wounded pride (and wounded arse). "You weren't there though. And I waited a really long time."
"How long did you wait?" Frjo asked with a frown. He, too, had waited for a really long time. Probably longer than Midas had waited. Definitely longer than Midas had waited. After all, he was older and that made him more patient by default, right?
"A really long time," Midas repeated. "Probably, maybe, an hour. Or more. I think it was more. Definitely more."
"Wow, that's sucks. But I was waiting, like, two or three hours. I got in trouble at home, I waited so long." None of that was true, but Midas had said he'd waited an hour. That was a really long time. Even Frjo had to admit that. But that didn't mean he was going to let Midas one-up him as far as how much he had been inconvenienced.
Both cubs looked at one another archly, each unwilling to admit that they had both waited a really long time, and that maybe the other had a valid complaint. It was not the most promising second meeting the Order could possibly have had, but no one had come to blows. Except for that first swat from Frjo, that is.
"Where were you waiting?" Midas asked, having spotted a possible explanation for their failure to get together on the appointed day.
Sensing that any answer he gave would somehow demonstrate that he had made a mistake, Frjo countered, "Where were you waiting?"
"Doesn't matter," Midas said dismissively, rather than fall prey to the same snare he'd set up for his brother. "We're meeting now, so let's get down to business."
Under his breath Frjo sang, "To defeat. The Huns. Huah!"
Midas really only heard the "huah!" portion of all of that, but he decided to adopt the sound as being special to the order, so he repeated it, with feeling: "Huah!"
Frjo frowned disapprovingly at his brother, even though he supposed it could have been a noise to indicate assent. Maybe that could be how the Order acknowledged things, instead of saying ja like the rest of the pride. That was probably it. And he'd introduced it. Ha! Or, huah!
"So. Business. We should probably figure out who the head of the Order is. That way we won't have problems about meeting up at the wrong time or in the wrong place, because the leader will say where and when to meet, and that'll be that."
Frjo had actually given that subject some considerable thought, so he didn't stop Midas as he spoke. Right up until Midas mentioned the reason why he felt a leader would be useful. At that point, Frjo figured it would be a good time to remind his brother that it had been Midas who said they should meet the next day.
"Probably I should be the leader," he said as casually as possible. "After all, it was you who failed to specify when or where we should meet that next day. Not a mistake I will make as leader."
"Huh, yeah, no. I don't think so," Midas replied, making it very clear how little enthusiasm he had for his brother being in charge of the Order.
"What do you mean, 'I don't think so'?" Frjo was incredulous and indignant. "The whole Order was my idea to begin with. You didn't even know what I was talking about until I explained, like, everything to you. Before that, you didn't even know what an Order was. Or even a ka-nikt."
Midas rolled his eyes. He had just learned how to use that to great effect. "So? I came up with the name."
"I totally could have done that," Frjo muttered. "I had about a million ideas. I just went with yours because I didn't want you to feel bad for not knowing about ka-nikts and Orders and stuff."
Midas wasn't buying that for a second, and he would have argued the point when he had a better idea, one that made him smile wickedly.
"You said anyone else who wants in the order would have to pass a test. Why don't we each pass a test the other one came up with? That'd be fair, right?"
Frjo nodded. It sounded fair to him, except... "Okay. Except the person who comes up with the test has to do it, too. And first. So that there's proof it can really be done, and isn't just something impossible."
Midas agreed quickly. That was a good idea. It hadn't yet occurred to him to set his brother an impossible task, but it had obviously occurred to Frjo, so Midas was glad that Frjo had just made a rule making it against the rules to assign impossible tasks. That way neither of them could do it.
"We should have someone else be the judge, too," he added. "Someone who will be fair. Like a lawspeaker or a priestess."
Frjo frowned. He didn't like the idea of bothering a priestess with something like this. Or explaining to a lawspeaker about founding an Order. "I think it would be better if we handled it ourselves. Maybe we should make it part of our creed to always be honest and fair with our brothers, so that no matter what we won't have to worry about things like that."
"Okay," Midas agreed with a shrug. "You can come up with the first test, since it was your idea."
"Great," Frjo said. He knew just the thing...
Word Count: 1,164
