Ties
Chapter 2
"Lion-O?" came the soft, if shrill,
call. The young Lord of the Thundercats sat in the darkened kitchen of the
Cat's Lair, clad in his sleeping clothes, a glass of plain water on the table
before him. He stared into the glass as if the clear, cool liquid might suddenly
illuminate and reveal all the mysteries of the universe to him.
Snarf hopped onto the chair opposite Lion-O,
then lightly onto the table itself. He could see the hollowness of the youth's
red, gold-flecked eyes, and knew what was wrong. It was becoming a regular
thing in the months since the refugees' arrival on Third Earth. He cooed
soothingly, petting the boy's red mane. Normally the gesture irritated Lion-O,
who insisted on being treated like the adult he'd awakened as rather than the
cub he'd been before the hybernation chamber. But not on nights like this.
"The same one, Lion-O?" Snarf asked
softly.
The youth's only response was an almost
imperceptible nod.
"Do you want to talk about it with ol'
Snarf, snarf-snarf?" the little quadriped mewled.
"No thanks, Snarf," he said in a
gravelly whisper. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to be alone for a
while."
Snarf was taken aback slightly by the mild
rebuff, but let it go. He'd been caring for Lion-O since infancy, and knew the
boy took melancholy spells like this one. "If you need me, you know where
I am, snarf-snarf," he said. Then he hopped from table to floor, took a
piece of candy fruit from the cooler, and left.
Lion-O listened to his nursemaid leave, his
eyes fixed unblinking on the glass. With a quiet desperation, he willed his
mind to be as still and cool as the water.
Fire...
He smelled it. There was no smoke in his
room, but he could smell burning things. He rolled over in his bed and froze.
Like a vision from a nightmare, a massive
figure loomed over his bed in the darkness. He stared at it, uncomprehending.
This was all wrong. His house wasn't supposed to be burning. And certainly
there should not be a reptilian Mutant standing above him, a huge axe raised in
it's gnarled hands, ready to descend and split the child's skull.
Then the mutant gagged, dropping the axe to
it's right. The steel point of a sword potruded from it's throat. The creature
scrabbled at the deadly metal with it's hooked claws, then folded to the floor
with a loud thud. Behind it stood Jaga, Lord Defender of Thundera and his
father's best friend. He pulled the Sword of Omens free of the mutant's
carcass, then stepped over the body. He leaned down, drawing face to face with
the young prince.
"Listen to me carefully," he said,
his voice full of an icy, lethal calm that scared Lion-O more than anything the
elderly warrior might have to say. "There are bad things happening in the
palace and all around the city right now. We are going to go get your mother,
then go to a ship I have waiting."
Lion-O nodded, abruptly focused on his
mother's safety. A monster like the one that had come for him might even now be
looming over her bed. Besides, he had nothing to fear; Jaga was with him.
The pair stepped quickly to the door, then
looked out; the way was clear. Outside, the smell of burning was more intense,
the air warmer and thicker. There was sulfer in it, and a sweet smell he did
not recognize, but that seemed to sicken him just with it's presence.
The hall was dimly lit be red emergency
lights. They moved quickly down it, Jaga's eyes glowing an eerie gold in the
gloom as he scanned the passage ahead, occasionally glancing behind for signs
of pursuit. Jaga was good, Lion-O knew, and loved the boy like his own. But now
he began to realize how very, very dangerous the Lord Defender actually was.
Several minutes of careful progress brought
them to his parents' bedroom. As they drew near, Jaga stopped Lion-O and knelt
down close to the boy. "Stay here," Jaga said. "I should only be
gone a minute or two. If any mutants come by before I get back, run away and
hide. I can find you wherever you go." Then Jaga turned, moved to the
doorway, and glanced around the corner. He stiffened; Lion-O sensed something
was wrong, something bad. Then the Puma Clan warrior spun into the doorway and
disappeared.
Lion-O heard a series of shouts and curses,
then the hissing sound of plasma weapons being fired. This was followed by
several short screams, each cut off by the wet sound of flesh being hewn by
steel. Finally, a silence that dragged on and on.
He crept towards the doorway, his heart full
of dread. "Momma?" he called nervously, his voice choked with fear.
Something awful had gone wrong, he knew it, but maybe Momma was okay, maybe
Jaga could do something. Then he reached the doorway, stepped around the
corner, and saw...
The glass crashed to the floor, swept from
the table by a spasmodic jerk of a powerful arm. Lion-O looked around the
kitchen for several moments before he remembered where he was and how he'd come
to be there. He looked at the clock and saw that Snarf would be down in a
moment to start beakfast. He rose from his seat, retrieved a towel and cleaned
up the mess he'd made, dropping the glass fragments into the recycler. He
looked at the hole in the sink that had swallowed the shattered decanter.
His memories of the night from that point
forward were much like the glass; broken fragments. He remembered Jaga carrying
him; being handed up through the entry of the ship into the waiting arms of
Panthro and Cheetara; watching Capitol City crumble as they lifted off; the
Mutant attack, and the Sword of Omens awakening to defend him. Finally, being
laid down in his hybernation chamber by the sad-eyed old warrior.
