Chapter Two: Holding On
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.
-George Smith Patton
xxXxx
Humbert had never seen a bird before. There were none to be found in all the Cat Kingdom. They weren't foolish enough to come here, at least usually, and were almost impossible to catch.
Humbert shook his head in disbelief as he lowered himself behind the tower wall, and watched it come closer. 'He's heading toward this tower.' Now was the time to raise the alarm. But even as he took in the needed breath, he realized that there was another option, and not much time to take it.
A chance to show everyone, including his father, that he wasn't as weak as they thought he was. He was every bit a cat as his brothers.
As the giant bird flew a little closer to the tower, Humbert jumped completely out of it. Just as he was registering his actions, he landed squarely on the bird's large back.
"Ha!" he cried out, grabbing big fistfuls of pitch black feathers.
"Hey!" the bird protested, struggling with the newly found weight. "Get off!"
"No! You've stolen enough mulberries! Land, right now!"
Just wait until his father saw this! The others were shouting now, and all could be heard running toward the tower.
The crow cawed in amusement as he adjusted to Humbert being on his back. "I don't think so, Cat. Come visit the sky!"
Humbert's stomach clenched in dread, having a good idea of what was about to happen. He tightened his grip on the bird, which quickly proved to be a good course of action.
The bird immediately started flying up at a steep incline. It was faster than Humbert had ever experienced before. He clenched his teeth in fear, and clung to the soft waxy feathers for dear life. He clenched his eyes tightly, and prayed to survive whatever was about to happen.
Humbert's clothes rippled violently against the wind as they kept going higher, and higher… just before going into a barrel roll. The bird was intentionally trying to throw him off!
The kitten braced his legs harder against the bird's back, and increased his grip a bit more. He could feel gravity constantly change direction around him, setting his heart to racing in fear.
Where he was finding the strength to hold on, he would never know. Far below, the distant screaming faded as a wet coldness seeped through his clothes. How long he was on the bird, he was never quite sure, except that it seemed to be forever.
At some point, Humbert grew brave enough to open his eyes. He gasped in wonder.
They were above the clouds! The full glory of the moon and stars were revealed to him, and the clouds below were reminiscent of a cotton field. Or perhaps an ocean.
It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
"… This is wonderful!" Humbert exclaimed in delight.
The bird laughed, and dipped one wing into a cloud to make it splash like a wave. "I've always thought so. My name is Toto Biggens, by the by."
The young cat looked down at him in surprise. "I'm Humbert Ivan Garrington. Just out of curiosity, why were you stealing our mulberries?"
"To get your attention, of course," he replied easily, dipping below the clouds. "That, and they were the finest I've ever sampled."
"Thank you, but couldn't you have just-"
"Just what? Walk up to a cat residence and expect not to get eaten? I think not. Besides, you had to prove that you could stay on my back."
"… Why?" Humbert had to ask.
"Well, it's best to find out that sort of thing before joining forces with you," Toto explained, landing just outside of the family vineyard. "It might be a little embarrassing for both of us a few years from now if you were to suddenly fall off."
Humbert slipped off the bird's back, collapsing to his knees beside one scaly leg. "Join… forces?" he asked after a minute.
Toto looked at him with surprise. "Of course. But I have to say, you're quite a bit younger than I thought you'd be."
The young kitten clenched his hands painfully. "I'll have you know that I'm nearly twelve."
"Are you sure? I could have sworn you were younger than that."
"I get that a lot," Humbert grumbled under his breath. 'And I'll keep getting it, unfortunately.' Then he took a deep breath, and braced himself against the bird's side to get back on his feet. "But, what do you mean by 'joining forces'?"
"Only that I am to be your companion for the rest of our lives. Why, I have no idea, but one does not question one's king."
Humbert looked up at him in surprise. "Your king ordered you to come to the Cat Kingdom, just to be my companion?"
"And to help you in any way possible. Oh, and before your family tries to kill me for the dinner table, would you mind mediating? I'm willing to give back the berries I haven't eaten yet, if it will help my case at all."
"Yes, yes. Of course… Toto," Humbert said softly, stunned almost into insensibility. "Home's just this way." He started walking to the orchard, the large bird walking slowly in order to keep pace with him. 'Father will never believe this.' Suddenly, his head shot up as his ears began twitching. "Harold? Louis? Are you out there?" he asked while placing a hand on Toto's wing to halt him.
There was complete silence.
"Are you sure someone's out there?" Toto asked skeptically.
"I'm sure." Humbert sighed and tapped his foot against the soft dirt. "Please come out, brothers. I have a new friend I would like to introduce."
They hesitated a few more seconds before coming out from the somewhat short mulberry trees with stormy expressions.
"So… you caught the thief, after all," Harold hissed from between his teeth.
"Yes, and he's agreed to give back what he hasn't eaten yet," Humbert reported, raising a hand to introduce a suddenly silent Toto.
"Father thinks you're dead, you know," Louis said in a soft voice, still gripping a sickle between his gloved hands.
"Does he?" Humbert asked guiltily. "Then I'll go tell him that-"
"No, you won't," Harold snarled, unsheathing his dagger.
Toto instinctively wrapped one wing around a stunned Humbert to pull him close.
"… Brothers?" he asked in a small voice.
"Don't you dare play the defenseless kitten," Louis hissed. "We overheard Father say that if you had survived the confrontation with the thief, you would have inherited everything instead of us."
