The Golden Hexagon

CHAPTER 8

"Wake up!" Kaira said.

"Hmhm..." Aurora said, sinking her head deeper into the comfortable mattress.

"Come on! You need to start training!" Kaira exclaimed.

Aurora turned to the other side, and kept sleeping.

"Oh I now understand why your mother took so much time to wake you up!" Kaira said.

Aurora slept blissfully.

"You are even worse than a sloth! GET UP!" Kaira said, moving her with a wing.

"How ab oo so swong?" Aurora asked her, slurring her words.

"I am a phoenix, you dunce! Obviously I am strong!" Kaira replied, sounding highly affronted.

She tried waking Aurora up a few more times, with no avail.

"You leave me with no other choice," Kaira said.

She opened her beak and screeched. Within a few seconds, Aurora got up, looking wildly around her.

"Wh-what!" she said.

"About time," Kaira said grumpily.

"What time is it?" Aurora asked her.

"Six," Kaira said.

She got up and asked Kaira "Did my mother by any chance send me my toothbrush?".

"You must realize that you don't exactly get toothbrushes in the middle of nowhere. Which is why there is always a natural option" Kaira replied.

"And that is?" Aurora asked.

"This" she replied, dropping a few strands of banyan root and a few leaves from her beak to Aurora's hand

"And?".

"You chew it slowly along with these dill leaves and then rinse your mouth," Kaira said.

Aurora looked uneasily at it.

She stuffed the roots and the leaves in her mouth and slowly chewed it. It was sort of unpleasant, but after she spit it out, her mouth felt much cleaner.

"See, it's much better than the cotton-on-stick which you use," Kaira said, looking mighty pleased with herself.

Aurora undressed and went to the pond to take a bath. As she cleaned herself, she felt much more rejuvenated than she was a few minutes ago. Despite having her wounds healed the previous night, she still felt quite sore, and the warm bath seemed to ease away any remaining wounds.

She took the stone out and placed it on the ground for a minute before placing it back in the pond. She got dressed in a new, loose tunic her mother had packed, washed her previous set of clothes and hung them on the rope she had tied across the room. She folded the clothes she had used the previous day, though it was probably of no use considering the fact that they were torn in multiple places. Aurora took a pot from the cupboard, and filled it with the saline water from the pond. She kept the pot on top of the hearth.

"What are you doing?" Kaira asked her.

"Making salt. If I need to cook, I need salt. Plus it is mineral salt, and so we can use it on wounds as well" she replied.

Kaira nodded at her, and peered at the water, which was slowly bubbling.

"So what's the plan?" Aurora asked.

"Get out, find a quiet clearing and sit in the middle of it," Kaira replied.

Aurora raised an eyebrow.