Published at the Treasures of Thundera Group May 30, 2002
:taken from my original author's notes:
I don't have a better title for this one, perhaps one day I'll come up with something that's better. For now it'll have to do. It's not violent or graphic, most of what goes on is mental. And the action is kept in the back. All the clues are there, of course, just read carefully the things between the lines. hehehe... a while back I decided to do an anthology of ten stories and this by my count would be the sixth. I plan on doing another while still on vacation. It, like this one, will be different. I rate it R only because it might be a bit disturbing.
"Berries for Cheetara" by RD Rivero (2002-05-30)
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
With a sigh, deep and heartsick, she clutched the blanket and tossed to her right. To her left, behind her, snored the slumbering figure of the lord of the Thundercats, sleeping fitfully, naked and unprotected. The room itself was dark pitch, lightless but for the glow of moonlight – muffled and obscured by clouds – seeping through the open windows and the tint of plasmatic blue shinning from the hallway and bathroom fixtures across thin lines of crevices to her eyes.
She sighed again for it dawned on her that she was alone. It came to her suddenly or maybe not so suddenly. Truth was she had been aware of it, knew it all along, but in fragments only. And that night, those gloomy, fractured ideas and vague notions culminated in a sort of whimpering anticlimax revealing at last the totality of her situation. She was alone despite the intimacy of the moment – the kiss and warmth of flesh – it was as if she had made love to a corpse. A soulless body unable to fully and completely be one with her heart and mind.
She was alone.
Cheetara sobbed.
"What's the matter?" Liono asked, whispering inaudibly into her ear, lips whisking just over her flesh. "I didn't hurt you?"
She gave him a half smile and patted his cheek gently. "No, that's not it." Not that she could have told him, quite literally, she had no words for it.
Cuddling, he draped an arm around her chest.
Chocking, she brought his hand up under her chin.
No – she echoed – it wasn't supposed to be that way.
It was too much, the smothering, the pampering and she had to get away. Not that she detested the lion; to the contrary, she worshipped the red-maned cat. She loved him too much. She loved him enough to know she was not the one for him. She loved him enough to yield to the pressure of her duties but she could never love him that way. He was and would always be that unassuming little cub she tucked into that suspension capsule all those years ago.
She gazed down upon him as slants of moonlight bathed his body in an eerie glow. By whatever fate, accidental or designed, he had grown into the glorious body of a full-grown Thundercat and yet beneath the almost exaggerated exterior the eyes, the lips, the very texture of his face retained the character of his former self. She rubbed his chaffed shoulders and wrapped the blanket around him, tucking him in like a den mother one last time.
But it was her duty to love him?
It was not her duty to be happy. It was not her duty to feel joy. It had not been a year since their victory over the Mutants, only months after their final battle with MummRa and the Lunatics. The relics of their fortresses still smoldered and filled the air of that somber, silhouetted half-world with the aroma of its languishing flames, its scent of burning embers. Never once was their fortunate turn of events celebrated and as the time passed day-by-day she wondered if there would ever be a true kind of peace. As though, indeed, only through strife could they be at ease.
In her room, Cheetara explored the open displays of art that she had created over the years on Third Earth. She had always been interested in pretty things, things devoid of any real value. It formed her gold fixation. It was the basis of her interest in jewelry. She had tried her hand at various forms of artistry, from simple mosaics to sculptures.
But it was not enough; she needed something to hold, to protect. And ever since she had seen those relics of ancient Egypt in the Old One's pyramid, she turned to the making of masks. She had recreated in still and silent form the long past, dead members of her family. Parents, siblings, their identities and her true intentions disguised by alarmingly false pretenses, for all of the masks bore animal faces: bears, dears, hoses and the like, decorated with spots of gold and onyx. All of them were thus crudely hidden but one that was blatantly humanoid male cheetah. It was the face of her soul mate, imagined from dreams and fashioned by the arts to a mask of cold futility.
