Jaguar Dreams (private Leorgathar and Cheezeegriff)

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl pushed through the wet foliage that had overgrown the temple courtyards, careful to be light on her step. Old towers rose around her, columns and broad stone walls that provided a purchase for climbing vines, moss and trees. The ruins of Africa weren't nearly as nice as the ruins of her home in south America, but they were nice.
A bird called from overhead, and Ateotl twisted an ear. It was in owltalk: not the regular language of the plains, but she knew it well. 'Footprints disappear into a cave up ahead,' it had said. She followed them carefully, silently.
Sure enough, there were stairs leading down into the earth here. Some sort of underground tomb. The jaguar she was looking for had gone into here? What kind of a madman was he?
More clicking. 'Don't forget your disguise.' Ateotl pawed at her ear, at the little block of jade on the inside. She heard the familiar click, and then her body transformed: her black coat turned golden-brown. Her tail grew a tuft, and she grew taller. The people she'd spoken to had said this jaguar thought that he was the only one. She didn't want him to have a heart attack as soon as they met.
Then, saying a quick prayer to the god of the earth, she descended the stairs to find her charge: a male jaguar named Balam.

[Leorgathar]

“*sigh* This map is garbage!” Balam said frustrated after examining a piece of paper with schematics of the temple’s corridors, namely awful scribbles drawn by a monkey that Balam blindly trusted. The jaguar crumpled the map and threw it away. “Ah, screw it! I’ll find my own way through.”

Balam looked into the corridor ahead. It was very dark, but fortunately he had a flashlight turned on attached to his headband. He resumed his walk with a careful pace.

After finally gaining his independence and building a new life in the African jungles, Balam continued his research on the humans of old, especially their vast technology left behind and their various cultures. He had also accepted his new identity as a leopard, which was much easier than explaining everyone what a jaguar was. But lately, Balam had heard some strange rumors about this temple, where might he be able to find a clue about the fate of his kind. He did not know what kind of connection this temple had with jaguars, or what it was doing in Africa. He suspected it might just be a prank made up by the monkeys, but he still found the temple extremely fascinating. The columns, the old murals inside, animals carved in stone... This was a place rich in history.

Many turns and passageways later, the jaguar stopped cold as soon as he reached a dead end where the ceiling had crumbled, blocking the way ahead. The jaguar roared in frustration, but it didn’t take him long to spot a narrow opening down in a corner of the ruined wall. He thought he might fit through it, but he had to leave his backpack behind. Resigning to the idea, he unfastened his harness with his teeth and proceeded to crawl through the hole armed only with his head flashlight. After forcibly coming out to the other side, he saw there was a big room full of many artifacts, including several masks from African tribes and ivory statues. He reckoned this must have been a collector’s vault of some sort, but one small statue made of jadestone over an altar caught his attention: it didn’t look African at all, more like what he recognized as a Prehispanic sculpture, depicting the head of a jaguar with its mouth open. Balam examined it closely.

“Heeey… you’re not from around here, are you?” he said while grinning. He had found it, a link to his own species standing right there. Soon he would be able to study it and hopefully find out how it found its way into the temple. "You're coming home with me."
The jaguar took the small idol gently in his jaws, then took a look at his surroundings. “Should I expect a trap or something?” he chuckled and turned back around. But just as he crouched to crawl back into the hole to where his backpack was, a stone below his paw loosened, which made the floor crumble, revealing a deep, dark pit. Balam managed to grasp from the edge of the hole, his body hanging in the air. “R-Really!?” His claws gave in to more crumbling, and Balam fell down with a loud roar, along with the jaguar idol.

A splash was the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness.

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl moved deeper into the tunnels, guided only by her scent. She thought she heard voices for a while, then a roar, but then nothing. Nevertheless Balam's scent guided her. She grumbled when she came across the pack and harness before the narrow opening. Flicking her ear again, she felt her form shift, then squeezed through the opening herself. THen she flicked the earring once more and continued to follow her nose.
When her foot met air in the pitch blackness, she pulled herself back, sniffing the edge. No doubt about it: he had definitely gone this way. Had he jumped down the hole? She reached about for something - anything - to throw down there, and found what felt like a small broken piece of masonry. She let it go and listened.
One... two... three... it landed with a plop. Great. If Balam had fallen down there, chances are he wouldn't be getting out soon. Doing her best African lion accent, she said carefully, "Hello?"

[Leorgathar]

Balam felt drowsy when he opened his eyes. As he came to his senses, he realized he was floating over water while holding on one the tribal masks that had fallen with him from the room above. He thought he must have clung to it desperately while grasping for air and before passing out.

“Now I know why they made these masks so long… they’re like canoes with faces.”

