The Children of Destiny

Chapter 2 - He won't eat us... maybe...

When we landed in the cave, Kenai hovered in the air for a bit until he carefully placed me on the floor and said, "Your stop, sire."

I laughed as he landed gracefully on the cold stone ground on his hind paws and took a bow before falling on his face. Luckily, Kenai scrambled right back to his paws, as he always did when he got hurt.

"Victor's gonna be so jealous when he finds out I learned how to fly before him!" he purred proudly.

Victor was the second oldest of us; second to me, of course; and the most boastful know-it-all I knew. If you ever got something wrong in front of him, he wouldn't hesitate to correct you in the most obnoxious way possible. Victor was the absolute worst if you asked me.

I watched as Kenai pranced around proudly and sang, "I can fly and he can't!" over and over again.

Then, he looked at me and said, "I'll betcha Calliope and Umbris'll be super impressed!"

Umbris and Calliope were twins and we're fairly younger than Victor, who was born a month before them. They were the middle cubs, meaning they got into the most trouble because mom usually never paid any mind to their stupid antics. Once, Umbris convinced Calliope that she could turn invisible for his own entertainment and she jumped around the nest scaring the rest of us because she thought we couldn't see her. Long story short, she and Umbris got into a lot of trouble for it, Umbris for lying to his sister and Calliope for trying to scare the other cubs half to death. The young cubs were gullible and easily impressed, but Umbris could be pretty observant when he wanted to. Calliope is easily excited, as well as easily impressed, which isn't a very good combination when you live in a nest on a rock towering above the clouds.

Anyway, Kenai and I goofed around in the cave for a bit before I climbed up onto a ledge near the roof of the cave and yelled, "I'm the king of the world!"

Kenai flew up to join me and I covered my finger in a thick red liquid near the edge, smeared it on his forehead, and said, "Hail Prince Kenai!" while giggling.

I then raised him into the air and held him over the edge while he laughed. Kenai sniffed at the air while I was holding him up and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Um, Evander?" Kenai stammered nervously.

He pointed downward with his tail and I looked where he was pointing to see a large snake-tailed lion with a mane as red as blood and a battle-scarred, tawny pelt slink out of the shadows and part his jaws in a yawn, baring his huge, bloodstained teeth and flexing his sharp claws. I carefully put Kenai down to not make a loud THUD when his paws touched the hard stone. All we had to do was pray that the huge lion didn't catch our scent so we could leave the cave with no casualties.

Kenai carefully wrapped his paws around my waist and prepared his wings for takeoff. Finally, we were off and Kenai was flying us out of there. But of course, something had to happen. Vines were hanging from the roof of the cave, and one of them was hanging particularly low. It was so low that my foot got tangled in it, causing Kenai to accidentally drop me and fly right back to the rock ledge out of fear. The lion that lived in the cave heard my screaming as I was flung back towards the wall of the cave and leaped forward, stopping me from hitting the wall. He then looked up at Kenai and smiled. The lion muttered something I didn't catch and nudged my chest, making me swing slightly back and forth. My foot was tied to the roof by the vine, and I didn't have anything sharp on me at the moment other than my pocket knife, which I couldn't access, so I couldn't cut the vine.

"A human..." the lion purred curiously.

I nodded and he gave me a surprised look.

"You can understand me?" he asked.