Word Count: 1252
"You're not like anything I've ever seen before," she confessed at last, ducking one of the low slun branches as he swept back to attack her. She had been following him for a while now, ducking, diving and otherwise struggling to follow in the footsteps of something so large as she couldn't move quite as much as he could with his well...bulk. Still, from the moment she had fallen into his company her pursuers had broken away and fallen back. Either they were watching from afar, or they had gone off to assault one another until she was isolated again.
She suspected the isolation theory was more accurate.
"How so?" he replied, keeping his eyes forward while his ears twisted and flicked at each and every sound. It seemed that he was aware of what she was and as such, wasn't aware that he was an oddity in these regions. After all, nothing bar her own kind lurked within these parts - with the exception of baboons, monkeys and other preybeasts, she had never seen another feline.
"Um... gigantic, covered in fur that makes you look like the sun and the way you roar..." she shook her head and frowned. "None of my kind can roar like that. Are you some type of god?" she enquired.
"No," his tone was stiff and he came to a halt, glancing over his shoulder critically at the female. If anything she was the oddity, her naivity was truly baffling to him as cheetah were fairly widespread where he came from. Then again, he had apparently stumbled upon a rather bizarre pride to begin with... or was it a colony? Who knew, either way, he wasn't overly impressed by their inclinations to humour any form of chaotic god.
"Then what -"
"A lion," he cut in and released a sigh, raising his eyes heavenwards as he gazed at the confused female. "All males of my kind possess hair like this," he lifted his paw to rub it briefly against his mane. "The larger it is, the older you are."
"Oh, so you're ancient then?" she spoke before she could stop herself and instantly winced, cupping a paw over her mouth in horror.
"Perhaps more 'established' is an appropriate word as opposed to 'old'," he mused as an afterthought and hazarded a smile. "Regardless, the females are like you, they lack the hair but they are much bulkier and powerful than you would be," he continued. At this point he paused and motioned to her form, lithe as it was, whatever training she had received had bulked it up a little...even if the wounded were still visible. "And you are a cheetah," he added, to make her perfectly aware that he knew what she was at the very least.
"I am!" she agreed, clearly impressed by his knowledge, even if this enthusiasm exasperated him - were they all this naive?
"A very pink cheetah from a ridiculously paranoid pride," he added after a few moments and shook his head.
"Pride?"
"Colony?" he hazarded and she shook her head slowly, equally confused. "Gathering, family, community, cult?" he strung out a few more words in the hopes of finding one she might find to match whatever her circumstances were.
"Oooh community!" she seemed to find this one fitting and nodded, the smile continuing to grow on her lips as she settled into his company. For some reason, he didn't seem inclined to harm her and the longer he was around, the safer she would be.
"Regardless," he paused and sat down, coiling his tail around his paws as he examined the female. "If you were not suited to it then why did you stay? There is a world beyond this jungle, admittedly some of it isn't pretty but I can confirm that the vast majority of it is more sane," he finished. Not surprisingly she looked baffled, her ears perking and then drooping at the prospect that something might lie beyond her home - she'd heard myth, but the elders had said that was where the gods lived... As if he could read her thoughts, his eyes raised heavenwards.
"Fun fact," he said after a few moments and sighed. "You can leave this place and not be struck down by the plague," he pointed out and motioned to the jungle around him. "Or lightning, or whatever other fanciful ideas you can cook up in your head."
"But what about the gods?" she was confused.
"What about them?" he asked, his lips pursing.
"Won't they get mad that we're walking on their land?"
He was stunned into silence for quite some time, opening and shutting his mouth in a similar fashion to a fish as he attempted to process this in his mind. Slowly but surely he was beginning to understand how she had been raised, or at least he could hazard a fairly accurate guess. Suffice to say this might explain her naivity and the cultlike nature of her 'community' - if they knew no better and were ruled by an autocracy then it really came at no surprise to him...
"The gods have their own world, it is not beyond the jungle, if you really must know, it's a realm that we cannot and probably never will see as mere mortals," he explained softly and got to his feet once more. He tentatively reached out and placed his paw on her nose to get her to look at him, his eyebrow still raised. "If there was not a world beyond this jungle then where would I have come from?" he enquired, fielding the question in the hopes that she would open her mind to the possibility.
"Is...Is it dangerous?" she began to follow after him again, processing the information in her mind.
"Everywhere can be dangerous," he pointed out softly.
"And are there more like you, or me?"
"Thousands," he continued, allowing the cheetah to process the new information in her own mind while he continued to scour the area for threats. She may not have known it or been aware of it, but they were being followed. He'd been aware of it for quite some time, but it was only now that he suspected that the unfortunate beings would make their move.
"I have a question, er..." he paused again, frowned and glanced at the cheetah. Up until now she had been nameless and it was only now that he was realising this was a minor inconvenience. "You have a name, right?" he enquired with a hint of embarassment, a gruff tone entering his voice as he tried to conceal this.
"Noona," she replied instantly and he nodded, without providing his own of course.
"Well Noona, I have a question," he murmured and flicked his paw under her stomach. "Would you like to fly?" he asked softly, his grip tightening.
"Fly?" she squeaked and without further warning, the lion hauled her off her paws and threw her skywards. With flailing limbs she soon caught herself and found that she was swinging precariously from a very high branch in the tree above him. It was only from this vantage point that she could see them, the three adolescent cheetahs creeping up behind them with the intention of taking them both by surprise. She'd had no idea... but apparently he did, she couldn't quite understand it...how had he known?
"Hold on, Noona," the nameless lion instructed and obediently, she clung to the branch and watched.
