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Description
Determination

A few days later, I was standing on a tree branch next to Kara, trying, and failing, to come up with a plan, while the army’s camp lay fast asleep on the ground a distance away.
“We can’t just rush in and grab her…someone’s bound to notice, and we’ll be trapped in the middle of an alert camp,” Kara noted intelligently in a whisper, scratching the tip of her nose with her tail thoughtfully.
“If we had some real weapons, I could probably distract their attention long enough for you to grab her, but all we have is a knife, bow and ten arrows,” I added, also in a whisper, scowling. “Of course, seeing as how I’m no real pro at combat, I doubt that I could buy you more then maybe 5 seconds, if that.”
“That’s true…maybe if I sniped their leaders?”
“No. That’d arouse their guard, and they’d start firing wildly, and Kitara would probably get hurt in the crossfire. Come on Kara, think! There’s gotta be something we can do!”
“Well…maybe if we managed to kill one of their comrades when they went out on a hunt or something, and went in as that person?”
“Hmm…Nah, couldn’t work.”
“Why not?” Kara asked petulantly, pouting.
“Unless we knew something about whatever country their working for, if they’re not just some contingent of pillaging mercenaries, we’d need to have some idea of the basic chain of command, who’s the leader, what rank the person your imitating is, and so on. Besides, they don’t have anything covering their faces, see?” I pointed out, extending my arm towards a group of them lying around a fire, pointing at their helmets, which had no visor. “If you’ll notice, their helmets don’t have a visor.”
“Good point…but what makes you think that they’re just a group of mercenaries and not just a part of the army?”
“There isn’t a piece of armor that they have on that has any kind of insignia inscribed on it. I’m not sure how it works here, but where I’m from, when they still used swords and shields and stuff, people in one army would have an emblem of their leader on their shield or armor, since armor styles were all so similar. It was pretty much the only way to tell who was on your side, and who wasn’t.”
Kara sighed, nodding. “Good point…I hadn’t thought of that. But if that’s what you’re worried about, why don’t we just run out and grab her right now while their asleep?” she asked, pointing out the fact that a good ¾ of the enemy soldiers were fast asleep, since it was midnight.
I sighed, resting my head in the palm of my hand muttering several curses under my breath. “Because, we don’t want those guys to see us,” I replied, pointing towards the remaining 1/4th of the enemy troops, which were walking around the perimeter of the camp, not quite close enough to our hiding space to catch us, but close enough to hear us if we spoke any louder then a whisper. “Those guys are the sentries, and they’ll instantly raise the alarm if there’s even a hint of a possibility of an attack. And you can’t snipe them either,” I interrupted, cutting off Kara’s question before she could start to ask it. The sentries are so close together that someone’s bound to notice one of them dying with an arrow in their head or throat or wherever. And if they think we’re here to rescue Kit, they might decide to just off her and be done with it!” I added, inadvertently raising my voice. Kara scowled and clapped a hand over my mouth, pulling me closer to her as the nearest trio of sentries stalked in, poking their swords and spears into the bushes and the lower branches of the trees.
“Did you guys hear something?” I heard the middle one ask as he poked around the branch just below ours.
“Maybe. I heard someone saying something about sentries. You think someone’s going to attack?” the one on the left asked nervously, as he hesitatingly poked around in the bushes and shrubs. That guy’s definitely an amateur. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his first mission, I thought, trying my best to keep calm.
“You can’t just go raising the alarm every time you hear something. You’ve already got your pay docked by half last night by raising a false alarm! Come on, we should get back to our posts,” the last one said laughingly, shaking his head in amusement.
Beneath Kara’s hand, I shuddered slightly as I remembered the previous night. I had tried to hide beneath a shrub, but I’d made too much noise, and I almost got caught before Kara pulled me up into a tree, using the dim lighting and the shadows to make it appear as though we were just another bulge on the tree.
Kara hid even deeper in the leafy branch of the tree, when one of the sentries looked back our way, pressing my head into her chest.
Before I could do anything about it but blush, the sentry had turned away and Kara had let go of me, shivering. “Next time you’re going to do that, give me a little bit of warning!” I whispered back at her, flustered and red.
“What? Aw, you’re no fun to tease Trace,” she whined in a whisper, winking at me knowingly. “Just admit; you liked it!”
“You need to keep your eyes on the prize…” I muttered, trying not to let my embarrassment show anymore. “Your positive there was nothing else useful in your house that you could salvage?” I asked for what had to be the twentieth time, even though I knew the answer.
