#1 JUL 12, 2007 · 18 yr ago
Chapter 33 of Signal in the Sky
[center]The Slim
By Purrsia Kat & Spaced Angel[/center]
It was night when he awoke. Lion-O opened his eyes to a starless sky, hung heavy with clouds that blotted out all but the faintest trace of moonlight. There was drizzle in the air, coating the rocks around him with a thin film of water that made them glisten in what little light there was.
How so much different from several hours before. He had been following Grune across a rocky terrain, he remembered that much. Grune was up to something, and Lion-O had been determined to find out what. One of Lion-O’s theories was that Grune had also heard the signal from the New Thundera, and if so, must be stopped from executing whatever sinister plot he were sure Grune would devise. In the days since he’d noticed Grune’s presence again, the Mutant issue took a back seat. And like the Mutants, Lion-O had a plan for how to deal with Grune in a way that would get him out of their hair once and for all. A plan that was best, he felt, executed alone.
But after that, or how he had managed to end up on his back amongst these sharp-edged rocks was a blank. Above him rose a cliff, several hundred feet high and darkly sleek now with the rain that dripped down from its craggy surface. Had he fallen, he wondered? No, it was impossible to survive a fall like that. He’d have caught himself with the claw line, had he come over the edge. However, that would explain his survival but not his loss of memory and time. Clearly he’d been unconsciousness for some time for it had been daylight when he’d set out after Grune. Now, it was night.
Looking around, he did notice that this was the perfect place for an ambush. Sizeable boulders littered the terrain, any of which could provide a suitable hiding place for his foe. If so, he had to assume he had wandered straight into a trap. Perhaps he and Grune had come to blows. Perhaps he had tripped and knocked himself out. Perhaps Grune had hit him. Either way, he was glad that Grune had not stayed around to finish the job. That in itself didn’t make much sense. Grune had never given up on his ambition to see the Lord of the Thundercats dead and Lion-O knew the rogue Thunderian would not be kind if ever he had Lion-O in a compromising position again. If he had been helpless, someone was clearly looking out for him to have spared his life. Then again, perhaps Grune had thought he was already dead.
Nothing remained to confirm this theory one way or another, and Lion-O supposed it was a moot point now anyway. Getting up made his head spin and he felt unusually light on his feet. He reached for the support of the cliff wall as his body rebelled against its upright position and waited for the dizziness to pass. By the time it had, the moon had broken from behind a cloud, casting a poor glow on his surroundings. Even illuminated, he could still not picture what had transpired here. The only thing that could show him for certain was the Sight beyond Sight powers of the Sword of Omens.
He reached for it and his grasping hand found only air. Glancing down, he saw that both it and Claw Shield were gone. Frantically, he cast about for the Sword and, failing to see it, called it to his hand. He stood there, arm idiotically stretched out for something that was clearly not coming. As his arm fell back by his side, his feeling of confusion deepened. Whatever had happened here had seen him left for dead and the Sword of Omens taken from him. It was afternoon then and, judging from the cold that had pervaded his whole body, night had crept in several hours ago. So where were his friends, the other Thundercats? He could not believe that his disappearance had not been noticed by someone; surely not by now.
His sense of abandonment soon passed as he remembered the reason he was here by himself in the first place. There had been a festival at the Berbil village and he had volunteered to remain in the Lair on watch. He remembered the others protesting that his presence was required. Leon in particular had been insistent that his dad should be there. A feigned headache, however, had secured his stay in the Lair and the other Thundercats had gone without him. Then, giving them enough time to clear the immediate area, he had put the defences on automatic and set out in search of Grune.
It had been his plan all along to tail Grune alone, in hopes the crafty devil wouldn’t realize he was being tailed. Cheetara’s reaction during the last Council Meeting told him the others likely wouldn’t like what he had planned anyway, so it was, Lion-O reasoned, for the best. Grune would be brought to justice once and for all, Lion-O possessing the element of surprise by pursuing Grune instead of the other way around. Grune would be exiled again for his crimes against Third Earthlings, just as he’d been exiled before, and one of their problems standing in the way of going home would be solved. Grune presented a bigger threat and so it was Grune that would be dealt with before the Mutants. The others would see that he was capable and reasonable, and hopefully would no longer question his plan for Slithe’s crew.
The long-range scanners had given him a fair idea of where Grune would be. Unlike his Mutant allies, he did not linger in Castle Plun-darr, but wandered the less attractive regions of Third Earth like a lost soul, seeking for what Lion-O could not guess. But odds were it was not good, and Lion-O had long grown tired of Grune’s single-minded pursuits. It would end between them this day, one way or another.
Not that he had been much interested in Grune’s reasons beforehand, until Lion-O thought his sudden activity might be indicative of a need to do something to thwart New Thundera, or at least, the Thundercats’ efforts to go home. The Mutants weren’t going to stop them, and Lion-O wouldn’t let a rogue, former Thundercat do so either. Back when Tygra had announced the detection of the signal from ‘New’ Thundera, he had meant what he said. He wanted to go home. No one had been successful in finding a way to circumvent the Mutant problem and his frustrations had increasingly grown until he was able to rationalise capturing them and sending them back to whatever punishment awaited them on Plun-Darr as an only option. What else was there to do? They could not leave the Mutants on Third Earth, nor could they risk them following the Thundercats to Thundera. While Lion-O was not quite ready to countenance actually killing any of them himself, he found that he cared little what fate awaited them at the hands of their own people. Snarf also had a point in noting Grune, too, needed to be dealt with and since he had resurfaced, there was no time like the present to make him face justice once and for all.
That, then, was the reason he was here. Sad to say, however, that his plan clearly had been unsuccessful. Grune had evaded capture and taken the Sword of Omens. Getting it back would mean telling the others of his deception and involving them in a rescue mission. It was not a prospect he relished, though he knew it could have turned out much worse. At least he had his life.
He could imagine what they would say about how he had ended up in this mess. Cheetara had made her feelings clear on the subject of his grandstanding and Lion-O doubted that she was the only member of the Lair to feel that way. However he tried to explain this little venture away, he was sure the others would be less than impressed. Part of being a leader meant owning up to one’s mistakes, so with a deep breath, Lion-O figured he ought to work toward facing up to his most recent one.
As the world in general seemed unaware of his plight, a long journey home on foot awaited. His friends had to be worried, and might even be out searching for him if the festival was over or anyone checked up on the Lair. Lion-O felt guilty for causing them the worry he assumed was consuming them, and he hoped they’d be so relieved to see him in one piece that they might not be as angry with him as he had but a moment before feared. First, though, was the arduous climb up the face of the cliff without aid of his claw line.
After much effort and grunting, along with very careful foot placements, he pulled himself up to the top, all the while wary that Grune may still be lying in wait. He took a moment to recover from his efforts and assured himself that nobody was lurking in the shadows. Logically, Grune wouldn’t wait for him to awake to jump him – any sense of honor Grune may have once had evaporated as the years wore on without success in taking Lion-O’s life. No, if Grune had had the chance, Lion-O wouldn’t be living to regret it. Somehow, he’d gotten the Sword but couldn’t finish the job. That was the only logical explanation.
His head had cleared, although the chill remained in his bones. Strange though that, while he felt it, his body had yet to register the cold by shivering. His skin was icy to the touch and yet his teeth did not chatter. He toyed briefly with the possibility that he was suffering from hypothermia, quickly dismissing it when he realised that he would never have woken up again, let alone made it to his feet if that were the case.
Whatever the reason, the exercise of the long trek home would certainly warm him up. He ignored the nagging voice of logic that told him the climb up should have already done that, all the while trying to choose the right words to explain himself to his friends as a preferred distraction. By the time the Lair appeared, he was pretty sure what to say. Although the Code of Thundera upheld truth as a virtue, it said nothing about lying through omission. The sensors had detected Grune, he would say. That was true. He had wondered what he was doing in such a remote part of Third Earth. Again, that came quite close to the truth. He had followed and somehow lost the Sword. There was truth enough in that story to satisfy the most curious of minds. No need to mention his other reasons; that would only complicate matters, though he shrugged off another voice of conscience that reminded him he should be owning up to his mistake instead of dancing around it. It’s just that, he felt so foolish. Surely details could wait until after he’d rested and a plan was formed to get the Sword back.
Finally on home soil just daylight pierced its way through the gray overcast sky to herald the dawn of another day, he found the drawbridge fully extended and the Paw lifted where the ThunderTank was housed. The other Thundercats were definitely home and no doubt waiting for an explanation. Wandering into the hangar, he prepared himself for the worst. Instead, he heard a curse and ducked just in time as a spanner flew across the room, missing his head by inches.
It did not bode well. Panthro was not in a good mood. He hoped the spanner had not been meant for him, although knowing Panthro, that was mild. Taking a deep breath, Lion-O sought him out and found him fiddling with something inside an open panel in the ThunderTank’s rear.
Lion-O waited at a respectful distance for Panthro to acknowledge his presence. After several minutes passed without a reaction, Lion-O cleared his throat and tried to be as contrite as possible.
“Panthro,” Lion-O began. “About what happened earlier. I guess you know and you’re angry.”
“Damn fool!” Panthro muttered. His head emerged from the panel and he took a step back from his work. “Why, Lion-O? Why!”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.” It didn’t escape Lion-O that Panthro couldn’t even bear to look at him. This wasn’t going to be as easy to smooth over as he’d thought.
“Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning? Why did you let us find out like this!” In his anger, he struck the open panel. It broke away from its hinges and clattered to the floor. “Of all the dumb, arrogant, ignorant, pig-headed… gah!”
His hands were shaking as he bent to retrieve a dropped tool.
“Panthro, I’m sorry,” Lion-O said, taken aback by the panther’s display of emotion. It was powerful, even for Panthro. But Lion-O supposed he deserved as much, and he was right. “You’re right. I should have told you.”
“Why did it have to happen to him? He was just a boy,” Panthro was saying. “Just a damn stupid boy.”
There was an edge to his voice that Lion-O had never heard before. When he looked more closely, he saw the unmistakeable sparkle of a tear making its way down Panthro’s face. A chill colder than that already in his body settled over his soul as he realised Panthro had slipped from present to past tense.
“By Jaga, Panthro, what’s happened?”
“Why did you do it, Lion-O?” Panthro went on. His depth of emotion was evident when he buried his face in his hand and scrubbed away the stray tear. “I tried,” he whispered. “I thought I’d taught you everything you’d need to know and then you go and do this. Thought you’d learned not to dash off like that. Damn fool!”
