Leopard 02 - Wild Rain

She slashed an onion until it was nothing but sauce.
    “I’m certainly not evil, my dear. I may have made one or two mistakes in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever been evil.”
    She shrugged. “I suppose passing that sort of judgment is all subjective. It depends on the point of view. You don’t think you’re evil, but someone else may very well think you’re the devil incarnate.”
    Delgrotto paused to watch in fascination as the knife chopped through the remainder of the vegetables so fast her movements were a blur. “I suppose that’s true. If one turns the view even slightly, there is always a different slant. Where were you raised? You are obviously one of us.”
    Her hands stilled and she looked up at him. There was a moment of silence. Only the sound of the rain on the roof could be heard. Even the wind stilled, holding its breath. Delgrotto glimpsed the fury in her eyes. In her heart. “I am not one of you. I will never be one of you. I don’t like people who play god, not in this life, and not in any other life.”
    “Is that what you think we did?” His voice was gentle.
    Rachael dropped the knife and put distance between them, going to the door and staring out into the darkness. She didn’t trust herself or her over-the-top fury with this man who had presumed to judge Rio so harshly. She would like the old man to meet her uncle, to show him what true evil was.
    Rachael took a deep calming breath. Her bad temper was beginning to affect the small leopard under the bed. Fritz snarled and showed his teeth, but remained still. She looked down at the forest floor.
    Somewhere out there Rio ran, flat out, expending every drop of energy he had, risking his life to save the life of the child. And the child’s grandfather had condemned him to a life of banishment.
    “You think we take advantage of Rio.” There was no inflection whatsoever in his voice, no anger, no denial. No remorse.
    “Of course you take advantage of him. You’re doing it now, aren’t you? You came here knowing he wouldn’t hesitate. Knowing he would risk everything for your grandson. You knew what his nature was when you condemned him, yet you did it anyway. You put the yoke of service around his neck and kept him chained to a society, to a people who used him, but weren’t willing to associate with him or lift a finger to help him. You need him and what he’s able to do, but you don’t want him to taint your perfect society.”
    Tears burned in her eyes. She kept her back to him and her fists clenched tightly at her sides while the anger swirled in a black knot in her stomach. “He was injured often, I’ve seen the scars. He must have been so alone and depressed at times. You left him to live always feeling ashamed and not good enough no matter what he did. And all the time you knew what he was on the inside. You knew his true nature.”
    Fritz emerged from under the bed and rubbed along her leg, wrapping his tail around her. He glared at the elder, hissed and spit before slipping out into the night. Rachael caught a glimpse of Franz waiting in the shadows of the canopy.
    “Yes, I did know him,” Delgrotto admitted.
    She could hear the sounds of him dumping vegetables into the broth, but she didn’t turn around, disgusted that she was in the same house with him. “Power is a strange thing. It seems so innocent on the surface, yet it twists and corrupts until the user is no longer anything but a weapon.” There was a lash of contempt in her voice.
    “It does seem so when viewed from a distance,” Delgrotto said mildly. “Yet just as you observed, turn the view slightly and you see something else. Rio stood before the entire village. Not just the council.
    He was young and strong and filled with power. He was covered in the blood of the man whose life he took.”
    “He was covered in his mother’s blood.” Rachael whipped around to face him, her dark eyes flashing.
    Delgrotto nodded, conceding her point. “That is true also. Rio had skills far beyond his years. He was an expert marksman even as a young boy. Few of our strongest men could defeat him in the mock battles we have. He was popular with the young crowd, everyone looked up to him. And he violated our most sacred law. We work at teaching our children that hunters did not come into our forests, our home, with the intention of committing murder. We eat meat, and we kill animals to eat it. They hunted for fur. This man did not stalk and kill Violet