HUNTER'S DAWN by BanWynn Oakshadow M'rass tried hard to bury his hurt, his anger, his sense of betrayal. Again and again he cursed the Council of Hunters for their decision five years ago. For years he had known that this time would come. Only yesterday had he discovered just how hard it would be. All because the Council had refused to leave him be to live his life as he saw fit. They had not know why he had adamantly refused to take on an apprentice for so long, but had certainly known that he was vehemently opposed to the idea. Yet, they had decided that his skills were too valuable not to pass on and had commanded him to take his first apprentice. Then they had blatantly violated custom by presenting him with what appeared to be a barely weaned cub without granting him his traditional right of interviewing candidates and choosing his protégé. He had yelled at the Council. He had gone cold and still as stone. He had threatened. All to no avail. T'marr had been made his responsibility. He had tried hard not to grow close to the cub. This clown with paws too large for his body and a roar as likely as not to turn suddenly into a squeak. The cub had been so anxious, so excited. At first T'marr had stumbled through the forests head up, staring in wonder at everything but where he was putting his paws. Startled by each call of bird or animal. Stopping to stare in awe at each new vista. He had frequently been terrified by the forest that had become his new home, but had never let that terror overcome his sense of wonder. Today, T'marr slipped through the deepest undergrowth like mist in the leaves rather than stumbling, but that marvel at the beauty around him still shone in his eyes. M'rass had never told him so, but recognized that T'marr was already the equal of any Hunter that M'rass knew and better than most. The training of a Hunter was not easy. Unlike most of the other trades, when a Hunter failed he often died. There was no room for second chances. Even so, M'rass had to admit that early on he had probably pushed the youngling harder than was absolutely necessary. He had wanted him to quit...to give up and return home so that M'rass could get on with the life he had chosen for himself. But T'marr had not complained...even when the day's chores had raised painful blisters that seeped and turned raw, even when they had caused the cub to whimper into his bedroll at night. He had never given up, even when he failed again and again. M'rass nearly choked as a chuckle and a sob struggled to escape his throat at the same time. He remembered in particular T'marr's struggle to master the art of flint knapping. Again and again the young cougar had gritted his teeth as yet another half finished blade shattered under a blow intended to draw a small flake. Each time he carefully gathered up the pieces to use in making arrowheads, wasting nothing until he could have made a thousand arrowheads and had flint to spare. Finally, he had presented M'rass with a vaguely blade-like object covered with coarse ridges and uneven edges, pride stretching his muzzle into a huge grin. Last year he had presented M'rass with another blade, a graceful piece lovingly crafted of jade. This one had been slipped quietly into his pouch late at night. M'rass had never mentioned the gift, but was never again without that blade. He had truly enjoyed watching that gangly cub grow into this sleek, wiry young fur. Watching him go from struggling not to catch his spear in the brush while walking, to being able to leap into a tree, draw and fire a bow, and hit a target before he was even aware of having seen it. He had hurt for the inevitable growing pains all young ones go through, awakening at night when T'marr had begun having r'arr dreams to find the cub staring at him in embarrassment and confusion. He had explained as well as he could what was happening to the cub's body and given him privacy when he could and had pretended not to notice when T'marr would wander from camp to gather wood and return half an hour later nearly empty pawed. Try as he might, M'rass could find no major fault with the cub who had come to rely on him foe his very life. Try as he might, he could not help growing to like the little guy. As the years passed, that like grew into respect, he respect into more. In his eyes they were no longer master and apprentice, they were partners. He struggled to keep that inside. On the outside, he was teacher...T'marr always student. He dare not let that wall down for fear of what might follow. For years he watched, half hoping, half fearing for some sign from his charge. The hints and possibilities he saw were not enough to make him comfortable testing. This morning, after seeing the scratches adorning the beautiful hide of his young partner he was glad that he had never tested those possibilities. This one was obviously not meant for what M'rass desired more than anything in the world. He obviously never had been. Those damnable scratches. Each one shredding his soul. Each one causing him to curse the Council and himself a hundred times. He plodded down the trail