#1 NOV 13, 2012 · 13 yr ago
[CENTER]CURIOUS Part Two
Pandora's Box[/CENTER]
7 years ago…
It starts in her third year with the clerics, one afternoon when she's working with her staff in a rhythmic defense pattern she'd been taught by one of the elder clerics.
Cheetara finds the hard part is not switching from her left to right underhand to overhand but the hand strikes of her free hand that are to follow, the training center is quiet but for the occasional grunts and grimaces of others in solo and partnered weapons training.
When she arrives nearly an hour early for weapons and defense training it's mostly quiet and nearly empty but for a few cats suited in their training tunics of bronze and Jaga's four high-cleric guards taking their places in each corner of the room. They are aptly monikered by students of the clerisy "quarter guards" for their purpose of evening sentinels for the clerisy, one for the north, south, east and west sectors of their fortress and their positions of supervision do not variety with each at a north, south, east and west corner of the training center.
Their critique is unspoken to the younger clerics, students like her, but every shaky technique is marked with the keen eyes of the quarters catching even the most subtle errors easily. A "quarter" providing assistance only in the certainty of a young cleric's need of it but never want of.
A lesson every cleric learns is answers and assistance are often within one's own grasp.
Cheetara heads straight for the western corner and the high sharp black tuffed ears of the caracal high-cleric standing in the corner wheel to the sound of Cheetara approach, high-cleric Cara's head follows turning leisurely to see the cub coming.
As is custom Cheetara gives a simple bow that the cleric returns with quiet dignity.
Cheetara has noted the high-cleric's hand sweeping past the staffs in the front of the staff rack to rest on a weapon of black wood on the far right rung; she presents the weapon to Cheetara.
"Your weapon."
The cub bounces the wood of the quarter staff in her hand testing its weight; it is heavier than her usual weapon, not by much but enough that lingering soreness will be inevitable after drills with the weapon for the hours required.
The caracal raises a brow with a reserved saffron gaze but her lips playing with the idea of a smile at the cub's puzzlement.
"A lesson comes too with this young Cheetara. We must build a strong body to accompany a strong mind."
The cub nods, the message is almost surely Jaga's instruction from Cara's mouth.
She begins after finding an empty mat of woven grass reed, she keeps in mind Jaga's words as she spins the weapon.
She makes some adjustments to her stance winding her staff till its spinning in a whistle and she's crouching and kneeling and kicking and striking an invisible opponent varying between her staff and feet and hands.
It isn't even an hour later and she blows out a breath before pulling it back in slow focusing on her breathing technique just for a few minutes to get her heart rate slowing back to normal despite her intense practice.
Cheetara can sense more than see when high-cleric Malyn stops at the edge of her mat to observe her. Cheetara has a mind to run through a more complex drill with the weapon but refrains as Malyn was not the type of cat that would praise her showy display.
When Cheetara finishes at the sound of the temple chime signaling the first rest period she bows gliding a well arched foot forward and bending the other to the watching cleric.
The lynx returns the gesture with an arresting and powerful grace Cheetara is awed of. She's a divine cat even with plaited silver and brown tickled hair shimmering, a few winding strands loose on the left hiding a missing ear. A long scar shiny and pink splits her tawny-grey face from nose to her cheek to throat but neither seem to do anything to detract from her face, savage and beautiful.
The scar and mangled ear, Cheetara recalls remains a tribute to her will to live and prowess in fighting off seven lizard generals tooth and claw, weaponless at only seventeenth seasons old in the Great Market Massacre sixteen seasons past.
"Very good."
Then she's gone back to the south side of the center without anything else for the cheetah.
Jaga does not arrive by midmorning's bell toll and it is a signal to all clerics their advisor would not be present until tomorrow's lessons having business in the palace.
The clerisy was in the best claws possible with the healing hands of the caracal Cara should injure occur as well as to lead mediation, Bali's wisdom of weapons and warfare would ensure new drills were covered and Malyn would lead their late afternoon sessions in hand to hand combat.
At the second chime signaling resume of drills Cheetara rocks her weapon palm to palm stalking the motionless wood of her reflex dummy, twisting her lips in thought deciding on the best way to prepare an attack.
Her fur stands in her neck with the awareness of eyes.
When she turns a pair of gold-green eyes flit away with the owner of them fiddling with his staff at being caught staring. He returns to a similar drill as the cheetah had performed, his movements lack her fluid grace and he can't seem to keep his hands steady.
The fishing cat's brown tunic is dark with sweat as he struggles through his drills.
She's seen this cat enough to know his real skill came from weaponless hands and a polecat like physique built for stealth and speed, even the older students sparred reluctantly with him, unwilling to risk hurt pride in losing a hand to hand match to such a small, young cat.
Ding, ding, ding.
She is expected to start her mediation in ten minutes after putting away her weapon and gentle stretching, Cheetara wastes no time crossing her mat to return her weapon to its rack that has been wheeled to the center of the room with the other racks, a discarded throwing star is retrieved from beneath the long range weapons cabinet by a sooty colored cat with gold weighted wrist bands Cheetara recognizes. High cleric Bali restores the star to its case before ushering forward the rest of the cats for their weapons.
Finigan is there before she is but not before a crowd has gathered.
The grey-brown fishing cat moves like a mongoose and slips through the thick din of cats like oil before emerging from the other side of them weapon returned.
He nearly knocks head into her chin, she'd forgotten though fifteen seasons old Finigan was a slow grower as well and would likely be a head shorter than she upon full adulthood, she's already gaining height with lengthly legs her clan was known for.
He wheels backward just in time to avoid real impact. "Sorry."
Cheetara nods giving him a bit of a smile as he seems nearly panicked in his clumsiness.
A small glass vial bounces soundlessly to a rumpled mat and she stoops to retrieve it for him.
No bigger than the width of her smallest claw, inside a gritty grey liquid sealed in glass but the smell of it permeates and it's like a hammering blow to her nose and she nearly drops it.
It burns, straight to her lungs and she gives a short cough.
"Here—"
But she had spoken only to empty air.
Finigan quick steps are almost a run from the room and they hadn't even been dismissed for the day.
Cheetara trails after in almost a jog catching up easily.
"Finigan," she calls nearly shoving the item back into his hands, "You dropped this."
Startled his eyes widen to the point of bulging until they follow her raised hand, he swipes the vial so quickly Cheetara nearly misses the movement.
Shoving it into the pocket on his breeches his eyes grow shifty and conspiratorial looking around the room. "Thanks." He frowns contritely finally paying her a bit of a gaze.
There's something odd that stops her smile.
She doesn't see shining gold-green anymore in his eyes, only darkness and her reflection shines black in the inky pool of them.
His eyes are completely dilated.
In her twelves seasons she's never been fixed in such a gaze and before she has given her mind reason her body knots, fearful.
Her senses come to the conclusion before the cheetah herself consciously does: such an expression is one marked with an extremity of aggression or excitement, a challenging hunt or a cat facing a meal after a period of famine.
A signal before a killing blow.
It makes her stomach drop straight to her knees.
He looks blank but for the silent tell of a black gaze.
Cheetara hopes her unease isn't easily seen on her expression or smelled. "You're welcome."
Her only thought is to find a high cleric as her warning bells are blaring now.
Those eyes, that vial, the broken composure of the fishing cat, its all strange.
It happens as she turns away with only a step gained in distance.
"Agh!"
Her breath leaves her in a rush that is more like a pop with the force of her chest slamming into the mat and her vision speckles yellow and black.
A rumbling purr sounds beneath her ear and she's already knelt to gather her feet when Finigan's tongue runs up the length of her neck.
The cheetah is only frozen for an instant before hiking her leg backwards in what should be an injurious kick to Finigan, he yelps in pain but does not let go and her clawed feet rend holes in the mat beneath her to break free of him.
"Miss Cara!" Cheetara calls panic lacing her cry. The cheetah cub is taller but the fishing cat is much heavier and she worms against his grip like a defenseless cub forgetting her training in the cold wash of fear.
The cleric is there in an instant but it's high-cleric Theomar who arrives first easily hauling the cat from her and Finigan explodes in a rage of screaming growls and hisses roped and bound in the unyielding muscle of the leopard male's arms. Theomar hauls the cub backwards with a hardened brow and nod to Bali who follows with Finigan twisting and flopping like the fish his clan loved so, his fury louder.
Bali too has a gritty grey vial and its contents are dumped into a square of cloth, Finigan snaps sharp white fangs but Bali is quicker pressing it to Finigan's face. Finigan goes limp and is thrown over Theomar's shoulder and taken from the room.
Cheetara remains still but a close observer would note the shaking of her thin shoulders.
The room is still and quiet, but the expressions of the standing clerics round her seem understanding and grave exchanging mute speech Cheetara seems left in the dark of.
Cara extends a hand.
"Come, Cheetara to my ward."
Cheetara knows where they are going before the great doors are pulled open into the hall.
She's glad for the high-cleric's strong arms her legs are still trembling with adrenaline gaining her feet herself would have been nearly impossible.
She'd felt a touch of something, no more than a teeny trickle of thought through her fright but it had beckoned, beckoned for stillness. Calm.
Surrender.
Her mind had flickered beyond the fishing cat and floated to a pelt of blood orange and black stripes, to a prince of Thundera.
She's glad to be heading to the hospice ward she's in need of Cara's healing wisdom as she fears may be just as mad as Finigan.
----
The only indication of how long Cheetara sits in the hospice ward is the open window that shows the sky markedly hinting at brightness.
Nearly a half hour.
She waits watching the wind from the open window caress wood chimes on the desk, a scroll blotted with ink from where the writer had been careless. The sunlight dances green catching the light of colored jars containing herbs, powders and jellied remedies above the neatly arranged shelving of books.
The door clicks softly and Cara sweeps into the ward in black breeches and a long hooded tunic of sage, a uniform she donned in her duties as a healer.
"I apologize for leaving you for long, straining polluck leaves is a long process."
The cub doesn't get her meaning and Cara is suddenly aware she is not making sense. The healer momentarily forgetting her audience is a 12 year old cub who has no knowledge of polluck plants, nor why straining leaves for more for Finigan is important.
The plant the fishing cat had acquired and strained himself insufficient, improperly prepared but Cara had been impressed by his knowledge of treatment nonetheless.
"You are of 12 seasons yes?" Cara asks.
Cheetara nods bunching her hands in the corded leather of her wrist guards.
The cleric crosses the room coming to a shelf Cheetara had not noticed before just above her spotted head. Cara rifles through many rolled scrolls before finding the one she needs and carefully unrolls it.
She brushes a forelock of impossibly shiny bronze brown hair backward, combing it back with her claws into its place as she reads.
"You are so very young for this," she comments.
"Miss Cara?"
She knows the cub is asking for clarification, only natural.
Cara neatly rerolls the scroll observing the cheetah, Cheetara is ram rod straight fighting a slouch trying her best to look presentable for the cleric healer, the tugging of wrist guards has stopped but her hands are balled atop her thighs.
"I don't suppose it's surprising after going over the math, your clan, the cheetahs, are very small, like my own. You….mature much faster."
She's giving herself a headache trying to track the patterns of sexual development in the various clans of cubs in the clerisy.
Fifty three clerics. Thirty-five males, eighteen females including the high-cleric quarter guards. One of twelve seasons sitting upon a bench in Cara's ward, one male fishing cat of fifteen seasons experiencing an awakening, seven mostly males between nineteen and twenty one seasons, all others ranging between twenty five seasons and fifty seven with spry Bali surpassing all but Jaga himself. A motley mix of lions, leopards, margay, lynx, jaguar and many more.
