Rouge was certain she was outside, or at least somewhere where the rustle of wind could find her body, but there was lighting here as well. Two pale, yellow lamps hung over her head and made her lashes twitch at the bothersome light.
The lights winked out, and before she could adjust, they opened up and stared at her again.
Rouge gasped – Not lights. Something was watching her!
Her body had been groggy, but now it was growing deathly still, and she looked back into the eyes, tensing for the first strike. She could see no end to the beast – it was enormous, and its breath stank of dead meat. Blast, she could have had lethal injection, but now she was at the mercy of some wild animal! She could hear the great beast rumble.
"Hey Froggy! She's wakin' up!"
The mammoth feline was gentle to carry her, and his fur was a soft comfort. He sat her on a log 'round a crackling campfire and explained their encounter.
"Froggy an' me were fishin' at the river, see, an' it was pretty windy. Then all a sudden we heard someone yellin' an' then you crashed."
Rouge held her throbbing temples in check and nodded from under a blanket. She could remember the winds – In the fierce drafts, her wings had crumpled like an old umbrella and left her tumbling in a free fall. She felt the sting of many cuts, but nothing seemed to have shattered, thank goodness.
"You made a big splash," the cat illustrated. "I went out to getcha an' I took you back home."
Home, Rouge interpreted, was this calm, wooden cabana in the rainforest. She asked for an explanation of where she was, but the place was just "Home" to the fat cat. He had no other name for the jungle.
Rouge pressed back on her headache. Well, better lost with a simpleton hermit than snuggled up with GUN-Hunters at a military prison. At least this secluded dimwit didn't recognize her as Rouge the Bat, government spy, self-employed treasure hunter and recent sacrifice to the gods of public relations.
The cat spent some time leaning over his fire and poking a frying pan held over the flames. When she called for attention, he gave a little jump.
"What time is it?" she growled.
His dim, yellow lightbulbs gave the question serious consideration. "Suppertime?" he finally offered.
A hiss steamed through the bat's lips. "No, look… do you have a clock or a watch here?"
"Ohhhh," he said knowingly. "Nope."
"Nope?"
"There's a calendar over my bed," he offered, and the cat waddled off to retrieve the item despite her protests. Rouge wondered if he even heard her?
The monthly schedule dropped in front of her face. Above the table of dates were photographs of colourful flowers. "It's Friday now, but you got here on Thursday."
Rouge was alarmed. "I was out for a whole day!?" She must have had a concussion – had she hit a rock, maybe?
But the cat shook his head, ears and shaggy fur flapping along. "No," he corrected. "See, you came here on this Thursday up there. An' Today," his stubby finger slid down, "it's this Friday down here."
Her yelp made him back away and stumble. "Whoa, whoa," he exclaimed, holding his hands defensively. "Are you okay?"
"Two Weeks!" Rouge moaned. She screwed her face up, thinking about how this lonely hillbilly must have enjoyed her comatose state.
"Boy Froggy, we sure go a lotta fish today."
On second thought, luck might have sent her to a male whose appetite was purely digestive.
"My gloves!" she exclaimed, noticing her bare hands for the first time. And there were further items missing: her boots, her belt, her…
She gasped. "My babies!"
Feral rage returned to her face and she lashed her tongue at the cat. "You! What happened to my stuff?"
Her affairs were piled in a neat corner of the hut. He said it was because they'd been wet and needed to dry, though Rouge's mind lept to more larcenous motives. Diving down, she threw aside the knee-high boots, even though her feet already stung from moving barefoot. Consumed by dread, she hunted around her belt until she produced a velvet pouch. Frantically, she undid the drawstrings and let the gemstones slide into her palm.
"You're all here," she sighed with great relief, once she counted the diamonds and jewels she had rescued from her hideout in Midvale City.
There were a dozen small crystals the size of her fingernail; a pair of matching pearls that would have been wasted on some old hag's earrings; a golden necklace carrying a ruby locket; a diamond encrusted bracelet; three slivers of jade, one sapphire stone and her prize of the flock: a gold wedding ring crowned with a jet-black pearl, which she slipped over her finger with extreme delicacy and raised to the light for further adoration.
"It's okay now," she cooed, stroking her fingers along the precious stones. "Mommy's here."
Throaty croaking interrupted her intimate moment. Rouge took a wide swipe at the frog, which jumped and hopped out doors. She snarled and returned her treasures to their place of protection.
