Spotted Hand - Cuhsoyi the "Thumb"

She remembered her mother, softly purring her name. "Coo-soy-ee," she said, rocking back and forth. Her mother was not a young Kin, but Cuhsoyi had only one elder sibling. He stood and watched impassively, while his young sister was judged to be Abberant. This day was filled with scents and sounds that emblazoned on her senses. Forever she would know this loss. Forever.

Cuhsoyi was four, when the Judges came. She had been seen moving things without touching them - without blowing on them or using strings... She must be one of those - the witch kin, those exiled to Planet Twenty.

She remembered her mother's anguished wail, because she was so young! So young! Yet, she would be put into a stern home away from the good folk of this city, what city it was Cuhsoyi had long forgotten. It didn't matter. She felt no ill will toward anyone, she could hardly know that she ought to hold a grudge against the people she could have saved with her other, later-blooming, power.

The female Kin remained in her mother's arms as long as she could, but she did not cry. Her mother was drenched in tears, and her brother - would escort her to the Judges' wagon. Perhaps he was jealous. Perhaps he was just cruel. Or, he wanted nothing of this whelp that would steal away more of his inheritance.

It wouldn't matter in the long run, in either case. While Cuhsoyi was in the internment camp far away from her home town, a blight that was thought to only inhabit birdKin suddenly transferred itself onto the Cheetahs, Antelope and other such nearby folk. The parasites which carried it had never found mammal blood to be hospitable. Until now. Cuhsoyi was ten, and her whole village was gone. She knew - somehow she knew, and only then did she cry for her mother and brother.

***

As Cuhsoyi paced around in the small camp's walking grounds, a luxury given to her since she was quite young - and she was quite pretty now, according to the bat-eared Fox guards - she listened carefully for any signs of weakness. However, she got nothing. Only the moans and sobs of the other inmates. Those waiting to die, those waiting to be exiled. They had long since lumped in common criminals with the exiled, just waiting for a time to ship them all off together.

That too was not to be. When she was twelve, having been in the camp two thirds of her life, there was a revolt led by one Panther exile and his aggressive Lion-murdering Hyena companion. They were put down immediately, of course. So were half the others, most of whom didn't even know there was something going on.

Cuhsoyi lept to the side of one of the dying exiles. She placed her hands upon his warm and bloodied chest. He was a Serval, a handsome young man whose powers of sensing stones sadly could not defend him against bullets and sword bites. But hers could. She summoned the will from inside her - he had been a nice friend, he didn't leer at her like the others would. His chest was shattered by a staff blow, his heart was bleeding out and there was very little blood left in his body.

Cuhsoyi sealed his heart first - which kept him from bleeding to death in minutes. Those minutes, he would need. Every bone that was splintered, each part of ligament or tendon, ripped muscles, small blood vessels... Each knit together after a minute of concentration. For a wound that would have been fatal, it took longer for her to heal him than he would have lived otherwise. But he was alive.

He was badly low on blood pressure, low on blood. Cuhsoyi determined that his bones would need to start making more right away. She commanded them - they obeyed. Within an hour, this Serval known as Madak was awake and watching the girl. She was in a trance, hardly closing her eyes but obviously not seeing anything either.

"Cuuh," he said, putting a hand shakily on her shoulder, "you're done. It's done. I can feel it..."

Finally broken of her intense concentration, Cuhsoyi turned to see his big amber colored eyes shining with tears.

"You've saved my life," he said, hugging her to his narrow chest. "You've saved me."

***

"They don't get food or water, or supplies," said one guard. "They get to land - nothing more." His gruff exterior, this Addax guard, showed little compassion for the groups they were dropping onto Planet Twenty. Now that she was 'old enough' she was sent as a kind of group leader with a batch of other Abberant Kin. They waited. The grim half-light of the corridors in this prison ship gave them no solace.

One young cheetah, Jahkonu, stood silently with his hand on the metal wall. He was gritting his teeth but nothing was happening.

"Sometimes," he said, quietly, "sometimes metal moves when I ask it to."

"We don't need this metal to move, just yet," said a young Rhino boy, "we don't want to depressurize up here. I want the chance to live, first. Not die on the way."

Jahkonu glared at him, but turned and said nothing more. The others were similarly silent, as the guards continued to speak as though they weren't there.

Cuhsoyi did not want to remember the landing. It was hard, painful. She had to heal herself before she could even get to anyone else, and by that time, two of their twenty had perished of crushing damage from the fall. They didn't really bother to slow down or land, when exiling Kin. They just did a brief hover, waving their hands maliciously at the Kin, and shoved them out into whatever wilderness they had found that afternoon.