Jaga had been more than accepting of any cat of high promise and dedication giving the clerisy a rounded defense, expertise in every area available.
However it presented a problem of predictability of incidents such as young Cheetara and Finigan who had not reported his condition.
"The jaguarundis, the servals, the margays, the fishing cats, the cheetahs," Cara says pointedly. "We are much smaller in numbers so it would seem the gods would only want to give us advantages, a way to survive." She unwinds a spool of bandage stretching a hand to Cheetara. "Your hand."
Cheetara offers her purpling wrist, the one she had used to try and catch herself in her fall. Firm, sure claws squeeze up her forearm until Cheetara hisses small canines clenched.
"Only a sprain," Cara announces relieved. "A lucky thing, cheetah bones are easily broken."
Cheetara's brows wrinkle as the caracal rubs a cold gel across the area, wrapping it to absorb. She seats herself on the bench close to the cheetah, taking in a deep breath to prepare.
"I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to answer as truthfully as possible yes?"
The cub nods once with her chin higher as though squaring herself to brave something.
"Are you sleeping well?"
Cheetara nods once.
"How about eating? Are you eating well?"
Cheetara shakes her head.
"Just not hungry or nauseous?"
"Not hungry I think," Cheetara says with an air of uncertainty.
"Hot or dizzy?"
Cheetara eyes go rolling up in recall thinking on the past few nights she'd only been able to fall asleep at the edge of her window. "Just at night."
"Cheetara…have you noticed Finigan around your quarters lately?"
She shakes her head but Cara takes note of the flit of her eyes that contain an omission.
A secret.
A secret Cara is the wiser to, she'd more than once in the past seen the tiger prince slinking about the palace garden and some nights as she checks the perimeter wall she's sure it's the high shine of his eyes glowing green in the lamplit after dark near their lily pond before it's gone in a flickering blink.
A clever prince.
A possibly dangerous thing during this time in a she-cat's life.
Cheetara's words are almost a whisper. "Is Finigan sick?"
Cara smiles mildly at her, "No. But you will not be permitted to see him nor anyone else but myself and Miss Malyn for a few days' time."
The cub's mouth opens to protest before closing to numbly respond.
"Yes Miss Cara."
Seeing the hanging head of her young charge Cara explains. "You are not being punished that is a promise. But you must remain within your quarter's wing as with all clerics during their heat or awakening."
Cheetara has heard those words before in answer to a few absences in training, absences that tended to last many days.
Just weeks ago Liosha, a lion cleric of twenty seasons had not been present for nearly a week and she hears the bits of broken conversation, words that mean nothing but two are repeated enough to be filed for later mulling, 'heat', 'in season', and the sympathetic, understanding murmurs that follow amongst the older clerics.
She remembers only two days prior to Liosha's absence the she-cat taking to the vaulting obstable course, her slip and her fall more than thirty feet to the mat. The only real wound suffered pride dimming her blue eyes as she'd rubbed her sore foot.
She wonders at this and how this affects her and why she must be isolated but it isn't the most pressing thing she needs answers to.
"Why did Finigan attack me?"
Cara doesn't seem ready for the question pulling her eyes down to gather her thoughts. "What happened today must have been a bit frightening for you."
The cub doesn't answer but she's chewing at the inside of her cheek, something the caracal had observed the cheetah do when she'd felt self-conscious, seeking to conceal her anxiety.
"Finigan's intention was not to hurt you he was trying to mate with you."
Cheetara's small body stiffens with that same look she'd had pinned to her mat.
This word, this act Cheetara knows the meaning of.
"Finigan is…fresh in his awakening that means he has grown up and can now scent when she-cats are in heat. You are in heat, it is a time when your body tells you it is ready for cubs, it is also telling males, like Finigan, you are ready for mating to produce cubs. You mustn't blame him males can find themselves driven to madness when your scent changes, especially when it is wholly new for them, they may do strange, often uncontrollable things in their excitement and means to distract them from you may be very hard on their minds and bodies. It is best for both of your conditions to run its course with rest for you and exercise for him."
"Should such an incident ever occur again forget your training only a bite or scratch will free you, it is the only thing they respond to in such a state. It is your refusal and it will be heeded."
Cara wonders at the cub's footed claws unsheathing if she will flee before the healer is finished.
"I assure you she-cats often find their heat much easier to tolerate than males around her. You may find yourself lucky with a phantom heat every once in a while, who can know? But for now you are 'presenting' which is much more common so you will be noticed by males around you, you might feel a bit feverish, dizzy, anxious, tired, uncoordinated or any mix of the sort for a while, you may even feel some discomfort even pain."
Cheetara's cheeks pink in embarrassment and Cara knows it is too much to add the cub may also feel need atop it all. A need that would only grow with each heat if not kept in strict isolation away from the influence of male hormones.
"It only comes twice a year for a mere eight days maximum but as I've said when it does you are to remain in your quarters unless escorted by myself or Malyn, your lessons will continue if you are well enough for it. An easier time with be made of your heat without males influencing physical reactions."
She's positive Cheetara would breeze through every cycle in the impregnable walls of their clerisy.
Present day…
She's in heat.
The need to crawl from her heated skin hadn't been enough to make her aware, nor her recently obsessive behavior when it came to the scent of Tygra, the touch of him and the idea of the taste of him, it's her mind coming apart that makes her aware.
Cheetara finds sleep well for the first time in weeks until she'd woken the next day well into the afternoon feeling that familiar sensation of her insides churning, like they had before with Tygra's claws sliding inside her and his mouth suckling at her pulse, at the peak of release but unlike then the sensations refuse to ebb or tip over today leaving only a painful throbbing sensation that worsens like teeth gnawing at her.
It's more than a powerful memory of the previous evening, this she's sure of when she's in the middle of a solo training exercise and her staff slips from her hands with a clatter, once, twice and six times in only several minutes and she's shaking so badly when she reaches to retrieve it she nearly misses.
She holds her palm out to the blue sky feeling a single rain drop touch her wrist.
It's warm.
It isn't rain, it's sweat.
She does mediocre staff work for hours and finds her rate of failure in the exercises only increases.
Sweeping her gaze around the camp she forces herself to calmly rake her claws through her tangled hair twisting the long mass of it before wringing the alarming amount of sweat from it and retreating to her tent.
Cheetara drifts into a restless sleep in only minutes into her mediation waking to the sensation of her body quivering.
She feels a steady trick of moisture as her womb flutters and she needs to find Tygra.
But she remains still wringing her hands round her staff as that flutter intensifies to a point of throb of pain.
The long slow inhale of breath breaks with a gasp.
Willing her heat away would not work.
But perhaps a long walk would help ease her symptoms.
Cheetara turns about in a circle, each tree looking the same.
She's sure she cannot even trust her sense of smell to lead her back to camp. Everything was wrong, confusing.
In all her heat cycles the cleric was sure she'd never been so affected.
She has the desperate thought to call out for Tygra, but quickly dismisses it; he was clearly unaware of her plight for now and should remain so, she'd have to explain herself and she will not allow it.
Besides she couldn't find sense in dragging him into her disorientation, ensnaring him into such a personal and private affair.
It wasn't proper for a cleric.
Cheetara doesn't have to guess at how things would unfold and her body still hums in recall of Tygra's attentions she's certain any control she has summoned would be lost finding herself panting and moaning underneath him before long.
She longs for him again and she cannot think of a worse time to have been touched, the freshness of it pulls at her will. Perhaps just once, perhaps if she was mated once she would be free to think again.
The thought of mating brings a hope of relief and and she's suddenly angry with herself in her momentary disregard of the consequences.
Kits. Cubs. Kittens.
The certainty of such actions giving her a cub.
Any mating during her heat was almost a 100% certainty even first time matings driven by heat resulted in cubs with nine of ten odds but the idea of Tygra's teeth set hard into her neck and his large, powerful body blanketing hers and his member thrusting deep has the effect of cold water dousing her fevered skin and fire being set upon it again.
She bites back a whimper as a jolt of arousal slams into her before swiftly mutating into knifing pain and the razored sensation drags heavy through her womb before beginning the fluttering again, floating her back to sweet ecstasy that teases like a knowing touch against her sex.
She catches a nearby oak in her claws before she staggers, digging harshly into the bark trying to anchor, to remain standing somehow because she's breathless and dizzy and her thighs sealed flush together does very little to help.
The cleric has long given up the rituals of peace and stillness because her mind refuses to clear or do much more than process pain and pleasure and the hint of impending insanity with the blending of them together.
The thought of days more sinks her into frustration and despair and she rends her claws so hard into the bark of the assaulted tree she's sure her hands are bloody.
She's writhing before she's aware of it her aching sex smashed brutally against the coarse bark of the tree, its bark lumped, sharp but her pleasure far outweighs her pain as she ruts.
It licks through her womb and she's trembling again for a far different reason and she works towards her release without finesse or grace unable to help thinking of the tiger that had only recently opened her eyes to such a beautiful thing.
Even as she climbs towards climax she knows it won't compare to being touched by Tygra.
The cheetah tears her claws free after allowing her shuddered exhale, she's sore and perhaps swollen but feels somewhat sated for the moment.
She isn't much of a swimmer but grabs her bag and staff heading to the river needing to clean herself and to soothe her brutalized sex.
Cheetara isn't sure how long she sits in the river, its cold enough to chill her lungs but it gives her the window of clarity to think.
It was nearly evening and she hadn't seen Tygra the whole day, which was no real cause for concern as evening was sure to have him back in her tent.
Her scent would call to him before long perhaps even Lion-O.
But at 17 seasons perhaps she is safe in dealing with her king. Lions were by far the latest typically to experience the call, perhaps Lion-O had not an awakening and she could pass quietly out of heat.
If not for Tygra.
At twenty seasons old Tygra was likely a male passed his awakening, she isn't sure when tigers peak but she'd guess early like her own clan considering the likely low populace of tigers, if there were any others at all.
She doesn't worry much on the general, sensibility and self-control was the mark of males beyond thirty-five seasons, she'd be of no interest.
Kat was far too young to have experienced an awakening of the senses, the subtlety of her scent change lost on a cub so young.
Keeping the tiger at arms length would have to be her focus for the next few days, perhaps a week's time to be safe. And an accidental nip could bring a well of blood or a licking of her essence on his paws after bringing her to climax; a taste of her on his tongue would only make things disasterous putting him in a similar state of delirium making avoiding mating impossible.
Her thoughts break in realization.
Tygra had already tasted her and nothing of consequence had occurred in fact Tygra had licked his paws clean of her and though clearly aroused he bared it well enough with no loss of self-control.
Perhaps her heat had come only with the arrival of the day, perhaps Tygra had not an awakening yet at all, perhaps tiger clans were even later than lions in awakening.
A phantom heat?
Possible and even likely.
She'd been feeling symptoms for hours and neither princes had sought her out, if she was experiencing a phantom heat she would not have a scent change at all to signal it, only a higher likelihood of pain.
The pain was definitely very new and the desire unbelievable.
She's convinced.
Relief makes her skin warm even with the slap of cool air as she emerges from the water.
She may be facing her condition alone but she is safe from a fate of a belly swelling with kits she is sure she isn't ready for, nor any bloodshed over mating rights.
And though her skin grows hot once more to signal her fever's return she no longer feels pain and thanks the gods for small favors.
7 years ago…
"I've always trusted your judgement Jaga but I have to wonder at what prompted this?"
