The lizards sat in a forlorn group, feet crossed at the ankle. They had not removed their helmets. Their eyes were hidden by the red lenses of their goggles and their wide mouths were pinched shut. All of them. They waited with the stillness only known to the coldblooded. Most wore metal or leather bracers around skinny wrists, all had strapped a single suspender crosswise over pale, slightly sunken chests. Their mottled hides made Felline think of a swamp in the rain, blue and gray and green and brown.

She wondered what a female lizard looked like.

Finally, Cheetara spoke. "What are we gonna do with them?"

"We're gonna let them go," Lion-O answered quietly.

Felline smiled down at her feet.

Tygra, however, was unimpressed. "Excuse me?"

"They've fought under Mumm-Ra long enough to know they don't want to live under him," Lion-O explained, approaching the lizards. "This mission is not just a threat to cats. If we don't unite against him, we'll fall together before him."

That sounded familiar. Had Lion-O said it before? Or had she heard it somewhere else? In the swordsman's town, perhaps. . . . Felline frowned, trying to remember, but one of the lizards showed his pointed teeth in a derisive laugh.

"Cats and lizards united together?" he rasped. "If that's your plan for victory, you are a fool."

"Perhaps," Lion-O answered coolly, but his face was stern. "Still, the choice is yours. Return to the battlefield, or return to your families."

Startled, the lizards broke into hisses and whispers.

"Lion-O, is it really that simple?" Felline murmured.

She'd said it quietly enough that Lion-O didn't have to answer if he didn't want to, and his silence spoke more loudly than words. He didn't know, but this was the path he'd chosen, and he was prepared to deal with the consequences, good or bad.

Probably guessing some of this, the lizards' commander stood, stooped and tailed, as tall as the cat king but with wider haunches. He frowned at Lion-O and then turned to his men with a reptilian smile. "Let's go home," he said.

Wordless, the lizards stood and shuffled off. With no word of thanks, the lizard commander followed his men.

Felline let out a breath, tension flowing out of her. It had worked.

"You still haven't given up the idea that you can turn the lizards good just by cutting them a break," Tygra snarled.

"You saw what happened after we won the Spirit Stone," Lion-O said. "Mass desertions in the lizard army. This isn't their war. They don't even know what they're fighting for."

He finished in a low, pensive voice. He looked tired, the fur beneath his eyes shadowed faintly gray.

"All I know is what I'm fighting for," Tygra said.

Cheetara smiled at him. "That reminds me," she said playfully. "Thanks for watching my back."

She leaned in and kissed his cheek.

"Well, your back's real easy to watch," Tygra said.

"Think I'm gonna hack up a hairball," Kat announced. He and his twin sister looked about as nauseated as Felline felt. Kit crossed her arms and nodded agreement. Lion-O's lower lip was pushed out in a very familiar pout.

Tygra cleared his throat into his fist, which didn't hide his grin. "Sorry," he said, sounding anything but.

Lion-O glared at him for two seconds before he broke out in a grin. "Don't be. I'm happy for both of you."

The cleric and the prince glanced at each other. Their faces cleared as they smiled at their king.

"It means a lot to hear you say that," Tygra said sincerely.

"How about we get back to the Berbil Village and check in on Panthro?" Lion-O went on, speaking to the twins. His right hand closed around Felline's upper arm. She glanced sidelong at her friend, but could only see him wearing the same grin.

"I think that's a good idea," she said gamely.

In unison, the kittens rose into the air, feet braced wide and hands lifted.

"Yeah!" WilyKit said, grinning. "If those furry little bears can make these hoverboards, I can't wait to see what they do with Panthro's new arms!"

They surfed off, leaving the air shimmering in their wake. The four adults followed on foot, taking a barely discernible trail through the safer parts of the canyon. Felline walked with Lion-O, lengthening her shorter strides out of habit.

"Do you really think they can put Panthro back together?" he asked her.

Felline lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Have you ever heard a berbil lie? I don't think they can."

