Asali was still uncertain what to think of the news Neemu had brought to her - that her family had followed her to these lands, that he wanted them to stay together no matter what cheetah society said was right. As excited as she was to see her brother, as excited as she was at the idea that her sister and other brothers were somewhere near... she was unusually reticent. Did Neemu really know what he was doing? He was a male, after all, and of all the things that entailed the chiefest was that he was naturally inclined toward a highly social nature. It was normal for males to want to stick close. It was only when a female wanted to that it became disgraceful. It was, after all, considered the next thing to a sexual perversion, because wasn't a female willingly putting herself and her brothers in a bad position by living so closely together when she went through heat cycles? Could he really understand that? Yet she couldn't deny that she wanted more than anything to stay together with her siblings, and only the deepest and most dire teachings of her cubhood had allowed her to walk away from the temptation in the first place. So as she often did when she was greatly troubled, she went looking for trouble rather than dwell on it.
A hunt might be just what the doctor ordered to burn through some excess energy, but she'd grown too familiar with her dry western plains for them to successfully distract her mind, so she took her hunt farther afield.
The leggy cat prowled through these new plains with caution, holding a healthy respect for the snakes that were unusually abundant here. This was a much more verdant land than those she was used to, both in her homeland and in the western regions of Alacratia she'd been inhabiting so far. She could also smell a great deal more of those furry canines, wolves, than she'd seen in the west. It seemed they were less suited for those lands than she was, and chose to reside in more humid areas like this. Well, the prey here was similar, anyway, with the muledeer and hares she'd begun to grow used to, and none of them used to escaping something as fast and agile as a cheetah at full sprint. She stepped blithely over the pack's borders, not recognizing the scent warnings for what they were, though even if she had she would have done the same thing. Cheetahs were not bound by wolf law, and she'd laugh at any who tried to tell her otherwise. Let them just try to catch her to punish her for some perceived transgression! She was no dog, to follow dog rules and to stay away simply because a dog peed on the ground somewhere and they'd be fools to think otherwise.
She allowed her jaw to drop open, to better allow the scents to flow over her olfactory glands. There - that one was close by. The scent was hot and thick as it filled her nose. The winter had not been so hard on this deer as it had for many, and he was healthy and fast and so he'd managed to evade the hungry wolves who could not match his speed. They could not, but she could more than do so. No sooner had she spotted the muledeer she'd scented, a young buck with a branch broken off one side of his horns, she was off. Her dulled claws flexed into the snow showing the same dexterity as a normal cat but less obviously without the fleshy sheaths for them to emerge from, propelling her into instant action. The deer was off mere seconds later, sprinting in a crazed zig-zag pattern, but Asali was faster despite the hindering snow, her dark rangy body a blur as she raced him. Her body undulated, long legs eating up the distance with every stride, her propulsion so fast and so powerful that often all four paws were off the ground at the same time. She drew along side and all in an instant she took the lead, leaping for his throat.
A flurry of fur and limbs and snow as the deer tripped and they rolled together with her teeth locked on his throat. He kicked and flailed, rolling as he sought to rid himself of the heavy, choking encumbrance. Asali winced as he rolled over top of her, but his relatively light weight did little more than bruise her where it shoved her down against unforgiving stones that littered the ground beneath the cushioning snow. She didn't release her grip on his throat, just ground her jaws together harder, and clung to him with dull claws as his struggles weakened as his oxygen-starved brain slowly shut down. Continued to hold him after his kicks had ceased, until the blood pumping through the arteries so close to her teeth slowed, and finally stopped. She'd once had the disappointment of letting go of a limp antelope only to have it leap to its feet and run off as soon as oxygen once more reached its brain, so she'd learned long ago to wait until the heart stopped beating to let go.
This hunt was far more successful than that one had been. When she finally wiggled out from under the body, a delighted grin bared her fangs, and a purr vibrated in her deep chest. She shook off the snow on her thin, dark coat, but a faint sound caught her attention, and her somewhat round head rotated to peer toward the sound. "Ni mtu huko?" she called out, amusement coloring her tone.
"" |
