And Frjo did know just the thing, too. It was dangerous, but not too dangerous, unless you were stupid or slow or clumsy, which were none of them things that a leader of the Order of the Golden Paw ought to be anyway. He smiled at his brother ka-nikt and said to him in a mildly commanding tone, "Follow me."
Midas, of course, followed his brother, but he was not unaware of the tone Frjo had taken with him, as if he was already in charge. That remained to be seen so far, and if Midas had his way, this would be the last time Frjo acted like he was the boss of both of them. Being older wasn't as important as being smarter or stronger, and Midas was convinced that he was both. Or at least that he was smarter, and that he would definitely be stronger, too, once he grew a little more.
After a few steps Midas began to lengthen his stride so that he was not walking along behind Frjo, or even at his heels, but keeping pace alongside him like an equal. Until the matter of leadership was decided, the brothers were equals, so it only seemed right for them to walk abreast for the time being. It did mean that Midas had to take comically long steps in order to keep up, but Frjo hadn't said anything. He just kept smiling that smug smile and walking. He didn't even speed up so that his brother would be forced to fall back or jog, which showed a certain nobility of spirit.
After about a quarter hour of walking it still was not readily apparent where the cubs' destination would be, although they were very obviously headed in a downhill direction, at which point Frjo figured that Midas would expect the challenge to have something to do with the forest and the ghosts that lived there, but that wasn't what the cub had in mind at all.
As they walked through a field of flowers Midas began to sneeze, having inhaled the pollen they were kicking up, even though he couldn't see it at first. On Frjo it was basically invisible except for on his belly, since all of his paws were golden already. It was a little more clear on Midas, who only had two golden paws, and so when his other two paws turned golden it became obvious that he was having difficulties with the pollen.
"Could we take another route?" he asked, snorting back a blockage in his nose that he was also prepared to blame on the pollen.
"No," Frjo said firmly. "This is important. So you'll just have to do like a proper Stormborn and work through it. You wouldn't let a stuffed up nose stop you from going into battle, would you?"
"Of course I wouldn't!"
Midas scowled and rubbed at his nose, which turned out to be a mistake as his paws were covered in pollen and so rubbing one across his nose served only to grind the stuff into the short fur around his nostrils and get it to adhere to his whiskers.
"Good. Glad to hear it, brother."
"I just don't see why we have to walk this way to the forest," Midas pressed. "There are so many other ways we could go."
Frjo nodded. "That's true, but we have to go this way because of the pollen. See, we're not actually going to the forest. Just to this one tree. It has a beehive in it. My test is that we each have to climb the tree and touch one paw to the beehive. The pollen is to make sure we have the bees' attention."
Midas gaped at his older brother. The idea was brilliant, but also terrifying. He had never been stung by a bee, not even once, but he had been warned that too many beestings could kill a grown-up lion, and that their fiery poison was more potent in smaller creatures. Like lion cubs.
"Good test, right? Come on, we're almost there!"
And they were almost there. Midas could hear the buzzing and there were getting to be more and more of the flying insects around. So far they seemed fairly benign, but it seemed unlikely they would stay that way when first once cub, then another started touching their hive.
"Do you want me to go first?" Frjo asked his brother. "So that you can see how it's done?"
He made the offer thinking he was actually doing his brother a favor. It did not occur to him that the first lion to complete the task would have stirred up the bees' ire and made it that much more difficult for the next lion to make the attempt. If he had thought of that, he would have offered to go second. He wanted to win, but he wanted to win while being the bravest, so he would have taken the more dangerous position, had he known it was more dangerous.
"Yeah, okay," Midas said softly, evidently overwhelmed by the task before them.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," Frjo reminded him. "I'll just be the leader."
"No," Midas said firmly. "I'm no coward. Is there anything else to it, or do we just have to touch the hive?"
"Just touch the hive," Frjo assured Midas with a smug look as he set off toward the tree where the bees had built their nest.
He had second thoughts as he got closer to the tree, but he couldn't turn back now. Especially not with Midas watching. So he circled the trunk once to figure out the best way to begin his ascent, and then leaped, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and pressing his ears flat to his skull to keep any bees from flying into them. If he could've closed his nostrils similarly, he would have.
The climb was difficult, especially with his eyes slitted so that he could barely see, but after approximately a million years Frjo reached the branch he needed to be on. He inched carefully along its length, dislodging increasingly annoyed bees with his progress until at last he could reach out one paw and touch it to the top of the hive. As soon as he had made the lightest of contact, Frjo leapt right off the branch and ran back to where Midas stood, trailing a few perturbed bees in his wake.
"There," he said, just barely managing not to pant. "Nothing to it. Now it's your turn."
"Right," Midas said grimly. "My turn."
Word Count: 1,102