“Nope. I got everything that we could use here with me. This is all I found.”
“I see…And you’re positive that you can’t think of any reasons that they’d want Kitara?” Another of my favorite questions, it seemed.
“I told you before! I can’t think of a reason! Leave me alone!” she snapped harshly, understandably.
I sighed and leaned back, trying not to let the fact that that had hurt show. I leaned back, staring at the sky with thinking when I thought I heard a cat’s meow on the wind, carried by the scent of fruit blossoms…

I sat up with a surprise, shaking my head roughly several times to clear the sleep from my brain as I tried to comprehend what had just happened. Looking at Kara, I realized that she had just woken up as well, and that we were on the tree branch that we had been spying from the night before. I also noticed that it was somewhat close to noon, as the sun was almost right overhead. When I looked over at where the army encampment had been, I saw nothing, just some footprints on the dusty ground.
“Ugh…what happened?” Kara asked aloud, looking around curiously. “All I remember was thinking about something, and I fell asleep…”
“What were you thinking about?” I asked curiously, climbing down from the branch.
“Hmm…Let me think…” Kara muttered, sleepily, yawning loudly.
“…Well?” I asked curiously after a long silence.
“…”
“Hey! I know you can hear me! What were you thinking about??” I shouted angrily, giving the tree a good kick. The second I did, the tree shook, dropping a sleeping Kara hard in my arms, causing me to fall on top of her.
“Huh? Uh oh…I think I fell asleep…huh? TRACE! GET OFF OF ME!!!” she shouted blushing furiously, pushing me off of her hurriedly. “That’s no way to treat a lady!” she shouted, slapping me hard across the face.
“Right…so who’s the lady…?” I asked hesitantly, rubbing my stinging cheek. Kara scoffed glaring at me angrily with tears in her eyes.
“JERK!!!” she shouted at me loudly before storming off, cursing loudly.
“…what was that all about?” I wondered aloud, confused. “And Kitara…why’d the army take her…?” I looked up realizing that Kara was almost out of sight, and ran to catch up with her, thinking curiously. Kara’s been acting kind of weird lately...I thought curiously. Wonder why…
I looked up and screeched to a stop, ducking behind a tree as Kara looked over her shoulder, a thoughtful look on her face.
“That idiot…Don’t tell me he’s forgotten how to walk…” she scoffed, shaking her head in amusement. “Why does he want to help me rescue sis so bad?” she wondered, sounding a little dazed. “He does seem kind…for a human. I can’t think of any other humans that would go out of their way to help a cat like me. If you don’t hurry up I’m leaving you behind!” she shouted back, grinning slightly.
I considered stepping out, but I didn’t really have much choice in the matter, hearing Kara screaming as something lashed out of the bushes attacking her.
Kara ducked and dodged as fast as she could, trying desperately to avoid the large sword that a hunter had brandished.
“You’re a lively one! Quit moving so I can kill you!” he shouted, cutting straight down. Kara dodged to the side, barely avoiding it, but she got a rather serious cut on her leg, and she howled from the pain. She tried to catch herself, but her cut leg refused to support her weight, and she fell with a yowl, covering her head with her arms in a feeble attempt at self-defense.
Right before the hunter could level the killing blow, I dropped from the tree branch I had been sitting on, catching him savagely with a swift kick to the throat. The loud crack of snapping bone echoed in the clearing, and the hunter dropped his sword, grabbing in surprise at his crushed throat. I was surprised too, honestly. I hadn’t expected my kick to be that devastating. He fell to his knees, trying to breath, a fearful, desperate look on his face before he fell, his eyes gaping at me in horror. Kara stared also, shivering.
“That…he…you…” she stammered, looking from me to the hunter and back to me.
“Uh…yeah?” I responded intelligently, feeling just as confused as she looked. Before I could say anything more intelligently, Kara sobbed grabbing at her leg wound. I rushed over to her side and bent to examine the wound, but I knew that it would be beyond my ability to treat, since I didn’t have any first aid, but I stepped back and grimaced as the light flashed from Kara’s hands again, healing her wound.
“I’m curious about something…” I commented, scratching my head nervously. How come you can do that?”
“It’s magic, you idiot!” she screeched at me, tears in her eyes. “How else could it happen!?”
“Good…point…” I said sheepishly, turning away and clearing my throat uncomfortably. I deserved that, I thought sadly, staring up at the sky. I’m asking all sorts of stupid questions lately…this isn’t like me.
“Could you teach me some magic?” I asked coldly, not turning to look at her.
