Jungle Law

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He'd made quick work of the poachers. Poachers in his territory never lasted long. He liked it like that. It meant the leopards he protected, claimed as his, were safe. Well, safer. Men with their guns and knives and lack of care for what they mutilated, killed, and destroyed were nothing but meat to him. Meat to be slaughtered. Not eaten, though. Never eaten. Left to rot as they left behind those of his kind, killed for their fur and little else. He had no patience for such destruction, and he had no mercy for the humans that infiltrated his forest.

In the midst of the attack, though, he'd lost sight of one of the culprits. Young with dark hair, slanted eyes, and a scent of pure fear that he remembered vividly. The boy had run from him, but the men had taken out their guns, shot at him, and he'd forgotten about the boy until it was all over. Still, the boy's scent was strong, intense, leading him along a mindless path through the dense, humid jungle. The boy was still here, somewhere, and he was determined to find the last interloper. He'd leave no poacher to return to the cities, to bring back tales of a vicious leopard that killed men.

No, no witnesses. If there were no witnesses, fewer hunting parties came looking for leopards. For him. He had to find the boy. At some point, the boy had washed his stink off in a little pool of water. The boy was clever, but that cleverness didn't help against a leopard. He could still smell the boy, potent and terrified, and then the boy's cleverness ran out.

Urine.

He could smell the sharp ammonia scent on a bush nearby. It was the third bush he'd smelled it on. This time, though, he also smelled blood. It would make the boy easier to find. Blood and piss. He followed the trail, moving silently through the dense underbrush, careful where each paw landed. He was close. Blood and piss and sweat now. Sweat didn't last as long on the air, so the boy was near. Probably by the lake. Fresh water was important, even to poachers. He'd find the boy there. His tail flicked impatiently as he stalked along an edge of water, the sun high and hot, the water inviting. But he ignored the water itself.

Piss and blood and sweat and vomit. Vomit and sour mushroom. The boy must have eaten one of the floor fungi. From the acidic edge he could scent, it was one of the blue-gilled ones. The boy, with or without his furious intervention, was on borrowed time. He almost wanted to leave the boy to suffer. His leopards hadn't been shown any mercy or peace, and so why should he offer them any? The boy would suffer a few days more before the mushroom's toxins took his life, and suffering...

He growled. If he did that, though, he'd be as cruel and terrible as the men who invaded his jungle. Damn it. Damn

him

. He followed the scent of vomit until he heard soft weeping, a rustling of dry vegetation. Cleverness, it seemed, had run out when hunger drove the boy to eat unsafe food. With a loud growl, he entered the small clearing, crouched low to the ground with his tail sweeping back and forth behind him, his teeth bared. The boy, writhing on a poorly made bed of fern fronds, saw him, cried out, and tried to scuttle back, but the pain wracking his body made it impossible.

The fear was thick on the air, and then the scent of urine struck him. The boy had wet himself. By all that was holy, this wasn't justice. It wasn't even a mercy killing. The pain in the boy's eyes—he couldn't be more than a year into his manhood—pulled at him. Compassion reared its inconvenient head, and he knew he wouldn't kill the boy. The boy wasn't a poacher. He wore clothing that was all but rags, and he was too skinny. Poachers, while lean, weren't skinny with hunger. This boy was. A tool, then. A tool that had been dragged into the forest without any knowledge of the flora around him. Now, that tool was his responsibility.

Another growl filled his throat, and he turned to run off into the forest. Dark would come soon, and he didn't have much time. It took him an hour to find the blue-gilled mushrooms. Near them, as was usually the case, grew the antidote. Hopefully, the boy hadn't eaten the mushrooms too long ago. In a fluid moment of thought, he shifted from leopard to man. Hands made cutting the vine easier. He used a sharp piece of rock from the forest floor, and then he took the vine and ran back through the jungle. If the boy was lucky, he'd make it in time to give him the antidote and light a fire. It would be cold tonight, and with how little clothing the boy had, he was surprised the creature hadn't died yet.

