Characters: Kasriga bint Nesf, Kuhasa
Word Count: 1040

Kasirga was having a reasonably good day. She’d been out hunting and was enjoying the accomplished, full and tired feeling that followed. She was at the edge of one of the smaller waterholes near their current seasonal camp, lounging peacefully.. she didn’t even take any special notice when the large, pale form of the lone Inselelo approached the water for a drink.

Kuhasa, on the other paw, noticed her presence. She hadn’t exactly been kind on their last meeting, though that was hardly exceptional.. what did stand out about their meeting had been her face. She had been in need of a bit of help at the time and had not appreciated his advice. Admittedly, it was pretty obvious, what he had said.

It wasn’t so obvious, though, that it was the same lioness. She was older and healthier, and much more peaceful looking. He knew better than to openly stare but he kept glancing her way, trying to figure out what happened to her eye. If her natural eye color wasn’t so pale, it might have been easier to tell from a distance.. but it didn’t look like she had any permanent damage at all.

By the time he finished drinking and lifted his head, Kasirga was looking directly at him. She had caught his continual glances her way.. and with no other reason why springing to mind, she assumed he must have been interested in her. Her solution was a cold stare directed right at him. Unfortunately for her, this acknowledgement was enough to qualify, in his mind, as an invitation to chat.. and instead of stalking off, he stepped closer.

“You’re looking better,” he remarked, boldly sitting down a few feet away from Kasirga.

Kasirga’s expression was unchanged.

“Excuse me?”

Kuhasa blinked, hesitating before answering.

“Your face,” he said, recalling how sour she had been before, “I mean- uh- your eye. You weren’t looking--”

He paused, realizing there was no good way to say it when faced with someone who was more than likely going to look for a reason to pick apart everything you said. If she was anything like she was then, he wasn’t on the right track for having a pleasant encounter.

Kasirga blinked, then raised a brow.

“My eye?” she repeated, then frowning, “You mean when I first arrived here. Yes, it healed.”

She was clearly forgetting something and staring at Kuhasa, nothing was coming to her. They must have met before but she didn’t remember, or really care to. It was rude but it wasn’t unforgivable, there was a lot going on then. Kuhasa stared back at her, still not quite catching on that their previous meeting didn’t stand out in her memory.

“That’s good,” he said slowly, “Did you find a healer or did it just need to be cleaned up?”

Something flickered at the edge of Kasirga’s memory but she couldn’t quite catch it. His question made sense but still it felt mildly insulting, like she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. Even if she had neglected her wound to the point of infection, it wasn’t her fault!

“I actually found a Medic at the Firekin Outpost,” she said truthfully, her full attention now on the Inselelo as they carried on a confusingly familiar conversation. Kuhasa looked both confused and impressed with her answer to his question.

“That’s pretty far to go,” he said, sounding more judgemental than he truly was, “I didn’t know they had healers but I suppose if you spend all your time fighting, that makes sense.”

“Yes,” Kasirga agreed shortly, but it wasn’t enough to put Kuhasa off of the conversation. It suddenly all came together in his mind.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked.

“Sure I do,” Kasirga answered patiently, “You’re Kuhasa, the ghostly Inselelo who thinks he’s friends with the crocodiles.”

Wait.. that sounded familiar, too. And not just because it was the obvious answer.

“OK, let me try again,” he said, “You don’t remember talking to me.”

So they had spoken before. It must have been about her eye or he wouldn’t have asked.. and then it all came together in her mind. She remembered him trying to convince her it was safe to approach water despite the nearby crocodile. That was it!

“Oh! Of course I do,” she said, suddenly looking and sounding much more confident, “You lucked out and didn’t have another lioness get mauled by a crocodile on your watch.”

Kuhasa narrowed his eyes and deflated ever so slightly.

“Right, that’s me,” he sighed.

Kasirga smiled.

Faced now with silence, Kuhasa had two options. Continue pursuing a conversation with a lioness who didn’t seem to particularly want to talk to him, or walk away now (which would involve admitting that she had gotten to him). He definitely didn’t want to admit that, but defending himself could be worse than walking away. That really only left forcing the conversation to continue.

“So you can smile,” he said, pointedly switching to poking fun at her, “I’m glad my bad luck serves as a source of amusement now.”

That wasn’t entirely untrue. There’d be no joking about it if someone had been killed.. unless that someone had been him. An ironic death that would surely have firmly fixed his memory in the pride in a way that cubs could not. Both Kuhasa and Kasirga had the same thought about that but Kasirga simply shook her head.

“I’ll leave you be, then,” Kuhasa said after another awkward pause between them, his curiosity about her eye satisfied and thoroughly reminded that she wasn’t one of the pleasant lionesses around here. He wasn’t exactly ahead but he would still quit now.

“Good day, Kuhasa,” Kasirga said, watching as he turned and left.

Despite their awkward encounters, she couldn’t be bothered to truly dislike the overly-friendly Inselelo. If anything, she could barely be bothered to form an opinion one way or the other. To his credit, he didn’t let himself get overly annoying and that was something to appreciate.

On the other hand, Kuhasa was forming an opinion and he wasn’t likely to go out of his way to try to chat with her again. Had she known, Kasirga probably wouldn’t have cared.

Fin!