Cheetara held it over her bosom, petting its rough edges, purring in a state of blissful euphoria. She rubbed it across her fur; her fundamental need satisfied and kissed its worn lips lovingly. She returned it to its stand, passing her fingers sensually over its passive, delicate, fragile features.
Early spring and the skies had accrued a bright blue. The clouds amassed dense, white isles that floated from horizon to horizon. The air was cool but warming day-by-day. Nature had awoken from her wintry hibernation to feast upon the bounty of emergent life, gorge the lustful appetites of that seasonal dance of fur and teeth that thus assured the coming of the next generation. It was as if the unholy alliances had never been or that if the universe of Third Earth's lesser creatures had known that they were unaware of their passing off. The world was pure again, set free from the vile corruption of the dead and the damned that had dared express dominion over her.
"It's over here," he said, dredging up the bare and rocky slopes. "It's here, I just know it."
"Slow down, Kat, be careful." Cheetara struggled behind the youth, not that she could not run fast, but because the ground was loose and unstable. The soil around the smoky crater had the consistency of loose sand. "Do you see it?"
The hybrid cat stood at the edge of the shaky rise, looking into the center of the unnatural terrain. "Ash everywhere," he gasped.
Up next to him, she gazed across at the penultimate scene. The bulk of Sky Tomb and the Pyramid were intact insofar as their individual shapes were still discernable amidst the rubble. Yet, the totality of the panorama was incomprehensible devastation. Great fireballs had melted rock and steel together, giving the impression that the whitened and brittle form of the movable outpost was literally growing out of the onyx masonry of the Egyptian construction like a blister bubbling out of a scar. Buried beneath layers of dirt were various implements of war, poking out from its sterile cover by the constant action of the wind.
"Tygra said there were still fires raging there," Cheetara said as she clutched WileyKat's shoulder.
"Then we'll be careful." He smiled and led her down along the other side of the steep 'lip' that surrounded the crater.
Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that the fires had done more than melt the fortresses together; the flames had shaped the geography of the battle zone's terrain. Its unquenchable thirst for air had carved ventilating caves into the ground of the base of the amalgamated superstructures.
He scratched his nose. "What could that be?"
She coughed at the acrid, upset air. "Put your mask on," she ordered.
"It's not that bad, whatever it is."
She patted his mane and with the same hand dropped the dust mask over his mouth.
The crater was too large to survey all at once by the entire group of Thundercats. For that reason, at the start of the expedition, the land was divided into equal-sized, radial sections and they agreed among themselves to rotate among groups of two or three to explore and gauge the areas for contamination. The whole acreage had been promised to the Warrior Maidens for their indispensable aid during the Final Battle and Liono wanted to make sure that the annexed portions would cause as little damage as possible to them and the environment.
The last showdown was brought about by the combined genius of Tygra's imagination and Panthro's unparallel engineering. They had invented special explosive charges and a launching rail-gun that rivaled the Thunder Tank in both size and complexity. The explosions that ensued were strengthened by the blanket of methane that naturally enveloped the pyramid. The fires evolved into such an out-of-control state that it was secretly feared to be able to consume the entire atmosphere itself. However, that occult fate was not to be and at the end, because their enemies had not survived or returned, victory was just assumed.
"Strange," he said, tapping the dials on his instrument.
"What is it? What did you find?"
He pointed to a v-shaped opening. "That vent. A moment ago there was radiation coming out of it, now this says it's all clear." He shook his equipment. "Must be malfunctioning."
"I'll check it out." She sprinted form the rocky base to the alcove across a mound of ash and rock.
The youngster watched the cheetah vanish into a blur of yellow.
Having nothing to do he adjusted his gear's readout until he was confident that he had fixed the apparent problem of its sensitivity. Finished with that chore, he started a quick stroll around the perimeter of the allotted sector. Done with that, he began a hike along a makeshift trail that the Thunder Tank had formed that morning. All the while, he had clear and unblocked views of the unusual cavern opening for though the area was vast the terrain was featureless. He stopped frequently to see if she had re-emerged but always he was disturbed to realize that she had not come out.
