[Agremmon Fields]Steal My Sunshine (Tarn)

[Xnnn]

Fall 30, 511 A.V. Xnnn’s head, the wounds there now mostly healed, swung from side to side nervously. He pressed as close as possible to Tarn as they walked, his nostrils twitching, his ears swiveling with every sound – and there were many of both. His large eyes took in everything, though here all that comprised was a road that had widened considerably, farmland to either side, and frequent passerbys going in one direction or another. The livestock on the farmsteads caught his attention most particularly, though Tarn had made it clear those were all off limits – for now. Once it got dark, if a quick snatch might garner them a stray hen or rabbit, that might be allowed. Tarn had noticed the Kelvic cougar looking at the farm animals closely and given him a brief lecture about crime and punishment. Xnnn was able to understand the punishment part especially, having been raised in a Zith colony. So the emphasis on “not getting caught” had made a vivid impression on the Kelvic, and he was content to follow Tarn’s instructions, as always. Well, almost always. Tarn had few survival skills and Xnnn had very much needed to keep an eye on him. From time to time, the cougar had had to intervene in some bad idea the human had thought to execute. But for the most part, being Kelvic, he had looked to Tarn to set their pace and their direction, and both had brought them here, to the outskirts of a large city – Sunberth. That made Xnnn extremely nervous. The journey here had taken a full turn of the moon. They had walked south-south-east for many days, stopping occasionally. Xnnn had hunted for the both of them. Tarn had managed to keep himself whole and tended Xnnn’s wounds as best he could with no supplies. Having a human along made the going slow, but Xnnn had never felt more content, with the exception of the very short time that he had been with Elymas. Finally, Xnnn felt like he was where he should be, that his life was pretty much what it should be. By day he played guide and guard, and by night he curled about the human as best he could to provide warmth against the ever colder darkness. Without questioning why, when Tarn had explained that he needed to get “home”, Xnnn had laid the best course he could and stuck with it. Without thinking in his Kelvic mind what home actually entailed, he had brought Tarn here. Now, all he could do was try to process the sensory overload of the fast approaching city that had birthed this human, and keep close to Tarn’s thigh, panting slightly despite the chilly air. They must be very, very close to the city, based on the ever growing number of people they were passing, most of whom gave the odd couple a wide berth. Anxiously, though it might have been hard to tell that unless you had observed him closely and come to know his moods, he glanced up into Tarn’s face.

[Tarn]

