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“Can I help you?” It’s a courteous question, and it catches me off-guard more than scares me.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there.”
The questioner is a Leonid, wearing a lot of armor of the same kind and color as the gate. Rock gray, thick plates from head to toe. There’s just a little fuzz here and there sticking out between them, and I’m tempted to think that is cute. He reminds me of Buttface, and I don’t know why.
He does not carry a gun, but he does carry several swords. Some are strapped to his back, and there’s two at his waist. I can’t imagine why he needs that many swords. Surely one is enough, or two if you really need a spare.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m selling cookies, but I think I’ve landed on the wrong planet.”
The guard looks at me curiously. “Cookies?”
“Well, they’re back at the ship, and to be honest, they’re probably on fire. Most of the ship is pretty, you know, on fire. Or at least, it was when I left it. Might have exploded by now.”
I am good at babbling like an idiot. Comes from years of living by myself. I usually try to put a lid on it, but in this situation it feels about right to just keep talking.
“I’m trying to help my troupe go on a camping trip, but we need to afford personal locator beacons because it’s illegal to take dozens of children into the asteroidal woods without security anymore. So we have to sell the cookies, but do the girls want to sell the cookies? They don’t. They’re busy. You have no idea how much school they have to attend these days…”
“Stop,” he says.
I stop and look at him with my blankest stare. He is looking me up and down with some confusion, but not fear and not concern. Kain was right, I am not a threat to these creatures.
“Come with me.” He crooks a gloved, armored finger at me.
It’s really that easy to get into the Den. I feel briefly triumphant as the great doors open just a crack, swinging surprisingly smoothly. There’s no grinding of stone or cranking of gears. There’s nothing I’d expect to hear from such a massive structure.
I enter, my backpack clutched over my shoulder. I do not know what I expect to see. Perhaps a contingent of hostile Leonids waiting for me.
Instead, what I find is irrelevance. My presence in this city does not raise a stir, because this is a place too large for stirs to be raised. Unlike the pride lands, which are sparsely populated in a naturalistic style, this is a true city.
Carved into the cleft of two mountains, there are hundreds, if not thousands of buildings and homes, all made after a somewhat Gothic aesthetic. Columns and lion heads are absolutely everywhere, creating the unsettling illusion that one is being lunged at near constantly by vicious predators.
Massive waterfalls make their way down the craggy mountains, spilling between buildings to make their way down to what must be a sinkhole lake of some kind, because this kind of water is not visible in the dry pride land. The center of the city is a verdant green jungle, spreading out for what seems to be miles. I have a wonderful view from the gate, for the entire city seems to have been carved down into the earth, a series of concentric circles creating distinct inner districts.
“Wow!” I exclaim. “This is a really nice place you’ve got here.”
There are tens of thousands of Leonids here. I can see them walking the stone paths that wind between the many districts and buildings. There are not many around the gates, but that seems to be because nobody has any interest in leaving. And why would they? This truly seems like a wild yet civilized paradise.
At first distracted by the waterfalls and jungles, my eye is eventually and inextricably drawn to the very end of the city, where the largest building of all seems to draw all things toward it. This building is a great cathedral of leonine dominance and despair, and it looms in the way only a building constructed from pain and suffering can loom. I feel a shudder running through me even at this distance. That is where Leonidas resides, I am absolutely sure of it.
It is beginning to occur to me on a very deep level that getting in here was never the problem. Getting out of here might be practically impossible. But I have some tricks up my sleeve, because of course, my pack is not filled with cookies. It’s filled with EMP charges designed to knock Leonidas’ tech offline and give the brothers a chance to strike.
This means I have to go toward the stronghold itself. I have to allow myself to be arrested and taken into the dungeons. I am scared half to death, which helps because it makes me look nervous and guilty. Which I am, but not for the reasons the Leonid guard probably expects.
He leads me into a guard post near the gate. I was hoping to be taken right into Leonidas’ stronghold, but I suppose nothing is going to go as I plan, as per usual.
I try my best to be brave, remembering the solid, furry weight of the cubs who are waiting for me to bring their moms back. They’re the reason I have to be brave.
“Let me see the cookies,” the guard says. “And tell me what a human is doing so far from any human colonies.”
I tighten my grip on my bag and do my best to completely bamboozle him. “Well, you know, times are tough on the human colonies. Literally, when are they not? So, I bought into this cookie business and I thought I’d expand into some new territories.”
“Leonids are carnivores.”
“Yes. But you could be cookievores,” I say. “Eh? Huh? Don’t you think?”
I am channeling a peddler who used to drop by the asteroid when my family was still alive. She never gave up on any sale, and my grandmother bought a lot of things she didn’t strictly need just to keep the woman in business. I was always astonished by her gift of the gab.
“I’ve got chocolate, and I’ve got meat,” I say. “Meat chocolate. For the carnivore. Humans like milk chocolate, but you guys are Meat. Eaters? Am I right?”
