I have Nine Lives

Chapter 5: Puzzlement

Sahee looked at Felix who was now on her good shoulder, she looked at him with strange eyes as she asked:

"Can you understand me now?"

Felix looked at her and couldn't understand a thing of what she was saying, even though he gained some intelligence now, that didn't mean he could understand the native's language, maybe he could understand Japanese back on Earth but certainly not their language.

Sahee looked at him in the eyes as she ran towards the tribe, her running speed was only a little bit slower due to her arm injury, however, she was still certainly slower than her animal form in free running.

After around 6 hours of running, they finally left the forest Sahee almost fell due to the exhaustion of enduring the pain from her broken arm and running around for such a long time without any rest.

Sahee coughed a bit and Felix sat near her, he wasn't sure why she wanted to befriend him but he felt her have something familiar that he couldn't describe in words, maybe it was his new brain playing tricks on him but he thought that she resembled his former human.

Sahee sat on the ground as she gritted her teeth and looked at her broken arm, the bone needed to be adjusted so it wouldn't heal crookedly, she put her good arm to use and pushed the bone back into the right socket as she almost shouted in pain, her face was full of cold sweat as she bit her lips.

Felix didn't know what to do in this situation so he only went near her leaned his head on her in a show of support.

Sahee gave out a weak smile at him as she ripped some cloth from her skirt and used it to tie her arm, fortunately, in a few weeks the bone would connect and heal, even though the cat tribe had inferior healing compared to most other tribes, it was still faster than a normal human, the process could also be quickened with herbs.

Felix watched her and opened his mouth to say something:

"Who are you?"

Sahee looked at him with wide eyes as jibberish came out of his mouth, Felix was speaking broken Japanese and she also couldn't understand a thing from what he said, she didn't know what to tell him so she only patted his head.

Felix didn't say no to free pats so he leaned his head into her hand, he felt the somewhat familiar touch that he was missing in this world, he also wasn't as hungry as before after he ate the wolf, he wasn't sure why.

Sahee got up from the ground and almost fell again, they were in an open field now and they could be easily caught by the bear tribe if they sat here for too much time, but her body was too exhausted to continue, she needed rest, but she didn't know if any pursuing team would come for them, after all, Felix killed a bear tribesman.

Felix saw that she couldn't go on and his instincts didn't tell him they were in any kind of danger so he used his head to push her down so she could rest, Sahee saw through his intentions, even though they couldn't communicate with words, they were somewhat of kin and they understood their body language.

Sahee chuckled as she sat down and looked around to make sure there wasn't anyone spying on them as she said:

"I know you don't understand me, how should I even teach you our language..."

Felix cocked his head to the side and blinked his eyes cutely at her, Sahee chuckled as she patted his head, this was one of the charms of the cat tribe, they were very cute, this could save them in some situations but that would lead to them being enslaved, however, they had it less rough than the fox tribe.

Felix sat near her as he made himself into a ball, he was woken up by the fight between the bears and Sahee so he could still use a bit of sleep, Sahee needed to rest as well and Felix believed that his instincts would wake him up if any danger came to them.

Felix closed his eyes as he went to sleep and Sahee started to rest as well but she didn't sleep, she kept one eye closed and one open, her instincts weren't as sharp as Felix's so she needed to be aware of her surroundings or she wouldn't be able to feel well knowing what they had done, she wanted to have enough time to run away with Felix if anything happened.

Fortunately for the both of them nothing happened, Felix woke up after 6 hours of sleep, and Sahee also rested enough time for her to take Felix to the cat tribe's settlement.

In the Bear tribe, quite a lot of bears were singing in their animal forms as they let Sheila's body down the river inside a burning raft, they sang their tribal songs to let the spirit of the departed reach afterlife safely, most of them had steely expressions on their faces, even the females, no one was crying, however, there was a somber aura that enveloped each one of them.

Bugi was the one that had the worst aura, his body hair was disheveled and he was breathing roughly as he watched his mate's corpse burning into cinders along with the raft and disappearing in the river.

The leader and shaman of the bears were dancing on his hind legs in his animal form as the other bears sang and beat drums, the raft disappeared completely as the fire burned out completely.

The leader turned back into his humanoid form as he bowed to the earth heavens and the river and said in a loud voice:

"May Sheila's voice and body rest in peace in the embrace of the Earth's father and mother, may her soul rest in the heavenly skies along with the ancestors and creators."

With his eyes closed he could already feel Bugi coming for him, he already explained what happened to them and he knew what he wanted to ask of him, his voice came out before Bugi could ask:

"No."

"But shaman Rafaka, the cat tribe trash killed Sheila! How can't we retaliate?"

"Bugi, you must understand that the cat tribe wouldn't attack us randomly, from what you told me I know you lied to me, you attacked them first and Sheila died due to letting her guard down, as the leader of the Bear tribe I cannot attack the cat tribe in such a situation, it's your word against theirs and you have no proof of them attacking you first, most of the other weaker tribes would side with the cat tribe in this situation when we will send a challenge letter to the main tribes in the savanna."

