Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tam rolls his eye dramatically and picks the cat up. "Nice ladies can be more than alittle overbearing when you are ill, even more so when you are starting to feel better... because nice ladies have ways of making you listen, even when you don't want them to."

He carries hm into his room and puts him to bed, then lights a candle by the bed. "Would you like me to read to you?" he asks pulling up a chair.

Tam chooses an anthology of myths and fairy tales and reads to him the legend of the fire bird... and even though the cub had read the tale before, he finds himself drawn into the story by Tam's voice. "And in the end Ivan wins his princess... so which part of the tale did you like best... when Ivan meets the firebird for the first time or when he breaks the enchantment?"

Tam sighs and makes a mental note to do the task first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. He climbs back up to his bed and crawls between the sheets, wondering how Kero is going to take it. Then he grins. Shar was wanting to learn how to take care of lions, right? He would let the priest tend to the matter. And Kero would see just how strict the "nice" lady could be.

**Up in the wilds of a national forest, the other author winks back... she had a good hunch wink **

The next morning, Tam feeds Kero and then tells him he needs to go make a visit with Sharmistra. That Hopian had left something for her and he needed to deliver it. Kero is curious, but Tam assures him that if Shar wants him to know about it, he'll get to see it before the day is out.

It doesn't take long and he is soon back, whistling a merry tune, as he had hoped the Dawnmistress Sharmistra had been thrilled with the thought that she could administer the drug to the cub.

"But of course it needs to be me, Master Talesian. You have no experience in the least with injections, except perhaps to receive them. You did receive all your immunizations didn't you?"

Tam has absolutely no idea but he's not about to tell her so, so he tells her that as a child his master saw to all his needs.

"My, what formalities form a cub so young. I'm here to give you your rabies shot, Kerobian. Master Hopian has left explicit instructions that you were to receive one as soon as I could do so. It seems you are a touch overdue for it." She is wearing an odd back pack, more of a box than sack, and she carefully removes it and sets it on the near by chair. When she opens it, Tam immediately recognizes it as a traveling healer's kit.

Sharmistra smiles kindly at him. "This is my pack. I carry it whenever I make house calls... and rabies is a very bad disease, a virus, you can catch from another animal. It attacks your nervous system, driving you mad. It has no cure and will kill those who have it. A simple shot, which will feel like a pinch, is all you need to protect you. Now do you want this in your shoulder or your rump?"

Sharmistra is filing a syringe with the rabies vaccine. "I'm preparing your shot." she replies with authority. "Maste Talesian, if you would please hold the cub still. And since he hasn't given me a preferred location, I shall use the tried and true."

Tam gives Kero a weak grin and encircles him in his arms, face to his chest, while Sharmistra vigorously rubs then pinches a fold of skin on Kero's backside. As she pinches she injects the vaccine so quickly that she is actually withdrawing the needle by the time the cub realizes what she has done.

"There, all done... now that didn't hurt so bad, did it?" she asks putting the syringe into a special tin to clean when she returns to the temple.