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Travels in Circles was well and truly lost (which was really no different from any other day) except that as he turned to and fro, he became aware of one rather intense gaze. He turned his head slowly until he (finally--after deciding the gaze was not his own reflection) found himself staring at an exotic beast. The tan coat of the beast was spotted, two darker lines drew down from its eyes, while the tail was striped--and the feet seemed muddied (1). Definitely not a kimeti or an eaglehound (he did know what those looked like, his mother had one after all).

"Pretty--" he paused, not entirely sure what it was. It had the tail of an owlcat, the head of a--something that wasn't an owlcat. His thoughts, ever in motion, tumbled drunkenly about his mind until falling through a trapdoor and leading him down another passage completely. "Do you know of a, a," he started while his eyes squinted shut. What had his mother told him to look for? A tree? No. A bush. A bush of--not flowers--berries perhaps. He gave his head a shake, that wasn't right.

He raised his head, looking for the faintness of the sun through the barren but blossoming tree branches. Oh he had plenty of time to figure out where. And where was never as important as when, and no one gave him a when. (When's happened only when he arrived--whenever that may be.) He smiled, a faint pull of black lips altering his red pelt tickled with twisting pink-white lines. His ears wiggled as he took a steady, though slow, step forward bowing his head so that he was eye level with the cheetah. His time might be better spent attempting to befriend this creature. He could use a friend.

"Would you, perhaps, be looking for a friend?" he started with a nod of his head. "I am rather lonely--if I bother to consider it--" his brows knitted together as he pondered it briefly before returning his attention back to the cat, "and it would be nice to have a traveling companion. I won't promise to be the fastest in journeys and often go the wrong way many times but I get there, eventually, and I know the swamp. I can show it to you." He did not smile but his eyes showed he was sincere and content with the words he had given the cat, the olive branch of friendship. He let his head come up and backed off, allowing the creature to have space to consider his words--either not caring or not realizing that it could not speak the same words that he did. It would be all right in the end, everything usually was, no matter what the cat decided to do.

He turned his head, never quite seeing that there were others about, and focused on the air before his eyes (not that he could see it) thinking there might be something there if he stared long enough. All the while his tail swayed side to side as if to measure time.

There was a creature in the tree branches above his head. It had been following him throughout the Hunter and Prey game he’d taken part in as an Obstacle, and now it was hunched in the cypress, surrounded by moss and leaves.

Of course Grassland Flower saw it; he wasn’t an idiot. The creature was clearly young and unused to traveling via trees, because it had made so much noise that even the deafest of Kimeti could have heard it coming ten gallops away.

He sighed and turned toward the feline creature. It was something he’d never seen before, almost a larger owlcat, but it’s head was more lynx-like than bird. He’d heard that there were cats on the plains, called cheetahs. Perhaps the Kiokote had brought them?

“Hey, you in the tree,” he called up to it. “You should come down now. Your stalking skills need some serious help.” The cheetah blinked, then made a sound. He frowned, thinking that the creature sounded distressed. “What’s wrong? Come on down.”

The cheetah made the same sound again, and Grass frowned deeper. That was most assuredly a distressed sound. His brows beetled, then he called up again. “Are you stuck in the tree?” It was a ridiculous notion, of course, because cats are born tree climbers, but this one had its claws sunken deeply into the bark of the limb it was perched on.

“Okay, I would have to come across the one cat that can climb up but not down. Hold still, kitten, we’ll get you down somehow.” The cheetah cat merely blinked and mewled again.

He thought for a while, then remembered a game he’d seen an owlcat mother play with her kittens to teach them how to climb down from the nest. The mother had leaped from branch to branch, showing her kits how to catch and hold the bark, then waited for them to follow her.

It was a good idea, but it had one problem: he wasn’t in the tree and couldn’t get into it. So how to get the cheetah cub down?

“Hey, buddy, we’re gonna play a game, okay? Follow what I do.” Grass situated himself directly below the cheetah, then looked for a viable branch the cat could land on. He looked, then figured out the spot just underneath it, and jumped for it, landing perfectly. The cheetah cocked its head, loosening its claws from the bark, but not moving.

