Redhawk Caldera Vessel

"DAD!! PLEASE!!"

He'd been resting, but he recognized the plea the moment he heard it and his head snapped up. In an instant, he rose to his feet and gazed up the incline toward the Plateau. He and @Killdeer had made it this far, and he felt himself beginning to fade a little bit. He wondered if Killdeer noticed- though he had said nothing thus far about just how much he'd grown. 

He was himself- the way Killdeer would have remembered from his youth- but without any scars or injuries. 

"We have to go, now!" He bugled, and began to race up the incline. He rushed with haste that lent wings to his heels, and with the effort, he sent little pebbles flying from every kick of his paws. With each bound, he felt himself growing stronger, more corporeal; he was practically glowing as he crested the final ridgeline and began to bolt toward the mossy Rendez-vous site. 

He heard something roar- and recognized it as belonging to the macabre, striped panther that had ultimately caused his demise. "No no no no no!" He panted on every exhale, pleading an begging with anyone, anything that was listening- to give him enough time to save them. 

When he arrived, he saw no sign of the tiger- but his son lay on the ground, his eyelids fluttering, shuddering in paroxysms of terror. It was a dream- but it was a dream that reeked of sulfur. 

Without any hesitation, he leapt for his son- and sank in, heavily, fighting his way through the thick, hazy mist that had no doubt kept his son from awakening. 

The tiger leapt, reaching for his son with outstretched limbs. Bronco threw all of his weight toward it, assuming it might simply disappear like a puff of mist- only to find himself slamming into something that rattled and clacked like an articulated skeleton of brittle bones. 

The tiger's physical disguise remained, but once Bronco had rolled clear, he regarded the panther with a widened gaze. 

That wasn't the tiger that had killed him- but it was someone he had fought before. 

It lifted its head and levelled him with a honey-hued stare. A small, faint smirk of amusement gleamed in those eyes. She looked through him and into their shared history, to the day when he had failed so miserably to protect himself- a day that had caused him to refuse to fight in future altercations. Now he was right back to being at her mercy again, and he knew that mercy was not something she was capable of knowing. 

When the tiger growled again, he felt as though it was laughing. It turned its gaze back toward Ponyboy again, whose mortified expression flicked between the two of them. 

He moved to bar his mother's view of Ponyboy, and snarled in spite of the fear that prickled the fur along his spine. He wasn't sure now, which he feared more- the behemoth of a tiger, its sides aflame with light, or the honeyed eyes of his mother that regarded him with glittering glee.