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| Night came, and though Munkustrap and Macavity were hydrated and relatively clean, their stomachs were still empty. Rather than spend another night on the ground, the trees around the river and of the forest beyond were large, large enough to support the weight of two catmen as they climbed up and settled on branches, weaving their limbs and tails around as many forks as they could to keep from falling out while sleeping. As the forest turned black with twilight and the sky a fading shade of blue, both cats stared out into the river, listening to the strange bird calls and insect chirps that rose like a choir of nature's finest. |
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| Munkustrap heaved a sigh, drinking it all in lazily. |
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| From two branches away, Macavity's tail flicked. "What'cha thinkin'?" |
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| "I don't know. The meaning of life?" |
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| The other laughed. "Yeah. Guess this place does it to ya." |
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| "So what do you think it is?" |
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| "What? The meanin' o' life?" |
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| Munkustrap laughed, scratching the back of his neck. "I heard someone once say that man's purpose was to leave the world in a better place than when he found it." |
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| Macavity made a sound, his expression undetectable as Munkustrap was staring away from him, that mixed a snort of contempt and a sigh of defeat. "Are we still men, Strap?" |
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| "We dunno our names. We don't look like humans. We sure as heck ain't wherever we came from." A pause, his voice dipping. "We're not human, are we?" |
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| Munkustrap didn't answer for awhile. He gazed out at the river, watching the way it dipped and rose as it flowed over hidden rocks; the ripples as it bounced off sticks; the splashes as tiny fish jumped from the water to snap at insects. He heard the chirps of the insects as though they were right next to his ear, as clear as glass. He could smell the wildflowers that grew near the riverbank not twenty paces ahead, their individual tangs and sweets. He could smell the insects that had crawled over them in the past few hours. |
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| No human could ever do those things. |
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| "I don't know, Cav. Go to sleep." |
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| Munkustrap had another dream that night. His eyes felt heavy. So heavy. Blinking hard to keep them open in his dream, he could barely see the images flickering in front of him like a broken movie reel. Each individual frame held some fuzzy picture, some distant memory he couldn't open his eyes long enough to see clearly. There was a building...a woman...a drawing...a bottle... |
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| His eyes snapped open, but it wasn't the images he faced. Before him was a mirror, and the face staring back at him was that of a silver tabby cat. He blinked. It blinked. He opened his mouth. It opened its mouth. He tried to scream, but the fur that was on his face was in his throat, stifling all sound. The cat in the mirror just grinned. A lynxish grin, mocking, evil. Munkustrap reached out and shattered the mirror. |
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| The tabby woke up with a jerk, nearly tumbling from the tree, only a quick grab for the branch above saving him. Panting heavily, he felt the back of his throat stinging with dryness, his fur damp with perspiration. Odd, he thought as he pulled himself back up. Cats don't sweat. He gazed across at Macavity, who lay in total relaxation. His chest rose and fell rhythmically in deep breaths of sleep, the tip of his tail twitching jerkily on its own. Munkustrap's eyes roved to the river, the sky...it was almost morning. Slowly he stood, arching his back in a feline stretch, his claws dragging through the bark as he dragged them back. What I would give for a nice stiff drink... |
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| Munkustrap blinked, wondering where the thought had come from. Shaking his head, he concluded that he was thirsty after all, and climbed down for a short trip to the river. |
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| The water was cool as it trickled down his throat, sweet and pure, as natural as could be. Yet as Munkustrap bent down, lapping at the river's surface with his sandpaper tongue, the back of his mind told him that the water was unsatisfying. It needed something else. What it needed, though, he wasn't quite sure. |
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| A flash of white among the trees made Munkustrap look up. He froze. |
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| At first he wasn't sure what it was. But she stepped out, regal as Charumcah himself, standing tall and proud on all fours as she stared with her deep golden eyes. |
