He staggered in the dark.
It was funny. In all his training sessions where he had prepared himself for battle, in all his fake spars and all his triumphs and occasional beatings, nothing had ever prepared him for the numbness. He'd always worried about the pain. What warrior didn't? Warriors trained themselves to look past the pain, to fight on even when everything seemed bleak. But now, staggering and gushing blood, he was so overwhelmed by the LACK of feeling he scarcely was able to think about fighting on.
It all seemed fuzzy. Someone had attacked him, hadn't they? From... from behind? He coughed a little, and felt one of his knees buckle. Something very hard had hit him, and before he had known it, a pair of vice-like jaws had closed around his throat. He'd remembered in those fleeting moments thinking, "Surely, this is a joke-" And then, there had been...
Nothing.
He was here. He felt his legs shake, and flood of old training sayings fluttering in his mind. What are you doing, Vlam? His subconscious warned. When attacked, you attack back! Attack! But even now he was falling. Attack! His head touched the dirty floor, which had been softened to mud with something wet. His blood? That didn't seem right. Hadn't he just been thinking about what a day it had been? And now it was ending like this? This day? He felt so tired. Attack! Wasn't the fool who had done this still here?
And yet.... justice, felt very far away. In fact, now the more he thought about it, the more he realized he could still hear the shallow breathing of the other. Waiting for him to die. Still here. He didn't have to die. Vlam summoned the last bit of his strength, and desperately tried to crawl towards the dim light ahead. Away from the darkness and towards the light of the cave. Instinct said to run.
He got you, he got you.
Gagging. He fell face first into the dirt of his den, and felt a strangling feeling go across his neck. It felt like there were tiny bubbles in his head. Weakly, he gave a low growl- but found that no sound emitted from his bleeding throat. He could feel the motion though. It thrummed through his body, and he was suddenly incredibly nauseous. This was the part of the dream you woke up from.
The sound of the attacker moving. He was still here, still watching. A finishing move to follow? Was that what had made him stop? He weakly took another fragmented breath. It smelled sour in the den. From his injuries, or just the stink from this foul creature? Rage tremored through the white lion's frame. Only a coward would strike him from the back! And now it did not even seem to be quick about ending him! The sound continued, and he imagined his attacker was considering something. Considering how to end him.
And then... nothing. He anticipated the attack to come, but instead, a blotchy shape darted in front of him and swirled out of view. When it returned- it was the face of someone very different. Two eyes....strange, wild eyes...
"Hey! Vlam!" It was a girl. Strange eyes.
Didn't she see the other in the cave? Standing just before him? Surely with those eyes of hers she could have seen it. Fate did not give you an eye of green and an eye of gold just to not see death when it strode before you!
"Woah- hey, you're hurt! I knew it! I saw it, you know." And, he bet she did. Those eyes, you didn't hide from those eyes. "Oh, oh-- just wait! Wait a second, I'll find someone I'll tell my dad-"
Vlam stumbled, feeling his head grow light. He caught the fading glimpse of Ea leaning in front of him. It was hard. It was hard to keep looking at those eyes. The feeling of exhaustion was flooding through him so fast that his mind spun. She was rather beautiful, he thought. He knew this girl. Funny that he'd never noticed that before in all the times they'd bickered.
"Hang on!" Ea said.
He did the best he could- and fell into a deep, pained sleep.
----
Ea watched as Vlam slipped form her, her wild eyes widening in horror. The scent of blood was thick in the cave, but despite what Vlam might have thought, all she saw was shadows. Whomever had attacked him was long gone, but his presence... his presence all but lived in the cave. Her hackles stood on end, and she stepped over the white lion's crushed body.
The den was not a large one. Smaller than the one she had grown up in, and she could see the back clearly even in the dim light. She snorted, letting the scent roll over her nose. Nothing she could recognize over Vlam's scent. She knew of the murders that had been happening around the pride. And this! This was...
She looked down at Vlam, and nudged him with her head. Had he died? "Hey, hey. Don't you just... just go like that! Do you know what my mom will say if I-" Her voice trailed off when she realized she was getting no reaction. She had to do something fast, or he was going to bleed out before she would even be able to get help. Luckily, he had a thick mane, and it seemed that his attacker had not been able to make his finisher as clean as he probably would have liked.
Ea spun on her heels, turning down the dark passage. There was nothing but sand in the den. What kind of fool didn't at least keep a scrap of something lying around? It was just like Vlam to not even be able to die easily. The wild cat tensed, trying to map out a course in her mind. She had had this dream before. What did she do in her dream?
Before really thinking about what she was doing, she rolled Vlam onto his side to get a better look at the wound. It was an angry red, and so much of the color blended with his firey mane that she might as well have been looking at a deathwound. Her tail thrashed, and she passed her tongue a few times over the spot to try and get a sense of what she was looking at. What did you do in a situation like this? She wasn't equipped, or trained.
She put her paw on the spot, but it was a lurewarm gesture at best. Blood wasn't seeping, hopefully inverting his posture would at least stop most of it. Her wild eyes spun back to the cavern. In her dreams, the killer was lingering. She saw no one here, but felt it best to address the shadows as though there were.
"You better leave this place, fool-" She hissed. "You'll not strike me down. And when we find you, we'll make short work of you."
It made her feel bold anyways. But for the moment, all she received in return were the sluggish sounds of Vlam's labored breathing. And the own ramming of her heart.
---
It didn't take long for No to arrive on scene. The fact that Ea had beat her to it seemed preposterous, but perhaps there were times when even she underestimated her own. Unlike Ea, her first reaction was not to tend to Vlam's safety- but to do a thorough sweep of the surrounding dunes. The scent of blood was so thick in the air it all but choked her. Foreign scent. But past that...
When she returned to Ea's side, only then did she check on the fallen lion. "Is he dead?" She said, a bit more coldly then she had wanted. She'd seen a lot of death in her short years. It wasn't always easy to treat every single one as emotionally as it should.
Ea looked up at her mother, her strange eyes red with nerves. "No. s**t, I don't know what to do with him. He's not dying. Don't we have someone who can look after him?"
No furrowed her brow. Truthfully, they didn't. If the old pride had had healers, which she doubted, they had perished during the war or fled. The black cat shook her head regretfully as her mind pulsed for an answer. "No. And wounds like that...they don't tend to heal. We need to focus on finding out who did this-"
"And leave him to die?" Ea snapped. "That's no way to treat a member of our pride."
No snarled, suddenly struck by a spark of rage. She rounded upon her daughter and bristled. "Don't you think for a second that I-"
Ea frowned, her ears folding regretfully. "I... I didn't mean it like that. I just don't know what to do here."
"You found him," No spoke. "I have to tend to my pride. We could not save Vlam, but there are others out there that still need to be protected. When word of this gets out there could be..." Her voice trailed off.
When it returned, she seemed to have found her answer. "We all have our roles Ea. You don't want him to die? Then do something about it. Find your brother and have him help you move him somewhere. Get out of this area. I doubt very much whoever has done this intended for Vlam to survive."
Ea seemed rigid for a moment, before nodding firmly. "Alright. I'll see what I can do."
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