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A reason to live.

By

_ Puma Concolor _

Edited by a good friend

_ Dasher Cheetah _

______________________________________________________________

Times have been rough, especially for a cougar gifted with eternal youth. Even though I am over 200 years old, I do not look a day over thirty-three. This has caused massive challenges and heartaches as I have had to limit my relationships to that of just a few years. It would be to hard to explain why I didn't age as everyone else grew old. It would have been harder on me to watch them wither and die as well.

That is why I have always been the loaner. My only companion is a deity as old as time itself. Coyote is a goddess and thus ever being busy and mindless of the passage of time. It has been almost 18 yrs since I last saw my Coyote and I can only surmise that she has forgotten me by now.

Yes, times have been tough and not only on me as a ageless cougar but also as a independent truck driver. Though everything I own was free and clear, it has become increasingly impossible to finance and maintain the business. So with this last time, I lock the doors on my old reliable Freightliner will be my last.

All my worldly possessions now occupy two cardboard boxes in the back of a battered old pickup. Not much to show for over two centuries of work. My true treasures lay in my mind. The memories of all those I've helped and saved down through time. Even those chance meetings have become fewer and fewer. No... my time of contributions to this world had come to an end with this last act.

Handing my keys over to the broker buying my rig for just enough to pay off my legal debts, get this old pickup and give me a bit of pocket money. The system had been my undoing as those I had tried to help recently, turned on me. They took every thing away from me, for one obscure reason or another. In the end only the lawyers had won.

As I drove up old highway 20, I pondered and questioned the wisdom of my actions though the years. My destination was a graveyard of my own creation. A place enchanted to never be found or disturbed, it was a resting place for those the world had forgotten but whom I held dear in my heart.

Placed high in the Boise Basin Mountain range, the drive gave me time to think and remember...

I thought back upon the good times. The Young family that I had saved so many years ago, when the father was gored by an elk. The hardheaded vamper girl, who had taken such great pleasure in occupying my body and teasing my senses. The two ghosts who had fulfilled my wildest fantasies and whose remains I had added to my little resting place. Even the family of canines who had adopted me and expressly one poodle who had born me a son. Now he was a successful young man with a thriving delivery service of his own.

I thought back to the bad times. The battles I'd fought and the lives I've taken as well as the lives I've had taken from me. The failures I've had and the pain of watching loved ones die at the hands of others, less deserving of life. Even those I had tried so desperately to save, only to have to let them go as to do anything else would have only been a selfish act on my part. Thoughts that tho many years in the past, still bring tears to my eyes even today.

I had turned several times since leaving the main road, each turn up a ever dwindling path. Finally, I was driving more from memory as the path had long grown over. It was here that I stopped the truck and got out to start a small fire.

Getting a pair of boxes from the truck, I sat and began pulling things from them. I examined each item, going over the memory each brought me before adding it to the fire. The last to go was my wallet, something I would no longer need. That task finished, I donned the old buffalo skin coat I had kept from my younger days. Making sure I left a note in the truck, stating that to the finder went the ownership and a signed title. I was returning to the wilderness from where I had come and would not be back to use it again. I set out on foot heading even deeper into my beloved mountains.

I had begun my journey early this morning and here nearly at dusk, I had reached the last ridge line that bordered my little hidden valley. A feeling of foreboding loomed over the place. I knew it was part of the spell intended to keep people clear and would pass when I got down from the higher edge.

Upon arrival I was greeted by several proud aspen trees, each one planted by my own hand to mark the site of each grave. It was a peaceful place with a single small spring fed stream. There were several old nests scattered among the branches, now adorned with the bright golden leaves of late fall. I went to sit at the base of the oldest tree, the one that marked the site of my Queen and her cubs. They had been the first I had laid here to rest. As I sat down at its base, a light snow started to fall.

"Well my Queen, I am here once again. It has been such very, very long journey but I think it is time I came home to you. I hope Father sky sees my duty has been fulfilled and allows me to cross into your service once again . . . to hold you and our cubs again. I also hope Coyote understands. It has been so long since I have seen her as well. I wish I could at least say goodbye to her, one last time. Perhaps she will be on the other side and say hello instead...", I muttered as I pulled my coat tighter. Not so much for warmth but for comfort as this was the last night I intended to be alone.

Cold was creeping into my joints and I was finding it increasingly hard to stay awake. I had heard that to freeze was not such a bad way to go. Once the body started to shut down, you didn't feel the cold and your mind would just allow you to drift off into peaceful slumber.

