(A/N: During the interval between the last chapter and this one, I was going through a phase of creating a new HTTYD world based on the Legacy of Kain series. The story of a vampire who is named Kain, a former nobleman who was slain by assassins and returned back to life as the creature of the night by the necromancer Mortanius, the Guardian of the Pillar of Death, who is one of the nine guardians of the Pillars of Nosgoth. Kain eventually sires, and executes his lieutenant, Raziel, who becomes a soul devouring wraith, as he pursues his master and both of them are cast into one paradox after another as it's all part of Kain's master plan to restore the health of the land and the Pillar of Balance after he refused to sacrifice himself as he was the last vampire in Nosgoth. I once owned the games Soul Reaver for the PlayStation, as well as it's sequel Soul Reaver 2 on PlayStation 2, Blood Omen 2 and Defiance on the same system. I even beat Blood Omen 2 on PCSX2 as well since the original copy I owned wouldn't progress after meeting the Cabal, it just put me through a invisible floor and resetting did no favors for me either, but beating the game was not easy. Damn you, Magnus and damn you, Sarafan. It's also why the beginning of Jeyluxhal's monologue here, recapping the events taking place the last chapter sounds like something you'd see in the Legacy of Kain series. There's even a little reference to the secondary antagonist of the series, Mobieus the Timestreamer, whose name in Swahili translates to the 'tracker of time' that Jeyluxhal mentions. Keep in mind that he has no bearing on the overall story, he's just mentioned as a throwaway line. This is going to be a short chapter, hence the name of 'Shadow of the Wajinga' because it deals in the horrificness of the aftermath from what happened in the last chapter. A ordeal full of mocking someone a hyena like Jeyluxhal was in love with, saying that his mother killed herself because she didn't want to be near him which is the worst part of the incident from last chapter, and humiliation that followed soon after, all orchestrated by Baridi who got away. Not gonna waste anymore time here, let's get on in with the chapter shall we?)
I knew what dark hour this was as foretold by Mfuatili wa Wakati himself. The snake made it clear what it would portend
The verdant canopy pressed down onto me, the sun, a malevolent eye, mocks me from the heavens. It's light, a searing reminder of their laughter, their jeers. Each rustle of the leaves echoed with the phantom sting of vines that burned the skin underneath my fur, the echoes of their jeering insults and attacks on my dearest clawed at the edges of my sanity
This had become a tapestry woven with the threads of their scorn, each barb a poisoned quill etching it's mark upon my soul. Am I to forever be condemned to be a pariah, to be branded by their twisted narrative, in the land I did not choose to live in when Scar rose to power by regicide?
All a cruel portrait being painted by the phantom they conjured through their fear, their own scapegoat they used for their canvas of tone deafness and arrogance. A pawn to be sacrificed on their bloodsoaked alter of the humiliation they've so damningly thrusted upon me. They ousted me for their petty grievances, they needed a source for their outrage
But where was their outrage then? When the sun refused to grace the land, when hunger gnawed at their bellies and fear gnawed at their hearts, who stood beside them? Where, oh where indeed, were they when the true king, in his shame in believing Scar was right and he was the one who killed his father, Mufasa, abandoned his pride, taking the very rains with him? Simba, the deserter king, took the rain with him, leaving us to parch under a sky of Scar's indifference that receded their grass, drank the moisture out of the soil and conjured a border that kept the storms from ever dousing the wasteland that Scar created through his deluded self-denialism
Who stood beside the hyenas that too suffered? Shenzi, Banzai, Ed. And I, a cub then, following the only family I knew. Simba, his absence, a drought that mirrored the emptiness in my heart, no pity for those who played the role of witness with bystander syndrome, no sympathy for those who refused to help themselves
Now, they bask in the life-giving waters his return brought, their memories so conveniently selective. Simba. The hero, the savior, the return of the king, the banished prince who didn't return to his people but remained in the jungle with his kind couple who raised him. Who taught him the ways of how to live without worrying of even the smallest of concerns. A song of freedom and tranquility. They hail him as a bringer of rain, a harbinger of prosperity. But what of the drought he brought upon us with his exile? What of the empty bellies and hollow eyes that haunted our days under his self-believed and imposed absence?
