In Love and War
Lori awoke from an uneasy slumber as the Sergeant's shouting reached his mind. It took the black panther a moment to realize that this time he was not shouting at him. Lori shuddered and wrapped the damp jacket of his uniform tighter around his body. He got up from the low stool he had fallen asleep on while the shouting outside the barracks started anew.
"...and if you maggots even so much as think about disobeying one of my orders, that will be the last mistake you'll ever make. Is that understood?"
The panther sighed. He knew that one.
"Looks like more fresh meat for the grinder..." a low voice uttered.
Only now did Lori realize that he was not alone. In the opposite corner of the underground room there stood Venic, his muddy uniform blending in so well with the dirt wall that the panther could hardly make him out. Venic, a grey wolf, was a few years older than himself and carried the rank of Corporal by now.
"Yeah... poor guys," Lori nodded, picked up his rifle and took a few steps towards the only exit, a low hole in the wall that connected the room to the trench outside where the shouting was.
The war was in it's fifth year by now and the front line was roughly the same as when it had all started. The trenches he and the others called home - mostly for the lack of anything else that deserved the name - had become a rather permanent affair. A cold wind constantly swept through them and the dampness crept through every crack. The worst though, was the mud that soon covered everything from uniforms to rations.
Lori's stomach growled angrily, even drowning out Sarge's shouting for a moment, and forced him to take another bite from the ration cookie he had kept in his pocket. He had been planning on saving it for tomorrow, but now he thought, 'What the heck... I'll probably be dead by then...'. Over the years he had watched hundreds of comrades die on the field and their dead faces kept haunting him at night. For some strange reason though, at least until now he had been spared. In fact, he and Venic were among the oldest soldiers still alive. As it seemed, fate had decided not to let him go so easily.
Lost in his dark thoughts, the panther took a bite from the wet cookie and stepped outside. As the taste of wet cardboard filled his muzzle, he looked up to the sky where a distant sun was fighting a battle of it's own, trying in vain to penetrate the dirty, yellowish clouds that covered the welkin as far as one could see. Nothing new there.
Carefully, the panther tucked the rest of his cookie back into his pocket before turning his head left and right, trying to find the source of all the noise. A few meters down the trench he found it. The Sergeant, a strong, huffy lion was shouting angrily at a small group of boys who had, judging from the relative tidiness of their uniforms, only just arrived in this hell-hole. The lads were no older than seventeen, Lori thought. That was not unusual for the reinforcements they got these days and it seemed to him, they kept getting younger. The panther growled lowly. This was just not right. These boys should be driving around the countryside with their girlfriends on a Sunday like this - or their boyfriends. Lori snickered mirthlessly at the thought and could not help but feel a cold hand's grasp around his heart.
He had had a boyfriend once. Miro had been his first and greatest love and for the brief months that it lasted, he was the happiest panther on the planet. Nothing could ever drive them apart - or so they thought. Then, when Miro was killed during the first days of the war, Lori had been devastated. He still remembered vividly how he joined the army a few days later, his heart filled with hatred, anger and guilt. Had Miro been there, he would have stopped his mate from making this mistake, Lori knew that now. But he wasn't and so nothing could stop Lori from ultimately ending up here, in a muddy trench in the middle of nowhere, fighting for a cause he had all but forgotten. It had been only days before his hatred had turned into mourning and his anger had turned into despair but for some reason, he kept going, dragging himself through training and then from one battlefield to the next.
Lori felt his mate stir beside him on the bed. Exhausted, he had nodded off for a moment. Turning his head, he looked into the other panther's beautiful eyes and smiled.
"Have I been that demanding...?" Miro chuckled and Lori joined in. Slowly, the two lovers drew closer, joining lips in a long and tender kiss, the taste of their lovemaking still on their tongues. After what seemed like an eternity, Lori opened his eyes just in time to watch Miro do the same. The other broke the kiss and sighed. "We'll always be together, Lori. To hell with what the others say. We'll just run away and start a new life somewhere else."
