Kuriboh Trainer Extraordinaire

The first thing Atem remembered doing when he came to be in charge of the Kuriboh, was feed it. No one was sure why Pharaoh had decided to give his young son of three years such a strange (and talentless) creature but these questions eventually came to rest when the child's attention focused more and more on the Kuriboh and less on garnering attention from those who couldn't be bothered.

Feeding the Kuriboh was a small thing, but the act, though simple, awakened something in the child's mind. Maybe it was the way the creature's mood changed so swiftly; from irritable and unapproachable to satiated and content. Or maybe it was the fact that it puffed up to twice its size and opened its mouth wide and did so in a way that made Atem hurt with laughter. Regardless, it was one of the first selfless acts of Atem's life and the creature was grateful to him. Here was a being, other than himself, that he was in charge of and the green paw on his leg and the big purple eyes evoked a conviction in him to do a good job.

And to Atem, a good job meant feeding it the best thing he could find. And the best thing he could find was magic. From a pouch. That belonged to Mahado. That Mahado wouldn't miss anyways because he only took a little bit at a time.

(At least that's what he told himself but, really, his judgment of what 'a little bit' meant was extremely poor at that age).

And any guilt the child of three years felt for doing so didn't last very long because the magic made Kuriboh do amazing things. Like really amazing things.

For example, a sprinkle of the mysterious white powder made Kuriboh multiply. A duplicate Kuriboh would pop out of his Kuriboh's behind, then another one from that one and another one from those and more from those and soon the room was so full of them that they toppled out of the windows. The copies were unstable, however, which he found out the hard way when one of them exploded in his face in a big cloud of suffocating smoke. Now imagine all of them doing it at once, in a horrifying, comical-in-only-a-retrospective-way and you had a very traumatized Atem firebombed with Kuribohs and nearly choking to death. Luckily, refuge came in the form of some servants who pulled him from the wreckage and aired out the place. Unfortunately, that particular room remained uninhabitable for a week.

But far be it from Atem to be deterred by a mere near-death experience. Quite the contrary, in fact. He saw this a shining opportunity to train the beast and hone its vast potential. Atem, at three years, set himself to be the greatest Kuriboh trainer who ever lived and cultivate the worthiest servant to a future pharaoh that would ever be known.

He did this by having Kuriboh do battle with hippos.

Okay, so maybe he didn't start with hippos per se, but he worked his way up to hippos. He actually started with hedgehogs, partly because he didn't know what he was doing and partly because a hedgehog had bitten his toe once and this was his logical way of dealing justice. Kuriboh's very first victory involved it making a really gnarly, angry face and roaring so loudly that it disturbed the sand around them. Their opponent, the hedgehog, proved no match for Atem's loyal servant and turned to scurry away with its pointy nose twitching fearfully. It had been an easy victory, though not surprisingly considering the fact that Atem, at three years, was an excellent trainer.

The second opponent had been a camel. It wasn't as easy a victory, but that was only a testament to their perseverance. The camel had been sleeping and it was a heavy sleeper too because no matter what Kuriboh did, the thing just wouldn't budge. Kuriboh began by charging at the camel, only to bounce right off the thick hide. Not to be easily defeated, it dug its heels into the ground, puffed itself up to the point of bursting and charged again. But, again, it bounced right off. Only this time, the rush of air that left its body caused a great deal of dizziness and disorientation and Kuriboh was left lying spread-eagled on its belly. With some coaxing from Atem and promises of treats and a nice cool bath, Kuriboh struggled back onto its stubby feet and prepared for a third round. But before it could mount another attack, the camel woke up, shook its head back and forth, stood and walked away, back to them in lack of acknowledgement. Now this would have been a grave insult to the Pharaoh-to-be had it not been painfully obvious that the camel could no longer hold its own in battle and was conceding its territory to invincible pair. In celebration, Kuriboh was quick to claim said territory, sprinkling the space with its urine before settling down for a nap of its own.

The hippo was, indeed, a majestic creature. It was a creature of both deceptive calm and unrelenting rage. Although it didn't eat animals, it could kill like it did, sometimes with greater brutality than creatures that did eat animals. It was big and round and smooth, yet even the spiky, pointed-toothed crocodiles were afraid of it. No doubt it was a formidable foe and Kuriboh, now a master of the art of battle, was going to defeat one.

Aren't you, Kuriboh?

Often times, when Kuriboh curled into itself, backed away or just plain looked like it was going to piss its non-existent pants, it meant that it was totally, totally ready for battle.

Right Kuriboh?

And when Atem had to drag Kuriboh by it's stubby little green paw, this meant that it was REALLY pumped for battle.

And when Kuriboh begged and pleaded to be spared, it meant that –

Well, it didn't matter what this meant because Atem was the Prince and Kuriboh's trainer and Kuriboh had to listen to him or it would go to bed hungry.

So… too bad.

It was an early morning, earlier than normal, but Atem was too exited to stay in bed. With his little pouch of powered magic bouncing against his lip and the gentle warmth of the morning sun on his skin, Atem marched to the edge of the water, Kuriboh tailing along like a beast about to meet its maker (which REALLY meant that…).

From afar, it was difficult to spot the hippos in the water because they were so good at concealing themselves that they looked no different from the boulders dispersed along the stretch of the mighty river. But they were there, they were always there, and it was right there, where the water soaked the land, making it soft under their feet that Atem instructed Kuriboh to get into the water.

Come on, Kuriboh, get in the water.

Go on, get in!

You're holding up the story.

Don't look at me like that.

No, I won't tell your wife your love her.

Of course I pay attention to your life… I just don't care. Now get!

No I am not sorry, I am the Prince and you have to listen to me.