Convenient amnesia, how forgetful they are of the sacrifices made, the lines blurred by the passage of time. They paint themselves as the righteous, the untainted, the well-behaved and the order of the Circle of Life, their interpretation of that damnable wheel of fate, while we are forever branded with the mark of villainy. Oh how pointless that word is, how meaningless it is wrought with the image of someone like me, how selectively blind they choose to be with picking what the meaning of that word is, and picking what to ignore of what they perceive
Tumbling, burning with white-hot frustration, I plunged into the depths of the feral regression. Unspeakable pain, relentless agony, time ceased to exist, only this torture, and a deepening hatred of the hypocrisy that damned me to this humiliation
An eternity passed, an eternal week that never felt it would end concluded, and my rage receded, bringing me back from the precipice of exertion. The humiliation had destroyed me... and yet, I lived...
Jeyluxhal's tan fur with black spots, brown underbelly that went in between his thighs up to his rear where his tail was, his dark red mantle that ran along the center of his back, even his mullet-styled mane, his his dried bleeding scars and bitemarks from his years of rivalry with Banzai and the fights he gets into now turned raw again, his black sock dipped fore and hind paws. All of it, bathing in the shadow of the Shangwe wa Wajinga. Greased in the shades of a terracotta to a my pink, which became a chestnut rose and an apricot to valencia and a punch to a cinnabar to a roof terracotta along with a falu to a hot cinnamon, rust, dark burgundy and mahogany red color; bearing with it a carnation to a deeper carnation and alizarin crimson to a tamarillo, van cleef, red damask and dark valencia to a tall poppy and moccaccino red color
The white to reddish mark that seared across and tilted diagonally upwards into a cut of red, the blooming tapestry across his pelt that came from the white stone chips that dusted his fur and the clawmark on his shin that became three marks of red that bled once. The hyena had retained them all: the white streaks across his proud black spotted tan fur that turned red to reveal deep cuts, the matting of his own blood and sweat he burned off, numerous more white streaks painting across his fur that turned red, not even the absolute damage of the tightly wounded vines that became nooses and lassos to choke and restrain him around the neck and wrists, pulling him backwards and the thickening to thinning pillared walls of saliva oozing down from the sides of his black lips, all of it was still there
The crimson streaked claws of leopards left on the flesh, the bruises of the gorillas slugging him across the face, the air buzzing with the squelch of canine teeth meeting bone, anquish waited only in the hopes of being granted oblivion. The metallic taste of blood on his tongue, and how could he forget, the reality of how vulnerable his father really was? His father's face slammed to the dirt, a corner beast whose age can never slow him down, all to protect the last remnant of Najira herself, the mother whom Baridi mercilessly stole from them both. Most of all, stole the mother's half from him, while stealing the wife's half from his father. The muscles that bunched, claws digging into his body, his facial monologues detailing fragmented and raw grief and fury, the desperate hope bristling his fur like a thousand needles erupting like a volcano on his spine
The prospect of seeing his own father, Tabari, become a battered husk under Baridi's rallied braindead rotted pawns, terrified him. And it's with this fear that he turned to anger, to hate inspired, he never wanted to kill the lion more than he did now. But the thickness of Tabari's blood on his tongue, not his own, his protector, his rock, that told him he wasn't invincible, a god wasn't invincible, no one is, how could he bear to watch his father die too?