“Come on, little guy. Like this.” Grass demonstrated again, leaping from the first spot to the second, and the cat followed his actions, jumping from its perch to the branch over Grass’s head. They repeated the process until the cat was as close to the ground as it could get. Grass stepped up onto an exposed root, then leaped down and away from the tree, encouraging the cheetah to so the same.

Finally the cub was on the ground, shaking and trying to stay upright. Grass comforted the kitten, sweeping his tail over the soft fur along the spine. The little kitten matched his own blond coat (1).

“Are you hungry, kitten? Let’s get you something to eat, yeah?” He’d heard from his father that the Kiokote and their pets ate meat, so Grass stepped away to go fishing. He was pleasantly surprised when the small cub trotted after him, unwilling to let its savior out of sight. Or maybe he was going to be prey, who knew? That notion was abolished when the cat chased after a foxbun for dinner.

After supplying the tired kitten with fresh water, Grass led the way to his home, where the two played at running about on the flat meadow for a few minutes before they curled up and went to sleep.

It was hard enough to travel to the sea, even harder to catch these fish there, hardest of all to run back in half the time with them - and now that I'm almost home, I'm to be eaten right here?! Who will tell my brother - and what a shame about the fish! This panicked thought took only the moment between glimpsing the golden eye of a crocodile in the undergrowth and scattering her three carried fish in fright, speaking volumes about the mind's speed when it believes it is about to expire. But it would live: a sudden movement and she saw, perfectly lit by the moon's glow, that the eye did not belong to a crocodile - no, it was one of the sleek creatures she had sometimes noticed with the few kiokote encountered on her travels towards the north. What were they called? Cee…chea…cheetahs? Cheetahs; sometimes she had heard them called cats. She had never seen one so far south before; a kiokote must have brought it to the swamp - but why was it out here alone?

Ah. That would explain it: only two fishes remained. "Bad cat," she chided, certain that the culprit was still around - she could hear a faint rustling from a bush somewhere, "I needed that." Critically, she eyed her remaining acquisitions - they were hardly in the best of shape from her journey, she really didn't need them doused in mud. "These are presents for my brother," she continued, "they weren't easy to get. You could have at least asked." And she would probably have given, she had to admit - it was a beautiful beast from what she recalled of that moonlit moment, a discreet dappled green over dusky puce (3). The rustling had ceased; she gathered up the fishes and left.

She barely took twenty paces to realise she still had company - soundless now, but from the corner of her eye she saw its shadow speed almost alongside; when she stopped it disappeared. "Oh no, you don't," she called, manoeuvring words past teeth tightly clenched around twin tails, "I'm not making the same mistake twice. Just you try it, cat!" And as soon as she picked up speed again, it did - had it understood her? - a flash darting for a dangling fish: "Hah!" she reared above its snapping jaws, dealing a firm tap between dazzling eyes. A sharp yowl, a spin, and it was a crouching heap on the ground. "Oh no," then she did drop her bounty, leaping over, "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to -" Blast! Left hanging over an empty patch, another fish gone.

"Well-played, cat," she choked down her indignation, "but you won't be getting this last one." Closing her mouth grimly over the body of her remaining treasure, she headed for home. She could tell it was still with her, it no longer bothered to hide its pawsteps, rattling a path through the foliage, but she paid it no heed. She had been distracted previously - if she only kept her eyes on the prize, there was nothing it could do. Minute after minute passed like this, finally it fell silent; there were no more shadows - it had given up, then. The last fish would survive. Good, she thought, a little savagely - but then the thought turned wistful. It hadn't been that bad, really…it'd made the journey a lot less lonely, and she was so often lonely. And it was such a beautiful cheetah…she was going to miss it - it - it was sitting right there on the path in front of her Holy Swampmother when did it get there and what was it doing?! Her hooves stopped just in time. A raspy yowl. A chirp. A chirrup. Its golden eyes turned liquid, staring up. Another chirrup. What in the world? Was it - was it asking? "Honestly," she moaned, muffled around the fishy flesh, "Just because I said you could doesn't mean you should!" But - yes - she dropped it anyway.

"Really," Dark is a Way sighed as she watched the feline felon tuck smugly into its feast right in front of her, "I've left home for days just to catch ocean fish for my brother - and now I am to meet him tomorrow, fishless, thanks to you. What am I to do, cat? What are you going to do about it?"