The king, at his most trusted advisor and ally's askance, had come with Jaga to the palace's weapons chamber. The swords, spears, arrows and staffs are the usual sort he is used to but on a rolled canvas across the marble floors are more curious weapons of a cleric design, there are even two hooded clerics kneel next to them carefully arranging them and another two of Jaga's clerisy standing in waiting at the entrance of the chamber.
"Weapons and warfare I understand has lost Tygra's attention," Jaga starts. "If I recall correctly."
Claudus nods, he'd told the wizard as such days prior.
"And you came up with this? Tygra will be thrilled!" The king smiles really looking at the weapons neatly displayed, "I can only hope it holds his interest long enough. His love of swords seems to have soured, staffs, broadswords, archery the same. His whip is the only thing he seems to hold onto. I fear his stimulation isn't enough, he learns so fast it's difficult to keep his attention."
The old wizard is standing at the window looking out into the garden. "And much more so lately," he adds conversationally.
A tree of oranges rustles so minutely one would think a little bird playing amongst the fruit but an orange that is not a fruit but a pelt peeks through the foliage, climbing.
The overhanging branch bending lower and lower towards the ivory wall separating the palace from the clerisy.
The king mades a sound of agreement to Jaga's comment, massive arms folded in front of his chest.
"I suppose it is to be expected turning thirteen seasons can bring a lot of changes, he's growing like a reed you know, he towers over Lion-O and it seems to have happened in only a week."
There's a pride in the king, the statement is an exaggerated one but no one could deny Prince Tygra was maturing quickly.
"Lion-O will catch up in time," Jaga assures him. "I believe he's gained an inch or so himself this winter."
The smile the king gives is one unchecked in thought of his cubs.
"Yes, but I believe you've something more on your mind Jaga."
Jago tears his attention away from the open window with a raised white brow. "And what would have my king draw such a conclusion?"
"Well you've been staring out that window for quite a spell now."
Jaga's expression remains serene as he turns his full attention to Claudus even as Tygra teeters on the tree branch leaping onto the wall and into the cleric perimeter.
The head cleric remains unconcerned spotting a few of his clerics amongst the cleric yard.
The prince would not get far.
"Have I?"
Claudus expects the jaguar knows full well he has because Jaga despite his age was not a cat to have a mind that got lost in its wanderings.
"You have," the king humors.
"Prince Tygra was in the garden just a moment ago."
"He's usually there in the afternoons seems to be where he likes to clear his head."
"And now he is on the grounds of the clerisy." At the king's full attention Jaga continues, "as of late Prince Tygra seems to only desire taking to the trees to cross our wall."
The king no longer looks dismissive. "Tygra's been bothering your clerics? Odd, I've never known him to go prowling where he is not permitted."
"It can hardly be his fault Claudus, it is a difficult time in his life."
The king shakes his head, mouth set in a stern line. "No excuses for him my friend. What would possess him to do such a thing?"
Jaga knows the question is one without a clue to the answer the king is asking himself.
"I believe an awakening may be exactly what possesses him my lord. A she-cat cub in my clerisy seems to have captured his attention."
"An awakening, are you sure Jaga?"
"Quite certain. Luckily my sentry Cara has been watchful of him and of her. It would seem she has consumed his attention and he has shown all signs of intent to try and claim her."
At this information Claudus nods with a solemn look and something like sympathy.
"I hadn't thought it'd happen this soon. He's quite early."
Jaga nods and replies simply: "perhaps not so early for tiger clans."
"Yes," Claudus agrees, "we couldn't possibly know."
There is relief in the king in knowing Lion-O would likely be mated and bonded to a she-cat long before any need for worry as their clan did not often experience awakening until nearly twenty seasons.
But Tygra is who he worries for now, his son was already plagued with enough energy and power already at such a young age. For months he'd become sullen and moodier than usual as he grew into his long limbs and large paws, still a slender cub anyone could note the subtle shifting into heavier musculature, he would grow to be sizable.
"You mentioned his intentions to claim her, your cleric, how does she fare?" the King prods, curious as well about the female.
"Better now than yesterday, we had not noted the signs of awakening in another, she was unharmed but shaken in an aggressive pursuit."
A sound of claws ticking along the marbled floor of the northern hall catch both the king and old wizard's ear and suddenly there isn't a sound of feet at all and Tygra is all but scurrying by the entry obviously hoping not to be spotted.
"Tygra."
At the sound of his father's call the striped cub freezes. "Yes Father?"
The king simply motions with a big meaty claw and Tygra practically tiptoes forward with suspicious eyes shifting at the scattered clerics and Jaga, he looks his father square in the eye but the tell of his ears shifting backward let the two cats know where his feet want to go.
The king's hands practically swallow his cub's own when he picks Tygra's up from hanging at his sides, noting the purpling redness beneath his claws and large slivers of wood, bits of dried blood are obvious in the beds of them.
"What happened here?"
Tygra fidgets in a subtle gesture meant to secure his paw away but the king is having none of it examining the flesh that flames brightly under the cub's white fur.
"Climbing," Tygra explains in nearly a mumble again those round eyes sweep over to Jaga as though expecting the old wizard to interject, to somehow know.
Jaga says nothing nor breaks the nervy cub's gaze though his blue eyes are calm and kind.
"Scarlet criers?" his father wonders his tone already preparing to be scolding.
Tygra shakes his head, shrugging, "just oaks mostly, got bored."
The lie comes so easily and Jaga is sure it isn't missed by the king either, Tygra wasn't the type to take to climbing trees until his hands bled, he was a smarter cub than to give into obsessive habits if they could be helped.
If they could indeed be helped.
Tygra had clearly climbed the trees of the garden over and over and over again hundreds of times in a compulsive search seeking the cleric.
The king releases his son's hand before the lion notes something else, before Tygra knows it his head is clasped gently between his father's paws and when those eyes go wider and rounder in startled surprise the king gets a clear look.
All the color of young Tygra's iris seems swallowed, leaving only blackness in their extreme dilation and it's all the affirmation Claudus needs, he notes the jittered way the cub curls and uncurls his fist in a show of claws, highly agitated.
"I want you to get those paws cleaned up with the healer and this cut," the king said gesturing to the red wound running parallel to the tiger's cheekbone.
"Yes Father," Tygra nods obediently.
The tiger's head is released and still his fur stands prickled as though preparing for a fight as the usually still, disciplined cat shuffles his feet still rooted as he has not been dismissed, he's nearly dancing in place itching for leave of the chamber.
"Off you go," his father simply says with a wave of his hand.
Once the steps of the tiger are out of earshot Claudus speaks once more.
"Already so far gone, I'll arrange for his weapons work and combat training to increase as much as he can stand." Claudus can't get those black eyes out of his head and he's sure Tygra's mild temper will not last
"And more," he decides. "It's going to be a hard time for him, best we can do is keep his blood from boiling by spending that energy at least until the female is no longer receptive. He will not take well to being restricted from her."
"They never do."
The king looks troubled and a frown is beginning to deepen with his quiet. He knows all too well what awakening males were like, fiery and prone to aggression and violence, even with rigorous physical activity. And black eyed expressions were beyond dangerous and if mating didn't occur someone was bound to be hurt in the male's frustration.
"We can expect some measure of control to be found in time," Jaga assures the pensive king. A withered hand touchs the lion's shoulder. "Do not trouble yourself."
"Satisfy a curiosity for me old friend, the she-cat, her clan?"
"A cheetah a bit younger than he, prideful and stubborn," Jaga says fondly.
Claudus shares a smile with the old cat before sighing, "a pity."
Cleric or not he had a brief hope of a tigress, though she'd have been bound to cleric duty he had still grow hopeful Tygra's instincts would find him a match.
But no, Tygra would remain the first tiger spotted in nearly fifty years.
And his heart dwells on a striped cub who was probably alone in the world.
Present day...
It's midday when Cheetara arrives back at camp, its no longer empty, the kits have returned from whatever mischief of the day they've managed and Panthro looks busy inside the thundertank fiddling with some odd cylinder from the tank's overhead compartment.
She spots Tygra sitting under an oak far upstream a few yards of Lion-o standing at the river's edge.
Her king gives her a side-eyed look before commenting, "Was just starting to think you got lost out there."
She's a bit put off by the way Lion-O seems so dismissive dispute his comment.
"Of course not I just wanted to wash the grit from everything," she says indicating her bag which she sets neatly at the edge of her tent. "Hope you didn't worry."
Lion-O shrugs, "none of my business."
The nonchalant reply leaks bitterness and she suspects his soreness is a spillover of their last conversation of tents that ended with Lion-O and Tygra seething in a power struggle.
It occurs to her she has not done as she resolved to do in speaking with either about it.
The debate of whether to follow after her king or not is made up by Tygra.
"Leave him, not our problem if he wants to pout like a child for days at a time."
"A slightly better alternative than pretending things aren't different now and nothing's wrong," Cheetara adds.
She takes to the long grasses downhill from camp he follows grumbling.
"Nothing is wrong, he's right it's not of his business."
Cheetara sighs; she's much too weary to play middle cat with the two princes, especially a tiger who's determined not to care two licks about Lion-O's attitude towards them.
Or maybe not.
He stops their walk finding them as least half a mile from camp almost hidden in the tall grass, he chances a glance expecting disappointment finally getting a good look at her, she's clearly exhausted. She smells like rain, no its the river, and her usual sweet scent and something faint that's sharp and biting, like a slip of orange or lemon.
Her stippled blonde tresses are damp and tangled, perhaps from a swim.
His large hands rest against her forehead sweeping down her cheek and she leans closer and he can tell it is an unconscious movement.
"Are you okay?" he decides is the best question. "You look a little…
"Yes, I just—I'm a bit tired."
His hand soothes against her cheek petting softly. "You should rest then you feel warm."
"I'm fine, besides I've slept half the afternoon already."
There's a toothy pleased grin at that goes crooked making Tygra's expression shift from suggestive to downright carnal. "Well something must have left you completely exhausted."
She's stuck in that expression and his ears pick up her flying pulse.
He pulses too, surprised at how readily he responds to her now.
There's a quiet to indication a sudden mood shift into more intimate, secret things and Tygra's sweeping her damp hair away to fall past one shoulder.
He's moving slowly to allow her any objection but he needs to touch her.
Tygra leans closer for another pull of her scent and his nose finds her pulse only half a second before his tongue playing on a tiny spot behind her ear.
"Tygra," she sighs.
Cheetara slips away and there's an apology in her eyes for her aloofness.
"I'm sorry, I…"
Perhaps she is overwhelmed? Seeking some distance after their racy encounter?
Was it too much for the cleric?
The distance between them is palpable as well as visible and he doesn't like that she seems to have put herself out of his reach purposefully.
He can take a hint.
"It's okay I get it." Even to his ears he sounds put out.
He'd managed all day to not pursue her as they often spent some hours of the day apart and that had been more difficult than anything he'd ever done, especially after the touch and taste of her still burned in his mind.
He'd been licking at his paws on a strange impulse all day even after a long morning wash in the river. He'd managed distance but found himself unable to focus on anything throughout the day but the idea of getting her panting beneath him.
And now that she stands feet away he wonders if his raging hormones are that obvious.
Obviously as she's wrapped her arms round herself in a protective gesture.
But he's been throbbing for her all day to the point of pain.
She'd been so pretty and sweet and willing and his.
He wants her badly.
But she has that expression again that definitely unease and he's ashamed of himself.
