Leopardmom: Find Solace
There were dreams and then there were moments relived and retold through images briefly fluttered through the mind. In this case it seemed all too real to be a dream.
The weight of the satchel around her neck and looped around her sides held a familiar weight. The round, silver canteen bounced and its contents sloshed around inside. Bumping against her left shoulder with every pad of her feet as she followed the sounds of laughter and the nuisances she learned to tolerate.
At the nearing of the forest clearing four trolls, including her own, sparred and played their harmless FLARPing session. A bronze, two gold, a green and her cubling teal. In his piloting getup and the others in their pirates and vagabond gear. Watching from her perch among the trees, lazily her gaze followed them as they replayed the same stories over and over. Just children at play. She was so proud of him, his teal eyes already coming in and he was as sharp as can be.
Like a bludgeoning shadow the first of many Purples stepped out from the trees. And like a scene played in slow motion it was the bronze blood that was given the mercy of first kill. It was quick, none saw it coming as his head was bashed in with a single blow of a spiked club. The horrified screams of the others as they fled only helped the Highbloods follow them.
She barely lunged from her resting spot before a rope was wrapped taunt around her neck and air was choked from her lungs. Screaming in rage as she lost sight of her boy.
He escaped, she thought, she pleaded. Turning her head and baring her teeth, swiping at the assailants that managed to get the drop on her. A pair of purples, their faces smeared with white paint and splattered with numerous other colors that were still drying. But the true horror came in the pitiful wails of her cub.
Turning her attention for just a moment to watch as the yellow bloods and green were being corralled back toward the woods were the first clown sighting had been. And tucked under the arm of a towering beast of a troll was her little one. He was crying out for her and she needed to free him. She needed to-
Waking to the sounds of sobbing and pain filled moans, she looked over her shoulder. There was no longer the comforting weight of the satchel around her shoulders. Instead a rope still tied around her neck and peeking through iron bars of a cage built on wheels. A prisoner alone. Across from her were several more cages. Others filled with creatures and some stuffed with trolls.
And the wind was filled with the smell of blood.
There was no way to pinpoint of which color, the ground was stained all around them. And recognition hit her when the towering flaps of the Circus Tent snapped in the wind and caught her attention. Alarm bells ran in her head and she panicked. Natural instincts told her to escape and flee far from here. A greater instinct told her she needed to find him first.
In one of the many cages she found him, after pacing and studying each rolling cell. He sat among the remainder of his friends. When he noticed her there was an overwhelming sense of relief for just a moment. Then reality set in.
For the next few hours she did all in her power to get herself free. Slamming her body against the bars, breaking two fangs on the metal and mangling her claws as she raked at the wood. Giving up when her body had nothing left to give. The moons setting and the sun starting to rise in the sky.
Then the music started to play. Music that covered up the sounds of torturous screams and boisterous laughter from within the cloth-lined walls of the Clowns personal hell on Alternia. And then she watched, helpless and exhausted, when they came for her boy. Struggling to her feet while they marched them out, small groups at a time, into the tent. Lowbloods, midbloods, a highblood or two. Anything they said fell on deaf ears. Some with empty expressions as they came to term with their fate.
But not her boy, not him. He bite and clawed and cried out for her to save him. How could she abandon him?
Charging the bars of her cage over and over, bones cracking under each blow. Reaching fruitlessly between the unrelenting metal. Their captors's laughter forever etched into her mind. When she couldn't move she screamed and roared and called out for him.
The blazing hot sun was just as merciless as the Juggalo's. The intense heat baking those in the metal cages. She lay there, crawling into the shade when it would come. Tired, lost, hopeless. She remembered finally falling asleep but it was restless and empty. When the sun finally set and the moons rose she woke to hear more of the trolls being dragged away and several of the other beasts brought along with them. Soon she too would be dragged into that darkness like the others.
It was a quiet few hours after sunset. Just the warped music playing from the big top and the whispering of wind whipping through the bars of her cage. And just then her keen ears picked up something more. Muffled but audible to her. Standing up and slowly pacing the small confines of her cell she saw two trolls break through the forest line. Older ones, by the looks of it. Not highblood.
They spoke in hushed voices but she didn't understand. She watched as they fiddled with the lock to her cage and some hope filled her chest. But they were also foreign, not her cub. She would strike if need be but the green one touched her and filled her with a sort of understanding that she recoiled from at first. Their langue, first like nonsensical rattles, became coherent. She understood and she learned.
From there the memories are fuzzy. There was blood and there great pain. The image of her cold and lifeless boy still haunted her. The pain that blossomed in her chest and rolled down her eyes were still fresh. She failed in her duty to protect him. She failed to keep him alive.
When it all became too unbearable she felt two hands on her face. They were warm and loving and wonderful. It was not the red one. It was not the green one. Her boy, skin ghostly pale and eyes a much too light shade of teal, smiled at her. He leaned down to press his forehead against hers, the weight was barely there but she felt it! It was real. She chased the feeling by pressing her face against him harder, her chest rumbling in a deep purr.
"You did good ma." His voice was oddly hallow as if speaking from another room. While he smiled at her his image began to fade.
A sudden loud *thunk* startled her from her dream. Leopardmom's eyes opened and her gaze jumped around the room. It was morning still as she could tell from the faint light filtering through the closed shades. The sound that woke her sounded again and she stood. Lingering parts of the dream still clung to her and for a moment she could still smell him. Her boy had been here, but how?
Padding out of the room that she made her own she followed the troublesome sound that drew her down the hall and toward a small hole in the ceiling. Again the sound but this time she caught the little flash of fur scuttling about. A few minutes of waiting and watching rewarded her with a furry intruder caught in her teeth. Revenge accomplished for the creature that woke her from her dream too soon.
Come.
A voice beckoned her.
"Come." It spoke again. This time it drew her out of the room and toward the window. Tentatively she nudged the blinds open and felt the heat of the sun on her face. Then it was gone. Looking up she saw the towering figure known to those that lived in this hive as Buzzarddad.
Grateful for the cover she continued to follow the invisible coaxing up till she she had climbed up into the treetop along side the much larger and much boner lusus. The nest he called home was built into the trees just above the treehouse. His wing folded outward to give Leopardmom some cool shade to which she happily accepted. Dropping the dead nutbeast and settled down.
Now while the two lusus coexisted they rarely interacted. While nothing was said between them, not a click or a rumble, she knew he was the cause of her dream. She understood that much. In the deep, burning jade eyes of his she wondered what else he could do. Tilting her head to look at him better, wondering if the dream was real. If he had something to do with it. And why all this trouble?
It's lonely up here, was the quiet answer to a silent question.
Quietly leopardmom understood the answer and curled up beneath his thick white plumage. It was just a few more hours till nightfall. They wouldn't miss her too badly. She would offer him company, she owed him that much.
