While all were abed, Cellen ventured out from his human's habitat into the night. It was a nightly ritual, an art form which he had perfected, where he was free to let his mind subconsciously guide him. There was no forceful presence, no reprimanding figure that instigated the aggression within him. Here, he was drawn only by the wafting scents that found their way to his keen nostrils while his paws propelled him into the unknown. It was a continuous pull whose enticing call to adventure had yet to cease. Perhaps this was simply Mokai nature--the unbridled desires captured inside a domestic facade. This was something more than just instincts.
He padded stiff-legged and silent as a cloud's shadow across the yard toward a voided silhouette. He rumbled a low greeting, deep in his chest, and the figure advanced. Its eyes shone with an eerie glow, catching what light from the full moon rained down upon the island, as they faced each other.
"You bring it?" he asked. His voice was so low that it carried no more than a yard.
A construed package made of banana leaves gave a small thud as it dropped onto the dew-kissed grass. A small, round shaped fruit rolled out--its pink fleshy outing was covered with triangular flaps. Its scent was unmistakable as a lingering breeze wafted a tantalizing, tangy incense. His lips drew back in a feral grin. The others gaze was unblinking and as sharp as a razor's stropped edge. Her paw fell atop the fruit, grappling over the top as its claws tapped against its skin delicately.
"Dragon fruit. Of all the things you could ask for that's found beyond these walls, you choose fruit. What a waste," the female smirked. She curled her paw back toward her and flicked the fruit to hit against his forepaw.
"You've no idea what else is out there waiting to be experienced."
"I'd imagine its changed since I was last there," he grinned.
Surely it had changed drastically-- it was almost another lifetime ago since he had been there, he thought. It was another lifetime and it had belonged to someone else, not the Mokai he was now. And now? How could he even begin to explain what he was? He turned his gaze to her and tried to shake free the feelings that were beginning to take root in him. There was something about her that made him want to lay bare his soul to her.
"Enlighten me," he mused. "I'm sure I'll need all the insight I can get."
The female cocked her head to the side. A single brow arched upward while her maw pursed deviously. Silently, she slipped between the ruddy fencing that defined his residence apart from the other human habitats. There was no hesitation whatsoever as Cellen pursued in tow.
Tonight the sky was clear. The moon was the pale cream of the tallow candles that continued to burn visibly through the windows of passing homes. They walked side by side, not touching, but her scent filled his nostrils with a natural perfume of sea salt and the aroma of fragrant foliage that was uniquely hers and, close as she was, he could almost fel her body heat like fire on his skin. The night held its breath around them, pausing when they paused, sighing when they moved on. Underlying the pulse of their heartbeats, the soft footfall of their passage, the rustle of the dried leaves underfoot, the wind's murmur in the boughs above, the intake and exhaling of their breathing, all took on the musical cadences and built up into a melody.
They were both adults, but at this moment seemed more like two shy children first meeting each other. Although this was anything but their first encounter. She looked at him and wondered what he was thinking. There were mysteries afoot here for which neither would so willingly answer. Everyone had their mysteries, they supposed. And there were too many secrets locked behind those ocher eyes.
Within those stone walls there were no friends, Cellen realized, but beyond the walls there was something else. Something more. The moment was magical, surreal, and he knew then, with absolute clarity, that he wanted to be free-- no more fighting, no more senseless killing for the sake of his humans success. He wanted to live. And living here, enclosed within the Huntingdon Settlement, was not the life for a Mokai.
The world was wide beyond his imagination and held a vast wealth of knowledge and experience, that the small corner he'd known all his short life, was but the barest scrapings of it. And yet his curiosity had gotten the better of him and, because of such, he had found himself ensnared by those menacing two-legged monsters. Cellen himself had only one objective in his life then, and that was to learn and experience as much of the world's wonder as he could in the years still left to him. Not to garner wisdom as a bee might honey but to simply to realize it. The greatest crime of all, to his way of thinking, was to turn one's back on those wonders. But there was no future here-- there was nothing desirable in living and dying as a 'slave'.
What lay ahead for him? More battlegrounds endured within the ring, senseless killings, friendless days and nights, one dissolving into the other. And if he remained? Could he bear to live controlled, contained, by his handler? There was a menace abroad. Only it walked on two legs instead of four.
Stopping at the far borders of the settlement, they looked back to the way they'd come, the female pawed away at the makeshift rubble that covertly covered a hole which had been dug to breach the inside compound.
"I will come see you again," she whispered softly.
Tentatively, he lowered his lips to hers. As they parted under his and the resistance to part become all the more fierce, it was only with great effort that Cellen drew back. This was not the time. A little short of breath, they faced each other. The female's hair swayed loosely and spilled across her cheek. Cellen nosed it aside.
"Go. It's getting late."
She slipped through the hole, the female retreated back into wild, the unruly paradise where feral instincts reigned supreme. He was left forlorn with only loneliness to n** at his paws. A wreath of mist exhaled from out of his nostrils as he filled the vacant opening once again. It wasn't time to leave to leave just yet-- not until he had tied up an outstanding loose end. As the sky was beginning to grow faint with the trickling of faint illumination, he followed the familiar well trodden path as he had every night. The taste of freedom clung to his lips and with it the voracious appetite for emancipation brewed.
The countdown had begun.