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| She was a wildcat...of some sort. Her fur was long and shaggy, indicating life in a cold area, which brought the wonder of what she was doing here. She was enormous in bulk, twice Munkustrap's size though she walked on four legs rather than two. Her fur was thick, a brilliant blazing white with what seemed golden highlights and brown spots and stripes slashing through her coat. What startled Munkustrap most though, were the two long, sabre-like fangs that protruded from her mouth and hung well past her lower jaw. In the moonlight shining down on the river, her coat shone with brilliant luster. Munkustrap was, truly, in awe. Dumbly, he licked a remaining water drop from a whisker. That one small movement made the wildcat's brown ears perk, and on enormous paws she swept majestically down onto the wet sand of the riverbank, bending to lap up some of the clear water. Munkustrap didn't move as he watched her. |
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| A few drinks, a lapping gesture much in the way of the two toms', and she raised her head again, never blinking, as she met his eyes fearlessly. Of course, Munkustrap mused, she has no reason to fear me. One swipe with those teeth and I'd be done for. As if acknowledging her superior presence, he nodded to her slowly. Seeming amused, the wildcat flicked her tail and was gone back into the forest in one liquid movement. |
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| When he arrived back at their tree Macavity was awake, stretched out on the tree branch, tail flicking side to side behind him. Munkustrap approached warily, not wanting to tell the other tom of the cat-like creature he had seen. But though his footsteps made obvious noise, Macavity didn't turn to look at him, to demand angrily where he had been. His face remained fixed in front of him, away from Munkustrap, his entire body still except for his tail. The silver tabby stopped a moment, gazing at the other, and opened his mouth to speak. |
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| With a sudden, ferocious roar, Macavity sprang forward from his branch, making Munkustrap's heart jump in sudden fear. He watched wide-eyed as the tom with fur of fire landed heavily on the thick branch of another tree, his body curling around it and claws sinking into the soft bark in a pure feline manner as the front of him vanished into a loud rustle of leaves. |
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| "Cav!" Munkustrap shouted and bounded forward as he heard the high-pitched screech of something in agony. "Macavity!" |
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| He halted at the tree's base and looked up, ears and whiskers quivering anxiously as Macavity's claws slid down the trunk, bringing him to a gentle landing on the ground again. Munkustrap reached for his shoulder. "Cav? What's the d--hey!" |
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| Macavity turned, and from his mouth fell a large black object. Lifting his black hand where he now held the object, his blood-smeared grin as cocky and smug as could be. Munkustrap stared, a mix between horror and longing, at the dead bird-like creature. |
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| "It landed a few minutes after ya left," Macavity finally said, dropping the animal into Munkustrap's black hands. "Been awhile since we had breakfast, eh?" |
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| Munkustrap didn't know which path of thought to follow: disbelief that Macavity had killed, or gratefulness that they now had something that might be edible. "How are we going to eat it?" was all he could manage. Shrugging, Macavity pushed back strands of his tangled mane, licking the red smear from his white muzzle. The taste of blood lingered on his tongue, sweeter than life itself after such starvation, and felt the ridge of fur along his back bristling with the scent of more of it in his nostrils. |
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| "As best we can," was all he said, "an' while it's still warm." |
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| Holding the bird by its scale-covered legs, Macavity kneeled slowly to the grass-covered ground, set the bird in front of him, and proceeded to tear away its long black feathers by the handful. After a moment of observation Munkustrap knelt opposite him, staring hungrily at the pale white flesh exposed beneath the bird's feathers. |
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| "I dunno," Macavity answered distractedly, wiping away a feather that clung to his whiskers. "It jus' landed there, an' I stared at it for awhile, an' was a few minutes before I realized my tail was swingin' back and forth like that. Bird didn't seem t' mind. In fact," he paused, looking up, "it stared at it, not movin', `til I pounced an' got it in my teeth." |
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| Munkustrap grimaced plainly at the tone of voice Macavity took on as he spoke the last few words, but his gaze shifted as the bird lay before them now, plucked and quickly loosing its heat. Slowly, almost caressing it, Macavity's claws reached for its leg. |