“Huh? Well…I’m not sure that you’ll be able too…” she started to say uncertainly.
“I see. Forget I said anything then,” I remarked courtly, walking over and picking up the sword the hunter had dropped. It’s not just my personality that’s changed, I thought, confused. My body’s changed too. Although it’s only been one day, I’ve gotten stronger. What’ll happen, I wonder, if I stay here longer?
“That’s not what I mean! I’m sure I could teach you magic!” Kara shouted at me panicked, though for what reason I couldn’t fathom. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was now wielding a proper weapon.
“I said forget it didn’t I?” I said coldly, setting the blade on my shoulder. “I couldn’t learn magic even if I-“
“SHUT UP!” Kara shouted in my ear, looking down. “At least listen to what I have to say!”
“Fine!” I shouted back, rubbing my ringing ears. “What do you have to say?”
“Like I was going to say, I can teach you magic, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take…or how strong your magic’ll be…”
“I see…”
“And I really only know some healing and defensive spells, I don’t know any offensive ones, but if that’s ok with you, I’d be happy to train you…” she finished uncertainly, looking away bright red.
“I’m happy to learn anything,” I replied seriously, facing her.
“…Your too serious…you really need to loosen up a little bit. The world’s not going to end if you take everything seriously. You need to lighten up a bit, smell the roses, you know?”
“We don’t have the time for that right now…we’re getting seriously side-tracked…we need to save Kitara remember?”
Kara sighed looking down with tears in her eyes. “I havn’t forgotten...but…do you really think there’s a chance?”
“There’s gotta be a chance! We’re just missing something, that’s all!” I replied with more conviction then I felt. Honestly, I didn’t think there was the slightest chance that we’d be able to help Kitara, but we had to try SOMETHING didn’t we? I mean…it wasn’t right of us to just give up on her, I figured.
Kara nodded, looking up happily. “You’re right! We won’t give up until Kitara’s safe at home with us!” She stopped after that though and leaned in close to me, staring at me curiously. “How come you’re all red Trace? Something wrong?”
“Don’t worry about me. We need to save Kitara first before we can think about anything else,” I started to ask her why anyone would kidnap Kitara, but fortunately I thought it through before it was out and kept silent instead, yawning.

Description
Determination

A few days later, I was standing on a tree branch next to Kara, trying, and failing, to come up with a plan, while the army’s camp lay fast asleep on the ground a distance away.
“We can’t just rush in and grab her…someone’s bound to notice, and we’ll be trapped in the middle of an alert camp,” Kara noted intelligently in a whisper, scratching the tip of her nose with her tail thoughtfully.
“If we had some real weapons, I could probably distract their attention long enough for you to grab her, but all we have is a knife, bow and ten arrows,” I added, also in a whisper, scowling. “Of course, seeing as how I’m no real pro at combat, I doubt that I could buy you more then maybe 5 seconds, if that.”
“That’s true…maybe if I sniped their leaders?”
“No. That’d arouse their guard, and they’d start firing wildly, and Kitara would probably get hurt in the crossfire. Come on Kara, think! There’s gotta be something we can do!”
“Well…maybe if we managed to kill one of their comrades when they went out on a hunt or something, and went in as that person?”
“Hmm…Nah, couldn’t work.”
“Why not?” Kara asked petulantly, pouting.
“Unless we knew something about whatever country their working for, if they’re not just some contingent of pillaging mercenaries, we’d need to have some idea of the basic chain of command, who’s the leader, what rank the person your imitating is, and so on. Besides, they don’t have anything covering their faces, see?” I pointed out, extending my arm towards a group of them lying around a fire, pointing at their helmets, which had no visor. “If you’ll notice, their helmets don’t have a visor.”
“Good point…but what makes you think that they’re just a group of mercenaries and not just a part of the army?”
“There isn’t a piece of armor that they have on that has any kind of insignia inscribed on it. I’m not sure how it works here, but where I’m from, when they still used swords and shields and stuff, people in one army would have an emblem of their leader on their shield or armor, since armor styles were all so similar. It was pretty much the only way to tell who was on your side, and who wasn’t.”
Kara sighed, nodding. “Good point…I hadn’t thought of that. But if that’s what you’re worried about, why don’t we just run out and grab her right now while their asleep?” she asked, pointing out the fact that a good ¾ of the enemy soldiers were fast asleep, since it was midnight.
