The Last Scion of Tevildo by Lindariel

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The Smallest Tevildion

The mountains around Angband, the winter of 455-456.  The war is going well for Melkoré, the Great Uprising.  Tevildo the Prince of Cats, chief of Melkoré's guard, sorts out a domestic problem with unimaginable results.  Warning: This chapter has brief domestic violence, also mortal threat to a very small kitten.

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Miaulë crouched above her seventh son. Bared claws shone ivory white against her dark paws, blue eyes flashed, dark ears pressed back over silver neck fur, every hair in her black tail stood proud. "You shall not have him!" she growled at the mountainous black form before her.

Tevildo's eyes glittered like Gnomish rubies as he looked down at the mother of his children. "Six is a fine litter. He is not needed." He flicked one paw, fetching her a cuff that knocked her off her feet and into two of the other kitlings anxiously hovering nearby. "You should not have left me," he snarled, before picking up the tiny kitling thus revealed by the scruff of the neck.

The runt hung from his father's mouth, tail dangling down barely as far as Tevildo's golden collar. He was brownish black with jet-black extremities, regrettably minuscule for a recently-weaned kit. But the runt's six siblings, Tevildo thought with satisfaction, were well-grown and would soon make fine additions to the garrison, no doubt eventually as generals. He would discipline Miaulë for moving her litter and demote her, perhaps to the kitchen. He would not risk another litter with her, either, lest there be another runt to manage, especially not an unlucky seventh.

The kitling's head swam with the shaking as his father bounded out of the cave. Miaulë's howled threats followed behind, but the wind soon shredded them to nothing. The bitter cold had no apparent effect on his father, but the youngster began shivering and could not stop as Tevildo leapt from ledge to ledge up the face of the cliff.

* * * * * * *

The seventh kitling already knew he was different. To begin with, the number seven was unlucky, although his dam had always been careful not to apply that bit of lore to the number of kitlings in his litter. Then there was the matter of his size, or rather his lack of size, for the bigger his six brothers and sisters grew the more obvious it had become that he was a runt. And then there was the flying.

Flying was a way some of the Living Creatures had of traveling through the air, his dam had said. But not cats, she had stressed every time she retrieved him after he scrambled too far up a tall rock in their cave. Cats may walk and run and leap, she instructed him firmly, but they had no wings to help them fly. Nevertheless, the kitling was sure he was meant to fly, and he never tired of trying. Once he was steady enough to leave the cave for short times by himself, he watched the air around him, searching for creatures soaring in the air to see if he could figure out how they did it. He soon became familiar with flies and moths, but they were too small and moved too rapidly for him to learn much. Occasionally he would see great things moving in the air--Eagles, his dam said they were called--but they were too far away for him to understand.

He began to jump off rocks whenever he was alone outside; the hollow sensation in his belly as he shot through the air was exciting, but he never managed to do anything but fall. He sought out higher and higher rocks to jump from, which gave him a more thrilling hollow feeling. He ranged farther afield of the cave mouth, acquainting himself with the few gnarled trees that clung to the narrow face of the ridge far above the Castle of Cats. Although stunted by their growth in the acidic fumes of the three nearby volcanoes, the trees represented an easier climb for more height. He eventually found his way to the top of the tallest, most twisted one and clung next to the lone seed-cone near its topmost branch as he looked out. For the first time he saw above him the source of the roiling grey currents of air that pooled beneath his abode: a group of three pitiless crags wreathed in black fumes ever pouring from the many cave mouths glowing red at their peaks. A piece of the tallest spire broke away and tumbled in a banked spiral, moving nearer and nearer as he watched.

"An Eagle! I shall fly too," he thought, closing his eyes and flinging himself outward with all his might. For a moment he felt nothing save the hollow-bellied sensation, stronger and more exhilarating than it had ever been.

His eyes shot open and he flung his legs out, churning the empty air beneath as the arc of his leap turned into a plummet. A stray eddy of air cleared a peephole in the ever-present grey blanket beneath him, revealing a surface of grey-black heaps even farther below. Squeezing his eyes shut again, he thought "no, I'm not ready!" as he continued to fall toward the slag. Just as he completed that despairing thought he slammed into something. The wind continued to blow, to his confusion, on the parts of him not in contact with the something, but it had changed direction. Was he not dead, but finally flying? He opened an eye to see.

Four black claws, each larger than himself, had closed around him. The leg attached to the claws was naked, rough and yellow, disappearing into glossy brown-black fluff. Above him there flexed a greater grey-brown bulk, and the wind was beating at him through the claws. There was nothing beneath him save air, and that hollow sensation in his belly had redoubled in strength and was making him feel a little ill. He growled with fear and surprise, clasping his front paws around one of the huge claws and striking with his back paws at another.

