Roar of Manipulation

Chapter 15 A Bath, A Spa Day, A New Kind of Pillow, A Kiss, and A Wedding

The day after Kion and Janja's fight, Vitani and her guard checked the lair to find Janja was not there. They had decided to track him, following his scent and whatever track he had made to the Outlands. They informed Kion and Jasiri about this. After hearing this, Jasiri along with Kion's friends, minus Fuli, checked the cave where Janja had kept her sister and the others he captured to see if he was hiding there while Ono and Anga flew in separate directions to look for him. Janja wasn't at the cave and Anga came back without any clue of where Janja was, Ono however came back with some news.

Ono said that he had found Janja about a mile outside of the Outlands, dragging himself along. Bunga asked if they should follow him to make sure he really was leaving. Jasiri denied Bunga's suggestion, commenting that he has no reason not to leave and that they'd most likely not be seeing him again and that they should all head back home. When Jasiri arrived back at the volcano and told Kion, who was laying down to let his ribs heal, he was happy to hear the news. Kion said that things were going to finally start getting back to normal now and as Jasiri added with a giggle, 'and better than ever.'

There were a few problems that arose however. Like Madoa had guessed, she had received a concussion from her fight with Janja and started getting more sever symptoms days later. She began having continuous headaches and feeling like she was sick to the point where she thought she was going to throw up, making her have trouble falling asleep. She had also become sensitive to bright lights, all of which caused her to become irritable from time to time and have mild depression. She took Rafiki and Makini's medical advice to rest up to help her get better as soon as possible.

It would have been even more depressing for Madoa having to lay around all day alone waiting to get better, but luckily, she wasn't. Kion having nothing better to do all day than waiting around to get better himself always stayed by Madoa's side and talked with her or just sat there with her, which made Madoa feel better. Wema and Tunu had also stayed by Madoa's side mostly, playing all types of games like charades, twenty questions, green light, red light, foreleg wrestling, and many others to keep Madoa's spirits up and it was working. Jasiri even joined them whenever she didn't have matriarch and queenly duties to attend to, which happened often since everyone under her rule in someway respected her enough to not cause any trouble that would require her attention. Cheezi and Chungu having feeling bad for their part played in Madoa's capture, catered to any whim she had from hunting her food to something as simple as itching a spot she could easily reach herself.

She had tried to tell them this was unnecessary, but they insisted, wanting to make up for helping Janja. Jasiri agreed with them, thinking catering to her sister was punishment enough for them helping Janja. She wasn't going to punish them anyway for making up to their mistakes in the end and for Cheezi narrowly avoiding getting his throat clawed open by Janja. Nne had even come to Madoa during the night when everyone was asleep to talk with her more privately and get closer with her. With the support of her family, soon to be lion brother-in-law, and friends, and her family naturally being quick healers, Madoa felt better in just a little over three weeks.

Soon after Madoa's recovery the short rainy season had finally arrived. For the first four days of the rainy season it had rained non stop and after this, Jasiri went to Kion, saying that she thought it was finally time he had that water bath they'd been talking about.

"Good, because I can really use one." Kion agreed.

By now Kion's ribs had mostly healed to the point where he could move around with minimal pain, he just couldn't do anything too physically active. Jasiri led Kion along with Madoa, Wema, Tunu, Cheezi, and Chungu who had tagged along to a place where'd they'd help Kion with his water bath. They came to a small pond of water hidden among a grove of trees with sun light shining through the leaves. Jasiri tasked Cheezi and Chungu to go find and bring back a bunch of flowers to rub on Kion as they washed him to make him smell nice. As Cheezi and Chungu set off to do so, Jasiri invited Kion to get into the pond so they can start with a basic rinse and working on the tangles.