The vines that bit into his skin and drew scarlet lines across his fur stained his muscles on every conceivable place, how pressured his fangs were under when the leopard whose claws slick with crimson raking down Jeyluxhal's back, a furrow oozing like a sun baked river of hot condensed mist. He could not get the image of Tabari's head being slammed against a rock by a gorilla whose hands were made of thick granite, bashing him on impact to hopefully crack it and inflict fatal trauma, out of his head. The anti-hyena hating insurgents, it wasn't about, nor was it ever going to be about, eliminating his and Tabari's kind, it was about keeping them all in line. Twisting that infernal knife enchanted with the darkest of magics to turn a howl of defiance into a whimper of submission
The rope burns of the vines biting into his flesh, the strain of his muscles against restraints, the glint of claws about to rake across both his and his father's bodies, already drawing a line across their cheeks, their sides and their underbellies. The bitemark of a leopard right into his father's shoulder, while avoiding a gorilla's uppercut that cracked that leopard's rib, but still absorbing the impact that turned Tabari into a white hot spear of blood that ran through his vessels only allowed the bile in his own stomach rise out from his throat. Blood seeping through the burns of the vines turned nooses and lassos, he felt like his entire body became a dark rust red that evoked dried blood, not a bright and cheerful red, but a muted, violent, dangerous tone that turned into a red like the earth after a long drought that was dormant; serving as the foundation to blend in with the browns of the earth to keep him tethered to the savanna, like a living part of the wild landscape. The hints of crimson like fresh blood that caught the setting sun, flashes that only added to the rawness of his wounds, and shadows in the form of subtle streaks of dark oxidized brown, almost black, like caked blood lingering in his wounds that long healed yet remained red to this day, all sources of dried blood flaked and clumped on his fur to leave a slightly rough and uneven texture, dripping with the remnants of rainwater still remaining. A warning whispered in rust and crimson
The darkened, oxidized hue of rusted arterial red left to bake under the African sun, like the terracotta tiles on and within ancient buildings, the rich and leathery brown of old and worn-out boots, the hints of crimson peeking like embers glowing beneath the ashes, they would subtly flash when catching the light as he moved. Traces of the same around the tips of his fur and scars etching his body, the darker tones paving way for depth and dimension, a living entity of hardship and survival earned with battles fought and scars won. This is all that Jeyluxhal bears now, the remnants, the shadow of the Wajinga, a celebration that became his humiliation, his torment, his damnation
Sitting atop the towering tree, head buried in his arms, knees tucked close, the world around him faded to a blur of muted sounds. The weight pressed down on him, an heavy shadow had been cast over his spirit, a spell placed under his hell. But amidst the darkness surrounding his weariness, a small form emerged, fading in as if from the fog he placed around himself to shield his form away from the eyes of the jungle all around him
It was a squirrel, brown fur rich as coffee, white as a wedding dress on it's underbelly, having perched on the same thick and wide branch as he chose as his spot to stew in hell, red eyes of burgundy twinkled with curiosity, in it's paws held an acorn, a seed fit for the growth of trees, it's intended snack having been forgotten in the moment. The squirrel noticed the distress of the hyena
Internally, from the squirrel's point of view, the brown furred and white underbelly scuttling and fluffy tailed rodent thought about the strange appearance of a hyena in this jungle, but is he one to judge? He himself was far from the forest, but there were many pesky birds around who refused to leave him be, that's why he's come to this towering tree, to be free of all the disturbances of the other trees in the timberlands
Hmm, a interesting perch he's chosen, a misplaced hyena on top my personal oak, but to each their own. And, am I seeing this correctly? What is that on his face?
Are those... tear streaks? And looking as glum as a week-old hackberry. Must be having a rough day, and even though I can't judge him, this is a prime sunbathing spot, and frankly, he knows how to put a damper on the ambiance. A worse day, more than I can know about, no less, how's that for the definition of rough?
Ah yes, there I was, this acorn looks like a perfect afternoon snack. Just have to make sure the pesky jays aren't watching. One can never be certain... oh? It seems he noticed me. Right, well, manners first, I've got to let him enjoy his solitude before I introduce myself
Still, big fella looks like he could use a friend, best I don't startle him, wouldn't want to make things worse. He's been through the wringer and back, poor thing. I hope he's alright...