Lori's face darkened. "I couldn't leave home just now. Not while we are at the brink of war."
"Perhaps you are right. But I am sure that is just some misunderstanding. In a few days, everything will be fine again."
Lori just nodded. There was nothing else to say. Smiling at his love, he kissed him again before slowly dozing off into a long, deep sleep.
Down the trench, Sarge had finished chewing through the new recruits and turned to walk away when his gaze met Lori's.
"What are you looking at, soldier?" he snarled, his mane waving in the cold wind. With satisfaction he watched the panther's gaze drop to the ground, whiskers twitching. He snarled again and hurried past, probably to find someone else to shout at.
When he was finally gone, leaving an awkward, sullen silence, Lori stood there for a moment and watched the new recruits hurry past. Especially one of them, a young fox with a rather intimidated look on his face, caught the panther's eye. The other seemed to notice, returning the stare with a shy smile. He was cute, Lori thought as the band trotted past and caught himself actually staring at the fox's nervously flicking tail. The panther snarled lowly as he felt his loins tingle at the sight. This was not the time and sure as hell it was not the place, he thought to himself. But it had been so long that his body would not be denied these little escapades. It had always been the army's policy to increase aggressive behaviour in the soldiers by suppressing their sexual desires and as much as Lori hated to admit it, that practice worked pretty well.
"Don't you have work to do, soldier?"
The sergeant's loud, angry shouting brought him back to reality. He hadn't even heard the lion approaching and could only hope the lion had not noticed his dreamy gaze at his comrades behind.
"N- no, sir!" the panther replied with an embarrassed flick of his tail. Immediately, he bit his lip and cursed lowly. Wrong answer.
"Good, good... then you surely wouldn't mind today's recon patrol, would you now?" the lion snarled as if he was dispensing pleasantries.
"No, sir..." Lori sighed. It would do him no good to refuse. He knew when he was beat, so he just stood there and watched the lion storm past him again.
Lori cursed quietly once more for being so stupid. With a weary sigh, he slung his rifle and got on his way. Recon patrol was about the worst assignment one could get around here. Each day one of them was cast out of the trench to the muddy battlefield outside to look for any sign of trouble. Only about half of them returned. And what was even worse, if one was shot on recon patrol, one died alone, left to one's pain while the life slowly bled away into the muddy ground. Lori started to shiver, pulling his jacket tighter. But it gave him no comfort as he made his way down the trench. The look on his comrades' faces seemed to change as they noticed where he was going. To Lori it felt as if they were already staring at his corpse. He struggled to fight off the tears that were about to fill his eyes.
As he reached the end of the trench he had to grab hold of the ladder as a dizzy spell hit him. Slowly, he began climbing up from the safety of the trench into the hostile reality of the battlefield. As his head emerged, he paused for a moment and let his gaze wander across the surreal landscape. The unhealthy, yellow light that managed to get past the dirty clouds illuminated a battered and abused land. Boots, wheels and tracks had left nothing but slimy morass, scattered with dead trees, wrecked equipment... and bodies. The stench of death hung over the field.
Finally taking the last few steps, he cast himself into this madness and quickly hurried past the barbed-wire barriers. Fortunately, the last few days had been relatively quiet. The enemy that was hiding somewhere on the other end of the field, probably cowering in a trench not too different to their own, had been silent. Lori just hoped they would not pick today to start fighting again and allowed himself the luxury of running from cover to cover instead of crawling through the mud like they had learned to do.
He did not know how long it took him to scurry around the edges of the territory their leaders in self-glorifying hubris called 'their claim'. Coming up to a large rock that had been blown out of the ground by some long past explosion, he dropped behind it to catch his breath. Immediately the panther could feel the cold wetness seeping through his trousers but he didn't care. He was exhausted and lonely and much to tired to worry about it.