into the deep forest, as far from towns and people as it was possible to get. Seeking a place out there as empty as he felt inside. Only now that he saw that it was impossible did he accept what he had known for years. He was doomed by that knowledge. M'rass loved T'marr. ~ T'marr plodded along the trail miserably. The scabs on the long scratches down his back and sides stung annoyingly. They stung his conscience even more since he knew that they were unearned. His stomach clenched when he thought of the looks of pride and brotherly camaraderie he had received when leaving the House of R'arr so unmistakably marked. Only he and one other knew that the scratches were false...marks of shame, even if they had been meant as a healing gift. He had been a Hunter's apprentice since his twelfth summer, five years ago now. Apprenticed, as many of his tribe were, as soon as he entered puberty. No longer a cub, they were expected to start learning a trade. Not yet an adult, they lived in a sort of limbo. Surviving or thriving at the whim of the one who took them as apprentice, ostensibly to train, often as cheap labor. T'marr knew that he was one of the lucky ones. M'rass was not only one of the most skilled of the Hunters, he was also a fairly kind master. Though quick with a heavy paw for mistakes or lapses in attention and grudging to the extreme in his praise, he did not abuse T'marr. He did more than feed his apprentice well and keep him healthy. He did not demand hardships of him that he himself was not willing to endure. He did not dole out his knowledge as some masters did, but supported T'marr in learning all he could and in encouraging his natural talents. At times he actually seemed to care. M'rass had taught him not only to survive and thrive in the wilderness that was their home, but to truly see it, feel it, become part of it. T'marr had learned to respect and honor the animals that were their livelihood, to cherish each creature that sacrificed its life for them. He had learned the peace of solitude and the serenity of immersing himself in a task until he became one with whatever he was working on. M'rass had taught him to look for the world in each of its parts. Early in his training, T'marr had walked within a few feet of a buck laying motionless in the brush near the trail without ever suspecting its presence. M'rass's slap to his head had startled both him and the deer who bounded off to less traveled parts of the wood. After lecturing him at length on the dangers of "missing the leaf for the forest", M'rass had pulled a leaf from a tree, handed it to him and told him to see it until he knew it in his heart. That leaf had long since crumbled to dust, but he still carried it inside himself. Last year, when their travels had carried them across a small deposit of jade, he had spent several months recreating that leaf in the translucent green stone. When finished, he had attached it to a carved hilt of bone and had slipped the completed dagger into M'rass's bedroll late one night. He had wanted to thank his teacher for the gift of sight. At first this life had been torturously lonely for a young fur just parted from his family but, in time, he had come to cherish this life and could not conceive of wanting to live any other way. Even in days of total silence he shared himself more intimately with his mentor than he ever had with friends and family he had known as a child. If not for the single secret he kept from M'rass, he would deem his life perfect. That secret though was enough to tear at him each time he stared at the master who was so much more to him. A thing he knew the older hunter could never understand. A thing he did not truly understand himself. This made his failure last night even harder to bear. His secret even heavier in his belly. Over and over his mind dragged him back to the House of R'arr. He looked up at M'rass's golden back with its smooth layers of muscles flowing like eddies in a deep river under his fur and choked back a gasp as the pain once again stabbed into him. Maybe once a month or so would a Hunter enter a town to deliver his haul of fresh and preserved meat, hides, bones and other valuable parts of the animals that were not only his livelihood but part of his soul. Only a handful of those times would he stay even a night. Last night had been one of those few. Normally an event he looked forward to eagerly, this visit was the one that T'marr had been dreading for over two years. He had known it was coming...this visit. All apprentices did. Most looked forward to it every day once they discovered that their genitals could be used for more than pissing. The transition from cub to apprentice was a sudden one. The transition from apprentice to adult was more gradual. An apprentice's first visit to the House of R'arr was part of that process. The House of R'arr was a place where other uses for those organs came into play. The House was named for the state of extreme arousal that visited itself on furs after they had entered adolescence. Those who worked at the House enjoyed mating for its own sake and