Chapter 6: Charting a Course
The Ramlak's putrid body rose out of the sand, blooming like a venomous flower. Leppria briefly thought of the day-astrids that grew in the palace garden, and how she'd see noble girls giggle as their lips touched the fine petals, whispering about the life trapped within each one.
The memory was quickly soured as she thought about a flower eating her instead of the other way around.
Tentacles thrashed from the center of its flowery mouth as its larger limbs began to descend over the ship, all the while Koinelius Tunar laughing with glee.
"It's surfacing!" he called. "Now's our chance!"
Anyone holding a speargun was clutching it like their lives depended on it, which it sort of did. Each weapon was loaded and ready to pierce the slimy hide of the monster, but the fishmen holding them stood frozen in fear, eyes glassy and fins trembling as death stared them all in the face.
Leppria knew the feeling.
She stayed rooted to the deck, and as much as she willed it she couldn't force herself to move and fight. Damnit she was a blacksmith! She wasn't built for battle, the very nature of what she was taught all her life was to stay on the sidelines and help with what she gave, what she built, not what she did.
But even still, as the massive arms of the Ramlak constricted around the entirety of the ship, Lion-O off somewhere desperately waving the Sword of Omens around like a single torch in a pitch black cave, trying to light his way but moving too fast to see anything in front of him, Leppria dove away from a tentacle that had tried to coil around her, the appendage wrapping around Finnias instead and dragging him overboard.
"Take down the arms! Then we go for the head!" she barely heard Tunar roar over the blast of thunder that vibrated through the ship.
Lion-O screamed as he slashed through another length of the Ramlak, his voice becoming hoarse as he tore at its clammy flesh. Even when the arm severed he did not stop until it was mush, merely moving on the next and not sparing anything else a second glance, not the crew being swept overboard by the waves or the Ramlak, not her, not anything.
Leppria winced as she head the wood beneath her begin to moan, splinters breaking off the tighter the Ramlak wrapped around them. If the static bouncer didn't fail the monster would split them down the middle before it ever could.
Every hair on her arms stood up and she screamed loudly as the sand beast slithered one of its mouth-tentacles around her ankle, yanking her off her feet and pulling her over the side of the ship. Before her lungs filled with sand she felt someone grab her hand, inching her eyes open to see Prince Tygra's face scrunched with effort as his feet were planted firmly against the rail, using every ounce of his strength to keep the Ramlak from taking her.
The lash of its tongue did not let go however, pulling harder as both Leppria and the tiger prince let out yells of pain and struggle, the leopard pleading with her eyes for him not to let go of her hands.
It was only a blink of pure luck that Cheetara appeared in a flash of gold, slashing the touch around her ankle with a vicious swing of her staff. The viscous thing squealed and squirted out purple blood as it retreated back into the mouth, Leppria panting heavily as Tygra pulled her back to her feet.
Before she could catch her breath, before she could even look up, the Ramlak coiled once more around the ship, splitting the wood and shattering the mast in one twitch of its gargantuan body.
The beast had broken the ship as easily as she could snap a twig between her fingers.
Wood, fishmen, and Thundercats, everything went into the sea, the leopard girl straining to hold on to the now upside-down mass and remain above the sand as long as possible, but even that was sinking quickly.
"Leppria!" Wilykit's voice called out. She turned and saw the remaining crew, her fellow cats included, grouping together on a piece of debris, the plasma cannon still mounted tight where she left it. "Quick! Jump!"
The kitten gestured wildly for her to make the jump across the still raging sands, the remaining scraps of the ship being swiftly sucked down into the abyss.
"Come on beast!" she heard Tunar scream. "For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!"
As she planted her feet as firmly as she could, Tunar fired his last harpoon, the Ramlak screaming and pulling him into the darkness of the Sand Sea in retaliation, the mad fishman laughing happily all the while.
Leppria jumped, and Koinelius Tunar was lost to the sea.