"Is this how the master of my guards has chosen to end his life? To curl up and to die whimpering?", a female voice spoke from the gathering gloom. This was a voice from my past, one I longed to hear again. I was not sure even if it was real or just my mind having a last bit of cruel fun.

But I could not refuse to answer her, just as it had been when she was alive. I said, "There is no enemy left. No battles to fight. No honorable way I can find my way back to your side. All I have left is to offer myself into the arms of death quietly. I am so weary... I'm not even sure if it is really you my Queen, or just my mind playing tricks. If you are real, lead me home. If you are not, please leave me alone..."

"Oh it is I, your Queen. Since when was it my job to lead you to a rest you have yet to earn?", she told me with a hint of reproach in her voice.

" __But M'Lady! I have spent three lifetimes in earning what everyone else earns in one. And they with only a fraction of what I have done!", I argued. "_ I_believe I have done enough. I have paid dearly for my time to rest. I have earned my right to die!", I stated.

" __It is true you have toiled long and hard, my warrior. Three time more than the common person could hope to do. But you_ are not common. You are so special and you have so much more to do. Please my Stèaphan... Please do not throw away your opportunity. You are so much greater than that.", her voice softening as she uttered my name My true name from so long ago, one I have not heard or uttered since I had left the Valley of my People. Hearing it again pulled even harder on my heart._

Bitterly I spat out, "Opportunity M'Lady? What opportunity? To get sued out of everything I own? The only fight I can make now to defend is to hire some guy in a suit, who would rather be playing golf or chasing his secretary. No! This is my opportunity to die and not have to worry if I am going to have food tomorrow, or a warm place to sleep. To not have to worry that the person I help or the life I save, is going to seek to make my life a living hell, just because there is a chance to make a dollar or two...I have earned my peace, I have paid dearly for it!"

With sorrow in her voice she asked, "What has turned you so bitter my love? Who has done you so wrong that your spirit has so dimmed?"

"What hasn't happened? Every one that has been in my life has left. . . . even Coyote doesn't come to me anymore. Everyone I once held dear, is now where I want to be. Even you, who was taken from me so long ago. Are you not eager for me to return and hold you warm and safe in my arms? To hold your cubs to my breast and be the father they were denied in life?", pleaded.

"What I want doesn't matter. It is wha-", she began.

" __No M'Lady! It is not what you want that matters, it is what I_ want... At last, it is what_ Iwant.", I interrupted.

"If you will not listen to your Queen, then maybe you will listen to someone you respect more!", she spat back at me.

" __That is unfair! Wait, why am I even arguing? This can't be true, so this is nothing more than a delusion brought on by the cold. Begone figment, I grow to weary and I would rather just sleep.. Yes sleep... I need sleep..."_ , I said as my eyelids grew heavier._

"Hi Celestia, got your shout. What the hell is so urgent... that ... what the hell? Cat! What happened to you?", the new but very old familiar voice of Coyote said as she materialized and surveyed the situation. Or at least so my imagination told me.

"It would seem our hero has given up and has become just another selfish, pigheaded male...",

my Queen replied in answering to the name I hadn't heard in so, so many years that I had even forgotten it.

Coyote rushed to my side and threw open my coat, placing her paws against my chest as she said urgently, "Jesus Puma, you're nearly frozen! Lets get you warmed up..." As Coyote worked on me, she asked, "How did this happen and why didn't I feel it? Celestia...? I should have felt him in peril... "

"No... Not her. Me, I willed it... I do not want you to save me this time Love, let me go... please, just let me go. It's of my own free will.", I uttered the only words I knew that would or could stop Coyote as she was forbidden to interfere with anyone's free will.

"What? You... you want this?.... FINE! Freeze, you asshole. See if I care!", Coyote spat back at me as her eyes grew dark and more angry than I have ever seen. I knew she was lying, this was hurting her. But I also knew she could come to me on the other side when ever she wished so this was not the end for her and I.

Coyote jumped up and turned her back on me as she walked up to Celestia and asking sharply, "Why?"

"He is beat down. He doesn't feel any need for him or his services any longer. You have not even seen him in 18 long years, so how was he to have any hope?", was the answer from my Queen.

"You're not blaming... me... 18 years? Oh yea... I guess it has been that long. Yet that is no reason for him to be like this! He still has things to do...", said Coyote and after several moments added, "He doesn't know, does he?"

"No. It's not yet time for him to know but perhaps this is forcing our hand.", was the answer.