The poor jaguar paddled to the edge of the underground lake and shook his damped fur. Then he took a look at his surroundings, trying to remember what had happened. He found himself in a cavern right under the temple. It was very dark, so he reached for his head flashlight, only to find out it had broken. “Ah, just my luck!” He sighed and threw it away.

Looking up, the jaguar could see a big hole far away in the ceiling that had once been the floor of that room with the vast collection of cultural artifacts, most of which now lay crumbled down there with him. It had been quite a big fall.

“The idol!” He gasped as he suddenly remembered the little jaguar statue, and began to frantically search for it around the cave floor, anxiously hoping that it hadn’t fallen into the lake with him and sunk. “No no no, come on, where is it!?”

Luckily, it didn’t take him long to feel the statue under his paw. Unfortunately, he found out it had shattered in many pieces as it hit the rocky floor violently. Balam roared angrily, he had come all this way to find this pivotal clue, and now this happens? Great, just great! he thought, but as he calmed down, he noticed there was something else on the floor: it was a rolled piece of parchment paper, which seemed to have come out from inside the broken statue.
He tried to examine it, but no matter how good his vision was in the dark, he couldn’t make out what was written or drawn on it. He decided to keep it safe and focus on how to get out of there. He wished he had his trusty backpack with him. He always felt strangely naked without it.

“Hello?” A female voice called from above, which made Balam look up and smile with hope. Oh thank goodness! he thought.

“Um, hello! I just fell down into this… kind of cavern under the temple. Could you please help me out? I would climb, but the walls here are very steep for my claws.” He thought for a second. “There should be a big green bag over there where you are, do you think you could open it and throw me a rope? …If you don’t mind?”

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl rolled her eyes. Everything conspired to make her job harder. Everything. “I’ll be a minute,” she said as cheerfully as she could, then went back the way she came. She flicked her ear, transformed, got the pack and dragged it back through the crack with her teeth. It wasn’t easy going. It was tempting just to rip at the thing until she broke through, but Ateotl restrained herself. She didn’t want to break anything. Besides, something was poking out after she’d dragged it. A length of rope. Ateotl bit down on the end and pulled it out, brought it to a statue that looked large enough to hold the weight of a jaguar before realising she had no idea how to tie a knot. For a moment she paused, then realised: at the weight of a lioness, she was probably heavy enough to haul him up anyway. Walking to the edge, Ateotl threw the rope down the hole, but still held the other end in her mouth. She walked around the statue, made it taught, then said, “Alright. Climb.”

[Leorgathar]

The rope fell from the opening in the cave ceiling, and Balam was pleased to see that it was long enough for him to reach. The only problem was that, without the help of his harness, he would have to use his teeth. He wanted to take the parchment he found up with him, but since his mouth would be busy with the climbing, he needed another way to carry it.

An idea popped immediately in his head: the headband. The jaguar searched around the floor and quickly recovered it, removing the broken flashlight. He strapped it around his right foreleg with the parchment held tightly against it. With one last look at the completely destroyed statue, he sighed and approached the rope.

“Ok… I’m climbing up!”

Balam had grown to be a pretty good rope climber. He learned that he could climb very steep surfaces by rhythmically clasping the rope with his teeth and strapping the next section of rope around his forepaw while holding the lower section around one of his back legs. Always helping himself up the wall with his free claws. He jumped and grabbed the rope just like he had practiced many times, and climbed up to the hole as swiftly as he could.
When he finally reached the top, Balam panted to regain his breath. He sat down on a ledge right next to the hole he had fallen into, and he looked to his side to see who had helped him. It was a lioness, holding the other end of the rope in her teeth.

“Phew! I thought I would stay down there forever… thank you! I’ll repay the favor to you, however I can.” the jaguar said with a faint smile, then he cleared his throat. “*ahem* So… what brings a lioness to a place like this?”

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl spat out the rope, regarding the jaguar before her for a moment, a smile playing on her lips which she quickly dismissed. "You do, actually," she said. "My name's Ati. I've been send to retrieve you. My... pride has in their possession some ancient machinery. They're trying to find out how to get it working again. We could use your help." She turned around, studying the exit, grimacing at the thought of trying to fit through there in her current form. "In return, we're willing to give you some information about your people. Specifically, how you might find them." She sighed at the wall and turned around, cocking an eyebrow at Balam. "Interested?"

[Leorgathar]

“Interested?”

By the time the lioness turned around to face Balam, his mouth was hanging open. A lion pride that needed his help? In possession of ancient machinery… and offering him information about his own people? All things the jaguar certainly didn’t expect to hear, especially since he had just lost a valuable clue about his people in that temple.

“My people? You mean… like, other jaguars?” Balam asked, looking at the parchment strapped to his arm. But suddenly he shook his head, feeling that he should answer her first. “Wow, I mean… sure! I’ll go take a look at that machinery of yours. If you know who I am, then you must know I could never refuse to something like that.” He smiled with pride, trying to hide his sudden burst of excitement.
“Besides, I already owe you one,” he added while crouching to crawl back through the hole in the ruined wall. “I’ll just get my backpack!”

