ONE
The spring air was sweet, thick with the smell of new flowers and budding life. It was far too nice a day to stay cooped up in the Castle of Lions, a sentiment shared by most of the residence, but only exercised by those without any obligations to fulfill at the moment.
Keith pounced bodily on Lance, who lay on his back, peacefully napping, by the bank of the castle lake. Peaceful, that is, until one hundred and twenty five pounds of fur hit him in virtually all the wrong spots. Normally tolerant of the younger Animan’s sense of play, this time he snarled and flipped the Myriad onto his back, pinning him under his greater weight and baring fangs with more annoyance than aggression. Keith lay his ears back and looked up at him with wide, sweet eyes.
"Onii-sama…" his voice was a soft whimpered chirp, offering the endearment as a white flag. Lance gave a snort, then a sigh, and sat back heavily. He gave Keith a dirty look.
"Don’t you have someone else to hunt, Kiko-chan?"
"No," Keith snipped, turning up his nose at the use of his weanling nickname, "Come hunt with me!" he grinned, kicking off his boots and wriggling his toes in the grass. Foot coverings of any kind were a hindrance when hunting. Lance rolled his eyes.
"You hunt. I sleep."
"Some fox you are! You’re supposed to *LIKE* hunting rabbits!"
"And I suppose it’s the sighthound in you that keeps you constantly leaping on me? Or is it the cat? One of these days, Keith-chan, you’re going to paralyze me. You should really learn some self-control!" he dodged a fierce swipe from Keith’s claws that was never meant to connect in the first place. The younger snorted.
"Lance-kun lectures *me* on self-control! Hah! A day to rememb—AWK!" Turning his back on the Vulpus for a moment earned him a pounce superior to the one he had dealt earlier. Kicking and snapping, he finally managed to squirm out from under Lance’s heavier body. He gave the fox an aristocratic toss of his head, sending a few blades of grass that had been clinging to his thick locks flying. Lance nearly rolled into the water with laughter as one resettled itself across Keith’s nosebridge, prompting the wolfling to cross his eyes to stare at it out of reflex. Lance’s howls turned into a yelp of surprise as Keith "accidentally" pushed him into the moat before trotting off towards the woods. He peeked over his shoulder long enough to see the daggers his friend was glaring at him, and to offer a Japanese Raspberry in return.This was definitely a good day for a hunt. Keith didn’t even have to go to fours to scent the rabbits in the forest. It had been a warm winter and a wet spring, and they had bred like… rabbits! Hunting was wonderful! Not just good physical exercise, but mental as well; it kept his senses honed, as well as his creeping skills. Of course, he still held the strict belief to never kill anything he’s not going to eat, so he usually released the animals after pinning them for a few moments. This time, however, he found himself in the mood for roast rabbit for dinner…
Dropping to all fours, he allowed thousands of years of mixed instincts to take over. First, the tracking, which required that he suppress the sighthound instincts to just run and flush a rabbit. Instead he let the wildcat and wolf take over, ears pricked, body low to the ground, as awkward a position as it was. He placed his hands and feet carefully, fingers and toes splayed as he crept, a rather futile effort in the long, soft grass that muffled his motions anyway.
A breeze brought a wave of tantalizing new scents, a whole warren’s worth. This was too good to pass up. If he was lucky, he’d provide dinner for the whole team, then they’d see who was a poor hunter! Just because during the last few hunts he’d nearly been either trampled or gored by the quarry… He’d been the one to do most of the tracking and running down, anyway. That’s what greyhounds and the like were born to do. It wasn’t his fault the wolf or the Akita or any of the other genes in his body never seemed to kick in when it came time to take down big prey like the moose-sized Arusan elk.
Keith moved quickly, silently thought the high grass towards his intended prey. Scent and scat from the furry animals was strong in his nose, blocking out even the grass brushing his face. They were around here somewhere, hiding… rabbits were shy creatures, and didn’t often come out in the open…
He whirled on a motion of brown and beige fur that passed through his line of sight. Feline agility and greyhound speed landed him square on the mass of fur, claws sinking into its pelt. The rabbit was huge, and thrashed in his grip as he sought an opening to deliver a kill-bite.
*WHRAUUNK!!*
‘That wasn’t a rabbit sound…’ Keith’s ears perked, and he let up his attack to get a better look at the odd-sounding rabbit he’d caught. Not a rabbit at all! It took him a moment to realize he’d hunted a bear cub. The young animal was bloodied, but otherwise seemed unhurt, just very frightened. He studied it, curious, having never been so close to a baby bear before. While large for a rabbit, it was quite small as bears went. Too small to be very far from its mother…
"Oh, shi—" The bear was on him before he could move to run. While baby was easily mistaken for a rabbit, mama was closer to being a brick wall. Her roar of rage drowned out his terrified squeal, and set the young Myriad into a dead run. An army of Zarkon’s worst was one thing, an angry mother grizzly was another!
