Going Feet First Ch. 01

The thoughts of the royal matter set off an inferno in Farok's belly as he stormed through the crowd of curious onlookers. The whole situation had been cast in doubt and suspicion, but nobody would dare to think the prince would slay his own parents. Farok had his suspicions, however. The child was little more than a spoiled brat that was dying to have his way, and today proved that in spades.

A passing woman who could not move fast enough was thrown aside as the hunt commander marched on toward his barracks. A hundred times over since leaving the square, he cursed his role as it had backed him into a corner. There was no choice but to dispatch his assassins, to send them into a task in which their survival was uncertain.

All to please Hector's pride.

However, if the king demanded it, even if it was for the sake of vanity, it was his obligation to see it done. No matter how strongly he felt against it.

Farok thrust open the doors to the troops' quarters and marched inside. A hundred sleeping warriors lay in their bunks while a dozen others readied themselves for a night patrol. Many more were in the mess hall at the opposite end, feasting up before resting for the night.

In a far corner of the barracks, a lone ladder led up to the loft full of beds and tables used by the elite Shadow Stalkers of the Ra'zorlichs as they waited for their next assignment. So rarely were they utilized that they lived in perpetual comfort, shrugging off all warrior's duties to focus solely on training and the pleasures of life. It sickened many warriors of the tribe for them to live so leisurely, but these women were not to be trifled with by anyone regardless of rank or status. Lest you intend to have a new way to breathe through your throat in the morning.

Farok climbed the ladder to the assassin's loft, pulling himself into the pitch black room and clearing his throat. "Shadow Stalkers, come forth."

Sensual purring circled the room as he sensed their presence around him. Their paws were too light for him to hear, their breath too silent for him to sense, but their purring gave them both away.

"Has the king a mission for us, Hunt Commander?" one of the women asked.

Trying to push the images of the men slain by the humans from his mind, Farok sighed and gave a nod. "Yes, Petra. He has."

..................................

Kindling crackled as sparks flared up from the soft wood that was stacked in a shallow hole. With a snap of his wrist, Galen flicked his lighter shut and sat back against his pack to settle in for the night. Michael and Mila were sitting across from him to his left and right respectively. Neither of them saying a word as they stared at the flames with a cricket chirping in the distance.

When the private shifted in his position so he could get his lighter back into his pocket, he spotted Mila's gaze locking on to the small device with an intense focus. Her knees were drawn to her chest and she had her arms crossed on top of them to support her head but she couldn't seem to hide where her eyes wandered to. A smile crept up onto his face as she continued to examine the the zippo from a distance, her cat tail swishing along the grass behind her while her ears twitched.

"Here, take a look," he said, handing off the lighter. She swiftly accepted the small device and began to roll it between her fingers, sniffing it, flipping the lid and examining the wick. When she finally figured out the flint, she struck the wheel and let her eyebrows rising with the small flame that erupted.

"So small, yet it creates light and fire with ease," she muttered, her irises paper-thin with her expanded pupils.

"Scared the shit out of me when I first saw one," Michael muttered as he looked to the Neko, "But now that we're all comfy, could you to start explaining a few things? Starting with where the Hell we are."

Mila gave a nod and snapped the lid shut on the zippo before passing it back to Galen.

"We are in Atzla forest," she started; unsure of how specific or general she should be to tell the humans the information they wanted to know. "These woods are mainly home to the nekos, aviens, and lycans, but others also have claims to this place, like humans, trolls, and tree elves."

Already, she spotted Michael's eyes flickering with a stare of disbelief while Galen simply sat back and listened. The younger man taking the occasional sip of water from his canteen as he stared up at the night sky. It was hard to tell if she had any of his attention until she mentioned trolls and got a frown out of him.

Looking to Michael, she continued explaining, "To the south, if you pass the Ra'zorlich territory, you come into the Marching Hills where hill giants, humans, and hill nekos roam. Beyond that are the Roaring Peaks, where dwarves and dragons reside."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, dragons?!" Michael exclaimed, suddenly sitting up straight with his brows raised and his mouth agape. "Elves and trolls are one thing. If it weren't a cat creature telling me this I would never believe it. But dragons?! I ain't never heard of no dragons in Vietnam!"

