Ballad of the Brothers: The Lion

Chapter Three

Caiaphas noticed a shift in the usual wind when he awoke. This gust had, albeit a very small amount, humidity in it. He broke camp. This time he had counted thirteen carrion Rocs watching him. It was an omen. He sighed and threw them the remainder of the rats he had, sliding down the dune on his heels. He slogged on and on, conciously optimistic. His optimism was repaid, much to his delight, with him happening upon a river. However his gladness quickly deflated. The Reptilians were in the middle of a bathing ceremony, and had guards patrolling. He had no wish to deal with them, because they were known to be...cold blooded, so to speak. He decided to wait for them to finish, and hid himself under the sand, his face wrapped but his eyes exposed. If they found out he was watching them bathe they would kill him for sure.
Five minutes passed and the sand had filled his clothes. Then ten minutes. Half an hour. He was sweating profusely. His heart was throbbing, and he could barely breathe. An hour had past. They had finally finished spawning and bathing. He did not need to see any of those. Finally the party of crocodile and alligator people left for the hill.
He climbed out of the sand with a sigh of relief. As soon as the air went in, it had been knocked out of him. It turns out there happened to be a guard resting right behind where he was hidden. He was face down in the sand, stunned and dazed. The carrion birds watched with curiosity as he was knocked unconcious.
He awoke in a long room made of reeds. There seemed to be some sort of council meeting going on.
He kept his eyes closed and stayed limp for a while. He tried to use his clairvoyance to see how the situation would go but when he tried to look ahead in the timestream a painful flash of light hit his third eye. He wanted to yelp but held it in and only twitched. The talking stopped for a moment. He could feel all the eyes in the room for him for a scarily long moment. After they poked him in the leg and he didnt move, they went back to their conversation.
Caiaphas focused and left his body to look around the room. He saw crocodiles and alligators kneeling on mats having a heated debate about something. As he tuned in on what they were saying he became more and more terrified.
"I say we eat the hippo. WITH NO VEGETABLE!"
That statement was met with sonorous cries of agreement, some reptilians even raising their weapons into the air. He yelled above the din.
"ME NOT FINISHED YET. SHUT YOUR JAWS. We will also eat fish on top. With more hippo. Stabbed with stick. Also no vegetable. TO TOP IT OFF, WE HAVE MANFOLK FOR DINNER! Cook-Cook, ready salt."
The females in the group looked irritated. The leading female said, "You know salt is not good. We bathe in salt. We breathe in salt. Why you want more salt?"
Caiaphas returned to his body. The scariest part to him was that they were smart enough to argue about proper nutrition as their prisoner lay on the floor. He was impressed with their mindgames.
He began to breathe audibly. They poked him and this time he pitched awake with a fake look of surprise and terror. This was left with laughing. The chief motioned for him to come forward. He relunctantly crawled on his knees towards him, and then kneeled.
"Manfolk. You hungry?"
He pondered that question for a moment, and answered in an unsure tone.
"Y-yes...?"
The chief leaned in.
"Me too." He exclaimed, slapping him on the back. His scaly hand made Caiaphas wince. This was met with laughter. GWAHAHAHA ringed in his ears.
"Do not be scared. Joking around. Come, bring food."
The chef came in with branch sized skewers of chunks of meat and fish. Everyone began the general merrymaking and horsing around. Even Caiaphas was laughing. After they were done picking their teeth, the mood instantly darkened.
"Not often that prey watches hunter. Still, good to do things in new ways. I will get to point. You watch our bathing ritual, law says we must perform execution ritual. You die in the morning."
Caiaphas was then grabbed by two guards and escorted out. He wasn't surprised at the course of events. He was the sort who would willingly go to the older seers and listen to them prattle on about stories from their youth. Even in a village of clairvoyants the past still held merit. Still, he was optimistic, because someone else in the same situation had lived to tell the tale. The future had abandoned him, it seemed, but the past was always there to support the present.
He was lead into a grotto down by the water that served as a prison. The guards rolled the heavy stone away, ushered him in, and rolled it closed.
He lay awake, plotting his escape. He did not fight back because he knew it would be fruitless. What was he going to say? "Please let me go?" No, instead he opted for the quiet and discreet option. He sat on his mat weighing his options as he drank the cold and fresh riverwater that flowed around the platform he was on. The room had a dome shaped roof culminating in a natural chimney. He knocked on the wall. It was a kind of ironwood. The walls to him sounded about three or four inches thick. He did not have a knife, but he did have one of the claws of a Great Lion around his neck as a psychic fetish. He wished his powers were as strong as that of his peers. They would have been able to peel the wall open or in some cases even command the tree to open up. Still, with the claw his defensive abilities were about the same as a mundane skirmisher on the battlefield.
He put his hand on the wall, and began to talk to the tree mentally.
Hello tree.
RESPIRATION OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
I know that this is sudden but can you please let me go?
VISIONS OF MANY OTHER PRISONERS FRANTICALLY TRYING TO ESCAPE. BRANCH BLOWING QUIETLY IN THE WIND.
Oh okay. Are you sure? We could be tighter than bark on a tree if you just let me go.
DISAPOINTED WITHERING OF BRANCH TIP.
He shook his head sadly. "I just got told off by a tree. Are my jokes really that bad?"
He scoffed and began looking for another way out. That was when he realized that the water around the platform on which he was sitting was flowing, albeit very softly. He focused himself and detatched ego from body. He did not need to breathe in his astral form, and so he dived into the water to look for where the opening was. Sure enough, at the bottom of the pool the light of the setting sun leaked in through a crude filtration dam. He swam up and returned to his body. The only problem was going to be how he would get that deep down. It was around 50 feet underwater and he was not that good at diving. Just then a massive bird flew over the chimney, dropping a heavy crap into his lap with stinging impact. He was angry but impressed at the same time. As he got up to go and wash himself off, he noticed a piece of parchment inside of the avian excrement. It read, in crude scratchy lettering,
MILK
EGGS
WATER
DRINKING REEDS
He was dumbfounded and mystified at the same time. This time a rock dropped on his head. Tied to it with vines was another note.
TURN IT OVER
He rubbed his sore scalp and did as instructed. On the other side of the shopping list was another message, this one written in blood. There were holes in the paper from the implement stabbing in and getting stuck there. It read,
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. ERE THE SUN RISES, THE SKY FALLS. LOOK TO THE WEST.
He looked west for an entire hour. While nothing happened inside, he could hear snarling and the sounds of a struggle. He wondered if he had an ally among the reptilians as he stripped down to his undergarments, preparing to dive.
The tree creaked in amusement.