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 Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:04 pm
 Tujil-dasu was no healer, nor had she ever been. She told herself she didn’t care; this was true. She told herself she didn’t care if the leopard she found on the savanna lived or died; this was also true.
And yet here she was, snapping at vultures. Here she was, dragging the body to a shallow den she had dug – a den for the leopard, a den for a stranger.
Fools die all the time, what makes this one any different?
Tujil-dasu greeted the question with a grim smile. How could she answer? That she liked the leopard’s scent, his green coat? Better answer: riddles. Riddles and answers, answers only the leopard could provide.
He won’t wake up. He won’t answer.
Tujil-dasu snarled. He’d wake up. She’d make him wake up. And he’d tell her everything, everything there was to know.
Why was he injured, why was he healed. He smelled like blood, he smelled like despair. And the female leopon, who was she? Her scent was on the leopard, on the ground. Tujil-dasu could track her easily – she never forgot a scent – but there was some hint of madness, of warning mixed with the smell. Here was an animal you did not follow. So Tujil-dasu did not follow the leopon’s scent to see if the scent of earth, of closeness was the scent of a den. She’d dig her own den, here, just big enough for the body she placed inside. And she’d tear up some bushes – here and here – and place them in front of the den – like so – to mask the entrance.
He’ll be dead by the time you get back.
Tujil-dasu smiled. She was going hunting. She would catch the food she needed, the hares she could smell even now, and the leopard would eat them. He had not woken or stirred while she dragged him, but she’d pour the blood down his throat and that would wake him enough for him to eat. Instinct.
He won’t wake up. He’ll die.
Tujil-dasu started to run, neither knowing nor caring why she was so certain the leopard wouldn’t die. He didn’t smell like death, that was all there was to it. Despair, yes, blood-pain-fear, certainly. But he didn’t smell like death. Nor would he; she wouldn’t let him die. She snarled a challenge to the air, to the voice of doubt in her head. He’d live, she’d make him live.
He was hers now. Hers to protect, hers to guard. Hers to heal, for all that she was no healer.
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Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:10 pm
 Tendaji didn’t know how long he drifted in and out of consciousness. There was food; he ate. Sometimes when he woke it was darker, sometimes lighter. He didn’t know where he was or why; a den, maybe. He tried not to think, not to care. He was getting stronger; it worried him. How long? How long before she was back, how long before she hurt him? The claws, the fangs. In his dreams she was there, in his dreams she was smiling. Waiting. He whimpered while he slept, he shook when he was awake. Food again, eat quickly. A flash of white, don’t look too close. Waiting, why was she waiting? Why didn’t she hurt him now, send him to hunt now?
Clearly she was waiting for him to get stronger so that when she hurt him, she could hurt him that much more. Beat him. Bite him. Maybe blind him like she’d threatened, towards the end.
He just wanted to die. He just wanted to curl up and die and never get up again.
He just wanted to die, except… except except.
“CARI!”
The shout filled the den in a way his shrunken body never had, and he pressed against the wall of the den, shaking, waiting. A flash of white, there! Unreasoning, uncomprehending, the urge to scream filled his head and pressed against the roof of his mouth, but all that escaped was a small whimper, there and gone. Cari, Cari, was she dead? He’d heard of lions that were demons, been warned to beware dark pelts, why hadn’t anybody breathed a word about this white leopon? She hunted him more surely than any other, and there she was, still. Just standing. Waiting. He wanted to close his eyes, look away, but he couldn’t. She was going to hurt him now. Just keep hurting him and healing him so that she could hurt him again and he’d never, ever get away. Why couldn’t he scream, why couldn’t he breath a word?
Be good, and I won’t hurt you, she had said. His fault, his fault. Always his fault. He closed his eyes, he waited. Don’t run, don’t fight. Just wait.
Just wait and let her hurt you.
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Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:15 pm
The leopard was becoming an obsession, almost a hobby. Make him better, make him stronger. Here, there, there – she identified the herbs used in the various poultices by scent alone and created her own bandages, clumsy, ineffective. Good enough; good enough to heal the scratches, the bites. The marks the vultures had made before she arrived, before she chased them.
She was beginning to understand, she didn’t want to. Someone, someone somehow, they had…
They had hurt the leopard and they had healed him and they had hurt him again. Every time she thought of it she growled and clawed the ground. How! How could anybody do that.
She didn’t know if it was punishment for a crime. She didn’t know if he deserved it. It didn’t matter; he was hers now, hers to save.
She dropped the hare she’d been carrying at the sound of his shout and ran for the den. The name itself was nothing new, but the strength behind it… was he waking up? Really waking up, not just eateatsleep waking up?
She stuck her head and shoulders in the den, tail wagging behind her, but her happiness died as the scent of the leopard’s fear hit her like a wall. She didn’t growl, she didn’t cringe, she didn’t react.
She just decided, calmly and matter of factly, that she was going to find whoever had hurt the leopard so damn much. She was going to find them and she was going to kill them.
But for now…
“Who is ‘Cari’?” she asked, her voice gentle. It wasn’t what she meant to ask – why are you frightened? who hurt you? – but it felt like the proper thing to say. Part 2Word Count: 1088
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