I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness,
nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory
He is slumbering, somewhere far away, his pink nose tucked beneath the tip of his feline tail, protection from the snap of cold in the autumn air. The mountains of Hyaline are colder than the ground level, but his thick tawny pelt is plenty of protection.
Ryan’s dreams are relatively pleasant – flowers on the mountain in springtime, watching foals frolic in the lake after the sun has warmed it, his best friend Keeper emerging from her typical hibernation. Cats do not hibernate the way bears do, and he always misses her the most in the winter, even if she isn’t around in the summer.
The first sign that all is not well is when his dreams of spring turn to dreams of winter – snow in the air and ice underfoot. Ryan the dream-cat wrinkles his nose in distaste and looks around at the lonely landscape, spine prickling in unease. Even in winter Hyaline should not be this quiet – but he isn’t in Hyaline. The damp earth underfoot is someplace unfamiliar, and so is the face that stares back at him, unsuspecting and unfocused, as if Ryan is not there. The other stallion has a mark on his chest, something unclear, but the voice echoing around them and the visions that accompany chill him to the bone. He’s on his feet almost before the sleep clears from his mind, shot towards Pangea like an arrow from a bow on silent feline feet.
He doesn’t know the unsuspecting stranger is a relative. Ryan is significantly younger than Rhonen, his uncle, and he had not spent enough time with his mother to ever hear of her missing baby brother; Nairne had been more than a little mentally ill when he was a child.
What he does know, or thinks he knows, is that something in Beqanna has told him that this stranger will bring death and destruction to his world – and to his few loved ones. The cat will not allow this. Nor, it seems, will others. Ryan is not even the first feline to arrive – he hisses instinctively at the tigress from his crouch, but ignores the equines with a single-mindedness that is born of pain and magic-induced fury; he sneaks in underneath flying hooves and snapping teeth and he bares his own formidable set of teeth. The striped creature had gone with the power behind her large mass to strike with a clawed paw, but he is considerably smaller; still, an equine’s tender skin is no match for his tearing jaws.
Consumed with the same desperation as the others, the panther leaps from underneath, seeking to sink his teeth into Rhonen’s soft throat. To remove this threat.
For Ryan’s sake, hopefully he stays the unknown son forever; hopefully he will never have to know the identity of the man whose demise he has rushed along.
Ryan
( I love only that which they defend. )