His sprint was graceless, half upright and half four-legged, the only goal escape. He knew that the speed that had come with inheriting his mother’s build would only save him if his father’s endurance held out. He’d never encountered one of the Arusan forest bears before, but he’d heard tales told of their persistence in a chase…
Keith was forced into top sprint jut to stay ahead of the lumbering monster. He was sure she would have given up after a half mile, the maximum distance for him to maintain such a speed, but she continued to snap at his heels. He tucked his tail tightly between his legs, more to keep from having it sheared off than fear.
Twisting sharply, nearly a ninety degree turn, he dove into deeper, more rugged wood. He sighed when he saw it slowed her down, the size of her body harder to maneuver through the tight brush. Still, he could feel exhaustion creeping through his muscles. If he ran out of fuel before she did, Coran would be looking for a new pilot for Black Lion. Can’t do much for Arus when you’re in 50 or 60 bite-sized pieces…!
It occurred wildly to his panic-stricken mind that she was so busy trying to rend him to chunks that she’d left her offspring wounded and vulnerable. But then again, aside from the people of Arus, the bears were the only big predators, so the cub was probably safe… unless another young hunter of questionable skill repeated his error.
He’d grown up in a big city and knew nothing about bears but what he’d seen in books, so climbing the old pine tree seemed like the safest bet. His claws scrabbled at the loose bark as he shot up the trunk, the bear’s claws splintering the wood a fraction of an inch from his ankle. Panting and wide-eyed, he clung to the narrow tree, praying softly as it shook with the blows from her massive paws. Keith realized all too quickly that it was not only the stupidest idea he’d ever had, he’d pretty much trapped himself, but that the spindly tree was not going to hold up against the brutal assault… and it was going to be a long fall.
The Goddess smiled on him, and the tree toppled into the nearby river instead of the stony bank. The sudden impact was a freezing cold shock that cleared his head of panic in exchange for disorientation. He surfaced after floundering for a moment, gasping, and stared straight into dark gold eyes.
*HURRRRRWOOOONNNK!!*
His lunge for the bank was not fast enough. He heard her claws cut through the air and make contact with his body, but felt no sensation as she scored deep across his right hip. She swiped at him again, barely missing his shoulder as he rolled out of the water and whirled on her. If he was going to die, he was going to die with honor, not cowering. He’d stare straight into the face of Death and go down fighting.
The tactic seemed to change the tides. Pulling up short, the mother bear stared at him in puzzlement, second guessing herself. Ears back and tail lashing, Keith tried to make himself look as threatening as possible, failing as she shook herself out and lunged for him again. He felt his blood warm down his thigh, but felt none of the pain as he dodged her again and again.
Her paw caught him hard across the ribs, sending him spiraling into a tree. Flashes of white pain danced like a starfield in his head, intensifying as he futilely tried to regain his feet. This was it then. At least he could say he died in battle, of sorts. He just couldn’t believe that it was going to be because of a stupid, stupid mistake.
A sharp whistle was followed by the grizzly’s bellow of pain, as sound that was more terrifying than her howl of rage. Keith opened his eyes and saw the blood staining her shoulder fur black, the smell of singed fur heavy in the air. A laser shot split a branch near the huge animal, prompting another bellow of anger and fear. A third shot that landed too close to both her paw, stained with his blood, and his foot, finally turned the enraged animal. She retreated with a reproachful look at the young Myriad, a glare that told him that if they ever crossed paths again, he would be fresh meat for her cub. He watched her go, heart thundering in his chest, fighting to not hyperventilate as his adrenaline level crashed. Too quickly he felt the pain as the wound in his thigh made its presence known, tearing his consciousness from him faster than his flesh had torn under her claws, never hearing his own cry of pain."I should have gone with him…"
Lance paced back and forth in the hallway, oblivious to his teammates. Keith had been brought in by a pair of hunters some time ago, unconscious, one leg covered in blood. They’d said it was a bear attack, prompted or not they didn’t know. Dr. Gorma had taken charge of the boy immediately, and it had been silence since then. What worried Lance most was the gaping wounds. If he’d lost a lot of blood on Earth it wouldn’t be such a risk, but finding transfusions for a Myriad on Arus, especially since the cub was the only one…
The Vulpus jumped in surprise as the door slid open. Dr. Gorma’s normally spotless coat was streaked with blood and clumps of white hair. A bit of stray stitch-thread curled in a spot of blood like a worm on a hot sidewalk. Questions flew at him from all sides, Pidge even trying to peek past him into the infirmary. The lynx settled them all with a rough throat-clearing growl.
"The young commander will be fine, although I dare say he’ll be piloting his lion standing up for a while given those wounds," his moment of jocularity having achieved its desired, calming effect, he continued softly, "I’ve given him an anesthetic an a tranquilizer, so he’ll probably sleep well into the night, which is just as well since he’s lost a good deal of blood and needs to rest." He saw general nods all around, "I’ll stay up with him and make sure he gets something to eat if he’s hungry when he comes around." More nods. He understood, they were reluctant to leave their friend and leader, but there was nothing they could do at the moment but watch him sleep off the drugs. "I assure you, he will be fine if a little sore. You’d all best see to your own stomachs. He’ll still be here in the morning, believe me. You all should know better than anyone what a tough kitling he is!" his chuckle smoothed out the rest of the tension in the hall, and he shooed them towards the dining room, despite several silent protests.It was well after midnight when his young patient began to stir. Dr. Gorma looked up from the lab he was analyzing to the first bed in the infirmary. He came to his side as the boy struggled to see pass the haze of painkillers and sedatives. Brushing the tangled bangs from his forehead, the doctor could feel no fever, a good sign. Keith squinted and tried to string together a sentence that came out in an unintelligible mix of Japanese, English, and Italian, mostly Japanese. All he could really make out was "Kuma". Bear.