Their little adventure was soon coming to a halt as Tarn was now approaching the city that he had, just weeks before, tried to escape. He knew that the people that wanted his guts splashed on the streets were still there, but he was confident (perhaps a little too overly confident) that he would be able to handle himself back home. For all they knew he had left town, and perhaps - a very faint chance - they had made their way to another city, too, with the hopes of catching Tarn somewhere else and had left Sunberth the way it should be. Tarn could smell that familiar scent, that odour, that to Tarn meant he was home. He smiled as he talked casually to Xnnn, but knew that there wasn't much that the cougar understood. When people walked by the two of them they seemed to think that the man was insane and gave him space, or at least that's what Tarn thought. The cougar was harmless; what sort of dumb cougar would walk alongside a man then just wildly strike out at someone as they walked in towards him? That made no sense at all to Tarn, who ignored them and assumed it was due to his endless ramblings rather than the predator stalking at his side and rubbing against his leg. He would be hard-pressed to admit that he didn't enjoy the company of Xnnn during this little travel; Tarn wouldn't have made it out of The Wildlands alive if it wasn't for this Kelvic saving his ass on more than one occasion. But in the city, that's where Tarn was at home and where it was natural for him. He had his doubts if it was a place that a Kelvic like Xnnn would be able to tolerate. The two of them never truly conversed as Xnnn remained in his feline form other than that one time when they first met, and thus he was never able to ask what sort of background the Kelvic had. It was something that Tarn regretted, as he would never learn anything more about the cougar as he would be forced away from the city. Tarn stopped as he got a better view of the city, but they were well enough away that it was still considered the "rural" area around Sunberth; a safe place for Tarn to release Xnnn and hope that the beast could go back to nature and do whatever cougars do in the wild. He stopped with a sigh as he looked down to Xnnn with a grin on his face. Tarn couldn't tell what the cougar was thinking (if anything Tarn thought the cougar was incapable of anything emotional) and reached his hand down to pet against the top of that furry forehead. From habit, Xnnn's big head rubbed against his fingers and pressed up against them as he did his version of a purr. "Well buddy, this looks like it's it." He said as he gave the wet nose a little bump as he looked out to the trees and brush that surrounded the trail to Sunberth. "Time for you go to back to nature, eh? Thanks for all the food, and stuff, I guess." He gave a little shrug as he lowered himself down to his knees so he was more level with Xnnn. Tarn gave him another little smile as he reached out under his chin and gave it a scratch in that one spot that seemed to make the cougar melt. "The city's no place for a guy like you. You should be out here, killing stuff and having cat naps! Not staying with a weird looking pink guy that talks too much, right?" Tarn smirked as he pushed himself back up to his feet. The cougar looked at him with that certain look that was either the cougar judging him or not understanding a damn word he was saying. "Go on, get! Go chase some rabbits!" Tarn unfastened the light jacket that was tied around his midsection and started to whip it towards Xnnn, hoping that the cougar would get the physical actions if the words didn't make sense to him. The jacket wasn't much, and it didn't fit, but it was the best he could do with such limited places to pilfer clothes for a man. "Don't make me chase you." Tarn chuckled and shook his head. Perhaps the cougar thought this was another game of theirs, where Tarn would try and chase him and tackle him down. It was nothing but playful fighting, and thankfully the cougar played along as it nipped and pawed at Tarn's face but never truly retaliated with the sharp claws or fangs that it saved for the prey the two men ate over a fire. "Go!"

[Xnnn]

Xnnn instinctively pushed at the man’s hand, listening to his words. In his animal form, he understood the common tongue, somewhat – better now than several weeks ago when they had first met up. Common was not his first language and he was far from fluent in it. But he certainly got the gist of what Tarn was saying, and he had no idea how to react. Tarn knelt for a moment, but too soon he was back upright, eager to go. To go – and leave Xnnn behind? But – that didn’t make any sense! Why would they separate? The idea made Xnnn’s chest constrict with anxiety. His place was with Tarn. Hadn’t he done a good enough job caring for him? Had he failed in his duty, or loyalty? Of course, the cougar kelvic did not think in such lofty sentiments – he could only feel that something had gone wrong, horribly wrong. And now his human no longer wanted him. How could this have come about? Xnnn wasn’t even listening to Tarn’s explanation for this abandonment. He was so focused on the terrible chasm that had just opened up before his feet – yet another human having taken him under their wing and now prepared to just leave him – alone and rudderless in a cold, unfeeling world. He never even saw the jacket until it caught him in the face. His great gold-green eyes turned to Tarn’s in shock and he backed away a step, simply from the unexpectedness of it all. Surely this was some mistake – some game. In a moment, Tarn would grin and say something to let Xnnn know that he was joking. Xnnn had a very hard time with understanding humor. That must be it. This was a jest he wasn’t getting. Go! The voice was a bit sterner, and didn’t sound like anything was funny. Xnnn, unblinking, merely stared up at Tarn. Not knowing what to do, he stepped closer and rubbed against the human. Surely, surely – Tarn was not serious about this. What had he done to so displease his friend that he would simply walk off and leave him? Though he could not conceive of it in quite these terms, it was a fact that never – never – would the kelvic had done so to the human.

