I relatively easily create a good fire pit. There’s dried-out wood everywhere, wood that would probably not be that way had this raging river arrived sooner than it has.

I then wonder what I’m going to do about actually lighting it when I hear an uproar in the palace above the hill. I hear what must be guards leaving the palace, looking for someone. I see their torches. My whole life I’ve been avoiding guys like those. I crouch down and try to just remain still, but it looks like their attention is not directed to me or the river but something else. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not me.

I wait for about twenty minutes when they’re out of sight. No one really goes back to the palace. Normally, I’d use whatever diversion just happened to steal some stuff or at least scope the place out. But I think right now I need to get just a teensy bit of sleep. The sun will probably be coming up soon.

Accepting I’ll have to wait until it’s hot again to eat my meal, I hide my fish in the grass beside me and I actually swiftly fall asleep.

I awaken to the blistering heat again, and for a second I’m terrified I’m still in the middle of the desert, forgetting all that happened last night. 

I don’t know what time it is but it still feels early. I see the tree behind me is only providing shade to a different part of the ground, so I crawl over to lay down there instead. The shade is now under my fire pit. Guess I’ll either have to move it or wait longer to have my meal.

Grateful at least that the sleep has made me feel a bit less nervous about everything, I wait until my fire pit is back in the sun, then I use the tip of my cane and angle it between the sun rays and the wood. It takes some effort, the hardest keeping my hands still, shaking from no food for a day, but soon enough I have a fire. 

I take a stick and cook the first fish, which I first dip in the water to get some sand off. It’s not too long at all before I take my first bite and I love it. When I finish it I have to get out my cane again to get more fire going. The second fish is just about ready when I feel a knife go around my neck, and the fish falls into the fire, completely forgotten.

“Don’t make a single move,” grunts whoever’s behind me. His breath smells like rancid roadkill. I can’t form a joke about it. “Stand up.”

“Okay, okay…” I then see about ten other guards running from various directions right at me, with half fury, half confusion. The guy behind me grabs my cane, and my heart lurches a little.

“Into the dungeons with you.”

I really can’t seem to catch any breaks here. The dungeon I’m taken to, with about six cages per side down this hall, is empty, save for me, which gives me some hope I can get out of this. But with my cane taken away, it might be a little harder. 

I immediately feel around the lock. It’s really tight. My claws might be able to crack it. I do some jiggling, and I think I’m making progress, but I feel this would be easier if I had a sharp stick or something thinner than my fingernail. I feel around for something of the sort when the door I came in through opens again. I straighten up. That was fast.

I recognize the one leading everyone. The royal cat. She’s got loads of makeup and not a single part of her outfit has any hint of dirt or sand. 

“Um...hello?” I volunteer.

She seems a little taken aback, I think by the way I greeted her. The others seem a little shocked too.

Thinking for a second, she snaps her fingers from behind her and a guard gives her...my cane. She looks at it suspiciously. “Where did you get this?”

“Well…” I wasn’t expecting this question. “I bought it from the market a few months ago,” I invent. Somehow I really don’t want these guys to know how much value this is to me. Don’t want them to be able to have a bargaining chip.

“I don’t remember ever allowing any development of a…of a…”

“Cane?”

Her followers look shocked all over again. I’m being nonchalant with her. Is she...Empress Catra? I heard she was the ruler of all Egypt at one point. Back in the...I don’t know what, but it’s a very far century!

I’m in Ancient Egypt!

“Cane. Very well.” She lowers it, still gripping it, as if it’s perfectly normal holding my one and only cane. “You look like that horrid Slytunkhamen, and yet you’re far from being just like him.” Wait. Slytunkhamen? “Different voice, weird hat, somehow stupid enough to carry around my property…” She lifts her cane a little in gesture. “Him or not, I do not like you. Maybe a week with no food or water and then a beheading will cleanse you.”

I gulp. The fish feels like it’s already digested. I feel a little like how I was when I got deliberately captured and met Tennessee in the slammer, only much much worse.

Catra seems ready to say something else but it’s lost from a shaft way above us raining fish down on all her guards. About fifty fish gasp and flop and the guards either jerk away or slip. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so weird. Catra seems distracted enough for me to be able to grab hold of her and hold her against the bars, and she’s stronger than she looks. It takes a big effort to keep her held and she manages to scratch my arm. Her guards start for me to try to get her loose, but then we’re greeted with another surprise from up above. Two crocodiles fall down and attack the guards as much as they attack the fish. It’s actually quite gruesome. Catra forgets about my cane and I manage to grab it. I begin to try to pick the lock with it, remembering what the lock was like with my fingernail, but then I see a rope fall down from the shaft. Someone masked rappels down and faces me. Whoever it is seems stunned for a moment, looking at me and not the crocodiles right behind her, completely oblivious. 

Deciding I must be of interest or worth saving, or something, I watch my rescuer pick the lock rather expertly. Come to think of it, this is a raccoon. I can’t help but wonder. Could it be-?

“Come on!” the guy gestures, not back to the rope but to one of the locked doors. Confused for a minute, I see him take out a set of keys that he apparently already had.

Following him behind, in no time we’re out of the palace, him knowing the entire way around.

We stop near the marketplace before we stop and catch our breath.

I then say what I’d been meaning to. “Are you...Slytunkhamen?” I’d gotten used to meeting my ancestors and introducing myself as a relative from the future, but I met most of them by rescuing them. This is a turnaround and it feels different.

The guy turns around and takes off his mask. I then realize it’s a girl. A female raccoon. “I’m acquainted with Khamen,” she says, her voice not disguised anymore, “and I think it’s best we meet you. Soon as possible. I’m his partner. Pili.”