Posts by Miro

Indeed, Argent had just killed Kole and Kameo's brother. But it was as it had to be. Their group would be stronger if they jettisoned anyone weak, and did so at the start, before they dragged down the rest of them. The cubs would get over it. They had to in order to survive.

He'd kill anyone who revealed that they held any grudge against him anyway. That stuff only got worse unless you rooted it out fast. He'd learnt that from the son he was now possessing.

He looked at his cats, the small but dedicated gang.

"There is a group of two or three young cougars directly to our south," he said. "I want to bring three of you with me to capture them, possibly kill them."

Miro decided, as he looked at the bewildered faced of his cubs it was time to try explaining it a bit better. They had not yet caught on. He didn't blame them.

"I was possessed. My father's spirit tricked me into letting him in my body and then he took it over. He was angry really. Maybe jealous...because I killed him."

Miro turned to face Ziri. He did not disturb her hunt but he did intently watch. His tail twitched.

It so happened that her path had crossed the tracks of another. Large tracks, made by a very large tom in his prime. Miro was five years old, and he was still looking for his place in this world.

The faces of his two youngest cubs, Kole and Kameo, whom he had barely got to meet were in the back of his mind now, and he knew that the best outcome in that direction was for him to never see them again.

He had come a long way to make sure of it. He had recently crossed over what had once been the north border of the land that he had owned in the days following his father's death. Nobody had marked that area, but he had already known it by the time he had got there. Several hours before, he had passed over another border, this one freshly marked. Somebody else had claimed this place, probably a long time ago by now.

These tracks were female, and he knew that she was not the enemy. What was she to him, though? What was companionship to someone who had managed to fuck up every relationship that he had ever had?

He was a loner, but he was following the tracks anyway. They led predictably to someone new.

It was a harder request to fill than she would hopefully ever know. Not that Miro was about to harm the she-cat in front of him. She looked like she didn't need his or anyone's help in dying. Life had hit her hard, or perhaps she had been nursing an injury; maybe she was ill. For she was as thin as the end of winter, and winter was just beginning.

Miro just knew he couldn't trust himself in the long run. Things always started out so well.

He sat down, blinking his hazel-green eyes in a sad and jaded gaze in her direction. When he didn't know how to begin, he started with the first thing that came to his mind. Those old standbys; throwbacks to his earliest days shortly after he, too, had been robbed of a family. But no evils done to him could justify what he had laid to waste.

"I won't hurt you. I'm only passing through."

"Miro. I guess we're passing through together." The big tom glanced around, ears flicking. "I used to live here. Haven't been back in a while, and someone's moved in since."

"I have no idea. I'm just headed back into here to I guess take back my home." Miro poked around nearby, sniffing at the base of a tree. He had quite a job to do. "And I guess I'm heading away from where I just came from. Northeast of here." He looked up from his inspective work, then turned around and looked back at Jezebel. "It's more messed up over there than you'd care to know. It's been touched by dark spirits." One of whom had mysteriously freed him, but he knew too little to know what to think on that or to place any faith in it.

"There a difference? The kind that possesses you and haunts things." Miro didn't really distnguish. He'd not sought to learn about it. He'd been thrust into the whole thing unknowning. "My father didn't want to stay dead. He's gone now, but there's something up back that way. I got out while I could."

He didn't want to think of how he had left his kittens behind. They aren't even yours. They're Argent's. And they hadn't seemed fond of him. But that wasn't why he hadn't stayed. Miro didn't trust himself around cubs anymore. That and they always grew up to hate you, no matter what you did.

"So you come from west of here? What area there?"

Miro put aside his desire to tell her everything and let his mind catch instead on her tales of the west. He had only heard of it--the place where the land ended, and water was the rest of existence. Suddenly there was something he wanted to do. He just didn't want to do it alone.

"I've never seen the endless water. I want to see it."

"If it's all right," said Miro. "The way's west, so it's probably pretty simple. I think other than that it's just a matter of avoiding twolegs. They send their dogs out after us when it's winter. Not sure if you've ever had to deal with them."

If she felt like an idiot, well it was better than feeling like a murderer.

look what i made for you :)

Miro, after all that he had been through to get here, was not strong enough to say no. Plus she was going to die if nobody helped her out. He knew he could help her get back on her feet. The trouble was what came after. "Yeah, that...that'd be good. I'd like that."

ooc: You're welcome. I just took the same pic, cropped it to a square {max size} and added a single black line border. :) It's very simple but seems to do a great job making just about anything look elegant and fancy. And now our avatars match ^_^

ic:

Miro gave a nod of his massive head, and started that direction, not too much of a change from where he had been going--he had been heading southwest. "There's no time like the present."

But was he really starting over or just fooling himself? Was Argent even really gone? He remembered sensing a flash of otherworldly violence, a rending of spirits outside the walls of space and time. And then he had been free. And responsible again for his own life path. He had not succeeded yet in finding any solace that was not fleeting. But was that true for everyone? Nothing ever stayed the same.

Except one thing. Me and my father.

Argent would never be gone. Even if some greater god had snuffed him out. As long as Miro remembered him, he would be there.

"Far enough." Miro spoke a little too quickly for it to be two words devoid of emotion. As soon as he had said it, he regretted saying it. "Had some trouble out there with....another cat. It's over now."

He knew that by the time they found the west end of the world she would probably know too much about him.

Miro walked for several more paces in silence. He wanted to, and he didn't want to.

"I better not."

"All right." Miro said it, hoping that it was the right thing to say. She only thought she would be okay hearing the story. In reality, she would never feel safe with him again. She'd be gone.

It was never a good idea to pass up a chance to hunt. And Miro didn't exactly have a small appetite. "Yeah. That's a good idea. We can meet up back here or head out together." He looked at her pretty and innocent face; he was still getting used to the fact that she had no idea what his past was. She would not judge him. She couldn't.

"All right." Miro had a harder time finding prey in a place he wasn't familiar with, but that had been the case for him for a while now. The only thing that had kept him well fed was that he didn't spend any time patrolling, though back in the day, he had just multitasked. He headed off to find suitable prey.

"Yeah. That sounds good." Miro gave a nod and then he turned to continue his hunt. If she decided to go with him instead after all, he'd be cool with it. Either way. He was still just glad to be alive.

Sort of.

Miro returned without a kill, but he had in fact made one. It was an adult deer, a buck exhausted from the breeding season like so many were this time of year. He had fed and now returned to find Jezebel already back, with a kill of her own and a less than well appearance.

"What happened?"

That couldn't have been it--not that cougars, especially female cougars, didn't sometimes get nasty injuries from struggling large prey. But Miro had seen concealment of this type before. It was something else. Something else he wasn't going to ask about...it would surface, and he wouldn't rush it. "You all right?"