for the sake of giving pleasure. Many were trained healers of both mind and spirit. All were honored. Custom decreed that every apprentice's first mating be with a fur of the House of R'arr. Their first initiation into adulthood. An initiation T'marr had dreaded for years. It had begun in his dreams. He couldn't quite remember when they had begun, but he definitely remembered waking up with his belly fur wet and sticky to find M'rass staring at him with a quirky grin on his muzzle two years ago. It was almost as if M'rass had known what he had been dreaming. Dreams of strong arms holding him, of his face pressed against a broad warm chest, beating heart loud in his ears. Of knowing eyes staring into his own as a muzzle he had seen every day for the past five years lowered towards him and bodies pressed together. He had known he was different for some time. When he and M'rass visited a town, he never found himself staring at the fems or trying to talk them into a visit behind the haystacks as the other apprentices did. He never felt breathless at the sight of a rounded hip as a barmaid leaned over to serve dinner to another table. He had known that he should desire these things and so had grinned with the other apprentices and laughed at their jokes...even when those jokes condemned things he saw in fevered dreams of M'rass. He did not know what he was, but did know that it was different...and that it was wrong. He almost laughed as he thought of what had transpired at the House, at the enormity of his failure. He had entered unsure of what to expect and shaking a little in fear of his secret being discovered. The females greeting him and the other guests that night had thought nothing strange in that. Almost all were nervous on the eve of their first mating. He had looked around, not quite sure what to make of this place. The entrance was a single large room full of couches, pillows, small alcoves and wide open areas where could be found tables of food, drink or musicians plying their trade. Everywhere he had looked males and fems wandered and mingled, engaged in everything from one group loudly singing a bawdy song around a lute player to couples cuddling quietly in the alcoves. Being from the outside, he knew no one there (M'rass had refused to enter with him) and he was far too uncomfortable to force himself to eat any of the delicacies laid out. For the most part he stood in the shadows alone, shuffling from paw to paw. Eventually, a matron accompanied by a young fem barely older than himself approached and introduced him to her young companion. Her name was Hre'en and she had seemed to be a bit nervous herself. The thought had brought a small smile to his muzzle. Hre'en had led him to a small private chamber. She had tried to feed him food he could not eat and make small talk he could not answer as he kept asking himself if he was capable of doing what was expected of him. He had looked at her and tried to see her as the other apprentices would have. He had gazed at her soft, graceful curves, the deep azure of her eyes. He followed the slow swish of her hips and tail as she padded across the room...and felt nothing. She had been pretty, but he had felt no flutter in his belly or tightening of his chest. He had felt no stirring in his sheath and no desire in his heart. Why had they demanded this of him? Why couldn't they have just left him alone? When, after a time, he had not responded to her and still appeared as tense and nervous as ever, Hre'en had led him to a low couch and had begun to rub his shoulders and knead the scruff of his neck while asking what it was like living in the wild forests. The massage had relaxed him and he had begun to think that his fears may have been unfounded. But other touches, more intimate, failed to bring any response from him. He had tried closing his eyes and imagining he was with someone else, drawing on images from his dreams. He had willed his body to respond and had nearly cried when it refused to obey. T'marr had nearly curled into a ball in frustration and shame as it became more and more apparent that he was not going to be able to do what he had come to do. He had wanted to die- -to crawl away somewhere and hide forever--anything except lay there in that room with Hre'en knowing that he could never be what she needed him to be. Hre'en had offered him wine spiced with Herb's to induce the state or r'arr. Sheer torture. Though his mind had burned with need, his body would not obey his will. He had wanted to mate so badly that he had almost screamed...maybe he had. But not with her. There had been only one person in his heart and it seemed his body had been destined to follow. He still did not know why she had done it. Whether it was to hide her own inability to guide him on this important step of his life...or if it was done with an understanding of his pain and a desire to help. Looking into his eyes she had said, "They will never know.", and had raked him viciously with her claws. Only later, from the laughing jests and grudging respect from the other patrons did he realize that the