I sighed, resting my head in the palm of my hand muttering several curses under my breath. “Because, we don’t want those guys to see us,” I replied, pointing towards the remaining 1/4th of the enemy troops, which were walking around the perimeter of the camp, not quite close enough to our hiding space to catch us, but close enough to hear us if we spoke any louder then a whisper. “Those guys are the sentries, and they’ll instantly raise the alarm if there’s even a hint of a possibility of an attack. And you can’t snipe them either,” I interrupted, cutting off Kara’s question before she could start to ask it. The sentries are so close together that someone’s bound to notice one of them dying with an arrow in their head or throat or wherever. And if they think we’re here to rescue Kit, they might decide to just off her and be done with it!” I added, inadvertently raising my voice. Kara scowled and clapped a hand over my mouth, pulling me closer to her as the nearest trio of sentries stalked in, poking their swords and spears into the bushes and the lower branches of the trees.
“Did you guys hear something?” I heard the middle one ask as he poked around the branch just below ours.
“Maybe. I heard someone saying something about sentries. You think someone’s going to attack?” the one on the left asked nervously, as he hesitatingly poked around in the bushes and shrubs. That guy’s definitely an amateur. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is his first mission, I thought, trying my best to keep calm.
“You can’t just go raising the alarm every time you hear something. You’ve already got your pay docked by half last night by raising a false alarm! Come on, we should get back to our posts,” the last one said laughingly, shaking his head in amusement.
Beneath Kara’s hand, I shuddered slightly as I remembered the previous night. I had tried to hide beneath a shrub, but I’d made too much noise, and I almost got caught before Kara pulled me up into a tree, using the dim lighting and the shadows to make it appear as though we were just another bulge on the tree.
Kara hid even deeper in the leafy branch of the tree, when one of the sentries looked back our way, pressing my head into her chest.
Before I could do anything about it but blush, the sentry had turned away and Kara had let go of me, shivering. “Next time you’re going to do that, give me a little bit of warning!” I whispered back at her, flustered and red.
“What? Aw, you’re no fun to tease Trace,” she whined in a whisper, winking at me knowingly. “Just admit; you liked it!”
“You need to keep your eyes on the prize…” I muttered, trying not to let my embarrassment show anymore. “Your positive there was nothing else useful in your house that you could salvage?” I asked for what had to be the twentieth time, even though I knew the answer.
“Nope. I got everything that we could use here with me. This is all I found.”
“I see…And you’re positive that you can’t think of any reasons that they’d want Kitara?” Another of my favorite questions, it seemed.
“I told you before! I can’t think of a reason! Leave me alone!” she snapped harshly, understandably.
I sighed and leaned back, trying not to let the fact that that had hurt show. I leaned back, staring at the sky with thinking when I thought I heard a cat’s meow on the wind, carried by the scent of fruit blossoms…

I sat up with a surprise, shaking my head roughly several times to clear the sleep from my brain as I tried to comprehend what had just happened. Looking at Kara, I realized that she had just woken up as well, and that we were on the tree branch that we had been spying from the night before. I also noticed that it was somewhat close to noon, as the sun was almost right overhead. When I looked over at where the army encampment had been, I saw nothing, just some footprints on the dusty ground.
“Ugh…what happened?” Kara asked aloud, looking around curiously. “All I remember was thinking about something, and I fell asleep…”
“What were you thinking about?” I asked curiously, climbing down from the branch.
“Hmm…Let me think…” Kara muttered, sleepily, yawning loudly.
“…Well?” I asked curiously after a long silence.
“…”
“Hey! I know you can hear me! What were you thinking about??” I shouted angrily, giving the tree a good kick. The second I did, the tree shook, dropping a sleeping Kara hard in my arms, causing me to fall on top of her.
“Huh? Uh oh…I think I fell asleep…huh? TRACE! GET OFF OF ME!!!” she shouted blushing furiously, pushing me off of her hurriedly. “That’s no way to treat a lady!” she shouted, slapping me hard across the face.
“Right…so who’s the lady…?” I asked hesitantly, rubbing my stinging cheek. Kara scoffed glaring at me angrily with tears in her eyes.
“JERK!!!” she shouted at me loudly before storming off, cursing loudly.
“…what was that all about?” I wondered aloud, confused. “And Kitara…why’d the army take her…?” I looked up realizing that Kara was almost out of sight, and ran to catch up with her, thinking curiously. Kara’s been acting kind of weird lately...I thought curiously. Wonder why…
I looked up and screeched to a stop, ducking behind a tree as Kara looked over her shoulder, a thoughtful look on her face.