[Tarn]

With Xnnn now rubbing up against his leg again, not seeming to understand this simple gesture, Tarn was feeling slightly guilty about what he was trying to do. His resolve, however, was strong; he wouldn't want Xnnn to be in that city and subjected to the new rules of a place that the Kelvic could barely understand. It took as much convincing as he could try and yell at Xnnn to not run into the neat little field of cattle and have his way with the animals there. It wasn't a buffet, but for Xnnn it appeared that he didn't care - there was meat, he was hungry. Simple solution to a simple problem. What if they ran into more of those problems in the city? There was only so much that Tarn could do in a city that was, well, questionable at best with no authority. While that could be seen as a positive it simply meant that if Xnnn pissed off the wrong person, he could end up filleted and his fur becoming a nice carpet for someone's house. That was a reality that Tarn didn't want to see happen, so he stepped away from the warm whiskers and wet nose of the cougar and glared down to him. "Xnnn, get lost!" Tarn said, a little louder and a little sterner as he pointed towards the woods behind them. He didn't understand what was so complicated about the matter, as Xnnn seemed to have understood what Tarn had talked to him about before, but now the cougar was acting like a scared little cat. "You can't follow me into this city. You brought me home. Your job is done!" He said with a smile, hoping that the cougar would at least understand that little bit. "You're done! You can go back to hunting rabbits and sleeping twenty three hours a day, like a regular cat. You don't have to watch a silly human anymore." The look on the cougar's face was unidentifiable, as always, and Tarn thought that he should try and at least give thanks to the cougar. He took a couple steps forward and bent down to place a kiss on his furry forehead and gave it a pat. "Thanks for everything, Xnnn. Good luck in your, uh, kitty-ventures?" He said with a grin as gave him a wave as he stood back up and started to walk down the path back to Sunberth. He kept his eyes on the road, and his mind focused on the road and nothing else. Tarn wouldn't listen or even think about what was behind him, about the little familiar noises that he heard. Nope, he had to say goodbye and if the cougar wasn't going to understand what was going on Tarn would make it perfectly clear by just leaving. It'd be safer for Xnnn if he just went back to the way things were before he met Tarn.

[Xnnn]

But the rubbing thing didn’t work. If anything, Tarn’s voice got harsher, more adamant, and Xnnn looked at the man as he stepped backwards. The cougar’s expression might have been inscrutable to Tarn, but he did not mean it to be so. If he could have spoken at that moment, Xnnn would surely have been asking why he had to leave – to go back while Tarn went onwards, towards the city. Being with Tarn was his job, now. He didn’t really have any other purpose, as far as he knew. Unexpectedly – and humans were nothing if unpredictable – Tarn stepped closer once again. Xnnn felt a rush of relief as those lips bent to his head. So it had been a joke after all. Maybe one day Tarn would explain it to him – the humorous part of it. But as soon as the relief surged, Tarn had turned and was walking away – turning his back on his friend. At least . . . Xnnn had thought they were friends. Perhaps he had been wrong. Without thought, Xnnn’s chest rumbled in that way he had when he was anxious – a totally cat sound, halfway between purr and growl. He stared at the retreating back, not knowing what to do. Something was wrong here – terribly wrong. Somehow tarn had got it all mixed up. But there was no way for Xnnn to correct him – to tell him that he was supposed to stay with Tarn, to help him, to . . . make sure that he was alright. The only way he could hope to do that would be to shift. For as long as they had been together, except for the one brief period of no more than a few minutes, when they had first encountered one another in the wilds, Xnnn had remained in his cougar form. It only made sense. As a human he was weak, slow, unable to hunt – he would have been of no use whatsoever, to Tarn or to himself. At night they both needed his warm fur to keep some of the cold at bay. For many months, with the exception of maybe ten minutes, Xnnn had been an animal. He really loathed his human form – and the servitude to the Zith it symbolized to him. But . . . . Tarn was receding further and further down the road. In an instant, where cougar had been, now crouched a naked young man. Rising to his feet, he trotted after his friend – really, his master - for that was what Tarn had become – the human that Xnnn felt bound to stand by and protect and serve. His voice cracking from disuse in those tones, he called out, “Tarn! Tarn – wait!”, while he picked up speed to close the gap between them.

