Chapter 5
An unknown campsite…
Several days later…
The early morning air was chilled as Lion-O drew his cloak around himself. He knew he would be warmer if he was closer to the campfire like the other thundercats, but he also knew that the fire's light would severely hamper his night vision. He already learned that lesson long ago. No, he would just draw his cloak tighter around himself and continue his circuit around the perimeter of the camp. There were still several hours before sunrise, but he could at least make it until the end of his watch before warming himself by the fire. He took this time to practice his new stealth technique, silently ghosting between the shadows that outlined the edges of the camp. After reaching the next outcropping of bushes, he stopped to scan the surrounding area.
Before he could move on, a faint sound caught his attention. It sounded almost like moaning, and it was coming from inside the camp. As he turned to survey the interior of the camp, he observed the other members of his team as they slept in their bedrolls. When his eyes finally fell on his cleric, he noticed that she was thrashing wildly about inside of her coverings, like she was wrestling some unseen enemy. He recognized that she was in the midst of another night terror and started towards her. As he drew nearer, he could make out the words she was saying, "no…stop… DON'T!" She bolted upright as the last word escaped her mouth. Her breath coming in gasps, and her arm was stretched out as if she were trying to reach for something. She darted her head from side to side, and looked as if she were trying to get her bearings as to where she was.
Lion-O stopped dead in his tracks when Cheetara woke like that. The last thing he wanted to do was to frighten her even more. Besides, the act of approaching her before she had time to process who you were, especially in her current state of mind, could be hazardous to your health. In fact, that would be a beating just waiting to happen. "Cheetara," he called softly to her. He wanted to announce his presence without waking the others, "It's alright, you just had a bad dream."
Cheetara looked up when she heard her name called. She recognized that it was Lion-O standing a few yards away from her and that she was, in fact, safe within the campsite with the others. With a nod, she acknowledged his statement and set about freeing herself while the sleep induced fog that was on her mind started to lift. As she untangled herself from her blankets, she moved her gaze around the campsite. She was relieved to find that none of the other thundercats had awakened. As she looked to her right, she was glad to see that Tygra was still sleeping a few feet away from her. He had taken to sleeping just out of arms reach after that incident three nights ago. During that episode, she was fighting a nightmarish version of Grune in her dreams when Tygra placed his hand on her to order to wake her. Unfortunately, this had startled her and she drove her knee very hard into a rather sensitive part of the tiger's anatomy. The poor guy mewled like a little kitten and had difficulties walking for the majority of the next day. Now that I think about it, all of the male cats seemed to have problems walking when they found out what happened to him….hhmmm. Knowing that she had the next shift on watch, she decided to get up. She doubted that she would be able to get any more sleep before needed to start anyway.
Meanwhile…
Lion-O had relaxed when Cheetara nodded her understanding to him. He watched her as she looked around at the other occupants and observed the tension leave her posture when she realized no one else had woken up. He even noticed how her gaze lingered a bit longer than usual on his brother. Figuring that night vision was shot by coming into camp, he walked over to the fire and began to build it back up. Once he had it going nicely again, he sat down on a large log that had been placed next to the fire and extended his hands to soak up some of the heat. It was nice to finally get warm again and since Cheetara seemed to be getting up, he decided to stay nearby until it was time for her to take over. Looking over at the cheetah, his thoughts began to wander over all the problems she was experiencing lately. He knew that after talking to him about her night-terrors several days ago, she had gone to each of the others and apologized for her mistakes and behavior. All of them had forgiven her, and things appeared to be improving. She even had fewer night-terrors, but something was still…off. She acted fine, but he could sense that she wasn't. He just didn't know what it was, or what to do about it. He was brought out of this musings when Cheetara sat herself down next to him.
"Hey, how is it out there?" she asked, nodding to the outside of the camp.
"A little chilly, but overall everything seems quite. You were the most commotion I've heard in the last two hours." He replied while bumping his shoulder into hers playfully. Her cheeks turned a very appealing shade of scarlet at his teasing, and she looked down in a brief moment of embarrassment. "Seriously though, are you okay?" he asked once she looked up at him.
"Yeah, I'm doing alright. This one wasn't that bad comparatively." She replied, "It's the same old thing, I screw up and somebody else pays for it."
"That's a little harsh don't you think?" he responded back to her, looking at her questioningly. "You've made a few mistakes, and a couple of poor choices, but you never really screwed anything up."
Cheetara just sighed in frustration at him and then silently stared off into the fire, completely lost in thought.
After a few minutes of silence, Lion-O couldn't take it any more. "Cheetara…." He waited until she looked at him before he continued. "What's wrong? I know that you act like everything is just fine, but it's not. I can tell that something is still bothering you. What is it?" he asked sincerely.
She frowned after hearing this; it figures it would be him to pick up on her mood. The young king always seems to know when something is wrong with her. After a few minutes of silent contemplation she decided to just give in. "I'm having a problem understanding how you guys, and you specifically, forgave me so easily. Why?! I feel like I should be punished in some manner, and I'm not. I mean after all, you could have died if things had gone differently and it would have been my fault. So why aren't you angrier?" she exclaimed.
Lion-O looked at her in surprise. After a moment of deliberation he asked, "Do you really want to know why? The absolute truth? Even if it's not the reason you think it is?"
Cheetara's eyes widened a little and her mouth became dry. "Yes, I do."
Lion-O sighed and shifted himself so that he was looking directly at her. "I forgave you because I needed to. Forgiving you was for my benefit as much as it was for yours, more so in fact."