The reference to teaching gave Lion-O all the clues he needed. WilyKat had become Panthro’s shadow, soaking up every piece of information he had to offer. Wherever Panthro was, it was usual to find WilyKat close behind. If the ThunderTank was Panthro’s baby, then WilyKat had become a kind of foster parent. That he was not anywhere to be seen now boded ill.
Lion-O was sure now that something had happened to WilyKat. Panthro had hinted at Lion-O being responsible for it. He racked his brains for any reason why that might be until the ghost of a memory floated back to him. WilyKat’s face loomed large in an incident that had happened a few days ago. He had been out alone, trying to get a locator fix on where Grune’s wanderings took him, when he become convinced he was being followed. He had hidden and waited. WilyKat had stumbled into his trap and his face had been a picture of guilt as he had tried to come up with a plausible explanation for what he was doing. Out for a walk was the best he could manage, a likely tale that Lion-O had not believed in the slightest. No one went for a walk with their face, hands and clothes still grimy with grease from the ThunderTank. It had occurred to him that WilyKat had been sent by the others to spy on him and that thought had made him more secretive, hence the reason for his feigned headache of earlier to get some time to himself. He hadn’t thought he’d been followed yesterday, but…
Watching Panthro now, however, he was fast coming to the conclusion that perhaps he had not been as clever as he had thought. If WilyKat had followed him before, then he might have been following him yesterday as well. He would have followed him straight into whatever trouble Lion-O had found for himself. What had happened next was fast becoming obvious. He had never seen Panthro cry, not even when Thundera had died. On the one occasion he had spoken of his wife, Lion-O had seen the first beginnings of a loss of control in the nerve that had started twitching in his jaw. That grief had been reserved for past, for old wounds that had been accepted, but had never entirely healed. What he was witnessing now was the grief of the present caused by the deepest loss of all.
Lion-O could picture the scene in his mind’s eye. A trap sprung that he had walked into. A battle that he had lost. WilyKat, loyal to the end, following on the orders of his friends, seeing Lion-O struck down, had rushed to his defence. That would explain why Lion-O had been spared, but poor Kat must have paid with his life. Grievously injured, he must have somehow made it away from that rocky place. Perhaps he had tried to reach his friends to tell them what had occurred, and they found him broken and lifeless first. Or even worse, had Grune taken his lifeless body back to the Lair and dumped it there for the Thundercats to find?
One of these horrors had to be true. No one had come to find him because no one had known where he was. Sorrow, like the rain that kept up its insistent drumbeat rhythm on the Paw, hung about the Lair, reaching out to all to share in its mourning. The unthinkable had happened. A Thundercat had died and he, Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, was to blame. No wonder Panthro’s reaction was so strong. Lion-O’s mistake was far more grave than he’d imagined, making Lion-O feel more numb than ever.
Overwhelmed by his own grief, Lion-O steadied himself up against the ThunderTank, waiting for stinging tears that stubbornly refused to come. He was too shocked for tears. It was all too unreal. Panthro had been right to call him all those names. He had been arrogant to think he could take on something like this alone. He was pig-headed in believing he knew best. He was stupid and foolish and dumb and every name under the rainbow. Knowing that now gave him little comfort. Hindsight was a wonderful thing, but of no use to anyone, certainly not to WilyKat, who had given his life to save an unworthy Lord of the Thundercats.
The soft swish of the door caught his attention and he looked up to see Cheetara heading towards the Tank. Her eyes were red from crying and she held her arms tightly folded. She did not look in Lion-O’s direction, but instead went straight to Panthro. Given the circumstances, Lion-O couldn’t blame her.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked him.
“Working,” he grunted.
“Panthro, come inside now.”
“I’m fine. Just leave me be.”
“Panthro, please.”
“I said, leave me alone!” He turned on her, anger blazing in his eyes. “What do you want me to do, Cheetara?”
“Not be on your own. Is that so unreasonable? I know you think throwing yourself into work will help but --”
He shook his head. “I can’t be in there right now. I have to deal with this in my own way.” He reached out to her and grasped her shoulder, his tone turning softer. “Thanks anyway. How are the others?”
“Not good, as you’d expect.” She swallowed hard and bowed her head. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said, fighting back her tears. “If only we hadn’t gone to that stupid party.”
Panthro pulled her to him and held her while she wept. “He would have gone anyway. You know what he’s like.” He coughed slightly. “I mean, he was always a headstrong boy.”
“But he wasn’t a boy, Panthro, he was a man.” Cheetara sniffed heavily. “I thought he’d grown out of all that. I thought he’d changed.”
“We all did, Cheetara. Perhaps that was our mistake. I can’t help feeling that I failed him somehow.”
“You didn’t,” said Cheetara. “He respected you, Panthro. He looked up to you. What happened was no one’s fault but Lion-O’s.”
Lion-O started. The words stung him like few ever have, but he kept his silence.
“I know. He just got some damn fool idea in his head and ran with it. I guess he thought he was helping.”
“And what did he achieve by it? Nothing. It’s such a senseless waste.”
Cheetara broke down in a fit of sobbing. The great burden of responsibility being thrust on his shoulders was too much for Lion-O to bear. He was not wanted here. Cheetara could not bring herself to even look at him. And what’s worse, the two of them spoke about him as if he wasn’t even there and that’s what hurt the most. He’d never seen them this upset with him in his life but then, his recklessness had never doomed a fellow Thundercat – and one who had just begun life as a man at that – either.
There was nothing he could say to either of them. He took himself out of the hangar and let his feet pick their own direction. Approaching the kitchen, he heard that all too familiar sound of sobbing and did not stop. Snarf was in there, chopping up vegetables and crying while he worked, apparently trying to deal with his grief the same way Panthro was – by working. Lion-O passed on, going deeper into the Lair. In the Sword Chamber, he found Velouria, her knees clasped to her chest, weeping bitterly for a lost friend, and he did not stop. On he went until he found himself at the door to the Council Chamber. Muted voices could be heard within, too soft for him to be able to hear what was being said. He wanted to go on, but he knew too that he would have to face his friends sooner or later. WilyKit in particular would be hard to face. Now was as good a time as any, however. He shouldered his burden and entered.
Seated around the table, as he had expected, were the other Thundercats. They briefly glanced at the door as it opened, but quickly resumed their prior activities without so much as a nod to acknowledge him, which Lion-O was getting used to. Only Felina sat apart by one of the windows, a blanket around her shoulders and tears showing on her cheeks. Jonca was kneeling by her feet, resting her head on her mother’s lap, while Leon had found himself a place beside Bengali, who had his arm around the boy’s shoulders, offering what comfort he could.
He took a chair and joined them in quiet grief. Whatever they had had to say before would not now bear his hearing. Lion-O could imagine what it might have been. Unfit leader, a death on his hands, blame, blame, blame. As if he didn’t blame himself.
“Enough,” he yelled, getting to his feet after he could take no more of their brooding silence. “If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it. Don’t pretend I’m not here. Yes, I made a mistake. I should have told you. But I never asked him to follow me.”
If he had hoped for a response, he was disappointed. Over by the window, Felina was trying unsuccessfully to stifle her tears. His outburst had seemingly only served to upset her further. Leon glanced over at his mother and his own bottom lip wobbled. Childish tears ran from the corners of his eyes and he clung to Bengali tightly as if his life depended on it. He thought for a moment maybe his booming voice frightened his son, and for that he felt bad. But this punishment by ignoring him was too painful to let continue.
“Please,” Lion-O pleaded, “don’t you think I’m hurting too? At least tell me what happened.” He truly resented that even his memory defied his requests.
“I want him back,” Leon began to wail. “Why does he have to be dead?”
“I can’t explain it,” Bengali said kindly to him. “Some times people die, Leon. It just happens.” He glanced over at Tygra. “Is this really a good idea? We all know he’s dead. Do we have to subject the children to this?”
From the other side of the table, Tygra replied with a sigh. “It’s tradition.”
“Whose tradition?” came the angry reply. “It stinks. We all know he’s dead. Staring at him won’t bring him back.”
“You said yourself that death is a fact of life.”
Lion-O groaned in exasperation, as the others went on discussing the viewing of the body as if what he had to say in the matter didn’t count. He supposed it was just as well. Let them be angry. Maybe when the loss wasn’t so fresh, there’d be time for forgiveness and healing. With that, he sank back into his seat and did some of his own brooding.
“For us, maybe.” Bengali went on, his gaze falling upon the weeping cub in his arms. “But for them? Tell me it’s in their best interests.”
“What do you suggest?” Tygra said, rising to his feet. “Pretend that he went out one day and decided not to come home. Is that any better?”
“Slightly. At least that gives hope of a return.”
“Which isn’t going to happen, ever. They loved him, they need closure, too.”
“Oh, stop, please!” said Felina. “If this is how things are done, then let it be so. Don’t let’s argue between ourselves, not at a time like this.”
“Are you sure?” Bengali said. “You don’t have to do this just because tradition says you must.”
Felina dabbed her eyes with a tissue and nodded. “I want to see him. I can’t believe he is really dead unless I see him with my own eyes.”
“Well, I still think it stinks.”
“It’s not up to you,” said Tygra. “Is WilyKit still in there?”
“As far as I know. She’s been with WilyKat since they brought him in, poor kid.”
“On that point, I agree with you.”
Bengali grunted. “So you’re not entirely cold-hearted after all.” He freed himself from Leon’s clutches and patted the boy on the head. “I need a breath of fresh air. Call me if you need me.”
Leon looked lost without someone to cling to and Lion-O called to him, holding out his arms to take the boy. Surely his boy wouldn’t shun him.
Leon ground his fists into his eyes and instead turned to his mother for comfort. Lion-O could only conclude that his guilt was universal if even his own son ignored him.
No sooner had Bengali left than the door opened again and Pumyra appeared. She stood on the threshold, unsure or unwilling to proceed any further.
“We’re ready,” she said quietly. “If you are.”
“Thank you, Pumyra,” said Felina, leaving her place at the window. “Tygra, will you take Leon for me?” She gathered her wrap tightly at her neck with one hand, and shivered a little while ushering Jonca forward with the other. She smiled down at her daughter weakly as an attempt to reassure the girl.
“Of course, Felina. After you.”
Lion-O followed this sad, silent procession down the corridor to the infirmary. He kept his distance, allowing them the space they needed to grieve. If nothing he could say or do was right, then it was better not to try anymore. He had already done enough it seemed. This ostracism was the least he deserved. For his part, he needed to see WilyKat’s body – see for himself what his ill-thought scheme had wrought.