[Tarn]

Tarn knew that in order for the cougar to survive, he had to be out in the wild - he was a wild animal, after all. Tarn was from a city, and thus he thrived in an urban environment, not in the wild. So this plan was perfect, to put the wild thing back in the wild place and put the city boy back in the city. No matter what he felt for the poor cougar, there was some attachment there that Tarn was trying to ignore. After all, he knew the cougar for what, a few weeks? He had known other people in his life for longer than that and there was no attachment to them, so why the attachment to the cougar? Perhaps it was in a way that he was attached to an object, like one gets attached to a pet. But in this case the pet was more than just a purring, hair-ball spewing cat - it had a different intelligence about it and not to mention the ability to shift into a human's body. When Tarn heard the crackle of a voice behind him he stopped as he heard the unsteady saunter of the man behind him, and without looking he knew that it was Xnnn who had shifted back to a human form. He turned around and raised his brow at the man's nakedness but had a feeling that Xnnn was oblivious to such a thing as, technically, he was naked all the time. The shift of the man into his full body made Tarn smile as he could plainly see that the wounds on his body were starting to heal properly and without infection - it was difficult to poke and prod through the fur of the cougar's body. Not to mention the fact that he was a little prickly at a human poking at his sore sides that were in the process of healing. "Sorry, big guy. But do you think you can survive in that city? You don't even have clothes." Tarn said as he gestured to the Kelvic's groin. To Tarn that was the least of the problems with the Kelvic. Not that Tarn could know this for sure as he never really had a detailed, two way conversation with Xnnn, but he had a feeling that he hadn't really been in a real city before. Maybe he could just leash the cougar -- No, Tarn thought. He had to keep Xnnn out where he belonged. Sunberth was no place for a giant cat. "You need to go back to where you belong, as I've been saying this whole time you big oaf. You can understand now that you got pink ears, right?"

[Xnnn]

Tarn had stopped, at least, and turned around. Xnnn came up abreast of him and already Tarn began in the same vein as before. He was smiling as he so blithely told Xnnn to get lost – again. Ignoring him, Xnnn said simply, “I belong with you, Tarn.” He had no eloquent words to express that sentiment. Even if he was fluent in common, he could not have given tongue to what he knew with such certainty in his heart. Xnnn reached to place his hand on the man’s forearm. “I don’t belong anywhere else. I’m supposed to be here, with you.” He didn’t look around. His eyes weren’t on the city that now loomed so close. He paid no attention to the passers by who were now staring at the odd pair. His eyes were fixed on Tarn’s face. “This is my home now – here."

[Tarn]

Xnnn's words and actions were spoken with such authority and certainty that it confused Tarn. Not that he was a complete free spirit that didn't understand such concepts, but coming from something that had been in a beast form with little to say otherwise is something that was a bit, well, strange for him. He looked down to the human hand on his forearm and didn't move as he looked to the naked man in front of him and back up to his eyes; eyes that retained the same colour as when he was in his cougar form. He understood that the Kelvic's vocabulary choice might be limited, given the few words that they expressed before when Xnnn was in his human form. Also from the few conversations in which Xnnn could "reply" with physical movement - either remaining still or failing to listen to Tarn's warnings about going after certain animals of people passing by them - Tarn garnered that while Xnnn may understand what the word was, he didn't know what it meant. Maybe he was having difficult in understand what Tarn meant by "get lost, now, you dumb cat!"? "You belong ... with me?" If this was some sort of divine, theological 'I belong here' nonsense, Tarn was completely taken aback that it would come from someone like Xnnn. But Tarn took a step back, mentally, and tried to understand just what the Kelvic was trying to get at, using words that Xnnn didn't know how to use. "But, the for-" His words stopped as Xnnn's gaze was purely on him, and no one else. Not even a lazy, casual glance to the city behind Tarn or the troupe of women that walked by and made inappropriate calls to Xnnn as they walked by. Xnnn was entirely focused on Tarn, the man he was supposed to "be" with. "You and me? Together? Like we're a couple or something? What do you mean you belong to me? I'm not your owner, Xnnn. I never was. I'm just a guy that found himself in the forest and you came by. You're your own man, er -- your own cougar. You can do whatever you want and go wherever you want... And you want to come with me?"