Nervous, he called to her. Wrapping his hands around his mouth, he shouted 'Cheetara' so loud that he was sure his voice echoed around the crater itself but there was no reply, no response. He returned to the foot of the mound, intent on going into the alcove to rescue her, if she needed rescuing.
"WileyKat? What's wrong?"
He was surprised by a female voice that was not the cheetah's. "WileyKit?" He held his sister's arm. "It's Cheetara. She went into that cave and hasn't come out."
"So?" She was more than a bit confused at whatever her brother was saying.
"What if there's something still alive in there? We can't just leaver her there."
"Oh, Kat, everything's dead –"
"That's alright."
The twins lent their eyes to the site of the v-shaped alcove.
"I'm alright, Kat." Cheetara coughed. "It was just a long passage with not much to see."
Her clothes were unusually disheveled but she hoped they would dismiss it to the effects of her running. She noticed their somewhat morbid interest in her and tried to change t subject, pushing her hair back, artfully removing from her mane a singular and dusty strand of gray hair that had suddenly felt very heavy on her. She let the clump fall to the ground but it was not entirely out of sight for a gentle breeze rolled it about the dirt that separated her from the hybrid pair. She stepped forward and casually hid it under her foot.
WileyKat, distracted by the pubescent workings of his mind, was oblivious to Cheetara's motions but WileyKit had noticed and stared at the cheetah's boot utterly suspicious.
"It's all clear hear," she said. "Why don't we go to Panthro's sector? I'm sure he'd welcome our help."
"He's already got Liono helping him," WileyKit said.
"Oh." She paused.
"Is anything wrong?" WileyKat asked.
"Wrong? No – did you find anything while you were out here?" The youth shook a wordless 'no.' "Then why don't we get back to the tent, there's nothing more to see here. Nothing more. Let's not bother the others."
WileyKit sighed. Lately the cheetah had been acting strange to say the least and her brother was following her into the depths like a willing lemming. Well, it's just a phase with him, it won't be forever, she thought to herself, it wouldn't always be like that, but as for Cheetara –
Over the following weeks, Cheetara vacillated between moods of extreme happiness and gloom. Liono was the first to notice and suffer from her distance and mental imbalance but in time, the understanding that he and the cheetah shared a common sentiment – the relief that their informal 'marriage,' the worst mistake they had ever made, had ended, consoled him. It was not that he found her repulsive, certainly, the lion like the rest of the man-cats at the lair, had a definite attraction to her. She was like a mother and not the kind that bred warriors, feline gods built for battle, which was why he was grateful that they were no longer mating. He was disturbed only by the manner of the death of their relationship. It was something that happened as casually, indeed as coldly as the coupling had begun.
He remained nervous around her for sometime. A sense of embarrassment lingered for the way the act broke off suggested to his inexperienced mind a sort of subtle but profound rejection. He was a child who had gone too far with his new-found prowess, ultimately repudiated by the purported object of his imposed but adopted desires who had been leading him along the way all the while. He had shared with her his most intimate moment and now the way things had developed, the resulting, red-faced chagrin he felt being in the same room with her was too much to bear. He, too, assumed a distance but grew to live with the discomfort and, with the help of WileyKit, even learned to forget it.
Panthro and Tygra, who had known her long enough to call her friend, knew, too, that the swift one had had problems for the longest time. To be kind they considered them 'difficulties' and left it at that. They had observed that she tended to be compatible with young and inexperienced men. They thought, then, that her relationship with Liono would be a natural fit but its failure made evident the possibility that her 'difficulties' were far, far more serious. For it seemed then that it was not just emotional but physical immaturity that interested her. It seemed that she needed total domination to be 'happy' or at least satisfied.
It was the panther who first suspected and then witnessed the bond that had developed between her and WileyKat. It was not a physical union, or if it was, it was neither overt nor meaningful. It was not so much emotional either, but a mutual needy clinginess.
"It's like they share a secret," he told Tygra one day.