Cheetara wasn't expecting that, she quirked her eyebrow at him and just stared, waiting for him to continue. "Hold on," he said, noting that she was waiting for more details. He looked around and found a stick lying on the ground. He picked it up and started drawing in the loose dirt. After sketching a heart in the ground, he drew a number of little circles inside of it. "This is our heart" he began, making sure she could see what he was doing. "and these little circles are negative emotions. When someone wrongs us, or does something bad to us, we feel any number of these negative emotions. They could be anything, ranging from Anger, Bitterness, Envy, Fear, Guilt or even Hatred." He took a breath and continued to draw more circles. "The longer we hold on to these bad emotions, the more they fester and multiply, getting worse and worse. Pretty soon, there is no more room left. When that happens, the positive emotions like Compassion, Charity, Friendship, Patience and Love…They can no longer enter into our hearts, and that leaves us cold, hard, or even heartless." Lion-O reached down and erased all the circles inside the heart drawing, "When we forgive that person, Truly forgive them, then we get rid of all those bad emotions and allow the good ones to enter. That's why I forgave you so easily; if I didn't, I risked becoming something I don't want to be."
Lion-O turned to see the most bewildered look on Cheetara's face. She just sat there staring at him in disbelief. "Where did…I mean… that was really… insightful, Lion-O" she said blushing at her inability to make a coherent sentence.
"Thanks, it should be" Lion-O replied with a smirk on his face. "Jaga had to teach it to me more that once before I finally understood it." Upon hearing this, Cheetara let out a fit of giggles which caused Lion-O to chuckle as well. "I don't know if you realized this," he mentioned after catching his breath, "but Tygra and I never really got along that well before this" he tried his best to say this with a straight face…he failed miserably.
"Realllly, I never would have guessed that about you two.' She answered in mock surprise.
"No, seriously," he continued, "after one really bad fight, Jaga overheard my pleas to the ancients to do some bodily harm to my brother. After investigating what happened, he sat me down and explained to me that I needed to learn how to forgive. Luckily, Tygra gave me a lot of practice with that over the years. Nothing was ever real bad between us; we just liked to annoy one another on occasion." Lion-O threw the stick onto the fire and turned back to Cheetara, "Now what you have to learn is how to forgive yourself."
Cheetara sat up a little defensively, "I have no idea what…" before she could finish, Lion-O cut her Off. "Will you can the act please." he exclaimed. "You and I are a lot alike in some ways. We Both hold ourselves to a higher standard. We are both our own worse critics. And when we do make mistakes we are harder on ourselves that anyone else ever could be. So I know what you're going through. Those feelings of Anger, Guilt and disappointment are just as negative when we feel them about ourselves as they are when we feel them about others. More so in fact, because we can't blame anyone else."
"You never messed up the way that I did." She revealed looking down at he ground.
"Oh really" he stated, and then held up a single finger. "First, I told no-one what the sword showed me before the fall of Thundera," then he added a second finger, "I felt that I should have done more to save my Father then later Jaga. Both of them died for me." Then he held up a third finger, "Then there was the way I acted with Captain Tunar and the Fish folk" then the fourth digit came up, "Then there was Pumyra" and lastly he added his thumb, "and finally we lost the Tech stone. So yeah, I think I have." He waited a moment and took a deep breath to calm himself back down. Then he reached over and placed his paw on top of hers . "But do you know what got me over those things?" he questioned with sympathy in his voice. Cheetara looked up into his eyes and saw the compassion there. She just nodded to her head. "Something another wise cleric once told me. 'We have the sword, we have each other, and we have hope'" he smiled when she blushed at hearing her own words used against her. "So I'm going to modify that wisdom and pass it back to you. We have the sword, we have hope, and we have Each Other. All of us are here for each other. My brother, The Kits, Panther-O and I will be here if you need us. You don't have to go through anything alone. I've had to lean on you guys at different times, what is so wrong about you leaning on us?"
Cheetara felt the corners of mouth rise of their own volition. "You're right; I do have all of you. I guess it's just hard to ask for help when you're the one used to giving it."
"Well, get over it." It replied in a teasing tone. "And besides, there is another reason you need to forgive yourself" he told her in a playful voice.
"Oh, and what might that be?" she responded back also in a playful tone.
"I'm the King, and I have already forgiven you." He stated sticking his chest out in mock pride. "And it would not set a good precedence if my cleric keeps questioning my decisions." He then lifted his chin and tried to look as pompous as he could.
"Oh very well Your Majesty!" she replied with as much sarcasm as possible while standing up and giving Lion-O and deep curtsy. Both of them started laughing so hard that Wiley-Kat was startled awake. He just rolled over and went back to sleep grumbling, while the two giggling adults tried to quiet themselves down.
"Are you good now?" Lion-O asked as she seated herself back onto the log they were sharing. "Yeah, I'm good now." She answered with a wide grin on her face. "Why don't you get some sleep, it's my turn for watch. You've given me a lot to think about"
"Okay, I'm off to bed. Have a good morning Cheetara. Remember, if you ever need to talk about anything, you know where I am." With that the young lion stood up and headed over to his bedroll.
"Yeah, I do. Thanks." She replied as she also stood. Cheetara looked down at the drawing and took her foot to wipe away the remnants of their talk. She reached for the staff and extended it to its six foot length as she prepared to begin her watch. She turned back to watch the young king as he readied himself for bed. He's right, she mused to herself, It's time to forgive myself and move forward. So what if I've made mistakes, I have friends that will forgive me and help me get past them. She then turned her gaze towards the Tiger that was sleeping only a few feet from her own bedroll. A strange thought then popped into hear mind as she switched from Tygra back to Lion-O, Maybe… maybe I made more mistakes than I thought…
To be continued….
A/N: Please leave a review, your comments, good and bad, only help me improve my writing! Thanks!
