Kerer wasn't aware of having fallen asleep on the riverbank. He had just drifted off, having found the ideal combination of mud and sun to keep him at the perfect temperature. It was a constant struggle for the little frog-lion, whose dark coat made the desert sun spectacularly uncomfortable. One of the nannies who sometimes cared for him when his parents were occupied, Tay, had a much darker coat, but she never seemed bothered by the sun. Or anything else for that matter. Kerer sometimes wondered whether she was right in the head. She was so cheerful.He had been dreaming of her before the feeling of mud tightening as it dried on his fur woke him. In his dream Tay had been lecturing him and his siblings about the importance of making friends and helping others whenever possible. She'd been telling them how sometimes a person might look different or speak oddly, but that didn't mean they couldn't still be a good friend, and probably they needed friends more than most people. Tay had also reminded them that it was dangerous to go out alone, and so it was good to have friends because with friends a person is never alone.
But now he was awake and his back itched. That was probably just the mud, but maybe there was more to it. Judging by the position of the sun he hadn't been asleep long enough for the mud to have hardened to that point. Kerer knew a lot about mud and how it acted, given how much of his time he spent covered in the stuff. He really didn't think he'd be able to get by in the desert heat without daily trips to the river to coat himself in cooling mud.
"Ah!" he exclaimed when he realized he was still late for his afternoon lessons. Then he borrowed one of Tay's expressions to convey his irritation as he began to splash noisily out of the shallows: "Shifting shade shards!"
He didn't see Tay all that much anymore now that he'd grown too big to need a nanny and was taking lessons with the pride's scribes and priests about the pride's history and traditions, but she had been his favorite nanny and he had always tried to make sure that he ended up in her group when they were dividing cubs up in the mornings. She was always so sunny and pleasant, and even though that could be exhausting for Kerer, who was not a naturally energetic lion, he couldn't help enjoying her effervescent company.
He had never been someone to allow the opinions of others to influence his actions, and so despite the laughter it garnered from his age mates he still sometimes visited with Tay before lessons began in the temple. It wasn't all that easy to arrange, but he tried. He knew that he was not a lion who would ever make friends easily, and while Tay might not consider him an equal, exactly, he knew she considered him a friend. It was possible, he mused, that she was the only friend he had. And that might be a little sad, now that he thought about it.
Although he was out of the water by now, Kerer still was not in much of a hurry to get to his lessons. After all, he was already late, and there was not a great deal of difference between the punishment for being a little late and the punishments for being late or very late. In fact, it probably would be just as easy for him to simply skip the lessons altogether today and see if he could convince one of his siblings to fill him in on what he'd missed. The idea had merit. To his way of thinking.
If he skipped lessons though, his parents would undoubtedly hear about it, and since neither of them had been born a Dawnwalker they felt very strongly about their cubs receiving the lessons in the pride's history and culture. They would not approve if he missed lessons. But it was hot outside and the temple was far away and it was so very pleasantly cool in the river mud. He paused on the bank, realizing with a certain wryness that he had already made up his mind as soon as the thought of skipping had occurred to him.
With the very laziest sort of mischief on his mind, Kerer glanced about to make sure nobody was watching him commit his crime. Then he began to retrace his steps out of the river, returning to the water and the murk that he so enjoyed. As he settled in, trying to find just the right spot in the squelching mud, Kerer wondered if this act of truancy and worrying about the consequences would cause him to enjoy his time less. Even as he thought about it, though, he knew this would not be the case. A smirk was pulling at the corners of his mouth. He enjoyed being a truant.
His enjoyment of the moment and the truancy was cut short, however, when he noticed that very, very nearby there was a patch of mud that seemed to have an eye. Kerer knew well enough that there were no other lions about, because if there had been he would not have been allowed to wallow in the muck. That could only mean that he had managed to intrude on a crocodile's territory. That, in and of itself, was not terribly difficult. The crocodiles considered the entire river their territory, and a good portion of the shore, too.
Kerer did not tend to agree with their real estate assessment, but when he was in the mud he knew better than to take stupid chances. The mud was more the crocodiles' territory than it would ever be a lion's. Even Kerer's. The lion cub hoped that the crocodile had not noticed him as he began to move himself toward the sandy shore. The crocodile shifted. Kerer moved faster, abandoning stealth in favor of speed as he splashed and squelched away from the reptilian predator.
By the time both creatures were moving at speed Kerer was running, leaving muddy paw prints in the sand, and the crocodile was an impressive distance from the river. Fortunately for Kerer, the crocodile decided he was too small to be worth the bother of hunting down. He was safe this time.
WC: 1,073