"But what sort of secret?" he muttered – he had also noticed the pair's mutual dependence.
"I don't know –"
"The way I see it, they need each other. They have something in common."
"Might be wise to follow them ode day." Panthro intimated a glance toward the tiger's whip.
"Oh, no, no! No, Panthro, that would be wrong."
"Well, how else are we supposed to know?"
"Ask them."
The mechanic grumbled and returned to his absent-minded work.
Yet it was WileyKit who was pained the worst. Her brother had changed radically and whatever it was the impelled the metamorphoses caused him to accelerate the growth of an adult's sense of maturity that surpassed hers. Quiet but not moody. Studious and obedient. His unusual caution that emergent hormones had abated returned with full-force. Had that been all it would have been a welcome transposition, but it had come at the insisting that they separate. The cord of familiarity that had connected their very souls he amputated moving into a different bedchamber – one conspicuously close to Cheetara's – and cooling his enjoyment for the activities that they were so fond of sharing.
She blamed herself and thought it was a reaction to her own blossoming attachment to Liono. Thinking deeper into the matter, she realized that no such jealousy existed between WileyKat and her. It struck her that her brother's distance was brought about and aggravated by a secret. It made sense, then, everything from his somber mood to his caution to his detachment. Alone he was doing something that together they were incapable of: the hiding of a secret.
Immediately the worst came to mind.
"What has she done to you?" she asked, stopping him flat in the hallway. It was the middle of the night and he had just returned to Cat's Lair.
"Done? What are you taking about?"
"If she's touched you –"
"Touched me? Who? What are you talking about, WileyKit?"
"Cheetara!" She wiped a tear from her eye. "It's not supposed to be this way."
He shook his head. "No. You're mistaken." He reached for his door. "Cheetara's done nothing to me."
"She's done something."
"She needs me." He paused and whispered, his face contorting into a kind of twisted grimace. "I'm the only one she trusts. Please, leave it at that." He kissed her and told her to get back to bed.
WileyKit was unconvinced. She watched him enter his room and stood out in the passage for about half a minute, wondering, listening. She hid back in an open closet and waited until she was sure he was asleep. However, he was not preparing for rest – he opened his door, refreshed and redressed for another hiking trip. He wore a raincoat and held a lantern. Over his back was a large black bag.
She did not follow him out of the fortress. Rather, she used the opportunity to do some exploring of her own. WileyKat's door was locked shut, much to her frustration. She was about to pounce on its frame but restrained herself because she did not want to alarm the rest. So, she tried Cheetara's room instead.
It was not a place she ever remembered entering so determining what to look for was a bit of a problem. First, she inspected the various desks and tables but the furnishings held nothing unusual. The drawers tended to be empty – Thundercats, even vain ones, were not known to have many possessions. She did find a short pile of papers but they were only poems.
Then she inspected the bathroom but again she found nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing except for the brush. The bristles were entangled with strands, thick clumps, of gray hair. Long gray hair. Peculiar but it did not belong to anyone. A small, red spider crawled about the dusty fibers and she let the brush fall with a shriek. Disturbed, she left it on the floor and returned to the main chamber.
Lastly and out of desperation, she spied the cheetah's collection of art. Various masks were kept neatly behind glass. The animal masks had the outward appearance of bears, deer and horses and yet left the impression that they were actually Thunderian in nature. They looked like distorted felines. Cheetahs by their spots. The male faces were the most detailed and expressive. The females were the ones that seemed to be undone, malformed and forgotten.
She found an empty space where a mask had been recently removed.
Unfazed, she hid back in the hall closet. Sitting vigil, she watched and waited in and out of consciousness until she lost the struggled with sleep. She slept up to the hour before sunset when the alarming din of scuffling awoke her. She blinked her eyes, rubbing them open and saw for herself the events as they transpired.
Cheetara and WileyKat had returned from their night's outing. Dripping wet, their boots were covered with mud. He held two lanterns, the bag had disappeared. She helped him take off his raincoat and draped it along with hers on her arm.