“That idiot…Don’t tell me he’s forgotten how to walk…” she scoffed, shaking her head in amusement. “Why does he want to help me rescue sis so bad?” she wondered, sounding a little dazed. “He does seem kind…for a human. I can’t think of any other humans that would go out of their way to help a cat like me. If you don’t hurry up I’m leaving you behind!” she shouted back, grinning slightly.
I considered stepping out, but I didn’t really have much choice in the matter, hearing Kara screaming as something lashed out of the bushes attacking her.
Kara ducked and dodged as fast as she could, trying desperately to avoid the large sword that a hunter had brandished.
“You’re a lively one! Quit moving so I can kill you!” he shouted, cutting straight down. Kara dodged to the side, barely avoiding it, but she got a rather serious cut on her leg, and she howled from the pain. She tried to catch herself, but her cut leg refused to support her weight, and she fell with a yowl, covering her head with her arms in a feeble attempt at self-defense.
Right before the hunter could level the killing blow, I dropped from the tree branch I had been sitting on, catching him savagely with a swift kick to the throat. The loud crack of snapping bone echoed in the clearing, and the hunter dropped his sword, grabbing in surprise at his crushed throat. I was surprised too, honestly. I hadn’t expected my kick to be that devastating. He fell to his knees, trying to breath, a fearful, desperate look on his face before he fell, his eyes gaping at me in horror. Kara stared also, shivering.
“That…he…you…” she stammered, looking from me to the hunter and back to me.
“Uh…yeah?” I responded intelligently, feeling just as confused as she looked. Before I could say anything more intelligently, Kara sobbed grabbing at her leg wound. I rushed over to her side and bent to examine the wound, but I knew that it would be beyond my ability to treat, since I didn’t have any first aid, but I stepped back and grimaced as the light flashed from Kara’s hands again, healing her wound.
“I’m curious about something…” I commented, scratching my head nervously. How come you can do that?”
“It’s magic, you idiot!” she screeched at me, tears in her eyes. “How else could it happen!?”
“Good…point…” I said sheepishly, turning away and clearing my throat uncomfortably. I deserved that, I thought sadly, staring up at the sky. I’m asking all sorts of stupid questions lately…this isn’t like me.
“Could you teach me some magic?” I asked coldly, not turning to look at her.
“Huh? Well…I’m not sure that you’ll be able too…” she started to say uncertainly.
“I see. Forget I said anything then,” I remarked courtly, walking over and picking up the sword the hunter had dropped. It’s not just my personality that’s changed, I thought, confused. My body’s changed too. Although it’s only been one day, I’ve gotten stronger. What’ll happen, I wonder, if I stay here longer?
“That’s not what I mean! I’m sure I could teach you magic!” Kara shouted at me panicked, though for what reason I couldn’t fathom. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was now wielding a proper weapon.
“I said forget it didn’t I?” I said coldly, setting the blade on my shoulder. “I couldn’t learn magic even if I-“
“SHUT UP!” Kara shouted in my ear, looking down. “At least listen to what I have to say!”
“Fine!” I shouted back, rubbing my ringing ears. “What do you have to say?”
“Like I was going to say, I can teach you magic, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take…or how strong your magic’ll be…”
“I see…”
“And I really only know some healing and defensive spells, I don’t know any offensive ones, but if that’s ok with you, I’d be happy to train you…” she finished uncertainly, looking away bright red.
“I’m happy to learn anything,” I replied seriously, facing her.
“…Your too serious…you really need to loosen up a little bit. The world’s not going to end if you take everything seriously. You need to lighten up a bit, smell the roses, you know?”
“We don’t have the time for that right now…we’re getting seriously side-tracked…we need to save Kitara remember?”
Kara sighed looking down with tears in her eyes. “I havn’t forgotten...but…do you really think there’s a chance?”
“There’s gotta be a chance! We’re just missing something, that’s all!” I replied with more conviction then I felt. Honestly, I didn’t think there was the slightest chance that we’d be able to help Kitara, but we had to try SOMETHING didn’t we? I mean…it wasn’t right of us to just give up on her, I figured.
Kara nodded, looking up happily. “You’re right! We won’t give up until Kitara’s safe at home with us!” She stopped after that though and leaned in close to me, staring at me curiously. “How come you’re all red Trace? Something wrong?”
“Don’t worry about me. We need to save Kitara first before we can think about anything else,” I started to ask her why anyone would kidnap Kitara, but fortunately I thought it through before it was out and kept silent instead, yawning.