"Know? Know... what?", I mumbled while fighting off the sleep that was trying to take the last bit of life from me.

" __Coyote, keep his body alive... just alive. Stèaphan, you_ are coming with me.", I heard and suddenly_ I felt myself growing numb. Much more aware, no longer cold or stiff but still lacking something... I stood up, feeling no pain or weight. In fact, I felt nothing at all.

Coyote stepped up to me, her eyes still cold but less angry. She stooped and placed her paws back on my body, however I was not in it. I was standing over it, I was separate from it. With a growl she promised me, "I'll keep your body alive but if you haven't changed your mind by the time you get back, so help me, I'll make sure you feel every cell in your body freeze before you die... cat. Every single cell... Got That!?!"

"Come, I have something to show you.", Celestia said. Taking my paw, I felt no warmth from her, only the tug as she pulled me away.

As things came back into focus, I saw we were standing in front of an old government compound. Celestia led me up to the fence and pulled me through as it it didn't even exist. We did the same thing to a wall. Once inside, I found myself standing in front of row after row of cells. Each one holding an anthro being. There were all types of beings, all types of species as well as some horribly mutated mixes.

"What is this place, my Queen?", I whispered.

"We are in a private research facility sponsored by the government. It's called 'The Center' and don't worry. They can not hear or see us. We are but ghosts.", she told me.

"Ok but why are we here? Why have they locked up so many anthros?", I asked louder.

" __They are trying to re-create the same science that created us. They are doing it wrong, terribly wrong."_ , she told me._

" __But why? As a whole the humans don't like us, they fear us. Why would they want to re-create us?", I asked and was answered, "_ To create a better soldier and a mindless slave."_

"They must be stopped!", I growled and tried to clench fists I no longer had.

"They will be but not by us. That is not what we are here to see.", she said before a door opened at the end of the main alleyway and two very rough looking men entered, dragging a rather young looking Cougeress. Unceremoniously they deposited her unconscious body in a empty cell and locked the door.

On their way out they laughed and one said to the other, "Man that's a good fuck. I got off three times in her tonight. To bad her mind is mush but then it's not her mind we're fucking!"

"Oooo, if I could only....", I growled as I swung at the speaker, my claws passing through harmlessly.

" __There is fitting justice for them and the others who are committing this atrocity. But again, it will not be by our hand and it is not why we are here."_ , I was told._

"Then why? Why have you brought me here, shown me all this horror and suffering if I can do nothing about it! This isn't making me want to live any more now, than I... than I did back on the mountain!", I shouted.

" __I did not say there was nothing you could do. No, your reason to live is not what_ is happening but_ _ who _it is happening to.", I was told.

"Ok... Then who!?!", I cried with exasperation.

"Her... for one", Celestia said while pointing to the girl laying on the cold concrete floor.

I looked at her, walking through the bars to get a closer look. She lay there on her side, her eye swollen and she still had a cruelly tight muzzle on her. Her wrists and ankles looked raw as if she had been bound too tight. There were lumps and welts that indicated she had been beat and by the looks of her pelt, this was not the first time. It was then I spotting the thing that angered me the most, the blood and seamen leaking from both her anus and vagina.

Looking closer at her face there was something... Even tho it had been ages since I had laid eyes on one of my kind, there was a resemblance. She looked like me! "What have they done to her? Who is she? Why have they treated her like this?", I demanded while not taking my eyes off her.

"She is a study subject. Part of a experiment to try and recreate a true anthro based not on the human gnome but that of a cat. The reason she is treated like this is simply because they can. To the guards and workers here, she is nothing but a toy. To the scientists she is nothing more than genetic material. They have already ruined her reproductive system with their cruelty... As to who she is, her name is Felis. Or perhaps more accurately, Felis Concolor... your sister.", I was calmly informed.

Shock, disbelief and confusion hit, all at once. Then I screamed, "WHAT!!! How can this be? I am the last of my kind! At least of my species! How can I possibly have a sister?"

" __As I said she is the results of an experiment. They had genetic material recovered from specimens frozen over a hundred and seventy years ago. Your father had many children by many woman after they_ fled our valley... One of them had fled far to the north. She was killed in an avalanche, high in the Yukon Territory. Her body became trapped, frozen in an glacier. The scientists were able to recover some cells, thaw them and when one started to grow and divide, they implanted it in one of the big cats they had on site for that purpose. The results you see before you.", Celestia told me._

"But, but she can't be over 20 I would think? How can this be, if her mother was killed before she was ever born ?", I asked with doubt.