"And where is Vietnam?" Mila asked.

"In the east Pacific, below China. We Americans have been fighting the communist bastards from the North for the past year and a half but the South has been at war with them for the past five or six years or more. You can't have missed the B-52s overhead!"

"Do you see a Bfiftatoo over your head?" Mila asked, making Michael look up scan the skies above him. "You are on Raska now. That is what we call our world. I don't know what a 'communist' is, or why you could wage six years of war against them. And this 'Vietnam' you speak of, you are not there. I'm sorry to say it but I think your world has been left behind."

With her words, the icy truth began to set in full, for both soldiers. Galen tried not to show it, but his hand was trembling and the butterflies were going wild in his belly. Michael on the other hand had both his fists clenched with the knuckles going stark-white.

"So you don't know what the US is? Or how to get us back home?" the private asked.

With a saddened look, Mila shook her head. "You are in our world, Galen. I can only start by returning you to my village. Perhaps bring you to human lands if you wish to make that journey."

The thought of being with his own species was a welcome on in Galen's thoughts, but then again, he had no idea what kind of society he would be walking into. Everything he knew about the world was just thrown off the plane. Literally. All his knowledge about geography, history, culture, nations, all of that was useless here.

Using his pack as a pillow as he shifted into a laying down position on his back and tried to get comfortable. Eyes to the sky, he started searching among the stars and prayed to find any constellation he could recognize. Orion, Taurus, Leo, Gemini, Cancer, Ursa Major, anything. Only nothing revealed itself. No stars aligned in a way he knew, no image formed in his mind, exactly nothing was the same. Not even the moon. That great white stone that he knew -set in the sky as a goal promised to be reached by Kennedy- was gone, now replaced by a rock that seemed larger in size with just the slightest blue tinge to it.

No, if there was any doubt in his mind that said he was still on Earth, it was gone now. And that fact left him with a queasy feeling in his stomach. He felt scared of the days to come as he stared up at that strange blue rock hanging above him among the stars, wondering if he would ever get back home.

The first quiet snores took Michael off guard. Just minutes after lying down, the private was passed right out.

"A true warrior," Mila whispered. "Sleeping calm after a battle."

"I always knew he would be a tough little soldier," Michael added, grinning at the young paratrooper as he leaned back and rested on one arm. "Saw it the day he walked into basic. Shivering in his shirt and shaking in his wee, black boots as he walked amongst the instructors. But no matter how much the others teased or the cadre hammered him, that little bastard kept his chin up."

"Is it normal for your culture to insult each other so vulgarly?" Mila asked, making him chuckle.

"It's all in good humor. It's nothing like the rant of a well-seasoned sergeant, though." His eyes shifted to the fire as old memories started working their way to the front of his mind. Some funny, some aggravating, others he immediately went to work on repressing all over again. When Mila was about to question his distant look, he explained, "The sergeant in charge of my cadre staff would scream at us like a mad banshee, make us work until he got tired, break us down 'til we were nothing. Sometimes, you could hear the privates crying out at night for their mommas to save them from the big, bad drill sergeant."

"What is a 'Drill Sergeant'?" Mila asked, pulling her knees back up against her chest, her feline eyes expanded to the full as she listened. At that moment, she reminded Michael of a kitten, curiously watching the string dangling before her. That soft, playful innocence of hers brought a smile to his face, a warm stirring in his chest.

"He was the man that broke down the civilian shells we lived in and carved us out into soldiers."

"I see..." Mila mumbled. "Galen calls you 'sergeant,' were you part of a 'cadre' once?"

Chuckling with an amused smirk, Michael nodded as he said, "Yeah, I was. In fact I taught Galen when he joined the army. His hair was a shaggy mess and he couldn't shine his shoes for shit but the kid could shoot and handle just about anything you dropped into his hands."

Giggling as she listened to him rant, Mila waited until he was finished when she asked him, "And what of your hair?"