They hugged for the space of a minute and slowly broke away from each other.
"I don't want to do. There's no reason why –"
"No, Kat, it must. I can't bear to live without – we must go together, there is not other way."
"But –"
She stopped his lips with a gentle finger. "You have the recipe?"
He nodded.
"And the ingredients? WileyKat?"
"Most. I don't have the berries yet."
"I have very little time."
"Is it supposed to be this way?"
She smiled and kissed his cheek, vanishing into her room.
WileyKat languished out in the passage for a moment and sighed. She thought he was crying. He retired to bed and the rest was silence.
WileyKit overslept but she meant no harm. She was not negligent in her duties as a Thundercat for it was one thing to forget responsibilities. It was another thing to purposefully disobey. One was born of ignorance, the other an allowance of intelligence. Not superiority, as intelligence might connote, but awareness. Intelligence in the sense that she chose to oversleep. She chose not to wakeup. And why would she want to wakeup?
To face yet another day without the company of her brother. Liono, even he had succumbed to a dementia of express sadness. He, who should have stood triumphant, a demigod, a new Caesar for a new age, sword swinging in the air proclaiming the dawn of peace, had been reduced to a shell of a man-cat. Not even much of a man. And for what? Because Cheetara, who had been steadily improving through the past months, had again become distant and aloof.
It seemed to WileyKit that even the lion had a secret, so no, she did not want to wakeup.
A warm hand clasped her shoulder – the pressure ceased and the touch vanished. The disjointed effect disturbed her and she fluttered her lids open in response. Half in and out of a lucid dream, she was not fully aware that someone else was in the room with her until a shadow swept across her face and moved closer and closer.
"Liono," she said, sitting.
"You didn't come to breakfast." His voice was soft, fragile.
"I'm sorry."
He took her hand and held it in his – although she was technically older, his paw was almost twice the size of hers.
"I missed you."
She rubbed his thigh, stroking his short fur, but it failed to take its affect.
He smiled and turned to face the window, revealing his eyes, red and dry.
"Why are you so sad?" She brought herself up next to him. Despite his more developed build, she, too, had grown through the years and was nearly as tall as he.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way, WileyKit."
"I know that. We're supposed to be happy, but that's become of us? Why can't we be happy, Liono?"
He sighed. "I guess some people are only happy when others are as miserable as they. I knew our enemies were like that, never one of our own."
"We can't always judge how some people will turn out. Just look at my brother."
He turned to her and cradled the back of her hand in his palm.
"I don't know what to do."
Act like a man, she thought as she hugged him, resting her head on his chest.
"Put her out of your mind. She's been away for so long, you'd think she's forgotten what it means to be a Thundercat. What does she do when she's gone? Where does she go?"
He did not answer but she believed – or hoped – that he knew the very thing.
"It doesn't matter," she continued, "maybe we should, do other things." She let go and brushed back his red strands of mane.
"What do you mean?"
"To busy ourselves with work to take our minds of it. We've always had ideas about how to improve Third Earth. Repair the damage the Mutants have done. I'm sure that there's plenty more."
Liono smiled – it was brilliant. "I'll have Panthro and Tygra make lists." He kissed her cheek. "We'll get started at once."
The spark of hope flickered in his mind. Was it possible – he wondered – to breathe new life into the Thundercats? Perhaps. He felt he was so lucky to have WileyKit and for the first time he saw in her that masculine quality that the cheetah lacked.
He patted her stomach lovingly.
Again, as always, she stood before her brother's door. He did not own many things. He had only taken a small sack of clothes with him when he had moved out of their old room. What did he have to hide in there? What was it? What?
She reached for the knob.
"It's locked." Panthro's voice boomed from across the hall where he and Tygra were approaching.
"Where'd he go this time?"
"Said he was picking berries."
Her eyes started and for the briefest of instants, she was taken back to a time in her cubhood years ago when they had runaway from the lair.
"Berries?" she asked.
"Yeah. He's been doing that for the past few days – don't know what he's picking, though, he comes back empty handed very time."
