The Beginning

Chapter 6

Carlos' eyes widened. "The what?"
Riley sharply inhaled. "What Tribes?" she said at the same time Sam said, "What Legend?"
Raven stood up and walked to her backpack, which Riley didn't even know that she had until she brought it with her. She took out an ancient, dusty book and gently set it down on the ground in front of her. Even though it was only a book, Riley could somehow sense the history and power in it.
"Back when the universe was young, some dust from the stars collected into a space dust storm. It raged for thousands of years, until it dissipated. From the middle of the storm, two Catwings flew out, their pelts covered with stars. They floated around for a few billion years until a new planet called Earth formed. They flew down into the atmosphere and found an island floating by."
Riley gasped. "The first Catwings were made out of space? What?"
Carlos mumbled something, but Riley was too enraptured by the story to pay attention.
Sam shook her head. "They were literally made from space matter. So, they're technically made out of space?"
Raven opened the book on a page she bookmarked. It showed the two starry Catwings starting to form flesh and blood, and the illustration showed their stars drifting back into space. "Once they felt land under their paws, they turned into flesh, the stars getting whisked back into space. They decided to build a camp, the Tribe of Fire. It was only the two of them, but luckily they were male and female. They mated, and they had three khits, whose names were lost to time."
"What are or were the Catwings' names?" Sam asked.
Raven trailed her fingers along the edge of the page. "Back then, Catwing names were simple and direct. The female's name was Black Hole, while the male's name was Comet Trail. The pair had enough khits for the khits to make their own groups. The khits who loved the water formed the Tribe of Water. The khits who liked the sense of freedom formed the Tribe of the Winds. Each group formed their own name, and they quickly grew in population."
Riley glanced at Carlos. She never knew that the Catwings had so much history. Raven was telling her so much stuff that she never knew about the Catwings, and she could tell that Carlos was thinking the same thing.
Sam tilted her head, frowning. "What happened to Comet Trail and Black Hole?"
Raven looked up at her. "They decided to go back to space. They had more khits there, and they became the Tribe of the Skies. Even to this day, the billions of years old Catwings are still up there, lounging around in the stars all...night, I guess, since there's no daytime in space."
"That was a lot, but what I want to know is those three Catwings. How are they special?"
Raven nodded. "Right. Well, two of the pair's khits, Stars in Space and Meteor Belt, had khits together. Riley, you know that cats will mate with their own siblings, right?"
Riley nodded. "Yep, they will if there's no available mate for them."
"Well, they mated, and they had three khits, whose names were even simpler than their parents: Cosmos, Stars, and Space. They had more and more khits, whose names have been lost to time as well. By this point, their names have gotten more and more complicated, but they will often use simple names as a nickname. Two Catwings had three khits together: Slaughlitte, Lepardhirk, and Huniberi. Some Catwing names were adaptations of regular words, such as Huniberi."
"Oh!" Riley realized. "Honey and berry! I get it now!"
"Right! Well, Lepardhirk went to join the Tribe of the Winds. Huniberi went to go join her brother, and Slaughlitte stayed in the Tribe of Fire. He mated with a female called Burnscritch, and they had two khits together: Lephhice and Squillfhur. Squillfhur went to join the Tribe of Water, while her sister stayed in the same Tribe as her father. Now, intertribal mating is common, and the Catwings don't give anything about it. She mated with a Tribe of the Winds Catwing named Claufhur. They had khits, who were triplets-"
Sam frowned again. "Hang on, how can they be triplets? Aren't cats born after each other?"
Riley nodded. "That's true, but Catwings aren't regular cats, after all."
Raven smiled at her. "That's right! They were formed the same way normal triplets are formed: a cell splitting three times, and a baby forming from that individual cell. Well, that's what happened with these specific triplets. I told you I can't say their names, but I think now is the perfect time to say them. The first khit who came out was a gray Catwing named Lhrioun. The greenish-brown female's name is Clauchice, who came out second. The last khit to come out was Jhaufyther."
A chill went down Riley's spine. That name sounded so...so powerful. Raven went on, flipping to a page illustrating the Triplets. "Even at birth, the Catwings radiated a powerful aura. When they were only a few hundred years old-"
"ONLY?" Sam exclaimed. "That's a long time to be alive."
Carlos glanced at her. "Remember that the Catwings are immortal. A few hundred years is nothing to them."
"Anyway. When they were a few hundred years old, they were able to control the three elements: earth, sky, and fire. Naturally, Jhaufyther is the Catwing of the sky, which fits his blue and white fur. Can you guess who got the other ones?"
"Clauchice the earth, and Lhrioun fire, right?" Carlos answered.
"That's correct. But what's different about them is that they are primordial, but in a different way."
Riley frowned. "I know what 'primordial' means, but what makes them different?"
"Well, they actually have flesh. The Triplets' definition of 'primordial' is different from ours. For them, it means to control the element, not being made of it." She flipped to another page in the book, illustrating the Triplets. Riley ran her fingers over the picture. Even though she's already seen them, she's still shocked at how intelligent they are. "Wow. That gives me a different view of them."
Raven laughed. "That's not even half of it, sadly."
Carlos raised an eyebrow. "Sadly?"
Raven looked at him gravely. "People started to settle on the land that was far away from the camps. The mothers warned their children to 'never go to the forest, it's dangerous'. The classic warning." She looked at the trees as if she could see the scene unfold. "Well, one kid named Ponti disobeyed his parents. With a couple of friends, he snuck out late at night and went into the forest, where he could see a big shadow walking around." She looked at them. "It turned around and stared at him with creepy blue eyes. The friends screamed and tried to run away, but they found themselves paralyzed with fear. It crept closer until it was no more than a couple of feet in front of them. Then, quicker than anything that the kids have seen move before, it bit off one of the friend's head, the blood pouring out of the wound. Ponti could hear the sound of crunching bone, echoing in his ears. He found that he could finally move, and he and his friend both ran for their lives, running so fast it seemed as though they were flying. Ponti glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a large shadow chasing him down. But he saw the creature outlined, and to his surprise it was a cat, a monstrous one. From what he could see, it had large, dark wings, and sharp teeth. It grinned at him, its eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Terrified, he kept on running, finally making it to the village. He sobbed and tried to tell the whole village the story, but they didn't believe him and simply dismissed it as another child's tale. After that, the nightmares tormented Ponti greatly. These nightmares led him into a kind of trance, and he would always find himslef at the edge of the forest that he visited those nights before. Finally, one of the nightmares is what killed him. It led him straight into the center of the forest, and he woke up to find himself directly in front of the creature, who killed him before he could utter a scream."
Carlos recoiled. "That's horrible! What caused the nightmares? And what led him to his death?"
"Besides the usual trauma? Turns out that Jhaufyther conjured thise nightmares, put them into his head, causing him to go insane." She hesitated. "I forgot to mention that before he died, he slowly started turning insane. He would see eyes all around him, low growls and hisses from the deepest, darkest corners. His mother found him one time, his hair disheveled, his eyes bleeding, and long, bloody scratches on his arms and legs. He was writing on the wall 'Don't let it see me. It's here. MAKE THE VOICES STOP!'. The most creepy thing about this is that everytime he wrote something, a person would disappear from the village. They didn't know that this would eventually lead to the bloodiest and goriest event in the history of the universe."