It took all his strength to fight off the urge to sleep and so he didn't notice the faint smell until it was almost too late. Someone was nearby. Immediately, adrenalin flooded through the panther's veins. Slowly, without a single sound, he turned and peeked over the boulder, his body firmly pressed against the cold rock. There he was, just a few meters away, standing right on the edge of a crater filled with muddy water where a grenade had formed a pond where none had been intended. The figure stood with it's back towards Lori and so the panther could see little except the red and black uniform of the enemy. Ever so slowly, Lori reached for his rifle and took aim. His finger already bend around the trigger when suddenly the figure turned around and looked right into the muzzle of his weapon.
Lori felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of ice cold lightning. He looked into the eyes of a young fennec, a few years younger than himself. The other's eyes were wide with fear and his large ears were twitching madly as he waited for his death. Lori's paws started to shake. Great heavens, what has he doing here? He could not shoot this poor boy like a dog on a highway, he just couldn't. Slowly, he lowered his arms and sighed.
The fennec obviously did not understand what was going on, but fate had granted him a chance to escape. He stumbled backwards a few steps and turned to run away. But the ground was just too slippery, making him trip and fall right into the cold, dirty pond. Stunned, Lori watched as the boy was pulled down by the weight of his uniform until his head vanished with a gurgling sound that finally brought the panther to his senses again. He dropped his rifle and jumped over the boulder he had been using for cover. With only a few steps he was at the pond and his paw lunged forward into the murky depth, grabbing hold of some piece of clothing and pulled. The boy's uniform was already soaked through and more than once, Lori feared he might fall in himself, the muddy ground giving way under his hindpaws. It took all his strength to finally pull the fennec out of the water. A quick examination revealed that he was unconscious but alive. Shaking the wetness off his paws, Lori bent down to him and brushed away a piece of dirt from his cheek. For what seemed like an eternity, Lori just looked at him. 'He's so beautiful', Lori thought to himself and immediately shook his head, angry at himself; not the place, not the time.
Thunder rolled in the distance and make him wince. The panther had been so captivated that he had almost forgotten where they were. The fighting could resume at any moment and if he did not want to find himself in the middle of the frenzy, he had to do something. Desperately, he looked around, scanning the horizon. It seemed like this was his lucky day. Only a few hundred meters towards the enemy lines, off the trodden path, there was a small cabin that miraculously had withstood the battle of the past months without too much damage. Lori did not think twice. He flung the fennec's body over his shoulder and staggered towards the building, his boots sinking deeply into the muddy ground.
"So, you wanna join the army, eh boy?"
The recruiting sergeant, a towering hulk of a bear by the name of Gonnath, looked over the rather slim panther that stood on the opposite side of his desk in a small army office somewhere on the outskirts of town. He did not like what he saw. The black panther boy looked shaken and, judging from the look of his eyes, probably had been crying for three days straight.
The boy just nodded at him energetically.
"But do you think you got what it takes?" the bear asked. He was not too concerned for the boy he was about to enroll, he was much more worried about how too many training dropouts would look on his record.
"Yes, sir!" the panther snarled angrily. "I want to protect king and country. I want to throw those Agarian bastards off the cliffs an Banda. I am ready to serve."
'He may not be strong', Gonnath thought, 'but he's got a strong will." He had seen enough soldier wannabes to know that in the end will was much more important than muscle. So he pulled the forms from a drawer in his desk and handed them to the panther.
"What's your name then, son?"
"Lori... Lori Fathar," the other replied.
"Well then, Lori. Welcome to the home guard. Just sign here and get on your way to Gogra Camp down the north road. They'll fill you in. "
Without another word, the panther had stormed out of the army office, running down the dusty north road on foot until he reached the training camp, eager to fight for a noble cause. 'Some cause..., killing innocent boys just for being on the wrong side of a line drawn on some map in a warm, cosy general's office...', Lori thought angrily to himself as he kicked open the battered cabin door.