"Indeed. You gave us quite a scare, young one. Any deeper and those claws could have opened a major vein. Just what did you think you were doing?" He took a seat by the bedside.
"Boku wa karimashita…"
"THAT I understood! Hrmph! You would think battling that old scrag Zarkon would be enough excitement, but ah! The youth of today! Still, you might want to stick to hunting something a bit smaller than a bear…"
"Era… jiko…"
"You accidentally hunted a bear..?"
"No… Semeru… il suo bambino…"
"You attacked her cub? What under seven stars would possess you to…?"
"Usagi… Ho pensato… un coniglio… Thought it was a rabbit…" As his coherence returned, so did the pain, and he swallowed a whimper.
"You mistook a bear cub for a rabbit?" the physican raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"It was hiding in a warren… smelled like rabbits all over…" he choked back another sound of pain, this one not missed by the doctor, who got up from his seat to fill a hypodermic with morphine.
"No wonder she was after you! Did you kill it?"
"No… was fine… better’n me." For the first time Keith became aware of his state of semi-dress, wearing only a hospital gown beneath the sheet the doctor had just pulled back in order to administer the shot. A queasy feeling crawled across his stomach as he saw his freshly-repaired wounds. His right leg was shaved clean from hip bone to mid-thigh, and the better part of his upper thigh was wrapped in gauze an cotton batting. He wanted to see the extent of the injury, and yet didn’t, "Will… will it scar bad?"
"Possibly. Although your fur should grow back fine and cover it if it does. Heh, you don’t seem the scarring type, anyway." He swabbed a spot on Keith’s hip above the gauze with a bit of antiseptic, then stuck the needle into his flesh with a deft flick of his wrist. The young wolf yipped at the prick, he hated shots, but was grateful for the warm numbness that spread down his leg as the medicine took effect. ‘How funny,’ he thought as he tried to lash his tail in annoyance but saw it refused to do more than twitch spasmodically, ‘it won’t obey!’ Keith didn’t notice anything but his non-responsive tail until Dr. Gorma put a bowl in front of his nose.
"Here. Nanny would have a fit at this, but you can use the sugars with all the blood lost." He set the dish of Nanny’s ginger cookies in front of him. Keith’s stomach reminded him loudly that it had been deprived of its expected fresh rabbit dinner, and these WERE his favorite snack. The doctor watched him tuck into the cookies with the enthusiasm of a starving animal and smiled. After gorging himself on the sweets, Keith settled down, suddenly tired despite the level of sugar now in his blood. He felt the sheets being tucked up around him and didn’t fight in the least.
Asleep again. It had only taken a pinch of tranquilizers on the cookies to send him back to dreamland. Dr. Gorma chuckled at the remembrance of Keith’s remark that the only Japanese food Nanny made well was ginger cookies, although they still didn’t compare to his Obaachan, his grandmother’s cookies. When he woke again, though, he’d need something a bit more nutritious than cookies.
Busying himself with straightening up, he jumped as the infirmary door slid open. Lance poked his head in the door, looking years older for the worry on his face.
"I-I know it’s late, but…"
"He’s sleeping. He came around for a short while, but… he needs rest."
"I know… I just…"
"Come on in…"
Nodding thanks, Lance moved over to the side of the bed, and gave his young commander a lopsided smile and sigh. In sleep, Keith looked more six than sixteen, perfectly innocent and untroubled. He brushed his hand across his slumbering cheek.
"Keith-chan… What happened?" he turned sharply to Dr. Gorma, "Do you know?"
"He said he accidentally attacked a bear cub, thinking it was a rabbit."
"A bear?"
"Said it smelled like a warren. Piss-poor hunting if you ask me, but he is still a child…"
"Don’t tell him that…" Lance chuckled. He knew that the Myriad were slower to fully mature than most Animans, but Keith did his best to be an adult and responsible when he needed to, even if he wasn’t the best of hunters. Still, even an experienced hunter could make a mistake, and he was lucky to have escaped with only a slashed hip. Lance remembered what he had been told about the early Ursidae Animans, the mad ones, and shivered.
"I think your young leader should perhaps stick to hunting Doom soldiers. He excels at that. No more bear cubs," Gorma smiled. Lance returned it weakly, stroking one of Keith’s velvet ears. It was scary. He knew Keith would wake up in the morning and be fine, in a bit of pain, but perky and ready to go as ever. He also knew he could just as easily be identifying a body, or pieces of one. They’d grown up together, and you’d never seen a better set. Muteki no futari, Keith’s grandmother called them. A matchless pair. Invincible. Perhaps not, but there wasn’t a lot they couldn’t do together.
"Next time, Kiko-chan, I’ll be there. I’ll be there."
