Leo sat with his shell leaning against a large rock. He had earlier found a long, thin stick on the ground, and was now absently tracing it in random patterns across the dirt floor. It was having the desired effect, he could feel the stick jolting in his hand once in a while as he moved it, constantly being swatted, pounced on, and attacked by a very entertained cat.
Day Two now.
This was his second day since he had washed up here.
Since he had discovered that he was...
He took a deep breath, and once again forced himself to remain calm.
Now that he was no longer in a blind panic (ironically named condition), and was taking the time to sit back and try to carefully examine things, he had come to realize that his world wasn't completely and totally pitch black. Not all the time, anyways. When it was daylight and he was out in the sun, it was more like... a really murky gray? He discovered that if he paid attention, he could still kind of tell when it was light out, and when it was dark.
So yeah...
He had that going for him, at least?
Still didn't change the fact that he couldn't see anything.
So far, he had kept most of his activities centered around the spring he had found yesterday. Water was very important, and he didn't want to get too far away and get lost in the darkness around him. If one was surviving out in the wilds, one needed to have a good water supply.
And he apparently still had a little companion. He sincerely hoped that some child wasn't tearfully plastering 'Missing Pet' posters all over telephone poles somewhere, but... yeah. He had to admit that he was glad for the company. For reasons unknown, the cat had so far stuck close to him, and he had spent the long, distressing first night with a little warm, furry lump of fur curled up on his shell, sleeping soundly even if Leo could not.
He sighed, and wiggled the stick around a little. There was a pause, and he could almost visualize the butt wiggling going on, and then the jolt of a ferocious pounce.
He already knew he couldn't keep sitting here and doing nothing. He... he needed to figure out a plan. He always worked best when he had a plan. In the past, as leader, he had always needed to be the one who figured out just what had to be done, and what needed to be done to do it.
So what he needed to do right now was to take a deep breath, step back mentally, and look at the issues on hand right now that he had to deal with.
Alright then.
First off, and most distressingly, there was obviously the most glaring issue of all to deal with. He was BLIND!
This had huge ramifications, not just for his present situation, but for the rest of his life, if he survived that long. He hoped with every fiber of his being that it was temporary, or maybe if he found his brothers, Donnie would be able to help him, but... but he had to be realistic. There was a very real possibility that it wasn't fixable. That the damage done to his eyes was beyond healing.
That... that this darkness was permanent.
He swallowed hard, and drew up a knee slightly closer.
Yeah...
Okay. So, this was the issue that he had the least control over right now. There was absolutely nothing he could do about it, and he needed to remain cool headed and logical if he wanted to survive. So, for right now, all feelings and emotions about that issue were going to get squished waaaay deep down in the furthest corner of his mind to get dealt with later. That meant there was probably going to be another panic attack or two in his future, but, eh, he'd deal with them then. For now, all the squish. The hardest of squish. Those emotions were now unhealthily repressed so very hard, they might as well be labeled mind diamonds!
So, that done, moving onto other matters that needed to be dealt with.
There was the fact that he was separated from his brothers. The last he saw of them, they were struggling to maintain control of a badly damaged plane in the middle of a storm, heading who knew where. He had no idea where they were, or if they were even still... still...
Without realizing what he was doing, Leo pressed the stick against the ground so hard, it snapped in two, startling him with the sound.
He quietly fingered the broken stick for a moment, then tossed it to the side and reached over. He remembered some particularly long grass being over in this direction, and... ah, there!
His fingers fell upon a patch of long, weedy grass, and he fingered through them, before plucking a particularly long piece. This should be enough to entertain his guest. And when he dragged the piece of long grass across the ground, sure enough, a moment later, there was a vicious pounce and savage kicking and biting. That piece of grass was getting destroyed.
Now, where was he?
Ah, yes. He wasn't sure where his brothers were, although he had the utmost confidence that, wherever they were, they were absolutely alive, fine, and completely unharmed. After all, he trusted his brothers. They were all smart, resourceful, and clever, and he just knew that they somehow managed to work together to pilot that plane just fine to safety out of that storm. So the only matter he needed to worry about was somehow contacting them. This, unfortunately, was another matter that might be out of his hands. There were a few seeds of possible solutions floating around for future consideration, but, for now, he couldn't do anything until he had more information about the resources at his disposal.
