T H E C A P T U R E D O N E Story two of: TREASURES ...a parable of two dreamers. by Dasha Ariel DeMeredith Starting Date: January 29, 1997 Current Date: October 8, 1997 Summary: Time and Place: The Western Hemisphere of Planet Earth, Sector 0,0,1, of the calendar year 2396. Part One: The Enemy Within The Comache Community Reservation Late 2396 The fog covered the world in a thick wool blanket. What small bits of light filtered through the trees from the moon above were scattered shafts that filtered through the trees. If it had been any other night, she would have been in awe at the foggy night, but tonight Leyanara was frightened by it. The misty stuff was clammy against her skin, and she was filled with a sense of dread. She had to get away from here! Leyanara shivered, pulling her robe tighter over her skin. She was taller now, older. She had thought she was old enough to handle the outer trails in the early morning, but now she knew she had been wrong. Something moved in the woods ahead of her, and she immediately froze. The feeling of evil swam in her senses... The sudden sensation of spidery feet across her face triggered her final scream. The Navajo Forests Midsummer, 2426 In the late evening moonlight, Reiga scanned the murky river below, and shook the water from his coat. There was a light breeze, which dried it quickly. He was listening to the scathing snarls which pervaded the air. With a carefully pricked ear, he could hear one of them was Auriana's. Quickly, he dived from his vantage point on the hilltop into the glades below, toward the source of the struggle. He tried to make out the other snarl, the sound of an enraged animal. He knew of no animal with as loud a roar as that! It was the snarl of a jaguar, but the sound was audible miles away! No living beast could make such a sound! Streamlining his wings, he dived toward the spot on the forest floor where Auriana's sharp black tiger stripes could be seen pinned beneath a figure with jaguar spots. Often Reiga had called Auriana Tiger-woman, because her stripes reminded him of the Zoo's tiger, but with wings and a different tail. This other, though had no wings and different marking, but was the same size and build as Auriana. Screaming with frustration, Auriana struggled to throw her attacker off, but the jaguar-spotted aggressor had Auriana pinned. The figure was trying to subdue Auriana, not kill her... Reiga added his battle cry, and the attacker's attention turned to him. What Reiga saw was certainly no jaguar! She was shaped like a human woman, stood like a human woman, and moved like a human woman, despite the fact that she bore a jaguar's hide. Her face was human, but covered in fur... She had a jaguar's tail... Her hair alternated the colors of her fur and spots. The entire front part of her body was white furred, like the underbelly of a jaguar... the hands she raised to attack him were human... Distracted by his amazement, Reiga was pinned before he realized it. One look at her gaping incisors made her intentions clear, and Reiga was suddenly fighting with all his strength to keep her mouthful of meat-teeth away from his neck! She was so strong! Neither human or jaguar combined had such power over a gargoyle! However, Auriana's leathery tail snapped like the zoo trainer's whip, and wrapped itself around the attacker's knees, pulling her to the ground. Reiga pulled his arms under him, and sprang, knocking the attacker backwards. She batted him to one side, but he pinned her right foot and arm under his feet and in his paws. The attacker was about to free herself, when Auriana appeared on the other side of the aggressor, and took her other leg and arm, and wrapped the jaguar-woman's legs in a tight cord. It was Auriana's leather straps woven with special grasses. Not even Reiga had ever broken from them, except to cut them with his talons. Hurriedly, Auriana and Reiga dragged their twisting, snarling captive up to a stout tree, and tied her wrists around it's trunk. "No! Please! Stay away!" their jaguar-woman captive pleaded the following morning, as Reiga offered it fresh meat to eat. Their captive's demeanor had suddenly changed after having moaned and whined for several long, drawn out hours. Reiga backed away, and found his voice. "Why did you attack Auriana?" "You can talk!" she exclaimed. "We both can." Auriana added. "Why did you attack me?" Bitterly, she turned away from Auriana, looking off into the forest. "She forced me too." "I did?" "No. Ilira did." "Who is Ilira?" "She the woman who cast a spell on me and turned me into her slave. She used me to kill innocent people." Auriana looked at Reiga, her suspicion was like an open book upon her face. "Keep talking." Reiga told the jaguar-woman. ***** ...Once she had regained consciousness, the memories of the large half-human sized spider that had captured her, bound her, and bit her, flooded her mind. She looked about her new surroundings with a feeling of utter terror, but was met with complete darkness. She was bound arm and foot to a cold, metal wall, with hard metal chinks. She felt cold, exposed, and helpless, and struggled inside her bonds. Her skin felt tight, as though she were wearing a rubber balloon. Her blood felt like it was boiling, and she realised she was sweating. She fought and fought against the irons that held her bound. "You'll never break them." a smooth, feminine voice told her. "Just give up and save your strength. You'll need it later." Without better option, Leyanara did. "Where am I? Who are you?" she demanded. "I'm the one who owns the land you were trespassing on." "No one owns the forest!" "I do." "Who are you?!!!" Leyanara nearly shouted. "My, you are a fierce one. Isn't she?" Another voice echoed -- apparently they were in some sort of pitch dark room. "Elven female, twenty one, excellent health." came the dronish tone. "Perfect. The thing I need now is a hunter, someone to do some more delicate tasks. I think you are the best candidate I've seen in months." "Candidate? What do you mean?" "Elves are too soft, to weak, too unopposing. She needs more ferocity reflected in her appearance, I think -- more power to her roar, more strength, more instincts to hunt and destroy. That's what I need now." Leyanara peeled her lips back and snarled at the voice... ...and then stopped. Had that sound come from her? There was suddenly light in the room. Blinded at first, she closed her eyes, but once she opened them, she saw the mirror, and the half-jaguar woman who's image it reflected. "No... