Twilight Tigers

The trauma-dream began like any other, with a false sense of levity and security. I proudly stared down at the book that I recently had purchased with my allowance, with a soft smile crossing my face at the sight of the literature. It was an encyclopedia of sorts, dedicated solely to the understanding of cats. Big and small, they were all included and described in detail. I had been eying it at several book fairs that passed through my school, and was elated to have finally saved enough money to purchase it earlier that day.

I was no older than ten in this memory, and I loved all animals, but most of all cats. Unfortunately, my dad wouldn’t allow me to have any, citing the fact that I was too young to be able to care for them. But this wouldn’t stop my fascination, though. After all, I wanted nothing more than a furry feline to cuddle and pet.

“That’s what you got?” My disgruntled mother asked as I revealed the purchase. “Boys your age don't like cats. You should want a dog.”

“But…” I felt crushed at my mother’s disapproval as I glanced down at the book. “I really want a cat. I love their ears a-and tails and—meow!”

My mother sighed as she gripped her face. I could see the frustration building in her, but at that age, I didn't yet understand how to stop myself from being me.

“Your brother recently got a dog, be more like—”

“Meow?” I replied, looking up from the book.

“Stop.” She snapped, her words now dripping with venom. “Don’t do that! Especially around other kids. They’ll think it’s weird and you’re weird. You'll end up alone with no friends and no one to love you.”

She ripped the book from my hands and looked at it. Flipping through the pages, she inspected the details closely and grumbled to herself.

“There is some good educational information in this. So, you can keep it. But don’t talk about cats with other boys and girls. Now, go outside and play with—"

—ooo—

I was suddenly shaken awake.

“Gyah!” I gasped, jolting up within my tent and grabbing the quarterstaff at my side. “Meow?”

“What?” A voice whispered back.

“N-Nothing,” I replied, resting my head back on the wadded clothing I used as a travel pillow. “What is it?”

“Something is stalking us. Get up.” Aesandoral whispered. “Wake Ri, I’ll get Zin.”

In an instant, I was wide awake. Aesandoral's words hung in my ears, sending adrenaline coursing through my veins and making my heart feel like it was going to burst from my chest. Crawling from the tent, I inspected the dim surroundings of the campsite. It was almost morning, and the sky had barely begun its transition to a dull red glow.

The tigers must be hungry after their orgy. I thought as I hastily raced the couple of feet to Rionriv’s tent before the previous night's dream triggered forgotten knowledge. No. That can’t be right. They’re solitary hunters. Tiger orgies shouldn't be a thing.

“Ri,” I whispered as I ducked down before reaching into her tent and giving her foot a shake. “Ri, wake up. Bad guys.”

“Mmmm—” She grumbled, kicking me in her groggy state.

“Ow,” I replied, pinching her calf. “Hey, wake up. We’re going to die.”

“Ow!” She yelped. “What?”

“Bad guys, get up.”

Just as quickly as I had moved, she was crawling to her feet and looking around.

“What’s happening?” The sorceress asked, the grogginess gone from her voice and an alert look now hanging on her face in the early morning glow.

“I don’t know, I was asleep, but Aes said we're being stalked and to wake—”

Aesandoral and Sharzin screamed from beyond the bushes. With glances at each other, Rionriv and I prepared to react, but that was when I noticed the blur of motion out of the corner of my eye. Something skirted the beyond my vision, moving between brush and bramble with speed.

A glimpse of fur and shadow lunged from the darkness towards me. Instantly, I put myself in an evasive position and, thanks to some practiced hand redirection from our recent combat experiences, dodged the attacker. Sending it flying, I felt a sense of pride over my newfound ability, though I wouldn’t have time to celebrate.

“Ahg! Iz—!” Rionriv screamed as a second tiger emerged from the darkness and pinned her to the ground.

I readied my staff to swing down on the creature, only to hesitate. The beast before me wasn’t a tiger but something bigger. It had humanoid limbs and swung at Rionriv with vicious, calculated slashes. Unlike a hungry beast, I could see it aiming for her vital spots as it cut for her vulnerable core and limbs. Suddenly, it dawned on me. There was only one creature that I knew to exist in Moal'aw that could be so ferocious, especially on the final night of the full moon.

“Weretigers!” I cried out.

Lunging forward, I swung my staff and connected with the creature’s head. It rolled from Rionriv and looked at me, taking the blow in stride before releasing a guttural hiss. I stepped closer to it with a single stomp before taking another heavy swing, watching as the weretiger jumped back, releasing a growl and hiss once more before posturing itself aggressively. Now standing over Rionriv, I braced myself and slipped into a defensive stance, but the weretiger didn’t attack. The beast was stalling, drawing my attention away from its companion, which I could hear trying to cut through the audible brush traps Aesandoral had set.

“You, okay?” I asked, looking down at the badly bleeding and unresponsive Rionriv. “That’s a no.”