He looked over to her with the inquisitive neko with a raised eyebrow as she moved closer to him. Seating herself right beside him, she ran her hand over the shaved portions his scalp, her soft fur making the hairs on his neck stand on end as a warm sensation rippled down his back. Their eyes caught each other for a moment, and as Michael's cheeks gained a red tint to accompany his grin, Mila timidly glanced aside and pulled her hand away.

"You do not armor your head like Galen does, and your hair is cut into one hedge down the middle. Why?" she asked, scooting away again and restarting the conversation.

Michael self-consciously stroked a hand through his Mohawk, combing the half-inch long hedge his fingers before setting his hand down on top of hers beside him. When she didn't pull it away from him he experimentally gave it a gentle squeeze. Much to his delight, she squeezed his hand in return.

His tone became audibly softer as he explained, "the mother of my mother was one of the Blackfoot. A human tribe that roamed the plains many years ago in my world. And the father of my father descended from the Mohawk tribe, whose warriors cut their hair like this. Both of my parents spoke of ancestors and warriors of the past, and when I was a kid going into basic, I dreamed of becoming one of those warriors. To go into enemy lines, hacking them to death with my tomahawk."

While Mila frowned slightly at that messy imagery, she wouldn't deny that she hadn't seen or done worse herself. She could respect a man who held the people in his life dearly and didn't shy away from the times when things would get messy.

"So you are a born fighter," she inferred. "A warrior by blood and profession."

With a proud nod, he said, "Exactly. Only thing outside of fighting that I do well is hunt and fish."

This did not surprise Mila. There were many in her tribe who grew up with a thirst for battle or a need to hunt. Some chose to do both. With the human bands of raiders and bandits, the odd troll, and the few rogue packs of lycans scouring through the woods, the warriors always had a chance to go out and fight something. Some however, if they found these trivial confrontations too simple, went east to join the pan-racial army of Galaeus. Joining those ranks gave one the chance fight in glorious and storied battles against the demon hordes known to harass the borders of their mortal realm.

"You haven't told me of your people, Mila," Michael said as he came upon the realization. "I'd like to hear about him."

With his hand still holding onto hers, she looked to him and asked, "My people as the neko? Or people as the tribe of Willher?"

"Your tribe," he specified. "It sounds interesting."

Adjusting her hand to hold onto his better, she looked to the fire and said, "There is not much I could tell you about our history. I am no keeper of age. But what I can tell you is that we are a large tribe. We have a village two hills yonder; it is only forty zetra away if walking."

A frown drew down on his face as he cocked his head at her. "I'm sorry, zetra? What is that?"

Remembering his origin from another world, she acknowledged his lack of understanding and answered, "It is how we keep time. There are a hundred zets in a zetra, a hundred zetras in a zetran, and fourteen zetrans in a day. It is also how we speak of distance, being the time it would take you travel by what you travel on."

Speaking of time, Michael suddenly drew curious and checked the watch on his wrist. It appeared to be off the hour as he seriously doubted that is was five in the afternoon. "Well, I guess we can't share everything. I'm surprised we share a language across worlds."

"I don't always speak human," Mila chimed, "but I've been studying your kind and speaking with the emissaries and ambassadors since I was a child. I hope to one day become ambassador to the human city in the rock lands to the west if they would have me."

"There's a city?" Michael asked, his interest piqued.

"Oh yes, the city of Redding. With stone walls a hundred paces high. With a large uhh... 'castle' as the emissaries called, and a vast market place with goods from across Raska. Though, I am not sure if they have made peace with the dark elf city yet. They have been at war for quite some time..."

Recalling her talk about tree elves, and now hearing about the dark elves, Michael frowned and quirked his mouth before he wondered, "How many kinds of elves are there?"

The answer wasn't given to him right away. In fact, his eye brows started rising as she began counting with her fingers and muttering the names in what had to be her own tongue. After six, she paused and looked to be doing a quick mental translation before she answered, "Tree elves, high elves, dark elves, night elves, sun elves, feral elves... so many kinds that I cannot tell them all. But it is no different from the humans, though. There are a dozen kinds of your race."

If there was one thing for him to admit at the moment, it was that he admired how knowledgeable Mila was. That and her openness toward someone who wasn't one of her own. Although, he couldn't help but wonder about the people of her tribe. Were they as accepting as she was? It was possible if she was a reflection of them.

