"Not a chance!"
"Please, Lion-O? Please? We'll take care of her. Promise!" The two young voices were raised in unison, the sweet sopranos resolving into a boy's and a girl's.
"No! She's not a petcat!"
"You brought Snarf along," the girl pointed out.
"Yeah, what do you call him?" the boy accused.
"Snarf can take care of himself. You two stay here with her if you want. I'm not stopping now to babysit another one of you –"
"The sun's going down, Lion-O." The deep voice spoke this time, sardonic and challenging. "We'd better make camp unless you plan on bumbling around in the dark."
"If I have to, I will," the tenor snarled.
"Don't be dense," the other drawled.
"I am king!"
The shouting roused her. Aching all over, she opened her eyes. A tiny nose bumped her cheek, and whiskers tickled her neck; the little, red-furred, tassel-eared petcat happily said snyah when he noticed she was awake. Felline blinked at him. There used to be a bunch just like him in Foret, living in the barns, getting fat off meeces. This one had big, green eyes, off-white stockings, and the rounded tummy of a beloved companion. The stripes down his back were the yellow of softened butter. He purred encouragingly at her, scrubbing his white face against hers.
"I wonder where she came from," the cheetah said softly, evidently unaware that Felline could hear her.
"Good question. I wonder where she got something like this," the tiger next to her said, holding up Felline's rifle. He peered through the sights, tried the trigger, and examined the depleted energy pack. "It's not exactly a toy." There was a sort of possessive admiration in his voice that Felline didn't like.
"No!" Lion-O bellowed. "Don't do that here!"
Too late. The two wet, underfed kittens, crouched on all fours, shook themselves vigorously. After his unsuccessful leap to avoid the splash, he snarled through clenched teeth. The fluff-tailed kittens dashed in opposite directions with a chorused, "Yikes!"
It didn't take a genius to figure out where the twins had gotten their flashy clothes; obviously, they had enjoyed a life of pickpocketing in Thundera and had benefited from the confusion to do a little looting of their own on the way out. A baggy tunic and trousers covered Kat's small frame in brown and yellow, while his sister wore a cropped top and dagged skirt of purple and pink, which matched her short, striped ponytail that stuck up in the back. Both kittens wore golden bangles around their wrists and upper arms.
Felline weaved to her feet and resisted the instinct to shake herself dry, too. They were still on the lakeshore but the sun was setting, what she could see of the sky dominated by the Leo moon's smoky indigo swirls.
They weren't going to speak for her, she realized. No one but the kittens seemed to want her around, and she suspected her novelty was enough incentive for them to go against Lion-O's wishes. The other two cats didn't seem to care one way or another about her.
Felline swallowed against the soreness in her throat. She couldn't let them leave her here, alone. She would have to plead for her place.
A noble's daughter was expected to behave in a certain way. Fighting the dull pounding in her head, she approached her new king and sank to her knees, reaching out one trembling hand. Lightly, she put her fingertips on the Gauntlet attached to his belt, the golden metal warm to the touch; whether it was his body heat or some inherent magic, she couldn't say. The Gauntlet of Omens acted as a sheath for the fabled Sword of Omens, which only the Lord of the ThunderCats could master. The Eye of Thundera set in its hilt looked like a dormant red jewel in the last rays of the sun. Like an echo, the red jewel in the center of Lion-O's belt flared. Each cat wore a similar jewel, smooth, round, and red, marking them as ThunderCats. Felline, in her dog's clothing, did not, but that did not change who she was.
I am a ThunderCat, and I swear my fealty to you. That was what her gesture meant. She met King Lion-O's furious gaze. His eyes were a darker, more complex blue than hers. She felt very small in her oversized, waterlogged cloak. If anything, she saw only unwelcoming anger in those eyes.
Ruining the regal effect, water dripped from Lion-O's chin. Both of them were shivering.
"So!" Prince Tygra said loudly, Felline's rifle propped on his shoulder, a grin playing around his mouth. "Who's up for building a fire?"
..::~*~::..
It was a pitiful thing, Felline immediately realized, to not be able to thank her rescuers. Or to tell them her name.
It felt good to hear the mix of cat voices after so long. Words gained life inside of her for the first time in weeks, but her own voice remained locked away. It wasn't like she had any kind of ink or parchment to write down her life story. Even if she did have the materials, she was reluctant to share who she was, what had brought her here. These strangers, what would they care about Lepra's death? They didn't seem to care about Felline's life. Lepra was only one of many lost that night, and the atrocity of her death was a private grief that belonged to Felline alone. She sat there drying in front of the fire, miserable and silent, as Lion-O roughly explained why she couldn't stay with them. He seemed on edge, ready to explode at the slightest spark. She knew the feeling.
King Claudus was dead, that much she had guessed. Lion-O told her of the traitor Grune, who had sold his loyalties to technology and the nightmare that was Mumm-Ra. She could not tell him of the trick with the rock.
"We thought we were the only cats left," WilyKat said with the candor of children.
Felline, grief for her sister pressing hard against her sternum, nodded.
With Lord Jaga's help, Lion-O, his brother Tygra, and the cleric Cheetara had escaped the fall of Thundera with the Sword of Omens. Jaga himself had not survived.
A cleric! Felline stared at Cheetara with new respect. No wonder she'd fought so skillfully. She was one of the elite, tasked with keeping both the king and the secrets of the Sword safe. It was for the Sword that Mumm-Ra had attacked the city.
"Jaga, my teacher, has asked us to seek out the Book of Omens," Cheetara said. She wrapped herself in a nondescript brown cloak to ward off the chill night.
"We're on a mission to avenge my father," Lion-O corrected her harshly.