Tygra moves to dismiss himself only to find her staff blocking his movement.
Cheetara raises a mischievous bow. She twists the weapon in a complex spin of movement, challenging him and with it offering a negotiation.
Ah, so sparring, they were a bit overdue.
"Weapons?" he asks.
At this Cheetara sets aside her staff eyeing his left side meaningfully.
He too puts aside his whip grinning deviously, he may very well get trounced in a fight with the cleric but he's sure he can at least get his hands on her once or twice. The bruises resulting mean nothing and in an odd way he looks forward to them.
She's made him a masochist.
His eyes are wide open when she attacks dropping to sweep his legs out beneath him, her speed making the attack impossible to thwart.
"Eyes open," she teases tapping one finger underneath hers.
"Well you didn't say go," he replies smoothly. "What can you expect from a cheetah though?"
Egging her was an old game of his and when he climbs to his feet she strikes him square in the chest with an open-palm quick strike and a kick to his side it's measure just enough to rattle his balance but not cause any real harm.
She's dancing out of his reach long before he can react.
"Much more than tigers obviously, all talk and no action."
Cheetara moves to strike again he manages to block the blow with a forearm thrusting it against her palm in a push, she falls backward hard grimacing.
"Sorry, you okay?" Tygra comes kneeling to see to her.
She doesn't understand.
It had been a mild hit that shouldn't have taken her from her feet but she's lying flat in the long grasses just the same.
Her head feels dizzied and far away.
He'd struck her with less than half the usual force in sparring, it had been completely playful and she's sure even Kat could have kept his feet.
A cleric should never have been taken down so easily.
Sometimes burns in her belly and heats her cheeks. She'd never felt so weak.
"Didn't mean to hurt you."
His concern just makes it worse, because he's unguarded for an attack, unthreatened by her, coming to gather her into his arms like delicate she-cat needing rescue from barely a nudge that crumples her like a paper doll.
Though her fall would likely leave a bruise as pain sprouts from hip to knee she comes to her feet forcing her weight to the injured side, instead of muffling as she'd hoped the pain goes full bloom.
It begins in tandem with the fluttering, the return of that deep sensual tickle that mocks her.
The absence of pain, the loss of pleasure both come blaring back to life awaiting to nudge her towards true completion.
Tygra sees her eyes go wide as a small wince escapes her.
"Chee-
"I'm fine," she says but it's overly loud.
Desperate.
There isn't an objection made because she's attacking with a sequence of blows but he isn't countering only blocking and slipping past what he can, he's more occupied with observing her.
She's trying not to pant and blinking as though dazed and her fast moving blows are slowing.
He finally snaps two hands out catching her wrists a movement that should not be possible, she's trembling so much.
When he has her eye to eye something desperate flickers through them. "What's wrong?"
Too close. He's much too close.
His grip loosens again opening himself for an attack to hold her more gently and her muscles give a hint of relaxing.
He has no longer a will to play this game as he's sure he's playing another that he isn't sure of the rules.
Something is terribly wrong.
A reply is stuck in her throat, a physical lump that blocks breath from coming, just a single word she cannot manage to utter: please.
She has to win, to gain distance now.
Cheetara plants a foot into his chest kicking hard, as she'd hoped his hold breaks but he hooks an unguarded calf by his own leg.
Before they've hit the ground she's on top the impact slapping their bodies together and she gives a sharp cry that is definitely pain.
But when he makes to seize her she hisses, a throaty angry sound he's never heard her make before, only the more pleasant variations.
It proves difficult to hold onto her and he's grown tired and frustrated himself at her evasion, he needs this game over, she isn't acting herself.
He does the only thing he can think of and she's stuck.
Tygra's practically sitting on her, his weight many times her own pinning her slight waist to where Cheetara finds her best efforts to wriggle do nothing to even inch him and Tygra dispassionately turns his gaze slightly behind him to watch her kick nothing but empty air.
"Guess I win."
She wants to protest his unfair tactics, sitting on her hardly seems fair, he has to know she has not a chance of ever setting herself free as heavy as he is without any leverage and the effort of it is leaving her breathless and when she moves to deliver an open palmed punch to his unguarded torso he's quick as a snake to intercept her hand and then the other.
Once he has both wrists he wastes no time twisting them up above her head pinning them there.
"And since I do win I guess you'll have to talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
She bucks hard unwilling to surrender and one leg comes free from under his knee.
He doesn't understand and she absolutely can't tell him, she doesn't care that she's panicking in the trap she has created herself because she just wants to do as her heat bids so bad.
She can't move at all now he has her freed leg recaptured and caught against his hip.
He swallows harshly as he suddenly feels warm, hot even like being submerged in warm, warm water and caressed as he finally gets a good whiff of her scent.
Past the clean scent of the river, mixing with her usual scent, that sweet tart smell is stronger and it occurs to him it is responsible for the way his mouth watered and tingled before. He'd tasted only a small sample of it the previous evening.
She freezes. Feeling Tygra, hot and twitching against her the v of her open thighs and his brown eyes cloud and darken with a predatory intent and his claws go slipping out unsheathed against her ribs.
By the way his nostrils flare he's finally noticed.
So she is presenting, she's not experiencing a phantom heat at all.
And worse she knows that look, Tygra is completely gone in the rapture of her smell, captivated, irises disappearing.
The far look as he starts to throb against her belly tells her he has every intention to claim her.
It's only an inch or so of free space under him but its enough room to escape, thrusting herself up to twist round and crawl out from under him in a smooth quick maneuver. She's crawling forward when Tygra has her again, wrapping an arm just under her waist round the front of her thighs and locking them in his grip.
She's dragged backwards, the few scant inches she had managed lost; she digs her claws into the dirt shifting to kick backwards when Tygra grips her harder.
Her teeth won't find him in her position nor her claws.
Cheetara is thrown back into a memory of nearly a decade ago being captured in the grip of another male and she isn't half as afraid as before, she feeling almost sedate, even when she feels warm breath across her rump.
Tygra feels as though he's floating tracing his nose along the inside of one slender, lovely thigh to the source of his desire.
It's a shot of heaven.
It's too much, the scent of her dancing round his nose and his hunger for another taste can't be denied any longer.
Cool air skims her exposed thighs and her breeches momentarily bind her ankles before she falls forward with the force of them being yanked again to rest round her knees, the tough material holding well under the assault of Tygra's strength.
Her sex glistens before him pink flesh tipping more towards an angry red color making it look all the more tender and in need of attention.
The tiger's mouth is hot and wet between her legs, his tongue gentle rasping across her swollen sex. She wants to sob in relief as his tongue caresses away the hurt of abrasions.
A pressure builds as he adjusts to an open-mouthed kiss against her most intimate place, tongue and lips dragging slow to collect her moisture.
Cheetara kicks and bucks and thrashes her claws filling with grass and dirt but she's locked as he feasts forcing her to meet head on the intensity of pleasure, when she grows weak and tired of fighting his claws brush the top of one buttock possessively claiming victory.
Her heart flurries beneath her chest like a little bird pressed in the cool grass and she concentrates on breathing and that gets harder because she can feel him licking, kissing and drinking in her wetness and the noises he makes of obvious and depraved enjoyment has her head spinning.
The cleric is sure the intensity of it has blinded her and it takes minutes for her to realize the moans and shrieking breaths are coming from her.
He's answering her cries with purrs that sound garbled as he swallows her essence.
She surrenders when the sedate feeling hits her again her panic leaving her quietly.
Tygra groans like someone eating for the first time in days and the sound pulsates through her and dropping her quaking arms she offers him more by tilting her spotted backside up and her balance becomes better so she rocks backward.
Cheetara is sure she's been blinded, her vision colored in yellow starlight as his tongue slithers past her clinching walls.
His claws drag again along her, leaving red scratchs along one spotted cheek and in clenching her backside she squeezes the tongue within her more tightly and she nearly cries.
Teeth follow as his canines sink into the muscle of her scratched flesh.
The sharp shock is enough to bring her sanity forward.
Cheetara lashes out her claws catching Tygra's shoulder, he growls spitting mad but it doesn't last as the brown of his eyes return as he blinks, panting.
He has to look around for a moment to gain his bearings before both are forced with only each other.
Tygra is the first to gain breath, his throat bobbing with a swallow. "You-you're in heat."
She's not sure why she expects anger or accusation but his words are simply a trembling recognization.
Cheetara remains where she's fallen, hair mussed and sweat sheening her, she does arch her hips up to pull up her breeches avoiding eye contact and Tygra has to tear his eyes away at her beautiful thighs and well pleasured sex disappearing from his view.
"Yes," she agrees smally.
He continues to pant for a moment then his tongue flicks out over his lips and her taste lingers. It is much stronger, sweeter and tarter than the night before. "I thought maybe but I wasn't sure, I didn't-."
Tygra flounders for an explanation, she understands, they've both underestimated the pull in their instincts, the sneaky way it stole logic.
She follows his eyes movement to how they rove over her and she knows distraction is necessary for both of them.
He's trembling like her in a strange withdraw of their incomplete act.
"I'm sorry, I thought maybe you wouldn't know, hadn't guessed, I've been undetected before."
"Never by me," he tells her gravely.
Cheetara looks stunned at his confession, over the years she'd seen him afar a few times, sometimes in the palace garden, other times in the cleric yard but it'd never occurred to her the times he dared brave the yard she'd be in season and he was seeking her for mating.
"You didn't say anything," she says.
Tygra shakes his head, "We were cubs, I definitely didn't think confessing wanting to mate with you would gain me any points. Besides, when did you figure the best time for me to bring up obsessedly aching with the scent of you would have been?"
Tygra licks at the corner of his mouth again, his eyes squeezed shut in the intensity of her taste. She knows he isn't doing it consciously but his licking has her ready again despite her despair at their situation.
He's tasted her in full heat. Her pheromones were strong enough to kick his blood into a frenzy, it could take days but Tygra was not any different than any other male cat in that sense, triggering the hind brain. Sex, violence and a need for possession would beat away all sense of civility in time.
He's going to suffer as much as she.
He's suffering now.
She means to just slip her hand along his jaw and tell him to breath through the swelling of nerves but her flesh is stronger and he eagerly opens his mouth to her tongue against his lips for a kiss.
Its out of control in seconds her mind goes pleasantly fuzzy again, she climbs his lap for more contact and his claws sink holes into her clothing pressing her harder to him, her scratches throbbing against the warmth of his hands both trying their best to swallow the others groans.
She moans, this time she is pained, her cries plaintive.
Her distress is enough to break his cloud of pleasure at the same time their mouths part.
He releases her buttocks to wind one hand to her back and the other to the nape of her neck, she's pushing away making those noises of pain attempting to separate their lower bodies.
He's careful setting her prone on her back not sure of what to do for her.
Cheetara feels as though she's been lying on her back suffocating for hours but Tygra is still sitting next to her stroking her hair and even her short blow brows creased in distress.
She needs release and she laments she hadn't let him finish.
He lays a soft kiss just behind her ear and she feels her breeches being slipped from her hips and his touch petting the silk of her belly for a few moments and she can feel the corners of eyes leaking as he coaxes her legs apart.
A kiss is placed on each of her lids tasting the salt of tears that refuse to spill before he takes a look.
Her delicate sex is dark, swollen with blood engorging it.
It's not a wonder moving against her was painful, too much friction.
"Let me help, I know it hurts."
Cheetara nods her belly quivering.
"Shh," he whispers against her belly before kissing it.
She wants to cry for a different reason than pain when his tongue finds her slit again knowing just how to relieve her.