As she dressed, and pulled on her snowy gloves, the bat fumed. How dare he! How dare that bloated, thickheaded country hick leave her jewels simply lying on the floor, as if they belonged with her footwear! How dense was this creature?
"Didja get all your stuff?" he asked when she emerged. Rouge scowled, and pulled out her makeup kit.
"Yeah, I found it," she snapped, while applying eyeliner. "On the floor."
The cat didn't seem to notice that final emphasis. "Good, I was worrying Froggy was gonna hop on everthin'. I hadda keep him outta the house since you came. Froggy's nice, but he just wants ta poke through everythin', and it isn't nice to go around and look through other people's stuff."
She was only ignoring the hillbilly's folksy wisdom. "Hey," he exclaimed with excitement. "Your clothes are the same colour as my fur!"
Rouge's hand jerked and she smeared her lipstick. Oh God, there was her headache again!
"Well, isn't that interesting," she said with a forced smile, and she struck a pose to show off her leather bodysuit with rose highlighting her midriff and a loose belt accentuating her hips. "We must be two of a kind, birds of a feather."
The cat flapped his ears again. "Not really."
She gave a fanged smile and sauntered back to the fireside. "Well anyway, you're certainly my friend after everything you did for me."
"Aww, that's nice," the cat blushed. "But I was just doin' what anyone woulda done."
Rouge found that hard to swallow. "Anyway, friend…"
"I'm Big."
"Of course you are. Anyway, it's been great spending all this time with you, but I really need to get going." She sniffled. "My family must be so worried about me."
His ears stiffened. "Uh oh. Where d'ya live? Maybe I can show you the way?"
Jackpot. "I… I'm not sure. My home is a Cit-eee. It's a big place with tall buildings and nice roads and things we call cars…"
The cat cut her off. "Oh yeah, I've been there before. Are you from Station Square or Midvale?" Rouge was taken aback, so he continued. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. You gotta take the train to get to both places."
Eyes flashed with hope. "The train?" Was there really a train that came to this god-forsaken vegetable-bowl?
"Yeah, the train," the cat confirmed. "I'll take you there t'morrow and we can figure out how ta getcha home."
No, no, no! Not another minute here! "Oh, but my mom and dad are probably missing me so bad! Couldn't we go now? Please?"
The cat frowned. "Well… Okay, I guess. But first, we better eat somethin'. You must be starvin'."
Rouge guessed that breakfast, lunch, dinner and mid-meal snacks consisted entirely of fish. She leaned away from the offered frying pan and the browned piece of meat. "Sorry," she said firmly. "I'm a vegetarian."
"Oh," he noted. "I've never seen one of you before, so I was wondrin'. I'm a cat, by the way."
"Right…"
"Go on, you can eat it. There's plenty more."
Rouge screwed up her face. She shouldn't – her body wasn't built to digest flesh. Fruits and fluids, thank you. But… Oh, her insides were rumbling at the offer. She ripped away her gloves, grabbed the fish and shoved the greasy meat down her mouth.
Delicious! More! She wolfed it up in seconds. Then a third, and a fourth – she was so hungry!
"Wow," the cat exclaimed.
Panting at the excess, Rouge followed his directions and tread wearily to the stream to wash up. Once clean and with cosmetics reapplied, she was ready to get back to civilization.
The cat joined her at the waters edge, holding a parasol with a concerned grip. His eyes and ears flickered about cautiously. "We don't have any roads like in the city," he explained with half-attention, "So y'gatta follow the water. Me an' Froggy'll show you the way, you just stick close."
Rouge smirked. "Got it, chief."
He leaned down and looked her with frightening seriousness. "Stick close, okay? We shouldn't really be out when it's this dark." He shivered.
She almost felt intimidated. But she remembered what a fool this was and kept her cool.
The frog swam in the lead and the cat stomped after, with Rouge on his heels. She had to run just to keep up with his giant footsteps. The trees hung close and the waters slopped at her feet. She cried out several times when the muddy bottom fastened its hold on her heels and threatened to pull her boots away. The water was icy cold, and it leaked into her footwear until every step was a slimy, squishy trek. The cat must have had fur made of brambles to endure the jungle.
"Keep close," he warned every few minutes of their upstream hike. He didn't speak much else, just clutched his umbrella close.
Rouge wanted to kill him for taking her on this death march. At points, the water rose to her hips, and she had to unclip her heart-locket and thrust her belt above her head to keep her treasures safe. The cat just bounded forward like a purple balloon, an all-terrain vehicle just as natural in the water as an amphibian.
