From: Snowcat To: TLK-L Subject: Strangecat In The Pride Lands Date: Saturday, January 24, 1998 1:31 AM I've often on pondered why there might be a snow leopard in the Pride Lands -- I mean, on the mailing list and IRC at least. :-) I gave it some serious thought the other day, and decided to put pen to a little story about how Snowy came to be where he is. This story contains a couple of short scenes of moderate violence. If you're very sensitive to such things, consider yourself advised. War And Fleas ------------- The cubs often played in the shade of the kigalia tree at the foot of the rock. They would chase bugs, and tails, and pounce on anything that moved. Usually they did so under the benign amber gaze of a watchful lioness, but today a different set of eyes watched them frolic. A motionless stranger perched in a branch above, barely visible through the canopy of leaves - his icy grey-green eyes following every pounce, roll and tumble of the cubs. There was no malice behind the cold gaze, just mild curiosity bordering on amusement. After a few minutes his interest surrendered to the lassitude of a hot afternoon, and he settled his head on soft paws to sleep. "Whoa - check it out!" The strange cat flicked an ear, and tried to ignore the cubs. It wasn't a hard thing to do, as they had suddenly become very quiet in their play. He heard then shove and jockey each other a bit, before one of them spoke again in a whisper. "What IS it?" The stranger cracked open one eye and saw three very earnest, inquisitive little faces peering up at him. "Oh look, it's awake," whispered one of the females to her two companions. The male cuffed her and scowled, "See? I told you that you were making too much noise. You woke it up and it's probably mad now." "You're not going to eat us, are you?" asked the last cub with a timid quaver in her voice. The stranger sighed and shifted his weight on the branch. He hung over the branch and fixed the cubs with a critical appraisal. "Do you taste good?" he asked in a surprisingly soft voice. The cubs demurred emphatically. "Oh no!" they chorused. "We taste yucky," added one of the females for good measure. The strange silver cat regarded them for a moment longer, blinking only once, before he said, "Then I suppose I won't eat you." He lay his head down again and shut his eyes to sleep, but the cubs weren't finished with him. The cubs exchanged a few animated whispers that were too quick and soft for him to make out any individual words, before the first female spoke again. "Please sir, what kind of a cat are you?" she asked. "I've never seen such a thick silver coat like yours, or such a huge tail!" Apparently the others had elected her as their spokescat. The stranger drew a deep breath, and for a long moment he simply lay still. The cubs could not see it, but he was suffering terribly in the afternoon heat. To the cubs, it was simply a good day to find a shady spot to play, but the stranger could barely breath the blistering Savannah air. His thick coat was designed to withstand temperatures as much below zero as this was above. One of the lessons he had learned from his mother in the short time he'd known her, however, was that one is never rude to children. "I am a leopard," he answered in his same soft voice. He rasped as he spoke, as if the act was foreign to him. The cubs didn't notice the hoarseness, but they caught his strange accent, which elicited giggles from the three. "You talk funny," said the spokescub, "and you don't look like any leopard I've ever seen!" "I'm not from around here," admitted the stranger. "I am a long way from home." The only home he had ever really known was the institute. "It was cooler there," he added wistfully. "You can't even see your breath here." This brought more giggles from the cubs. "You can't see your breath," said the second female. "I can!" declared the male. "Just watch me." He buried his face in the dirt and rubbed it vigorously in the dry soil. A moment later he raised a now-very-dirty muzzle up from the ground and snorted out a fine cloud of dust from his nose. He snorted twice more, spraying muddy droplets on the last snuffle. "There!" he said triumphantly. "Mom's gonna kill you," hissed the first female through clenched teeth. "She just gave you a bath." The stranger in the tree chuckled dryly, but the young cub looked so abashed at his sister's scolding that he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the lad. "It's not like that," explained the stranger. He desperately wanted to sleep, as it was his only surcease