Miro lay on his back in a grove of trees, enjoying the summer shade. It was hot and muggy, oozing on through the peak of noon. He always liked to sleep at this time. Theresa had not been back yet, but she was getting older now, and his watch over her had loosened. She was growing up all too quickly. Deep down Miro knew that was a good thing, he thought as he lay there trying to sleep. it was good because he needed to get back to the life he was meant to lead, and so did she. Skies forbid she should end up like he had, following a dead-end trail with nowhere bright in his future. But maybe his future wasn't all dark. Ceta was still out there...maybe he would look for her. Maybe he would have the courage to return to a land that had been all too big for him last he had seen it. But Miro was getting bigger, himself. He was no longer the half-cub who had fled Argent that cold April morning; he was putting on serious weight, he knew this just by the heightened power he could attack with now in the hunt. He knew it by looking down at his young body, seeing strong legs finally growing into their oversized paws.
After napping, Miro headed towards the sound of trickling water. He wanted to see something for himself, something he had not seen in a long time.
He found what he was looking for in a still pool, where the stream gently tumbled down over rocks and into a small reservoir created by a beaver dam. The young cougar crouched on a flat stone and peered over the edge at it, his darkened reflection in the water. He was suprised by what he saw. It was a much younger, innocent-looking face than he had expected to find. A face that looked disturbingly like Argent's. Argent had had a huge build, like what Miro was growing into, and that innocent face, with soulful eyes that had yet looked on the world with such coldness. Miro stared, studying it, yet no matter how long he looked, he felt no closer to divining the things he really wanted to know.
~*~*~*~
Miari his mother had returned to the den after hunting to feed her three young cubs. She left meat just outside the den, the carcass of a young deer, and Miro and his brothers were quick to rip into it. After the meat meal, Miro endured his mother giving him a bath, then she lay down in the den to let them nurse. She didn't always let them nurse anymore as they were getting older, but sometimes, in the late afternoon, she seemed too tired to care whether they did or not. And if they could, they always did.
Miro piled down into her, feeling a brother join him on either side as he nursed on sweet warm milk. It was not just a meal, it was a sensation, one he took for granted, for it would be the last time he ever lost himself in the infantile bliss of feeling milk flow down his throat to the thunderous purr of his mother's body. Feeling the soft fuzzy skin of his mother's milk-filled belly beneath his kneading front paws...
When the stranger's footfalls disturbed leaf litter outside the den, Miro was too absorbed in suckling to react. but he reacted, indeed, when his mother rose up from reclining in defence of them and herself. Miro and his two brothers huddled in the back of the den as Miari screamed, lashing out against an adversary three times her weight. She cried out as the male cougar bore down on her.
"Run! RUN!"
Miro and his two brothers ran, as the male pursued. Miro took shelter in the leaf litter under a nearby log when he knew that he could not outrun his enemy. He saw his two brothers pile in after them. He backed into the dead end of the rotting log, covering himself with rotted wood, leaves, and wood and leaves gone to soil as the male reached in and grabbed his brothers, one by one. Miro closed his eyes and huddled inside. He felt the male's huge paw clawing inside, trying to reach him, finally giving up, leaving a silence that Miro did not dare break until hours later...when it grew dark.
Miro listened to his heartbeat in the great log. Heartbeat and ragged breathing. He slowly uncurled cramped muscles and crept out, little by little, every sound in the forest frightening him. The first thing he found when he stepped back outside were the spotted bodies of his brothers, lying side by side, scarcely a mark on them--their necks broken. Miro looked up and around him, blue eyes big. He felt a numbness creeping over him as he returned to the den. He knew he would not find his mother alive, but the sight of her lying there dead, her neck slashed open, still made him cry.
Miro curled up against her fluffy belly, giving little mews of despair. He lay against her, just because he did not know where else to go. As he lay there against her for the last time, feeling her unnatural, growing coldness and stiffness, his fear for his own life faded away. He did not care if that monster came back to finish what he had started. Let him...Miro didn't want this life anymore.
Morning found the flies buzzing around his mother. Miro sat up, and looked down at her face one last time. Her eyes frozen open, now beginning to sink. He would never return to this place again. But now he knew where he wanted to go.
The cub found the male's tracks in the dirt and followed them down to the water, where he saw the giant cougar lapping up a drink from the rocky river's edge. Miro sat and watched him until the male finally noticed him there. When he did, they stared at each other for a while before Miro spoke first.
"I want to be strong. Like you."
"You wouldn't last three days with me," said the grown cougar. "Go while you still can."
"I have nowhere to go. I'll be strong. I can learn from you."
Miro watched the older cat's eyes slowly come around to the idea. They both knew he had nowhere else to go, that it was this, or die.
"Fine. I will make you strong. But you have to listen when I tell you something. You have to live up to being strong. It doesn't come naturally to everyone and not everyone can survive it."
"I'll survive it," said Miro. He clambered down the riverbank to stand on a stone near the huge cougar. He still smelled his mother's blood on him, it was like an aura about the great male. He forced it to the back of his mind. He was too strong now to cry. He wouldn't ask the male why he had done it. He would only do what he was told.
"Very well. I am Argent, what are you called?"
"Miro."
"The first thing you must learn to be strong," said Argent, "is cut off all ties with the weak. The weak are who perish. The weak will drag you down. Close your eyes to their gazes, and close your ears to their cries. They would be your undoing."
~*~*~*~
Miro woke up on the big, flat stone, encircled partly by spindly oak and maple trees that grew close to the water. The foliage enshrouded the young cougar, save for where it opened to face the flowing stream and its pool. He would find Ceta, and Argent. But not yet. He had to bide his time until he was ready, as well as look after Theresa. But in time, he would bring Ceta to this bountiful land, where the streams fed the lands from this mixed forest out to fields and came tumbling from distant mountains, out at the other end of his territory. He would bring her here, and maybe they could learn what life was really meant for, together.
There was a life after Argent worth living, the puma had decided. Miro didn't know if Argent was right or wrong about him, but he would find out.