The days had been difficult, just as the newly acquainted Nusura had said they would be. But Raruo was benefiting from them. Every day she brought him a new challenge, starting from small physical requirements like standing, walking, and eventually running. As his body strengthened, she helped him develop more rigorous work out routines, until he was hunting again, and able to make impressive kills. Soon enough, he was showing her things she had never known, and training her in fighting and war. Things he had learned over long years in service to his pride, which he did not talk about and she did not ask about.
They were sitting in the den, Raruo on a large pelt he had taken as his bed, Nusura beside him with a bone between her paws. She was gnawing on the end of it, where there remains of some meat and cartilage clung to the chipped and dented femur. She often chewed on bones after meals, he had noticed, and he had taken to saving some, with meat attached, for her if he felt she would enjoy it. She stopped picking her own from the portions of the kill, which they shared anyway, just so he could give her his. It was a silent arrangement, after the first time.
“Why did you save my life?”
She looked up at his question, squinting at him as if trying to figure out if he was serious or not. When she divined by his more serious than usual face that he was not trying to make some bad joke about being old or something, she shook her head. As if that were enough to answer him, she then returned to chewing on the bone. He was not appeased and he pressed the matter again moments later.
“Tell me, why would you save me? A stranger?”
“Because you were sick, Raruo. I couldn’t just leave you to die, could I? Would you have done that to me, if you found me in a sorry state, laying on a rock and looking like a skeleton?” She knew his answer before he said it, but it failed to bother her regardless.
“If I felt you were a danger to myself, I would have left you. You could have caught that disease, and then what? You would have died, just because you gave in to a whim to show a dying old fool some kindness you didn’t even know he deserved.”
“You’re such a grump,” Nusura sighed.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Oh, fine,” she cleared her throat, pushing the bone away and folding her paws neatly in front of her. She looked at him, eyes soft and expression warm. She was not as annoyed as her tone implied, and she smiled at him briefly before it faded as a distant look of memory came over her. “I found you out in the grasslands, beyond the cracks in the valley. I was out further than I usually go for hunting, because it’s such a pain dragging kills all the way back here. But there was nothing nearby, and I was hungry. Anyway, I found you looking like you had left your inner meat somewhere else, just skin and bones and a lot of fur sticking up all over the place. You were, as you remember, passed out on a rock. It took me a while to get you back here, because even thin you weigh as much as an elephant. You were burning hot, and shaking. You mumbled a lot, but no words. Not ones I know, anyway.”
She took a breath, making sure he was still listening. He was, watching her with an expression that was impossible to read. She pressed on.
“I thought you were going to die, I really did. But I hoped you wouldn’t. I took you in because I wanted to help you, but honestly, I don’t think I could have watched someone die. Anyway, I gave you water and what food I could but you were out of it for a while. I doubt you remember any of that, which is probably the best thing for you, because you were in so much pain. You would have these… these shakes. I don’t know, it was scary, but I did what I could for you and you turned out to be a really tough old guy.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Anyway, your fever lessened and you started to get better, then you woke up and here we are. All better. Thinking about when I found you and looking at you now, I really am surprised you’ve gotten so much stronger. I mean, now you’re the one giving me lessons. Which, by the way, I am completely mind blown by that. The things you know… and watching you hunt. So. Yes. Was that a good enough story for you?”
She looked at him, having been staring at her paws subconsciously, and when her eyes met his face she gasped in surprise. It was an honest reaction, lacking any trace of sarcasm.
He was smiling at her.
Under her fur, she felt heat spreading. She was embarrassed? She had never felt anything like that before: generally speaking, she was impossible to catch off guard and certainly made it difficult for other creatures to embarrass her. Of course, she also spent a lot of her time alone. She smiled at him softly in return, but it was such a timid expression that it was clear she had no idea what to do in this situation. She had been fairly certain he didn’t know how to smile, and had no idea what she had done to bring the expression to his face.
She wondered for a moment if he was teasing her, but he wasn’t the kind to tease, either. She was stumped, at a complete loss. She did return the smile, however. That part was easy. She did not need to know where the smile came from, or what was prompting it, to return it. Unlike her older male companion, she was not stingy with her smiles or shows of happiness.
“What is it? You like hearing about your near death experience?”
“Thank you,” he said, which just made her blush more furiously under her fur, “for saving my life. And for everything else. For letting me get to know you, and for not driving me out of you den now that I’m strong enough.” It was the most words he had ever strung together in casual conversation, and he continued toward what he considered a strong finish.
“I owe you.”
(Word count: 1,101 in Word)