When he burst through the tree line again, the boy cried out once more, but when the boy saw him as man not beast, he relaxed. The boy said something, but he didn't understand. The language was wrong. Besides, he knew very little of the language spoken in his own lands, let alone a foreign tongue. He crouched beside the boy and used his nail to slice open the vine. He mimicked bringing the vine's slick interior to his lips, hoping the boy understood. The boy needed to eat the insides of the vine. Quickly. When the boy just looked at him, he growled and made the motion again, holding the inside of the vine up to the boy's mouth.

Understanding sparked in the boy's eyes at last, and his tongue darted out to lick at the vine. The boy recoiled an instant later, though, and his quick hand caught the dark hair and yanked the boy's head back toward him. He knew the slimy innards of the vine were bitter and unpleasant, but it was eat or die, and dammit, the boy was going to do as told. He growled and shoved the vine against the boy's lips, and even though the boy whimpered, he licked and chewed obediently. He chuffed and loosened his grip, moving the vine across to encourage the boy to eat more. When the boy tried to pull away sooner than he thought was wise, all it took was another yank, and that obedience returned, albeit with a groan of protest.

When the section of vine was eaten clean, he set the rest of the long coil aside and released the boy's hair with a satisfied hum. The boy said something again. It sounded like a question, but he had no answer for a question he couldn't understand. Instead, he just pressed his hand to the boy's chest, and then brought his palm to the ground. The boy spoke again, another question, but the boy pointed to himself and the ground, and it seemed he understood, so he just nodded with another purring hum before standing.

He had a lot of work to do and very little time to do it in. Nightfall was too close to waste time attempting more communication with the foolish boy. He went into the surrounding forest again in search of fallen wood. Only a few good logs were close to the lake, so he gathered them and set them down next to the human. The boy watched until another bout of sickness had him curled up on his side in pain. He needed more wood for a fire, though, so he abandoned the boy again, running to a tree he knew of that had once been struck by lightning. It was nearly overgrown, but the vines pulled away easily enough, and he ripped off a few branches, grateful the rains had been light enough to spare the brittle wood and bark from excess moisture.

Back near the lake, the boy was still curled up and groaning, but there was a new puddle of vomit nearby that made his nose crinkle. He'd have to force more of the antidote into the boy soon. As it was, he had gathered enough to start a fire and keep it going for a while. The rest of what he needed was hidden in the opposite direction, and after taking a few mouthfuls of water from the lake, he ran again, returning with a pack he had scavenged from poachers he had killed in the past. Most of what poachers carried was useless to him, but he didn't always stay in his feline form, and when he took the form of a man, there were some tools that made life infinitely easier. He had scattered the packs throughout his territory for convenience, but he hadn't thought he would ever use one to benefit some trespassing human.

The boy was sitting up again, and the initial fear at hearing his approach dissipated again with his appearance through the trees and vines. He set the pack down, and when the boy reached out for it, he growled. The boy probably didn't even know what to do with the contents. He spent a few minutes clearing the area and took out two containers and a pair of stones. He looked up at the sky and sighed. The sun was quickly setting, which meant their shelter would have to be simple for the night. The boy's eyes were on him most of the time, but he ignored him for the moment. He smeared a circle of semi-solid resin into a dip on a flat piece of wood and struck the two stones against one another until a spark ignited the resin. Building the fire was easy after that, and the scent of resin and wood smoke filled the area.

He spared a glance to the boy, who shifted closer to the heat of the fire with an odd combination of fear and awe in his eyes. The movements were awkward, a bit uncoordinated, and by the hue of the boy's skin, he suspected the boy had a fever. It meant another trip into the woods for a few herbs and barks, and he huffed his annoyance, pointing to a pile of larger sticks, which the boy handed to him when he held out his palm. He brought the boy lake water in a wooden bowl from the pack and set to making a proper shelter with a large piece of thick fabric which he tied up over the low-hanging branch of a tree right next to the fire. He used a vine to secure the middle of the fabric above them so they would be protected from rain in the night.

Just as the shelter was finished, the boy shifted away again. He only managed a couple feet before another bout of retching began. He sighed and pushed his own hair back from his face. It was going to be a very long night.