For now.
Pandora's Box[/CENTER]
7 years ago…
It starts in her third year with the clerics, one afternoon when she's working with her staff in a rhythmic defense pattern she'd been taught by one of the elder clerics.
Cheetara finds the hard part is not switching from her left to right underhand to overhand but the hand strikes of her free hand that are to follow, the training center is quiet but for the occasional grunts and grimaces of others in solo and partnered weapons training.
When she arrives nearly an hour early for weapons and defense training it's mostly quiet and nearly empty but for a few cats suited in their training tunics of bronze and Jaga's four high-cleric guards taking their places in each corner of the room. They are aptly monikered by students of the clerisy "quarter guards" for their purpose of evening sentinels for the clerisy, one for the north, south, east and west sectors of their fortress and their positions of supervision do not variety with each at a north, south, east and west corner of the training center.
Their critique is unspoken to the younger clerics, students like her, but every shaky technique is marked with the keen eyes of the quarters catching even the most subtle errors easily. A "quarter" providing assistance only in the certainty of a young cleric's need of it but never want of.
A lesson every cleric learns is answers and assistance are often within one's own grasp.
Cheetara heads straight for the western corner and the high sharp black tuffed ears of the caracal high-cleric standing in the corner wheel to the sound of Cheetara approach, high-cleric Cara's head follows turning leisurely to see the cub coming.
As is custom Cheetara gives a simple bow that the cleric returns with quiet dignity.
Cheetara has noted the high-cleric's hand sweeping past the staffs in the front of the staff rack to rest on a weapon of black wood on the far right rung; she presents the weapon to Cheetara.
"Your weapon."
The cub bounces the wood of the quarter staff in her hand testing its weight; it is heavier than her usual weapon, not by much but enough that lingering soreness will be inevitable after drills with the weapon for the hours required.
The caracal raises a brow with a reserved saffron gaze but her lips playing with the idea of a smile at the cub's puzzlement.
"A lesson comes too with this young Cheetara. We must build a strong body to accompany a strong mind."
The cub nods, the message is almost surely Jaga's instruction from Cara's mouth.
She begins after finding an empty mat of woven grass reed, she keeps in mind Jaga's words as she spins the weapon.
She makes some adjustments to her stance winding her staff till its spinning in a whistle and she's crouching and kneeling and kicking and striking an invisible opponent varying between her staff and feet and hands.
It isn't even an hour later and she blows out a breath before pulling it back in slow focusing on her breathing technique just for a few minutes to get her heart rate slowing back to normal despite her intense practice.
Cheetara can sense more than see when high-cleric Malyn stops at the edge of her mat to observe her. Cheetara has a mind to run through a more complex drill with the weapon but refrains as Malyn was not the type of cat that would praise her showy display.
When Cheetara finishes at the sound of the temple chime signaling the first rest period she bows gliding a well arched foot forward and bending the other to the watching cleric.
The lynx returns the gesture with an arresting and powerful grace Cheetara is awed of. She's a divine cat even with plaited silver and brown tickled hair shimmering, a few winding strands loose on the left hiding a missing ear. A long scar shiny and pink splits her tawny-grey face from nose to her cheek to throat but neither seem to do anything to detract from her face, savage and beautiful.
The scar and mangled ear, Cheetara recalls remains a tribute to her will to live and prowess in fighting off seven lizard generals tooth and claw, weaponless at only seventeenth seasons old in the Great Market Massacre sixteen seasons past.
"Very good."
Then she's gone back to the south side of the center without anything else for the cheetah.
Jaga does not arrive by midmorning's bell toll and it is a signal to all clerics their advisor would not be present until tomorrow's lessons having business in the palace.
The clerisy was in the best claws possible with the healing hands of the caracal Cara should injure occur as well as to lead mediation, Bali's wisdom of weapons and warfare would ensure new drills were covered and Malyn would lead their late afternoon sessions in hand to hand combat.
At the second chime signaling resume of drills Cheetara rocks her weapon palm to palm stalking the motionless wood of her reflex dummy, twisting her lips in thought deciding on the best way to prepare an attack.
Her fur stands in her neck with the awareness of eyes.
When she turns a pair of gold-green eyes flit away with the owner of them fiddling with his staff at being caught staring. He returns to a similar drill as the cheetah had performed, his movements lack her fluid grace and he can't seem to keep his hands steady.
The fishing cat's brown tunic is dark with sweat as he struggles through his drills.
She's seen this cat enough to know his real skill came from weaponless hands and a polecat like physique built for stealth and speed, even the older students sparred reluctantly with him, unwilling to risk hurt pride in losing a hand to hand match to such a small, young cat.
Ding, ding, ding.
She is expected to start her mediation in ten minutes after putting away her weapon and gentle stretching, Cheetara wastes no time crossing her mat to return her weapon to its rack that has been wheeled to the center of the room with the other racks, a discarded throwing star is retrieved from beneath the long range weapons cabinet by a sooty colored cat with gold weighted wrist bands Cheetara recognizes. High cleric Bali restores the star to its case before ushering forward the rest of the cats for their weapons.
Finigan is there before she is but not before a crowd has gathered.
The grey-brown fishing cat moves like a mongoose and slips through the thick din of cats like oil before emerging from the other side of them weapon returned.
He nearly knocks head into her chin, she'd forgotten though fifteen seasons old Finigan was a slow grower as well and would likely be a head shorter than she upon full adulthood, she's already gaining height with lengthly legs her clan was known for.
He wheels backward just in time to avoid real impact. "Sorry."
Cheetara nods giving him a bit of a smile as he seems nearly panicked in his clumsiness.
A small glass vial bounces soundlessly to a rumpled mat and she stoops to retrieve it for him.
No bigger than the width of her smallest claw, inside a gritty grey liquid sealed in glass but the smell of it permeates and it's like a hammering blow to her nose and she nearly drops it.
It burns, straight to her lungs and she gives a short cough.
"Here—"
But she had spoken only to empty air.
Finigan quick steps are almost a run from the room and they hadn't even been dismissed for the day.
Cheetara trails after in almost a jog catching up easily.
"Finigan," she calls nearly shoving the item back into his hands, "You dropped this."
Startled his eyes widen to the point of bulging until they follow her raised hand, he swipes the vial so quickly Cheetara nearly misses the movement.
Shoving it into the pocket on his breeches his eyes grow shifty and conspiratorial looking around the room. "Thanks." He frowns contritely finally paying her a bit of a gaze.
There's something odd that stops her smile.
She doesn't see shining gold-green anymore in his eyes, only darkness and her reflection shines black in the inky pool of them.
His eyes are completely dilated.
In her twelves seasons she's never been fixed in such a gaze and before she has given her mind reason her body knots, fearful.
Her senses come to the conclusion before the cheetah herself consciously does: such an expression is one marked with an extremity of aggression or excitement, a challenging hunt or a cat facing a meal after a period of famine.
A signal before a killing blow.
It makes her stomach drop straight to her knees.
He looks blank but for the silent tell of a black gaze.
Cheetara hopes her unease isn't easily seen on her expression or smelled. "You're welcome."
Her only thought is to find a high cleric as her warning bells are blaring now.
Those eyes, that vial, the broken composure of the fishing cat, its all strange.
It happens as she turns away with only a step gained in distance.
"Agh!"
Her breath leaves her in a rush that is more like a pop with the force of her chest slamming into the mat and her vision speckles yellow and black.
A rumbling purr sounds beneath her ear and she's already knelt to gather her feet when Finigan's tongue runs up the length of her neck.
The cheetah is only frozen for an instant before hiking her leg backwards in what should be an injurious kick to Finigan, he yelps in pain but does not let go and her clawed feet rend holes in the mat beneath her to break free of him.
"Miss Cara!" Cheetara calls panic lacing her cry. The cheetah cub is taller but the fishing cat is much heavier and she worms against his grip like a defenseless cub forgetting her training in the cold wash of fear.
The cleric is there in an instant but it's high-cleric Theomar who arrives first easily hauling the cat from her and Finigan explodes in a rage of screaming growls and hisses roped and bound in the unyielding muscle of the leopard male's arms. Theomar hauls the cub backwards with a hardened brow and nod to Bali who follows with Finigan twisting and flopping like the fish his clan loved so, his fury louder.
Bali too has a gritty grey vial and its contents are dumped into a square of cloth, Finigan snaps sharp white fangs but Bali is quicker pressing it to Finigan's face. Finigan goes limp and is thrown over Theomar's shoulder and taken from the room.
Cheetara remains still but a close observer would note the shaking of her thin shoulders.
The room is still and quiet, but the expressions of the standing clerics round her seem understanding and grave exchanging mute speech Cheetara seems left in the dark of.
Cara extends a hand.
"Come, Cheetara to my ward."
Cheetara knows where they are going before the great doors are pulled open into the hall.
She's glad for the high-cleric's strong arms her legs are still trembling with adrenaline gaining her feet herself would have been nearly impossible.
She'd felt a touch of something, no more than a teeny trickle of thought through her fright but it had beckoned, beckoned for stillness. Calm.
Surrender.
Her mind had flickered beyond the fishing cat and floated to a pelt of blood orange and black stripes, to a prince of Thundera.
She's glad to be heading to the hospice ward she's in need of Cara's healing wisdom as she fears may be just as mad as Finigan.
----
The only indication of how long Cheetara sits in the hospice ward is the open window that shows the sky markedly hinting at brightness.
Nearly a half hour.
She waits watching the wind from the open window caress wood chimes on the desk, a scroll blotted with ink from where the writer had been careless. The sunlight dances green catching the light of colored jars containing herbs, powders and jellied remedies above the neatly arranged shelving of books.
The door clicks softly and Cara sweeps into the ward in black breeches and a long hooded tunic of sage, a uniform she donned in her duties as a healer.
"I apologize for leaving you for long, straining polluck leaves is a long process."
The cub doesn't get her meaning and Cara is suddenly aware she is not making sense. The healer momentarily forgetting her audience is a 12 year old cub who has no knowledge of polluck plants, nor why straining leaves for more for Finigan is important.
The plant the fishing cat had acquired and strained himself insufficient, improperly prepared but Cara had been impressed by his knowledge of treatment nonetheless.
"You are of 12 seasons yes?" Cara asks.
Cheetara nods bunching her hands in the corded leather of her wrist guards.
The cleric crosses the room coming to a shelf Cheetara had not noticed before just above her spotted head. Cara rifles through many rolled scrolls before finding the one she needs and carefully unrolls it.
She brushes a forelock of impossibly shiny bronze brown hair backward, combing it back with her claws into its place as she reads.
"You are so very young for this," she comments.
"Miss Cara?"
She knows the cub is asking for clarification, only natural.
Cara neatly rerolls the scroll observing the cheetah, Cheetara is ram rod straight fighting a slouch trying her best to look presentable for the cleric healer, the tugging of wrist guards has stopped but her hands are balled atop her thighs.
"I don't suppose it's surprising after going over the math, your clan, the cheetahs, are very small, like my own. You….mature much faster."
She's giving herself a headache trying to track the patterns of sexual development in the various clans of cubs in the clerisy.
Fifty three clerics. Thirty-five males, eighteen females including the high-cleric quarter guards. One of twelve seasons sitting upon a bench in Cara's ward, one male fishing cat of fifteen seasons experiencing an awakening, seven mostly males between nineteen and twenty one seasons, all others ranging between twenty five seasons and fifty seven with spry Bali surpassing all but Jaga himself. A motley mix of lions, leopards, margay, lynx, jaguar and many more.
