A slight breeze swirled through the graveyard, teasing up loose bits of dirt, leaves, and fur. It was a quiet morning, one where only the guards had been out and about to keep an eye on the border. Many in the pack were still asleep, oblivious to the false dawn that began to light up the otherwise dark sky.
Someone nearby was working away at something. The heaviness of his eyes lulled him into a sense of security, one where ignoring the world at large would somehow make the truths before him invalid. Growing sounds of rustling fur with chips of stones and bones began to seep into his subconscious, and the lion did his best to stir from the chains of sleep. One golden eye slid open, the dim light from the not-yet-risen sun illuminating the situation around him. Glancing towards his right, he noticed one of the bone setters tending to him....again...? A teasing of memories licked at his mind, flashes of a fight, the searing jolt of pain, and the sense of being dragged simultaneously felt like yesterday and a life time ago.
A slight moan escaped his chest, and Eir glanced down at her charge. He had changed much over the last two years, and yet he hadn't healed as well as he should have. The strange red hyena that called himself Dath had appeared with him all that time ago, demanded to keep him as a slave and have him healed. Eir had done her best to heal him, but she had her suspicions that the red hyena tortured this slave of his. What use was a slave that did not work? Masuko would normally throw out any slaves that did not provide any value, giving them the slim chances to find their own way in life once the Mava'bunda was through with them in their prime years.
A salve oozed between her paws as she prepared a mixture, irritating nipping at her heart as she wondered just how it was that this lion was still alive. He had gotten rather frail with the injures he constantly healed from, a cycle that she was determined to break. Her paws gently touched his side, the cool mixture making the lion jolt from the sudden contact from the bone setter. She hummed quietly, an attempt to soothe him and break the bit of silence between them. The air around them was quiet, and this was the best time for her to work. No interruptions, the calm quiet of the morning keeping everyone's tempers in check. Her bi-coloured eyes glanced down at her charge again, a twinge of pity crossing her face as she realized that he was more lucid in this moment than he had been in over a year. "You're...better," she breathed, withdrawing her paws for a moment.
His eye glanced around him a bit more, the haunting view of massive elephant skulls blocking out his view of the dawn that began to spread. Where....was he? Bits and pieces were coming to him, phases of memories slowly beginning to fill his mind. The mild hum from the hyena treating him distracted him from pursuing those memories at the moment. "Better than....what?" he asked through a cracked voice, the use of his vocal chords feeling odd....rusty. Like he hadn't spoken in quite some time. He waited for her reply, but there wasn't one. She continued to hum, per deft paws working at rubbing in some sort of cooling salve into his side. He hadn't realized how thin he had become until he could easily feel her paws rubbing against his ribs, an area that he keenly remembered being toned with muscle. He...had been a warrior. A fighter. One that defended.
"I am Eir," the bone setter said, her eyes on her work rather than on her charge. "I have been assigned to keep you alive for over the past two years." Soft sounds of stones rustling around as she mashed up more herbs were the only sounds heard as she carried on with her duties, ignoring the silence that came from the lion.
His head swam. Two...years? There was no way he had been somehow out of it for two years. His mind tried to n** away at the memories that seemed to escape him, but the methodical sounds that the strange hyena was making preoccupied him. One golden eye glanced around, realizing that he was slightly inside a fractured skull of some sort. It wasn't too roomy, and as he began to focus, the hyena was placing her paws on him again, adding in some damp leaves onto his fur after she massaged the salve into his wounds again. He tried to shift a leg, but the weakness that pulled his weight against the ground was shocking.
"On demands of the alpha. Most lions we toss outside the border, to fend for themselves." Eir finished her work, her white tipped paws drawing upwards towards his face. She was inspecting the scar over his now defunct eye, her own eyes carefully glancing between his good eye and his features. "Count your blessings, chipoko. I was taught by the best, and unlike many in this pack, I do no hate lions." She continued to stroke the sides of his face, noting how conventionally handsome he was. His cheeks a bit sunken, and his fur was matted, but he would clean up....if he ever fully recovered. "You do not seem to remember anything. Focus on your health first. Questions are for later, and perhaps if you are good, I can get a bone reader to help you."
She pulled away from the lion, moving her things to the side as dawn began to break through the chill morning. She continued to glance over to him, easily able to read the confusion that crossed along his face. He more than likely did not understand the labels she was using, but in time he would come to understand them.
He would remain here as a ghost until he was done with him. That strange, strange hyena that seemed to haunt them more than this 'ghost' did.
(1,025 words)