The Fate of Xon

The winds blew through the trees, rustling the leaves in a violent turbulent flurry of movement. A lone figure stood on the ramparts of a stone building, looking out toward the jungle as if waiting. Pale blue eyes pierced through the darkest parts of the jungle, listening to every sound that reverberated through the dense underbrush. The light from the setting sun touches the top of his head and the short blond hair flairs to life for a moment before his bare chest and broad shoulders block them out, showing the tan muscular arms that he showed a great deal of strength.



A roar rose from the trees and the figure straightened immediately as if listening intently to someone screaming his name. In truth, he could understand what the roar was saying, but it was calling for Brendan, Prince of the Court of the Tiger. No, it was a call to all Tigers, great and small. He knew the roar well for he had heard it everyday of his life, almost from the moment of conception. It was the roar of the High Councilman, Nesséro , who announced the setting of the sun and rising of the moon once a month. It was the rising of the full moon.



Brendan looked down at the lower level of the palace, watching as servants and councilmen alike ran on two legs toward the jungle. They all seemed to lose their clothes before hitting the jungle, leaving them where ever they fell. He knew that somewhere in the first hundred yards of the jungle, the change would begin, but it wasn\'t the change of the body. At least, not at first. The first thing to go for the lesser Tigers was their mind. As soon as the sun set, they would begin to act and think like Tigers in the wild. They wouldn\'t begin to change their bodies until the moon was almost at its highest.



Brendan was different than other Tigers, even his own sister. He never quite left his mind when in his animal form. He could see with his human eyes, hear with his human ears, and comprehend with the mind of their soon-to-be-King. He was also different in that he was the first Tiger in the last few centuries who could shift not only on the full moon, but whenever he felt like it. And it was just a full shift, either. He could shift whatever he felt like it and just that part would be shifted. At first, the Councilmen, and even his parents, thought that it was a curse, but when a group of Dead Things had attacked the first time, when he was eight, he had been the one to make them believe that he was the gift his people had been waiting for. He was now considered gifted.



He shook his head, trying not to think about the full moon or shifting. He wanted to be able to lose himself to the shift tonight, because tomorrow, he would be off to school with his darling little sister Sarah. Just thinking about her made him smile. He could see her soft white skin and white blond hair as the wind tossed it around. He could see her pale blue eyes, the exact mirror of his own, laughing at him as the corners of her mouth pulled up and showed the slightly pointed teeth that were one of the signs of a shapeshifter. He knew that she would be at the ceremony at the Circle tonight, but thinking about her made him want to see her and run with her to the ceremony. Almost as if by magic, though it always happened, Brendan thinking about Sarah made her appear out of nowhere.



She stepped from the edge of the jungle wearing nothing but the belt around her waist the showed her status. Her pale skin almost glowed in the darkness, whereas his would disappear. He smiled softly as he saw her looking around. When her eyes found him, he was feigning like he was looking away. "Brendan, get down here! I want to run with you!" She put her hands on her hips and growled loud enough for him to hear it. "Brendan, do not play like you cannot hear what I am saying! We have ears great enough to hear a padded foot on a stone floor in a crowded room."



Brendan laughed and turned quickly, jumping from the four story tall rampart. He heard her scream of horror as he grabbed the branch of one of the trees that kept the walls up and used it to soften the fall onto the ground. He heard her angry growl and felt the laughter boil up inside him. He run and was beside her before she could catch her breath. She hit him, though it had little effect considering he was only an inch or two from being a foot taller than her five foot four, and a great deal wider and stronger than her. "Bastard. How many times do I have to tell you not to scare me like that?"



Brendan shrugged and pulled her into a hug. "I am sorry, kitten, but it\'s the quickest way down. Besides, I knew that I wasn\'t going to get hurt."



Sarah growled again and shook him off. "Come on or we will be late. Get rid of the clothes so you will not rip another pair of pants. It takes weeks for the seamstresses to make pants for you because you are always busy and I do not want to have to go up there and guess your measurements again. You clothes were either way too big or way too small when I did that."



