literature

C'ialiak: Happiness

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Uninjured. It was surprising, somehow. After witnessing so much death and destruction, after losing a life to these overgrown lizards… To walk away from the final battle uninjured felt exceptionally satisfying. They could all rot in those walls for all he cared. He’d seen what the poisons had done to them. To their leader. It was both awe inspiring and absolutely horrifying. They hadn’t just killed it, they had liquefied its flesh until the scales dripped down upon the ground and eyes rolled back in blackened sockets. The putrid smell had washed upon the land and he was certain that those Light-Tribe cats nearest the carnage would reek of it for moons. He sat down for a moment, no one near him spoke, and took a breath to gather his thoughts and clear his mind of what he had seen. It wasn’t what he wanted to see anymore. What he wanted was- Her. She had been with him in his time of greatest need and how he did not know whether she was even still alive. He had to know. The caimans, those soulless reptilian creatures, they did not matter anymore. Earth and Light-Tribe would ensure that those who had survived caused no more problems, and it no longer fell into the concern of Shadow-Tribe. They were free of that now. What next? Spirits, let us have some peace. He raised his head briefly to the sky before forcing himself to his feet and winding through the crowd in search of a familiar face. All he wanted now was to see her. To bask in her essence for a moment and feel once more that the world was right. All he wanted was D’ialia.

D’ialia had been fighting beside Stephano when the word reached her that the Silver-Caiman, or Grunt, or whatever it was that he had called himself, had fallen.  She didn’t hear the details, but she knew without a doubt that it was true.  Without their leader, the other caimans were scattered, disorganized, fleeing from the onslaught of the tribe cats who showed no mercy to them.  Perhaps it had been a good thing that some of the Lights had become offensive, capable of poisoning their enemies.  Whether or not that would prove as useful in the future remained to be seen, but D’ialia was not so certain that Light Tribe would continue to stay neutral with their newfound powers.  She said a quick farewell to Stephano—there were others around now, that would help him, and he would understand why she was leaving his side before the battle was officially over.  He was the only one who knew.  She wove her way towards where the Silvers had gone after Ec.  The great creature was dead now, and she had nothing to fear from venturing in that direction.  On the way she passed her fellows, dispatching the last of the caiman warriors, her eyes trained for a gleam of white amidst the dark mottled pelts.  She spotted him and bounded over, favoring one hind leg slightly, eyes alight.  “Silver-Shadow!”  She called amidst the dying sounds of scuffles, forgetting the pain in her leg as she bounded to his side.  “I hope you did not leave ALL the fighting to the Green-Lights!”  Kits.  We’re having kits!  The spirits gave us a second chance!  She imagined she could feel them inside her, their lives pulsing and quickening through her as she had defended them during the battle.  She had not lost them, and would not lose them.  This time, where would be life.

“Certainly not.” Cenek shook his head, although already his memory of the fight itself was beginning to fade. His mind, for good reason perhaps, was blocking it away behind a great, thick wall. Not for the damage that had been done to him, he was fortunate to have been left relatively unscathed, but others had not been so lucky. He wanted to forget. There was no use in remembering their plights now. It was too late to save them. Too late to make use of the memory, that critical moment at which all that was well had gone horrifically wrong, that blood had poured forth until there was nothing left to keep life afloat. They were gone. That was that. What was left was the living. What was left was D’ialia. Thank the Spirits she was still in one piece. He eyed her curiously, the limp just catching his attention. She was injured then, but not too badly. He hoped that was true, and that she wasn’t hiding any more serious injuries. But she seemed so… happy. Maybe it was because they’d won. That was understandable, but something about it still seemed slightly unusual to him. He just couldn’t put a whisker on what, or why. “I see you’ve still got all of your limbs.” But he didn’t smile, or move. Whatever it was, that slight feeling, was keeping him from it, and the confusion showed more clearly on his face than he would have liked. “You’re alright then?”

He was confused.  He was worried.  She could have laughed, if she was prone to such outbursts of sudden hysteria.  Aah Cenek—his cynicism had served him well in the past, but it was giving him needless worries this day; the day where life triumphed over death, and the forces of the universe had returned to their balance.  The news of her pregnancy, the decision not to tell her mate until after they had seized victory, had been like a thorn in her pad that she had trodden on without tugging, for fear that he would notice.  She had tried to put it out of her mind, spoken of it to none but Stephano, and then only to let Cenek know should she perish in the fight.  Had times been less desperate, he would have been the first to know.  But he was a Silver now, and in this time of complete darkness that not even Shadow Tribe could withstand, she could not divert his attention from command.  It was a rare thing indeed, for D’ialia to decide that there were some things more important than knowledge.  That the words could come from her own mouth seemed a strange thing, and she stopped when she was inches from him, jaws half-parted as she searched for the words she would use.  “Kits, Cenek,” she breathed, her eyes light, her ears up, her tail waving in the half-light.  “We’re having kits.”  The mix of emotions was confusing.  Fear, joy, and love all tangled together in an excitement that seemed to be inhibiting her ability to function correctly.  Their children would be born into a world which they had fought to protect and prevailed against an opponent that matched the spirits and all their powers.  And, when the time came again to fight against impossible odds, the strength of she and her mate would continue even after the two of them were unable to fight.  Life from life, a cascade of power and knowledge unaffected by time and age, branching out to spark more and more life from what was originally one.  That was her answer—the meaning for her existence, the reason she fought.  Not survival, simply to determine how long one lived.  It was what one left behind which determined the quality of a life.  Actions preformed, battles fought, beliefs upheld and spread to others.  Each small action a catalyst for great change.  That was how mere mortals lived forever.  