Giving my surroundings another glance, I could sense the weretigers stalking me at the edge of my vision. I knew that I would be attacked the minute my guard was down, which meant the moment I moved to heal Rionriv, they’d charge. But to remain defensive would mean to let my companion die at my feet when I could save her. Taking a deep breath, I felt the minimal magic control I had fill my chest. Channelling it towards my staff, I slammed the rod to the ground, sending out a clap of thunderous energy into the surrounding thicket. Then, hoping the sound had startled the creatures enough to buy me a precious few seconds, I dropped the staff and bent down, placing a hand to the heavy gash on Rionriv’s stomach.

“Come on,” My taut voice cracked as brilliant light flowed from my hand into Rionriv’s wounds. "Please, pull through."

As I began the healing process, the weretigers took their opportunity to strike before I had used enough magic to close the wounds. The beasts lunged forward from the brush in a synchronized effort, their vicious claws extended towards the two of us with murderous intent. I did my best to defend the weakened sorceress, throwing up my fists as I prepared to strike the first creature to enter my reach. But the speed at which they approached made it hard to tell which was first, splitting my attention.

Just then, a hail of arrows came from the shadows, striking one of the weretigers dead and wounding the other. Blood splashed over Rionriv and me as I deflected the flying corpse to the side, the creature's warm spray steaming in the cool morning air. The archers had made my decision for me as I immediately pivoted to strike the remaining weretiger. But the beast was already atop of me as it bit down onto my shoulder.

I groaned against the strike, locking my gaze with the head of the beast. While the bite ached as the thick teeth drove into flesh and bone, less than a week before, I had been doused in acid and turned into a dragon's chew toy. This made the pain I currently experienced nothing more than a bit of combative foreplay. So, pushing past the love bite, I grabbed the creature by the neck and, with a twist of my body, threw it to the ground. As it bounced, I channelled magic towards my fist before delivering a single, strong punch. In an attempt to match the power I had felt from the elixir I had consumed when fighting the dragon, I pulled the memory to mind and drove the strike home. And while I was a long way off from being able to do the same level of damage to a dragon without performance-enhancing potions, against the weretiger, I struck a decisive blow.

A small crater formed in the ground around the weretiger as I connected with the beast’s chest. Paired with a horrendous cracking sound that filled my ears, I watched as the once-rigid body instantly fell limp against the soft earth.

“Oh shit, Ri, did you see that?” I gasped, turning back to Rionriv and feeling my heart quickly drop into my stomach. "Rionriv!"

Behind me, the sorceress had begun convulsing on the earth. A watched in frozen horror at the foam pouring from her mouth as her body began to transform. Slowly, fur as red as her hair and as black as her skin started to cover her body before patches of electric blue shocked the tips around her shoulders. Rionriv had awakened by this point, her sapphire gaze staring at me in terror as it grew more feline and a pair of tiger ears formed atop her head.

I looked over my bloody shoulder at the quickly warming horizon, knowing that sunrise was no more than minutes away. We had lost her to lycanthropy, but so long as we didn't let her consume the heart of anyone in the last moments of the night, we'd have a chance of curing her. And while I doubted other adventurers were camping within a few hundred metres of us, it was better safe than sorry to keep her from fleeing.

“Hold her down!” I cried out to my companions who had emerged from the shadows.

“What’s happening?” Aesandoral asked, looking down at her sister with a terrified expression covering her blood-drenched face. “Is she—”

“Yep,” I cut her off as I forced my bodyweight down on Rionriv’s legs. “Each of you grab an arm. We have to hold her until sunrise. We can’t lose her. We can cure this.”

Forcing her limbs to the ground in an attempt to bind her, the task became exponentially tougher as the werebeast that was our friend had fully awoken. While Rionriv wasn’t the strongest of our group, her new weretiger form still fought as though it were a wild animal. She thrashed and kicked energetically, trying to escape our clutches, until eventually breaking free.

"Crap!" I cursed as I flew through the air, flung from the beast as though I had been nothing. "Fug! Ri!"

I was only off of her for a moment, but it had been long enough for me to be forced to give chase. Luckily for me, her weretiger form wasn’t as fast as the living lightning herself. It only took me a couple of seconds before I was able to catch up to her, immediately tackling Rionriv to the ground. 

"Ri! Stop! Stop! I'm trying to help you!"

The sorceress wiggled beneath me, positioning her back to the ground and now looking up at my exposed face. Angrily, she reached her claws up and gripped the side of my head. With a roar, she began to drive her murder-mittens into me, drawing blood that dripped down over my clothes as the sun broke the horizon.

With the first light falling upon Rionriv, she began to cry out as her body trembled once more. Then, as quickly as the lycanthropy had taken her, the sorceress’ body began to revert to her normal self. Before I knew it, I was pinning a normal Rionriv into the ground—a very naked Rionriv.