The Yule Log RPG

[Tevildo]

It was not the strange words of the two-leggeds that wakened Tevildo, nor the ocean of darkness that had by now masked the forest floor. He slept on, curled in a tight ball at the bottom of the satchel, seemingly oblivious to the dense cloud of fear that encircled their heads in this small piece of Arda. Tevildo had lived too long in the fortress of Melkor. Although cats are not natural agents of evil, their fëar have often been blighted by living constantly near shadows so that Tevildo, like many of his kindred, was no longer able to sniff out the right from the wrong as quickly and boldly as his two hosts had done.

Still. in his heart, Tevildo was all cat, the bad and the good intermingled, a creature of grace and beauty who faithfully followed the instincts that had been planted in his heart when the music of creation was sung. And those instincts were still quite strong. Predictably then, the slobbering and soft yips of the hound were what roused him from the bottom of the satchel. He pushed his head up and peered outside. He did not like the shadow creature. Yet he was singularly exempt from the fear that held sway over the dog and the two-leggeds. It was simply not in his nature to be afraid of shadows. They are too much a part of any cat's world.

What unsettled him most was the dog. Where had that dratted animal come from? For one moment, Tevildo considered defecting to the opposition. He had done that on more than one occasion when the odds did not look terribly good. At least, the shadow thing had enough sense not to bring a dog with him. And in all his many lives, Tevildo had never agreed to work in tandem with any hound. But the hard memory of what the torturer had done to his young kinsmen and the realization that the shadow creature had become even more demented in the intervening years made him reluctant to switch sides.

For now, he decided, he would remain tucked in the pack, but keep a close eye on the situation. Mori and Stamo could perhaps handle things on their own as long as the dog did not stupidly get in their way. If events deteriorated and the shadow thing threatened to devour them, he could emerge from his hideaway and throw his expertise as a creature of semi-darkness against Melkor's old servant. Tevildo was so calm that not even his fur stood on end. Poking his head out, he surveyed the surrounding landscape with the calm eyes of a hunter, while all the while his tail flicked menacingly back and forth inside the confines of the small satchel.