As he entered, he noticed that the temperature in the infirmary had been lowered several degrees. He was already too cold to notice the change on his skin and it was only when breath became visible in the chill air that he registered quite how icy it was. The reason was obvious when Pumyra pulled back the curtains around a medical bed. The shape of a strong, male body could be made out under the white sheet, still in death. WilyKit had left, perhaps, Lion-O thought grimly, because she’d heard he was back and couldn’t stand the sight of him.
The awkward silence that followed made the cramped space oppressive and Lion-O had to fight the need to escape, the former need to see the results of his actions losing out in the battle of wills. Against his will, he remained. He had to see what harm he had done, he reminded himself. He owed WilyKat that much.
“May I see him?” Felina asked.
Pumyra nodded. “There was nothing we could have done. Death would have been instantaneous. He wouldn’t have suffered.”
Felina bowed her head. “Thank you. It helps to know that.”
Pumyra took a step away from the bed, giving Felina the space and time she needed. Hesitantly, she approached the bed until finally she was standing by its side, looking down at the sheet-covered face. She was so brave, Lion-O thought, to be here doing this, when all he wanted was to run away. If he ever got the chance, he would tell her how much he admired her for that.
Her fingers reached for the sheet, only to pause inches from the material. Lion-O watched her closely, noting the ragged rise and fall of her shoulders that spoke of the toll this ordeal was having upon her. She asked for no help, but Lion-O felt compelled to go to her and stand by her side.
“Felina, I’m here,” he said softly, soothingly near her ear. “You don’t have to do this alone. I’m with you.”
Her reply came in the very slight inclination of her head, the best he could expect with grief still as raw as this. Perhaps one day, he hoped, his friends would find it in their hearts to forgive him.
Felina, however, took a deep breath and did what he could not. She drew back the sheet and Lion-O looked away. Telling himself that he had to face what his arrogance had caused did not make it any easier. Instead, his head was turned to the door as he tried to gather his courage so that he saw before any of the others when WilyKit entered the room, her brother at her side.
Lion-O stared at WilyKat, taking in the sling that went round one arm, the purpling bruise on his cheek, the plaster that concealed a cut on his forehead. Seeing him so obviously alive, his first instinct was to laugh out loud out of sheer relief. All his guilt had been misplaced. WilyKat was not dead.
Then relief turned to confusion as he remembered that body beneath the sheet and the tears of his friends. Someone had died, someone for whose death they blamed him. But if not WilyKat, then who had died this day? He’d seen Panthro, Tygra, Bengali, Lynx-O – all the other adult male Thundercats to whom that sheeted silhouette could have belonged were accounted for.
Tearing his eyes from the pair by the door, he followed Felina’s gaze to stare down at the body on the bed.
He saw a face, pale and serene. He saw skin, mottled with bruises and laced with cuts. He saw eyes held shut by strips of tape. He saw wild red hair, tamed now by Pumyra’s care.
He saw himself.
For a long time, he stood, frozen with horror, unable to comprehend what his eyes were showing him. It made no sense, therefore it could not be true, he told himself. He could not be there upon that bed and standing right beside Felina at the same time. This was some horrible joke.
Except no one here was laughing. Felina was weeping as she drew back the sheet a little more to reveal the hands clasped loosely around the hilt of the Sword of Omens.
“Oh, Lion-O,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
She clasped his hands and pressed them to her face. Her tears fell and it was Tygra who reached out to give her comfort.
“Felina, I’m so sorry,” he said.
She choked back her tears and called her children to her side. “Leon, Jonca, come and see your father.” They held back, trepidation showing in their young eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’s at peace now. Come.”
They obeyed and she held their hands as they stood beside the bed.
“Why has he left us?” Jonca asked timidly. “Are you sure he’s not just sleeping?” she added hopefully.
“Yes, baby. I’m sure. He didn’t want to leave us,” Felina said, kneeling down to come to the child’s level. “Something happened and he was hurt very badly. His body could not make him better.” She wiped the tears from the child’s cheeks. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. You remember how he used to talk about your Papa – my father – who used to come talk to him?”
The child nodded.
“Well, I bet they’re together now on the Astral Plane and that they’re both watching over all of us. He’ll always be with us.”
“I miss him,” the child sobbed, clearly unconsoled. “I want him back.”
Felina embraced her and the pair shared their grief. Leon, who had remained silent and ashen, fled the room, pushing past WilyKit and WilyKat in his hurry.
“Sorry,” WilyKit said. “We didn’t mean to intrude. I took WilyKat to get a drink. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“You did no wrong,” said Tygra. He pulled the sheet back over the body and hid the face from view. “In accordance with tradition, we have been witnesses to the death of the Lord of the Thundercats. Pumyra?”
She had never moved from her position on the other side of the bed, but only now that she cleared her throat was Lion-O aware of her presence and that realization brought his mind out of its stunned numbness.
“The death was confirmed and recorded by myself in the official register. Cause was…” Her voice broke and she had to take a minute to compose herself. “The cause was recorded as death due to multiple internal injuries leading to heart failure.”
“Then it is done,” said Tygra. He laid his hand on Felina’s shoulder and she looked up. “Come, you don’t have to be here.”
Felina shook her head. “Take Jonca. I want to be with him a while longer.”
Tygra nodded his understanding and took the girl by the hand. The others followed him out until only Felina and WilyKat remained. He hesitated before leaving, turning back with a distraught expression on his face.
“Felina, I’m sorry. I tried.”
“I know, WilyKat.”
“Grune, he was…” He paused for breath. “It was a trap. I couldn’t stop him.”
“You were almost killed yourself. You did what you could.” Felina’s eyes returned to the sheet-covered body. “Lion-O shouldn’t have been there alone. He knew the risks and still he went. It is not your fault.”
WilyKat bowed his head. “It feels like it. He wasn’t alone. I’m not much of a Thundercat if I couldn’t save Lion-O.”
He turned and left, shoulders slumped. Felina watched him go, then returned to her vigil.
“Lion-O, why did you do it?” she said softly to his still figure. “I would give anything to have you back.”
Events had moved round him so fast that he had barely registered what was happening. Only Felina’s words brought him back to his senses completely enough to be able to articulate his feelings.
“Felina,” he said, “what are you talking about? I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere. There’s been a mistake.” Maybe…maybe Mumm-Ra was back and he’d tricked them all into thinking Lion-O was dead. That had to be it.
He reached out to her, only for his hand to pass through her shoulder. He stared at his hand, so real to his eyes, but lacking substance in Felina’s world, the world of the living. While she cried over his still body, slowly the truth that he had tried so hard to deny took hold of his mind. The coldness that would not leave him, the apparent abandonment by his friends, the way they ignored him, the grief in the Lair, so tangible as to be felt by anyone who came under its roof. With that revelation came panic and his hands started to tremble in its grip.
“I’m… I’m not dead,” he said falteringly. “No, it’s impossible. It’s Mumm-ra. He’s cast a spell over me. That’s why you can’t hear me, isn’t it, Felina? Felina, please answer me.”
He yelled in her ear, but still she made no sign of having heard him. Before his eyes, she started to fade. The lines of the room blurred into strips of colour and Felina became so much red against the white of the sheet. The world was dissolving and taking him with it.
“No, this isn’t happening,” he cried out. “Someone, someone help me, please!”
“Be still,” came a calm voice.
He turned to face this newcomer. He recognised Jaga, the leader who had never left his side, even coming to offer advice from the Astral Plane, and his heart soared. Jaga would explain everything. Jaga would help him. He always did.
“Jaga, please, something terrible has happened and I don’t understand it. None of my friends can see me. They think I am dead.”
“You are dead, Lion-O.”
The bluntness of Jaga’s solemn but pointed reply made Lion-O reel. He still could not accept this. “No, that’s impossible, Jaga. Look,” he said, holding out his hands, “I have a body. I can feel. That means I am alive.”
“Yet you feel only coldness, Lion-O. Your tears will not fall. You cannot touch the ones you love. This body you have is an illusion.”
“I’m not Tygra. I can’t make illusions.”
“The mind is capable of many things. When it cannot comprehend, it must make the unfamiliar into the familiar.”
“I don’t believe you. If this happened, I would remember how.”
“You believed that body you saw in the infirmary before the sheet was pulled back. You believed the tears of your wife and children. Were those also illusions?”
Lion-O nodded furiously. “This is a dream. I’ll wake up in a minute.”
“No, Lion-O. Grune took your life. You followed him and he was waiting for you. He got the better of you this time. You don’t remember because a soul never can remember when it leaves suddenly, violently. It’s too traumatic.”
Lion-O pressed his hands over his ears to try to block out Jaga’s words, but still he could hear him. He’d followed Grune, undetected he was sure. He’d had the Sword at his side. How could he have been finished, and now of all times? It just couldn’t be true. He didn’t want it to be true. Lion-O was Lord of the ThunderCats, he had the Eye to protect him. This simply could not be.
“WilyKat tried to save you, but he too was attacked. Grune spared him so that he could tell your friends what happened.”
“You’re lying.”
Even as he said it, he knew the futility of denying it. Jaga had never lied to him before. If anyone was lying, then he was, lying to himself that his life persisted when all the evidence told him otherwise.
There was nowhere left to hide. He sank to his knees and, as through a misty window, he looked back at Felina, parted from him in her world. He watched as Snarf came into view and Felina knelt to embrace him.
“How can I leave them?” he said. “What will become of them?”
A kindly smile came to Jaga’s face. “They will grieve, but they will survive.” His hand came to rest on Lion-O’s shoulder, the first real sensation he had been able to feel since he had woken up in that place where his soul had parted from his body. “Come, it is time to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the Astral Plane.”
“No, I can’t.”
“If you remain here, you will be trapped between this world and the next for all eternity.”
“But if I go, I’ll never see them again.”
“Yes, you will. You will see them grow and live in the world. You will watch them as I have watched you all these years. And then one day, when it is their time, you will be reunited and it will be as if you have never been away.”
His words were gentle, and Lion-O looked up into his eyes to see the same kindness reflected there.
“Jaga, I’m afraid,” he admitted without shame. “If I go, will I forget? Will they forget me?”
“They will never forget you, Lion-O, nor you forget them. You will be in their hearts always. Through their love will you live forever.” He held out his hand to him. “Let us leave this place. There is only sorrow here.”
Lion-O stared at the offered hand. Once he took it, he knew everything would change. He would be parted from everything he loved, only able to watch and never to participate again in their world. His sorrow was overwhelming as he gazed at Felina one last time.