Cheetara subsided, brows pinched. Felline suspected this had been an ongoing argument.
"Lion-O," Tygra started, frowning at his rudeness, but his brother stood up, hands clenched.
"I won't hear any more about it! We're going after Mumm-Ra, and that's final. I don't need any more baggage."
He spat the last word at the kittens and Felline before stalking out of the firelight. He stood with his muscular arms crossed, his stiff back to them. The light tunic and trousers of the festival were gone. He was outfitted for war in Thundera's finest armor, breastplate and greaves and thick trousers of royal blue. He looked like a king, though he was acting like a spoiled cub.
Reclining by the fire, Tygra rolled his eyes. He was no longer dressed in royal blue, Felline noticed, but rather wore fatigues of forest green. She assumed the padded areas across his torso and legs, which seemed to consist of blocky plates in a strange, metallic material, were some kind of armor. No Thunderian smith had ever produced that in a forge; she wondered where he'd gotten it. He'd succeeded in dismantling her rifle and was now occupied in trying to fit one of the clips from his own pistol into the battery slot. Naturally, they weren't a match, and he reassembled the rifle with regret. He stood, and moved as if he was going to throw it in the lake.
Felline jumped up and snatched it back from him, baring her fangs. That's mine.
Prince Tygra raised his black eyebrows, staring down at her. "Look, kid," he said, "it's out of juice. There's no point lugging it around. We're low on supplies as it is. We each have to carry our own weight."
With her own roll of the eyes, she holstered the gun. It was hers, and Prince Tygra had had no business messing with it. He wanted supplies? Fine. From what she could see, she was doing better than the whole lot of them, even if hunting was no longer an option. She picked up her pack and flung it at him.
He caught it, taken aback.
It was Cheetara who opened the pack, curiosity sparkling in her sunset eyes, which widened when she saw the food and tools inside. Gently, she took the pack from the prince and smiled at Felline. "Thank you," she said. "This will help."
"Where did you get all this, anyway?" Tygra asked. "Were you with your family? Did you live somewhere around here?"
Felline stared at him. Then at the rest of them. They were all watching her.
"Where are your parents?" he pressed.
Then it dawned on her. They thought she was a cub. No wonder they were treating her so cavalierly. True, she was only a head taller than WilyKit and WilyKat.
On the same principle, however, Felline was only a head shorter than Lion-O. She couldn't look that young! Could she?
Her shoulders slumped. It didn't matter. There wasn't anything she could say, so she merely shook her aching head and returned to her spot by the fire.
..::~*~::..
She discovered that the way to not be left behind was simply to keep up.
Lion-O led the way due west, heading for Mumm-Ra's lair. They left the wooded hills for a broad, red desert, where sharp, windswept rocks pointed toward the setting sun. Felline brought up the rear of their train, keeping WilyKit and Kat between her and Cheetara; the two women made sure the kittens didn't lag behind or wander too far off. Up at the front, Tygra constantly nagged at his brother, who wrapped himself in his cloak and marched ahead without a backward glance. Little Snarf trotted along at his master's heels, his tufted ears drooping with weariness as the hot days dragged on.
At night, Felline pitched her pup tent and retired to it soon after dinners that steadily decreased in size. She lay on her sleep roll, listening to the others talk and argue. Cheetara wanted to go after the Book of Omens. Tygra agreed with her. Lion-O, however, seemed determined to take on any plan that his brother opposed.
How could he do this? WilyKat and Kit had survived the fall of Thundera; she had avoided both death and slavery. What if there were others? Shouldn't they be working to rebuild the kingdom, rather than chase after a pointless revenge that might kill them all? She didn't understand him, not at all. And by the dissent in the ranks, no one else agreed with his choices, either.
Stubborn to a fault, Lion-O took no counsel. To Mumm-Ra, they were to go.
Felline rolled onto her side, eyes closed, and tried to find sleep. The tent rustled, and two small bodies burrowed inside.
Shocked, Felline raised her arm, but she couldn't sit up inside the tiny tent. A chilly Kat curled up against her front, while an equally icy Kit snuggled into her back, wrapping a thin arm around her waist.
Are they afraid? she wondered. Lonely? Or were they just cold? And hungry?
The kittens began to purr, their breathing slowing. Hesitantly, Felline lowered her arm, hugging WilyKat closer. His brown and white mane tickled her nose, but she couldn't roll over without squashing WilyKit. It was an awkward arrangement, but she remembered creeping into Lepra's bed when she needed comfort. Who would have ever thought that Felline would be a source of comfort to others?
She shifted, trying to dislodge a spiny cactus from her side. The purring was putting her to sleep.
As long as Snarf didn't join them, she thought with a yawn, they should be okay.
A/N: NaNoWriMo is almost half over. I'm still shooting for 50k in 30 days, but I seriously doubt I will reach The End by then. Hee!
Reviewer Thanks! KelseyAlicia (Awesome! It's as good to know what works as what doesn't. Thank you), Guest (Hi, who is this? Should I be saying "Welcome" or "Welcome back"? Thanks for the review!), Blacktiger93 (Hooray, I'm glad you've come back and want to keep reading! I was tentative to write this chapter because I don't want to mess with the canon characters or their personalities, but it was loads of fun to let them tell me what they think of Felline. Onward, ho!), Heart of the Demons (You've been very patient. I'm thrilled you liked it!), and Night Whisperer (Well, I don't know about "perfect," but I will take it! LOL! Action scenes aren't my strongest suit, can you tell? I have to work really hard at them . . . but I, too, was excited to get a move on. *grin* I'll try to do the existing story justice for all of you!). I probably didn't say it enough, so here it is again: THANK YOU for reviewing!
All my love,
Anne