Jeyluxhal, unable to speak through his mutism, could only communicate through his subtle facial movements. Brow furrowing slightly, fangs bared with a hint of resignation, lips curled back in a gesture translated to a weary plea to be left alone: "Leave me be... I've had enough celebrating making jackasses of yourselves"
It was all he could do, to manage a grunt that conveyed emotions – anger, and unwillingness to be touched, knowing he would be assaulted again, just as he was on the stage, and for the sole reason of pouring his feelings out for no one but his adoptive mother, a puppy crush he had because she took him in, and he cared for her in return
The squirrel, now finished of his prize for escaping the pesky birds that often interrupted his forest lunch breaks and undeterred of the hyena's weariness, tiny heart filled with empathy, understood and kept his distance, but didn't stop from gently nudging his knee, in an attempt to encourage him to open up, to share the burden, to share the pain
Having sought refuge in the dense canopy of the jungle, his form dwarfed by towering trees to provide a semblance of solace, Jeyluxhal remained unbudging in the emerald embrace of leaves. His one leg extending out further than the other, a picture of dejection. He'd rather be despondent to a potential harasser than open his heart again to a unlikely friend
The squirrel's voice was articulate, though he was more of a chatterbox in his own head when it came to his thoughts. He was unfazed by the lack of verbal responses from the hyena, he won't be stopped from speaking his mind. "I know how dark it is for you, right now. I've seen it before, the taunts, the jeers, the cruel laughter. It's enough to make anyone want to close their heart behind a vault's door"
Jeyluxhal's left ear flickered and folded halfway, pointing to the squirrel, who pressed on
"I'm in my own world of dispirit too, and the only way out is through a long dark tunnel, I'm terrified to go in, because there's a rampaging herd of elephants coming my way, carrying a pair of tusks made of ivory and humiliation. But, all I can do now is let it hit me, then try to find my tail. I've taken hits more times than I can remember. You're stronger than me, you don't let them get to you, not now, not ever"
Jeyluxhal's expression softened a little, simple but profound words from the squirrel having a glimmer of light in the glint of his bucktooth twinkling in the darkness of his despair. The sun was beginning it's descent, casting long shadows across the jungle floor, and Jeyluxhal, lifting a little bit of the restrictions he put in order to cast an aegis around himself out of his refusal to open up, started to unravel the bonds of his humiliation he kept under bandages
Through his facial expressions that a thousand and one stories, he withheld nothing from his guest, he kept nothing to himself; all gory details inflicted unto him and his father, this is all he showed with his many scars and his many bitemarks and many new wounds on his pelt. It was all he could do to keep his insanity intact, the squirrel understood his language, and he'd kept his ear lended to him whenever needed
Jeyluxhal looked down from his arboreal refuge, and the squirrel bid him a few last words before the hyena descended
"It's a long way down, but it'll be worth it. There's always someone who cares, even if it's just a little chatterbox like me"
The descent from the towering oak in the jungle felt heavier than the climb ever could, his paws thudded softly against the damp earth, each step being a testament to the exhaustion gnawing at him. All that came from the Shangwe wa Wajinga pressed down with a intensity, something new flickering inside him, a spark ignited by the squirrel's words. There just might be a sliver of hope in him yet
Jeyluxhal emerged from the dense undergrowth into a more open area, orange sunlight slanting through the canopy in golden shafts. His ears, keen as they are, picked up a new sound – the gentle gurgle of water flowing over rocks and momentarily pushing aside the dull ache of his pain that refused to leave, he followed the babbling, a melody against the orchestral pipes of the jungle's inhabitants.