This afternoon was a thickly leaved jungle. It was hot. There were noises, fearful animals coming out of their hiding places after the ship had gone. Cuhsoyi and the others had no idea what they would do to survive, here. They would not eat their friends, it was possible, but they just could not bear it. Not yet. If they were to resort to such things as Lions do, they would do it later on.

Universally, Lions were the high watermark for feats of inhumanity.

They dearly hoped there were no lions about.

***

He purred slowly, a rumble that could be heard from across the stream bank, and into the bushes beyond. From up in his tree, the black Panther Kin watched the young Cheetahs as they tried to hunt fish.

"You Cheetahs don't much like water, do you," he commented, as he landed on all four paws directly into the stream near them.

"You've scared off the fish!" Yelled Eqahkali, snarling fiercely. "We should spear and roast you."

Standing up slowly, the 7' tall Panther gave off a slightly sinister and very human grin, "I would love to see you try, little boy. But not today." He turned, darting his expert dark hand into the water again, and threw a still-wiggling fish directly at angry Eqahkali. "That's your dinner, I expect you owe me for it."

"We hardly owe you anything, we'd have caught them in time," said Etehmaro - but his voice was different than usual, he sounded... Human. The Panther turned and his ears flattened, almost disappearing under his short cropped black hair. He hissed without thinking, and then bounded away into the trees.

"That's a nice trick," Cuhsoyi commented, "but you shouldn't have shown him that. Now he's going to tell everyone."

"Panthers don't do that," Etehmaro said, while shifting back down into a spotted Cheetah shape. "He doesn't know anyone but us anyway."

The others from the landing party had gone their separate ways, some to the north, some east, and this group of Cheetahs decided that they would stay together. For a while, they were enjoying the life in this lush jungle. It was not easy, but they were making it.

All three Cheetahs on hand suddenly winced, and as one they turned to face the same direction. Just south of here, where they had their small camp at the base of a batch of tumbled rocks, it seemed that Jahkonu was trying to soothe Laka, and failing badly. She was hungry, as were they all, but she was yet too young to even hunt for herself.

"Come on, just bring that, and we can come back." Cuhsoyi stated, "she's not going to let us rest if she's still hungry."

The pangs faded when they arrived, the girl's sharp wails and mental projection of fear and hunger ebbed slowly away into a happy feeling. They could all tell just why she'd been Exiled.

***

"Yes, Jahkonu, I do hate the rain just as much as you do," Cuhsoyi grumbled, "but if you keep interrupting me, I won't be able to keep this up and we'll get completely drenched."

Of the five, Eqahkali was most miserable. His power of fire manipulation was hardly a defense against a torrential rainstorm like this, the first typhoon of their exile. It would be a regular occurrance, they realized - the lush plants around them thrived in this weather. They had begun their move south and west, sensing at the greatest distance that there were other Kin like themselves there - Cheetahs, a larger tribe. Perhaps they would welcome this bunch. They'd overheard from other inhabitants that sometimes those Kin would travel a bit and try mediating disputes - they were a peaceful tribe and they lived in a wide savannah.

But they didn't know just how far away that savannah was. Nor did they realize that it wasn't the first one they'd find.

Instead, they stopped after walking for almost a month. Surely, they thought, the jungle wasn't that big or that thick that they could walk for a whole month and ...

When they looked behind them, at the edge of the mountainous jungle-covered region, they believed. They'd only been in the smaller western portion, they hardly knew the rest of the jungle. Cuhsoyi took Laka's hand and they started walking into the tan grasses beyond the jungle. Here, they all felt a little more at home - the flatlands and the yellow grass were their true home.

In fact, right after they found the edge of the plains, Laka jumped on a small native burrower and snapped its neck. Her first solo kill. This place might be nice after all.

For another week, they traveled slowly and with more pride. This was truly their calling - their Cheetah blood said to them: this is your prey! See how it bounds through the tall grass? See how you can spot it with your ears! Taste its rich blood!

But rich blood wasn't the only thing on Cuhsoyi's mind as she spotted a small ring-necked deer. It was like an earthly antelope, but taller with a longer neck that had brown and white stripes around it. She could smell something else, something that made the fur on her back stand up.

Lions.

Her mind was somehow paralyzed. Lions. But not even those that were in the interment camp scared her the way that this scent did. They were big, male, maybe three of them, and they had the scent of another larger kill on them. Their musk drifted through the air, as did their bellows of pleasure at eating.

They were vile, Cuhsoyi thought. Lions were just the most awful things in the world. Any world.

