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 Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:51 pm
The fireflies were just beginning to come out from their homes to lazily bounce around in the air. It wasn't dark yet, the sun was still reasonably high in the sky. In fact, it was just beginning its descent so that the grass covered plains were colored in a somewhat sepia tone. Yatima, tip-toeing carefully through the grass, keep her head held high, high so that she could peer around the area. It looked like she was swimming in a sea of drying wheat and tall Savannah grass.
It was so peaceful and ethereal-like, she thought laxly, almost as if she were stepping through a border of worlds. Unconcerned with the area around her, Yatima began to hum a tone in her throat. She had been working on a song, the song of the leopard hunter, for some while now and she almost had it!
What she needed was a melody. Perhaps this strange area, this strange time of day, would lend her a muse, if only for a while.
Raising her voice higher, so she could hear it, Yatima opened her mouth and let her experimental melody spill forth.
On the horizon, an odd moon was rising, just as the happy sun was descending.
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:59 pm
Dath had been stalking again.
Mind, it probably wasn't who you thought it was, but after some time, he had grown bored with his 'prey' and had given up. He had spent the rest of the day being lazy, or what he liked to call reclining, renjoying the world around him. What a load of bull.
The Chaotic God was far from 'enjoying' things; he had begun to feel the shiftings of change within him. And it did not settle with him well at all. The Chaos was trembling in him, as if it was another beast, and not himself. It was unsettling, but with a conceited thought, he determined he could handle it. He'd be fine, as he always was.
The call of something shook him from his mind, though, and his ears soon followed to where the sound was coming from. Not far off, actually. It was so...something Dath didn't recognize, not from anything. Cubbish curiosity grew inside of him, and soon he was up on his feet, looking to investigate. He instinctively hid his wings, horn, and jewelry, so all that could be seen was his coat, and massive body.
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:22 pm
"Well, hmm," the nearby voice was musing. The grass rustled with each movement as the unsuspecting cheetah made her way. She wasn't going any particular direction. She just knew that she enjoyed the feel of the grass against her body. For a moment, she considered adding it into her song and...Surprisingly, it worked! With a happy giggle of glee, Yatima added words to the new melody she had concocted in the past fifteen minutes.
"Cold, goodbye touch of grass...
Eyes concentrated on...mass? Lass? Bath? Wrath?"
Yatima shook her head, as if to clear her mistakes from her head, "No, no... A silent pounce, a look of wrath? Wrath, grass...Nope."
The muse of twilight escaped her and the cheetah frowned in dismay. Oh well, she still had her melody! She sung it once more, as if to test it once more. It was then that she heard something that wasn't a part of her song to the side of her. Ducking low, her ears perked and flattened against her head, Yatima stopped singing.
Her bright green eyes focused to where she heard the sound and watched as the grass swayed back and forth just several yards away from her.
"Who goes there?" she called timidly.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:54 am
Dath had taken a moment to pause, letting his nose rise up into the air to catch the scent of what he heard. Well, it certainly wasn't what he was expecting. Not a bird, or anything small. It smelled of a beast.
He lowered his head again, taking slow, strong steps towards where he thought his destination was by following the scent. There was proof in that he was going the correct way, when he heard that oh-so-typical but strangely calming call out to a stranger. SHould he return the call, or merely keep quiet?
...well, keeping quiet could be fun. Maybe unsettle this little songbird a bit.
He took a few more slow steps, his snake-slitted, gold eyes finally resting on what he had heard. He raised an eyebrow out of surprise, noticing that it was a cheetah that had piqued his interest.
He stood still for a moment, curious as to what her reaction would be, since he was certain that he had seen her by now.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:54 am
Silence.
There was silence. That was odd. Usually among her travels, when she called out she would be answered and it turned out to be another lonely soul. That's how she met Kimanda and Serithi. Yatima had been hoping that it was another one of those instances, but this time there was no reply. Sinking down lower in the grass, but keeping her head posed at the top as if she were scouting for danger. She very much felt like a meerkat, stiff, alert, and scanning for danger.
"Serithi?" she called again in a small voice, not sure if this was another one of Serithi's hunting lessons. She was wishing with all her heart that it would be him and that he would call out and berate her for being a bad hunter...but this was not the case. Again, there was no reply.
