If sleeping on the ground wasn't going to kill her, Felline mourned, then these interminable meetings might.
"I already told you. The Tech Stone is gone, so some things are going to have to change!"
Lion-O's temper burst out of him in a shout that made Felline, Dobo, and Councilhen Columba wince. They had begun using the circular chamber in Avista City, where the ThunderCats had once been invited to a completely unpalatable luncheon, for privacy. While undamaged, it did not dampen acoustics well. The elephants' leader, Anet, was supposed to be in attendance, though he had forgotten again. It was Felline's turn to sit in as a royal advisor. She would rather be on waste management duty.
Dobo's lip curled over sharp fangs as he turned wicked, yellow-brown eyes on Prefect Horus.
"Your days of excess are over, my feathered friend," the doberman said in his deep voice. "No more wishing on a Stone to have everything you ever wanted handed to you."
Horus rustled his wings. "That is not the correct procedure for usage of the Stone—"
"Not relevant, Prefect," Lion-O interrupted, forestalling the pigeon's textbook explanation. "The. Stone. Is. Gone."
Horus shut his beak and returned to impersonating a sulky cub. He had picked Vultaire's chair at the head of the table, which was empty this time of a singing, clicking, squirming meal. He may have fallen into his exalted role—literally—but he was no more suited to his duties than the fishmen were to life in the mountains.
Under the table, Felline straightened the hem of her wine-red tunic, smoothed the creases from her soft black pants, and waited for Horus to bring forth his people's concerns, their needs, what they were doing to help themselves. Which he didn't.
Columba caught Felline's eye, something that had been happening more often lately. The councilhen's round, dove-pink face looked full to bursting with the things she longed to say but didn't quite dare. Especially since Horus did not seem inclined to share even a fraction of the power he'd inherited from Vultaire.
"By the way," Dobo said, breaking into the uncomfortably stretched silence as though a thought had just occurred to him. It hadn't. Felline had heard his complaints getting louder for the last three days. He scooted his chair back and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. "Dumping refuse near my city is no longer permitted without paying the fee. The dogs will not support the birds' trash heap any longer. The last thing we need is an invasion of necromechs."
"Your fees do not apply to us," Horus loftily said. "We were not aware of your . . . little city."
"Exactly!" Dobo snapped. He dropped his foot, sat forward, and slapped both hands on the table. "A mile's difference, and you might have buried us under your waste!"
"Not now, Dobo," Lion-O growled. He had not been deaf these past few days, either.
"Has a better time presented itself, Lion-O?" Dobo growled right back. He sneered, pointed canine ears as sharp as knife edges. "These birds are parasites."
"We are enlightened!" Horus cried, showing emotion at last. His narrow yellow eyes reminded Felline of Vultaire, shouting the same words from the same chair. Behind him, the low, wooded mountains spread across the windows instead of a pristine sea of clouds, and a pigeon could never be as menacing as a vulture, but the similarity filled her with unease. "Our culture has risen above the petty need for currency. We are not tied to your Third Earth or your laws or your fees. We shall continue to do as we please—"
"Not without the Stone, you won't," Lion-O interrupted. He glared at Dobo, warning him to keep quiet, then turned his glare on the birds. "You no longer have access to unlimited resources, Prefect. You will have to establish commercial lines so you can trade with the people down here from time to time. You must put new processes in place to reduce your waste and reuse the resources you do have. Dobo is the perfect animal with whom to start. Perhaps you can reclaim some viable materials from Scrap City."
"I'll allow it. If they pay the fees," Dobo said. He chuckled in the back of his long muzzle at the look on Horus's face.
Columba cooed softly, as though testing Dobo's reaction. When he did nothing more threatening than look at her, she innocently asked, "How can we pay fees with no money?"
"Trade, I said." Lion-O ran a hand through his mane in aggravation. As a result, it stuck up in more pronounced spikes than usual.
Horus glared at him. "You also said we do not have unlimited resources. Trade what?"