“I never wanted to leave you,” he whispered to her. “Forgive me.”
In the infirmary, she stirred and looked up. For one precious moment, Lion-O was sure she had heard him. His hopes were dashed as she shrugged and sadly shook her head.
“Goodbye, Lion-O,” he heard her say while releasing Snarf from the embrace and rising to her feet. Then, kissing her fingertips, she touched them to his covered face a world away. “Sweet dreams, my love.”
She and Snarf left and Lion-O too knew it was time to leave. There was nothing left for him on Third Earth. He took Jaga’s hand and followed him away from the world of the living to the waiting light of the Astral Plane.
[center]************[/center]
Night time came with no break in the rain. It still pattered relentlessly on the window as Felina readied herself for bed. The shock and strain of the day’s events made her feel more tired and drained than she perhaps ever had in her life, though she wondered if she would be able to sleep. This would be her first night sleeping alone in the bed they’d shared platonically for years and, as she stared forlornly at the bed, knew it served as a reminder that today wasn’t just a bad dream. WilyKat had really come staggering home with shocking news. Even as the other’s had retrieved the body and ushered it into the infirmary in the vain hope of saving him, she couldn’t believe it. She was sure she’d never forget the look on Tygra’s face or the bewildered waver in his voice when he emerged to confirm what none of them ever wanted to hear – Lion-O was gone. She’d seen for herself that it was true, and her memory burned with the image of Lion-O battered, still and lifeless.
All that they had been through together, all that he had been through alone, the injuries he’d received over the years, the staggering odds he’d routinely fought and won against, spoke to his resilience and put truth in the words he’d spoken to her so long ago. He’d grow old with her, he’d said. The chances got slimmer every day that he’d leave them before his time, he’d promise, for life was good now. He’d stand by her when Leon, their son, took the reins of the Lordship someday when he grew to be a man. They all wanted to believe it, and for a time his confidence was infectious, but in an instant he’d been proved horribly, irrevocably wrong.
Having to blink back fresh, hot and stinging tears snapped Felina out of her memories, and a bitter, raspy laugh escaped her lips. So much for the hope that the Mutant’s waning resistance and Mumm-Ra’s lack of a reappearance gave them. Grune was always the wild card and the loose canon. And it seemed he’d finally made good on his threat against the ThunderCat Lord. Patience, timing, and the lull of a life lived too complacently was all he needed. Things had been going so well for so long, it was easy to believe they could simply coast on the hope of a happy-ever-after, and just when they thought they might even reunite with their kind. Grune had taken that dream from them just as sure as he’d taken Lion-O’s life.
Felina knew in her aching heart that Grune likely wasn’t satisfied with this alone, though she imagined he was somewhere licking his own wounds. Judging by Lion-O’s condition, he’d fought valiantly if briefly for his life. She was just as sure Grune was also revelling in his triumph and planning his next move. Without Lion-O to lead and Leon too young to take his place, and perhaps to more of an extent, wield the Sword of Omens, they were as vulnerable as a group now than ever. He had to know that. The Thundercats were all too aware of it.
As badly as Felina wished to curl up in a corner and mourn the loss of her best friend and companion, she knew the luxury to grieve at length was not to be. At eight, Leon was too young to take his father’s place, so they would have to think of something else in the meantime to try to fill that void. Whoever it was, she didn’t envy him. That all was to be sorted at a Council meeting on the morrow, and she knew she should probably come armed with some bit of precedent from the history books and fresh spells from the Book of Omens, but her mind would focus on little other than the fact that Lion-O was gone and the emptiness that left inside her. He was really just gone.
Plopping onto the mattress, she threw herself down on the stack of pillows – left the way Lion-O had always preferred them – and stared up at the ceiling. Instead of turning off the lamp and trying to coax sleep to come to her, she lay there thinking about the last time she saw Lion-O. Felina thought hard to recall every detail about what he’d said, what she said, how he looked – anything – before she left with the others to the Berbil Village. She sighed, dissatisfied at her recall. She’d taken it for granted that she’d return to the Lair to see him again, alive and well. If she’d known that was the last time she’d see him alive, there was so much she might have said, little details she would have noted to herself to remember. But, he’d stayed on watch alone before, and they’d always been reunited to enjoy each other’s company another day. How was she to know this time would be tragically different? How could she have predicted their time was short and she should have told him so many of the things that she simply assumed he knew regarding how she felt?
Felina turned to look at the empty space beside her and fresh tears flowed. She felt overwhelmed with the uncertainties that now littered their future. How was she going to raise their children without a father? Would the other Thundercats lending a hand be enough? Could they cope with Grune and the Mutants without Lion-O? What if Mumm-Ra came back? Most of all, who was she going to turn to now? Sure, the Thundercats were all her friends, but over the years, it was Lion-O with whom she’d bonded with closely in friendship after their rough and doomed romantic start. They had indeed managed to forge a solid friendship, and she missed it already. There was nobody left that could compare, not even Tygra. Lion-O really had been her best friend, and it made her feel suddenly angry that he’d selfishly left them all behind.
She found herself wondering what many of the others already had. Why. Why did he have to walk right into that trap? Why didn’t he come to them and let them tackle his concerns as a team? Wondering these things were futile, she knew, for the only one who could give the right answers was gone forever. Or was he?
Her kind believed in an astral world where deceased loved ones waited for the living to join them, but why did she feel like she was the one doing all the waiting? Time dragged on slowly and without mercy, to her mind, and Lion-O had only been gone from them one day. How was she expected to deal with this daily, for decades to come?
Felina sat up and swept the pillows off the bed onto the floor to vent her frustrations. She wanted to kick and scream or…or do something more significant to manifest her anger. She felt horribly abandoned, robbed and cheated among a host of other nasty and powerful emotions. But no, it wouldn’t serve any productive purpose and likely only disturb the others who were also grappling with their grief if she were to do anything stronger to express herself. Instead, Felina dropped back down on the mattress and rubbed her swollen eyes with her palms, making an effort to catch her breath between hitching sobs while trying not to think about how bad her head hurt from all the crying. It amazed her that one person could produce so many tears as though they sprang from a well eternal. She was tired of crying, and yet could not stop the flow.
She let her hands drop and studied the ceiling again. Her thoughts turned to the astral plane, a place Lion-O had told her that her father dwelled. Felina had heard stories often enough about such a place, even from those back on Thundera as a child. The Book of Omens also spoke of it. She’d viewed it as little more than something people believed in to comfort themselves when those they loved passed on, but after her time with Lion-O here on Third Earth she had to admit that he sometimes talked to someone she could not see. The thought gave her some comfort, though new wonderings threatened to quell the new peace.
If her father could appear to Lion-O, shouldn’t he be able to appear to somebody? Would his ghost ever appear to her? Felina wondered.
“Where are you?” she said aloud into the empty room. “Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you.”
No ghostly forms appeared, and no distant echo sounded like a voice from the realm beyond. She couldn’t sense him in any way, though every fiber in her being tried to detect something, any sign really, that he was there. Silence and stillness greeted her queries. Felina found herself longing for that contact, however, the simple thought of Lion-O safely in the astral realm no longer good enough. She needed to see him animated one last time, she needed to hear his voice tell her everything would be alright – that they were somehow perfectly capable of going on without him. But she had no way to know how that worked, only that she remembered her father would appear to Lion-O whenever he had needed him. Well, she needed Lion-O now, and where was he? There was nothing in the way of a response from the misty astral plane and the nothingness dragged on for several minutes. She closed her eyes and for a moment, almost thought she could hear the easy rhythm of his breaths as though he were lying beside her sleeping peacefully – as he always had been before. Her imagination was running wild. Or was it? Could he be there with her in some form, trying to comfort her? Felina wanted badly to believe that could be true, pushing the cold logical voice in her head back that said it was her imagination creating the sound, so badly did she crave a sign. She laid there and listened to that rhythm, barely detectable under that set by the rain, until a small voice from near the doorway made her startle.
“Mama, can we sleep with you?”
She looked to see her children standing just inside the door, both looking drawn, scared and uncertain. Normally, they were well past the age to seek comfort in the night time in their parents’ room but this, Felina knew, was a circumstance worth indulging them.
“Of course,” she said, pushing herself toward the center of the bed to make room for the twins.
They stepped over the scattered pillows and climbed up next to their mother. They gathered on either side of Felina and clung to their mother tightly as though they feared she’d next leave them. Leon remained sullen and quiet. Jonca nestled in close, and Felina noticed her eyes seemed to be following something on the other side of the room. Felina turned her head but saw nothing but shadows cast by the lamp light on the wall. If her own imagination was running away, she could only imagine what was going through the minds of the twins. Felina had lost her mother at a young age, but it was too young to even have memories. For Leon and Jonca, the void left by their father’s passing was going to be great. He’d been an involved, attentive and loving father to them. Felina knew she couldn’t make up for the enormous influence Lion-O had had in their lives, nor could anyone in the Lair be a true substitute for the loss, but she could do her best not to get lost in her own grief and be their mother. They needed her now more than ever.
Felina reached out and petted Jonca’s wild mane that was so much like her father’s had been. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered and hoped it to be true.
[center]****************[/center]
[center]The Slim - Sugar
Do you know where you're going
Do you know where you've been
Is it simple is it simple
The chances seemed so slim
In a cloud is it cloudy
You've clouded up again
Your perception your decision
Your decision
Behind I'm left behind
Oh, I'm left behind, I'm left behind
It's a matter of time
Your protection from ejection
My rejection
Protection from the slide
Projection from a slide
Did it all seem so easy
So easy to concede
Giving in giving in
The chances seemed so slim
In a moment just a moment
I felt you rushing in
You were rushing I am crushing
Your rush to cruise this
I'm left behind
Left behind I'm left behind
It's a matter of time
Your protection from injection
My rejection
Protection from the slide
Projection from a slide
I with your breath on my pillow
And I with the memory
I get to wait it out never put it away
When you left with your death
I felt empty when I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What you used to say
I...I'm left behind
I...I'm left behind
I with your breath on my pillow
I with the memory
I get to wait
It out never put it away
When you left with your death
I felt anger when I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What you used to say
I felt your breath for a moment
I heard your voice for a moment
Then I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What we used to say
That the chances seemed so slim
The chances used to be so slim
Now I swim alone
The slim
Alone
To honor and obey
To cherish and to worship
In sickness and in health
For richer for poorer for anything
Til death do us part
--The Slim, Sugar[/center]
[center]The Slim
By Purrsia Kat & Spaced Angel[/center]
It was night when he awoke. Lion-O opened his eyes to a starless sky, hung heavy with clouds that blotted out all but the faintest trace of moonlight. There was drizzle in the air, coating the rocks around him with a thin film of water that made them glisten in what little light there was.