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| "You know this is going to taste awful, don't you? Uncooked?" Munkustrap said as he took hold of the other side. The bird wasn't big, and between them it wouldn't even make a decent meal, but it was something. Macavity nodded, tearing the leg from its socket. He twisted it as red liquid began to trickle from the severed joint, bringing it up to his mouth. |
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| "It's like this or none at all, Strap." Without hesitation he sank his fangs into the bird's soft flesh. |
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| The taste of salty blood and warm flesh between his jaws sent a shudder throughout Macavity that he hoped didn't show, and for a moment his mind was blank except for that one predatorial thought: Eat. Kill. Survive. Tearing back, his feline fangs were razors in the thin meat as he tore nearly half the white flesh from the bone and swallowed it, licking his whiskers. |
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| Munkustrap was not so taken with the food source. |
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| Feeling the flesh in his mouth was like the conscious feeling of committing a crime, sinning when his conscience told him not to. He forced himself to swallow, to take another bite, and swallow that. There was no savoring of the blood on his tongue, no flicker of vile pleasure in his eyes as was in Macavity's, but he was to occupied to see. He ate, and that was all. |
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| Between them the bird was picked clean in a matter of minutes. The hunger that bit at their stomachs was no factor in their urge to eat...they went slow, one savoring each bite, the other feeling no delight in the kill. But in the end, both were grateful for the bird's meat, and in a matter of moments they both felt rejuvenated; their energy renewed by the nourishment. Standing, arching his back in a stretch, Macavity reached his claws toward the now bright blue sky and yawned immensely. His muzzle had been licked clean of any traces of gore, but on his breath was still the scent of blood. It was on Munkustrap's, too. |
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| "Now what?" Macavity posed mid-yawn, as though the killing had never happened. Munkustrap stared a moment at the bird's skeleton, its thin, tiny bones sticking in odd directions like dead sticks. He couldn't stand the sight of it. Gathering them up, he headed for the river. |
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| "The river will flow down into an ocean, eventually," he said softly, listening to Macavity's footsteps following him. "Charumcah said we should travel toward its source, so..." He stopped at the banks of the river, glanced along its path to the direction it came from, then tossed in the bones. "We go north." |
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| Macavity leaned casually against a tree near the sandy bank, crossing his arms. He watched the tabby warily, uncaring about most things now that his stomach had momentarily ceased its growling. |
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| "If there's any scavengers in this forest," Munkustrap said resolutely as he kicked the bones further into the river, watching as they bobbed to the surface and began to drift away with the current. "I don't want them following us." He glanced back over his shoulder then, ears rotating in the direction behind them. Macavity didn't seem to notice. |
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| "If there's any scavengers in this forest, they'd be followin' us already. Heck, we look dead eno--" |
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| "Get down!" Munkustrap hissed harshly, shoving his friend to the ground exactly half a moment before two metal-tipped dart-like arrows thunked into the tree trunk where he'd been leaning. A volley of angry voices, snarls, and barks was heard and Munkustrap half-pushed, half-dragged his confused friend through the low bushes of the forest. |
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| "What're we doin'?" Macavity whispered harshly when he took the notion of scrambling away on his own, still unsure why. They darted through the forest, around trees and through bushes, intending nothing but land before them. |
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| "Keep moving," the other spat back. "Something's chasing us." |
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| In the scramble of their feet through the sticks and brush, neither cats heard the running water until the river literally opened up before them. It had bent sharply in the direction they had been dashing so wildly in, crossing their path once again. They tumbled into the water, two more arrows slicing terribly close, urging them on to swim madly for the other side. The river was calm but deep and narrow, and they were across and scrambling up the opposite muddy bank when two more arrows struck mid-river, and they stopped, flat on their bellies in the thick brush, panting. Both stared intently at the opposite bank. |
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| "Good God," Macavity gasped. "What are they?" |
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| Munkustrap stared, almost not believing the two figures that stepped out into view. Dogs. Tall, leather-clad dogs sporting large crossbow-like weapons on which green-feathered darts were mounted. Both were big, one black, one brown, looking all in the world like a dog Munkustrap distantly remembered from Earth. |