"Except by omission," he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah. Though I don't see why the berbils would say they could if they couldn't," Felline returned. "Besides, Panthro seemed pretty expectant this morning. Can't hurt to let them try."

"True," he said.

Berbil Village opened before them in an array of candy colors, mushrooms glistening, the pink bowers arching high overhead, the scent of fruit wafting through the gap between the canyon walls. Felline inhaled, peace she hadn't known in a long time infusing her. Peace that, for a while, had been disrupted by the boy at her side. It wasn't like that anymore. She would always think him handsome, not too tall, strong in a way that appealed to her, his presence as bright as his red mane. He had a lion's maleness that couldn't be ignored. But he was her friend now. They talked, and laughed, and spent time together, and once she stopped hoping for – no, expecting more from him than he could give, she found she could treasure their friendship, and that it was more precious than any kittenish crush.

As they neared the great golden structure that served the berbils as a hospital and workshop, she broke into a jog, eager to visit the first cat that had seen real worth in her. Gruff, angry Panthro, gray as a thundercloud and about as soft as rusty nails. They wouldn't have made it this far without him.

"You call these arms?" she heard him snarl in disbelief.

"Uh-oh." Felline dashed the last few feet across the smooth, manicured lawn. The metal door automatically irised open as she neared it. She bounded through, grabbing the railing at the top of the entrance staircase to stop herself from toppling to the floor below.

"Berbil arms," Ro-Bear Bill explained in his canned, emotionless voice.

Felline tried to hold back a giggle, but it escaped in a kind of sneeze. Panthro scowled up at her, his good eye burning. Her tail flicked in suppressed amusement.

Lion-O stepped through right behind her. "How's it goin', Panthro?" he called.

Felline bounced down the staircase. She approached Panthro's reclined metal chair cautiously, stepping over the cables and wires that snaked across the shiny golden floor. Like everything else the berbils manufactured, the chair was made for function, not comfort, but Panthro hadn't complained about it yet. He was too preoccupied with his new arms.

"How does it look like it's goin'?" he snapped, holding up a very large, very round, very furry, very pink berbil paw. It was spinning like a top about to fall. He clenched his jaw so hard Felline could hear his molars grinding.

"Aw, they're not so bad," Lion-O said, ruining his soothing tone by smirking. "In fact, they're kind of adorable."

"Are you trying to make me mad?" Panthro growled, the line between his bushy brows so sharp it might have been put there by a knife.

"Sorry." Smiling sheepishly, Lion-O changed the subject. "Good news. Another successful ambush. If things keep going this way, they won't have an army to stop us from finding the next Stone."

Once she was sure Panthro wasn't going to take a swipe at her, Felline took the unresponsive paw in her own. She examined the four berbil claws, the palm and wrist, and then the servos and connectors wired into the stumps of his arms. Bill and his friends had done a good job melding flesh with machinery. Bill tucked his hard little head under her elbow, onyx eyes glittering as he, too, examined their work.

"Just don't win the war before I have a chance to get a few more licks in," Panthro said, calmer now that Felline was there. The berbils listened to her when they tended to consult no one. His right paw spun and beckoned stupidly while she probed at the left. A tick started in his temple. "Can somebody please get these things off of me?!" he roared, sending the berbils scurrying like frightened ants, arms in the air, faces blank.

"Ow!" Felline cried, slapping her hands over her sensitive ears. Panthro glared at her, mismatched eyes deranged as if daring her to ask him to apologize. "All right, all right, I'm on it, you old curmudgeon. Keep your fur on."

"Hey, I've earned it," he retorted, relaxing against the hard, table-like chair, and then set his square jaw and muttered, "And I'm not that old."

Grinning, Felline strapped her goggles into place and grabbed a handheld blowtorch. If Panthro was feeling well enough to bluster like that, then he was going to be okay.

She didn't notice when Lion-O left her to her work. She was already asking the berbils for the parts she would need to fix their big friend. Ro-Bear Bella began drafting new blueprints based on Felline's requests.

..::~*~::..