Her claws brushed against the wood of the makeshift raft, the rest of her splashing into the sand, but she clung to the debris with all her remaining might, teeth ground together as Cheetara and the kittens hoisted her out of the surf, grains scraping against the raw parts of her legs and stomach as she gasped for breath.
"Everyone!" she weakly blinked, spotting the blurry figure of Lion-O waving frantically from his own lifeboat of rubble. "Over here!"
Through her exhaustion, even she could see the sudden clarity in his eyes, no longer dark from an uncontained storm but bright like a newly clear sky.
Good, she thought, his craziness was getting really annoying.
The muscled tiger finished tying the two rafts together, Kat doing his best to prop her up as she regained her bearings, her legs having turned to jelly. She couldn't stand, but she could see Lion-O firing a harpoon from their position and securing it to the somehow still-floating mast, beginning to pull it towards them with his bare strength.
"Pull, Lion-O! You've got it!" Kit meowed, the storm above their heads beginning to slowly fade away with each pull of the rope.
He managed to haul the remaining piece of the ship to them, tying it down himself and smiling as the sun peaked through the black clouds.
The Thundercats all sighed, exhausted, but alive.
Leppria frustratedly shook sand out of her mane, every joint in her body stiff and sore, she swore she never wanted to be involved in battle again.
"You steered us into quite the storm Lion-O," Cheetara playfully scolded, the leopard beside her not trying to hide her scoff; yeah, that's certainly a way of putting it, she thought with a roll of her eyes.
Instead of saying anything though, she worked on disconnecting the mounter cables from the plasma cannon, finding it still to be able to function even if detached from the larger mechanism.
In other words, it would make a heck of a weapon to have going forward.
She was so focused on her work that she missed the apologetic glance Lion-O gave her, no doubt feeling bad about dismissing her earlier.
"I lost sight of what was important," he said, causing the leopard's ear to twitch slightly as she paused her wrench, a tick that did not go unnoticed by the king as he smiled. "And for that I'm…"
The sudden piercing cry of the Ramlak caught all of them off guard, the monster's horrible screech making the cats all cover their ears as its lashing tongues all sprung forth for them, apparently still hungry after feasting on fishmen.
Leppria tore the plasma cannon free from its mount, cocking it as quickly as she could but still coming up short as tentacles wrapped and coiled around Lion-O, swallowing him whole with a broken roar.
"Snyah!"
"No!" Cheetara growled, brandishing her staff.
"Lion-O!" Prince Tygra cried, his eyes wild with shock and horror as he watched his brother become fish-food.
Emerald eyes narrowed as she aimed the massive weapon at the Ramlak's sealed maw, balancing it on her shoulder as she felt it become charged with pure energy. "Out of the way!" she hissed, everyone ducking out of her path.
Kat waved his tiny fists wildly, "You give him back, you slimy sack of tentacles!"
With a beat of stunned silence the monster turned its attention back to them, having just now developed a taste for cat and still hungry for more.
Her claw squeezed the trigger, but before a blast of plasma could hit its target, the Ramlak paused, a strange rumble bubbling in its greedy gut.
Cheetara quickly placed a hand on the barrel of the cannon, forcing Leppria to lower it slightly. "Wait," she said, her ruby irises locking determinately with the leopard girl's. She didn't understand why the cheetah made her hesitate, but she chose to trust the cleric.
Her trust was well repaid as the blade of the Sword of Omens, gleaming like pure starlight, burst from the belly of the beast in an explosion of blue light, Lion-O cutting himself free as a monsoon of cool, clear water washed against his back and pushed him out.
Unable to contain the innards of its stomach any longer, the Ramlak burst like a shattered cask, spewing water from every orifice until it collapsed dead with one final defeated shriek.
The water pooled in the sand, almost calming as it stilled the raging waves into docile dunes, the fishmen cheering as they began to frolic through the crystal surface. "We got our water back!" they all cried, splashing and celebrating gleefully while the Thundercats watched, feeling accomplished after their near-death tussle with the Ramlak.