Tygra nodded – he had remained silent throughout.
"I don't like the sounds of it, Panthro, this is really worrying me." She paused for a retrained moment of drama, pinching her brow to fain the holding back of tears.
"Now, now," the tiger consoled. "I'm sure whatever he's doing that it's –"
"You've got to find out." She grabbed his arms frantically – he had been drawn to her by the torment he had seen in her shaking frame. "You've just got to. Please. Follow him today. I'd ask Liono but I'm afraid he already knows what Kat's been up to and is too afraid to tell me. You're the only one –"
"But that –" he hesitated.
"Cheetara, now WileyKat." Panthro grumbled.
Tygra sighed. "I'll do it." He sulked down the passage and reached the stairs. "I'll report what I find. I'll go on foot." With those last words, he vanished.
"We've got to get to the bottom of this, Kit. It's driving me insane. I've known her longer than you've known your brother and I could've never seen this coming."
He stared at the cheetah's door.
WileyKit wrapped an arm about him in a semi-embrace. She massaged the tense muscles of his back and stared on along. "Maybe the answer's in there. Just like I think sometimes the answer's are in his room."
Without wasting a second thought, he grabbed the knob and forced it open, shattering the mechanics of its internal gears in his hands. The door swung open as though acting on its own accord to reveal a crypt of a chamber as black as death. The lights struggled to turn on – characteristic of the fluorescent fixtures when unused for prolonged periods. Illuminated, she saw that every exposed surface was dusted with a covering of thick dust – further testament that the room had been unoccupied for days.
They entered and the ransacking commenced. They approached the unoccupied bed that had been neatly made and paused – he was uncertain, almost hesitant, regretting having gone so far, she was confused for so little had changed. Content to let the search continue, she snuck into the bathroom. Its lights took their time to come to life, meanwhile the air that was stale and humid, was vibrant with the activity of her eyes adjusting to the dimness, spotting odd specks of shadows that her mind mistook for colors and shapes.
She caught her breath and almost shrieked when she saw it. The brush she had dropped remained on the floor, on the tile work, undisturbed. The long, gray hair. She eyed the sink – it was clogged with those singular clumps. The tub – it was dingy with dry soil, brittle leaves and more hair.
She shivered and left, closing the bathroom door behind her.
Back in the main body of the bedroom, she found Panthro huddled over a desk. A shelf of smashed masks adorned the walls above him. He was reading that pile of papers – now unusually yellowed and aged – the very clues she had earlier dismissed.
"What is it?" she asked, oblivious for she had not divulged that she had previously been in the chamber.
"Insanity," the panther handed her a few sheets to read. "A mind at the end of its tether."
"'My joy at having found you, clutched in my grasp,'" Panthro scanned a few lines. "'You are the missing piece in my life. Grow. Grow. Grow to fill me, consume me. I can feel your ravenous heat, the breath of your lips quivering soft whispered passions.'"
"Love poems? For who?"
"Or by whom," he interjected. "Some of it's in her hand, the rest –"
She examined the pages closely. What she had earlier mistaken for a stranger's handwriting the expanse of time and a new light revealed that it was Cheetara's.
"It's her hand, disguised to make it seem that someone else wrote it." She perused aloud one of the doctored examples. "'Many flowers have blossomed in my hands, bursting through throbbing buds silky petals, to the gentlest lulling of my soft touch. And though each and every parted floral treasure overjoyed my carnal senses, 'twas the bloss'm of your seed that warmed my heart!'"
"This one I know she wrote. 'Leaving me everyday, another part, another piece vanishes o dust. Limber, fleshy warmth to foul, leathery cold. Why must you leave me? Take me in your arms and we'll fly away together to the bounds of the universe. Take from me the wants and needs of my life, but do not take from me your love.'"
"'A world of sand, an empire of dust and everything is death and dying and death and dying and death and dying. You but your spirit roams abroad. Wherever you are, wherever you go, I shall find you. I shall find you in the shadows by the light of our souls. What is dying but the smallest price to pay for eternity?'"