"Hold still, child," came a voice from far above him. Cool, thin, sharp as the wind it sounded, but not entirely unlike his dam's nonetheless. He stopped struggling and sniffed reflexively to orient himself. It was difficult to catch the scent in the air with so much wind blasting his face, so he dropped his muzzle toward the nearest claw and snuffled. Whatever this creature was, it smelled nothing at all like himself. It smelled of air and spruce branches and the blood of rabbits.

The kitling had scarcely begun to take an interest in the fact that he was well and truly flying, even if not under his own power, when he felt a jolt as the claws abruptly released him. The hollow feeling vanished with a nauseating thump as he landed with all four feet onto rock. "Are you hungry?" came the voice again.

As with every juvenile, he was not asleep and therefore was hungry despite the roiling in his gut. "Yes!" he growled as fiercely as he was able.

"So am I," the voice assured him. "Why should I not eat you?"

He blinked as he looked at the creature now standing next to him. It was taller than anything he had ever seen, smooth yet tufted like a freshly-groomed kitling, and it had no front legs. He looked up, up, up and along its swelling body toward its sleek earless head with a large hooked claw for a mouth between two hazel eyes flecked with gold. The giant eyes were looking at him so fixedly! Continuing to hold still, he looked back into the creature's eyes, seeing for an instant in their depths a blue deeper than the sky. He could barely shape the words but finally squeaked out "what are you?"

The hooked mouth opened, saying "I am an Eagle, child."

"Eagle is in the Lore! 'Eagle in eyrie,'" he recited eagerly, glad that the first creature from the Lore of Living Creatures he had occasion to meet should be an Eagle, "but where is eyrie?"

"Our eyrie is our home, high in the rocks where we make our nests. Who taught you the Lore?" inquired the eagle.

"My dam taught us, as hers taught her. I know it all! Do you want to hear me recite it?" he offered, unable to stop himself capering a little bit before wondering if he should still be holding still.

The eagle made an odd, creaking sound. "No, child. I am sure your dam taught you well. As you are so wise, I shall not eat you. Today."

Abruptly, the kitling stopped bouncing. In the extremity of his excitement, he had forgotten the Eagle's question about eating him. His tail fluffed out and he began to tremble violently.

"I shall return you to your dam to learn more about the world," said the eagle, and its bulk shifted as it reached with one leg to grasp the kitling again. "But remember this day's lesson, child. Cats cannot fly. Nevertheless, you may ride with me as I fly," it said as its wings opened.

* * * * * * *

When Tevildo had climbed as high above the cave as the cave was above his castle, he stopped on a small cliff and dropped his burden to the rock. The kitling lay where he had fallen, convulsing against the frigid surface.

"You are insignificant," rumbled Tevildo. "My every vassal would see it and quarrel over the privilege of destroying you." His eyes shifted from their usual glittering red to sulphurous coruscant green, and he paced to the edge of the ledge. Pausing to look back at the helpless kitling, his voice roughened. "Yet I will not have my inferiors think it safe to destroy my get, no matter how useless he is. This is a better way for all of us." The giant cat tensed, then sprang off the ledge without another look, abandoning the runt.

The kitling struggled to understand with the parts of his mind that had not already frozen. Just a few moments ago he had been asleep, warmly snuggled between two of his larger littermates. He had been jolted awake by his dam hissing and growling at a great black cat, eyes like red rock crystals, blocking the entrance to their cave. His sire had finally found and claimed the litter; his dam refused but was no match for his sire, neither in size nor will. And now his sire had dropped him here on this bitterly cold cliff face. Already drowsy, he looked around at the forbidding mountains on both sides of his ledge. He was closer to the three crags than he had ever been, and on a more narrow ledge. His eyes closed slowly as he succumbed to the cold.

* * * * * * *

The kitling awakened slowly. His littermates around him felt different and smelled wrong, but he also smelled food. He opened one eye green as chrysoprase to see no littermates, but something black and brown hanging close around him, in color not unlike himself. Opening his other eye and stretching, he encountered an unfamiliar texture: smooth, resilient, ridged, and cool to the touch, covering something solid. Instinctively all four legs stiffened, every claw extended to test this new surface, and he felt it jerk slightly beneath him like an angry littermate disturbed in sleep as his claws snagged on those ridges.

"We meet again, child! Hold still. You are safe," said a voice he recognized. It sounded just like the eagle who had rescued him once before. He retracted his claws, setting the soft hangings around him into gentle movement as he poked his nose into them and sniffed. Yes, this smelled like the eagle too.

"Are you hungry?" asked the eagle.

The kitling remembered the last time an Eagle had asked him this, but he was too hungry to dissemble. "Yes," he meowed pitiably.

"Be still a moment and you shall have meat," the voice instructed. He held still as the soft hangings around him unwrapped themselves. There was a confusing moment, a breath of icy air as he rolled onto a cold hard surface, and he was blinking at the eagle.