"Let's get back to the Willhers, what are they like?"

It was Mila's turn to lean back, pulling her hand away from Michael's she propped herself up on her elbows as she gazed up to the stars above, unconsciously giving Michael a full view of her body bathed in both the moon and firelight. Her slim yet powerful legs coming up to those smooth thighs and ample hips. The lighter-colored patch of soft fur covering her belly right up to her shapely chest and those admirable breasts wrapped in cloth. The angle from which he gazed upon her made more than just his smile grow.

"We Willher are a peaceful tribe, even if we do raise our share of bold and vicious warriors. We tend to stick to our own territory, though we do occasionally send our healers out or leave to trade."

Watching her ears twitch as she spoke, he wondered, "How do they treat humans there?"

The query had her pondering for a moment, her tail batting around between her legs. "Humans are tolerated, though the troublesome ones are run off. You would have to be wary of some of the elders though. They had fought in a war we waged with humans many years ago and still have not given up their hate."

The sergeant nodded at this information while he openly stared at the beautiful nekonian before him. She didn't seem to notice, however, as her gaze remained fixed upon the moon and stars above. His father always told him to never let the best ones pass him by, to pounce on her when you know the time is right. Right now the time seemed perfect.

"And what about you?" he asked.

"What?" she asked, her tail lashing down as Michael leaned in toward her.

"What do you think of humans?" he asked, a bit more softly.

"They... they're not usually as brave as you have shown," she stammered a bit uneasily. "They prove themselves in battle, yet distinguish themselves in trade. You find humans so vulgar, yet there are some who are as kind as the summer breeze. Humans intrigue me, fascinate me. You fascinate me."

For a second, Mila froze at the words that had just passed her lips. A new look had come over Michael's face as it glowed in the fire light with the flames dancing in his eyes. She opened her mouth to correct herself, but found she didn't have any true words to say. Internally she was rambling a dozen different things and wondering a dozen different things. Like how this man had threatened her life, and yet now he dared to look at her in such a way? He had his reasons, she knew, but what she saw in his eyes was that he was an animal. An animal in so many ways...

Maybe even her kind of animal?

Across from the neko, Michael was taking his time in studying Mila completely. The lush curves of her hips, the rounded peaks of her shapely breasts. She had the darling face of a bombshell and sparkling green eyes that had entrapped him in their luminous glow. When he saw them in the daylight they reminded him of an oak leaf bathed in the summer sun. Now they looked like emeralds soaked in blue light. And with each passing moment, he couldn't help but admire this woman even more. But the truth was, he had been admiring her from the second she landed at his feet to pull him away from those Ra'zorlichs.

"You know, I didn't say thank you for saving my life," he began.

She turned away, trying to suppress the smile on her lips.

"I couldn't let such fascinating creatures be lost to the Ra'zorlichs," she countered, slowly turning back toward him as his face drew closer.

"And I didn't say I was sorry for earlier."

"You thought you had lost Galen. You were hurting," she said, fighting a tear welling up in her eye. When she could almost feel his breath upon her, she tried to subtly swallow a growing lump in her throat. "Believe me when I say I understand."

A look of relief swept over his face, his voice low as he whispered, "Then let me thank you."

Perhaps it was his savage nature stimulating the inner beast that prowled within her body. Perhaps it was a weakness for a fallen warrior. Or perhaps it was just supposed to be this way. But when his hand came up to her face, gently cupping her cheek while his lips drew so close to hers, she couldn't resist. Instinct brought her forward to close the space between them and finally bring their lips together.

That single act gave her a spark. A single spark that ignited a fire in her chest that burned away all her urges to say the word, 'stop'. Nothing in her life readied her for it, and she didn't even understand what was happening within the confines of her own body. It was too fast, too sudden. But it felt right.

No explanations could work their way through Michael's mind as his hand reached around and pressed up against her back. This woman stirred that primal part of him that he had been feeding yet denying for so long. Everything about her attracted him: her lush scent ripe in his nose, her soft fur brushing against his skin, that warming purr soothing his ears as his hand glided down her back toward her tail.