Which led him to his third issue. He was stranded on... well... a beach? Possibly an island, possibly some quiet, undeveloped part of the mainland. He didn't have a clue. He had no idea where he was, other then it was somewhere in East Asia.
Besides his new little cat friend, there had been very few signs of civilized life here. Granted, he hadn't explored very far yet, but he hadn't heard any sounds of cars or machinery off in the distance, or any other noises that might indicate a human settlement nearby.
A rumble deep down inside brought him to his final issue. Right now his growling stomach was currently reminding him that he hadn't anything to eat since the day before yesterday. He had no food.
He slowly exhaled through his nose, feeling the tugs through the long piece of grass.
He was fairly certain that the cat was doing just fine. He had heard more then one cricket's song cut short abruptly, followed by crunching noises, and he was pretty sure a bird or two met the same fate. His little purr monster friend was apparently a killing machine when he/she/it wasn't pestering him and demanding loudly to be acknowledged with pets and cuddles.
But Leo couldn't see. He couldn't hunt.
So he would have to forage.
In a strange place, where he didn't know anything about the local plants or animals.
While blind.
...
He was going to die from eating some poisonous berries or something, wasn't he?
Leo sighed, but then the piece of grass could no longer take the abuse from teeth and claws and was ripped in half. And then he had to pacify the excited demands of 'This is fun! More Plays, turtle creature!'
Leo crept forward carefully, feeling his way cautiously as he moved through the dark fog that comprised his world. The cat had climbed up to his shoulder and curled up in the crook of his neck, apparently eager to go forth on whatever adventures its new turtle friend deemed worthy. There seemed to be a small stream flowing from the spring, and Leo decided that he would use that as a reference. He kept the sound of running water to his left, and carefully began his search.
He couldn't use his sight, so he had to rely on smell and touch.
...
He winced slightly in trepidation as he gingerly reached out and felt some vines growing thickly on a tree.
Oh please oh please oh please let there not be poison oak or anything like that out here! Leo was having enough issues as it was!
Other then that...
A thick bush brushed up against his leg as he walked, and he paused to reach down and carefully sift his fingers through it and sniff it.
Only leaves and the occasional thorn, which he discovered by accidentally pricking himself slightly. He shook his hand in annoyance, then moved on.
He continued slowly, poking and prodding through the dark fog around him, looking for anything edible, like berries on bushes or nuts on the ground. He was fairly certain that some of these trees were palm trees. Did that mean there would be coconuts, or bananas or something? Should... should he try climbing some of the trees?
Leo placed a hand on the trunk of a tree, then swallowed hard, unable to see anything but the darkness around him. If he fell...
No. That... that seemed like a bad idea.
So, for now, he stuck to exploring the floor of the forest.
But, even after a spending a few hours of careful and meticulously slow searching, he didn't have much luck finding anything.
Most likely, because he was freaking BLIND!
He found a few mushrooms, but left them alone, unsure if they were edible or not. He found an earthworm, and did eat that, getting flashbacks to his childhood and happier days, but that was hardly enough to quell his growling stomach.
As he followed the stream, the sound of rushing of water greatly intensified. After a moment, he realized that the little stream he was following joined up with a bigger one. A river? A quick test by wading into it told him it wasn't terribly deep, only going up to his knees, and maybe about ten feet across.
The cat didn't seem particularly pleased being this close to the water, and once he approached the other side, it jumped off, complaining loudly.
The water did feel good against his sorely stubbed toes, and Leo decided to stop at the juncture. He leaned down, and dipped his hand in the cool running water and scooped up a few mouthfuls.
Then he paused.
He carefully lowered his hand and immersed it in the water again. He closed his eyes, even though it really didn't change much, and concentrated.
Donnie had once explained to him how turtles had excellent tremorsense, especially underwater.
Leo exhaled, and tried to relax, focusing on the sensations he felt in the water.
There!
He could definitely sense movement in the water!
Leo breathed out slowly from his nose, finding his focus, and centering himself.