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl grinned. Things were going well so far. When Balam started crawling through the hole, she said, "You're backpack's in here. I got it to get the rope out." Then she picked up the rope in her teeth. "But you might have to pull me through that gap. I'm not sure I can do it again on my own."

[Leorgathar]

“Oh, um… sure! No problem,” Balam said with a smile, looking at his backpack and feeling a little dumb. He first grabbed the bag from a strap and pulled it out along with him to the other side. Then he peeked through the hole again and addressed the lioness again.

“Alright, Ati, throw me an end of the rope and I’ll use it to pull you out!” His voice echoed through the narrow tunnel. He wondered how the lioness could fit through there in the first place when she came looking for him, but he dared not to ask.

“Ready?”

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl threw through the rope, then bit on the end as hard as she could. "Reaby," she said, and allowed herself to be pulled through the opening. It was hard going - she wasn't light, and the walls compressed on her shoulders and forearms. But once they were through, her back legs came out easily, and she stood, wiping the dust from her paw. "Thanks," she said, without looking at him.
There was a familiar clicking coming from outside, echoing down the corridor. It sounded insistent, so she started towards the exit. "Fine places you choose to haunt," she said, looking around at the cobwebs.

[Leorgathar]

“My specialty,” Balam smirked. “The older they are, the better.”

The jaguar proceeded to pack the rope again in the bag. He opened a small pocket for the parchment he had found and realized he hadn’t properly inspected it yet. He didn’t want to keep the lioness waiting, but he gave the old piece of paper a quick look. In it there were many different drawings connected by various stylish glyphs and patterns, most of them were what Balam recognized as warriors fighting each other, and priests performing ceremonial sacrifices. Some of them seemed to be wearing jaguar pelts, which made a shiver run down Balam’s spine. But the central drawing depicted a pyramid which he quickly recognized as Mayan. At the top of this pyramid was another drawing: a red chair shaped like a jaguar with green spots as its markings. Balam gasped as he saw it, a feeling creeped into his mind that he had seen that structure before… but could not remember where.

Balam shook his head and put the parchment in the pocket, there would be another time to look thoroughly into every single glyph. He nimbly picked up his backpack and put it on, adjusting his harness the way he had practiced so many times. Then he joined Ati as they paced through the temple corridors towards the exit.

“So… this machine of yours… where did you find it?” He asked her.

[cheezeegriff]

"We grew up near it," Ateotl said. "Always wondered what it was. Had our best minds looking at it. When we heard of you, and your... speciality, we thought you'd be able to help."
Her ears flicked forward to the sounds of the jungle. Buried within were a certain series of clicks. Kovo was calling her. Revealing him might arouse Balam's suspicions, if he knew anything about owls anyway, which he probably didn't. Nevertheless she wasn't willing to take the risk. She cleared her throat. "My pride is about two days' travel south, by foot. We'll have to cross some plains to get there but it's in a forested gorge. Quickest way there is by the river." She looked back at him, scanning him up and down. "All your gear waterproof?"

[Leorgathar]

“It is, yeah,” Balam shook his backpack proudly. “I mean… the bag itself is waterproof, not my entire gear, but it does its job well keeping things inside dry.”

The two felines climbed up the stairs leading to the temple’s entrance, and together they left the foliage covered columns of the temple behind. The road ahead opened in a swampy forest with countless jungle noises. Over the West, the Sun descended into twilight.

“Thank goodness we got out of there before it got dark.”

From time to time, as they paced through the jungle, Balam noticed Ati perking her ears and constantly looking upwards discreetly. He wondered why that was, for him the jungle sounded the same as it always had. Could she be leading him to a trap? Was the machine she mentioned a trick to lure him out? Did she really know something about the jaguars’ past that he didn’t?… Nah! Come on, Balam, you’re worrying too much, he thought.

[cheezeegriff]

Turn East to avoid a lake, the clicking said. Ateotl did as she was told. With the setting of the sun it was hard to see, even with a lioness’ night vision, though animals had left helpfully-smelly footprints along the most frequently-used tracks of the jungle.
Finally the forest ended, meeting with the river. It became brighter for a while until the moon set. With only stars and smells to guide them, she sighed and said, “We may want to rest here until dawn. It’s another three days’ of good travel before we reach my people. I hope you don’t mind travelling during the day.” Ateotl plonked down on a dry patch beneath a large fig tree, then sniffed the air. “I don’t suppose you have any food in all those belongings?”

[Leorgathar]

Balam’s stomach growled at the mention of food. He unfastened his harness and opened his backpack.
“I should have some rationed meat somewhere, hold on… Aha!” From the depths of the bag he pulled out a small sealed cooler box. After opening it, the smell of cold fresh meat reached his nostrils. The ice had already melted, so he drained all the water inside. He also took out two small bottles with spices and sauce.