scratches mimicked the marks of extreme passion and an uncontrollable mating. Medals of honor from the House of R'arr. He wore them as the badges of a coward and a failure. Lost in shame and turmoil, he stumbled down the tiny game trail behind his master. Doomed by the fact that he loved M'rass. ~ Camp that night was sparse and silent. As were the next several. In almost a week barely a dozen words had passed between the two. M'rass withdrew into himself and tried to ignore what he saw whenever he looked at T'marr. The harder he tried not to look, the more he saw. He longed for T'marr so much. Not so much to mate with as to be able to hold him and to look into his eyes while he spoke his words of love. To just be with him knowing that he was loved. To be able to give all his heart held to the one who had broken it. He pictured a life together with T'marr spent as mates, sharing joys and sorrows and each other. He pictured what he knew had happened at T'marr's mating and the visions ground his stomach and ripped at his heart. He hated himself for never having told T'marr how he felt about him. He hated T'marr for making that impossible now. He loved T'marr with an intensity that consumed his every thought. M'rass tried to force his feelings away. His dreams were never going to be a reality so he tried to forget them and move on. His efforts were to no avail. Thoughts of what he hoped could have been roared in his head like a hurricane shredding all other thought, all barriers. He wanted to grab T'marr, to pull him close and convince him that they could live as one. He wanted to go back to town and burn the House of R'arr to the ground. He wanted T'marr to have whatever it took for him to find joy in his life. He wanted to die. A thousand thoughts and emotions warred within him until he was certain that he must surely go insane. Giving no explanation and telling T'marr only to watch the camp until he returned, he headed into the undergrowth to be quickly swallowed in a sea of green. He lashed out at the branches and vines that crossed his path, leaving a trail of seeping scars on the very trees he loved so much. Blind to all but his pain, he moves ever deeper into the forest until he realized that he could not outrun what followed him and collapsed to the ground. T'marr! T'marr! The name echoed in his head. He could not get the image of him out of his mind. Tall and lithe. Tawny fur and ivory belly. Dark, amber eyes, almost brown, always lighted from within by a laughing sparkle. Wiry muscles just now filling out a frame that promised to be strong and sure when the young one had grown into his potential. He pictured the time four months past when he had given the signal to freeze, having scented a wild pig in the vicinity. For half an hour T'marr had stood motionless until the pig had wandered into the clear. Afterwards, it had been impossible to tell which spear had struck the mortal blow. They had butchered it and carried it back to camp. It was only later, when he had found the young cougar soaking in an icy stream that he discovered that the signal to freeze had caught T'marr near a nest of red ants and that he had endured hundreds of painful stings while waiting for that damned pig. He had never complained, never said a word. M'rass sobbed with frustration. One of the reasons he had chosen to apprentice as a Hunter in the first place was to get away from towns and people. To escape a society he did not fit into and offered him only a life of pain and derision. Solitude had seemed far preferable to that. That was why he had argued so hotly with the Council not to give him an apprentice. That he had been and was afraid to spend every day for years with that which he desired but could never have. For the first several years he had truly loved T'marr with the love of a mentor for his gifted pupil, taking pride in his accomplishments, tending his injuries, showing him the world, sharing his youthful innocence and wonder. For those years it had been enough. Even as T'marr had matured sexually, M'rass's feelings had remained platonic. Adolescence was but another trial for his apprentice to endure and overcome. It was only this year that he had finally acknowledged the deeper feelings he had for T'marr. The desires, yearnings, forlorn hopes. He had finally admitted to himself his dreams of teaching his charge other lessons, of sharing everything he was with the one who had become so important to him in spite of everything he could do to prevent it. Every day preceding T'marr's visit to the House of R'arr was harder to endure than the one before it. Every day he half hoped that T'marr could still be his... half feared the same. He bent over and retched with dry, wracking heaves as he remembered how T'marr had looked leaving the House of R'arr. The scratches of a more than successful mating. Symbols that could only have been gained at the utmost peak of r'arr. Signs of his willingness and ability to pleasure the fem who had been chosen to initiate him on this step of his journey through life. He remembered the grudging admiration in the voices