The canopy thinned as he revealed a clearing bathed in twilight glow, nestling amongst lush ferns and moss-covered rocks
And there – standing before his paws – was a natural host psring nestling amidst smooth rocks, steam rising in tendrils dancing in fading light. Wisps from the surface, a sulfurous scent that came to his snout
Beside the pool at it's edge, perched on a flat rock, sat a sleek otter, it's equally slick fur catched the last rays of the sun like ponished onyx. The otter's fur as brown as chocolate, and underbelly as smooth and barbed downwards tanned like buttermilk and cream as it went in between it's thighs and down to it's tail. Black eyes, intelligent and curious, met the hyena's gaze. Head cocking slightly, and speaking with a deep but suprisingly melodic voice, and a flick of it's tail gesturing toward the pool
"Lost, are we?" Asking, words tinged with gentle amusement and a melodious purr that resonated with surprising authority
Jeyluxhal's narrowed eyes bore a flicker of suspicion crossing them, he wasn't accustomed to the unexpected kindness from those outside his friends, and the otter chuckled at this, a sound like a small and near silent river flowing
"Ah don't worry big fella, this hot spring's known for it's restorative properties. I'll help mend those nasty wounds. Make you feel like brand new in no time"
Jeyluxhal studied both the otter and the hot spring, his gaze lingering on the former, lowering his head in a slow nod as part of a silent agreement. The otter's whiskers twitched in amusement
"That's the spirit, come on in, water's lovely"
With a cautious step, he approached the teal green pool. The hot, sulfurous water lapped at his paws as he lowered himself slowly inside, tightening points of his skin as the warmth seeped into his wounds. Only a sigh of pain escaped his throat through his black nose on his snout. And as he settled into the water, the otter nudged a flat rock toward him
"Put this under your head, you look like you could use a good soak and some sleep"
Jeyluxhal's throat only tightened as he nodded again. He cannot speak, not in the way either the otter or the squirrel could. Yet, both understood the unspoken language he used, and the two knew that he was not that kind of hyena who liked sign language, it would've only distress him further
"The jungle holds secrets here, both harsh like Utawala, and kind like me. This hot spring offers some solace. You care to join me?" The otter offered as he slid into the water with a soft splash, the steam swirling around him like a cloak, the heat intensifying as it rippled and drooped with his slick fur running down
And as Jeyluxhal submerged himself further, a wave of relief washed over him. The warmth's sootheness seeped into his tired muscles, loosening the tension that was coiling round him like a python on the tree. He let out a rumbling and deep internal sight in his chest, witnessed only by a lone bird from a nearby branch
Left alone only with his thoughts while the otter rested on the other side, his underbelly fully exposed and floating upwards while his tail supported his weight underneath thanks to less pressure when underwater, Jeyluxhal pondered on what he should reflect on...
Choices, what a tempting fork in the road he finds himself in. But then again, he did have something to contemplate on after all: A lover's touch, especially since he thought about that jaguar who put her paw on him, her voice telling him that she wasn't going to hurt him
Wish I had some company in this akh netjer neshmet nefer (breath of the gods)
(exhale through his black nose vocally)
It's been far too long...
And that, readers of today's chapter of The Lion King: Bleeding Paws, is where we will leave Jeyluxhal for the time being. When you're a slacker like me who writes a lot to pack in as many ideas as me, that's when you know where to end a short chapter like this
Who is Utawala? A gorilla of course, and the worst silverback you just might ever see soon. But at least you know Jeyluxhal's fate now, so that's good
I should tell you right now:
This isn't going to be the last time a chapter ends with Jeyluxhal entering a hot spring, because thanks to Ghost of Tsushima, I'm thinking of rounding things off with a ending like that until further notice
But still, I hope you like this short chapter after the hellhole called "Chapter 12: Savior"
Jeyluxhal earned this bone, and don't worry, you'll get to see who this terrible silverback gorilla is soon. Believe me on that fact
On top of that however, I'm thinking about writing a chapter about Jeyluxhal's friends that you never see often, because this is Jeyluxhal's story. There just might not be time for side characters
Nevertheless, stay tuned for more chapters in the future, if I ever get around to writing about them