Humbert's eyes widened in shock as a soft gasp escaped him. Toto started walking backwards with him as the twins began their deadly approach.
"I refuse to lose my inheritance to a disgusting little runt like you!" Harold shouted as he and Louis suddenly made a run at him.
The entire world seemed to slow down explicably at that point. Humbert couldn't take his eyes off of his brothers, as they slowly came at him with raised weapons.
He remembered Harold teaching him how to eat properly as a toddler.
Toto used his unoccupied wing to slap the cats away and slowly fall to the ground. The autumn dust engulfed them, making the twins choke and gasp when they managed to regain their breath. Then Toto grabbed their weapons with his beak and tossed them as far as he could.
He remembered Louis reading a story to him, one of the times he fell sick.
The giant bird gently snapped the back of Humbert's sturdy coat with his beak, and took off into the sky.
He remembered a family picnic they had taken together, when their mother was still alive.
If Humbert still had his senses, he would have been scared to death at the thought of swinging from a bird's beak. But, his mind seemed to be frozen in horror, terrible unthinking horror.
'My… my own flesh and blood tried to kill me!'
Toto gave a hefty toss of his head, releasing the small cat in order to make him sail briefly into the air and land on his back.
Humbert clung to the black feathers, and buried his face in them in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. But despite his attempt at control, tears were soon running down his face and soaking through both fur and feathers.
"Humbert?" Toto asked after several minutes of flight.
The small cat choked back a sob, and clung to the dark feathers harder. "Father… Father…" he tried to gasp through his tears. "… He… promised that they'd get better someday, and… they'd be the way they used to be."
Humbert remembered who his brothers used to be, all too well. It had only been a year since his older brothers began turning cold toward him, but he still remembered.
He could almost feel Louis jokingly kiss his knee, when he had accidentally kicked it many years before. Harold… he used to be Humbert's hero. He had always been strong for his age, and used to juggle anything handy, just to make Humbert laugh. Being sick all the time wasn't so bad, when he had his brothers rooting for him.
Whatever had happened to those times?
Humbert knew that his brothers now loved teasing and taunting him, but… to kill him? Wasn't he still their little brother?
"That doesn't always happen, Humbert. My wife had some sisters like that, and they never got better," Toto tried to say as gently as he could.
Humbert buried his face into the soft feathers, and began crying again. That had been his last hope.
"… We could try to go back later, when we can get to your father?" Toto hesitantly offered several minutes later.
Humbert shook his head while taking some steadying breaths. "Even if I went back, Harold and Louis wouldn't let me live for very long. I'm as good as dead to all of them."
That simple declaration made a number of tears escape his control. 'I don't have a family or home anymore. I'm a vagabond.'
Toto glanced over his shoulder in worry, but didn't say anything until they approached a rather large mountain two days' regular travel from the vineyard. He carefully skimmed between the trees, and came to a halt just outside a large cave. The sun was beginning to rise in the distance.
"This has been my home since coming to the Cat Kingdom, Humbert. I'm willing to share it with you, though," the large bird offered hesitantly as the small cat slid off of his back a second time.
Humbert took a few minutes to regain his footing, since he was exhausted; both physically and emotionally. But once he was ready, Toto led him into the cave.
It was nothing like his old home. The walls were tall, to the point where he couldn't see the ceiling. It was also cool, and he could hear the distant dripping of a few stalactites. It was dark and cold, and he was almost certain that he could hear bats.
The most familiar thing about the place was the abnormally large pile of mulberries that Toto had been stealing from the vineyard. He stepped forward just enough to pick one from the many, and hold it between his fingers.
That one berry seemed to represent the life that was no longer his. Who knew what would happen to him now?
'I'm so sorry, Father. I wish I could have at least said goodbye to you.'
Toto gently touched his shoulder with one wing, making the cat look up at him with hollow eyes.
The crow sighed. "Humbert, I'm terribly sorry about your brothers, and about what happened just now. But… it happened for a reason."
"Reason?" Humbert asked as his temper began to flare up.
"Yes, a reason. My king says that we've got some jobs to do, and it just might take us the rest of our lives to do it."
Humbert looked up at the giant bird, trying desperately to read his expression. "Just what can a runt and giant bird do?" he asked flatly. "More to the point, are the jobs truly that important?"
Toto gave him a roguish grin, and a soft hug within his wings. "My king has assured me that we'll make a splash, one way or another. He can see the future, so it's best to heed his promptings. Now come on; the sun's rising, and we need to catch some sleep."
Humbert nodded, and looked at the small berry still in his gloved hand. 'Whatever's to come, will it be worth what I gave up for it?'
"We should have enough mulberries to last us for a number of weeks, since we won't be returning them after all," Toto informed him, sitting down in a makeshift nest and preening one wing.
"I don't think we should eat all of them," Humbert said softly, placing the berry back on the pile.
"Oh? Why not?"
The cat looked up at the one friend he had left in the world, and smiled grimly with determination. "Despite what's just happened, I'm going to have my own orchard one day. I'll need to dry a number of them so that I can plant them when that happens."
Toto laughed good-naturedly. "Alright, I'll help you dry them later today." Then he wrapped one of his large wings around the small cat, and drew him into the nest with him.
"But for now, we both could use some rest. We'll need all the strength we can get."