Only silence.
Yatima's heart has beginning to jump in her chest, so finally, she gave her thin cheetah legs a pump of adrenaline and she was off like a bolt of lightning through the fields. When in doubt, run, was her motto.
The sun was dipping low in the sky, the moon began to catch fire from the growing sunset.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:07 pm
Chaos cursed. Yet again, jittery females were full of nothing but fear. And while he didn't mind fear so much, it was that stupid fear that made them run. And running after something, especially a cheetah, was something that he wasn't too keen on doing.
A split moment, a pause to decide whether he should actually chase after her or not. "Curse it," he breathed, flashing out his wings in a split moment before he himself took off into the air. There was no way that he could run as fast as a cheetah could, no matter that their running wouldn't last that long at that speed. Instead, he would cut through the wind, doing his best to catch up to her as he could.
Dath's eyes searched through the grasses below, the god staying just above the grasses so he could catch a better look. Hmmm. He soon let himself seem smaller in size, throwing the illusion of a bird over himself. It would not hold long, and it could not hold back the wind wipping around his true bulk, but it would do while he was chasing her. Hopefully he could catch her off guard, but not scare her, again. He would try to play this a bit differently than he normally did.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:35 pm
The grass whipped against her face, writhing like water around her lithe form. All she could feel or concentrate on was the quick pound of her small paws in a rapid staccato against the earth. Dodging in a path that even confused her, Yatima ran as fast as she could for as long as she could. Finally, she saw a lone dying tree in the distance. It was split in twain by lightning and it's bark was striped from it's white bone-like flesh. That would be a good place to wait out her beating heart, she thought.
Turning her head over her shoulder, she didn't see anything. There was nothing plowing through the grass after her. The only thing that she saw was an innocent bird floating through the sky. If she had stopped running, she might've heard the powerful beat of the wings flapping after her, but for now the wind whipping past her ears drowned out all over sound.
Right as she looked forward again, Yatima saw an incoming root of the dead tree and she only the time to give a startled gasp before she intercepted it. Her paws twisted underneath the slightly lifted root and it sent her careening out of control. She flipped over the root and skidded into the dusty dirt of the tree.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:55 pm
Perfect.
The god grinned under his bird skin, feeling satisfaction reach his chest. Well well well, it seemed that the pretty little songbird was a fast runner, but not the most graceful at the same time as her running.
Cursing the fact that he could not mimic the call of a crow, he landed onto the ground, still in his bird skin, with a thud, as the rest of his body hit the ground as well. The little crow hopped along the ground, as the lion beneath the skin, paced a bit away from the tree to dismiss the illusion (as well as his god-like attributes again) and slowly approach the cheetah, acting as if she had come up to him and his area.
Now, this would be the harder part for Dath, acting like he cared, and being a bit (gag) 'kind'. But hey, he'd give it a try! ...and then laugh about it later.
"Are you alright?" he asked, peering his head around to try and get a better look at the cheetah. She didn't seem too good, with how she was displayed at the base of the split, dead tree.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:07 pm
Breathing hard, Yatima tried to force her spinning surrounding back into place. Her body ached after running so fast for so long, but at least it had gotten her away from whatever was chasing her (or so she believed). Covered in dust, Yatima was just about to try and force herself back up onto her feet when a deep voice came out of no where. Startled, Yatima snapped her head towards the voice.
It was a lion, a colossal red and black lion. The cheetah, trying faster now to get herself back onto her feet, simply collapsed back to the ground. Her ankles hurt after tripping over the root. Looks like she was more exhausted than she thought.
"My apologies!" she breathed, her melodic voice twisted into one of fear, "Is this your tree? I was just..." she glanced over her shoulder into the field. Whatever might've been there was gone. There was a little part of her that felt stupid for running.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:16 pm
The lion peered down at the cheetah, taking a couple more steps forward, as if coming across exhausted strangers was a common occurance. Internally, it was dirivng Dath nuts, but he knew that he had better learn patience if he ever wanted to meddle more into the lives of mortals. He wasn't young and brash anymore, no; he was calculating, and patient, just waiting for his prey to take that one misstep.