Sure - they were bold, big, strong. They had beautiful fur, and took charge of a situation. But... somewhere deep in the genetic memory of her kind, Cheetahs knew that Lions killed their young for pleasure and sport. They didn't even bother eating the cubs, they just thrilled to the joy of slaughtering innocent kittens.

In her sudden distress, Cuhsoyi gave off a warning chirp - common only to cheetahs, sounding rather like a bird's call. It roused the others, even from a mile away. She hunted alone. That was her first mistake.

Still fearful that she was going to be next on the Lion's menu, Cuhsoyi meant to move away from the deer and back into their rocky territory. But when she turned to bolt, there was one of the largest, surliest creatures in this world in her way.

It wasn't a Lion - it could never have snuck up on her like that if it had been. Nor was it Kin. It was merely a messy wart-faced brush pig, but it was one of those things that none of this little tribe had been able to distinguish from mud and straw in its scent. It startled her, and she yelped loudly.

Rustling in the bushes and grass close by, was it the deer merely being startled away? Or ...

"What is that?" Said a deep voice, angrily. Another joined it, another male.

"It's close. Something startled that deer."

"Go find it," said the first. "You've had your meal."

That was a blessing, Cuhsoyi thought to herself. But she was left with nowhere to run. The brush pig was rooting around, its spiny back fur dangerous to the touch. The Lions... would see her no matter where she ran, this was such a bad clearing...

"There you are," said the Lion, in an almost friendly manner, when he stood from the grasses. He hardly had to look, he was towering in size, and broad of shoulder. Cuhsoyi was so close to them - she hardly realized that they had been mere meters away.

"I - I'm-"

"You're intruding in our land," said the Lion, and by this time, his two companions rose to check it out. They were if anything bigger than the third, darker, and their faces were thick with blood. "But what harm can a tiny little girl like you do here?"

Cuhsoyi was slightly offended, but still too scared to move. There was something hauntingly familiar about the way that she felt compelled to stand there before this gigantic male. Something like the way that Laka would --

"Stop!" Cuhsoyi said, throwing her arms around her head, "stop it!"

The Lion Kin leaned his head back a bit, and then gave off a guffawing laugh. "So you can sense me, eh? Timid little spotted mousie, we don't have time to chase your kind here. We've a bounty of meat already. Relax."

Before he could make to hold his great hand out either in greeting or to shove the tiny-by-comparison Cuhsoyi away, a blur of black and brown shot by and lept between she and the Lion. Snarling, Etehmaro in his cat form bristled and startled the brush pig away from the scene. He spat and stamped the ground with his forelegs, putting up a huge growling menace.

The Lions behind the first blinked and then started laughing fully as well. Whatever they thought was so funny, no one else knew. Maybe they were all telepaths - like...

"Eteh," Cuhsoyi said, gently touching his bristling long tail, "they're Kin. They've fed, it's ... It's okay." She paused and looked up at the gigantic Lion, "they're friendly for now."

"Good wording, little mousie," the Lion said, but was still grinning. He tilted his head up again, because there was another rustling of the grasses - and the other three (all three?! had they no sense at all!? Hadn't she given the warning chirp?) came out from the reeds. "Ah - so there are more of you. We were wondering why there were so many new scents in our hunting path."

Cuhsoyi aimed a careful thought to them, 'why didn't you stay hidden? now they know how many we are!'

"We would have guessed your number, Mousie," said another, taking on the offensive name from his friend, "Lion Kin are quite good at things like that."

Her ears pushed back, but Cuh said nothing. What dare she say to them? They didn't have their own territory - this was all clearly Lion country - they didn't have anywhere to turn but to diplomacy. And since they seemed able to take her very thoughts from her head, things would get bad if she was to lie - or one of the others. She shot a quick glance at Jahkonu, who narrowed his eyes and sneered a bit.

Meanwhile, Etehmaro slipped around to the cover of more reeds, and shapeshifted there. Through some gift, the scant clothing he wore changed with him - he didn't have to change every time he wanted to ... Change.

This brought the Lions back to attention. "He's a shapeshifter?" The third, biggest of them all and obviously the oldest, their leader, said. "That is unusual. Indeed. I think you lot should come with us. We've got more food than we know what to do with, children, you don't need to worry about us eating you. Our village will want to see this," he looked at Eteh. "Very rare."

Cuhsoyi gathered them around, and she said very quietly, "let's just go. We have nothing waiting for us anywhere else."

"I do not trust them," Eqahkali said.

"That is not in question," Etehmaro said, "no one trusts them and they know it. But I believe them when they say they don't need to eat us. I say we go."