Now it turned out that Kuriboh didn't have to get in the water after all because all the yelling and feet stamping caught one of the hippo's attention. It moved patiently and stealthily and was so good at what it did that our protagonists hadn't the teensiest clue it was there until it sprang out right in front of them with a magnificent roar, scaring the Ancient Egyptian bejeebus out of our protagonists and causing one, but more likely both, to nearly void their bladders.

Atem moved to hide behind Kuriboh, but Kuriboh beat him to it. It was whimpering, both paws stubbornly latched onto his leg and eyes screwed shut. Behind Atem, the ball of warm brown fur trembled, while Atem, frozen where he stood, gazed upon the enormous beast in front of him with wide, wide eyes.

Crap.

The creature could have finished them both with one chomp of its jaw, but it didn't. At first, it just looked at them like it didn't believe this tiny child and this furry… thing was actually threatening its babies and that maybe land creatures were dumber than it thought, which meant that it could intimidate them for a little longer before it finished them off because, hey, there is only so much for a hippo to do during the day and a little distraction from the norm was kind of… nice.

Of course this was immensely torturous for the Pharaoh-maybe-not-going-to-be because Atem, at four years now, was seeing his short little life pass before his eyes and angsting in his mind how tragically short his life was and maybe he could have grown up to be a GREAT pharaoh and do momentous things and maybe sacrifice his life to save the world and - okay maybe not that, I mean come on, that's just to much to ask, he'd do A LOT of things, just not that, okay?

He felt some movement at his side and, ever so slowly, glanced down to see that the pouched he'd securely tied to himself, was gone. Kuriboh had nabbed the entire thing in one bite. Maybe as a last meal of sorts.

Thinking of food at a time like this. So very Kuriboh indeed.

And it was just as he'd done so that Kuriboh… began to change. At first, it was just expanding, like it'd done many times before. But, unlike before, it just kept on expanding and expanding until Atem was pushed to the ground and had to crawl out of the way lest it squished him. This seemed to really confuse the hippo too because soon, Kuriboh was almost as big as it.

But that wasn't all. Kuriboh's fur changed to a bluish-teal, like the turquoise stones Atem had seen some of the court women wear. It's eyes also changed – from big and round and essentially kind-looking to narrowed and dark. The shape of its mouth morphed into something far more vicious than what Atem recognized and a large, sharp horn protruded from its head.

It looked ready to kick ass. Like ACTUALLY kick ass this time and not –

Kuriboh opened it's mouth wide, bearing its newly-acquired spiky teeth, and gave a low, guttural, deafening roar. The hippo relinquished some ground but made no further move to leave, it too readying itself for battle despite, very obviously, having no idea what, in fact, it was battling.

Atem was both terrified and incredibly, incredibly fascinated. He had to admit that this was pretty darn super cool.

Then, Kuriboh began to run. And like… it was almost against the Ancient Egyptian law of physics how something that big and that round and that blue (well, teal) could move with such ease and even grace, but Kuriboh did and it had it's body bent in a way that aimed to poke a hole in the hippo's most vital organs.

At first, the hippo seemed to mean to stand its ground, but when it realized that it had no horn of its own and maybe that it sort of needed its vital organs, the hippo turned and headed, with urgency, to the water. Of course, it's rather large behind slowed the poor creature down significantly and it was such a big and tempting target that it barely touched its snout to the water before Kuriboh –

- um, yeah.

Now this didn't really hurt the hippo. Not really. Well, it made a really loud noise that could have been interpreted as pain before it's body slammed with a sharp slap into the water and maybe it kind of just kept groaning in pain and it feebly made its way deeper into the safety of the river and maybe there was a little blood, but it was probably fine.

The important part was the fact that this was a victory for our protagonists. And not just a victory, but THE Victory. They had, thanks to their hard training and perseverance, defeated the greatest foe to ever challenge their immense skill and they had emerged victorious. They had stared fear in the eyes and not wavered. They had welcomed danger with open arms and gave it a huge Ancient Egyptian middle finger. This was a Very. Big. Deal.

Kuriboh, exhausted and having used up all the magic it ate, deflated. The horn receded, its eyes were friendly again and the teal colour reverted back to brown. It flopped onto its belly with a soft thud and, with a tiny coo, immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Atem, too, realized he was pretty tired (he'd worked so hard, after all!) and made his way to where his comrade slept. He yawned, smoothed Kuriboh's long fur and made himself comfortable against it. He was snoring in no time.

Mahado wasn't exactly fond of his job. But he was a new magician, an intern of sorts, which meant that he did the crap work until his superiors deemed him worthy enough to give him something better to do. And today's crap work had been to follow the prince (in secret) and make sure he didn't get into trouble. It was boring as the prince never really went very far and spent most of his time with his Kuriboh screaming at little critters or, if they didn't find any critters, screaming at a patch of reed. It was cute at first but soon grew to be very dull as the prince would often spend hours upon hours doing this, and Mahado had to wonder if maybe the prince was a little… you know… in the head.

Most of the time, the prince would just make his way to the palace on his own. But sometimes he'd tucker himself out and just fall asleep on the dirty ground with that filthy creature of his. Mahado, of course, would then be tasked to carry the prince and his pet back to the palace.

This was evidently one of those times, as he found the prince out like a torch, both hands and feet and half his face covered in mud and one sandal missing. The Kuriboh was in no better state. Both stank of grime, sweat and he prayed that wasn't feces.

Mahado begrudgingly picked up the prince first and gently draped him over his shoulder, one arm holding the prince secure. With the other arm, he manoevered the Kuriboh and held it in place against his hip, the way one would hold a ball.

He made for the palace with the knowledge that he'd probably have to do this again the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

So help him these people better train him to be the best damn magician alive.

-End-

Credit for cover photo goes to Shamise, who can be found on fanfiction dot net, deviantart and tumblr.