"You seem to not be too injured," he said, offering a smile (oh, gods). His ears flicked forward as he heard her mention something about the tree. "Oooh, no, it's not mine," he said with a small laugh (even worse!). "I merely hang around here during the evening," he said, lying straight through his teeth as if it were the pure truth.
"Did something spook you?" he asked, innocently.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:52 pm
Yatima gave a bashful forced smile as the large lion stepped closer to her. She felt as if something were wrong, but it couldn't be anything to serious since she was just as jumpy as a grasshopper. It was probably the after effects of being scared. It was only natural to be jumpy or suspicious of everything else at this point in time.
"I think I'm alright...Just achy," Yatima replied softly as positioned herself into a more comfortable position upon the ground. Only a couple more minutes and then she'd stand up, Yatima thought to herself. It was awkward lying here before the lion. As the new comer asked another question, the dusty brown cheetah let a nervous chuckle of embarrassment slip from her throat, "Yes. I thought I was being chased by something. How funny of me to think that I was prey."
The sun finally kissed the horizon in the distance and the moon was saturated with a rosy hue.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:57 pm
"Oh?" said the lion, his eyes soon peering up at the direction from where she had come from, as if looking to see if there was any movement in that direction. Nothing. But of course there was nothing, since he was the one to chase her over here. This was playing too well, he was pleased.
The grin that had grown on his face vanished before he turned back to face the cheetah. "Well, it seems that if you were chased by something, they're no longer out there. I'm sure you ran much faster then they could," he said with a small smile. It was true, since all knew how fast cheetahs could run. While it may be for a smaller stint, it was still much faster than any other animal out there.
Dath flicked his ear behind him, his eyes soon following up into the sky to notice that the night had fallen. Well, the darkness could work for him, even if the red of his coat was still more visible than the darker parts of it.
"If you ache, rest here for a moment, then. No use in going out there exposed," he commented, his words meaning more than they seemed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:05 pm
Yatima, althought spooked, didn't seem to notice the evil intent behind his offer. For now, it seemed like a really nice offer to rest after using a bunch of her energy. It wasn't like she didn't trust lions or like she did trust them...She hardly spent any time with them honestly...but for some reason she didn't seem to mind. The offer was nice. Looking up at the red lion, with dark mane and bright eyes, Yatima nodded her head tiredly.
"That would be very nice," Yatima said in response, "I'm not too keen on traveling once the night has fallen. Who knows what could be out there."
The sun was dipping behind the horizon, as if hiding from what was to come. In the distance, the moon burned with a red lust.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:19 pm
"Oh?" he said again, his grin widening. So she didn't like going out at night, was it? "Probably a good idea to keep to yourself at night, you never know what could be just around the corner, or in front of you."
It was tempting, ooooh so tempting to just attack her now, but he knew that he might be able to get just a bit more out of her, and that bit more would make him feel all the better.
He turned his body around now, so he was facing her completely again. He set himself down in a sitting position, but he did keep his back legs a bit tense, leaning just a smidge forward so he could rush forwards at the drop of a pin.
He felt himself supressing the urge to lick his maw, for that would be just a bit too foretelling, and he didn't want her to spook again, tired or not.
Oh hell. He couldn't hold it back anymore.
He tensed up his shoulders, letting the raven black wings slowly drift off of his back as they seemed to appear out of thin air. He slowly drew them upwards before giving them a snap, letting their full reach be seen.
"You never can know what could just be in front of you at night, can you?" he said with a sadistic grin growing on his face. Oooh, he felt himself shiver slightly from the excitement.
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:25 pm
Right in...front of me?
The words rang a true dissonant chord of terror through Yatima's body. As soon as he let that phrase slip from his black jaw, the cheetah knew that something was terribly wrong. The little voice in the back of her head, the feeling to keep on running, they were all trying to tell her something and now it was too late for her to heed their cry of fear.
There was something wrong.
Before she could think things through, black shadows seemed to melt out of his back and snapped themselves into terrible wings. Yatima's eyes widened in fear and she felt her jaw drop.
A god.
There was a god before her, a god! And from what her body was telling her, this was no god of sunshine and delight.
This was an evil god.
Yatima's body snapped up from the ground and her feet scrambled wildly against the ground, trying to rake into something solid to leap off of. She needed to get away!
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