How so much different from several hours before. He had been following Grune across a rocky terrain, he remembered that much. Grune was up to something, and Lion-O had been determined to find out what. One of Lion-O’s theories was that Grune had also heard the signal from the New Thundera, and if so, must be stopped from executing whatever sinister plot he were sure Grune would devise. In the days since he’d noticed Grune’s presence again, the Mutant issue took a back seat. And like the Mutants, Lion-O had a plan for how to deal with Grune in a way that would get him out of their hair once and for all. A plan that was best, he felt, executed alone.
But after that, or how he had managed to end up on his back amongst these sharp-edged rocks was a blank. Above him rose a cliff, several hundred feet high and darkly sleek now with the rain that dripped down from its craggy surface. Had he fallen, he wondered? No, it was impossible to survive a fall like that. He’d have caught himself with the claw line, had he come over the edge. However, that would explain his survival but not his loss of memory and time. Clearly he’d been unconsciousness for some time for it had been daylight when he’d set out after Grune. Now, it was night.
Looking around, he did notice that this was the perfect place for an ambush. Sizeable boulders littered the terrain, any of which could provide a suitable hiding place for his foe. If so, he had to assume he had wandered straight into a trap. Perhaps he and Grune had come to blows. Perhaps he had tripped and knocked himself out. Perhaps Grune had hit him. Either way, he was glad that Grune had not stayed around to finish the job. That in itself didn’t make much sense. Grune had never given up on his ambition to see the Lord of the Thundercats dead and Lion-O knew the rogue Thunderian would not be kind if ever he had Lion-O in a compromising position again. If he had been helpless, someone was clearly looking out for him to have spared his life. Then again, perhaps Grune had thought he was already dead.
Nothing remained to confirm this theory one way or another, and Lion-O supposed it was a moot point now anyway. Getting up made his head spin and he felt unusually light on his feet. He reached for the support of the cliff wall as his body rebelled against its upright position and waited for the dizziness to pass. By the time it had, the moon had broken from behind a cloud, casting a poor glow on his surroundings. Even illuminated, he could still not picture what had transpired here. The only thing that could show him for certain was the Sight beyond Sight powers of the Sword of Omens.
He reached for it and his grasping hand found only air. Glancing down, he saw that both it and Claw Shield were gone. Frantically, he cast about for the Sword and, failing to see it, called it to his hand. He stood there, arm idiotically stretched out for something that was clearly not coming. As his arm fell back by his side, his feeling of confusion deepened. Whatever had happened here had seen him left for dead and the Sword of Omens taken from him. It was afternoon then and, judging from the cold that had pervaded his whole body, night had crept in several hours ago. So where were his friends, the other Thundercats? He could not believe that his disappearance had not been noticed by someone; surely not by now.
His sense of abandonment soon passed as he remembered the reason he was here by himself in the first place. There had been a festival at the Berbil village and he had volunteered to remain in the Lair on watch. He remembered the others protesting that his presence was required. Leon in particular had been insistent that his dad should be there. A feigned headache, however, had secured his stay in the Lair and the other Thundercats had gone without him. Then, giving them enough time to clear the immediate area, he had put the defences on automatic and set out in search of Grune.
It had been his plan all along to tail Grune alone, in hopes the crafty devil wouldn’t realize he was being tailed. Cheetara’s reaction during the last Council Meeting told him the others likely wouldn’t like what he had planned anyway, so it was, Lion-O reasoned, for the best. Grune would be brought to justice once and for all, Lion-O possessing the element of surprise by pursuing Grune instead of the other way around. Grune would be exiled again for his crimes against Third Earthlings, just as he’d been exiled before, and one of their problems standing in the way of going home would be solved. Grune presented a bigger threat and so it was Grune that would be dealt with before the Mutants. The others would see that he was capable and reasonable, and hopefully would no longer question his plan for Slithe’s crew.
The long-range scanners had given him a fair idea of where Grune would be. Unlike his Mutant allies, he did not linger in Castle Plun-darr, but wandered the less attractive regions of Third Earth like a lost soul, seeking for what Lion-O could not guess. But odds were it was not good, and Lion-O had long grown tired of Grune’s single-minded pursuits. It would end between them this day, one way or another.
Not that he had been much interested in Grune’s reasons beforehand, until Lion-O thought his sudden activity might be indicative of a need to do something to thwart New Thundera, or at least, the Thundercats’ efforts to go home. The Mutants weren’t going to stop them, and Lion-O wouldn’t let a rogue, former Thundercat do so either. Back when Tygra had announced the detection of the signal from ‘New’ Thundera, he had meant what he said. He wanted to go home. No one had been successful in finding a way to circumvent the Mutant problem and his frustrations had increasingly grown until he was able to rationalise capturing them and sending them back to whatever punishment awaited them on Plun-Darr as an only option. What else was there to do? They could not leave the Mutants on Third Earth, nor could they risk them following the Thundercats to Thundera. While Lion-O was not quite ready to countenance actually killing any of them himself, he found that he cared little what fate awaited them at the hands of their own people. Snarf also had a point in noting Grune, too, needed to be dealt with and since he had resurfaced, there was no time like the present to make him face justice once and for all.
That, then, was the reason he was here. Sad to say, however, that his plan clearly had been unsuccessful. Grune had evaded capture and taken the Sword of Omens. Getting it back would mean telling the others of his deception and involving them in a rescue mission. It was not a prospect he relished, though he knew it could have turned out much worse. At least he had his life.
He could imagine what they would say about how he had ended up in this mess. Cheetara had made her feelings clear on the subject of his grandstanding and Lion-O doubted that she was the only member of the Lair to feel that way. However he tried to explain this little venture away, he was sure the others would be less than impressed. Part of being a leader meant owning up to one’s mistakes, so with a deep breath, Lion-O figured he ought to work toward facing up to his most recent one.
As the world in general seemed unaware of his plight, a long journey home on foot awaited. His friends had to be worried, and might even be out searching for him if the festival was over or anyone checked up on the Lair. Lion-O felt guilty for causing them the worry he assumed was consuming them, and he hoped they’d be so relieved to see him in one piece that they might not be as angry with him as he had but a moment before feared. First, though, was the arduous climb up the face of the cliff without aid of his claw line.
After much effort and grunting, along with very careful foot placements, he pulled himself up to the top, all the while wary that Grune may still be lying in wait. He took a moment to recover from his efforts and assured himself that nobody was lurking in the shadows. Logically, Grune wouldn’t wait for him to awake to jump him – any sense of honor Grune may have once had evaporated as the years wore on without success in taking Lion-O’s life. No, if Grune had had the chance, Lion-O wouldn’t be living to regret it. Somehow, he’d gotten the Sword but couldn’t finish the job. That was the only logical explanation.
His head had cleared, although the chill remained in his bones. Strange though that, while he felt it, his body had yet to register the cold by shivering. His skin was icy to the touch and yet his teeth did not chatter. He toyed briefly with the possibility that he was suffering from hypothermia, quickly dismissing it when he realised that he would never have woken up again, let alone made it to his feet if that were the case.
Whatever the reason, the exercise of the long trek home would certainly warm him up. He ignored the nagging voice of logic that told him the climb up should have already done that, all the while trying to choose the right words to explain himself to his friends as a preferred distraction. By the time the Lair appeared, he was pretty sure what to say. Although the Code of Thundera upheld truth as a virtue, it said nothing about lying through omission. The sensors had detected Grune, he would say. That was true. He had wondered what he was doing in such a remote part of Third Earth. Again, that came quite close to the truth. He had followed and somehow lost the Sword. There was truth enough in that story to satisfy the most curious of minds. No need to mention his other reasons; that would only complicate matters, though he shrugged off another voice of conscience that reminded him he should be owning up to his mistake instead of dancing around it. It’s just that, he felt so foolish. Surely details could wait until after he’d rested and a plan was formed to get the Sword back.
Finally on home soil just daylight pierced its way through the gray overcast sky to herald the dawn of another day, he found the drawbridge fully extended and the Paw lifted where the ThunderTank was housed. The other Thundercats were definitely home and no doubt waiting for an explanation. Wandering into the hangar, he prepared himself for the worst. Instead, he heard a curse and ducked just in time as a spanner flew across the room, missing his head by inches.
It did not bode well. Panthro was not in a good mood. He hoped the spanner had not been meant for him, although knowing Panthro, that was mild. Taking a deep breath, Lion-O sought him out and found him fiddling with something inside an open panel in the ThunderTank’s rear.
Lion-O waited at a respectful distance for Panthro to acknowledge his presence. After several minutes passed without a reaction, Lion-O cleared his throat and tried to be as contrite as possible.
“Panthro,” Lion-O began. “About what happened earlier. I guess you know and you’re angry.”
“Damn fool!” Panthro muttered. His head emerged from the panel and he took a step back from his work. “Why, Lion-O? Why!”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.” It didn’t escape Lion-O that Panthro couldn’t even bear to look at him. This wasn’t going to be as easy to smooth over as he’d thought.
“Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning? Why did you let us find out like this!” In his anger, he struck the open panel. It broke away from its hinges and clattered to the floor. “Of all the dumb, arrogant, ignorant, pig-headed… gah!”
His hands were shaking as he bent to retrieve a dropped tool.
“Panthro, I’m sorry,” Lion-O said, taken aback by the panther’s display of emotion. It was powerful, even for Panthro. But Lion-O supposed he deserved as much, and he was right. “You’re right. I should have told you.”
“Why did it have to happen to him? He was just a boy,” Panthro was saying. “Just a damn stupid boy.”
There was an edge to his voice that Lion-O had never heard before. When he looked more closely, he saw the unmistakeable sparkle of a tear making its way down Panthro’s face. A chill colder than that already in his body settled over his soul as he realised Panthro had slipped from present to past tense.
“By Jaga, Panthro, what’s happened?”
“Why did you do it, Lion-O?” Panthro went on. His depth of emotion was evident when he buried his face in his hand and scrubbed away the stray tear. “I tried,” he whispered. “I thought I’d taught you everything you’d need to know and then you go and do this. Thought you’d learned not to dash off like that. Damn fool!”