of the adult males awaiting partners of their own. Their good natured wondering if his apprentice was as good with his spear in the woods as he was on the mats. His forced smile as each laugh, each congratulatory wink stabbed into him like an icy spear. M'rass sat up and slid the jade dagger from its sheath and held the blade to his wrist. Staring forlornly at the dagger he remembered the night T'marr had crept so silently to slip it into his pouch and then pad carefully back to his own bedroll. He did not know why T'marr had carved the blade and hilt as he had or why it had been given, but it was his most treasured possession. Light filtering through the canopy lit the blade with an internal glow. The blade was finely knapped into the form of a long, thin cherry leaf. The flakes pressed carefully from its surface were so small and perfect as to give a feeling of life to the dagger. Across its surface tiny veins had been painstakingly ground by hand. There was even one spot along the edge that looked as if it had been chewed on by a hungry caterpillar. Looking as delicate as glass, the blade's spine and thicker veins gave it a deceptive strength. He knew that the edge was so sharp that it would take no effort to do what he had in mind. The hilt was a solid piece of bone carved into a stag's head, with inlaid bits of antler and tiny chips of jade for eyes. As a whole the dagger bespoke a deep, abiding love and understanding of the world M'rass cherished so dearly. It symbolized exactly why the one he loved would never forgive him for doing what he wanted so much to do. For many long minutes he knelt there...motionless ...a tiny trickle of blood seeping into his fur. Finally, cursing T'marr for denying him even this release, he flung the dagger from him and lay on the ground, curled around himself. ~ "He knew.", thought T'marr miserably, "He looked into my eyes and saw the lie." M'rass had taken off alone many times before, sometimes for several days, but T'marr had never seen him so quiet, so dour. He had watched for the last three days and M'rass had hardly looked his way and would not look him in the eyes at all. T'marr was sure that M'rass was ashamed and disgusted to have a failure and a liar as his apprentice. He wrapped his misery around himself like a blanket and waited. As he sat, his thoughts bounded back and forth between what had happened, or more accurately not happened, at the House of R'arr and the teacher he loved so much. He pictured the broad shoulders and powerful chest of his mentor, the legs built strong and heavily muscled through years of walking for days on end with the heavy load of his quarry. The long tail that swished and waved like a serpent hypnotizing its prey. In spite of himself he thought of the twin globes jouncing under that tail and the full sheath between those muscled thighs. Grinding his teeth he tried to force these visions from his head, but again and again they returned. He envisioned his teacher's sun filled eyes looking at him with understanding instead of disgust, envisioned disappearing in the embrace of those powerful arms as he was lowered to the ground and a muzzle more scarred than his own tasted his while that same sheath pressed against his own. With a sob, he curled into a ball and took himself into his mouth as he had learned to do several years before. Visions of M'rass filled him and overwhelmed him as he pictured two amber bodies rolling on the forest floor. He saw M'rass welcoming him at the House of R'arr instead of Hre'en. Saw what he had truly wanted to happen in that room. Waves of pleasure washed over him...shaking him... tearing through him. When they had passed, he was left with only his shame. ~ Eventually, M'rass arose and went in search of his knife. He would need it. He would need everything he had with him, for he had no intention of returning to the camp. T'marr was already an outstanding Hunter and could live quite comfortably off the land if he chose to do so. He was still young enough to find a life in one of the towns if that is what he wanted. M'rass believed that his charge was capable enough to do well at whatever he chose...M'rass just could no longer share it with him. The cost was too high. Gathering himself, he headed down the nearest game trail, heedless of where it led. Alone again he went in search of the numbness which had been all he felt for most of his life. Refusing to ruin T'marr's life with his own desires, he determined to forget him instead. As he moved his shoulders straightened, his step became strong and even. To all appearances he was sure and confidant, calm and secure. It was only if one were to look deep into his eyes that they would see the gaping wound where his heart had been. ~ M'rass had been gone almost a week before T'marr began to suspect that he wasn't going to return. Three or four days was unusual, but not unheard of, but his master had never been gone for a full week before. T'marr realized that his inadequacy and horrible secret had driven away the one he loved. T'marr did some hunting close to camp using sling, bow and snares