"I do not know the science behind it, I think they called it... cloning? I do know there is a purpose behind everything. I also know is your task to find her, protect her... and to do so, you have to stay alive! But as you said, the choice is yours thru the right of free will. But know this, the circumstances of your decision will affect the lives and deaths of hundreds, in the short run, including your sister. In the long run, that means you hold the fate of thousands in your paws . . . So what is your decision? Do you take the responsibility for the life of your sister or do you give up and freeze to death on a remote mountain side, denying her and many like her a chance at life?", she said challengingly as she stood over me. Her face softened and her eyes pleaded for me to make the right decision.

I gave a great sigh, then replied, "What can I say? You have me... I choose to live. I have to live. I can not spend eternity knowing this is happening to my people, to my family..."

With a purr of approval in her voice, my Queen said, _"__ That's my Stèaphan..._ I knew you would makethe right choice. Remember, this is as big a sacrifice to me as it is to you. You saved me. You saved my cubs and I love you as I could love no one else... but now you have to do the same for others. My cubs and I are in a good place, a safe place and some day, some day we will spend an eternity together. We just have to be patient." She leaned over and kissed me passionately on the lips. This time, I felt the warmth she had withheld before . . . .

As my world again came into focus I found myself now setting by a small fire, leaning against a tire of the old truck I had driven up here. Dawn was just beginning to break in the east. I saw Coyote sitting across the fire from me, throwing on a few sticks to keep it going.

"Feeling any better my love?", she asked without looking up at me.

" __A-a-ah yes, much. But how... never mind. Where is Celestia?"_ , I asked._

"She went back. Didn't like the cold I guess.", she said, still not looking up at me. Her voice did not have the usual upbeat sound to it and she was speaking much softer than usual.

" __Coyote? You knew didn't you?"_ , I asked while certain of the answer._

"...yes...", was the quiet, sad response.

" __And you didn't tell me?"_ , I asked of her._

" _...I couldn't..."__ , she confessed forlornly._

My question, " __Why?"_ , was answered with,_ "There are many things I know and can not say. Wonderful things, terrible things. All things I can't talk about until it's time. By telling you about this... we broke the rules..."

I dared to ask of her, "What is going to happen Coyote? To you and Celestia?"

Her response was, "I don't know... Even though it was her choice to tell you, I'm not going to let her take the fall for it. I guess I'll just have to wait and see."

I knew it on some level, that even Coyote had those powers she had to answer to and this brought it home to me. With all her power and experience as the Trickster Goddess, she seemed resigned to whatever her fate would be. I was totally out of my depth and could only say, "What can I do?"

"Save your sister."

"Oh... So where is my sister?"

" _...I don't know..."__ , was the answer._

"How am I going to rescue her if I don't know where to find her?", I pleaded.

"...I ...I don't know...", she sniffled and said quietly, "Puma?"

" __Yes?"_ , I answered and she confessed,_ "I'm sorry..."

" __For what?", I asked her and she said, "_ Not staying closer..."_

" __I know you have things to do. Things_ I can't even comprehend. I just thought you had forgotten me.", I told my Goddess._

"No, I Love you! I could never forget you. I just got... lazy.", she sniffled and added, "...you scared me..."

" __Scare_ you_? Be it be this world or the next, you would still be there. What is there to be scared of from me? I was the one trying to die.", I said in trying to understand.

" __If you die because of me, I will be locked out of your existence in the other world... I... I thought I had lost you. I...I couldn't_ stand that...", Coyote told me. This time she looked up at me and I could see she had been crying, crying very hard._

" _...I didn't know...", I told her, feeling very foolish at what I had almost done. Something unforgivable,__ not to just myself but to my Coyote as well. She got up and walked around the fire, opened my coat and crawled into my lap, holding me as close as she could. I closed my coat around us and held her tight as well. I had nearly damned us both, as well as condemned countless others to a living hell._

"What are we going to do?", I whispered aghast at what had nearly happened.

Coyote admitted, "I don't know... I don't even know where to begin but we are going to do it together, as a team. There will be times I have to be away but there will never ever be another time I will not come to your call. We have so much damage to repair and I have 18 years to make up to you..."

As she snuggled closer to me, I said, " __How about we start anew? We'll work together to find my sister and free a lot of other furs. We have_ to shut the center down."_

" __We will. __I am forever but I nearly saw my forever end.... __Just hold me... please?", The normally sure_ Coyote asked with a shiver. This I did, purring softly._