The reference to teaching gave Lion-O all the clues he needed. WilyKat had become Panthro’s shadow, soaking up every piece of information he had to offer. Wherever Panthro was, it was usual to find WilyKat close behind. If the ThunderTank was Panthro’s baby, then WilyKat had become a kind of foster parent. That he was not anywhere to be seen now boded ill.
Lion-O was sure now that something had happened to WilyKat. Panthro had hinted at Lion-O being responsible for it. He racked his brains for any reason why that might be until the ghost of a memory floated back to him. WilyKat’s face loomed large in an incident that had happened a few days ago. He had been out alone, trying to get a locator fix on where Grune’s wanderings took him, when he become convinced he was being followed. He had hidden and waited. WilyKat had stumbled into his trap and his face had been a picture of guilt as he had tried to come up with a plausible explanation for what he was doing. Out for a walk was the best he could manage, a likely tale that Lion-O had not believed in the slightest. No one went for a walk with their face, hands and clothes still grimy with grease from the ThunderTank. It had occurred to him that WilyKat had been sent by the others to spy on him and that thought had made him more secretive, hence the reason for his feigned headache of earlier to get some time to himself. He hadn’t thought he’d been followed yesterday, but…
Watching Panthro now, however, he was fast coming to the conclusion that perhaps he had not been as clever as he had thought. If WilyKat had followed him before, then he might have been following him yesterday as well. He would have followed him straight into whatever trouble Lion-O had found for himself. What had happened next was fast becoming obvious. He had never seen Panthro cry, not even when Thundera had died. On the one occasion he had spoken of his wife, Lion-O had seen the first beginnings of a loss of control in the nerve that had started twitching in his jaw. That grief had been reserved for past, for old wounds that had been accepted, but had never entirely healed. What he was witnessing now was the grief of the present caused by the deepest loss of all.
Lion-O could picture the scene in his mind’s eye. A trap sprung that he had walked into. A battle that he had lost. WilyKat, loyal to the end, following on the orders of his friends, seeing Lion-O struck down, had rushed to his defence. That would explain why Lion-O had been spared, but poor Kat must have paid with his life. Grievously injured, he must have somehow made it away from that rocky place. Perhaps he had tried to reach his friends to tell them what had occurred, and they found him broken and lifeless first. Or even worse, had Grune taken his lifeless body back to the Lair and dumped it there for the Thundercats to find?
One of these horrors had to be true. No one had come to find him because no one had known where he was. Sorrow, like the rain that kept up its insistent drumbeat rhythm on the Paw, hung about the Lair, reaching out to all to share in its mourning. The unthinkable had happened. A Thundercat had died and he, Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, was to blame. No wonder Panthro’s reaction was so strong. Lion-O’s mistake was far more grave than he’d imagined, making Lion-O feel more numb than ever.
Overwhelmed by his own grief, Lion-O steadied himself up against the ThunderTank, waiting for stinging tears that stubbornly refused to come. He was too shocked for tears. It was all too unreal. Panthro had been right to call him all those names. He had been arrogant to think he could take on something like this alone. He was pig-headed in believing he knew best. He was stupid and foolish and dumb and every name under the rainbow. Knowing that now gave him little comfort. Hindsight was a wonderful thing, but of no use to anyone, certainly not to WilyKat, who had given his life to save an unworthy Lord of the Thundercats.
The soft swish of the door caught his attention and he looked up to see Cheetara heading towards the Tank. Her eyes were red from crying and she held her arms tightly folded. She did not look in Lion-O’s direction, but instead went straight to Panthro. Given the circumstances, Lion-O couldn’t blame her.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked him.
“Working,” he grunted.
“Panthro, come inside now.”
“I’m fine. Just leave me be.”
“Panthro, please.”
“I said, leave me alone!” He turned on her, anger blazing in his eyes. “What do you want me to do, Cheetara?”
“Not be on your own. Is that so unreasonable? I know you think throwing yourself into work will help but --”
He shook his head. “I can’t be in there right now. I have to deal with this in my own way.” He reached out to her and grasped her shoulder, his tone turning softer. “Thanks anyway. How are the others?”
“Not good, as you’d expect.” She swallowed hard and bowed her head. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said, fighting back her tears. “If only we hadn’t gone to that stupid party.”
Panthro pulled her to him and held her while she wept. “He would have gone anyway. You know what he’s like.” He coughed slightly. “I mean, he was always a headstrong boy.”
“But he wasn’t a boy, Panthro, he was a man.” Cheetara sniffed heavily. “I thought he’d grown out of all that. I thought he’d changed.”
“We all did, Cheetara. Perhaps that was our mistake. I can’t help feeling that I failed him somehow.”
“You didn’t,” said Cheetara. “He respected you, Panthro. He looked up to you. What happened was no one’s fault but Lion-O’s.”
Lion-O started. The words stung him like few ever have, but he kept his silence.
“I know. He just got some damn fool idea in his head and ran with it. I guess he thought he was helping.”
“And what did he achieve by it? Nothing. It’s such a senseless waste.”
Cheetara broke down in a fit of sobbing. The great burden of responsibility being thrust on his shoulders was too much for Lion-O to bear. He was not wanted here. Cheetara could not bring herself to even look at him. And what’s worse, the two of them spoke about him as if he wasn’t even there and that’s what hurt the most. He’d never seen them this upset with him in his life but then, his recklessness had never doomed a fellow Thundercat – and one who had just begun life as a man at that – either.
There was nothing he could say to either of them. He took himself out of the hangar and let his feet pick their own direction. Approaching the kitchen, he heard that all too familiar sound of sobbing and did not stop. Snarf was in there, chopping up vegetables and crying while he worked, apparently trying to deal with his grief the same way Panthro was – by working. Lion-O passed on, going deeper into the Lair. In the Sword Chamber, he found Velouria, her knees clasped to her chest, weeping bitterly for a lost friend, and he did not stop. On he went until he found himself at the door to the Council Chamber. Muted voices could be heard within, too soft for him to be able to hear what was being said. He wanted to go on, but he knew too that he would have to face his friends sooner or later. WilyKit in particular would be hard to face. Now was as good a time as any, however. He shouldered his burden and entered.
Seated around the table, as he had expected, were the other Thundercats. They briefly glanced at the door as it opened, but quickly resumed their prior activities without so much as a nod to acknowledge him, which Lion-O was getting used to. Only Felina sat apart by one of the windows, a blanket around her shoulders and tears showing on her cheeks. Jonca was kneeling by her feet, resting her head on her mother’s lap, while Leon had found himself a place beside Bengali, who had his arm around the boy’s shoulders, offering what comfort he could.
He took a chair and joined them in quiet grief. Whatever they had had to say before would not now bear his hearing. Lion-O could imagine what it might have been. Unfit leader, a death on his hands, blame, blame, blame. As if he didn’t blame himself.
“Enough,” he yelled, getting to his feet after he could take no more of their brooding silence. “If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it. Don’t pretend I’m not here. Yes, I made a mistake. I should have told you. But I never asked him to follow me.”
If he had hoped for a response, he was disappointed. Over by the window, Felina was trying unsuccessfully to stifle her tears. His outburst had seemingly only served to upset her further. Leon glanced over at his mother and his own bottom lip wobbled. Childish tears ran from the corners of his eyes and he clung to Bengali tightly as if his life depended on it. He thought for a moment maybe his booming voice frightened his son, and for that he felt bad. But this punishment by ignoring him was too painful to let continue.
“Please,” Lion-O pleaded, “don’t you think I’m hurting too? At least tell me what happened.” He truly resented that even his memory defied his requests.
“I want him back,” Leon began to wail. “Why does he have to be dead?”
“I can’t explain it,” Bengali said kindly to him. “Some times people die, Leon. It just happens.” He glanced over at Tygra. “Is this really a good idea? We all know he’s dead. Do we have to subject the children to this?”
From the other side of the table, Tygra replied with a sigh. “It’s tradition.”
“Whose tradition?” came the angry reply. “It stinks. We all know he’s dead. Staring at him won’t bring him back.”
“You said yourself that death is a fact of life.”
Lion-O groaned in exasperation, as the others went on discussing the viewing of the body as if what he had to say in the matter didn’t count. He supposed it was just as well. Let them be angry. Maybe when the loss wasn’t so fresh, there’d be time for forgiveness and healing. With that, he sank back into his seat and did some of his own brooding.
“For us, maybe.” Bengali went on, his gaze falling upon the weeping cub in his arms. “But for them? Tell me it’s in their best interests.”
“What do you suggest?” Tygra said, rising to his feet. “Pretend that he went out one day and decided not to come home. Is that any better?”
“Slightly. At least that gives hope of a return.”
“Which isn’t going to happen, ever. They loved him, they need closure, too.”
“Oh, stop, please!” said Felina. “If this is how things are done, then let it be so. Don’t let’s argue between ourselves, not at a time like this.”
“Are you sure?” Bengali said. “You don’t have to do this just because tradition says you must.”
Felina dabbed her eyes with a tissue and nodded. “I want to see him. I can’t believe he is really dead unless I see him with my own eyes.”
“Well, I still think it stinks.”
“It’s not up to you,” said Tygra. “Is WilyKit still in there?”
“As far as I know. She’s been with WilyKat since they brought him in, poor kid.”
“On that point, I agree with you.”
Bengali grunted. “So you’re not entirely cold-hearted after all.” He freed himself from Leon’s clutches and patted the boy on the head. “I need a breath of fresh air. Call me if you need me.”
Leon looked lost without someone to cling to and Lion-O called to him, holding out his arms to take the boy. Surely his boy wouldn’t shun him.
Leon ground his fists into his eyes and instead turned to his mother for comfort. Lion-O could only conclude that his guilt was universal if even his own son ignored him.
No sooner had Bengali left than the door opened again and Pumyra appeared. She stood on the threshold, unsure or unwilling to proceed any further.
“We’re ready,” she said quietly. “If you are.”
“Thank you, Pumyra,” said Felina, leaving her place at the window. “Tygra, will you take Leon for me?” She gathered her wrap tightly at her neck with one hand, and shivered a little while ushering Jonca forward with the other. She smiled down at her daughter weakly as an attempt to reassure the girl.
“Of course, Felina. After you.”
Lion-O followed this sad, silent procession down the corridor to the infirmary. He kept his distance, allowing them the space they needed to grieve. If nothing he could say or do was right, then it was better not to try anymore. He had already done enough it seemed. This ostracism was the least he deserved. For his part, he needed to see WilyKat’s body – see for himself what his ill-thought scheme had wrought.