to catch small game. The forest provided him with ample delicacies such that he could have eaten banquets fit for a chieftain if he had managed to find an appetite. On the few occasions he did become hungry enough to eat it was torture to force food into a stomach cramped by misery and loss. By the end of the week he had quit hunting altogether, for he refused to kill what he could not eat. He rarely bothered to walk to the nearby spring to drink. He forwent a fire since gathering wood was more trouble than the meager comfort a fire provided was worth. Mostly he sat and waited. A million times he watched M'rass's back fading into the woods as his love walked away and disappeared from his life. Eventually, he became resigned to the fact that M'rass would not return. Abandoning the camp that was the last place he would ever see the other half of his soul, he began to wander. Where he traveled was not important, nor for how long. Days and nights ceased to have meaning as they blended into a haze of pain and loneliness. He still did not eat and rarely drank. His coat was dull and patchy. He stumbled where once he would have glided like mist. Crashed where once he would have been less than a whisper. Perhaps that is why he never noticed the huge paw until its blow had almost landed. Turning towards an infinite wall of brown fur, his spear moved far too slowly. He dodged as well as he could and felt massive claws raking down his side. Strange, he thought, there is no pain. Cursing himself for a fool and a failure he resigned himself to death as his spear finally came to the ready. He was unable to do much to deflect the second blow and the world went away in a blinding flash of light and a fading red haze. ~ M'rass snarled to himself and switched directions yet again. A thousand times he had headed back towards the camp. A thousand times he had changed his mind. This was hell. A worse hell than living with that which he could never have. When they had been together, M'rass had been able to share T'marr's company, his laughter, his wonder, so many things about him. Those very things that made it impossible not to love him. Now, he did not have even those, just because he could not have everything he wanted. "Stupidity!", he thought to himself. "You are a damn fool, M'rass!" So saying, he turned yet again and headed back to camp at a ground eating lope that he could maintain for days. His paws felt almost as light as his heart. Now he knew that this was the right decision. He would joyfully share what he could with T'marr and not mourn that which he could not. Without thinking his pace increased as a weight lifted from him and a smile touched his eyes. Even at a steady pace, stopping only for brief rests and quick drinks, it took several days to return to camp...only to find it abandoned. He had known it probably would be, but still felt disappointment grip his heart. Circling the camp he quickly picked up a trail that a second year apprentice would have been ashamed of. A bit concerned now, he loped on. Almost a week later his nose picked up the scent of blood and his ears heard small scavengers scrambling throughout the area. Almost afraid to investigate, he approached cautiously. Ahead of him he saw a mound of brown fur almost completely covered by crows and magpies. He released a breath that he did not realize he had been holding. Just a bear...a big one. He stepped in for a closer look and dropped to his knees when he saw a single tawny furred leg protruding from under the bulk of the monster. Yanking and rolling, he pulled the dead bear off his love. So much blood! The carcass fell away revealing something barely recognizable as his young companion. One side of his head was a bloody mess, a huge flap of scalp hanging over his forehead. Long, wet claw marks rent the entire length of one of the youngling's sides and M'rass could see the purple of internal organs through some of the rips. The bear lay to one side, a broken off spear protruding from under its chin, chiseled tip piercing the skull between and behind its ears. Whether the spear had been thrust or lunged onto was impossible to tell. What was certain was that this was about the only way that the bear could have been killed quickly. Unfortunately, it had not killed the beast quickly enough. M'rass dropped and took the battered head into his lap. He wept for the simple words never spoken. Wait...wet gashes? M'rass looked again at the rips in the young one's side. Yes! A tiny bit if clear fluid seeped from the edges of the wounds. He checked more carefully...hardly daring to hope...and was almost unable to believe it when he finally felt the tiniest puff of breath against his cheek, the weakest flutter of a heartbeat. Gently laying T'marr back down, he rushed to the nearest stream and filled a skin with water. After starting a small fire, he dug in his pouch for the things he would need. Carefully cleaning the wounds with a soft chamois, he checked them carefully for maggot and rot. Trimming away dead tissue with his skinning knife he sewed muscle and hide using hair from a horse's