from the torturous heat, but he was enjoying his interaction with the cubs. When was the last time he'd spoken with another who could understand him? He couldn't remember. "Your breath simply comes out in clouds, and just hang there in the air." "Neat," sighed the first female. "Can you show me how to do that?" Her brother gave her a cuff. "Dummy, he said it has to be cold!" He looked insufferably smug at the small revenge he'd gained on her. "So where's this cool place that you can see your breath?" "The institute," replied the stranger. "That's my home." He paused uncertainly, a little sad and confused. "Or... it was..." The second female cub gasped. "I've heard of that place. Mom says that it's a bad place, full of evil humans who do terrible, hurtful things to anybody who gets too close." She regarded the stranger with childlike compassion, and asked, "Did they do bad things to you there?" "Oh no!" said the stranger quickly, "They fed me and cared for me and treated me really well!" And cut me open, and put things inside me, and gave me injections, and subjected me to tests, and probed and prodded me in humiliating ways, and took samples and... "Mostly. I was born there. My mom wasn't from there though. She came from another place." "How sad!" said the male cub. "So why did you leave the institute if they were treating you so well?" The stranger didn't answer at once. "Something bad happened," he said finally. He hesitated, unsure of how much gory detail he should go into. After some thought, he decided to stick with the basics. "Other humans came - bad ones. They brought death, and fire, and loud noise. My..." he almost said 'friend', "One of the humans came and let me out of my enclosure. She was hurt real bad. The other humans had hurt her. I wanted to stay and protect her, but they must have done things to her mind, because she yelled at me, and threw things at me every time I tried to go to her. Then there was a loud noise and she fell down." The stranger trailed off. He decided not to go into detail about how the bullet ripped through his human friend. How her blood had spattered across him as she'd fallen with a dying exhortation of, "Run, you stupid cat!" Likewise he chose to skip over the automatic weapon fire that hurt his ears, and the smell of blood and smoke that assaulted his nose, or the fumes from chemical fires and spilt medicines that made his eyes water. In the end, he left most of the story untold. The stranger sighed morosely. "I ran away to look for the land where my mother was born. She told me about this wonderful place where she came from, but I don't remember much because she went away when I was very young - even younger than you." "Where is this wonderful place?" asked the female cub who was trying to help her brother brush some of the caked dust from his muzzle. "I don't know," said the stranger softly. "A place of snow and ice." "What's snow?" she said, cocking her head inquisitively. The other two cubs matched her look of puzzlement. "Snow," repeated the cat in the tree in the same gentle tone. "Snow. It's white like the clouds, but it covers everything, and it's cold. It falls from the sky, but if you catch it on your tongue, it turns to water. When you leap into it, it's like landing in the softest fur. You can roll in it, bore through it, bound over it - ah! My life would be complete if once I could run through a field of that wonderful, magical snow." "Sounds, uh, nice," said the first female, in a tone that suggested that she thought it sounded anything but. None of the cubs were enamoured by the thought of the cold - the cool savannah nights were chill enough for their liking. "I think I know what you are now," she added. "You're not a leopard. Your spots are all wrong, and your fur is too long, and your tail is too long! You must be a snowcat. A snowcat from the land of snow!" "Yes, that's what you are! You're a snowcat!" agreed the other female. "That's what we'll call you." She turned to her two companions. "Come on, let's go tell the others about our new friend." She looked back up at the treed cat. "You wait right there. Don't go anywhere." The command was needless, as he felt himself already slipping inexorably back toward sleep. The relentless anvil of the sun was baking the life out of him, and all he wanted was to nap. He didn't heard the cubs depart. The cat dreamt of snow. David "Snowcat" Braun (snowcat@total.net) TLK Code 1.0 follows: TLK++++ A+>+++ C-/+++>++++ L+>+++ M-- Pna++++ W++$>++++ S++ !T RLTI>HM a+ cfan++>++++$ e+>++ h--/+ iwt+++>++++ pc++ sm#