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It was a common occurrence in Muir Valley and El Portal that the sound of thunder could be heard rolling rhythmically off the valley walls. Rarely was it because of rain or thunderstorms. When it sounded, most of the Artaius visitors would be drawn to the source, familiar with the custom of life drums.

Back then, Lei was not familiar with it but was drawn to it anyway, curious as to what it was. She hadn't been on Muir much as it was considered enemy territory. She was still with the body sculpt and dye job of what Terrans would call a Bengal cat. She had been wandering around to get the lay of the land, no pun intended. If there was a chance to see this supposed Creator anywhere it was supposed to be his own planet. Lei was studying the town of El Portal and finding it crossly to her liking. Was she supposed to believe some idiot half Cains baseline created all this? Preposterous.

The city was built around the trees with ramps going up to balconies and into higher buildings that were suspended and supported between the trees. She liked the idea of climbing and the higher overlooks of the forest floor. Mirrors around the city bounced sunlight from the upper canopy to the forest floor to make up for the overshadowing of the buildings. The ground was the haven of parks and open air gathering places that were shielded equally well from wind and rain. Irrigation kept the forest floor damp enough, but not too wet to be able to sit on the ground or in some moss and delight in the scent of forest.

She liked the sun dappled decks and walkways of the city, purely against her will back then. Now? Things were different. She paused to allow herself to indulge in enjoying her surroundings. The booming life drums still held sway over the valley. They gave a rhythm to the city. She mingled in with the crowd. In the back of her mind she was forming katas to the beat of the drums and finding it easy to do. Boomer, as usual, was playing a fight or a battle. Back then, there had been a protest at the site of the circle of drums. The Artaius sat around the circle with their backs to the drummer. Drawn to the beat, she'd borne witness to the start of the breaking of her conditioning.

She hadn't known it at the time, but she'd come to Muir on the anniversary of the attack of Boomer's home world. She hadn't known about the customs of the life drums. She thought for a time that Boomer had done something wrong and was up there as a punishment. She hadn't known how close to being right she was. She did know that he hadn't been playing for pleasure. The look on his face made that plain. The grief etched there was what made her thing that he wasn't up there by choice. In that, she was wrong.

Back then, some young cub came up and threw something at Boomer. She remembered that it was some vegetable. Boomer seemed not to notice, concentrating on his playing. The only sound from him was an occasional quiet sob. She noted the tears. They were shared between the player and those that sat around him. She'd thought at the time that they were punishing him, forcing him to be up there. She hadn't realized He was punishing Them with his playing by reminding them of the lives that had been lost in the battle and the attack. The guilt of loss wracked player and listener equally. She had understood then the pain that went into the playing.

A female Artaius had gone up at one point and pleaded with Boomer to stop. Boomer seemed deaf to the worlds until the female had attempted to take the drumsticks. Boomer roared at her and one huge hand went up for a backhanded strike when HE stepped up and shouted at Boomer to stop. He froze. Lei got her first look at her mark as the Creator strode through the crowd and looked up at the Artaius female with a stern face. He demanded she give the sticks back to Boomer and informed her that he was to play. He then turned his attention to the rest of the Artaius sitting around the circle and cleared his throat.

"If you don't like that he's playing, you may leave." He said it like a threat. An uneasy ripple went around the circle. Lei scoffed, and did something she considered a cardinal sin; she caught someone's attention.

An elder Artaius gentleman looked down at her. She could see that the fur on his face was damp from quiet tears. Up in the circle, the female had given the sticks with a strangled sob back to Boomer. The elder spoke to her.

"You disagree with this?" It was less a question and more a confirmation of an opinion. Caught with the attention, Lei cursed under her breath and nodded, hoping it wouldn't cause MORE attention. She decided it was better to blend in by playing along.

"He's punishing them and forcing him to play." She said with a needlessly feigned disgust. "It seems cruel to me." The elder looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and nodded.

"It is cruel." The elder agreed. "For the soldier to do this to himself every year, let alone the rest of us. It goes against the custom." Lei paused. Himself? The Creator wasn't doing this To him?

"What custom?" Lei asked to give herself a chance to catch up with the situation.

"The drums are meant to be played to celebrate a life. Each one that he plays up there is a life drum." The elder motioned to the circle of drums. More than one hundred by a glance. "They each represent a life, a person. They are played to honor the person they are made after. However, he doesn't play the drums for how they lived, but rather, how they died."

Lei looked again. He was a soldier then? She could see it, then. He wasn't just fit because he played all one hundred plus drums. He pounded out rhythm and was barely breathing hard. His build was firm and hard. She could see the tell tale signs of scars under his fur. This one hadn't Just suffered, he suffered Still. But he stood tall and straight as he beat the drums. She could hear it now that she knew what to listen for. He was playing a battle. Each blow on a drum was a blow landed by the one it was made for.

"The Creator allows this?" She asked softly, trying not to draw any more attention, but curious by the situation. The elder nodded.