As he entered, he noticed that the temperature in the infirmary had been lowered several degrees. He was already too cold to notice the change on his skin and it was only when breath became visible in the chill air that he registered quite how icy it was. The reason was obvious when Pumyra pulled back the curtains around a medical bed. The shape of a strong, male body could be made out under the white sheet, still in death. WilyKit had left, perhaps, Lion-O thought grimly, because she’d heard he was back and couldn’t stand the sight of him.
The awkward silence that followed made the cramped space oppressive and Lion-O had to fight the need to escape, the former need to see the results of his actions losing out in the battle of wills. Against his will, he remained. He had to see what harm he had done, he reminded himself. He owed WilyKat that much.
“May I see him?” Felina asked.
Pumyra nodded. “There was nothing we could have done. Death would have been instantaneous. He wouldn’t have suffered.”
Felina bowed her head. “Thank you. It helps to know that.”
Pumyra took a step away from the bed, giving Felina the space and time she needed. Hesitantly, she approached the bed until finally she was standing by its side, looking down at the sheet-covered face. She was so brave, Lion-O thought, to be here doing this, when all he wanted was to run away. If he ever got the chance, he would tell her how much he admired her for that.
Her fingers reached for the sheet, only to pause inches from the material. Lion-O watched her closely, noting the ragged rise and fall of her shoulders that spoke of the toll this ordeal was having upon her. She asked for no help, but Lion-O felt compelled to go to her and stand by her side.
“Felina, I’m here,” he said softly, soothingly near her ear. “You don’t have to do this alone. I’m with you.”
Her reply came in the very slight inclination of her head, the best he could expect with grief still as raw as this. Perhaps one day, he hoped, his friends would find it in their hearts to forgive him.
Felina, however, took a deep breath and did what he could not. She drew back the sheet and Lion-O looked away. Telling himself that he had to face what his arrogance had caused did not make it any easier. Instead, his head was turned to the door as he tried to gather his courage so that he saw before any of the others when WilyKit entered the room, her brother at her side.
Lion-O stared at WilyKat, taking in the sling that went round one arm, the purpling bruise on his cheek, the plaster that concealed a cut on his forehead. Seeing him so obviously alive, his first instinct was to laugh out loud out of sheer relief. All his guilt had been misplaced. WilyKat was not dead.
Then relief turned to confusion as he remembered that body beneath the sheet and the tears of his friends. Someone had died, someone for whose death they blamed him. But if not WilyKat, then who had died this day? He’d seen Panthro, Tygra, Bengali, Lynx-O – all the other adult male Thundercats to whom that sheeted silhouette could have belonged were accounted for.
Tearing his eyes from the pair by the door, he followed Felina’s gaze to stare down at the body on the bed.
He saw a face, pale and serene. He saw skin, mottled with bruises and laced with cuts. He saw eyes held shut by strips of tape. He saw wild red hair, tamed now by Pumyra’s care.
He saw himself.
For a long time, he stood, frozen with horror, unable to comprehend what his eyes were showing him. It made no sense, therefore it could not be true, he told himself. He could not be there upon that bed and standing right beside Felina at the same time. This was some horrible joke.
Except no one here was laughing. Felina was weeping as she drew back the sheet a little more to reveal the hands clasped loosely around the hilt of the Sword of Omens.
“Oh, Lion-O,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
She clasped his hands and pressed them to her face. Her tears fell and it was Tygra who reached out to give her comfort.
“Felina, I’m so sorry,” he said.
She choked back her tears and called her children to her side. “Leon, Jonca, come and see your father.” They held back, trepidation showing in their young eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’s at peace now. Come.”
They obeyed and she held their hands as they stood beside the bed.
“Why has he left us?” Jonca asked timidly. “Are you sure he’s not just sleeping?” she added hopefully.
“Yes, baby. I’m sure. He didn’t want to leave us,” Felina said, kneeling down to come to the child’s level. “Something happened and he was hurt very badly. His body could not make him better.” She wiped the tears from the child’s cheeks. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. You remember how he used to talk about your Papa – my father – who used to come talk to him?”
The child nodded.
“Well, I bet they’re together now on the Astral Plane and that they’re both watching over all of us. He’ll always be with us.”
“I miss him,” the child sobbed, clearly unconsoled. “I want him back.”
Felina embraced her and the pair shared their grief. Leon, who had remained silent and ashen, fled the room, pushing past WilyKit and WilyKat in his hurry.
“Sorry,” WilyKit said. “We didn’t mean to intrude. I took WilyKat to get a drink. I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“You did no wrong,” said Tygra. He pulled the sheet back over the body and hid the face from view. “In accordance with tradition, we have been witnesses to the death of the Lord of the Thundercats. Pumyra?”
She had never moved from her position on the other side of the bed, but only now that she cleared her throat was Lion-O aware of her presence and that realization brought his mind out of its stunned numbness.
“The death was confirmed and recorded by myself in the official register. Cause was…” Her voice broke and she had to take a minute to compose herself. “The cause was recorded as death due to multiple internal injuries leading to heart failure.”
“Then it is done,” said Tygra. He laid his hand on Felina’s shoulder and she looked up. “Come, you don’t have to be here.”
Felina shook her head. “Take Jonca. I want to be with him a while longer.”
Tygra nodded his understanding and took the girl by the hand. The others followed him out until only Felina and WilyKat remained. He hesitated before leaving, turning back with a distraught expression on his face.
“Felina, I’m sorry. I tried.”
“I know, WilyKat.”
“Grune, he was…” He paused for breath. “It was a trap. I couldn’t stop him.”
“You were almost killed yourself. You did what you could.” Felina’s eyes returned to the sheet-covered body. “Lion-O shouldn’t have been there alone. He knew the risks and still he went. It is not your fault.”
WilyKat bowed his head. “It feels like it. He wasn’t alone. I’m not much of a Thundercat if I couldn’t save Lion-O.”
He turned and left, shoulders slumped. Felina watched him go, then returned to her vigil.
“Lion-O, why did you do it?” she said softly to his still figure. “I would give anything to have you back.”
Events had moved round him so fast that he had barely registered what was happening. Only Felina’s words brought him back to his senses completely enough to be able to articulate his feelings.
“Felina,” he said, “what are you talking about? I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere. There’s been a mistake.” Maybe…maybe Mumm-Ra was back and he’d tricked them all into thinking Lion-O was dead. That had to be it.
He reached out to her, only for his hand to pass through her shoulder. He stared at his hand, so real to his eyes, but lacking substance in Felina’s world, the world of the living. While she cried over his still body, slowly the truth that he had tried so hard to deny took hold of his mind. The coldness that would not leave him, the apparent abandonment by his friends, the way they ignored him, the grief in the Lair, so tangible as to be felt by anyone who came under its roof. With that revelation came panic and his hands started to tremble in its grip.
“I’m… I’m not dead,” he said falteringly. “No, it’s impossible. It’s Mumm-ra. He’s cast a spell over me. That’s why you can’t hear me, isn’t it, Felina? Felina, please answer me.”
He yelled in her ear, but still she made no sign of having heard him. Before his eyes, she started to fade. The lines of the room blurred into strips of colour and Felina became so much red against the white of the sheet. The world was dissolving and taking him with it.
“No, this isn’t happening,” he cried out. “Someone, someone help me, please!”
“Be still,” came a calm voice.
He turned to face this newcomer. He recognised Jaga, the leader who had never left his side, even coming to offer advice from the Astral Plane, and his heart soared. Jaga would explain everything. Jaga would help him. He always did.
“Jaga, please, something terrible has happened and I don’t understand it. None of my friends can see me. They think I am dead.”
“You are dead, Lion-O.”
The bluntness of Jaga’s solemn but pointed reply made Lion-O reel. He still could not accept this. “No, that’s impossible, Jaga. Look,” he said, holding out his hands, “I have a body. I can feel. That means I am alive.”
“Yet you feel only coldness, Lion-O. Your tears will not fall. You cannot touch the ones you love. This body you have is an illusion.”
“I’m not Tygra. I can’t make illusions.”
“The mind is capable of many things. When it cannot comprehend, it must make the unfamiliar into the familiar.”
“I don’t believe you. If this happened, I would remember how.”
“You believed that body you saw in the infirmary before the sheet was pulled back. You believed the tears of your wife and children. Were those also illusions?”
Lion-O nodded furiously. “This is a dream. I’ll wake up in a minute.”
“No, Lion-O. Grune took your life. You followed him and he was waiting for you. He got the better of you this time. You don’t remember because a soul never can remember when it leaves suddenly, violently. It’s too traumatic.”
Lion-O pressed his hands over his ears to try to block out Jaga’s words, but still he could hear him. He’d followed Grune, undetected he was sure. He’d had the Sword at his side. How could he have been finished, and now of all times? It just couldn’t be true. He didn’t want it to be true. Lion-O was Lord of the ThunderCats, he had the Eye to protect him. This simply could not be.
“WilyKat tried to save you, but he too was attacked. Grune spared him so that he could tell your friends what happened.”
“You’re lying.”
Even as he said it, he knew the futility of denying it. Jaga had never lied to him before. If anyone was lying, then he was, lying to himself that his life persisted when all the evidence told him otherwise.
There was nowhere left to hide. He sank to his knees and, as through a misty window, he looked back at Felina, parted from him in her world. He watched as Snarf came into view and Felina knelt to embrace him.
“How can I leave them?” he said. “What will become of them?”
A kindly smile came to Jaga’s face. “They will grieve, but they will survive.” His hand came to rest on Lion-O’s shoulder, the first real sensation he had been able to feel since he had woken up in that place where his soul had parted from his body. “Come, it is time to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the Astral Plane.”
“No, I can’t.”
“If you remain here, you will be trapped between this world and the next for all eternity.”
“But if I go, I’ll never see them again.”
“Yes, you will. You will see them grow and live in the world. You will watch them as I have watched you all these years. And then one day, when it is their time, you will be reunited and it will be as if you have never been away.”
His words were gentle, and Lion-O looked up into his eyes to see the same kindness reflected there.
“Jaga, I’m afraid,” he admitted without shame. “If I go, will I forget? Will they forget me?”
“They will never forget you, Lion-O, nor you forget them. You will be in their hearts always. Through their love will you live forever.” He held out his hand to him. “Let us leave this place. There is only sorrow here.”
Lion-O stared at the offered hand. Once he took it, he knew everything would change. He would be parted from everything he loved, only able to watch and never to participate again in their world. His sorrow was overwhelming as he gazed at Felina one last time.