Kits. Kits? Funny, how that word, of all words, seemed so strange. Cenek had heard it before, of course. He knew what it meant. Just another word, a part of life, such routine. There was nothing unusual about that word. It represented an early life stage, an essential portion of the feline lifecycle. From which all are made, to which many create. Why then, did it trigger such a significant mental reaction? Wires connecting, currents electrified, pulsing, thoughts produced in a manner too rapid to initially unscramble.  It was strange, it was irrational. Out of the throes of battle, the blood grown cold still staining his fur in patches, splatters and blotches that were not bright crimson so much as a dry, rusty brown. It didn’t seem important, anymore. Cenek never would have considered himself one to care much about “family values”. In many ways, he and D’ialia were alike, particularly in their philosophies, but where her past had been wrought with trials from near before the beginning, his was a start marked by privilege, if he’d had the capacity to remember it. To whom was I born? What were they like? He’d never cared. The sweet milky scent of his mother worn so thin in his memory that only her presence should have been enough to wrench it back into his mind. But she was certainly long dead. She and his father both. He knew he had been born in the Tribes, and for all he’d ever been aware his beginning came among the cats of Shadow Tribe. That’s all there was, in the end. A life stage forgotten. Kits. Conceived and carried, survived in war. “Kits.” He breathed the word, barely more than a whisper. Testing the sound, how it carried through his lungs, a single syllable. Should he be angry? Not at the prospect, but at the news, the knowledge that something so unexpectedly important in his mind, the only reality of which he was aware, had just been risked in a battle that had been fit to run the rivers rank with rotten flesh? Of course not. They could have had no better guardian. That was not the shock. I care. That was the only important realization to be made in this mind. Please, please dear Spirits. This time, do not take them away. His eyes, having made contact with hers, stayed locked there. Engulfed. Unblinking. His vision grew blurred by some external force that, for its volatile nature, seemed to be emotionally counterproductive. But he wasn’t embarrassed. The substance rolled down his cheek. After all that death… “I’m happy.”

Happy… yes, she felt that too.  That was the strongest of the feelings that she was getting, but it was a common one for when she was in his presence.  She thought she understood the feeling—a sort of warmth, a life, a restfulness, as though she were bathing in a patch of sunlight and soaking up its energy.  She tilted her head slightly, her nicked ear flicking back once in indecision.  From what she knew of happiness, it did not seem to go along with tears.  But somehow… she felt that she understood.  Emotions were peculiar and dynamic things, and she was unable to fit them neatly into a box to take out and examine at her leisure.  Her eyes softened slightly, a rumbling purr that was half a chuckle thrumming in her throat.  He is not angry with me, she thought.  As he knows he should not be.  But she felt relief creep through her fur nonetheless.  “Happy?” she asked him, leaning up to touch her nose against the fur of his cheek.  She rasped her tongue over the tear.  It tasted like the water from the great ocean nestled against her territory.  “Then why are you crying?  Foolish tom.”  She found that it was suddenly hard to focus on the details of his fur, and felt the light sting in her eyes as water collected in the corners.  And why am I crying, too? she wondered, closing her eyes and feel the wetness slick down her fur.  One of us has to be the sensible one.

“I don’t know.” He admitted, leaning forward to bury his face in the soft fur of her neck. Was she crying too? He could smell the salt, light in the air, not too strong. “Maybe it’s relief.” They weren’t just tears, after all. He could feel it. All the grief and sorrow and worry that had built up over the past season cycle was spilling out of his mind, pooling in his eyes and dripping down his face until it left dark impressions on the soft tan soil. Their tears on the soil. We will never have peace, will we? There had been too much war in their lives. They knew no other way. It would kill them in the end, but maybe that was alright. Maybe that was their purpose, for this life. But it built up. It all built up inside like blocks upon blocks and they pressed against his mind until there was no room for anything else. Make room, make room for them. So the blocks tumbled, they spilled and stained the outside world. He had to let go. Let go of old memories, old anger, old friends and old enemies. He hoped no one was looking. Breathing in her scent, he sat up, the sternness back in his face. Back in its place. “We’ll be good to them.” He licked the fur on her cheek. “They’ll be ready for this world. They’ll take it by storm, it will be others who are not prepared to face them.” He paused for a moment, smiling. Genuine.  “Thank you, for letting me know.”

They’ll take it by storm.  Yes, she rather liked that.  She had always wondered what she could have been if she had been raised in the tribes.  How much of her current personality would remain intact?  Would she be stronger or weaker without the ordeals she had faced in her first eight months of life?  D’ialia had never thought too much about the future, but she suddenly felt it spreading out before her.  She was glad that she could walk it with Cenek.  She had never thought herself to be capable of love, and most certainly not in the romantic sense.  She doubted she would have been able to love anyone but him—how fortunate it was that their paths had crossed when they did.  They had had arguments in the past, and come out stronger because of it.  They were both twin souls and stark opposites, and though neither of them would ever come to know the other in their entirety, there was a deep understanding which connected them.  And now kits.  She wasn’t sure what was more surprising—that her entire world, everything she thought she knew, had been turned on its head, or that she found herself not minding the changes.  
The universe certainly had a strange sense of humor.
:icontgb-shadowtribe: :iconthe-golden-butterfly: :icontgb-shadowtribe:



WOOHOO happy C'ialiak times!  I know this is like really REALLY late but for some reason I never got around to posting the darn thing.  This one's a bit shorter, only 2,422 words, but we needed a bit of a shorter one to catch us up to modern times.  

Look at those suckers.  Crying and everything.

But hoorah for C'ialiak babies!  andfutureC'ialiakbabies
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Cloudclawz's avatar
This is a beautiful piece of writing.