KHAOL'S TAGS AND STROAGE

[KHAOL CORATIO]

wow his history

born with no warmth, no nuzzles or kissed, no cheers for the first times. khaol was birthed, and then left partly buried in the dirt alongside his stillborn siblings. there was no kindness, no love, no nurturing or care. no mother or father. khaol was alone. it was only by chance that a creature came across him, though it was in search of prey, it found the half-buried panther cub instead. it'd believed khaol to be dead, it'd planned to eat his corpse. it wasn't the creatures fault, the creature was a scavenger. a hyena. it was only once it'd picked the cub up did the hyena realize that it was alive, that it was breathing. the cub, khaol, had begun to cry and whine, pitiful sounds escaping it's jaws and filling the silence of the forest around them. khaol had yearned for only warmth and food at that time, the hyena had been kind enough to give that to him.

with the cub in his jaws, the hyena had wondered back to his pack, a strange assortment of various animals. cats, dogs, wolves, lions, there were even dragons that would ocassionally stop in. perhaps this was a clan. perhaps it was a group of random animals just looking for a way to live, khaol never found out the truth. three months had gone by smoothly. not a single problem to note. khaol had become part of a family, a large one. they were kind to him, they healed him when he was injured or sick, they trained him, fed him, taught him to walk and talk, even if he'd developed a strange mix of accents because of it. they were the family he'd never had, and, they had sworn to protect them until the day they died.

they fulfilled their promise.

khaol had been out on his first hunt, a tiger was accompanying him. though that tiger was also a traitor. it was during this hunt that a rebellion had begun, a smaller faction within the group overthrowing and murdering those that didn't support their cause. he can still remember it. khaol returned to camp, a prideful smile on his lips with his first prey beneath his teeth. the prey didn't stay there for long. when he saw the massacre that had passed through his home, he was left in shock. blood, fur, extremeties, they were scattered across the area, though the one body that caught his attention was the one of the hyena. the hyena he could only remember calling mother. he'd stood by the side of her still body, tears glazed his golden green eyes.

the tiger that had accompanied khaol on his first hunt pushed the cub. the child slamming his face into a pool of his foster mothers blood. he can still clearly see it some nights in his dreams. the red that leaked into his eyes and dried onto his face. he'd never felt truly clean again after that. not really. even now he still feels as if that blood is there, as if that same sticky fluid is clinging to the fur on his face. that night was a night he would never truly forget. the night the ground became red. the night he was betrayed. the night he lost everything that had ever mattered to him. the night khaol had lost himself.

in a hasty movement, khaol had run. fled the scene of his decaying friends and family, fled from the grasp of his captors. though the words of one of them remained in his mind, "we will meet again." khaol wished that wasn't true, but it was. for the fourth month of his life, the cub lived alone. he travelled all over, hunting and foraging, fighting and killing. his eyes hadn't been the same since that night. they held emotions that'd never previously corellated with the child. hatred, anger, regret, they were eyes that hungered for one thing, vengence. they were the eyes of a killer in the making.

it was towards the end of his fourth month that it began again. the pain in his heart would rise once more, for he was met with the tigers eyes once again. he'd been attacked, a matter of territory and a shortage of food. khaol had been beaten and left in a bloody pile. this was a life of kill or be killed, be strong or be dead, this was a world where it didn't matter how old you were, if you were a threat in any way, you were fair game. khaol was no exception. it was when he was in this beaten, bloody mess that he saw those eyes once again, their colour similar to his own. "i told you." the words were whispered in his ear before the boy blacked out.

he was brought back to their camp, inevitably. it was a temporary camp, a perimeter set to only last them a few days tops. and since the last time khaol had seen them, they had grown in numbers. a boy, about five months old had been stationed to sit by khaol's side. to protect for but also against him. when khaol had awakened the boy had smiled, but khaol had not. he was brought before a councel of warriors, all in different shapes and forms of different genders and backgrounds. they'd observed him, made him fight, and when satisfied, they'd clamped a golden band around his ankle and declared him theirs. that was when his slavery had begun.

khaol did many things. he killed, plundered, stole, he entertained and he ran and he did as he was told. but each time he showed any sort of rebellion, he was zapped. electrocuted until he'd pass out and then shaken awake again. if he misbehaved still, he was tortured. scars on top of scars still line his chest and stomach as well as the insides of his legs. they weren't allowed to harm him where it could be seen, he was an entertainer, he needed to look good. at least, that was their logic. though there was one thing that kept khaol together. the same boy that he'd refused to smile at in the beginning soon became his only reason to smile.

the serval would often sneak to khaol's sleeping spot in the dead of the night and wake him up to tell him a new joke he'd thought of, or a prank he wished to play some day. khaol could not remember how it had started, but he was glad it had. he awaited the serval's visits each night, waiting to listen to his new jokes or his fantastical stories and ideas. that serval became khaol's ray of hope. he'd begun to smile again, begun to laugh, he'd learned how to make jokes. the feeling he got whenever he'd manage to make the serval laugh, well, perhaps what khaol had felt back then was love.

there was one moment khaol would always remember. it was a cool night. he was six months old at the time. he'd somewhat grown used to his vicious routine, to the atrocities that he was forced to commit. in a way he'd figured out how to close his mind off from it, to ignore the things he did. the serval never brought it up either, he was kind like that. "khaol," khaol had perked his ears at the soft whisper in his ear, "khaol if you ever get out of here, i want you to smile more. i want you to smile all the time. i want you to laugh and make friends, i want you to make something of yourself. i want you to spread the same joy to others as you give to me, you hear?" the speech had been out of the blue and khaol had been shocked but he'd nodded nonetheless. "i promise." he'd said it with a certain sort of finality.

two and a half months later, their escape plan had been underway. though what they hadn't accounted for was a spare guard that night as they fought to leave the place that had kept khaol in chains for so long. the serval had told khaol to keep running, and in fear for his life, he had. he'd kept running, even when the screams of his lover had reached his ears in the dead of the night. even when his eyes had blurred so much he could no longer see. he'd kept running until he'd passed out from exhaustion. grief clinging to his mind like a fog. the next morning he'd vowed two things, to never run away again, and to never break his promise.