Brendan smiled and shook his head, slipping out of his breeches and tossing them onto the ground. "Race?" He gave her the lopsided grin that always meant that he knew he would win. He knew that he could run three or four times faster in human form than she could even in her Tiger form. It was as simple as that. He was just stronger than her, and size had nothing to do with it.



She gave him one of her looks and took off. He kept the grin on his face, laughing slightly as he gave her a ten second head start. Like a bolt of lightening, he took off after her, his tan body fitting in perfectly with the jungle around him. He could feel the leaves brush his bare body and the sensation was overwhelming with the full moon rising behind him. He could feel the fur begin to form on his body, orange with black stripes, and knew that he would be the only one already partly changed when he got there. It was usually the way it was when Sarah made him remove his clothes before running through the woods.



He was correct, of course, about beating Sarah, and about being the only one partially shifted. He had passed Sarah a hundred yards back when he cleared the Circle where the Council and lesser shapeshifters were waiting. They all turned, noticed it was him, and went down on their knees. This happened just as Sarah rushed through the underbrush, panting. She noticed them bowing, smiled, and did the same. She might be the Princess and considered his equal most of the time, but in the Circle and when it came to the Council, she was just beneath him, still better than everyone else.



It was then that she noticed the fur and the stripes covering his body. She moved lower to the ground, giving credit to the obvious power in the area. Jealousy raged inside her, but she controlled it. He was the most powerful shapeshifter in history, something she wanted, but she had him at her fingertips. She could ask him to do anything for her, and he would do it in a heartbeat. Love was the thing that bound them together, and nothing could tear that asunder. Not even Sarah\'s jealousy of her brother\'s power and ability to shift anytime he wanted.



Brendan merely shook his head, looking up at the sky. "My people, the time will be here soon. We do not have time to deal with this ... madness. I am no better than any of you, even with the fur in human form. Right now, we need to begin the rituals."



The High Councilman Nesséro was the one to stand and speak, his bare body black in the darkness. "Prince Brendan is right. We must hurry or the Goddess will not bless us with her grace and power tonight. She will surely cover the moon."



Brendan nodded and pulled Sarah to her feet. He moved to the center of the clearing, watching as the others took up their positions around the Circle. He laced his fingers with Sarah\'s and stood arms length away from her, looking up toward the sky and the rising moon. He let out one long, loud roar, hearing Sarah and the others echo him. The roar was a Tiger song meant to ask the Goddess for a clear night, begging for her to help make the shift as painless as possible.



And then, the moon was above them.



One of the lesser Tiger\'s roar was cut off, turned into a human cry of pain. Then another, until slowly, the only roar was that of Brendan. Sarah had been the last roar to stop midway through the prayer, but she was now on the ground, writhing in unbridled pleasure. For it was pleasure for the royals. All the others were writhing for a different reason, one that they wanted to stop.



Brendan stood alone. He stopped the prayer and looked around him at all the Tigers staring at him, all now in their animal form. He was halfway between man and animal, his fingernails had lengthened, his body was covered in fur, and his nose had lengthened, but he was still human. And they were waiting. Waiting for him to shift so that they could run as a group around the jungle, looking for prey.



He wouldn\'t disappoint. He took a deep breath and, as he exhaled, the rest of his body contorted and changed into that of a Tiger. There was a little pain, but a great deal of pleasure. He was still Brendan, but he wanted to run with the pack, wanted to dig his nose into the warm flesh of some still beating heart. He wanted to let himself go and just be the Tiger.



And so he did.



* * *

Sarah yawned wide, stretching her arms above her head. She moved closer to the body she was laying beside, pressing her naked body against his as a way of comfort. She took a deep breath and moved closer to who she now knew was her brother. She wrapped her arm around his chest and felt his arm tighten around her shoulders. They often woke up this way after a hunt, so it was nothing new and nothing to get excited about, but she had noticed that the Council was beginning to look down at it because of the age of the two siblings. They thought that there was more than sibling love there, yet Sarah and Brendan both knew that was impossible, which just led Sarah to crawl closer near her brother.



