A Tale of Three

Chapter 22: Jinx

"You should have seen me attack him!" Alba laughed. "He looked like a drowned fox the way he ran away."

"You didn't even use the right spell. I actually did it the correct way. You pronounce the G harder and then don't pronounce the R," Fida told him, rolling her eyes.

"But it sounds so much more better the way I said it."

"Yours had fish in it," Fida pointed out as she trotted beside her mate.

Cyrene smiled at her friends as they argued over the correct way to do a spell. Ever since the war things had been different. Everything had become brighter. Felines weren't walking with their head hunched over, and smiling became common again. Although the war had only happened days ago, it seemed like it had ended last year.

"Cyrene, don't you pronounce the spell, Jur jur shagh tal nerk'yev yev t'rjum?" Alba asked from beside her. Immediately, a huge waterfall broke through the sky and landed on Fida, drenching her head to toe. She let out a screech before turning to face Fida. He gave a nervous laugh before bolting off in the woods.

"I'm going to kill you!" she laughed, immediately going after him. Against her better judgment, Cyrene took off after both of them.

It felt good to run through the forest again and to feel the breeze against her pelt. She saw Fida's glowing white tattoos in front of her, way behind those of Alba.

They ran for what seemed like a mile. By the time they could hardly breathe Fida had forgotten what she was angry at Alba for. The three of them collapsed on the ground, laughing for no reason at all. It was Fida who finally broke the happiness.

"Vesta is going to kill us, you know?" Fida told them as they laid on the ground.

"I know," Cyrene responded. "But she isn't the one who has to go into Anglo and help the other glarings recover."

"She's the one who thought of it," Alba commented.

"Alba, do me a favor," Cyrene told him.

"Anything for my queen," he mocked, hitting her in the face with his tail.

"Shut up."

They reached the edge of Anglo camp by noon and Cyrene could see there was a problem. What remained of Anglo sat in a small corner, away from the other glarings. All the other glarings were pressed tight against each other, obviously trying to get as far away from the Anglo as possible. They were as divided as they had been when Anglo was in charge. Shaking her head, Cyrene broke out of the stygian forest. Immediately all the felines turned towards them.

Cyrene walked through the crowds, her two friends pressed tight at her side. Every feline was eyeing them. Some had awe in their eyes while most had fear. Cyrene couldn't blame them. When they had first shown up they hadn't exactly looked friendly.

"You smell like mint," a young voice said from behind them. They turned around to see a smiling tiger cub staring at them.

"Hello there," Fida laughed, smiling back. "What's your name?"

"You don't know much, do you?" the cub told her. Cyrene heard Fida huff. "Anglo didn't let us have names. We were numbers. My number is 46."

"But didn't your mother give you a name?" Cyrene asked, stepping forward.

"My mother was killed," the cub sniffled. The sniffles quickly turned into tears.