That morning, through Marsala, the Lord of the Thundercats had said that he wanted to meet with him later that day -- and, the starry shades of evening drawing near, he hoped to reach the Imperial Tower not too late for comfort.He was as nervous and anxious as the average citizen might be but atop the usual feelings of uneasiness for him the situation had another dimension of dread.In his whole life he had never been so formally called on to see his father.And in all the previous times he had gone to see him, the Master of Activities was always there -- there to keep them apart, there to never let them touch.But not that night, that night they were to be alone together.

He rode the private turbo lift up to the office, feeling that searing pain between his eyes again.He had had pains like that in his head and face -- and nosebleeds too -- on and off for as far back as he could remember, but never had the symptoms come at the intensity nor at the frequency that they had been that day.Indeed, that whole week since his last doctor’s visit.

Thankfully, the car came to its stop and the jarring, bone-bending migraine ceased.Although relieved, he was in a foggy trance, his head hot and sweaty, his gait limp and uneven.It was the cold air of the empty lobby and a short rest on a couch that alleviated the lingering discomfort.

And with that, he rose to his feet and walked to the door of the Thunderian leader’s official chambers.

“Father?” Kara asked, knocking on the door frame, entering the darkened office in the boldness of renewed, naive vigor.“Father, you wanted to see me?”His eyes searched through the obscured details of the room but his gaze was transfixed on a small, fluorescent table-lamp.It was on and yet the vast chamber remained cast in shadow.“Father?” he pled, his voice trembled in the wake of pent-up fear.

An unseen chair creaked across the floor -- the sharp, atonal disturbance betrayed its location.“I am here, my son,” a gruff voice answered.It had come from a figure that stood and walked along side a set of rectangular windows.The blackened view of the universe unveiled was rivaled only by the abject darkness of the office.“We have much to discuss, Kara.”He paused to sigh.“You were in the underworld today -- I saw you.”

The lion-cub hung his head, uncertain how the old lion had known or what he had seen:“I’ve displeased you, father, I --”

“No, no.In a way, yes, it was a good thing that you went and came to know that place up close,” he paused -- no more than a few feet from his son and yet -- “it showed you the alternative to what you have up here.Down there, that’s the future you face, if you are not careful.”

“Would you banish me to that hell?” He looked up, shocked to notice just how close he was to the Lord of the Thundercats -- never before, to his memory, had he ever been so close to his sole surviving parent.Neither Marsala nor his father had allowed it.

“Kara,” he crept yet closer, “it isn’t I who’d do the banishing.”He lay his hands on the youth’s shoulder.“By the ancient, Amazonian traditions, you have come of age and so it is proper now that you have a larger role in the management of Metropolis.”He stopped for a moment, let go of the lion-cub and pressed his hands over his lips, covering his face.“You have to mate first --”

The youngster’s eyes widened.Standing, as he was, next to the semicircular table, gothic shadows outlined the contours of his face.“Mate?What are you talking about?”

“You must breed,” Phaeton answered, dryly.

“Why wasn’t I asked first?Why didn’t you --” he shook his head violently, reawakening that pain in his face, around his eyes.Thoughts, abhorrent thoughts of betraying Caesar came to his mind and he wished nothing more, nothing less that the whole idea -- “No.No!”

“You must do it.Marsala has already arranged it with a noble lion family that suits us.You know Agripina, don’t you?”

Kara staggered backward.Suddenly something that had happened earlier that day made sense to him.Too much sense.

“It is important that the mating be done as soon as possible.”He reached forward.“If you don’t do it now, then there’s a chance, a strong chance, that your children will be outcasts.”

“Throwbacks?”The pulsating stab at the bridge of his nose caused him to bleed from his nostrils.“Isn’t our line pure?”

Phaeton sighed.“We are prisoners, that’s what we are and I’m sorry, son.I tried to keep this from happening to you but all my efforts, all my years of planning have been failures.And at the end, even the strongest medicine couldn’t stop your true nature from advancing --”

Kara gulped, confident then more than ever before that his father new.

“When you become Lord of the Thundercats you will live here, in this office, in the shadows.You will move about only in the darkness.You will let no one near you.You will be close to no one, not your children, your wife, your friends.No one will ever see your face again.”

“That’s insane,” again he shook his head violently and again he staggered.“I don’t want that, I don’t want to live like you, father.”

“I know, I know,” it was he who hung his head that time, “but it’s for your own good.You and I are outcasts of the very society we claim master.But don’t you see -- Doctor Pallas told me about what you thought of your face,” he lifted his hand to Kara’s chin.“When you were down in the depths, did you feel a kinship with the throwbacks?”

“Father, you frighten me --”

“You should be afraid,” he said as he walked into the slant of bluish, fluorescent light of the lamp as if falling upon his sword.

“By Jagga!”

The lion-cub tried to turn away but Phaeton had grabbed hold of his shoulder and kept him at bay.

“This is your future,” he said, “this is why I sent you to all those doctors all your life.It’s more than just headaches -- it’s that inscription, that motto above the throne,” he pointed to the words-- something about the golden, glimmering inscription had an air of blood, fresh and oozing.

As his father rambled on, he studied the old lion’s face, a face once intimately familiar to him.Deformed, animalistic -- had it not been for his sleek, shrunken frame, the Lord of the Thundercats would have been no different from the very workers who toiled in the hot bowels of Third Earth.

“I don’t want to be lord!” Kara screamed aloud, shouting over his father, casting the die in a verbal spar.“I don’t want to rule -- the lies.I am a Thundercat, father and my code predates your precious --”

“Son, please,” the lord pleaded, “think about your future.If they ever knew, if they ever suspected --”

“Let Metropolis crumble and this satanic world order fall.There’s more to this life than this hell, I know it, I just know it.There has to be -- I’m in love with Caesar,” he let it out and the force of the weight removed made his sign in exhaustion.

Phaeton’s jaw shut tight with an audible click and for a moment or two the chamber resounded in absolute silence.He looked on aghast at what his son had revealed.He gasped and turned back to the shadows.“Kara,” his whispers echoed as he slunked into his secret room.“Kara,” his glossy, brown eyes shined with welled tears.

At last he vanished into the antechamber -- the door blending perfectly with the encasing walls -- and with that the young lion stood alone.