By the time Cheshire, Third Earth's tiny first moon, reached its zenith, Felline and the berbils had made real headway in fabricating a new pair of arms. She closed up the workshop after the little bears had rolled off to their homes, turning out the lights over Panthro. The general was snoring softly, covered by a thin blanket, Snarf curled up on his chest. The petcat's tasseled ears twitched along with his whiskers as he dreamed. Snarf had taken it upon himself to care for Panthro in spite of Panthro's threats and curses. He was probably as exhausted as the rest of them.

Felline let herself into the night. She stretched until her back popped. The village was empty. She didn't know if the berbils slept, per se, but she knew they would not emerge until the first rays of sun touched the candyfruit orchards. She set off toward the spherical building loaned to the ThunderCats as their sleeping quarters while the tank was in the shop getting a rather extensive overhaul.

She saw a lone figure standing outside the door and thought it might be Lion-O, so she quickened her pace. Sometimes, he liked to take walks in the moonlight, not to talk, but to think, an exercise she was well suited for. The figure turned out to be Cheetara, however.

"How is he?" Cheetara asked quietly, so that Felline knew the kittens must already be asleep inside.

"Out cold." Felline rubbed her tired eyes. "If I don't go with you tomorrow, we should be able to finish his arms."

"That's wonderful news!" Cheetara tucked a lock of her spotted-dandelion hair behind a pointed ear. "I'll be sorry to leave you behind, but we have to keep up the pressure so that more battalions will surrender. Tygra thinks the plan will work, even if he won't admit it."

"Mmm," Felline agreed noncommittally. She bit her lip. "Cheetara? Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can," Cheetara said. She waited, polite as always, while Felline screwed up her courage.

"Why Tygra?"

Cheetara's lips parted, and her sunset eyes widened, but she didn't say anything. Felline could feel the blood rising in her cheeks.

"Look, I know it's none of my business," she sighed. "I don't necessarily want to know – but – it's just –" She stopped.

"You're confused," Cheetara finished for her.

Felline nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's my fault." It was Cheetara's turn to sigh. "I wasn't very clear with my feelings and caused a lot of trouble. Believe me when I say that my heart has always belonged to Tygra. From when we were cubs. Do you know what it takes to enter the clerisy?"

"No," Felline said, startled at the sudden change in topic. "I imagine there's some sort of test."

"Yes. I failed," Cheetara said. "I had no clan, you see. Nowhere to go. Tygra showed me an act of kindness that enabled me to pass Jaga's trial. I never forgot it, or him."

As she spoke, the same kind of love suffused her face that Felline remembered seeing on Lepra's. Her sister's attachment to the farmer Rachan then was as incomprehensible as Cheetara's behavior to Lion-O and her choice of Tygra was now.

"I can't imagine what it would be like not to have a clan," Felline murmured. "My family was small, but it was mine. Sometimes I don't believe they're gone."

"The ThunderCats are my clan now," Cheetara said, smiling, "as we are yours. Out of great evil can come great good."

"True." Felline hesitated. "Have you spoken to Lion-O about any of this?"

"I don't think that's necessary," Cheetara said, raising her eyebrows.

"Maybe not," Felline said. She should drop it, she knew, but she could still feel Lion-O's fingers around her arm, as tight as if he was drowning and she was his only anchor above rough water. "But I know what it's like to be last. It's something you're born with when you have an older sister. Or brother. That's all."

Cheetara summoned a smile from somewhere. "Thank you for your advice."

She turned to go in, but she lightly touched one of Felline's hands as she did. A touch could say more than words. Relieved, Felline followed her friend inside.


A/N: Welcome, Dear Readers!

Reviewer Thanks! KelseyAlicia (Squee, first review! Thank you!), Heart of the Demons (Yes, sir! Thank you!), Momochan77 (So happy you liked it. :3 Thank you!), Mooncloudpanther (D'aww, you're buttering me up, aren't you? heehee. Thankies), The Night Whisperer (w00t, excellent! Thank you so much!), Darwin (*huggles* Thank you so much!), Blacktiger93 (YAY, glad you found it. Thank you!), and CaptainCommanderLucy (Thanks!).

Ever Yours,

Anne