Leppria ran to the shore and stuck her entire head into the water, gulping up as much of it as her churning stomach could handle and feeling her happy tears be washed away. When she finally came back up she gasped for air, the droplets flying from her curls glittering in the sun like gems.
The kittens followed her, sticking their own heads beneath the water, and the older girl only laughed at their antics, feeling Snarf climb up her back and try his luck at pawing for the sweet liquid. She took the pudgy pet and placed him in the sand, letting him drink to his little heart's content as she gave Lion-O an approving nod, silently thanking him despite still feeling sour about his bout of insanity.
He gave her a nod in return, joining her and the twins in enjoying the water, the surface sparkling as he filled his cask, and Leppria suddenly understood the old saying about water being more valuable than any gold or jewel.
Once everyone's bellies were full of food and water, Leppria set out to help Cheetara work on the rusty airboat they had pulled from the remains of the ship. The generator worked fine but a few of the cogs were rusted through, and ironically enough, it needed a sparkplug.
With her new plasma cannon strapped to her back, she tightened the final bolt with her wrench, running her claws through her dark, damp hair and beaming with pride as the engine roared to life.
"Thank to you, we have our home back." Finnias smiled as he and Lion-O shook hands, both of them grateful for what the other had given them, be it knowledge or hope.
The young king nodded, "I'm sorry about your captain."
The fish scoffed, eyes bitter and knowing as Leppria's had been in the face of her king's growing madness. "It was his own foolish choice that led him to his sandy grave."
The unspoken implication of Lion-O meeting a similar fate hung in the air, but the leopard pushed the thought aside, glad he had come to his senses once the chips were down.
Prince Tygra appeared beside her, but she didn't rise or bow, both too tired to do so and feeling that the tiger wouldn't care if she did or not.
"We should get going before the sun sets," he advised, taking the helm as she finished adjusting the rutter cable.
The russet-haired lion nodded, climbing aboard. Cheetara smiled, "So, what orders do you have for your crew?" Leppria chuckled, leaning against the airboat generator.
Blue eyes clear and determined, he looked towards the horizon before looking back at his motely crew.
"Set course for the Book of Omens!"
The cheetah gave a salute, "Aye-aye, captain!"
Leppria smiled, propping her arm over her knee, glad the king finally had some semblance of a plan, and though their future was still shadowy and filled with dangers such as the lizard army and Mumm-Ra himself, they finally had a heading.
She made eye contact with Tygra, the prince gesturing to her and the Wily twins with a smirk. "And what about these stowaways?"
The kittens began purring and mewling cutely, making paw motions with their hands as some sort of persuasion tactic, but the leopard did no such thing. She knew she'd saved the group more than once during their time on that ship, fixing the plasma cannon and keeping the ship from falling into the sea, even getting this hunk of junk airboat to run smoothly was no easy feat.
She'd proven her worth, and king or not, Lion-O was going to get a punch in the face if he still rejected her then.
"I said I wasn't going to babysit." He said firmly, earning a growl from the spotted girl. "It's a good thing they've more than proven they can take care of themselves."
The noise she made in reply was a complicated tie between a sigh of relief and a yowl of indignation, but either way, all she did was smile as she rubbed the back of her head and watched Kit and Kat cheer victoriously, the trio officially welcome among the remnants of the Thundercats.
Surprisingly, Tygra gave her a pat on the back before shifting the gears of the boat and beginning their journey back to shore, Leppria giving him a smile in return.
The sun shone bright overhead as the cats started off towards the horizon, Lion-O standing tall at the bow of the airboat as the raging storm was left behind.
Leppria/Tygra friendship if you squint! See you next time with Song of the Petalars chapters! I know Lep didn't have a lot of lines in this episode but she will in coming chapters, because trust me, she's a big talker. Ciao!