***

He hadn't managed any sleep by the time the night was half over. The boy's foolish appetite for poisonous mushrooms had seen to that much. Thanks to frequent bouts of vomiting, neither the vine's antidote nor a mash of herbs and bark to help the fever actually stayed inside the boy long enough to take full effect. By all things good and natural, he'd sired

cubs

that were less trouble! At least the severity of the vomiting was slowly tapering off. He had laid down a proper bed of broad leaves and fronds for them, but it was useless if the boy wasn't able to rest.

After a particularly unpleasant round of diarrhea from the boy that he had to bury—much like the vomit—the boy settled against him. By the lake, the air was cooler, and in his sleep, the boy shivered. He huffed a little, annoyed, and stood, changing his shape again from man to leopard. It was his preferred form, anyway. He was more leopard than man, and wearing the skin of a man was uncomfortable. At least as a leopard, he could keep the boy properly warm. He curled around the sleeping boy and licked at his shoulder and arm. The boy whimpered in his sleep, and then cuddled closer. He rested his head on the boy's filthy hair, and then fell asleep.

It was a pretty decent sleep until a scream woke him. The boy was on his feet, a dozen steps away from their shelter, and the sun was just beginning to warm the water. He stood up and growled. He was

tired

, and the boy was inconsiderate. He'd been quiet through the night, kept the boy warm. How dare the boy repay his kindness with screams and fear? If he'd wanted, he could have eaten the boy by now! Their fire had sputtered in the night, and his own belly rumbled with hunger. Fine. He would leave the boy to panic while he fetched food for them. Safe food.

Stupid screaming human.

He leaped from the clearing and headed into the thickness of the jungle. It took him a few hours to bring down one of the female peafowls, and even though he wanted to eat it immediately, he simply shifted back to the form of a man and picked up the dead bird. Another hour, and he'd managed to find mangoes, some bael fruit, two cashew fruits, some more of the antidote vines, and several tamarind pods. He thought he saw some palms that he could come back to later when the boy's stomach would be able to handle the more fibrous hearts. He returned with his bounty and found the boy in the water, washing himself. He couldn't blame the boy. After a night of unpleasant bodily fluids, he'd want to wash, too.

The boy looked up when he appeared through the tree line. Fear swirled in the dark eyes, but he didn't let it bother him. He put all the fruit down and took the peafowl to the water's edge. He crouched and began to pluck the feathers, eyes always darting back to the boy, watching him, ensuring he didn't slip beneath the surface and drown. Humans did that. He'd seen it happen. Just wander into strange waters and die because of their stupidity. How did the species manage to survive?

The scrawny human exited the lake just as he finished gutting the peafowl, and he washed it briefly in the water before gesturing for the human to follow him to the fire. He fed the flames back to a cheerful height, and then set up a stand that would hold a roasting skewer for the peafowl. He used the wooden bowl from his supply pack to catch the juices from the mango as he cut it open with the sharp end of a stone. He handed the bowl to the boy and motioned to his mouth. The boy seemed to understand. That, or he simply smelled the sweetness of the mango and knew without asking that it was safe to eat.

The boy ate voraciously, and he had to reach over and tug the bowl away for a moment, growling softly. He took a piece and demonstrated that the boy had to eat

slowly

. The stupid human was going to make himself sick all over again at this rate. He huffed his annoyance and took a large stone to try to break open the hard shell of the bael fruit. He soon had all the fruit prepared, and the peafowl sizzled above the fire as he turned it. The skin would be fatty and crispy. It seemed a waste of excellent meat, but he knew humans didn't like it raw.

The boy moaned softly with pleasure at the first bite of hot meat, and the sound brought him the smallest hint of satisfaction. There were murmured words that sounded appreciative, and he reached over to hold up one of the blue mushrooms the human had been foolish enough to eat. He pointed to the bounty of food around them and motioned to the boy's mouth with a nod and purr. He presented the mushroom as a contrast, crossing his arms and growling as he tapped it against the stupid human's forehead and tossed it back into the trees away from their shelter.