Jaga had been more than accepting of any cat of high promise and dedication giving the clerisy a rounded defense, expertise in every area available.
However it presented a problem of predictability of incidents such as young Cheetara and Finigan who had not reported his condition.
"The jaguarundis, the servals, the margays, the fishing cats, the cheetahs," Cara says pointedly. "We are much smaller in numbers so it would seem the gods would only want to give us advantages, a way to survive." She unwinds a spool of bandage stretching a hand to Cheetara. "Your hand."
Cheetara offers her purpling wrist, the one she had used to try and catch herself in her fall. Firm, sure claws squeeze up her forearm until Cheetara hisses small canines clenched.
"Only a sprain," Cara announces relieved. "A lucky thing, cheetah bones are easily broken."
Cheetara's brows wrinkle as the caracal rubs a cold gel across the area, wrapping it to absorb. She seats herself on the bench close to the cheetah, taking in a deep breath to prepare.
"I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to answer as truthfully as possible yes?"
The cub nods once with her chin higher as though squaring herself to brave something.
"Are you sleeping well?"
Cheetara nods once.
"How about eating? Are you eating well?"
Cheetara shakes her head.
"Just not hungry or nauseous?"
"Not hungry I think," Cheetara says with an air of uncertainty.
"Hot or dizzy?"
Cheetara eyes go rolling up in recall thinking on the past few nights she'd only been able to fall asleep at the edge of her window. "Just at night."
"Cheetara…have you noticed Finigan around your quarters lately?"
She shakes her head but Cara takes note of the flit of her eyes that contain an omission.
A secret.
A secret Cara is the wiser to, she'd more than once in the past seen the tiger prince slinking about the palace garden and some nights as she checks the perimeter wall she's sure it's the high shine of his eyes glowing green in the lamplit after dark near their lily pond before it's gone in a flickering blink.
A clever prince.
A possibly dangerous thing during this time in a she-cat's life.
Cheetara's words are almost a whisper. "Is Finigan sick?"
Cara smiles mildly at her, "No. But you will not be permitted to see him nor anyone else but myself and Miss Malyn for a few days' time."
The cub's mouth opens to protest before closing to numbly respond.
"Yes Miss Cara."
Seeing the hanging head of her young charge Cara explains. "You are not being punished that is a promise. But you must remain within your quarter's wing as with all clerics during their heat or awakening."
Cheetara has heard those words before in answer to a few absences in training, absences that tended to last many days.
Just weeks ago Liosha, a lion cleric of twenty seasons had not been present for nearly a week and she hears the bits of broken conversation, words that mean nothing but two are repeated enough to be filed for later mulling, 'heat', 'in season', and the sympathetic, understanding murmurs that follow amongst the older clerics.
She remembers only two days prior to Liosha's absence the she-cat taking to the vaulting obstable course, her slip and her fall more than thirty feet to the mat. The only real wound suffered pride dimming her blue eyes as she'd rubbed her sore foot.
She wonders at this and how this affects her and why she must be isolated but it isn't the most pressing thing she needs answers to.
"Why did Finigan attack me?"
Cara doesn't seem ready for the question pulling her eyes down to gather her thoughts. "What happened today must have been a bit frightening for you."
The cub doesn't answer but she's chewing at the inside of her cheek, something the caracal had observed the cheetah do when she'd felt self-conscious, seeking to conceal her anxiety.
"Finigan's intention was not to hurt you he was trying to mate with you."
Cheetara's small body stiffens with that same look she'd had pinned to her mat.
This word, this act Cheetara knows the meaning of.
"Finigan is…fresh in his awakening that means he has grown up and can now scent when she-cats are in heat. You are in heat, it is a time when your body tells you it is ready for cubs, it is also telling males, like Finigan, you are ready for mating to produce cubs. You mustn't blame him males can find themselves driven to madness when your scent changes, especially when it is wholly new for them, they may do strange, often uncontrollable things in their excitement and means to distract them from you may be very hard on their minds and bodies. It is best for both of your conditions to run its course with rest for you and exercise for him."
"Should such an incident ever occur again forget your training only a bite or scratch will free you, it is the only thing they respond to in such a state. It is your refusal and it will be heeded."
Cara wonders at the cub's footed claws unsheathing if she will flee before the healer is finished.
"I assure you she-cats often find their heat much easier to tolerate than males around her. You may find yourself lucky with a phantom heat every once in a while, who can know? But for now you are 'presenting' which is much more common so you will be noticed by males around you, you might feel a bit feverish, dizzy, anxious, tired, uncoordinated or any mix of the sort for a while, you may even feel some discomfort even pain."
Cheetara's cheeks pink in embarrassment and Cara knows it is too much to add the cub may also feel need atop it all. A need that would only grow with each heat if not kept in strict isolation away from the influence of male hormones.
"It only comes twice a year for a mere eight days maximum but as I've said when it does you are to remain in your quarters unless escorted by myself or Malyn, your lessons will continue if you are well enough for it. An easier time with be made of your heat without males influencing physical reactions."
She's positive Cheetara would breeze through every cycle in the impregnable walls of their clerisy.
Present day…
She's in heat.
The need to crawl from her heated skin hadn't been enough to make her aware, nor her recently obsessive behavior when it came to the scent of Tygra, the touch of him and the idea of the taste of him, it's her mind coming apart that makes her aware.
Cheetara finds sleep well for the first time in weeks until she'd woken the next day well into the afternoon feeling that familiar sensation of her insides churning, like they had before with Tygra's claws sliding inside her and his mouth suckling at her pulse, at the peak of release but unlike then the sensations refuse to ebb or tip over today leaving only a painful throbbing sensation that worsens like teeth gnawing at her.
It's more than a powerful memory of the previous evening, this she's sure of when she's in the middle of a solo training exercise and her staff slips from her hands with a clatter, once, twice and six times in only several minutes and she's shaking so badly when she reaches to retrieve it she nearly misses.
She holds her palm out to the blue sky feeling a single rain drop touch her wrist.
It's warm.
It isn't rain, it's sweat.
She does mediocre staff work for hours and finds her rate of failure in the exercises only increases.
Sweeping her gaze around the camp she forces herself to calmly rake her claws through her tangled hair twisting the long mass of it before wringing the alarming amount of sweat from it and retreating to her tent.
Cheetara drifts into a restless sleep in only minutes into her mediation waking to the sensation of her body quivering.
She feels a steady trick of moisture as her womb flutters and she needs to find Tygra.
But she remains still wringing her hands round her staff as that flutter intensifies to a point of throb of pain.
The long slow inhale of breath breaks with a gasp.
Willing her heat away would not work.
But perhaps a long walk would help ease her symptoms.
Cheetara turns about in a circle, each tree looking the same.
She's sure she cannot even trust her sense of smell to lead her back to camp. Everything was wrong, confusing.
In all her heat cycles the cleric was sure she'd never been so affected.
She has the desperate thought to call out for Tygra, but quickly dismisses it; he was clearly unaware of her plight for now and should remain so, she'd have to explain herself and she will not allow it.
Besides she couldn't find sense in dragging him into her disorientation, ensnaring him into such a personal and private affair.
It wasn't proper for a cleric.
Cheetara doesn't have to guess at how things would unfold and her body still hums in recall of Tygra's attentions she's certain any control she has summoned would be lost finding herself panting and moaning underneath him before long.
She longs for him again and she cannot think of a worse time to have been touched, the freshness of it pulls at her will. Perhaps just once, perhaps if she was mated once she would be free to think again.
The thought of mating brings a hope of relief and and she's suddenly angry with herself in her momentary disregard of the consequences.
Kits. Cubs. Kittens.
The certainty of such actions giving her a cub.
Any mating during her heat was almost a 100% certainty even first time matings driven by heat resulted in cubs with nine of ten odds but the idea of Tygra's teeth set hard into her neck and his large, powerful body blanketing hers and his member thrusting deep has the effect of cold water dousing her fevered skin and fire being set upon it again.
She bites back a whimper as a jolt of arousal slams into her before swiftly mutating into knifing pain and the razored sensation drags heavy through her womb before beginning the fluttering again, floating her back to sweet ecstasy that teases like a knowing touch against her sex.
She catches a nearby oak in her claws before she staggers, digging harshly into the bark trying to anchor, to remain standing somehow because she's breathless and dizzy and her thighs sealed flush together does very little to help.
The cleric has long given up the rituals of peace and stillness because her mind refuses to clear or do much more than process pain and pleasure and the hint of impending insanity with the blending of them together.
The thought of days more sinks her into frustration and despair and she rends her claws so hard into the bark of the assaulted tree she's sure her hands are bloody.
She's writhing before she's aware of it her aching sex smashed brutally against the coarse bark of the tree, its bark lumped, sharp but her pleasure far outweighs her pain as she ruts.
It licks through her womb and she's trembling again for a far different reason and she works towards her release without finesse or grace unable to help thinking of the tiger that had only recently opened her eyes to such a beautiful thing.
Even as she climbs towards climax she knows it won't compare to being touched by Tygra.
The cheetah tears her claws free after allowing her shuddered exhale, she's sore and perhaps swollen but feels somewhat sated for the moment.
She isn't much of a swimmer but grabs her bag and staff heading to the river needing to clean herself and to soothe her brutalized sex.
Cheetara isn't sure how long she sits in the river, its cold enough to chill her lungs but it gives her the window of clarity to think.
It was nearly evening and she hadn't seen Tygra the whole day, which was no real cause for concern as evening was sure to have him back in her tent.
Her scent would call to him before long perhaps even Lion-O.
But at 17 seasons perhaps she is safe in dealing with her king. Lions were by far the latest typically to experience the call, perhaps Lion-O had not an awakening and she could pass quietly out of heat.
If not for Tygra.
At twenty seasons old Tygra was likely a male passed his awakening, she isn't sure when tigers peak but she'd guess early like her own clan considering the likely low populace of tigers, if there were any others at all.
She doesn't worry much on the general, sensibility and self-control was the mark of males beyond thirty-five seasons, she'd be of no interest.
Kat was far too young to have experienced an awakening of the senses, the subtlety of her scent change lost on a cub so young.
Keeping the tiger at arms length would have to be her focus for the next few days, perhaps a week's time to be safe. And an accidental nip could bring a well of blood or a licking of her essence on his paws after bringing her to climax; a taste of her on his tongue would only make things disasterous putting him in a similar state of delirium making avoiding mating impossible.
Her thoughts break in realization.
Tygra had already tasted her and nothing of consequence had occurred in fact Tygra had licked his paws clean of her and though clearly aroused he bared it well enough with no loss of self-control.
Perhaps her heat had come only with the arrival of the day, perhaps Tygra had not an awakening yet at all, perhaps tiger clans were even later than lions in awakening.
A phantom heat?
Possible and even likely.
She'd been feeling symptoms for hours and neither princes had sought her out, if she was experiencing a phantom heat she would not have a scent change at all to signal it, only a higher likelihood of pain.
The pain was definitely very new and the desire unbelievable.
She's convinced.
Relief makes her skin warm even with the slap of cool air as she emerges from the water.
She may be facing her condition alone but she is safe from a fate of a belly swelling with kits she is sure she isn't ready for, nor any bloodshed over mating rights.
And though her skin grows hot once more to signal her fever's return she no longer feels pain and thanks the gods for small favors.
7 years ago…
"I've always trusted your judgement Jaga but I have to wonder at what prompted this?"