It would be a few hours before they all began to fully wake up. Sarah knew where they were just by the scents around them, but she couldn\'t open her eyes right now. She could only think about what she had to do for the day when they got up. She knew that she would have to begin packing for the long trip that they had ahead of them, which was only made harder by the fact that they had to go passed the Gulf, as far away from the Pass as they could. It was also made harder because the Council had determined that it would be bad for the siblings to go by themselves, that they needed guards. Sarah had laughed when she found out, merely stating that they were talking about giving them supervision. Incest had been a big part of Tiger history, but it wasn\'t something her and Brendan were going to try. Ever.



She felt Brendan move under her and knew that he was awake. He always woke up first. Damn him. He moved a little and she clung to him, not wanting him to get up. He laughed and slipped out from under her anyway. He picked her up and ran her back to their palace, leaving her in her bed. He then began to run through the jungle, after having dressed, and getting the others and putting them into their own beds. Sarah knew this, though she had never seen it, and longed to be helping him, yet she was stuck in her own bed.



A few hours later, after laying in her mind\'s self loathing, Sarah was finally able to open her eyes. She climbed from the bed and headed to the closet, pulling on a pale blue silk sun dress. She slipped it over her bare body, loving the way the soft material felt on her bare skin, and then ran out the door, heading down the hall to Brendan\'s room. She passed the others as they were waking, heading to their various chores and errands, but they said nothing to her.



She didn\'t bother knocking when she came to Brendan\'s door, only walking in and flopping on his bed, watching him as he dug through his closet. He didn\'t act like he was paying her any mind, until he spoke. "Why do I keep finding your clothes in my closet, Sarah? Don\'t you have one of your own."



Sarah shrugged, picking up an apple off the floor and taking a bite. She spoke around the food in her mouth. "Mine is completely full. Besides, you only use half of yours."



He turned to look at her, tossing a dress at her. "Will you please start packing? We\'re leaving at noon, so we need to have everything ready to go in the next hour."



Sarah\'s ears perked up at the announcement of their departure time. She tossed the apple into a bin and stood up, grabbing Brendan\'s arms and turning him to face her. "What do you mean that we\'re leaving at noon? I thought we were leaving tomorrow morning."



"Plans had changed. The Council believe that it would be safer for us to leave a day early and travel as close to the beach as possible. The Dead Things are getting braver, but they seem to fear the ocean, especially at night. So I\'ve agreed that we should leave immediately. Get your belongings." He shoved her gently toward the door before grabbing some more of his belongings.



Sarah, excited now, kissed him quickly on the cheek and dashed down the hall. Her servants were already there, having heard the news, and were throwing her clothes neatly into bags and trunks. She began to gather the other things of importance to her and putting them into a trunk. Within a few minutes, she had all her belongings packed, but the excitement had worn out. She was thinking about the Dead Things and the people around her. Were they safe without Brendan?



Shaking her head, she followed the servants as they moved her belongings downstairs to the waiting wagons. Brendan was there giving directions, yelling orders, everything to make it smooth and easy. He was so authoritative and noble, it was something Sarah had never really noticed before. It was almost like he was truly coming into his birthright. She knew that she had came into her birthright of being the knowledgeable and ferocious princess and advisor to the king, this came with the fact that she always carried a book with her and a dagger was always tucked into her waistband, but she hadn\'t noticed the Brendan was becoming a king.



Sighing, she grabbed her shoulder bag, double checking to make sure that she had two or three books and an equal amount of daggers before crawling into the lead wagon. She pulled a blanket over her legs and leaned against the back wall, pulling a flap back to watch her older brother do what he was meant to do. It was eerie that he looked and sounded so much like their father, but then again, she looked and sounded like her mother.



She began to doze when Brendan slipped into the wagon. "Here we go." And they began the long ride to Flagcord University.