He woke up slowly, blinking heavy eyelids and lifting his head without as much strain as the day before. In fact, he was feeling much more refreshed, and much stronger, after that rest. He had no idea if it was day or night outside, but it made no real difference in the end. He spent most of his time sleeping anyway, these days, so the position of the sun or moon was irrelevant. His stomach growled, and he looked around for his hostess, then glanced down to realize he had been sleeping on her.
Raruo remembered the encounter before. He asked her what her name was, but passed out before she had answered him. She must have put herself under him to keep him from slamming his chin into the stone of the cave floor when it dropped. With all that sorted in his head, he grumbled softly at himself and at his embarrassment. What kind of a lion, a veteran and a warrior no less, tuckered himself out just by holding his head up and asking a few stupid questions.
One question, in fact. That he still had no answer to.
She was sleeping under him, in front of him. He was laying on his stomach, with his paws before him, which she was on top of. She was laying on her side now, and must have been rather lost under the thick mane that covered Raruo’s own neck and upper back and chest. He wondered at her as she slept, trying not to wake her. Finally he got a good look at her pelt, purple but smoky in a way. The marking was tribal, with a swirl of some incomprehensible meaning moving through the shapes. It did not seem to be a tattoo, but rather natural, which was odd to the mostly plain pelted male. He had seen stranger, though, even in his own pride.
He shuddered and winced inside, and forced his mind away from those memories, that thought.
As if sensing his unrest, the lioness stirred and let out a mighty yawn, turning and sitting up. It brought her almost nose to nose with him, and he stared at her across the bridge of his nose. She looked back at him. This made them both go a bit cross eyed, and she broke away laughing. Raruo blinked, but the charm of the moment seemed lost on him, and no smile reached his expression. At least he did not look angry, either, which was a small comfort for the lioness as she pulled back and got to her feet, stretching.
“I bet you’re starving. You slept through meal times yesterday, for the most part. But that’s alright, that’s good for you, and you’ll need all the strength you can get for the coming days,” she spoke in a friendly, familiar tone, though the first day he had been able to speak back to her had been yesterday, and even then it was only a few short words. He watched her, uncertain about her, but even more so about her comment.
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to start getting you up and about, and using those old muscles of yours,” she chimed. The skepticism on his face increased exponentially, and he tested his paws subtly underneath himself, to see if they would even respond to a simple order. They did, but he could tell just by the slight movement that his muscles were tense and too underused to rush. He doubted he would be back on his feet for some time, but she had yet to fail him or cause him more harm than good, so he would just have to follow her schedule.
He owed her everything. The least he could give her in return for her kindness so far was his trust.
“Alright.” He took a breath, slowly, looking around the den. He could see now that it was a den that seemed to have been used for some time. There were pelts, rocks, strange collections of various things found out in the savannah, that she had collected over the year. They must all have had meaning to her, but to him they seemed pointless. He saw bones, and wondered if she was some kind of fortune teller, or one who dealt with the spirits around her. Of course, he understood that the concepts of his pride were not universal, and since she had not been born or raised in his home he could only assume the trinkets were either for something similar… or completely different.
If he asked, he would learn they were just things she had picked up because they looked cool, but he didn’t ask.
Drawing himself from his thoughts, he noticed she had vanished. He saw her tail vanish around the corner of the cave’s mouth, heading outside. Unable to follow her, he just had to wait for her to come back. While he did, he got a better look around the place, and committed things to memory. He wanted to learn about her now, as she had the advantage over him at the moment by being familiar with him and his illness, and subsequent weakness, while he knew little to nothing about her. It was not a suspicious sort of information gathering, however. He just wanted to know about the lioness that had saved his life. Without having to ask her.
He had never been good at conversation.
She returned a short time later with a fresh kill, bring it over to him and letting him eat first. He began voraciously, with the strength now to do so without her aid. Memories of her feeding him filtered back to him, though, and he looked up to see that she had not eaten yet. She would wait for him to finish, he realized, just like last time.
“Eat with me,” he said, his gruff tone making it sound more like an order than a suggestion or even an invitation. She smiled, though, pleased by the offer and nodding her head politely. Scooting closer to the food and to him, she dug in to the carcass with him. When they had both eaten their fill and had cleaned themselves of the blood that came with fresh meat, he looked at her with a tired, but still keen, expression.
His full stomach was making him feel sleepy again, but he vowed he would not fall asleep this time. She looked at him and, easily reading his intention, smiled.
“Nusura.”
(Word count: 1,084 in Word)