tail and one of his rare metal needles. The whole time he worked he blessed the bear for falling onto his love. Though the bulk had nearly smothered and crushed T'marr, it had also protected him from the myriad scavengers feasting on the bear's carcass. Using wild carrot, marigold, juniper berries and other herbs and tubers easily found in the forest to make antiseptic tinctures and poultices he disinfected everything as well as he could. Finally he sat back and examined his patient, hardly noticing that many hours had passed while he had worked. T'marr had not moved during the procedure. His breathing and heartbeat were still almost nonexistent. His skin cold and fouled by both his own and the bear's blood and the excrement of scavengers. M'rass realized that he could not move the young one so he dragged the bear far off and dug away as much of the filth from the ground as he could to avoid drawing even more flies and parasites. Cleaning the rest of his apprentice's body as well as he was able, he gently slid a bedroll under him and built up the fire, banking its warmth towards the youth. Through the long night he watched his ravaged charge, fearful and filled with rage and guilt. T'marr began shivering in the dark so M'rass lay down beside him and curled around him, holding him close against his body for both comfort and warmth. He desperately needed for T'marr to know, somehow, that he had returned and would never leave him again. Warm tears fell and the young cougar's body was rocked gently by the rending sobs of the hunter who had tried so hard not to care. Days passed and T'marr showed no signs of waking. At first, M'rass was not even sure if he would live. Now he would at least swallow water dripped one drop at a time between dry, cracked lips. Fever roared through his body, but M'rass did not try to fight it until it got dangerously high, knowing that fever often did much to kill infections. Instead he sat for hours on end laying cool wet cloths on a fevered forehead and dripping water into a silent mouth. Sitting and watching, seeing as if for the first time, the person T'marr had become. More than companion, more than apprentice, more than dream lover...he saw T'marr as himself. His heart swelled with pride at what he saw. The fever eventually broke and T'marr would rise to a level of semi-consciousness. Enough at least to swallow the meat that M'rass chewed for him...exactly as a mother would for her newly weaned cub. Judging it safe to move him, M'rass used a travois to transport T'marr and the camp to where he had found a warm spring that was not too sulfurous. He salvaged what he could of the huge bear pelt as well as the claws and teeth. After curing the piece of hide, he often worked on fashioning a bag and mantle for his young lover as he sat beside him, watching him through tear filled eyes. The gashes on head and side were starting to heal and M'rass knew they would scar badly and pull tight, crippling T'marr, if not loosened and cared for. Daily he lowered T'marr into the spring and cleaned away much of the scabbing until the wounds seeped bright, fresh blood, but new pink skin showed around the edges. Sometimes T'marr would writhe or cry out when he did this, but never truly woke. M'rass began to fear that the blow to the head may keep T'marr from ever waking and felt more guilty than ever. If he had not been so selfish, wanted too much, he never would have left and this beautiful, golden wonder would not be laying here now...broken and silent. ~ Not sure what was happening, T'marr flung up an arm to fend off the huge bear. Too late he had heard the bear sow nearby and smelled the musky rut of the male before him. He was suprised when his arm did not move. He could not feel his spear in his hand. Why were his eyes closed? Struggling for a very long time he managed to crack one crusted eyelid. Blinded by the light of even the dim forest, he closed it and tried again. This time he endured the pain until the bright blur resolved itself. He dreamt he saw M'rass leaning over him...smiling down at him. Forgetting that M'rass was gone, he smiled a little as sleep once again dragged him down. ~ M'rass could barely believe that he had seen T'marr open an eye. The other side of his face was far too swollen for that eye to have a chance of opening for a very long time. Hardly daring to move from T'marr's side, he waited and watched. Finally the eye opened again and looked at him before slowly closing. T'marr's periods of wakefulness became more frequent and M'rass began to hope that not too much damage had been done. That his love would come back to him so that he could beg forgiveness for having left. He held the sleeping T'marr almost constantly, talking to him of everyday things...and frequently of how much he was loved. One morning he woke, still holding the young cougar in his arms, to look down and see T'marr looking back up at him with awareness in one open eye and a weak smile on his torn muzzle. As if reassured that M'rass was really there and would not leave, T'marr fell into a normal, peaceful sleep, the smile