The day before he had made another attempt to lure Demeter back to his lair. But the gold and black queen was becoming wary, and he hadn't even managed to get her out of the protective bounderies of the Junkyard before she had raised the alarm. Demeter's cries had quickly brought the toms to the scene. Mungojerrie, Skimbleshanks, Coricopat, Alonzo, and of course, his brother Munkustrap. Fustrated, Macavity took a vicious swipe at an offending gull that had dared to venture too close to him. With a sigh, he shook his dusty coat. As of late, the very powers that had helped him to become the Napoleon of Crime in the feline world seemed to be fading. The other day while climbing down a fire escape, he had fallen. If he hadn't been born a Jellicle cat, it was very likely that he would have landed squarely on his head, rather than his feet. After his last failure, he had come to the docks rather than back to his lair. His henchcats would take orders, but that was different from loyalty. If they saw that Macavity was weak in any way, the ginger cat knew that they would not hesitate to turn on him for the next strong leader who might come along.
Suddenly, whithout warning, the crate he was laying on started to move! Macavity jumped to his feet, and to the edge, but stopped stort when he looked over. The drop was a good three stories. He looked up: A crane! Macavity cursed to himself. He hadn't realized that the crate he was on was on a loading platform! The crane slowly moved out over the water, and Macavity's mind began to race. He had to get out of there somehow! If he ended up on a ship, who knew what would happen? Carefully looking down, he knew his only option was to jump into the water, however much he might hate it.
Macavity planted his feet, getting ready to jump, when the crane gave a lurch, sending him off the crate in the opposite direction! Macavity felt himself sailing through empty space, unable to find anything to grab on to. Then, he felt his head hit something with a sickening *CRACK,* and everything went black.
Blackness...
Somewhere in the darkness he could hear the sounds of cats padding softly around. The air was filled with scents foreign to his nose. Stuggling to sit up, he felt a gentle weight on his chest, stopping him. "Shhh. Rest." came a soft feminine voice. Tired, too tired to argue, he lay back, his head alighting on something soft. "He has started to stir." the soft voice came again.
"You will be safe if I leave?" a masculine voice replied. A mate to the queen?
"Brother, I do not believe he is in any condition to harm me." the female voice reassured the male. A brother. Siblings...
His mind clashed with itself at the thought... His body weakly reflected it.
"Quiet." the gentle weight placed itself back on his chest. The voice was not harsh, it was gentle, but the message was clear: He was to be still. "Go brother. The ship will leave without you."
The tom quietly chuckled. "I do not think they will said without Jyoutenki, the Cat of the Open Seas! Who would bring them fair weather if I was not there?" There was a small laugh from the queen, and then the sounds of the tom quietly padding off into the unkown blackness.
Moments later, the sound of soft humming reached his ears, the voice of the queen who was still beside him. He tried to focus on the voice to see who it belonged to. Eventually the form of the queen began to take shape.
She was a medium-sized queen, her limbs long, supple, but did not give the impression of being delicate. Her coat was rather long, but well-groomed. She was tri-colored. Most of her coat was white, while a rust-colored patch nearly covered the upper part of the left hand side of her face and completely covering her ears. Long black fur covered her forepaws like gloves. She had green eyes, bright and full of energy. She moved away for a moment to another part of her den and he was able to see that she was a bob-tail of some sort. Her tail couldn't have been more than an inch or two long. When she turned to come back, she noticed that her guest was now almost fully awake and watching her with keen eyes, dulled only slightly from his injury.
"How are you feeling?" she asked softly. Her voice held an accent he couldn't quite place. "You had a very bad injury. You have been unconcious for quite a while."
Quite a while... Inside he knew he had something to do... Something he was in charge of that needed him there. "How long..?" he said, voice horse from non-use.
The queen left quickly and brought back a small bowl of water. She put one hand behind him and gently propped up his head so he could drink. The thought of being so helpless repulsed him, but the water tasted so good on his partched lips that he drank greedily, and without complaint.
"What is your name?"
He looked up, his attention drawn from the water to the queen. "What?" he asked.
"Your name." she repeated. "I am Hatsuyuki. Who are you?"
He raised a shaky hand to his head. "My name..." It was important... Every cats' name was important... "I can't remember..." A hint of fright entered his voice, and he despised himself for it. What would this queen think of him, a cat with no name? He managed to look back at her. To his vast surprise, there was only a gentle smile on her face.
"I understand." she said quietly. "Your injury must have taken your memory." She leaned the tom back gently. "With luck, you will recover it completely. Is there anything you do remember?"
He sighed and thought. All he could see was red... through the red there were the faces of many cats, all of which were contorted into faces of fright or anger. "Nothing good..." he said quietly.
The queen sighed. "Then we'll have to give you a name until you remember your own."
"What?!" he roared, or tried to. He was too weak and fell back, the queen catching him in her arms. With a pitiful moan, he let his head roll into the cradle of her arm and shoulder.
A fierce cat. His past could not have been a happy one. she thought as she started to rock him gently, coaxing him back to sleep. "Hiodoshi." she said quietly, looking at his long red coat. "The cat with the scarlet suit of armor."
A beam of sunlight filtered through the cracks in the old Toyota, gently warming Hatsuyuki where she sat, keeping an eye on her charge. She had been glad when the strange tom had finally started to come out of his unconcious state. Her brother, Jyoutenki, had found him on the shipping vessel laying in a crate full of yarn, blood barely visible running through his red fur. Jyou had managed to keep him hidden from his humans, and occassionally was able to bring water to him (although Hatsu doubted the red tom would remember that). When the ship had finally reached its final destination of Tokyo, Jyou had brought the tom to their home in an old scrapyard. The Toyota was the perfect place for the strange tom to recover, and Hatsu had been keeping watch over him ever since he had come.