From the time he could first walk, from his very earliest memories, Leo had been trained to become a ninja warrior. Not just a ninja, but the best of the best. Leo had always prided himself for going above and beyond even the strict training that his father had required, and had pushed himself to new heights of perfection.
He may be blind, yes, but that didn't change who he was.
He was Leonardo.
His body had been honed to perfection over two decades, and intensely trained to handle any situation that life might throw at him.
Even this.
At least, that's what he kept reminding himself over and over, anyways.
He clenched and unclenched his hand that was dipped in the cold flowing water, tensing up.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, out of nowhere, a cold, scaled body bumped against his hand underwater. It was just the lightest of brushes against his skin, but that was all the signal he needed. With lightning quick reflexes, with all the speed and accuracy of highly trained master warrior, Leo uncoiled his muscles at once and pounced!
And missed!
In a flash, the fish darted away.
No!
Desperate, he lunged forward, trying to save the attempt, but instead half lost his balance. Water crashed and splashed all around as he ended up partially underwater, but then, somehow, against all odds, he realized with a start that he now had a fish trapped underneath him! How... how had that happened?! He was almost as surprised by this as the fish seemed to be, but he recovered quickly and grabbed at it just as it gave a powerful slap of its tail and attempted to wiggle free.
He clutched at it desperately, but oh dear sweet kami above, it was so slippery! He couldn't get a good grip on it!
Water churned as he fought to keep the wildly thrashing fish from escaping, and at times, he was almost more juggling the thing in the air then wrestling it. Finally, as he was almost to the shore, there was one moment when he feared it was all for nothing, as he fell backward and the fish slipped out of his hands, but no! He was close enough to the land that it plopped on the muddy grass instead of escaping into the water!
He could hear it flopping on the ground, and with a triumphant shout, he quickly scrambled to pin it down.
Yes! Haha! He did it!
He caught a fish!
He actually caught a fish!
...
As the fish slowly stilled, and his burst of adrenaline faded away, Leo's grin faded slightly as he tried looking around, panting.
Soooo... um. Now what?
If he was being completely honest at the moment, he... he hadn't actually expected to catch a fish. He hadn't planned exactly what his next step should be after actually doing so.
He leaned down and sniffed the fish thoughtfully. It was a fairly decent sized fish, though he had no idea what kind it was.
Well, he should cook it, he supposed. Should... should he build a fire?
But how? He didn't have any matches or flint or tinder on him. And it would take him some time wandering the area trying to find dry firewood.
He exhaled, and mulled the idea over some more. Another thought he had to consider was that a fire was pretty visible, not only the flames, but the smoke. It could draw unwanted attention.
Plus, he faintly remembered losing his katanas in the cargo plane, and had washed up on shore without the gear he normally wore, presumably stolen by the thrashing of the powerful ocean in its battles to drown him. He didn't have any blades or sharp objects to properly clean the fish.
Well... he was a turtle, wasn't he? Turtles ate fish. This was his natural diet! He could... maybe just eat it like it was?
He sat back in the mud, and carefully felt the fish.
He was hungry, yes, but, um, ew. Just picking it up and eating it raw just didn't... sound appealing. At all.
But he really needed to eat, and he didn't have luxury right now of being picky.
Slowly, he picked the limp, slimy fish up in both hands.
This was just the way nature was. He had to eat what he could.
He spent a moment or two trying to convince himself that this was basically no different then a sushi bar. He ate algae and worms as a kid, for heaven's sake!
He slowly, hesitantly, brought the fish up, opening his mouth and wincing as he did so.
The fish suddenly wiggled a bit in his hands, and he almost dropped it in shock. It was still alive?!
Having somehow found one last burst of fight, the fish gave a mighty thrash and slapped Leo right across the face.
Surprised by the unexpected attack, he lost his grip on the slippery fish, and it flopped back to the to ground. Leo immediately lunged forward frantically, patting around the bank around him and trying to find it and pin it down again as it flailed and flopped about, surprisingly lively for what he thought had been a dead fish. His heart sank low as he heard a loud 'plunk' in the water. No! He dove forward desperately and plunged his hands into the water, but it was too late.
The fish had won. It was going to live another day, and he was going to remain hungry.