"Your technology," Dobo said, a gleam apparent now in his yellow-brown eyes. "I will trade scrap and dumping rights for some of your tech to help my people."
"Absolutely out of the question!" Horus shouted, wings aquiver.
"Then you're on your own. Just like you've left us all these centuries." Dobo stretched until his long neck cracked. He stood, tall, lean, and dark. "I told you it was useless, Lion-O. You get points for trying, though."
He swaggered out of the circular room without a backward glance. They heard the doors whoosh open and closed.
Horus cooed grumpily in his throat. He said nothing else.
Felline and Lion-O looked at each other. Columba sagged in her chair, her eyes downcast. She seemed so troubled that Felline decided to speak up.
"There is one other option, Prefect," she said. "If trading with Dobo doesn't interest you, perhaps you could send an envoy to the bird colonies in the Cliffs of Silence. They may be more welcoming to your people than the dogs."
"I was not aware of any colonies," Horus said, monotone once more. He blinked his narrow eyes and then stood. "You will send this envoy."
"I'm sorry, but we will not," Lion-O said flatly. He stood, also. He and Horus were nearly the same height. "We can't hold your hand any longer. Mumm-Ra is still out there. We cats have a mission to complete."
Horus clicked his beak, and the sound reminded Felline of a mousetrap snapping shut. "A mission that brought you to us to be our downfall, and now that you lost what you came for, you will desert us."
"Yeah. That's right," Lion-O said in a rough, pained voice. "I've apologized enough. I wish you the best of luck, Prefect."
He gestured to Felline, who followed him from the chamber.
She waited until they had exited the city into the hot, dusty, and noisy worksite to speak. "Unless Councilhen Columba takes charge, Horus is going to run that city right back into the ground. She is the only bird who hasn't shown us open antagonism. Cheetara says she's been trying to get her people to work with us, but too many of them cling to Horus because they cling to their belief that they deserve a life of ease, and he isn't saying otherwise."
Lion-O stared up at the repaired spires, bubbles, and sails of the floating city, once such a wonder to them, now a mistake that they would never forget. He sighed.
"Help her, will you?" he asked. "Just get them pointed in the right direction."
"Of course." Felline bowed her head to her king and left him to the next problem awaiting his attention.
..::~*~::..
Steam wafting around her pale face, Cheetara tucked her spotted, dandelion-yellow hair behind a pointed ear. "I admit that I feel relieved," she said while she stirred a pot of cracked barley and pill bug soup. Then she looked up, sunset eyes apologetic.
"Why?" Tygra asked her. He lifted the pot and set it on a rickety camp table, ready to serve to the birds flocking toward them under the noontime sun and moons. "You said it yourself. Pumyra was too feral to be queen."
"When did you say that?" Felline asked. She tugged at the knot in the scarf that covered her hair and ears.
Cheetara looked uncomfortable. "It doesn't matter," she said, covering her own head.
No, Felline supposed it didn't. Pumyra was gone, and she was never coming back.
Cheetara relented in the face of Felline's silence. "I shouldn't have said it in the first place, but all I meant was, she was the one Lion-O chose, and she was a lion," she said. "I couldn't deny him, even as a protector of the crown, when there are so few of us left. I honestly didn't think a better option would present itself."
"You mean he wouldn't have listened to you if you had said something and would have married her on the spot just to spite you," Tygra said with a smirk.
Cheetara handed a bowl of soup to a bird who did not thank her. Her slight eyebrows twitched, fighting to pull together in a frown. "Yes, Tygra. That's why I'm relieved."
"That we won't have to bow to a psychopath? I agree."
"Don't call her that!" Cheetara accidentally slopped soup onto the table when she rounded on her boyfriend.
A rolled-up pill bug bounced onto the ground at a drake's webbed feet. He quacked without opening his beak, eyeing the birds in line behind him, obviously wondering if he could pick it up and eat it without anyone noticing. His hen shoved him out of the way and kicked dirt over the bug. Their ducklings cheeped in disappointment.