Bugi eyes were deep red as he roared:

"So Sheila died for nothing?"

Rafaka shook his head as he said:

"She died due to yours and her hands, you don't have to bully the weak for no reason, but I guess telling you this is already useless, most of the clansmen think the same as you do."

Bugi didn't know what to tell the shaman, after all, he was a man deeply connected to the ancient spirits and he was also quite erudite, he was an advocate of peace and learning from each other, trying to extort war out of him with feelings would do nothing.

Bugi wanted to raze the cat tribe near them to the ground but their warriors wouldn't follow him without a word from the shaman, it would be useless to tell them his story, they would see through it immediately just like the leader did.

Bugi sighed as he left the leader behind and went to his cave, maybe he was wrong bullying the cat tribesmen but that didn't mean he didn't want revenge, his emotions were still clouding his thinking, if he couldn't get the tribes to war, he could atleast kill the peculiar orange cat and his dark-furred companion, he wanted atleast one of them to feel the pain that he was currently feeling!

Felix suddenly woke up, something wasn't right to him, he could feel a chill going down his spine, seemingly like someone was locking onto him from somewhere, he looked around while circling Sahee, but after a while, he couldn't sense anyone and the feeling disappeared.

Felix didn't know what to say, his instincts weren't wrong, that meant something else was at play here, maybe it was some of the strange energy that was changing his body?

He couldn't feel any more energy in his body as his sleep devoured the last vestige that remained and fully changed his body, he could also see that he now had 6 heads in the corner of his vision instead of 5, he still didn't know what they mean so he ignored them.

Sahee got up from the ground and cringed as her broken arm moved a little bit, she looked at Felix and motioned for him to hop on her good shoulder so they could leave.

Felix complied and jumped on her shoulder, Sahee gave him a small strained smile and started running towards the cat tribe.

Their surroundings changed as they reached the plains that sat near the forest, they were long plains with only a few trees here and there that provided shade from the heat of the sun, as it was around spring to summer currently the heat in the plains was quite big so you could see cat tribesmen chilling under the shade of some trees here and there.

The cat tribesmen were immediately alerted when they saw Sahee with her broken arm and an unknown cat tribesman staying on her shoulder.

Two middle-aged men rushed to support her and looked with puzzlement at Felix, they never saw an orange tabby cat in their lives so they wondered from which tribe he came from.

They wanted to question him but Sahee coughed a bit and said:

"Our friend here isn't from around these parts and he doesn't know our language, I want to take him to the leader as he might know what we can do to help him."

The middle-aged men scratched their furry ears and helped Sahee to the doctor of the village while they wanted to lead Felix to the leader, however, Felix refused to leave Sahee's side and sat on her shoulder.

Sahee looked at Felix and understood why he didn't want to leave with the middle-aged men, he didn't trust them, she wasn't sure why he trusted her in the first place but she decided to comply with him and told the two middle-aged men:

"It seems he is concerned about my health until I get patched up properly he should stay with me, we will go to the leader afterward, however, you can go and inform him that we arrived, I will report to him myself about what happened to me."

The middle-aged men didn't say anything, Sahee was a promising youngling and she was also ready to take their adulthood ceremony if she unlocked a good enough ability she might be taken in by their cousin tribes to become a scout, this was the dream of most of the people from the cat tribe, to be taken as a scout for the Lion, Tiger or Puma tribes, even the Jaguar tribe would make them happy, even the lowly hyena tribe would be better than what they had to endure.

Sahee walked by herself to the doctor's cottage, the cat tribe wasn't really rich so the doctor gave her a few pain-numbing herbs as her life wasn't in peril and let her go since she fixed her arm herself she didn't need any more help from the doctor.

Sahee then walked to the leader's house and met with him, the leader didn't know what to say as he heard Felix talk, he decided to first try and teach him talking manually but he realized that he would first need to learn his language before he could even teach him anything, this project became dead in the water in the first few seconds of thinking about it.

There was another way Felix could be taught their language but it was quite annoying for the leader, however, he wanted to know where Felix was from, he knew very few records about the orange furred ancestors and he always looked up to them as they were one of the strongest people from the cat tribe, unfortunately, their lineage died down because around 80% of the orange furred tribesmen were males and only 20% were female, with time the genes of the orange furred ones were assimilated and their bloodline died out.

There were still clansmen out there with a latent orange fur hidden in their bloodline, they only had patches or small tufts of orange fur around their body but they could be considered the highest talents of the cat tribe, they took high positions in the army of the cousin tribes and were even equal to their high ranking tribesmen.

The leader wondered what kind of talent would Felix have considering his body's fur was fully orange?

He took out a scroll made from the skin of an unknown animal and started to recite the words on it. Light started to engulf Felix very quickly and dispersed as quick, new information came to his mind as he learned the common language of the Tarot continent that he was now on.

Felix opened his mouth and asked:

"So who are you, people? What do you want from me?"

The leader was extremely happy as he understood what Felix said and he wanted to ask him a myriad of questions, but before he could open his mouth Sahee walked forward got near Felix, and started to exchange information with him.