The cabinet consisted of a single room. It was a mess of course, broken furniture, cutlery and the personal belongings of the former inhabitants scattered on the ground. But in his current situation, it felt like heaven. Carefully, Lori put down the other soldier on a large bed that occupied the far side of the room and miraculously had sustained no damage at all from the shellfire. Lori examined the other boy again. He was not unconscious anymore, just sound asleep. Probably the fennec had gotten just as little sleep as he himself. Exhausted, Lori picked up a stool from the floor and sat down. Now, that he had time to catch his breath, the cold crept back through his damp clothing. With a sigh, he got to his feet again.
"Looks like I'm not finished yet... hm, my friend?" he said, half to himself. "I wouldn't want to risk my neck for you just to watch you die from pneumonia a few days later, would I?"
Slowly, careful not to wake him, Lori started to undress the sleeping foxhound. His uniform was soaked through and left Lori with little choice but to remove it completely. He hesitated for a moment before finally also removing the underwear. Whether he did it out of concern or curiosity, he could not say. In fact, he did not care.
That fennec was indeed handsome as he lay there naked on the bed, making the panther's manhood stir. For just one moment, he felt tempted. If he got out of this alive, he would probably be shot for treason, so why not have a little fun before that happened? He had saved his life after all... didn't that deserve a little reward?
Quickly, he turned his gaze and wrapped the fennec up in blankets. He would not take advantage of the boy like this, never. With a deep sigh, he set down on the other side of the bed, wrapped another blanket around his worn out body and lay down. Almost immediately he fell asleep, the past weeks' torment finally demanding it's tribute.
Lori did not know how much time had past when a strange sensation slowly but steadily brought him back to reality. His first thoughts were 'Please don't stop', even before he fully realized what was going on. His cock was standing to full attention, eagerly accepting the caresses a warm, moist muzzle was offering. The panther startled. Slowly coming to his senses, he remembered where he were. He tried to lie perfectly still, pretending to be still asleep. But as much as he tried, he could not prevent a low moaning from escaping his muzzle. Heat flooded through his body and the longing for what he had been denied for so long started to cloud his mind. Meanwhile, a foreign tongue had begun to expertly caress the tip of his shaft, sending bright sparks up his spine to explode behind his eyes. Barely suppressing his desire to thrust upwards, he finally opened his eyes.
Lori's breathing quickened as he now saw what he until now had only suspected. He was lying on his side, naked, and the fennec he had saved was lying besides him, his head busily working up and down Lori's throbbing manhood. The fennec's red headfur formed a lovely contrast to his own black shades. Slowly, not yet willing to give away the fact that he was awake, Lori turned his head. The other's body was of perfect proportions, not too slim and not with too many muscles, covered with soft, reddish fur. His shaft was fully erect as well, twitching with the rhythm of his efforts. Lori felt his own manhood twitch at the sight. He was so beautiful.
A soft groan he could no longer control escaped Lori's lips and immediately the licking stopped, exposing his wanting shaft to the cold air. Startled, the panther raised his head and his gaze met the fennec's, who just grinned at him and put a finger to his lips. "Shhhh...."
Tantalizingly slow, the foxhound resumed his task, lips sliding down his saviour's length. Lori sighed and from that moment, his reason was replaced by feral instinct. He turned his head again and with little effort wrapped his own lips around the fennec's hot shaft. The taste of his precum filled the panther's muzzle. Lori shivered and had to grab the sheets for support. As he remained like this for a moment, the fennec gently but firmly started to thrust into his muzzle, seeming just as wanting, just as needing as he himself. With both paws clawing the sheets, Lori began to lick along the length, sliding it in and out of his muzzle with each thrust. The fennec moaned loudly, obviously not caring whether anyone might hear them and Lori didn't either. Together, their groans built up in an ever growing crescendo until finally, they both reached their climax almost at the same time, filling each other's muzzle with copious amounts of long denied pleasure.
They lay there for what seemed like an eternity without making another sound, just listening to each other's breathing. The fennec had turned around and put his head to rest on the panther's chest. Lori felt sleep slowly reclaiming him and as he started to doze off again, he whispered, "It's been so long..." to which a warm and friendly voice replied, "I know."