Hiodoshi. The cat with the scarlet armor.
It looked as if that name would be a fitting one for this tom. Even for one who had been unconcious for such a long period of time as he had, his coat was still dirty, showing that this tom had led a hard life. He was well muscled and looked to be quite strong. She had seen only a fraction of what he was capable of when he had violently objected to her finding a temporary name for him. But that she could understand. No cat wanted to be simply named. He was an English tom, that much was certain, but other than that, he was an enigma to her.
"Uuuunngh." Hiodoshi groaned. He looked around. The inside of a car trunk. That was familiar, at least. But everything else... He opened his eyes to see Hatsu watching him with keen green eyes.
"Are you feeling any better today?" she asked, slowly getting up and walking over to sit by his side.
Hiodoshi managed to prop himself up slightly. "A little." He answered, still feeling ashamed to be seen in such a state.
"Would you like something to eat?" Hatsu asked. Hio nodded slightly. Without saying a word, Hatsu quietly left and came back a few minutes later with some salmon, which she placed in front of Hio. "Eat this. I will go see if I can find some milk for you."
Hio looked at the salmon. It was fresh, the smell enticing him tremendously. He ate with a vengance, and rightfully so, considering how long it had been since his last meal. Placing the tray aside, he thought for a moment about his hostess. A lovely looking queen. he thought. Looking back at the tray, he wondered what the queen and her brother would ask for in repayment. He had nothing to his name. Returning, Hatsu placed an old o-cha cup in front of him which was filled with milk.
"It will help you to recover your stregnth." she said gently, urging him to drink. Hio hesitated. He was already deep in debt to this queen.
"There is no way I'll be able to repay you for this." he said roughly, looking away. His ginger fur obscuring his eyes from her sight, much to his relief.
Hatsu smiled and shook her head. "You are not expected to." she said gently. "It is my duty from the Everlasting Neko to help those in need. Please, drink."
Everlasting Neko? Neko. Cat. Everlasting Cat. Those words, that name... So cold to him, like something that had been ripped out of the fabric of his being. Hio clenched his paw tightly, his long claws drawing blood from his palm.
Hatsu's eyes opened in horror. "Stop!" she cried, grabbing his wrist, forcing him to open his hand.
The cup fell, spilling the milk onto the floor.
Hio looked down at the white liquid, slowly seeping through the cracks of the old Toyota's frame. He felt a growl starting to build in his chest, his other paw tensing and shaping itself into a deadly mass of claws. This... queen had dared to lay a hand on him!? But then he felt something. He paused and slowly looked over at her.
Hatsu had opened his paw and was gently licking the deep claw marks he had inflicted upon himself. The action itself wasn't so unusual. Hio had blurry memories of licking worse wounds than this on himself. But to have a queen do it for him? When had the last time been when a queen had come near him without fear?
From the haze a face appeared. A queen's face. Yellow, white, streaks of black and red... Green eyes filled with a mixture of hatred and terror. And those eyes, like a mirror, they reflected his own image. He saw himself, a monster, face contorted into a fierce snarl with emotionless eyes gazing down at the queen. A pitiful groan escaped his lips, and Hio held his head in his uninjured hand. Gently finishing his hand, Hatsu placed it softly on the tom's lap. She gently brushed aside his unruely mane of ginger fur to see tears gathering at the corners of Hio's tightly clenched eyes. She could see his broad shoulders shuddering, knowing that he must be putting all his energy into containing the sobbs that threatened to overcome him.
Hio didn't appear to realize the queen was there any longer. "A monster." he choaked. "That's all I am... A monster. The Everlasting Cat doesn't even count me as one of her kittens... She's left me... Everything she gave me is gone."
Hatsu moved lightly around the large tom. She didn't know what he ment at all, but she could feel the pain radiating from him. A queen who had taken the duity of nursing others, she had always been sensitive to emotion, pain in particular. Alighting next to him, Hatsu gently raised his head to face her by cupping his chin gently with both paws. She gave him a soft smile and drew stray fur away from his eyes. Hio looked at her, his own amber eyes wet with unshed tears. "You are no monster." she said in a low, soothing voice.
"I am, you don't understand, I am." Hio insisted, shaking his head. More and more visions flashed into his head. A silver tabby, a scarlet queen, two twin burglers, a young tuxedoed tom. All cursing him, shouting curses on a name which he couldn't hear. He was hated. Coldness, banishment, that's all he could remember. Suddenly, the tears broke a barrier that had been built over the course of years.
Then from the cold darkness he felt two warm arms encircling him. Hatsu pulled Hio to her, letting his head rest on her chest, her fur absorbing the falling tears. "You are no monster." she quietly repeated, her hand gently stroking the back of Hio's head. "You may have done evil, but there is no evil so great that one cannot attone."
The feel of her soft fur against his face calmed Hio somewhat, but he shook his head. "I've killed cats, I know I have. I almost struck you. And you were doing nothing more than helping me."
"But you didn't strike me." Hatsu murmered soothingly. "A cat can change. If one so desires even the foulest of oni can become the most pure of kiren."
Hio looked up at her in amazement. "You say that... But to a cat who's been abandoned by the Everlasting Cat?"
Hatsu smiled down at him and stroked his forehead. "You have not been forsaken. Afterall, were you not brought to my home? The Everlasting Neko would not have done so if she thought you lost to her." Hio looked down.
"The milk." he said at last. "I've wasted it."
"It is of no matter." Hatsu said. "I can get more. Besides, I think something greater has come of today."
Hio nodded. "A new life."