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| "Pollicles," he growled under his breath. "Those are the ones Charumcah warned me about." |
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| Macavity grinned, baring his fangs and running his tongue over his black lips. "Argh...they don't look so tough." |
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| Munkustrap flattened his ears in annoyance at the other, his breathing becoming more relaxed as the two dog-like people moved away, growling things to each other in what sounded a bad temper. "For now we should steer clear of them," he whispered still. "We have to be careful. C'mon." Sticking to the cover of the underbrush, the two cats stole away in the direction opposite the Pollicles, following their path along the river until the sun set again. Both toms underestimated just how careful they had to be. |
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| "Strap. Hey, Munkustrap. Wake up." |
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| It was still dark when Munkustrap felt himself being shaken, his eyes blinking against the darkness to see Macavity's dark silhouette against the bright moon, looking down at him. Munkustrap could see his fangs gleaming in a grin. "Huh?" |
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| Macavity held something large and bulky in his sinewy arm. A scent drifted from it, and the moment it registered Munkustrap's mouth watered and stomach roared. He was hungry again. He immediately sat up, eyes wide. |
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| Macavity's grin was reckless and daring as he set the furry sack down, pushing back the long flap that held it shut and reached inside. He withdrew something short and leathery. "Food." |
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| No sooner had Macavity shown its presence then Munkustrap snatched it, drawing it close to sniff it deeply. It was some kind of meat, dried and hard. Almost like jerky. He restrained from gobbling it down by looking at the other strangely. "Cav...where'd you get this?" |
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| Macavity dumped the bag's contents on the ground, chuckling softly as he sifted through the contents. "The Pollicles." |
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| Munkustrap's face tensed forward in alarm. "What?!" |
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| "Relax, Strap. They were both snorin' up a storm. All I did was slip off after y'went t' sleep an' snuck in t' snatch one o' the bags they had. Heh, I could kicked `em an' they wouldn't have woke up. Soon as the sun falls, so does their eyelids." |
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| Munkustrap couldn't believe his carelessness. "Macavity, why'd you do that? Do you have any idea what could have happened if you got caught?" |
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| Macavity's grin didn't waver a fraction. "They'd never catch me. Here." He selected his own meaty jerky strip from a collected pile and raised it to his mouth. "I saw them eatin' this stuff, so it should be good. Sure beats that bird." Almost at once both toms gobbled down the dried meat greedily. The meat wasn't tasty, or very filling, but it was more than nuts or raw bird meat. There were a dozen or so strips gathered in a thin twine, and both agreed to allow themselves three more strips each before saving the rest. "We may need it," Munkustrap reasoned. |
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| "An' that ain't all that's in there," Macavity went on, showing the other items that came from the bag and rested on the dark ground. Munkustrap looked over them. To anyone else they would have been petty. But to the two toms, struggling to just find food in this vast wilderness, they were worth more than gold: a short, thick-bladed knife; the twine-bound dried strips of meat; a strange-looking flat stone; and what looked like a flat beaten piece of square metal, about a foot squared in area. "They didn't have much else," the fiery tom said. "'Cept those crossbows they kept close by an' the stuff they wore. I didn't figure it'd be worth much." |
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| Munkustrap smiled, leaning back again, feeling incredibly comfortable all of a sudden. "You've done enough, you thief." He ran his hand down the soft fur of the bag outside after the items were placed back inside. "That knife will definitely be useful, and the jerky if we need it again. Whatever the stone and metal's used for we'll figure out when we get there." |
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| Macavity nodded, yawning as he did. "Y'still haven't told me what "there" is." |
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| "Honestly, Cav, I have no idea." |
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| "Arright. If y'say so. `Night." |
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| "Goodnight. At sun-up we'll start moving. We don't want those dogs following us...Cav?" |
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| But Macavity was already asleep. |
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