“I never wanted to leave you,” he whispered to her. “Forgive me.”
In the infirmary, she stirred and looked up. For one precious moment, Lion-O was sure she had heard him. His hopes were dashed as she shrugged and sadly shook her head.
“Goodbye, Lion-O,” he heard her say while releasing Snarf from the embrace and rising to her feet. Then, kissing her fingertips, she touched them to his covered face a world away. “Sweet dreams, my love.”
She and Snarf left and Lion-O too knew it was time to leave. There was nothing left for him on Third Earth. He took Jaga’s hand and followed him away from the world of the living to the waiting light of the Astral Plane.
[center]************[/center]
Night time came with no break in the rain. It still pattered relentlessly on the window as Felina readied herself for bed. The shock and strain of the day’s events made her feel more tired and drained than she perhaps ever had in her life, though she wondered if she would be able to sleep. This would be her first night sleeping alone in the bed they’d shared platonically for years and, as she stared forlornly at the bed, knew it served as a reminder that today wasn’t just a bad dream. WilyKat had really come staggering home with shocking news. Even as the other’s had retrieved the body and ushered it into the infirmary in the vain hope of saving him, she couldn’t believe it. She was sure she’d never forget the look on Tygra’s face or the bewildered waver in his voice when he emerged to confirm what none of them ever wanted to hear – Lion-O was gone. She’d seen for herself that it was true, and her memory burned with the image of Lion-O battered, still and lifeless.
All that they had been through together, all that he had been through alone, the injuries he’d received over the years, the staggering odds he’d routinely fought and won against, spoke to his resilience and put truth in the words he’d spoken to her so long ago. He’d grow old with her, he’d said. The chances got slimmer every day that he’d leave them before his time, he’d promise, for life was good now. He’d stand by her when Leon, their son, took the reins of the Lordship someday when he grew to be a man. They all wanted to believe it, and for a time his confidence was infectious, but in an instant he’d been proved horribly, irrevocably wrong.
Having to blink back fresh, hot and stinging tears snapped Felina out of her memories, and a bitter, raspy laugh escaped her lips. So much for the hope that the Mutant’s waning resistance and Mumm-Ra’s lack of a reappearance gave them. Grune was always the wild card and the loose canon. And it seemed he’d finally made good on his threat against the ThunderCat Lord. Patience, timing, and the lull of a life lived too complacently was all he needed. Things had been going so well for so long, it was easy to believe they could simply coast on the hope of a happy-ever-after, and just when they thought they might even reunite with their kind. Grune had taken that dream from them just as sure as he’d taken Lion-O’s life.
Felina knew in her aching heart that Grune likely wasn’t satisfied with this alone, though she imagined he was somewhere licking his own wounds. Judging by Lion-O’s condition, he’d fought valiantly if briefly for his life. She was just as sure Grune was also revelling in his triumph and planning his next move. Without Lion-O to lead and Leon too young to take his place, and perhaps to more of an extent, wield the Sword of Omens, they were as vulnerable as a group now than ever. He had to know that. The Thundercats were all too aware of it.
As badly as Felina wished to curl up in a corner and mourn the loss of her best friend and companion, she knew the luxury to grieve at length was not to be. At eight, Leon was too young to take his father’s place, so they would have to think of something else in the meantime to try to fill that void. Whoever it was, she didn’t envy him. That all was to be sorted at a Council meeting on the morrow, and she knew she should probably come armed with some bit of precedent from the history books and fresh spells from the Book of Omens, but her mind would focus on little other than the fact that Lion-O was gone and the emptiness that left inside her. He was really just gone.
Plopping onto the mattress, she threw herself down on the stack of pillows – left the way Lion-O had always preferred them – and stared up at the ceiling. Instead of turning off the lamp and trying to coax sleep to come to her, she lay there thinking about the last time she saw Lion-O. Felina thought hard to recall every detail about what he’d said, what she said, how he looked – anything – before she left with the others to the Berbil Village. She sighed, dissatisfied at her recall. She’d taken it for granted that she’d return to the Lair to see him again, alive and well. If she’d known that was the last time she’d see him alive, there was so much she might have said, little details she would have noted to herself to remember. But, he’d stayed on watch alone before, and they’d always been reunited to enjoy each other’s company another day. How was she to know this time would be tragically different? How could she have predicted their time was short and she should have told him so many of the things that she simply assumed he knew regarding how she felt?
Felina turned to look at the empty space beside her and fresh tears flowed. She felt overwhelmed with the uncertainties that now littered their future. How was she going to raise their children without a father? Would the other Thundercats lending a hand be enough? Could they cope with Grune and the Mutants without Lion-O? What if Mumm-Ra came back? Most of all, who was she going to turn to now? Sure, the Thundercats were all her friends, but over the years, it was Lion-O with whom she’d bonded with closely in friendship after their rough and doomed romantic start. They had indeed managed to forge a solid friendship, and she missed it already. There was nobody left that could compare, not even Tygra. Lion-O really had been her best friend, and it made her feel suddenly angry that he’d selfishly left them all behind.
She found herself wondering what many of the others already had. Why. Why did he have to walk right into that trap? Why didn’t he come to them and let them tackle his concerns as a team? Wondering these things were futile, she knew, for the only one who could give the right answers was gone forever. Or was he?
Her kind believed in an astral world where deceased loved ones waited for the living to join them, but why did she feel like she was the one doing all the waiting? Time dragged on slowly and without mercy, to her mind, and Lion-O had only been gone from them one day. How was she expected to deal with this daily, for decades to come?
Felina sat up and swept the pillows off the bed onto the floor to vent her frustrations. She wanted to kick and scream or…or do something more significant to manifest her anger. She felt horribly abandoned, robbed and cheated among a host of other nasty and powerful emotions. But no, it wouldn’t serve any productive purpose and likely only disturb the others who were also grappling with their grief if she were to do anything stronger to express herself. Instead, Felina dropped back down on the mattress and rubbed her swollen eyes with her palms, making an effort to catch her breath between hitching sobs while trying not to think about how bad her head hurt from all the crying. It amazed her that one person could produce so many tears as though they sprang from a well eternal. She was tired of crying, and yet could not stop the flow.
She let her hands drop and studied the ceiling again. Her thoughts turned to the astral plane, a place Lion-O had told her that her father dwelled. Felina had heard stories often enough about such a place, even from those back on Thundera as a child. The Book of Omens also spoke of it. She’d viewed it as little more than something people believed in to comfort themselves when those they loved passed on, but after her time with Lion-O here on Third Earth she had to admit that he sometimes talked to someone she could not see. The thought gave her some comfort, though new wonderings threatened to quell the new peace.
If her father could appear to Lion-O, shouldn’t he be able to appear to somebody? Would his ghost ever appear to her? Felina wondered.
“Where are you?” she said aloud into the empty room. “Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you.”
No ghostly forms appeared, and no distant echo sounded like a voice from the realm beyond. She couldn’t sense him in any way, though every fiber in her being tried to detect something, any sign really, that he was there. Silence and stillness greeted her queries. Felina found herself longing for that contact, however, the simple thought of Lion-O safely in the astral realm no longer good enough. She needed to see him animated one last time, she needed to hear his voice tell her everything would be alright – that they were somehow perfectly capable of going on without him. But she had no way to know how that worked, only that she remembered her father would appear to Lion-O whenever he had needed him. Well, she needed Lion-O now, and where was he? There was nothing in the way of a response from the misty astral plane and the nothingness dragged on for several minutes. She closed her eyes and for a moment, almost thought she could hear the easy rhythm of his breaths as though he were lying beside her sleeping peacefully – as he always had been before. Her imagination was running wild. Or was it? Could he be there with her in some form, trying to comfort her? Felina wanted badly to believe that could be true, pushing the cold logical voice in her head back that said it was her imagination creating the sound, so badly did she crave a sign. She laid there and listened to that rhythm, barely detectable under that set by the rain, until a small voice from near the doorway made her startle.
“Mama, can we sleep with you?”
She looked to see her children standing just inside the door, both looking drawn, scared and uncertain. Normally, they were well past the age to seek comfort in the night time in their parents’ room but this, Felina knew, was a circumstance worth indulging them.
“Of course,” she said, pushing herself toward the center of the bed to make room for the twins.
They stepped over the scattered pillows and climbed up next to their mother. They gathered on either side of Felina and clung to their mother tightly as though they feared she’d next leave them. Leon remained sullen and quiet. Jonca nestled in close, and Felina noticed her eyes seemed to be following something on the other side of the room. Felina turned her head but saw nothing but shadows cast by the lamp light on the wall. If her own imagination was running away, she could only imagine what was going through the minds of the twins. Felina had lost her mother at a young age, but it was too young to even have memories. For Leon and Jonca, the void left by their father’s passing was going to be great. He’d been an involved, attentive and loving father to them. Felina knew she couldn’t make up for the enormous influence Lion-O had had in their lives, nor could anyone in the Lair be a true substitute for the loss, but she could do her best not to get lost in her own grief and be their mother. They needed her now more than ever.
Felina reached out and petted Jonca’s wild mane that was so much like her father’s had been. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered and hoped it to be true.
[center]****************[/center]
[center]The Slim - Sugar
Do you know where you're going
Do you know where you've been
Is it simple is it simple
The chances seemed so slim
In a cloud is it cloudy
You've clouded up again
Your perception your decision
Your decision
Behind I'm left behind
Oh, I'm left behind, I'm left behind
It's a matter of time
Your protection from ejection
My rejection
Protection from the slide
Projection from a slide
Did it all seem so easy
So easy to concede
Giving in giving in
The chances seemed so slim
In a moment just a moment
I felt you rushing in
You were rushing I am crushing
Your rush to cruise this
I'm left behind
Left behind I'm left behind
It's a matter of time
Your protection from injection
My rejection
Protection from the slide
Projection from a slide
I with your breath on my pillow
And I with the memory
I get to wait it out never put it away
When you left with your death
I felt empty when I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What you used to say
I...I'm left behind
I...I'm left behind
I with your breath on my pillow
I with the memory
I get to wait
It out never put it away
When you left with your death
I felt anger when I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What you used to say
I felt your breath for a moment
I heard your voice for a moment
Then I looked back
On my pillow what you used to say
What we used to say
That the chances seemed so slim
The chances used to be so slim
Now I swim alone
The slim
Alone
To honor and obey
To cherish and to worship
In sickness and in health
For richer for poorer for anything
Til death do us part
--The Slim, Sugar[/center]
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