A black tail whipped around the corner, the smell of fresh meat in the air. Blood stained the patches of grass around the clearing, devoid of all fearful life. What other life remained had been but extinguished just moments prior. The only presence... was a dark form.Sharp green eyes flicked upwards, sensing something. It scanned through the bushes as if it saw what lurked beyond them. And perhaps it knew.
Curiously, the scent was in a way familiar. The black figure stood up after it had been hunching over its kill; it was now hulking over it. The massive black form for a leopard was no doubt formidable, and thus not threatened by anything that may have been hiding. Not even an enraged lion would have faltered his accurate instincts.
He had been alone for his life to hone these survival instincts, after all. Not many had the ability to say that they were able to take care of themselves since they were a cub.
A piece of bone was spit out by the leopard, eyes still focused on what he knew was coming towards him beyond the bush. He was not worried at all...
But he stood still in silence, simply surrendering his time to let his similarly slinking stalker come to him. He was the one being sought.
It was oddly dark, walking into the clearing. The skies had been clear earlier, but now he couldn't quite see them. He was in the thick of the shrubbery, and some part of him... thought it was quite fascinating. To be deep in the jungle was not something the grey leopard would regularly enjoy, but new things were of course sometimes appealing.If he liked it, that is.
But on the off chance that he was exploring this off place on this off day, the smaller leopard stalked through the grasses and found himself scenting some blood. It was nearby, and so a rumble in his stomach started. He found himself strutting towards it, unaware that there could have been danger that came with the fresh killed meat. That was not a present notion for Goshi, and it was up in the air whether it was because he also scented something familiarly comforting in the area, or whether his intuition had simply been correct.
Maybe it was both.
So, he wandered past bushes upon bushes and thought it'd take a million years before the leaves would remove themselves of him and from the place to reveal what he had smelled.
But he soon found it. With black eyes, he gazed very curiously at the black leopard before him, recognizing it to be someone he had bumped into a long time ago. His beady eyes continued staring... and then rested on the large warthog below him. His stomach gurgled.
Hmm? His stalker had come upon the scene, finally, and without even an impressive greeting. He was a smaller leopard, light grey in color, with a strange mark around and covering his eyes. The black leopard looked to him with no curiosity, but rather apathetic indifference. The only thing that might have troubled him was the stranger taking his prey, but he had an idea that no one in the vicinity would have been able to do that.
So he lowered his head to pick some flesh from his prize once more, even leaving his eyes from the other leopard to gaze upon the feast. He had downed a large one, and to seal the deal, it had a good deal of fat in it. As usual, the hunt had gone flawless, and he did not receive any harm from the tusks that usually adorned these things.
Some part of him wondered why the grey leopard kept staring, but his entire being simply did not care to know why.
Jokaeusi had been ignoring him! Or at least, he hoped that was his name. It was odd how he remembered, but he did. Maybe it was something the two said in conversation. It wasn't the name that stood out, although it did. But it must have been something else the two exchanged that kept the black and spotted leopard in this smaller leopard's mind. He whipped his tail back and forth anxiously.
"I remember you!" he said excitedly in the tone of someone who would seem to seek a reward from it, "Jokaeusi!"
He flashed a small smile, keeping his eyes friendly and on the black leopard instead of the scrumptious food below him.
"I'm Goshi if you remember. But if you don't... I'm still Goshi," he stated.
He waited. Was Jokaeusi still going to ignore him? Jokaeusi must have not remembered if he was just going to continue in his ignorance and silence - pretending like there wasn't even another leopard here!
Jokaeusi's eyes finally raised again, looking over the grey pelt. They had a hint of surprise in them, but were not that alarmed. Such composure was his trait, and the trait of a lone survivor in the wild.
The stranger knew him? Goshi... He had never heard that name. Or perhaps he did, but he did not keep track. Names were unnecessary in the wild, though he did have one... He did not need to focus on names much in his lifestyle, so he did not bother to train himself in name memorization.
But he must have met the other leopard before, because he was being addressed by his name, and Goshi seemed to be insisting that Jokaeusi knew the name.
"Ah," he said, chewing what he had just gotten into his mouth as blood leaked from the sides, "So you do know me. I don't remember you, I'm afraid."
And he kept chewing, eyes fluttering between his warthog and Goshi.
"Yes well," Goshi said, drawing near...
But he couldn't. He couldn't take or ask for the prey of his friend. He let out a very audible sigh. He guessed he could hunt for himself, but why was he so hungry all of a sudden? He sighed once more. He must have been putting on quite a guilt-inducing display.
But it seemed Jokaeusi was unaffected by it. Oh well.
"I could be easily forgotten, yeah! I come and go, you know," he said.
But his hunger was not easily forgotten...
His stomach rumbled once more, and he said, "It looks like you've been doing well, Jokaeusi! Well enough to have any leopardess friends?"
An innocent smile appeared on Goshi's face - and it was truly an innocent smile, for he had no idea of his own situation in regards to that, much less any assumptions about Jokaeusi's position.
Goshi's words were easily ignored, generalized and ambiguous statements as they were. It seemed like Goshi wasn't even saying anything, but Jokaeusi was fine with that. His presence would soon be gone, and he could name a variety of things worse off than a grey leopard who said things that weren't very clear at all.
Until Goshi mentioned "leopardess friends".
Jokaeusi blinked, almost flinching for an unseen realization. How did Goshi know? He shook his head, furrowing his brow. No, of course Goshi didn't know, it was just another innocent question from someone who did not know much at all about Jokaeusi's life. It wasn't like he had any stalkers, although Goshi seemed to be coming very close to that title.
Edea... He had known her name, but knew less about what happened after the nights they spent together. Or had it only been one night?
Jokaeusi paused to digest this himself. His own introspection was coming out at last from his experience with Edea. He even remembered her name... That was something important, right? But it didn't help anything at all with his survival roaming as a rogue in these tough lands.
"Edea. She is not a friend..." he mumbled out, blinking again, though not looking at all at Goshi, to whom he had replied.
"If she's not a friend, then what is she?" Goshi asked to the rather puzzling reaction of Jokaeusi.
He was taking forever to respond. Or perhaps Goshi was merely impatient. He couldn't tell which, but it was clear that Jokaeusi was stalling in his account of his information. Maybe Jokaeusi didn't know either. But why would he answer a question he did not know?
"Well, good luck with that, then," he said merrily, perhaps more insulting than he expected to be.
"So you shared a branch with her like you did me. No problem there."
Jokaeusi flashed his eyes back at Goshi, a tick of irritation and anger gathering in his body.
"No, if you were going to make jokes about me letting you sit alongside me on a tree, there will be one last thing we share before you are unable to share anything again," he threatened, finding it particularly unlike himself.
But he felt unlike himself, in this situation. Perhaps it was the sudden topic of Edea, and his reflection. He grunted.
"I'm off now," he said, throwing his body around to glide into the bushes, allowing silence to permeate the clearing once more.
Goshi didn't mean to invoke any type of emotion within the black leopard - that was for sure. But somehow he managed it? He plopped down on the ground, baffled by the course of actions.
"Oh well," he said to himself, "I suppose that's a free meal."
And he began poking his face around the half-eaten warthog, contentedly enjoying himself. His stomach had much to thank.