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Leyanara shouted. "Oh, yes! You'll do perfectly. Take her down and brainwash her. Bring her back to me when you're done." replied that same voice, speaking off the side. For just a moment, Leyanara glimpsed a dark figure with feminine shape, with a dark and twisted smile of satisfaction and enjoyment on her face, as Leyanara was hoisted away. ***** "She told me to capture the female gargoyle I would find in the forest. She said she needed people that no one cared for -- that no one would miss, and that no one knew about her or miss her. I... I didn't know there were two of you." "Perhaps neither did this Ilira." Reiga commented. The jaguar-woman who called herself Leyanara wept against the inside of her arms, talking away from the two gargoyles. Auriana signed, and Reiga nodded. "I can't believe... all the killing I did for her... I remember so many faces... always _her_ hitman..." Leyanara wept. "Oh, my mother and father... they must have given me up for dead so long ago..." Reiga sighed. He had only been back with Auriana for a number of days now, since the killing of their human friends, and already Reiga felt remorse. They had been people like this... with feelings. What they had done had been wrong also... Leyanara looked at the two gargoyles, particularly at Auriana. Her crying paused. "Arima?" Reiga scowled. "Her name Auriana." "Oh. She looks like Arima -- and old gargoyle friend I had, a long time ago." she turned to face Auriana. "Are you her sister? Her daughter, perhaps?" "We know no other gargoyles. We are alone." Auriana said. "My only mother was a jaguar." Leyanara blinked. "Never?" "None." "Then... you've never learned the way of gargoyles?" Auriana and Reiga glanced at each other awkwardly. "The way of... our kind? You know of more of them?" "Yes... haven't you?" Auriana cut the jaguar-woman's bonds. From among the nets and coverings that Auriana and Reiga had been stitching from bits of bone and hide, Leyanara created herself a turban. Reiga cut open a hole in the center with his talons, and then using Auriana and Reiga's "bone-pins", Leyanara began to fashion herself a tunic and a long loin cloth out of cord and a deerhide blanket. Leyanara now appeared to have a deer's hide in addition to her jaguar-skin. "Why do you wear new fur?" Auriana inquired, through Reiga's interpretation. "I should be asking you why you don't." Leyanara muttered in return, a bit of disgust registered in her voice, in reference to her two comrades. "We wear fur -- it is enough." Reiga replied. Leyanara sighed. "You don't know anything, do you?" "We know only what we learn, out here." Auriana said, motioning to the forest. "What guarantee do we you won't somehow fall under this Ilira's control again?" Reiga inquired. "The two of you together can handle me if that does happen." Leyanara said. "Why? You offered to help me!" "And we shall." Reiga said. "I just wish to know." Leyanara scowled. They were both suspicious of her, but she couldn't blame them. "Where do we go first?" "To my old home, the Comache Community. My family must have given me up for dead a long time ago." The destruction ranged for miles. Most of the huts had been burned to the ground years ago. Leyanara's fierce demeanor softened. The entire Comache Community had been destroyed. "How long?" Reiga inquired. Auriana peered at the remains of a scotched tree, after having cut away a piece with her talons from it's inside. "Twenty rings -- twenty winters gone." "Then it happened after Ilira captured me?" Reiga scowled. "It probably happened before you were even captured. These fires could have been inflicted within minutes, and she may have simply taken you after taking these peoples away." "You think she captured them?" "I only hope that they might, by some chance, still be alive." Auriana said. Leyanara felt the realization dawn on her. Her entire community might have gone through the same torture she had! Twenty years without freedom to think within her own mind, and bowing to the will of such a dark, evil, and twisted woman... "That's the first thing you've said that makes sense." Leyanara bit back, feeling that feeling of total ferocity return. That was another thing. For twenty years she had been imbued with such a feeling of absolute desire to kill, murder, maim, and destroy, and it was now a permanent part of her mind. She couldn't make it go away. "Are you alright?" Reiga inquired. "Leave me alone!" Leyanara snapped, storming across the ruins of the chapel and the meeting hall, all overgrown now with moss and weeds. Leyanara bit her fist, not even caring she had broken the skin and was bleeding into her fur. She was still a prisoner of Ilira as long as she thought she was Ilira's super-killing machine. Closing her eyes, Leyanara summoned all her strength, and forced that feeling back out of her mind. "I'm sorry, Reiga." she said, turning. "I shouldn't have bitten back at you." Reiga's suspicious demeanor faded. "Accepted." "This is a hard thing you have emerged from." Auriana pointed out. "We've just come out of... something similar." Leyanara sighed. "I don't know how you can put up with me. You don't even know if I'm still working for her or not." "You may still." Auriana pointed out. "However, I will trust you to carry out your end of the bargain." "Tell you about gargoyles? Ilira's fortress is this way. I shall tell you as we walk." Leyanara said. (incomplete)