A Little Opera Goes A Long Way

. . .


Sliverback felt her heart hammering away inside her chest. This was-this was ridiculous! She never lost her cool! She hadn't felt like this - well - not since Bane. But that was different. Of course that would always be different. - This times the feelings were accompanied by a sort of shyness and pricklepaw wariness was that completely unlike her. And all of that - buried underneath a mountain of surprise and relief and shock that couldn't rivaled that very peak in height. Her chest rose and fell visibly with the power of all these crazed emotions, but somehow, somehow her face remained cat-like and serene. Her grey-green eyes were the only truth-tellers, shining bright enough to rival the blossoming of the dawn.

As her eyes basked in his glowing form, her ears drank in his words and her soft pink nose brought her his scent. It was feline. Purely feline. Like her - and yet, very different. He too smelled of ice and pine, but it was a different land and a different life. Was he her equal in emotion and soul and experience? Or, perhaps, was he more? She stared at him with open curiosity, unable at first to answer his purred question. No wait. He hadn't asked a question. He'd just said hello. Yes yes. that was it. What was she thinking?

"Hello yourself," she purred, coming off smoothly enough, but with that surprise and curiosity still glinting in her eyes and making her voice even softer than usual. "You're so casual, oh King of the Mountain, is it not a surprise to you to see one such as yourself?" She blinked in shyness that was half sincere. "Here I had begun to think myself the last of the leopards." Had that all been just an exaggeration? An unwarranted fear? A nightmare now to be forgotten?