He sprang to his feet and looked around. His back was to a rock ledge, and the eagle was between him and the rest of the world. He remembered that wind, and being carried by his sire, and shaking with cold. He was warmer now, although the rock beneath his toes was bitter cold. The eagle had been warming him, he concluded. His tail dropped between his legs. "Where is the meat? I am very hungry."

The eagle reached behind with one foot and drew it back forward across the ground, dragging with one talon a small heap of bloody fur and bones. Large shreds of meat clung to the smaller bones. The kitling could smell that the rabbit was not freshly dead, but it still smelled recent enough to eat. He pounced on the heap and began tearing off shreds, gobbling them down as fast as he could under the unblinking hazel gaze of the giant bird. Gradually he began to eat more slowly, as he realized that for the first time in his life he did not have to share the food with anyone larger and stronger than himself.

As his eating slowed, the eagle spoke. "What is your name, child?"

He paused, looking down at his paws. "My sire rejected me, so I shall never get a name from him," he said, curiously poised between pride and shame. "But my dam named me Rútaura," he continued. "What is your name?"

"I am called Sorontári," she replied.

"Thank you for the meat, Sorontári," he said, as politely as he would address his dam, and resumed eating.

After eating his fill, he settled on his haunches to groom himself. As he did so he noticed that his fur had changed color. Parts of his body that had been brown the last time he groomed them were now black; he was no longer a brown cat with black extremities, but a more or less completely black cat. It was strange to look so little like himself; but then again, he felt unlike himself as well.

Sorontári bent her head down toward him, and he saw the sharpness of her hooked beak. "Rútaura," she said, "your sire has taken your dam and your littermates back to his castle. You cannot go there, and you are too young to survive alone on the mountain. I will take you to where you need to be. You will not like it there, and you will witness terrible things before you can leave." She cocked her head, watching him intently.

Rútaura whimpered. "But I want my dam! My sisters, my brothers!"

"I know," she replied. "But going to them would assuredly mean your death, for your sire would kill you in front of them all. Any of them who object your sire would also kill, starting with your valiant dam. But if you go where I take you then you will survive."

"What must I do?" he asked in a small, frightened voice.

"You must climb on me, and I will give you a ride," Sorontári replied. "Where I drop you off there is fresh meat to be caught; hunger teaches good hunting. Be quick, be quiet, and survive there, knowing that no matter how long you live, you will never have to live in such a terrible place again." She stretched out one of her feet to him. "Climb up my claw and into my feathers. You will be safe and warm there as we fly."

Rútaura's claws slipped on the tough, scrabbly surface as he skittered up the Eagle's foot. It felt a little like he was climbing up rock seams back in his cave. When he got to the brown and black hangings that began just above Sorontári's feet, he batted at them with a claw. "Is this 'feathers'?" he asked.

"Yes, child. Feathers keep me warm, and I use them to fly," she said, making another one of those creaking sounds. "Now snuggle as deeply into them as you can and hold on with all your claws. You must not let go, for if you do you will fall to your death."

Rútaura worked his way into the feathers, noticing that they were a combination of stiffer and softer textures. The softer parts looked a little like tree branches, only spiky on the ends, and he tried to avoid them. The closer he got to Sorontári's skin, the stiffer and less fluffy the feathers were. He tried kneading them, but his claws were too small to catch in the stiff parts, so he hooked his claws around some of them instead. Sorontári waited until he quit moving, then warned him "now close your eyes and hold tightly!"

Rútaura felt the Eagle take off, her body moving rhythmically both of itself and in what seemed like great circles. It felt like chasing his own tail, but in bigger and slower circles, and there was a strong wind as well. The hollow sensation in his belly seemed like it was about to become qámevórina, the fur-sickness. He did not move his claws, but wondered how angry Sorontári would be if he cast a hairball onto her feathers. After a moment the wind began to smell different to him, so much thicker and sharper that it hurt to breathe. His body began to hitch involuntarily; then he felt Sorontári stop flying in circles. The sick feeling eased somewhat as the eagle's flight straightened out. He was still having trouble breathing, but the belly sensation of flying in a straight line seemed familiar and manageable after what he had just experienced.

Soon Sorontári landed, harder than a cat would have. "Rútaura, come down now," she said. Rútaura carefully worked his paws out from around her downy feathers, then jumped outward. The uneven landing on a heap of gritty stone fragments was worth one last instant of the flying feeling. As he scrabbled about, searching for a firm footing in the suddenly shifting ground, the eagle spread her wings. "There is more to you than can be guessed, and you are greater than you know. Wisely did your dam name you Mighty Lion. Farewell!" cried Sorontári as she took to the air. Watching her, for the first time Rútaura understood what wings were, and why he would never be able to fly on his own.