The king, at his most trusted advisor and ally's askance, had come with Jaga to the palace's weapons chamber. The swords, spears, arrows and staffs are the usual sort he is used to but on a rolled canvas across the marble floors are more curious weapons of a cleric design, there are even two hooded clerics kneel next to them carefully arranging them and another two of Jaga's clerisy standing in waiting at the entrance of the chamber.
"Weapons and warfare I understand has lost Tygra's attention," Jaga starts. "If I recall correctly."
Claudus nods, he'd told the wizard as such days prior.
"And you came up with this? Tygra will be thrilled!" The king smiles really looking at the weapons neatly displayed, "I can only hope it holds his interest long enough. His love of swords seems to have soured, staffs, broadswords, archery the same. His whip is the only thing he seems to hold onto. I fear his stimulation isn't enough, he learns so fast it's difficult to keep his attention."
The old wizard is standing at the window looking out into the garden. "And much more so lately," he adds conversationally.
A tree of oranges rustles so minutely one would think a little bird playing amongst the fruit but an orange that is not a fruit but a pelt peeks through the foliage, climbing.
The overhanging branch bending lower and lower towards the ivory wall separating the palace from the clerisy.
The king mades a sound of agreement to Jaga's comment, massive arms folded in front of his chest.
"I suppose it is to be expected turning thirteen seasons can bring a lot of changes, he's growing like a reed you know, he towers over Lion-O and it seems to have happened in only a week."
There's a pride in the king, the statement is an exaggerated one but no one could deny Prince Tygra was maturing quickly.
"Lion-O will catch up in time," Jaga assures him. "I believe he's gained an inch or so himself this winter."
The smile the king gives is one unchecked in thought of his cubs.
"Yes, but I believe you've something more on your mind Jaga."
Jago tears his attention away from the open window with a raised white brow. "And what would have my king draw such a conclusion?"
"Well you've been staring out that window for quite a spell now."
Jaga's expression remains serene as he turns his full attention to Claudus even as Tygra teeters on the tree branch leaping onto the wall and into the cleric perimeter.
The head cleric remains unconcerned spotting a few of his clerics amongst the cleric yard.
The prince would not get far.
"Have I?"
Claudus expects the jaguar knows full well he has because Jaga despite his age was not a cat to have a mind that got lost in its wanderings.
"You have," the king humors.
"Prince Tygra was in the garden just a moment ago."
"He's usually there in the afternoons seems to be where he likes to clear his head."
"And now he is on the grounds of the clerisy." At the king's full attention Jaga continues, "as of late Prince Tygra seems to only desire taking to the trees to cross our wall."
The king no longer looks dismissive. "Tygra's been bothering your clerics? Odd, I've never known him to go prowling where he is not permitted."
"It can hardly be his fault Claudus, it is a difficult time in his life."
The king shakes his head, mouth set in a stern line. "No excuses for him my friend. What would possess him to do such a thing?"
Jaga knows the question is one without a clue to the answer the king is asking himself.
"I believe an awakening may be exactly what possesses him my lord. A she-cat cub in my clerisy seems to have captured his attention."
"An awakening, are you sure Jaga?"
"Quite certain. Luckily my sentry Cara has been watchful of him and of her. It would seem she has consumed his attention and he has shown all signs of intent to try and claim her."
At this information Claudus nods with a solemn look and something like sympathy.
"I hadn't thought it'd happen this soon. He's quite early."
Jaga nods and replies simply: "perhaps not so early for tiger clans."
"Yes," Claudus agrees, "we couldn't possibly know."
There is relief in the king in knowing Lion-O would likely be mated and bonded to a she-cat long before any need for worry as their clan did not often experience awakening until nearly twenty seasons.
But Tygra is who he worries for now, his son was already plagued with enough energy and power already at such a young age. For months he'd become sullen and moodier than usual as he grew into his long limbs and large paws, still a slender cub anyone could note the subtle shifting into heavier musculature, he would grow to be sizable.
"You mentioned his intentions to claim her, your cleric, how does she fare?" the King prods, curious as well about the female.
"Better now than yesterday, we had not noted the signs of awakening in another, she was unharmed but shaken in an aggressive pursuit."
A sound of claws ticking along the marbled floor of the northern hall catch both the king and old wizard's ear and suddenly there isn't a sound of feet at all and Tygra is all but scurrying by the entry obviously hoping not to be spotted.
"Tygra."
At the sound of his father's call the striped cub freezes. "Yes Father?"
The king simply motions with a big meaty claw and Tygra practically tiptoes forward with suspicious eyes shifting at the scattered clerics and Jaga, he looks his father square in the eye but the tell of his ears shifting backward let the two cats know where his feet want to go.
The king's hands practically swallow his cub's own when he picks Tygra's up from hanging at his sides, noting the purpling redness beneath his claws and large slivers of wood, bits of dried blood are obvious in the beds of them.
"What happened here?"
Tygra fidgets in a subtle gesture meant to secure his paw away but the king is having none of it examining the flesh that flames brightly under the cub's white fur.
"Climbing," Tygra explains in nearly a mumble again those round eyes sweep over to Jaga as though expecting the old wizard to interject, to somehow know.
Jaga says nothing nor breaks the nervy cub's gaze though his blue eyes are calm and kind.
"Scarlet criers?" his father wonders his tone already preparing to be scolding.
Tygra shakes his head, shrugging, "just oaks mostly, got bored."
The lie comes so easily and Jaga is sure it isn't missed by the king either, Tygra wasn't the type to take to climbing trees until his hands bled, he was a smarter cub than to give into obsessive habits if they could be helped.
If they could indeed be helped.
Tygra had clearly climbed the trees of the garden over and over and over again hundreds of times in a compulsive search seeking the cleric.
The king releases his son's hand before the lion notes something else, before Tygra knows it his head is clasped gently between his father's paws and when those eyes go wider and rounder in startled surprise the king gets a clear look.
All the color of young Tygra's iris seems swallowed, leaving only blackness in their extreme dilation and it's all the affirmation Claudus needs, he notes the jittered way the cub curls and uncurls his fist in a show of claws, highly agitated.
"I want you to get those paws cleaned up with the healer and this cut," the king said gesturing to the red wound running parallel to the tiger's cheekbone.
"Yes Father," Tygra nods obediently.
The tiger's head is released and still his fur stands prickled as though preparing for a fight as the usually still, disciplined cat shuffles his feet still rooted as he has not been dismissed, he's nearly dancing in place itching for leave of the chamber.
"Off you go," his father simply says with a wave of his hand.
Once the steps of the tiger are out of earshot Claudus speaks once more.
"Already so far gone, I'll arrange for his weapons work and combat training to increase as much as he can stand." Claudus can't get those black eyes out of his head and he's sure Tygra's mild temper will not last
"And more," he decides. "It's going to be a hard time for him, best we can do is keep his blood from boiling by spending that energy at least until the female is no longer receptive. He will not take well to being restricted from her."
"They never do."
The king looks troubled and a frown is beginning to deepen with his quiet. He knows all too well what awakening males were like, fiery and prone to aggression and violence, even with rigorous physical activity. And black eyed expressions were beyond dangerous and if mating didn't occur someone was bound to be hurt in the male's frustration.
"We can expect some measure of control to be found in time," Jaga assures the pensive king. A withered hand touchs the lion's shoulder. "Do not trouble yourself."
"Satisfy a curiosity for me old friend, the she-cat, her clan?"
"A cheetah a bit younger than he, prideful and stubborn," Jaga says fondly.
Claudus shares a smile with the old cat before sighing, "a pity."
Cleric or not he had a brief hope of a tigress, though she'd have been bound to cleric duty he had still grow hopeful Tygra's instincts would find him a match.
But no, Tygra would remain the first tiger spotted in nearly fifty years.
And his heart dwells on a striped cub who was probably alone in the world.
Present day...
It's midday when Cheetara arrives back at camp, its no longer empty, the kits have returned from whatever mischief of the day they've managed and Panthro looks busy inside the thundertank fiddling with some odd cylinder from the tank's overhead compartment.
She spots Tygra sitting under an oak far upstream a few yards of Lion-o standing at the river's edge.
Her king gives her a side-eyed look before commenting, "Was just starting to think you got lost out there."
She's a bit put off by the way Lion-O seems so dismissive dispute his comment.
"Of course not I just wanted to wash the grit from everything," she says indicating her bag which she sets neatly at the edge of her tent. "Hope you didn't worry."
Lion-O shrugs, "none of my business."
The nonchalant reply leaks bitterness and she suspects his soreness is a spillover of their last conversation of tents that ended with Lion-O and Tygra seething in a power struggle.
It occurs to her she has not done as she resolved to do in speaking with either about it.
The debate of whether to follow after her king or not is made up by Tygra.
"Leave him, not our problem if he wants to pout like a child for days at a time."
"A slightly better alternative than pretending things aren't different now and nothing's wrong," Cheetara adds.
She takes to the long grasses downhill from camp he follows grumbling.
"Nothing is wrong, he's right it's not of his business."
Cheetara sighs; she's much too weary to play middle cat with the two princes, especially a tiger who's determined not to care two licks about Lion-O's attitude towards them.
Or maybe not.
He stops their walk finding them as least half a mile from camp almost hidden in the tall grass, he chances a glance expecting disappointment finally getting a good look at her, she's clearly exhausted. She smells like rain, no its the river, and her usual sweet scent and something faint that's sharp and biting, like a slip of orange or lemon.
Her stippled blonde tresses are damp and tangled, perhaps from a swim.
His large hands rest against her forehead sweeping down her cheek and she leans closer and he can tell it is an unconscious movement.
"Are you okay?" he decides is the best question. "You look a little…
"Yes, I just—I'm a bit tired."
His hand soothes against her cheek petting softly. "You should rest then you feel warm."
"I'm fine, besides I've slept half the afternoon already."
There's a toothy pleased grin at that goes crooked making Tygra's expression shift from suggestive to downright carnal. "Well something must have left you completely exhausted."
She's stuck in that expression and his ears pick up her flying pulse.
He pulses too, surprised at how readily he responds to her now.
There's a quiet to indication a sudden mood shift into more intimate, secret things and Tygra's sweeping her damp hair away to fall past one shoulder.
He's moving slowly to allow her any objection but he needs to touch her.
Tygra leans closer for another pull of her scent and his nose finds her pulse only half a second before his tongue playing on a tiny spot behind her ear.
"Tygra," she sighs.
Cheetara slips away and there's an apology in her eyes for her aloofness.
"I'm sorry, I…"
Perhaps she is overwhelmed? Seeking some distance after their racy encounter?
Was it too much for the cleric?
The distance between them is palpable as well as visible and he doesn't like that she seems to have put herself out of his reach purposefully.
He can take a hint.
"It's okay I get it." Even to his ears he sounds put out.
He'd managed all day to not pursue her as they often spent some hours of the day apart and that had been more difficult than anything he'd ever done, especially after the touch and taste of her still burned in his mind.
He'd been licking at his paws on a strange impulse all day even after a long morning wash in the river. He'd managed distance but found himself unable to focus on anything throughout the day but the idea of getting her panting beneath him.
And now that she stands feet away he wonders if his raging hormones are that obvious.
Obviously as she's wrapped her arms round herself in a protective gesture.
But he's been throbbing for her all day to the point of pain.
She'd been so pretty and sweet and willing and his.
He wants her badly.
But she has that expression again that definitely unease and he's ashamed of himself.
Tygra moves to dismiss himself only to find her staff blocking his movement.
