| "Adria" Chapter 1 It had been well over 1,400 ladurs since the day of independence of the cat warrior race; it was nearing the end of L. 2041. The people were one with another; love and peace thrived in the kingdom, and the people all were governed by the great tiger king Mekes. One fine day in this age, a young leopard named Caleb was walking through the kingdom on a rather quiet day, when he heard trampling feet and heavy breathing. He then heard the voice of another young man. "Stop her!" the voice shouted. "Don't let her get away!" Caleb then watched as a young lioness ran by not too far away from where he stood. She could not have been much older than 24 ladurs. She was dressed in a light black skirt worn just above her knees and a revealing vest of blueish-violet cloth that left her breasts half-bare. The girl seemed to be quite distressed; she was panicking, but she ran very fast and gracefully, taking long and perfect strides. Caleb then noticed the male voices; behind the lioness came running two of Mekes's guards. "Someone help me, please!" the lioness cried, not losing her stride. Caleb went for his sword and was about to pursue, but he then immediately stopped. The guards were trying to arrest her, for what reason he did not know. Should he have tried to interfere he, too, may have been apprehended. Instead he walked slowly, watching the two bumbling guards chase the girl all over the kingdom. "Get that harlot!" one of the guards blared. "Stop immediately! You are under arrest!" Harlot? Caleb thought. He then realized that the girl could be none other than Adria. She was being arrested for her prostitution; this was a practice that was disgraced by cat warriors because they believed that love could not be sold and bought. More to the point, it had been outlawed since the writing of I Am Cat Warrior, the book of cat warrior laws, practices, and customs. Adria proved to be very athletic -- she ran fast and did not stumble once; in fact, she managed to pick up a moderately heavy rock from the wet forest floor on her sprint, swivel her body, and throw it in such a way that she struck one of the guards square in the forehead, knocking him backwards onto the ground. Caleb laughed and laughed as Adria ran the guards all the way around the village, one of them bleeding from his head. The guards pursued her relentlessly until they were nearly outwinded. Finally, after a chase of about five minutes, as Adria turned a sharp corner, she tripped over her own legs and fell onto the forest floor. She tried to recover, but the guards caught up to her too fast. They pinned her to the ground on her belly and quickly tied her wrists and ankles with cords, then picked her up in their arms and dragged her away to the stronghold to be imprisoned. It was at this point that Caleb slowly stopped laughing. A few days passed. Caleb went home shortly after Adria's arrest, wondering what would happen to the poor girl. On the third day after her apprehension, Caleb decided to go to the stronghold to visit her in her prison cell. Upon arriving at the stronghold, the dugeonkeeper stopped him. "What are you here for, Caleb?" he asked. "I'm here to visit Adria," he said. "Oh, you'd like to visit that wench?" he asked, disgruntled. "Very well. Come with me." The dungeonkeeper led Caleb into the corridors of cells. None were occupied by prisoners except for the last, which contained Adria. "You get only a few moments," the dungeonkeeper said. "I'll come back here soon." As the guard left Caleb, Caleb turned to Adria, who sat crying in her cell. "Adria," he began, "are you all right?" Adria looked up. "No," she sobbed. "I will be here for a while for my crime, and I just found out that I'm pregnant with a child of a father I don't remember. What should I do?" "I know not," Caleb sighed. "I hope that you get a light sentence." "That is hard to say, Caleb," Adria said, wiping her eyes. "I could get a big sentence for what I put the guards through. My trial is tomorrow, and my fate rests on the shoulders of 12 cat warriors." "I hope you are well, even after everything. You will get through this; I promise. By the way, you ran exceptionally well. You are a very athletic girl." "Thank you," Adria said. Adria's trial began the next morning. The girl represented herself, dismissing her attorney because she wished to solve the problem herself -- it was her own burden. It was, unfortunately, to no avail; Adria was convicted of prostitution, resisting arrest, and assaulting the guard and given a sentence of 60 days of imprisonment. Of the 60 days, 40 were for prostitution, 15 for hitting the guard with a rock, and 5 for resisting arrest. And so Adria was imprisoned in the dungeon alone. Every so often Caleb would come to visit her in her cell; as the days passed, Adria's pregnancy became more noticable and her mood much brighter. During her imprisonment, the time entered L. 2042. On Adria's final day of imprisonment, she was blessed. Caleb entered the stronghold to visit her just as the guards were preparing to release her from it. As he greeted all of them, they all heard a blood-curldling scream, followed by moaning. They all came running to the dungeon as fast as they could, and found Adria in the corner of her cell, her vest pushed up and her skirt off. Her time had come to conceive her child. "She's going to have a baby!" Caleb shouted. One of the guards turned to him. "Well," he began, shouting, "don't just stand there; get a healer, now!" Caleb raced out of the dungeon and returned with the village healer. He made everyone stay back as he prepared to deliver the baby. Adria writhed and moaned in pain as she tried to follow the healer's instruction. After several tense minutes, Adria's long last scream of her labor faded into a baby's cry; from her came a newborn boy, crying and kicking. Adria's body suddenly fell to the floor, relaxed and exhausted. The healer cut the umbilicus and quickly wrapped the baby in a heavy cloth, then handed the bundled child to her mother. Adria looked at the child she had just conceived. It was a beautiful thing to see; the baby was a lion as she was. "I never thought I would be a mother," Adria said, smiling. "This is a wonderful thing; I shall raise him to be my son. He will be a better child than I ever was." "I want to help you with that," Caleb said. "He is not my child, but I have supported you throughout this entire ordeal. I will help raise him as well." Adria was very happy; she had the thought to marry Caleb, but decided not to on the idea that it would make her child seem like a bastard son. So instead they agreed to not marry but raise the child on their own; a few days after his birth, they named him Sator. Chapter 1, part 2 |