Cheetara ignored them. "She was one of us, Tygra. What happened to her wasn't her fault. It was ours."
"What? How do you figure that? We had no idea anyone was still alive after the Fall of Thundera. We searched the city for a whole day, or don't you remember that part? She was a spy. My poor, attention-deprived baby brother fooled himself into thinking he was in love with the first woman who would give him the time of day!"
"It's not for you to decide what he felt!"
"Come on, Cheetara, he didn't exactly make a secret of it. The little martyr blamed me for most of his problems, remember?"
"I'm starved," Panthro announced, oblivious to the fact that he had interrupted what was turning into a fight with his big, bare-chested presence. "What's for lunch?"
He peered over Felline's head into the pot and then drew back, making a sound that might have been, "Oh." Or maybe it was, "Eurgh."
"Keep your hair on, big guy. What's left of it. Our lunch is over by the tents. Kit and Kat might eat it all before we get there, though. Bone stew," Tygra told him, amused. He studied Cheetara's expression, then settled a large, white-fingered hand in the curve of her waist and pulled her close. "I'll see you there," he whispered into her hair.
Cheetara, the dripping ladle in one hand and a bowl in the other, bestowed a glowing look on him. She tilted her face up, glossy coral lips ready. Tygra bent to kiss her.
"I don't know what's making me sicker," Panthro rumbled in disgust. He pointed a thick finger at the pot. "That." He pointed the finger at Tygra. "Or that."
Grinning, Tygra batted the finger away. "Jealous, old man?"
"Ha! Hardly!" But his cheek darkened.
Cheetara and Felline laughed. Then a finch, who had been waiting with increasing impatience, made an irritated chirruping noise and the laughter died. The line of hungry, ungrateful birds seemed to stretch on forever. Cheetara and Felline reached for more bowls.
"Less than a week left," Felline said through a sigh.
"Less than that," Tygra said in a strangled voice. "Look!"
Startled, she followed his gaze. A bowl slipped out of her unresponsive hands and shattered against the rocky ground. Birds squawked at the sound.
A pack of dogs hurtled toward them, frantically barking in warning. Felline saw nothing that would cause such panic. The city's proximity alarms were quiet, as was the horizon. Everyone else, even the tireless berbils, was on break for lunch.
"What's got them all worked up?" Panthro wondered. His mismatched eyes narrowed when flocks of avians lifted from the distant trees, echoing the dogs' warning.
Felline fitted her goggles to her eyes. They booted up with the familiar beep and red flash. Through the filter, they reported a very different scene. The dogs split off, beginning a herding pattern to shunt the birds of Avista toward the city and safety. Behind them, sprinting in slow motion, a row of battle mechs topped the rise. Like water in a fountain, a spray of hovercraft appeared over the mechs, and behind them, waves of zipcraft zoomed into the supersonic with dull flashes of white.
Felline could hear the machines now, roaring over the ground, ripping the air, booming as they passed through the sound barrier. She squinted, puzzled by the way her goggles kept blinking and fizzing, seeming unable to render the scene fully. Then the truth hit her.
"They've got some sort of invisibility capability!" she gasped.
"Who?" Cheetara cried. Though she couldn't see the enemy, she whirled Viragor's staff into its full length. Tygra produced Javan's whip from a pocket of his fatigues, and Panthro the red and blue nunchaku from his belt.
"The lizard army." Felline looked at her friends. "We need to find Lion-O. Now."
A/N: Next up: "Happy Birthday, Lion-O!" Or, "Vultaire's Revenge." I couldn't decide.
Reviewer Thanks! Oh, I've missed doing these! :3 KelseyAlicia, Atea1793, St4r Hunter, pantherscastle, SAK-96, Lionessa, Heart of the Demons, Champion of Justice, xluckineko1990x, and LunaStone115. You guys are the BEST on the internet! I'm so lucky to have you!
Love,
Anne