"They're scary," Laka said, the first words out of her mouth since they arrived. And, her empathy had driven itself down into their hearts. "I want to go home..."

"Laka, sweetheart," Cuhsoyi said in her most soothing voice, "they might be able to give us a home, we only have a rock."

"I LIKE the rock!" She said, and that provoked the Lions into a new bout of laughter.

"Come along, children," said the first they met, he hefted the leg of their kill over his shoulder. Unlike the true lion, Kin would share their meals more willingly if there was enough to go around. They would all be able to lounge about and belch or sleep later.

***

"Give it here, little spot!" Said a Lion child, just barely older but nearly twice Laka's size. Cuhsoyi didn't dare interfere. She stood by the Pride's main female and had to watch as Laka was forced to give up another doll to her son.

"But you don't want to play with it! You just want to break it!" Laka cried, as he snatched the little humanoid-creature from her hands. It was a bundle of straw, but... The Lion child peered at it intently.

"Mama?" He said, curious. "Look at this. Look what she did."

The Lioness made to backhand the tiny cheetah girl (she was ten, now, growing lean and long limbed, but was so stunted by the Lions that she pretended to be more of a child than she was. That probably save her, Cuhsoyi hoped.) but then glanced at the toy in her son's hand. She too looked at it closely.

They had been slaves of this Pride for slightly more than a year. Passed from the first village of Lion Kin into the hands of another trading caravan, whose leader was an extremely sharp psionic dampener. With his mind around, no one did or said anything with their minds if he so wished.

He was on a trip, back up north. The Pride was settled in their wintering grounds in the meantime, waiting for the storms to hit - warm, rapid rain that would cleanse the dry savannah - and they were bored.

"Did you teach her this? How did she do this?" The black-lipped tawny colored Lioness said with a growl to Cuhsoyi. "Look - she's made the reeds form solid. It's got hair, color. How did she do this?"

"Maybe she is a shaper, mistress," Cuhsoyi said quietly. The doll wasn't just wrapped together with a piece of grass, it looked like a little cheetah person.

"... Sssssoooo," the Lioness said, turning her yellow-eyed gaze on the girl, "her blasted empathy isn't the only reason she was damned as a Kin Witch," she nodded. "Well, good. That makes two. Have her join the male in the Maker's hut." She shooed her child off with Laka, of course she had not been talking to Cuh.

There in that hut, Jahkonu and one or two other matter-shapers were put to work. Endless work - this trading caravan did nothing but buy raw materials and sell finished works. Slave works. The blessing that Cuhsoyi thought they had going for them, though, was that the Lions valued family more than anything - and valued it among other Kin as well. They were not split up into different slave groups, like they could have been had they been other breeds of Kin mixed together.

So ten year old Laka was put to work doing woodcrafting along side twelve-year old Jahk who was quite good at pulling metals from soil and making them into pretty baubles.

Cuh knew that he wanted to make weapons, but that would be dangerous and had to wait.

***

It did not last long, their Slavery, but it was misearable none the less. All of the cheetahs were put to work. Laka and Jahk spent so much time in that hut working on beads, baubles and the like, that she hardly saw the pair. Eqahkali on the other hand was working outside almost constantly, in an effort to drain him of what appeared to be any will of his own. It wasn't working. It would never work. He was a powerhouse, a fire shaper. His personality matched his powers, surely the Lions knew that much.

What they hadn't counted on was Laka growing extremely strong in her empathic powers. Under the domineering will of the Master Maker, she'd been suppressed so long that she was able to break his control. The escape was quick, harsh, and bloody.

They'd killed the Maker, in his hut, and rushed out. Smart Etehmaro sent Laka on her way on a Loper - against her wishes of course - and then went on what appeared to be a killing spree. Jahkonu and Eqahkali joined forces burning and slicing.

The young Lion that Cuh was tending, wounded on a hunt that he really wasn't prepared to be on, died at the healer's hands. In tears, Cuhsoyi caused him to bleed from his heart, a shard of bone moving quickly through his blood stream and then - at her behest - reforming within the pumping muscle. He coughed up what had to be a gallon of his own blood before Cuh could even react.

She hadn't realized that he'd be in such pain - for such a short time. Her powers cut off, abruptly, at her own lack of stomach for this. By the time she was told to run west into the setting sun by Jahk, he and 'Kali had killed off another three Lions. Their number would surely overwhelm them - but good sense eventually prevailed and the casualties mounted only on the Lion side. At mere minutes after their escape effort, and now fully enabled due to the death of the Master Maker, the Cheetah Kin bolted out of the village, not looking back.