[Xnnn]

Xnnn nodded vigorously. “Yes – together!” He smiled - a queer, toothy smile, almost as if he was baring his lips in a snarl. He wasn’t a simpleton, though his behavior seemed off, for a human. It wasn’t that he was lacking in intellect – though in truth his intellect was not quite the same as a human's. He was kelvic – neither a man who could assume a cougar’s form, nor a cougar who could assume a human form. He was . . . somewhere in between – a race created to serve mankind. Well, to serve one man anyway. “I . . .” He pointed at himself. “Belong with . . . you.” He pointed at Tarn, then placed his palm flat on the men’s chest. “Here.” He nodded, quite slowly this time, his eyes locked on Tarn’s. “That is what I want. I want to come with you, Tarn.” This was it. He had no other words to explain the deep bond that had formed over the past several weeks of making their way to Sunberth – making their way to the city where, all along, Tarn had been planning on leaving him. Weeks of hunger and discomfort and cold – this man standing before him now – that was why he was here. For Tarn. Xnnn placed his other hand beside the one already resting on Tarn’s chest. “Please, Tarn. I can’t leave. I want to be with you.”

[Tarn]

The look on the man's face was peculiar, as if he had never smiled in his life before. Without this knowledge of how to properly smile (or maybe never witnessing a smile before in his life), Xnnn's version of a smile was more like a snarl with his lips pulled back and his teeth bared forward like he was about to snap at Tarn's face. While the gesture was a bit odd, the meaning behind it was understood by Tarn who gave a smirk at the gesture. "Um, okay." Tarn said slowly as the hand was placed against his chest. It wasn't until Xnnn the words again in a way that he could actually understand and place his other hand on his chest that Tarn finally understood what was going on, or at least he hoped he understood. Xnnn was wanting to come with Tarn not just to keep his ass alive, but because he saw them as ... bonded. Tarn wasn't sure if that was the right word, but it was like a sort of animal bond that a man and his dog get after they live together for a certain amount of time. The dog would follow the man around, be there for him and know his routine and anticipate his needs, as best as a dog could. Just in this case the dog was a cougar, the man was Tarn, and the cougar was smarter than a regular cat but not as smart as a regular man. With his brow furrowed, Tarn thought about it a little more and hoped that his conclusion was correct and not some weird Kelvic love-bond-crazy-animal-sex thing that Tarn may have inadvertently agreed to be part of with Xnnn. The only problem that Tarn had with the analogy in his head is that a dog was domesticated - the dog didn't come from the wilds, like Xnnn did. He couldn't expect the cougar to just fall in line with how the rules of a city, even a city like Sunberth, and be a good cat on the streets. No, Tarn had to cut his ties with the cougar so that the furry feline would be happier in his natural place. "You'll be fine out here, Xnnn. Just go back to your cougar, hunt some rabbits, have some naps, and maybe chase your tail a bit." He said the last bit with a grin as he reached for Xnnn's hand on his chest and gently pulled it away. "You can't come with me Xnnn. Thank you for everything," Tarn said as he placed his hand on Xnnn's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "But this is the end our road together. If I ever peek out of Sunberth, I'll see if I can find you in the forest, okay?" Not that that was realistic expectation but he hoped that the small bit of hope for the Kelvic would be enough for him to stop and turn around and go back to where he belonged. He gave Xnnn a curt smile and nodded his head as he turned back to the path to Sunberth. "Bye, Xnnn. Thanks for the rabbits." Tarn said as he started to walk down the path, away from the cougar-man. He glanced down the road and could see the familiar sights of the city that he called home and smiled as he smelled that unmistakable Sunberth-esque odour.