Cheetara raises a mischievous bow. She twists the weapon in a complex spin of movement, challenging him and with it offering a negotiation.
Ah, so sparring, they were a bit overdue.
"Weapons?" he asks.
At this Cheetara sets aside her staff eyeing his left side meaningfully.
He too puts aside his whip grinning deviously, he may very well get trounced in a fight with the cleric but he's sure he can at least get his hands on her once or twice. The bruises resulting mean nothing and in an odd way he looks forward to them.
She's made him a masochist.
His eyes are wide open when she attacks dropping to sweep his legs out beneath him, her speed making the attack impossible to thwart.
"Eyes open," she teases tapping one finger underneath hers.
"Well you didn't say go," he replies smoothly. "What can you expect from a cheetah though?"
Egging her was an old game of his and when he climbs to his feet she strikes him square in the chest with an open-palm quick strike and a kick to his side it's measure just enough to rattle his balance but not cause any real harm.
She's dancing out of his reach long before he can react.
"Much more than tigers obviously, all talk and no action."
Cheetara moves to strike again he manages to block the blow with a forearm thrusting it against her palm in a push, she falls backward hard grimacing.
"Sorry, you okay?" Tygra comes kneeling to see to her.
She doesn't understand.
It had been a mild hit that shouldn't have taken her from her feet but she's lying flat in the long grasses just the same.
Her head feels dizzied and far away.
He'd struck her with less than half the usual force in sparring, it had been completely playful and she's sure even Kat could have kept his feet.
A cleric should never have been taken down so easily.
Sometimes burns in her belly and heats her cheeks. She'd never felt so weak.
"Didn't mean to hurt you."
His concern just makes it worse, because he's unguarded for an attack, unthreatened by her, coming to gather her into his arms like delicate she-cat needing rescue from barely a nudge that crumples her like a paper doll.
Though her fall would likely leave a bruise as pain sprouts from hip to knee she comes to her feet forcing her weight to the injured side, instead of muffling as she'd hoped the pain goes full bloom.
It begins in tandem with the fluttering, the return of that deep sensual tickle that mocks her.
The absence of pain, the loss of pleasure both come blaring back to life awaiting to nudge her towards true completion.
Tygra sees her eyes go wide as a small wince escapes her.
"Chee-
"I'm fine," she says but it's overly loud.
Desperate.
There isn't an objection made because she's attacking with a sequence of blows but he isn't countering only blocking and slipping past what he can, he's more occupied with observing her.
She's trying not to pant and blinking as though dazed and her fast moving blows are slowing.
He finally snaps two hands out catching her wrists a movement that should not be possible, she's trembling so much.
When he has her eye to eye something desperate flickers through them. "What's wrong?"
Too close. He's much too close.
His grip loosens again opening himself for an attack to hold her more gently and her muscles give a hint of relaxing.
He has no longer a will to play this game as he's sure he's playing another that he isn't sure of the rules.
Something is terribly wrong.
A reply is stuck in her throat, a physical lump that blocks breath from coming, just a single word she cannot manage to utter: please.
She has to win, to gain distance now.
Cheetara plants a foot into his chest kicking hard, as she'd hoped his hold breaks but he hooks an unguarded calf by his own leg.
Before they've hit the ground she's on top the impact slapping their bodies together and she gives a sharp cry that is definitely pain.
But when he makes to seize her she hisses, a throaty angry sound he's never heard her make before, only the more pleasant variations.
It proves difficult to hold onto her and he's grown tired and frustrated himself at her evasion, he needs this game over, she isn't acting herself.
He does the only thing he can think of and she's stuck.
Tygra's practically sitting on her, his weight many times her own pinning her slight waist to where Cheetara finds her best efforts to wriggle do nothing to even inch him and Tygra dispassionately turns his gaze slightly behind him to watch her kick nothing but empty air.
"Guess I win."
She wants to protest his unfair tactics, sitting on her hardly seems fair, he has to know she has not a chance of ever setting herself free as heavy as he is without any leverage and the effort of it is leaving her breathless and when she moves to deliver an open palmed punch to his unguarded torso he's quick as a snake to intercept her hand and then the other.
Once he has both wrists he wastes no time twisting them up above her head pinning them there.
"And since I do win I guess you'll have to talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."
She bucks hard unwilling to surrender and one leg comes free from under his knee.
He doesn't understand and she absolutely can't tell him, she doesn't care that she's panicking in the trap she has created herself because she just wants to do as her heat bids so bad.
She can't move at all now he has her freed leg recaptured and caught against his hip.
He swallows harshly as he suddenly feels warm, hot even like being submerged in warm, warm water and caressed as he finally gets a good whiff of her scent.
Past the clean scent of the river, mixing with her usual scent, that sweet tart smell is stronger and it occurs to him it is responsible for the way his mouth watered and tingled before. He'd tasted only a small sample of it the previous evening.
She freezes. Feeling Tygra, hot and twitching against her the v of her open thighs and his brown eyes cloud and darken with a predatory intent and his claws go slipping out unsheathed against her ribs.
By the way his nostrils flare he's finally noticed.
So she is presenting, she's not experiencing a phantom heat at all.
And worse she knows that look, Tygra is completely gone in the rapture of her smell, captivated, irises disappearing.
The far look as he starts to throb against her belly tells her he has every intention to claim her.
It's only an inch or so of free space under him but its enough room to escape, thrusting herself up to twist round and crawl out from under him in a smooth quick maneuver. She's crawling forward when Tygra has her again, wrapping an arm just under her waist round the front of her thighs and locking them in his grip.
She's dragged backwards, the few scant inches she had managed lost; she digs her claws into the dirt shifting to kick backwards when Tygra grips her harder.
Her teeth won't find him in her position nor her claws.
Cheetara is thrown back into a memory of nearly a decade ago being captured in the grip of another male and she isn't half as afraid as before, she feeling almost sedate, even when she feels warm breath across her rump.
Tygra feels as though he's floating tracing his nose along the inside of one slender, lovely thigh to the source of his desire.
It's a shot of heaven.
It's too much, the scent of her dancing round his nose and his hunger for another taste can't be denied any longer.
Cool air skims her exposed thighs and her breeches momentarily bind her ankles before she falls forward with the force of them being yanked again to rest round her knees, the tough material holding well under the assault of Tygra's strength.
Her sex glistens before him pink flesh tipping more towards an angry red color making it look all the more tender and in need of attention.
The tiger's mouth is hot and wet between her legs, his tongue gentle rasping across her swollen sex. She wants to sob in relief as his tongue caresses away the hurt of abrasions.
A pressure builds as he adjusts to an open-mouthed kiss against her most intimate place, tongue and lips dragging slow to collect her moisture.
Cheetara kicks and bucks and thrashes her claws filling with grass and dirt but she's locked as he feasts forcing her to meet head on the intensity of pleasure, when she grows weak and tired of fighting his claws brush the top of one buttock possessively claiming victory.
Her heart flurries beneath her chest like a little bird pressed in the cool grass and she concentrates on breathing and that gets harder because she can feel him licking, kissing and drinking in her wetness and the noises he makes of obvious and depraved enjoyment has her head spinning.
The cleric is sure the intensity of it has blinded her and it takes minutes for her to realize the moans and shrieking breaths are coming from her.
He's answering her cries with purrs that sound garbled as he swallows her essence.
She surrenders when the sedate feeling hits her again her panic leaving her quietly.
Tygra groans like someone eating for the first time in days and the sound pulsates through her and dropping her quaking arms she offers him more by tilting her spotted backside up and her balance becomes better so she rocks backward.
Cheetara is sure she's been blinded, her vision colored in yellow starlight as his tongue slithers past her clinching walls.
His claws drag again along her, leaving red scratchs along one spotted cheek and in clenching her backside she squeezes the tongue within her more tightly and she nearly cries.
Teeth follow as his canines sink into the muscle of her scratched flesh.
The sharp shock is enough to bring her sanity forward.
Cheetara lashes out her claws catching Tygra's shoulder, he growls spitting mad but it doesn't last as the brown of his eyes return as he blinks, panting.
He has to look around for a moment to gain his bearings before both are forced with only each other.
Tygra is the first to gain breath, his throat bobbing with a swallow. "You-you're in heat."
She's not sure why she expects anger or accusation but his words are simply a trembling recognization.
Cheetara remains where she's fallen, hair mussed and sweat sheening her, she does arch her hips up to pull up her breeches avoiding eye contact and Tygra has to tear his eyes away at her beautiful thighs and well pleasured sex disappearing from his view.
"Yes," she agrees smally.
He continues to pant for a moment then his tongue flicks out over his lips and her taste lingers. It is much stronger, sweeter and tarter than the night before. "I thought maybe but I wasn't sure, I didn't-."
Tygra flounders for an explanation, she understands, they've both underestimated the pull in their instincts, the sneaky way it stole logic.
She follows his eyes movement to how they rove over her and she knows distraction is necessary for both of them.
He's trembling like her in a strange withdraw of their incomplete act.
"I'm sorry, I thought maybe you wouldn't know, hadn't guessed, I've been undetected before."
"Never by me," he tells her gravely.
Cheetara looks stunned at his confession, over the years she'd seen him afar a few times, sometimes in the palace garden, other times in the cleric yard but it'd never occurred to her the times he dared brave the yard she'd be in season and he was seeking her for mating.
"You didn't say anything," she says.
Tygra shakes his head, "We were cubs, I definitely didn't think confessing wanting to mate with you would gain me any points. Besides, when did you figure the best time for me to bring up obsessedly aching with the scent of you would have been?"
Tygra licks at the corner of his mouth again, his eyes squeezed shut in the intensity of her taste. She knows he isn't doing it consciously but his licking has her ready again despite her despair at their situation.
He's tasted her in full heat. Her pheromones were strong enough to kick his blood into a frenzy, it could take days but Tygra was not any different than any other male cat in that sense, triggering the hind brain. Sex, violence and a need for possession would beat away all sense of civility in time.
He's going to suffer as much as she.
He's suffering now.
She means to just slip her hand along his jaw and tell him to breath through the swelling of nerves but her flesh is stronger and he eagerly opens his mouth to her tongue against his lips for a kiss.
Its out of control in seconds her mind goes pleasantly fuzzy again, she climbs his lap for more contact and his claws sink holes into her clothing pressing her harder to him, her scratches throbbing against the warmth of his hands both trying their best to swallow the others groans.
She moans, this time she is pained, her cries plaintive.
Her distress is enough to break his cloud of pleasure at the same time their mouths part.
He releases her buttocks to wind one hand to her back and the other to the nape of her neck, she's pushing away making those noises of pain attempting to separate their lower bodies.
He's careful setting her prone on her back not sure of what to do for her.
Cheetara feels as though she's been lying on her back suffocating for hours but Tygra is still sitting next to her stroking her hair and even her short blow brows creased in distress.
She needs release and she laments she hadn't let him finish.
He lays a soft kiss just behind her ear and she feels her breeches being slipped from her hips and his touch petting the silk of her belly for a few moments and she can feel the corners of eyes leaking as he coaxes her legs apart.
A kiss is placed on each of her lids tasting the salt of tears that refuse to spill before he takes a look.
Her delicate sex is dark, swollen with blood engorging it.
It's not a wonder moving against her was painful, too much friction.
"Let me help, I know it hurts."
Cheetara nods her belly quivering.
"Shh," he whispers against her belly before kissing it.
She wants to cry for a different reason than pain when his tongue finds her slit again knowing just how to relieve her.
For now.
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