Saving Face

AKA: Cheetara's off-screen emotional breakdown.

Yumiko Kaze

Cheetara darkly surveyed the clearing beneath the Tower of Omens. Though the afternoon sun beat down on them brightly, a heavy feeling of failure hung in the air around their temporary, makeshift camp. The idea that they had come all this way to find a blank book had taken its toll.

Satisfied that everyone was safe and likely to remain out of trouble for the time-being, Cheetara stealthily melted into the jungle carrying the broken lantern that had housed Jaga's soul.

The further she got from the other Thundercats the tighter her throat got and her eyes began to sting with unshed tears. Even though she had excused herself from the group for this very purpose it was hard to let go of the tight control she always kept over her emotions and just let herself be upset. Every time it happened it was a small personal failure.

She had begun her training as a Cleric when she was very young, and one of the first things she had been taught to do was to hold her temper. As spiritual and mystical leaders of Thundera, a Cleric was always in control, an example for everyone else – or so Jaga had always taught her.

Duty, honor, and courage. These were things all Thundercats, especially Clerics, strove to embody, and Jaga had done so better than anybody else. Cheetara hoped that she would grow to be half the Cleric that Jaga had been. The ideals that she had been raised to believe in were as close to her heart as anything and now that Jaga was gone it was up to her to uphold them and protect the two young princes with everything she had. And she would. She would die for one or both of them if need be. It was her sworn duty, and above all an honor.

But she was only seventeen, even if she sometimes acted as though she were older than Jaga. The jaguar had laughed at her as a child when she had repeated the Code of Thundera as though it were her own personal mantra. She had taken everything so seriously that by the time she was eight she was able to keep a straight face better than most adults. For the most part everything came to her easily and she was prone to having temper tantrums when something didn't go her way. Though she had eventually grown out of that particular habit, there were just times that she couldn't hold her feelings in anymore.

Like right now.

I hate him, Cheetara thought to herself as an angry tear worked its way free and she wiped it away with the back of one hand. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. Her hands gripped the shattered remains of the lantern as though her life depended on it. The broken piece of junk was her last connection to the old Cleric. Its dull metal held no trace of the life force that had been housed within not so many hours ago. Her fingers flexed and her claws left tiny scratches in the surface.

It was all Lion-O's fault.

Cheetara suddenly threw the lantern with a silent scream; it sailed into a tree and bounced off into some long grass with a clang.

If he hadn't tried to take on Mumm-Ra then none of this would have happened. How could Lion-O, who had never taken his training seriously, have hoped to defeat that monstrosity where so many others had failed? When his own father had been cut down before his very eyes? He's nothing but a fool, Cheetara raged to herself. If he had just grabbed the book and run then Jaga would never have had to sacrifice himself for that stupid boy.

Cheetara's chest constricted painfully and she swallowed an undignified sniffle. Jaga…

He had been like a father to her. Her own parents had both been fine Thunderian warriors and had left her with the Clerics for training before dying in a battle with the Reptilians. Jaga had taken over for them, raising her, training her, giving her reason to believe that her parents had died for something. They had died for Thundera, just as she would. They had died for its name, to keep it safe – to keep their king and his family safe.

And look where that got us. Cheetara whipped out her quarter-staff and twirled it over her head, intending to work out some of her frustrations through physical means. The anger lent her movements a power that she knew she possessed but rarely managed to tap into. She flowed from motion to motion faster than most cats could see. Then she turned her sights on one of the many trees, attacking it from all angles as though her life depended on it.

She reveled in the heavy "thwaks" that reverberated through the jungle. Relished the feeling of the wood taking everything she had to give. She imagined the tree was Mumm-Ra at first, and then Lion-O.

The book is blank and Jaga's dead. It's six of us against Mumm-Ra and the entire Reptilian Army. Now what? Would anything they did even make a difference?

She winced when the staff rebounded from the hapless tree she had been attacking and into her thigh. If possible that made her even angrier and she struck out with the staff again, ending in the same result: a sore thigh. Unshed tears pricked at her eyes as she forced herself to hold in the new wave of anger and hurt. She spent so much of her life trying to be calm and hold everything in, and when she finally took a moment to try and let everything out the world seemed to love telling her that she shouldn't have done so in the first place and hit her with a dose of instant karma. She took a steadying breath and refrained from hitting the tree again, instead throwing her staff to the ground and seating herself on a rather large root with a huff.

She didn't feel any calmer. Now her thigh was bruised, her hair was a mess, and she felt even worse than when she had first arrived. She supposed the universe had been right to tell her in its own way that losing your temper was never the answer. She rubbed at her thigh. It was this or risk losing it in front of the other cats.

Sometimes it took everything she had not to blow up at Lion-O or Tygra over their petty differences. She supposed that their bickering helped them maintain a sense of normalcy in a reality where nearly their entire race had been wiped out in one fell swoop. Just like it helped her to remember Jaga's teachings before she made decisions. She sighed. Jaga wouldn't have tried to beat up a tree.