"This is wrong," Panthro said, aghast, "Liono must be told of this."
It was so clear to her, so obvious. Her brother, the berries. The pieces were falling together – and it terrified her for it all lead to one unstoppable and inescapable conclusion.
"Panthro!" Clamorous footsteps echoed through the hall.
"I'm here, Liono," he shouted.
"Panthro!" He staggered into the room, Sword of Omens in hand, extended like a fully engorged beast. "Something's happened! Tygra saw Cheetara and WileyKat enter a cave with poisoned berries and the sword growled."
"Then we mustn't waste time! Let's go, let's go!" She stormed out, spilling the yellowed pages on the floor and dragging the men along with her.
The place Tygra had indicated was not a wasteland or a dreary stretch of country but at the same time it had little that distinguished it from any other place on Third Earth. The area around the slopes of a tall mountain, a short walk from the smoldering crater in the distance, the land was a mixture of green shrubs and yellow, orange sand. Weather and fire had long ago consumed the trees and denser vegetation of the vicinity and though the terrible act was lost to the oblivion of past centuries, the arbors were slow to grow in that climate and had failed to reclaim the land.
The remains of a small cottage house were all that lent the area a distinct but subtle otherworldly character. But if it infused the panorama with a quality of dreamlike fantasy, it also added a melancholic sadness. With its crumbled walls, it was barely a skeletal framework. Masonry scattered from its base to the riverside suggested the outline of inner and outer structures. Cobwebs adorned the gaps where once there had been mortar. Scavengers resided within.
Tygra sat on an embankment of fallen stone and cement. His face was colored by death. His mind was so tormented by what he had seen that he did not notice the Thundercat's arrival until the glimmer of Liono's weapon roused him from his trance. Still he was lost in faculty and motivation.
"WileyKat!" She screamed and lunged toward the cavern entrance on the hillside behind the ruins.
The youth emerged from the shadow and, finding his sister, he smiled. For the first time in weeks, he smiled.
She clasped him in her arms, almost knocking them both down.
"I'm free, I'm free now." He laughed softly, exhausted and out of breath. "Let's get out of here, Kit."
"What is it, Tygra? What did you find?"
The striped cat looked up at his lord and stared for a moment. His lips moved but uttered nothing, his speech too soft and incoherent to be understood. He grabbed Liono's hand as if to warn him, non-verbally, to stay away from the truth that lurked in the unseen. Panthro tapped his shoulder and he relaxed his hold.
"Her clothes, Liono," he pointed to the torn shards of Cheetara's uniform that littered the already cluttered floorings of the cave. "She must've been living here all this time."
A light ahead directed their attention to an antechamber buried deep within the mountain. It was a vault, lit by a series of torches on black marble urns. An altar of rock and straw lay at the center of the pentacle. Acrid dust and the smell of burn candles lingered in the air like an afterthought.
On the altar were two figures under a red blanket. Exactly two figures – distinct and well formed – they saw it for themselves, they could not deny the evidence of their senses. One, with the bud of breasts and slender form, was clearly Cheetara. The other was taller, bulkier and exuded maleness, raw and naked masculinity. Yet when the covers were drawn back they found only one thing immediately identifiable as a body – the cheetah herself, her lifeless form still supple and limber. She looked as tough she were not dead, not dead at all, despite the smell of the berries and her lack of breath. It was as if with the gentlest nudge she could awaken.
Next to her – no, cradled about her – was a pile of bones and dust kept together by leather rags, Lunatic by fashion. It did not look like a corpse at first, but something awkwardly put together to look like one. A cheetah mask covered its face but the swift action of unveiling the blanket had tipped it aside to reveal its features – features that had not been originally in proportional to the sculpture but that through the pressure of its application and the liquefaction of its flesh reshaped it to conform to its contours. Gradually it slid to the ground and shattered. Foul some and detestable though the skin had become, the mask had preserved the character of the body's identity as if the gray hairs that still clung to its head were not enough.