After another day of walking, the brook Ashyn followed turned into false hope. The small stream ended at a shallow pond with no other brooks or rivers parting from the diminutive mass of water. Disappointed, Ashyn settled down at the small bank and removed his equipment for another evening of cleaning.
Even the game was thin. After the unnerving roar of some beast he heard earlier that morning, all the animals fled or were well into hiding. As a result, he wouldn’t be eating well. Only a handful of dried biscuits remained from Czynsk, and all the berries he had come across were unhealthy to consume. He wouldn’t be able to help his sister if he died of dysentery before even making it to Feydras’ Anula.
The small pond offered a few scant fish, but he never really learned that trade as a child, nor had he gathered much refinement on the skill in his winters within the Onyx Tower. So he would just have to deal this evening with biscuits.
Ashyn stripped out of his hardened leather, placed it carefully down, and then leaned comfortably into the mossy end of a fallen tree. His gaze drifted skyward.
Though the shallow pond was small, it offered enough of a break in the tree line to expose the world above him. He saw the vivid orange and pink hues of another dying day. He marveled at the simple beauty of the sky, and of the serene nature of the woods around him.
He found it hard to believe that something so calming and so beautiful could contain some of the foulest creatures that Ashyn knew of. The monsters of the very woods he rested in had destroyed his entire life. Be they the orcs that decimated his childhood town of Bremingham, the Bristle Wolves that ravaged his arm and nearly killed his sister, or the Ferhym that targeted him and his mentor as unbalancers, and had ultimately ruined his chances of becoming a wizard. Not to mention captured his sister and brutalized her.
Just the thought of his sister’s hazel eyes scorched away, brought heat to his face and unbridled anger in the well of his stomach. He could still vividly see the small crescent shaped brands around her hollowed sockets. He could still hear the screams of her pain in his waking dreams. All because she was labeled a ‘dui Nuchada’. Spirit Eyes. This was her balancing. Torture and slavery.
With no way to vent his anger, he kicked at a nearby stone, sending the rock soaring well into the darkening confines of the woods. It clamored to the ground with a loud crack, followed by the squeal of some animal that was in the turbulent missile’s unfortunate path.
“Just my luck,” Ashyn muttered quietly to himself. “Can’t even kick a rock without pissing off someone in these woods.”
As if by reply, he heard a low mewling sound coming from the direction the stone had flown. At first Ashyn tried to ignore its plaintive cries, but it persisted. Slowly the dusky orange sky disappeared above him replaced by the sanguine hues of night. Again Ashyn heard the wounded creature cry out. He sighed aloud. He knew if it kept crying it was going to bring along predators to finish it off, and if Ashyn wasn’t careful, they’d finish him off too. The recent memory of those horrible cries within the woods that morning played in his head. He hoped whatever was out there was either gone now or long dead.
Again the small creature mewled in the distance. Still angry from thoughts of his sister abused by the elves, he stood up, drawing his skinning knife. The least he could do was put the damn thing out of its misery before it brought the whole forest down on him. He marched over to where he kicked the stone in search of his prey.
To his surprise, it wasn’t a small ground hog or possum like he expected, but a cat. It was large, not like the domesticated kinds he had seen in his short time in Czynsk as a child. This one was easily twice, maybe even three times, the size of those cats, with ginger orange fur and black stripes running across its back and up the tips of its rather long ears. It was clearly a wild cat, and it might even be mixed with a lynx given its stripes and overly large ears.
He was alarmed to see just how much damage he caused the poor creature. He caught the poor thing completely off guard and the hefty stone crushed right into the right side of its face. Blood oozed from cuts in its fur, and its right eye was completely swollen shut. A deep tear ran across the animal’s mouth and the poor thing’s muzzle had caved in a little. Likely, Ashyn’s careless projectile broke bones and knocked out teeth. It stared at him plaintively with its one good yellow eye.
To make matters worse the cat must have fallen. Two outcropped rocks trapped it tightly. Predators like Bristle Wolves would get at it easily, and the cat would have no way to defend itself from slowly being ripped apart. An agonizing death.
Ashyn leaned forward between the rocks with his knife, intent on ending the poor thing’s life quickly for its sake. Seeing the sharp instrument coming it’s way the cat hissed and spit at Ashyn, and it even swiped a free claw at him. The cat was lethargic and slow and Ashyn had no problem avoiding it. Still Ashyn was amazed, as the cat’s one good eye never left his own.
“I did this to you,” he said to the cat, just as much as himself. Pity overcame the young wizard. His anger caused this creature’s pain and grief. His ignorance brought this on another. Sure, it was only a cat, but it was still another living creature, a life. Wasn’t that what he was sworn to value as a wizard? Life itself?
Here he was about to kill this cat because he didn’t want to be attacked by any predators because of its suffering, which he caused. Ashyn realized how selfish that was. Quickly he sheathed his knife and instead reached for the cat.
Again it hissed, spit, and attempted to scratch at Ashyn, but the lithe wizard was able to maneuver around its lazy swings and pry the poor animal from its confines. He set it down on the soft turf and stepped away. The ginger cat swayed briefly, and turned once more to face Ashyn, glaring at him with its piercing yellow orb. It hissed again, its orange fur standing up straight on its back.
Ashyn recanted his decision to free the feral animal. Without his armor on, his robes would do little against the feline’s claws and teeth. Though it was smaller than most things in the Shalis-Fey, Ashyn knew it could still cause him a lot of pain and discomfort with those sharp claws. Slowly his hand crept back down to his skinning knife.
The cat paced in a circle, eyeing Ashyn with its one good eye the whole time, while trying to get a sense of balance. When it felt Ashyn was no longer a threat, the cat turned to run away. It didn’t make it five feet. The wounded animal lost its footing and collapsed on its side. Ashyn approached it cautiously, and saw it was just lying there panting softly. The wizard reached down and touched it. The cat did not offer any resistance. With that, he picked the surprisingly heavy feline up and carried it back to the shallow pond’s bank. By the time he arrived, the hefty cat was asleep in his arms.