If she were truly honest with herself she knew that Jaga's death wasn't really Lion-O's fault. Jaga had freely sacrificed himself to protect Lion-O not because the he was the last blood prince of Thundera, but because he truly believed that the boy was something special. And so did she. Ever since she had been small, Cheetara had seemed to know and sense things that others could not. Jaga had taught her not to be afraid of her strange ability. Called it a gift and had urged her to trust those senses. It was one reason she had been so supportive of Lion-O. Her senses had been screaming at her that the boy was destined to be something great. Greater even than the legendary warrior for whom he had been named.

So she had been patient and faithful these past few days. Weeks? How long had it been since their lives had changed so drastically? She had defended Lion-O when the others questioned his judgment, even when she wasn't so sure about it, all because her sixth sense told her he wasn't just an idiot boy and she had seen that it was true. He was destined to lead them. There was no way Lion-O could handle the Sword of Omen's if he wasn't. He just had to learn that being a true leader meant more than proclaiming "I am the King" over and over. Under all the angst and emotional whiplash, her friend, the boy she had met in the back alleys of Thundera was still there and she didn't hate him at all.

Now that she had stopped chasing her thoughts in circles she realized that the person she was really angry with… was Jaga.

She had never told any of the other cats, but she had suspected that the old Jaguar wasn't dead from the time they had left Thundera. She had kept quiet because saying anything would have meant explaining how she knew and that was not a conversation she wanted to have with anybody. When she had seen Jaga's spirit in the lantern she had been elated that the old cat wasn't dead. She had put her heart and soul into trying to save him.

And then he had just gone and gotten himself killed anyway. Damn him. How could he just leave them like that? Leave her? He was the only one who knew about her sixth sense. He was the one person she had ever told about how much they scared her and how much she hated being different from everyone else around her. And now he was just… gone.

And she was going to miss him.

The first shuddering sob was the hardest. It seemed lodged in her throat, right there with all of the rage and hurt that she had been holding back for the past hour or so. It felt like she had swallowed shards of broken glass. The ball of emotion was so strong and so powerful that she didn't think it could free itself without tearing her apart. Once the first sob was out though, another was hot on its heels, and then another, and before Cheetara knew it she was crying like a kitten.

She hated crying. It was the ultimate loss of control, something she tried to avoid at all costs. But she supposed it was okay, if she only did it for a moment and there was no one around to see her.

"Cheetara?" A hand landed on her shoulder.

She flinched away from the touch and furiously scrubbed at her wet cheeks. "What is it, Tygra?" Of course he would be the one to see her like this. If anyone were to see her loss of control she would have preferred it to be Lion-O—at least with him she wouldn't have to worry about losing his respect. The younger prince had needed her support so many times throughout their journey that she had built a sort of rapport with him.

Tygra on the other hand… he was different, and Cheetara couldn't stand the idea that he might think less of her for any reason. She fought the humiliated flush that was trying to appear on her cheeks and stood, turning in such a way that her bangs shadowed her face from the prince.

She met his eyes with a boldness that she really didn't feel. "Did you need something?" She managed to keep her voice even enough, but she could see from the way his expression changed just a fraction that he had noticed something. Whether he had caught the slight catch in her voice or saw the redness around her eyes she didn't know.

Please don't ask me what's wrong. Please, oh please… She knew that if he said something nice, showed even the slightest hint of pity, that she would come completely undone and be utterly mortified about it for the rest of her natural life.

Tygra held her eyes for just a second more before the slight change in his expression was gone, leaving Cheetara to wonder if perhaps she had only imagined it. He tilted his chin in the direction of the tower. "Lion-O's been up there for way too long. I think it's time we went and made sure he hasn't broken the Book of Omens or something."

Cheetara stared dumbly at him for a moment. Was he really not going to say anything?

As if in answer to her question, Tygra bent down and deftly scooped up her quarter-staff from where it had landed earlier, handing it to her with that annoying little half-smirk that she was slowly coming to find completely endearing. Cheetara took her staff and felt her entire body relax, awash in the feeling of pure gratitude that he had allowed her moment of weakness to go unacknowledged. It was something she found far more gallant than had he chosen to ask her what was wrong or tried to comfort her as she was sure Lion-O would have.

Gripping her staff in both hands, she nodded at him slightly, "Go on ahead. I'll be there in a moment."

Tygra nodded back at her, "I'll see you at the top," and turned to head back the way he had come.

Cheetara felt a half-smirk of her own creep across her face as she watched the older prince make his way back to the clearing, his orange and black coloring helping him melt into the shadows between the shafts of sunlight. She retrieved the battered lantern from where it had fallen, but found she could not take her eyes off of his retreating backside until the jungle had completely swallowed him.

"Thank you."