Then he'd awakened on Third Earth. They'd
worked a treaty with the Berbils, done battle with Mumm-Ra and the contingent
of Mutants that had followed them here. The Cat's Lair was almost finished, as
was Panthro's Thundertank. But through it all, every night, there were dreams,
nightmares. And by day, he could never remember...
He had not realized he'd left the kitchen
until he found himself standing in front of the concealed entrance to the Sword
Chamber. He placed his hand against the stone that actuated the door, causing
it to grind open. He stepped into the small room and allowed the portal to
close behind him.
The Sword of Omens rested on the ornate rack
Jaga had ordered made for it years ago, when he first became Lord Defender. The
Claw Shield lay unpresuming on the table below it. The glistening jewel called
the Eye of Thundera was quiet, drawn closed into the vertical slit of a feline
pupil.
He walked across the floor and took the
weapon from it's resting place. It was his now, fallen to him as Lord of the
Thundercats, only because Jaga had left no heir. It was alive, and aware, and
he found himself wondering if it could grieve at the old man's demise.
Lion-O had weilded the sword on several
occasions of late, but something always felt wrong when he held it. True, it
responded to his commands and fought effectively, but there was no sense of
union with the weapon, such as Jaga had shared. There was something between the
young Lord and the Sword, something that formed a wall, keeping them from the
symbiosis they were destined to share.
Is it me? Lion-O thought, trying to direct the mental message
at the quiescent sword. Is there something wrong with me? The Eye of
Thundera gazed back at him, unblinking, keeping it's own counsel.
Above his head, Lion-O heard a door open and close,
followed by light, fast footsteps. Cheetara, he thought, On her way to morning
exercises. Since arriving on Third Earth, Lion-O had found himself avoiding the
lovely cheetah. He had gone into hibernation as a child of twelve and emerged a
grown male of eighteen; being near her evoked reactions in him he was still
learning to control. More than that, however, there was something about the
regal grace of her, the way she carried herself, that reminded him of Minerva,
his mother. So being near Cheetara was uncomfortable on several levels.
He gazed down at the Sword, wondering what to
do now. It gazed back at him impassively. "You're about as useful a
toothpick, you know that?" he quipped. There was no reaction from the
Sword at all. With a sigh, he took the Claw Shield and sheathed the Sword
there, then pressed the shield to his thigh, as he'd seen Jaga do so often. The
weapon adhered there of it's own accord.
Perhaps it was time to face down some of his
own demons, he mused, starting with the fleet-footed creature exiting the Lair.
He was Lord of the Thundercats now, after all; there was no excuse for his
being rude to her. Even if he made a fool of himelf, that was still better than
being alone right now. He waited a few moments, giving her a head start to
avoid interrupting her run, then exited the Sword Chamber and started for the
vehicle bay.
The racket he heard as he drew near the
entrance brought him up short. Looking through the doorway, he could see
Panthro at work on the engine of the Thundertank. The hood was up, obscuring
Lion-O's view of the stocky panther. This likewise obscured Panthro's view of
Lion-O, for which the youth was swiftly grateful, since he heard a steady
litany of swearing and cursing rising from below the hood of the tank. A second
later there was a clatter followed by a startled, yelping cry. A wrench
suddenly shot across the bay with enough force to break it in half against the
far wall.
Lion-O backed away from the door and returned
the way he'd come. He could walk around the vehicle bay to the front entrance
and avoid the panther altogether. He felt shaken and a little nervous; he'd
never seen Panthro so angry before.
Outside, he found Cheetara's tracks easily
enough and set out to follow. It took almost an hour before he saw the cheetah
stretched out in the sand, resting in the sun. She saw him coming and sat up,
folding her long legs beneath her.
"'Morning," he said awkwardly.
Cheetara looked back at him, her face
inscrutible. "Good morning, Lion-O," she replied softly.
The desert wind blew gently then and stirred
her golden hair, blowing an errant strand across her eyes. She reached upwards
with her left hand and brushed it casually to the side. With that simple
gesture, she swept from Lion-O's mind everything he'd intended to say to her,
entrancing him with the simple, untamed beauty of her. Moments passed, and
Lion-O realized he must look like an idiot staring at her in that way. Cheetara
had not moved, only now she seemed a little sad as she looked into the youth's
eyes.
Lion-O, desperate, looked around for
something to talk about, and found it. "Ouch," he said with a
grimace. "What happened to your shoulder?"
Cheetara's red eyes flashed gold. She leaned
forward, glaring at him, her hands balled tighly into fists. "None. Of.
Your. Goddamned. Business," she snarled, then sprang to her feet and
rocketed away from him.
Lion-O watched her streaking towards the
horizon. "But..." he said quietly, knowing she was already out of
earshot. He sat down heavily in the sand and drew his knees to his chin and
wrapped his arms around them. Now he was alone and he'd made a fool of
himself.
What's happening to us? He thought. Everyone's drifting apart. Nobody
talks, we don't eat together anymore. Panthro never leaves the vehicle bay,
Tygra never leaves the lab. Cheetara's always out here running around. The
Kittens keep to themselves...
He looked in the direction the cheetah had
flown. I just wanted someone to talk to.
He swiped at his eyes angrily. He was a
grown-up now. And grown-ups didn't cry.
TBC
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