still on his face. M'rass stroked him gently while he slept, trying not to let his dripping tears of joy wake his love. "I am back, my love,", he whispered, "and I will never leave you again...unless that is what you want." He realized now that life without T'marr was a much worse hell than being with him and not being able to share himself fully with the only one he had ever loved. He had also resolved to tell T'marr the truth about himself when the young one had recovered enough to let him decide if he still wanted M'rass to be with him. The thought of that conversation terrified M'rass. ~ T'marr hated being helpless. Having to be fed and washed like a newly whelped cup or and ancient invalid. He was mortified every time he woke to discover that he had wet or soiled himself and had to be cleaned. He felt guilty, even though M'rass never once complained. At least he could now keep his paw steady enough to feed himself. Every day was both heaven and hell for him. M'rass was back. He was still too afraid to ask why. He savored every second that M'rass spent at his side. He spent hours just staring at him when he collapsed into sleep from sheer exhaustion. Every day he knew that the time would come when he would have to tell M'rass the truth about himself and about the House of R'arr and watch M'rass walk away again. Every day he felt a little stronger and a little more afraid. Each day M'rass exercised him and stretched the muscle and scars lest they stay tight and cripple him. The pain was horrible and sometimes he could not help but scream. He was ashamed of each whimper even though M'rass winced and seemed to feel each twinge himself and apologized the whole time he pushed and stretched. Eventually the time came that, while he was still weak, he was almost capable of caring for himself. He dreaded each day, knowing that soon he would have to tell M'rass and lose him forever. Even now, as he sat in the hot spring with M'rass carefully washing him, he felt guilty. He was now able to wash himself, but M'rass preferred to do it still...and he had to admit that he enjoyed these quiet moments of soft touching. The feel of M'rass's paws roaming over his body as he lay back, eyes closed... Suddenly he realized that M'rass was washing him between his thighs and that he was quickly developing an erection. He turned in humiliated shame as M'rass pulled his paw back as if it had just touched a hot coal. He drew a deep breath and prepared to tell the truth about the House of R'arr, but before he could speak, M'rass began in a low monotone voice... ~ "I pray that you will one day forgive me for abandoning you. You were almost killed because of my own smallness and I never even had the courage to tell you why before I left. I will tell you now, and if you want me to leave when I am finished, I will understand, began M'rass, "I am different from others of the Clan. I would never fit in with them, never be able to take a mate. I saw your scratches as you left your initiation at the House so know that you may have trouble understanding." M'rass lowered his head and forced himself to say the words he knew would cause T'marr to ask him to leave, "I became a Hunter to escape a way of life I could never be part of. You see I do not desire females the way other males do. I still feel love, feel desire, feel all the things that fire other fur's hearts, but I feel them for other males." "I know this probably repulses you and that is okay. I knew when you left the House that my dreams would never be. If you can still stand my presence though, I want to stay by your side and continue sharing the things we have always shared. You needn't worry that I will try to make you do anything that is so obviously against your nature to do. If you want me to leave when you are well, I will go and not blame you. I have no wish to ruin your life further." T'marr could only utter a startled, "But..." as his world suddenly turned itself upside down. "I drove you so hard those many years ago because I did not want you. I wanted no one, especially someone I would have to spend every day, every night with for years. Hiding what I was the whole time. Yet, you endured and grew. You mastered everything I could teach you and, in return, you taught me how to laugh and smile again. I cherish every day we have spent together more than I do my own life." M'rass raised his head and looked T'marr in the eyes, "I love you, T'marr. I have loved you for a very long time." T'marr listened, hardly daring to breathe as M'rass spoke things he only allowed himself to dream late at night when he was all alone. Heart pounding, growing, filling him...he turned to M'rass and spoke of the House of R'arr. Golden eyes stared down into his with a deeper love than either of them had ever imagined. Strong arms wrapped around him and pulled his head against that strong chest where a heart beat for both of them. As he spoke, he reached up with both paws. One stroked M'rass's tear streaked cheek while the other took the paw that had been washing him and guided it back down between his thighs... The Beginning...