“Are we there yet?” The lioness teased, with a fat grin upon her features. The deercat turned her head to look up, and pouted a little in frustration at the 5′4″ lioness straddled atop the horse.
Kairah was clad in a pair of pants, which did look a bit masculine, but that didn’t bother the adventurous feline. On her upper body was a business type shirt that men usually wore, but most of that was hidden by a thin, brown cloak that allowed a hood to protect her neck and features from the blistering desert sun.
Amalija’s race, deercats, were quite scarce in these parts. She was slender, stood at five foot eight, and was clothed a sleeveless dress with slits on each side of the hem that allowed air to flow up her legs. The servant was plenty used to harsh environments, and would not once dare complain about the oven-like weather today. Until Kai pushed her buttons, of course.
She turned around to swat at Kai’s leg, and in response the lioness slipped off the horse with ease and ran ahead with laughter, cloak flowing behind her. Amalija took up the cat and mouse game, and their chocolate horse continued walking loyally after them towards a ring of date trees encircling one of the natural watering holes along this jungle-bound trade route. Within moments the pair stumbled upon something curious, maybe even amusing: A human, wearing a camouflaged green uniform and with wavy, blonde hair, laying almost face down beneath a date tree.
“Do you think it’s dead?” Kairah questioned with a loud ‘whisper.’
“Poke it, Amalija! Go see if it’s dead!” the lioness prodded ’Lija forward.
Kairah was the brave one, though, and so she neared the skinny-looking, uniformed human. Once close, she crouched and nudged at the man. “Maybe it is dead…” Amalija muttered with sudden worry.
“Maybe he needs water!”
Amalija ran to the shore to gather some in an earthenware bucket.
“He looks cooked.” The lioness retorted, noticing his ruddy face, which was clearly not used to the environment. “It’s a shame you don’t like eating meat!”
“This isn’t a joking matter, Kairah!” ’Lija waved her arms around in panic.
Then the human groaned and stirred at the lioness’ feet. With a choked cough, he slowly got to his elbows and blinked up at Kairah. All the commotion seemed more than enough to wake him up. At first he seemed frightened, but he softened after just a few seconds. He blinked up at Kairah, slowly shaking his head in bewilderment.
“W… Water? Oh that would be… great. Kitty!”
The lioness chuckled. “You heard the man,” she cooed over her shoulder to Lija, who gathered the water in the bucket with an easy scoop. Their horse stopped by the water for a drink too.
Kairah’s hand reached down toward the eagle badge on his right breast, and thumb stroked along the wreath-circled swastika beneath it.
“Never seen this before…” She cooed. The human continued dazedly blinking at them. All this time she thought she’d seen everything.
Amalija came up behind Kai, sat the bucket down next to the lioness and crouched down on the other side of the man. “I think the sun got to him,” said Kai, seeming a bit more serious as she grabbed the bucket.
“Support his head.”
Amalija did so, and the human opened his eyes again. Kai heaved the bucket up and guided the water close to his mouth. “Drink up, buddy,” she said to the man.
The human opened his mouth to the bucket, readily drinking in the water but gurgling a “dank you” into it. He was conscious, but seemed ‘not all there.’
“Dank you,” he said again. “We’ll take the factory. We’re outnumbered as always, but we’ll get it. Could really use some more artillery fire over here.”
The human male blinked up at the lioness, seeming to go in and out of cognizance.
“Oh hi.” He smiled politely, as if they had somehow met before. “How are you today?”
Kairah looked over to Amalija as she lowered the bucket, amused by this all. Amalija cradled the human’s head, still concerned about him.
“I’m good, thanks.” The lioness responded, eyes still on Lija.
“Let’s get him dressed, covered, mount him and take him to the town east of here. We’ll hire a room so he can recover.”
Amalija smiled and nodded, glad that the lioness was one to take care of even a stranger. The pair started to prop him up a bit more, when Kai took off her cloak and draped the man in it to shield him from the sun.
“Take it easy, buddy.” The lioness said gently.
“We’re going to take you to safety, alright?”
Troika
“Oh ok, sounds good. But hey. Watch out for the low-flying aircraft.”
By the time he felt himself being lifted off the ground by the two girls, Hans began to question his perception. His mind was playing a trick on him, yet the reality was too crisp to be a dream.
Dreams usually came from somewhere in the recesses of one’s mind, yet the idea of animals talking and walking on two legs was nothing he’d ever pondered. Still, Hans felt too exhausted, mentally and physically, to think much about it. Hans helped the girls put him atop the horse, and all his belongings were now tucked into the horse’s carrier bags.
“I’m Kairah, and that’s Amalija. What’s your name?” The lioness sat behind him to hold him up better.
“Hi Kairah and Ama… Amalija. I am Gefreiter Hans Hepner of the Grossdeutschland…”
“It’s a pleasure, Gefreiter Hans.” Kairah greeted him officially while the servant continued to walk the horse. It seemed the lioness didn’t recognize any of his titles.
“Have you heard any planes in the sky today?”
“…No. Only birds.”
As their little caravan moved forward, short, golden grass began peeking out of the ground. A desolate, sand-covered horizon occasionally gave way to scrub brush. Before long, a town stood ahead of them. It only a collection of square, white, brick boxes. Kairah found the only inn, and the horse was taken out to a barn nearby. Their temporary abode was just another one of the white boxes, but this one had two floors. Their room was on the top: A small but comfortable place, with the bright but waning desert sun shining through the window.
Hans’ temples throbbed in pain, but he did his best to hide that from the girls. They must have noticed, anyway. While Amalija was out gathering food and water, Kairah laid Hans down on the bed and sat next to him with a small hum.
“You need to rest,” she explained, hands dunked into a bucket of water with a damp rag, which she rinsed out and placed along Hans’ forehead and back of his neck. He blinked as peaceful, damp darkness covered his blue eyes.
“Ah, you think so?” He smiled, “I haven’t had a full night of sleep for awhile. Never been in a bed since then, either.” His hands rested on his thighs.
Kairah’s ears flicked and she reached forward to run her fingers through Hans’ hair, probably out of sympathy. “We’ll stay with you until we are confident you are fine.”
The lioness stood up and moved to the edge of the bed to undo his boots. Amalija came in with a tray and set it down upon the table to the side, kicking the door shut behind her. The deeercat took a seat next to Hans, occupying the space Kai once had, and reached a hand over to feed the German some freshly baked bread. “Here,” the servant said. Within just a few short minutes, he fell fast asleep.
For Hans, sleep was a black hole lost in time, like death. Besides, dreaming within a dream would have been impossible.