579 Family
Pearl felt lonely.
Ever since his only family, Alex, decided to leave him, he had felt lonely. When he had asked why Alex had left him, they told him that this was not his world and that he left for his.
His world was with the humans and they were his family, so he had to go back to his family. Pearl thought he was his family.
Was he not his family then?
The big puma was quite scary, and while the jaguar tried to not act scary, he still was. The jaguar sister made him feel loved, but she couldn't be with him all the time.
He liked the training and the cultivation during the start because Alex was there was to praise him. But now it just felt like a chore.
He no longer got the free time to simply stay around being a normal little cat, like he wished to do so these days.
He missed the days when he could just endlessly sleep in Alex's beast space. He didn't have to fight, cultivate, or learn to speak. He missed that.
He wished the grandmother cat would tell them all to leave him alone and let him do what he wanted to, but she didn't do that. She was rarely ever around these days.
She had told him she was his family. Then why was she not here for him? Did she lie to him?
Was he not her family as well?
Pearl felt lonely. And, in his loneliness, there was only one person he could go to meet.
Somebody who would never stop being his family. His mother.
By now, he had remembered the way to the open area of the cave where his mother stayed in. Or so they said, but she never really talked back.
Were they lying? Where was his mother even?
He had a vague memory of a smile on the face of a big cat that licked him while he was hurting all over the body.
That was, from what his memories told him when he met Alex the first time. He had no recollection of a time before that.
Was that cat his mother? He liked to believe so.
He reached the big stone stuck onto the ground that had something written on it. Writing, the jaguar sister had taught him a little about it.
But he couldn't read this language. This was not the writing he had been taught. Would she teach him this next? He didn't mind if it meant spending some time with her.
He did like her quite a lot.
Pearl crouched in front of the big stone and started meowing. He told his mother about how boring the training this morning was.
There wasn't anyone in the palace that could fight him now, so they had brought in stronger people. But they never fought seriously, and would always win against him.
He already didn't like fighting, and fighting someone that didn't fight seriously was very boring.
Pearl told her mother that he was bored and didn't want to go cultivate after this.
He waited for her to answer, but he could never hear her. The old Grandmother cat could hear his mother speak, then why couldn't he?
She probably spoke, but I just wasn't able to hear it, was what Pearl thought every time he listened to the silence.
He continued speaking with his mother, occasionally stopping for her to reply.
One of these times, she would speak, and he would hear her. He was sure about it.
So, he spoke to her again. He told her he felt lonely. He just wanted someone to be with him, call him by his name.
He just wanted to be with his family.
He waited for his mother to speak, but as always, she never di—
"Pearl!"
Someone suddenly called out his name. Pearl looked up with a surprised look on his face, trying to find his mother who had just called out his name. However, she wasn't there.
He then turned around and looked behind him to see a man standing there.
Did this man just call him? How did he know his name? He didn't think he had met the man before.
After all, when did he meet a man with short hair that was missing an arm? Never.
But, this feeling he was having. This was familiar.
"Pearl!" the man spoke with slight tears in his eyes.
Pearl decided to give in to the feeling and ask. "Meow!"
Alex smiled. "Yes, yes it's me," he said. "I came to save you."
"Meow!" Pearl got happy when he realized it was Alex but then cocked his head. Save me? He asked. Save me from what?
"Meow?" he asked.
"Save you from these beasts. They are trying to hurt you, so I came to take you away," he said.
"Tyek Mi?" Pearl tried to speak in human language, but he just couldn't speak it properly yet.
"Yes, I came to take you," Alex smiled with tears when he heard him speak.
"MEOW!" Pearl meowed harshly. Lies, he said. These beasts had never done anything to hurt him. They always treated him like he was the best. The only one who hurt him was in fact Alex himself, by leaving him.
"Meow!" Pearl told him. You left me, why did you leave me? He asked.
"I didn't leave you. They kicked me out of this place, and I couldn't find my way back," Alex said.
Pearl stopped talking and cocked his head again. "Riallee?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," Alex said. "Did they tell you that I left?"
"Yes," Pearl said, finally pronouncing something correctly.
"They lied. You are my family, I would never leave you," Alex said as he walked ahead and knelt next to Pearl before taking him in his arm in a one-handed hug.
"Meow?" Family? He asked.
"Yes," Alex said.
"Meow!" Pearl hugged him too as he let him know that he missed him.
Alex felt tears flowing down his eyes as he finally managed to reach Pearl. "Come, we need to leave now, or they will separate us again," he said.
"Meow," Pearl agreed. He wasn't sure why they were trying to kick out Alex, but whatever the reasoning was, Pearl wouldn't question it.
However… "Meow~" he asked. He wanted to know what would happen to this place after he left. As far as he remembered, this place needed him. Or so they told him.
"We don't need to worry about that for now. We don't have the time to," Alex said.
"Meow!" Pearl was ready to leave as well.
Alex stood up and turned around to leave, but suddenly, he felt a wave of spiritual sense go past him, most of which seemed to have been destroyed somehow.
In the next moment, a gust of air rose in front of Alex as three figures appeared.
There was the puma, the jaguar, and surprisingly a cheetah beast that Alex hadn't seen before.
However, given that it was giving off the aura of a Saint realm, he didn't dare underestimate him.
"Who are you?" they all got angry at once seeing Pearl in his hands. "Leave him at once!"
A wave of pressure came crashing onto Alex that only tried to crush him while keeping Pearl safe.
Alex however didn't fumble in this pressure. Instead, he simply stared back at them, with anger in his eyes.