He spent a moment panting in disbelief, one hand still trailing in the water. Then he gave a frustrated cry and fell backwards onto his shell on the muddy shore, letting his hands flop to the side.
Argh!
He couldn't do this!
He couldn't do anything anymore! That's it! Game over! This was the end of the great and mighty Leonardo, leader of the Hamato clan! Losing to a fish and starving to death out in the middle of nowhere, because he was blind, and that made him too weak and helpless to do anything right! He was going to die out here!
He lay there panting for a while in the mud. Slowly, tears began to well up in his worthless eyes and began to trail down through the mud on his face.
What was he going to do?
A slight rustle caused him to pause, and he reached up to wipe his snout with a sniff, smearing the mud more, before turning his head to listen.
Oh. It was just the cat, off to the side and playing with something.
He sighed and plopped his head back down miserably once more in the mud. His stomach growled again, but he ignored it.
Maybe he could just lie here for a while longer. The mud was cool and kind of comforting against his shell, and it was so much easier just to lay down and not move. He didn't really feel like getting up to keep stumbling through unfamiliar forests surrounded an impenetrable dark fog, only to keep finding nothing.
Something small and roundish bumped against his cheek and rolled off a bit, and the cat quickly leapt forward to give it a few more fierce bats with it s paws, dancing around it eagerly like a boxer fighting his most desperate match.
Leo's nose wrinkled a little as he sniffed the air. Did he smell... Frowning, he pushed himself up to one elbow and reached out to confiscate the mysterious makeshift cat toy.
He held the soft oval ball up to his nose and smelled it carefully.
A... piece of fruit?
It kind of smelled citrus-y, like an orange, but it was far too tiny to be the type he was familiar with.
The cat didn't seem too upset by the loss of its plaything, and instead moved to wind and bumped its head against his arm, purring.
Leo sat up and turned the small fruit over in his hands, feeling it. He gave an experimental attempt at peeling it, but it didn't seem to the way it worked. Curious, he nibbled at it.
Oh! The peel was actually pretty sweet! It was edible as well!
Eager, Leo took a bigger bite. He paused, then slowly resumed chewing, before swallowing. Well, the inside pulp of whatever this fruit was turned out to be unexpectedly tart, but it was still palatable. In fact, it was a pretty nice contrast with the sweet rind.
He quickly ate the rest of the fruit, then scooped up the cat and put it on his shoulder again, eager to figure out where his little furry friend had found it. There must be a bush or a tree somewhere with more. It couldn't be too far. Right?
A short ways from the river, on a small, rocky hill, Leo found a fruit tree absolutely brimming with those small oval fruits.
Leo carefully felt around the low tree branches carefully, and plucked a few more pieces of the fruit, gathering them together into a small pile in his arms. The cat had gracefully accepted the grateful headrubs he had offered, then hopped off his shell to explore some more.
Well, at any rate, now he wasn't going to have to worry about suffering from scurvy, he mused to himself as he popped another piece of fruit in his mouth, chewing gratefully. At least, he assumed these things were high in vitamin C. That was a citrus fruit thing, right?
He sighed. Donnie would know such things. He could only imagine the educational lecture that would be coming out of his brother while he helped Leo pick fruit. Meanwhile, Raph would be chasing Mikey, uttering dire threats because their orange brother had found a particularly slimy, rotten piece on the ground and squished it into the neck of Raph's shell. They would end up either throwing fruit at one another, or wrestling on the ground, and Leo would have to stomp over there to break them up, only to get a fruit smashed in his face as well, and... and...
He slowly put another piece of fruit in his mouth and chewed in silence for a while.
He could feel the sunshine, and hear the birds singing around him. But the world was still a dark gray. Nothing but a fog of dark gray that completely blanketed everything, no matter how hard he tried to peer through it.
... Would... would he ever see his brothers again?
...
What would they think of him now? No longer their fearless leader, but... but a blind invalid.
He started to finger another piece of fruit, ready to take a bite, but he froze in place, then stiffened and dropped it as a sound wafted up through the background noises of bird and distant water.
A human?!
He could hear a human!
And, to his horror, he realized that the creaky, nasally voice he could hear loudly humming an off-key tune was heading straight for him.