"The Creator was a soldier too. He understands Boomer's pain. He thinks that Boomer should do this to help lay his family and friends to rest, but it does not. The Creator thinks it honors the fallen. He's partially right and partially wrong. He does honor Boomer though."

Lei looked around to find the Creator again to see if he was gloating. But when she found him, he was standing rigidly at attention, a look of loss and suffering on his own face. His right hand was over his heart.

She didn't want to acknowledge the truth of the elders words, but she could find no reason to think otherwise. She didn't know the Great Lady's husband then. She just wanted to hate him to make her own job easier.

How things had changed.

Now she still mingled with the crowd. She still watched from a distance. But Boomer bore more scars now; her fault and crime. Hers to atone for. It was not for her to cause needless suffering. She was abhorrent to the notion. She grieved with him, for she knew what those drums were. She knew what they Meant. She knew what he played. She saw the footage from that battle. Boomer Did honor the fallen at the cost of his own grief and pain. He honored their valor. He honored their sacrifice. Lei swallowed. He punished himself and his failure with their memory.

She made her way up to a ledge two levels above the drums. She wanted to be able to view it from above, to see him in the circle. She wanted to bear witness to his grief when it caused him to stop finally. When she listened, it was with the respect he had for those lives lost. She understood why the Creator allowed this.

But the elders words still stuck with her. And it bothered her.

Quietly, she bounded to a nearby branch big enough for her to walk on. She landed lightly and shook not a leaf onto the circle. She stalked slowly around above him, lost in thought. Boomer was below her, moving in a cycle of rage and pain, beating out the memory of the battle in the beats of the drums. His motions were a storm contained in that circle. They gusted around from drum to drum, each part of the memory played out. The tears came later and later as he played. But they still came.

She watched and knew it was coming. The pain became too much, the memory of loss too close to present. The sticks slowed. Then stopped. Then dropped from his unknowing hands. Lei dropped down quietly as you please just outside the circle and entered. Respectfully, she picked up the sticks and went to Boomer. She was little more than half his size. It didn't matter. She took one of his big hands in her own and rubbed them on her cheek. There was nothing else she could do, and in truth, nothing else that was needed. Boomer had never had anyone to sob to before and it was such a new and unknown thing to him that it was one of the few things that broke him out of those memories. He sat down cross legged in the circle and slumped.

Lei gently laid the sticks in his lap and went around behind him. It was also a new thing, to trust someone back there. She rubbed up and down his back soothingly with her hands. After a while, she went around front and just held him, comforting a friend with a shared experience. Her way of saying "I am here" to him in a way he'd understand. And he did, for he sobbed quietly onto the top of her head.

After a while, she got antsy about being watched by so many people. She nudged Boomer on the bottom of the chin and looked up at him. His brown eyes were still wet from tears. She nudged her head toward the tarps that he used to cover the drums. He looked at them blankly for a moment and then looked back at her and nodded. He got up and untangled himself from her.

Once free of him, Lei leapt over the drum circle and grabbed the side of one tarp and leapt up over the circle again. She carefully tied the tarp down to the drum stands and went on to the next tarp. Boomer had a third that he was working on. She got her second set tied down and walked over to collect his sticks. She ran the pads of her finger paws over the carved images that were on the sticks to study them and commit them to memory. She already knew the weight and balance of them. In her hands, the sticks were just as much weapon as instrument. She looked up to Boomer, but he seemed lost in his own memories again. He'd stopped tying the tarps over and was just staring at one of the drums.

Thankfully, Lei noticed that the locals around were giving the big Artaius space to put the drums away. Most of the tourists also understood that this set was not for public use. There was no applause for the playing. She kept the sticks for the moment and went to the fourth tarp to tie it down. Then she went back to him and took the last tarp and tied it down. Boomer seemed to start as if waking from a dream. She understood what that meant. She grabbed him gently by the hand and started to walk him back to his dwelling.

"Thank you." came the soft rumble as they walked. Lei just nodded at him. But she also turned up to look at him.

"When do you play for yourself?" She asked him. Boomer paused in walking for a second thinking about it.

"I.." He paused again. Lei nodded at him.

"You should play for joy again." she said softly to him. "I think your fallen family would want you to."

Boomer stopped walking and the breath went out of him. The look he favored Lei with was someone haunted with the ghosts of memories. "I... Lei, I can't."

She didn't answer that. She wouldn't because she wouldn't believe that he lacked the ability. Her ears laid back at the thought of it. She felt him flinch at her. She half growled under her breath and suppressed it, but her tail twitched and then lashed. Boomer's head dropped.

"Sorry.." He mumbled, thinking he'd upset her. He himself hadn't. Lei, however, didn't have the words to explain that. She did the next best thing. She took his hand and rubbed her cheek on it again. But her ears were still laid back and her eyes narrowed. Boomer understood. He started walking again. This was not a conversation that was over, nor a battle she would walk away from.