After a moment or two Rútaura could no longer see the eagle, and his attention began to settle on the place she had set him. The air still hurt to breathe, and it also smelled like meat that was too old to eat. The ground nearby was covered with the shifting piles of slag, and farther off loomed a long ridge of rocks whose heads were all obscured save for occasional bursts of red light piercing the grey gloom. At the base of the rocks was a darker area that Rútaura hoped was a cave, for he needed to find shelter from which he could survey this new terrain. He bounded toward it, his paws periodically slipping until he began to be able to predict how the slag would shift under his weight.

Eventually Rútaura discovered the rocks were much farther away than they looked. Between him and the ridge stretched a vast uneven plain filled with slag heaps, and he grew tired of all the ups and downs of it long before he crossed it. The Sun, barely visible beyond the grey pall, westered quickly and the wind off the ridge blew even colder as he kept moving forward, his energetic bounds long since reduced to exhausted trudging.

As the last light of day disappeared, Rútaura found himself closer to the cave than the biggest tree was to his dam's cave. His night vision asserted itself. He looked toward the area at the center of the ridge, hoping to be able to see some more details. As he watched, he saw something shift to one side, and suddenly there was light coming from the cave. Three scintillant points of light, housed in a black too dark to see, shone so bright they made the white blazes on his black ears tingle. They nearly blinded Rútaura, and he shook his head to clear his sight. When he looked back, his night vision ruined by the beams of light, he saw that the lights were moving. They were high above his head, as if some huge three-eyed cat were walking toward him. But instead of a cat's shape, it seemed a black mountain standing on two legs like his two strongest siblings when they were play-fighting. Its skin was curious, stiffly shiny but also the opposite of shiny, as if it were drinking the light rather than reflecting it. As he continued to watch it approach, he noticed it had two red eyes not far beneath the three bright colorless ones, and the red eyes seemed to be fixed on him.

Rútaura began to slink toward the nearest slag heap, hoping to avoid whatever this great uprising was. The bulk of it, and its improbable mixture of complete dark and dazzling light, frightened him more than he had ever been frightened of anything before. But suddenly he felt something cold touch every part of his skin at the same time. It pressed inward on him, holding him in place like a blanket of ice as the monster moved closer. Rútaura tried to looked up at the monster, but only his eyes could move. As he looked into the red eyes he heard a noise, an indescribable assault of sound--greater than a gale on the heights, a rockslide in the mountains, a deluge of rain, and every other noise his dam had taught him to avoid--that eventually resolved itself into speech. "Now, what stray is this?" he heard the mountain say. "My lieutenant was more careless than expected. I warned him that a laikarauka possessing the body of a hunting beast could only defile the laikarauka. Now see how he has diminished himself by giving a portion of his essence to the offspring of the beast's body, this insignificant beastling."

The words meant little to Rútaura, but they stirred up an urge in him to speak to this being, kitling to mountain, as an equal, as his dam had spoken with his sire. It felt like his insides had turned into a mass of spiky rock crystals, each digging into his skin from the inside. His entire body seemed to stretch, and the sensation of being covered by ice fell away. He was suddenly seeing those red eyes from a great deal higher position than before. He opened his mouth to hiss with the surprise (and pain) of it, but instead only a thin, treble meow emerged.

The painful noise returned as the two-legged mountain began to shake. Rútaura suddenly wondered if mountains could laugh like cats. Once again the noise resolved into words, and he heard it say "you may not be useless after all, beastling! I Melkoré give you leave to reside in my forecourt. You may not come inside, and you must keep well clear of your father the Prince of Cats. Hunt, strengthen your body, and I shall consider the best way for you to serve me."

As Melkoré turned and walked back into his cave, Rútaura noticed that, though the red eyes were no longer visible, he could still clearly see the three colorless eyes atop Melkoré's head, lighting everything around him. He was grateful when Melkoré and his bright lights disappeared inside the gate of Angamandi, leaving him and his night vision alone to explore the shadows underneath the rock formations around the gate.

Rútaura sighed deeply, and his body suddenly collapsed back into his normal shape and size. He hoped some of those shadows were cavelike enough to house a tired kitling.

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Chapter End Notes

Rútaura ( coined from Qenya elements) -- "Mighty Lion," a mother-name
Sorontári (coined from Qenya elements) -- "Queen of Eagles"
laikarauka (coined from Qenya elements) -- "demon of sharpness"
qámevórina (coined from Qenya elements) -- "sickness of fur," the need to vomit up a hairball

The number seven is unlucky in this story because the cultures of Middle-Earth are accustomed to count in dozens and half-dozens.

Rútaura's fur turns black in this chapter because he is the offspring of a black cat and a Siamese cat carrying what is called (in our world) the Himalayan gene; cats with that gene exposed to extreme cold turn darker.  He is effectively a green-eyed Siamese cat, only all black, with narrow white blazes on his ears.