“We can eat it like this, but trust me, you will like the way I prepare it.” In the same way he had seen footage of humans doing it, he put together a bonfire and improvised a grill with materials from his backpack. Then he added the spices. “I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty sure I’m the best cook in all of Africa, if not the world. I guess that makes up for being an awfully bad hunter.” He joked with a smirk. The meat’s fat boiled from inside it, the color became darker brown, and the smell much more pleasant. Balam was aware of how unnatural it was for a carnivore to eat from grilled meat like humans did in their age, that's why he always tried not to overcook it and left the center raw, but he really loved the resulting taste.

As he turned the pieces of meat over, the jaguar noticed the little green block Ati had in her ear. “That’s a nice thing you got there, I was meaning to ask about it earlier.” He said pointing at her ear. “What is it? Is it jade?”

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl studied with amazement as Balam cooked his little morsels of meat. It was astounding, the amount and variety of talents this jaguar had.
Then he asked about the earring, and she felt her eyes widen in panic. "No. Yes, actually," she reached up, touching it as absently as she could, not forcefully enough to trigger it. "There's many artifacts in my homelands such as this. The device we want you to fix is partially made of jade, too." She looked down at the grill, licking her chops. "How's our dinner coming along? The last time I ate cooked food was from an monkey named Cherimoya. And that was cooked fruit."

[Leorgathar]

“Cooked fruit? Well, that sounds tasty. Maybe next time I’ll try adding that to my steaks, I believe they could be supremely delicious together.” Balam said while sniffing the grill, his mouth watering. “Ah, it’s ready now.”
The jaguar carefully retrieved the steaks and placed them in equal portions over two rocks. He handed over one to Ati with a smile. “There you go. I know it’s not much, but I hope you enjoy it.”

After he finished feeding, and licking the rock for any small trace of flavor left on it, he yawned and curled up, resting his head over his crossed paws. “I think I’m going to doze off for a bit, maybe you should too, if we’re gonna travel far tomorrow,” he said, closing his eyes shut. “Good night!”

As he journeyed into the realm of dreams, his thoughts wandered around the jaguar throne drawn in the parchment he found. Where had he seen it before? Or had it been in a dream? His mind was too tired to try to remember. Another thought creeped into his mind before falling asleep for good.

A machine with parts made of jade... I wonder what that thing is.

[cheezeegriff]

Ateotl lowered her head, relishing the taste of the meat. It had been delicious, but a much smaller portion than she was used to and she was considering foraging for food.
THe sounds of the jungle called to her, including a distant hoot. One that didn't quite belong in the african jungle. Sighing, she stood, following the sound between the trees, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Balam was still fast asleep.
Once she was far enough away, she said softly, in her own tongue, "I'm here. What's wrong?"
A flutter, and pincer-sharp claws landed on her head. She winced as Kovo paced back and forth. "You shouldn't have stopped. Lions are nocturnal. You should have insisted you travel further until dawn and rested then."
"I couldn't see," Ateotl said, as a means of excuse, but then felt the claws prick down her snout, then a sharp pain on her nose.
"Then use your nose," Kovo said. "Two days."
Ateotl's eyes widened. "What?"
"Get back in two days."
"It took me a week just to get here!"
"Upstream, downstream..." Kovo took off, landing on a nearby branch and tilting his head sideways. "Use that brain of yours." Then he took off again, rising into the trees, out of sight.
Ateotl sighed, then wandered away, back towards Balam. Two days... that was a ridiculous request. But possibly do-able. Balam said he could swim, even with all his materials. Lions didn't like to swim - and indeed, even in a lioness' body Ateotl felt adverse to the thought of swimming - but perhaps then they could make enough speed.
Two days. Ridiculous.
Part of her wanted to run away, to never go back. But she knew if she did that she'd be hunted. And her earring wouldn't last forever. She'd be back to her own self, a little jaguar lost in the vastness of Africa. Not a good idea.
A smell distracted her from morbid thoughts, and she tilted her nose up, pausing. Taking a slight detour, she found a crocodile spread across a still warm rock. Quietly, Ateotl flicked her ear, feeling her body shrink, the forest becoming larger. Then she crept forward and bit down on the crocodile's neck with strong jaguar jaws. For a moment it thrashed, but then the vertebrae popped and it went limp. Ateotl stepped back, sighing with relief, then flicked her ear again and dragged the shrunken crocodile back to Balam.
She resisted starting now, instead waiting for the early glow of morning, kept awake by her own thoughts. Then she nudged Balam. "Time to go," Ateotl said. "Quick, eat. Then let's go swimming." She turned the dead crocodile over and opened its stomach.