The turns and bends went on forever, and Rouge wondered how anyone could navigate when every tree was identical, when finally, the cat announced, "Climb out."
There was a shelf of rock and vines walling the river, and forcing it to bend. Froggy hoped up a mound of boulders, and the cat hoisted himself up the impromptu staircase. Without his bulk as a dam, Rouge suddenly felt the full force of the waters. She yelped as the current began to pull.
Something snatched her neck and yanked her out. The cat pulled her up and let her take a firm grip on the rocks. "Y'gatta be careful," he warned. Rouge just snarled and demonstrated her proficiency at climbing.
The level above was much the same – trees boxing in the pathway and cutting off the moonlight. But this time, Rouge had the blessing to scrabble along stones and dull her steel boots on rocks. She swore this cat was trying to murder her! On they marched until the rocks crumbled to dirt and the path divided into two. The cat stopped at this fork in the road.
"Well?" Rouge demanded breathlessly. "Where to now, oh great leader?"
The cat frowned and studied his options. At his feet, Froggy shifted restlessly.
"I'm wai-ting," Rouge said in singsong.
"Hang on, I'm tryin' to remember," the cat reminded. He obviously hadn't come this way in some while.
While she huffed and waited, her mind buzzed with plans. If two weeks had passed and only the cat had found her, maybe G.U.N. thought she was dead, and that could be an advantage. But still, to be safe, she'd have to keep a low profile and sneak on to the train, maybe cling to the top as it moved. And then, she had to see about getting that passport, which meant obtaining a new disguise for a big city. Were her bank accounts still active? And after that clutter was solved, she still had to sneak into Corvalis and her apartment, where another load of her precious jewels were hidden. She worried if anyone might have found the secret panels in her absence… And after that, she had to get out of the country. Westside Islands perhaps, or maybe overseas where the United Provinces and their bulldog G.U.N. had little influence…
Goodness, life was complicated.
A moth fluttered into the path and around their legs. Froggy flicked his tongue and missed. The insect buzzed away, but the frog was not put off. He gave a hop and flicked again, then hopped after it into the trees. The movement caught the cat's attention, and he watched. His eyes popped open, terror stricken.
"Froggy, NO!" He stumbled after, but it was too late. Panic overtook him. "Froggy's gone! An' it's dark! I gotta get him!"
Rouge saw her only hope escaping, and put her foot down. "What about me? I'm still stuck here!"
"But – but, Froggy!"
She grabbed his fur before he could run off. "No way, fatso! Not until I'm out of here!"
He couldn't shrug her grip off. "I've gotta save him! It's late – If I don't find him first…"
"First, you tell me where to go!" Rouge snarled.
"Froggy!"
Rouge grabbed the scruff of fur on his chest and tugged. "Where's the train!?"
Big winced, both in mortal pain and mental torture. Ohh, which way, which way? Where did he go last time Froggy left? Which way … Froggy…
"Left!" he blurted, eyes turning watery. "Left!"
Rouge gave one last pull. "And after that?"
The cat sobbed. "There's a ladder at the end. … A tunnel… then the train. Please, I gotta help him!"
Information drained, the bat pushed him away. The cat didn't even retaliate – he just plunged into the bushes, yelling for his lost friend. "Good luck finding Frog-Legs," she taunted and stormed down the path to the left.
Slowly, her footsteps were swallowed by the jungle. A voice howled in the night under unbearable torture. Up above, the perverted moon sunk behind cloud and shadows grew over the Mystic Ruins.
The thickets rustled, and a shaggy purple bulk stepped back on the path. Tears were in his eyes as he cradled the small creature in his arms. Then a smile overtook his face and his companion returned with a happy gurgle. Big the Cat nuzzled his nose with Froggy.
He smiled with content. "Now I've got everything I need."
Froggy croaked, and suddenly Big remembered the lady, the Vegetarian. "I hope she's doing okay," he said with concern. "Poor thing, she's lost her Mom an' Dad. Just like you, huh, Froggy?"
An agreeing ribbit. Big sighed and wished he hadn't made her so mad. "Well, maybe we can catch up and make sure she gets to the train all right. C'mon Froggy!"
He started left, but Froggy suddenly jumped out of his hands and started croaking and jumping as if possessed by a devil. Big was startled, but he quickly identified the cause, the lingering phobia.
"Whoops. Sorry Froggy." He picked up his friend and stepped far away from the dark path going left.
"I forgot. Other left."
And with a mind balanced at peace, Big the Cat felt his memories surface with ease. He and Froggy plodded towards the train station, down the path on the right.