His message must have gotten across, because the boy turned a deep shade of red, and he could practically smell the rise of blood and heat, the scent of shame. Perhaps the boy could learn. He didn't have to be so weak, didn't have to be a tool to be taken advantage of by the poachers. Then again, he didn't want the boy around long enough to actually

teach

him all that. He frowned at the thought and sighed as he settled into his own seat and took a bite of meat. It was contrary to his usual diet, but in his human form, it tasted wonderful.

When the boy leaned over and kissed his cheek, he recoiled with surprise. As he stared down at the human, he was graced with a contrite, vaguely grateful smile. The boy leaned close to him again, and he didn't move away when he was gently kissed a second time on the cheek. It was a lingering touch, one that brought the human's natural scent to his nose. When he wasn't covered in vomit and excrement, the boy actually smelled good, and it brought the smallest of smiles to his face. He rubbed the side of his face against the boy's dark hair, which was soft now that it was clean and dry.

At least the boy recognized he had been foolish. At least he was grateful for the care he'd received. It almost made the boy worth the effort of saving and nursing back to health. Almost. They settled into their meal in a comfortable silence. The boy was scooping a few fuzzy seeds from the bael fruit when a spider scuttled across the ground in front of them. The silly human nearly threw the fruit in fear and reached for one of the sticks intended for the fire. He knew what the human was about to do with that stick, and he snatched it away with a growl, barking a wordless reprimand and putting the stick back on the pile before reaching out to delicately pick up the spider. It was a harmless creature, and the stupid boy's first instinct was to kill it? He glared at the boy and held the spider, letting it crawl over his alternating hands.

The boy nodded, but didn't reach for the spider. Good. What was with humans and the killing? If he wanted to kill, it was for survival, nothing more. These humans... they just killed. It made no sense. He let the spider scramble off back into the woods, and he turned his eyes back to the boy.

The boy patted his own chest. "Deshi." A look of frustration crossed his face as he pointed to himself again. "Deshi."

What was the boy saying? His brow furrowed as the boy repeated the gesture. Then it dawned on him. Deshi. The boy's name was Deshi. What a strange name. He pointed to himself. "Kaanan."

"Kaanan?"

"Kaanan." He pointed at the boy. "Deshi."

Deshi smiled at him. He felt a smile curve his own lips. It wasn't much, but it was a start. He didn't even know how to get the boy out of the jungle. This was his home. He didn't travel beyond his territory, and if he left, he couldn't be sure poachers wouldn't come in and take over. Which put him in a difficult position. Deshi was here. He couldn't take Deshi out. Deshi wouldn't be able to find his way out on his own. He huffed and tugged another piece of meat from the bone.

He was stuck with the boy.

Dammit.

***

There was precious little time when moving about as a human in the jungle. As a cat, he could have gotten more done in both the daylight and nighttime hours, but with Deshi around, he'd had to rely on his human form more. It was yet another annoyance, and it made him uncomfortable, but it didn't frighten Deshi as much to see him walking on two legs. He had compromised for nearly three phases of the moon now, almost a full cycle since he had picked up the scent of the poachers and started hunting them down. It was starting to wear thin on him, though. He longed to sharpen his claws against a tree, stretch and flick his tail, let out a proper chuff and growl as he enjoyed a meal raw. With Deshi demanding nearly constant attention, though, he didn't have the chance to shift except to hunt.

Now that Deshi was well again, the boy insisted on helping, and that meant that this excursion into the forest wasn't the hunt he would have preferred. He held out his hand, stopping Deshi behind him. "Wait," he rumbled over his shoulder, relieved to see Deshi nod and stop behind him. At least they had worked out a few words in each of their languages. It certainly wasn't enough to hold a true conversation, but Deshi had surprised him by being expressive with body language. There was intelligence there behind the dark, slanted eyes, but that knowledge seemed focused on things up in the air, things that were far removed from the earth and jungle and life.

He scented the air for a minute and motioned for Deshi to follow him. There was a particularly thick area of vegetation, and he led Deshi around it, using a machete he had taken after going back to fully loot the poachers' bodies. He smiled when they made it past the dense patch, and he pointed to a large tree with several roots growing downward from the branches. It was a beautiful, almost sacred tree to him, and its shade was a wonderful respite from the quickly building heat as the sun climbed higher in the sky.