The lessoning in hunting had helped. She spent enough time with the couple to learn how to properly stalk, pick her prey, and take them down. It was a relief, but the pressure to move on had become too great. Regretful but highly distracted, she left them, her eyes already on the beckoning horizon, her mind full of the mysterious male figure of her love. She had not yet lost hope that he existed, nor that she would find him. Every morning she left the best bits of her meal on a flat stone before she moved on as a tribute to the gods, and every night she would send a prayer of wordless thanks and hope to the same gods. She had none specifically in mind, but merely them all as a whole.
As she kept traveling and time went by, her body became lean and strong. The fat she hadn't been aware of melted away, replaced by hard muscle and strong sinew. She ate sparingly, but was smart about how she did it. Smaller meals, twice a day, kept her strength up and her energy sufficient for the trip. She paused from time to time when she came across appealing waterholes, with shade and grass that still bore the color of life.
At one such spot, as night fell, she watched the sky as the stars fell, showering the sky with streaks and sparks. The moving sight was accompanied by the merry croaking of frogs, and the high pitched chirping of crickets, with a constant scree from the cicadas. A caracal family was sharing her little puddle of water that night, along with a single, ancient tortoise. She watched her fellow travelers quietly, just a shadow against the grassy ground under the starry, moonless sky. It was such a moment of peace, and she soaked it in. If only it could be like this all the time. With a contented sigh, she fell asleep, wrapped in fleeting contentment.
That was the last of her peace. The next morning, the air felt dead and thick. No clear sunshine woke her, but a heavy silence. Even the caracal family shushed their babies and slunk away as if danger lurked near. The tortoise was nowhere in sight. Baffled and troubled, Taanisi hunted, ate, left her offering, and lapped up a good deal of water before moving on again.
Despite the day being fully dawned, the air still had that expectant feel. The clouds above were fitful and thin, reminding her of a pall of smoke instead of the fluffy floating creatures they normally were. She padded along quietly, keeping her head down and taking care to not make a great deal of noise. The suffocating silence remained, making any noise shockingly loud when it happened. One dry grass stalk rubbed another, the rasping sound like the dying of a tree. A hare leapt for safety from the sight of her, his pumping legs thumping the ground like a hollow log when struck. There was barely any wind to speak of, though the clouds overhead raced uneasily, darting here and there like a frightened herd of gazelle.
Nothing more threatening than the erratic clouds happened that day, but she still felt uneasy as she settled down for the night on the open plains. Even the stars seemed to draw their glory in, hiding themselves from the ragged gaps between the hurrying clouds. She slept restlessly that night, dreaming of disturbing things that she couldn't recall when she woke, though the feelings lingered like a bad taste in her mouth. The morning dawned with an ugly fiery eruption among the boiling clouds on the eastern horizon. Frightened by something nameless, Taanisi didn't hunt that morning. She kept her eyes out for water, but immediately took off at a swift lope, as if running from some unnamed evil.
That day too went by without the awful weight in the air easing. She had been forced to slow her lope, reducing to trotting and walking by shifts. She found it hard to hunt, for it seemed most creatures felt the same as she, and had already sought shelter. She finally managed to dig up a bachelor hare, making a swift and meager meal of him before continuing on. The sun died in clouds the color of embers, though this time she managed to find a rocky outcropping to shelter beneath for the night. The prickly sense of doom in the air made the hair along her spine stand upright. Everything just felt... wrong. Thus, when a terrified pair of ratels happened to dart into her meager shelter, she did not chase them out, only made room by scooting to one side. They merely traded nods, then turned worried eyes to the sky.
No stars were visible now at all, for the sky was all shifting, muddled clouds. Even in the night, they held a dirty, brown-green color. A weak moon rose briefly, but was choked to a muted glow for the short time it appeared. The wind came up in the night, a howling mad thing that ripped away one's breath. The outcropping lent little shelter from the tearing fingers of the wind, and the lioness turned her back to it, attempting to mitigate most of it for the smaller creatures. They huddled in the slight lee of her body as she stood, bearing the brunt of debris thrown by the wind upon her back. Better she than they, to her mind.
Somehow they all three had dozed off, curled close together, when they were woken by a sharp crack, a searingly bright light, and then a deafening, earth-shuddering boom. Taanisi woke with a gasp that turned to a yowl, paw raised against the blinding flash that was already gone, ears pinned from the still echoing and rolling thunder. The ratels at her feet shook in fear, eyes tight-shut. She lowered the paw, blinking the dazzle from her eyes to stare with trepidation at the roiling mass that illuminated often from within. More thunder, softer but still bone-deep, grumbled and growled from above. A storm. A dry storm. But new-come to being a rogue, the lioness was ignorant of the danger hovering like a wave above her head.
Several more times the lightning struck, shaking the earth beneath their paws, but she merely held the small furry bodies close, trying to comfort them as she told herself repeatedly that it was just a storm, nothing more. They were safe from the lightning, they were under cover. They were safe. If only she'd been right.
The sun did not rise that day. A sickly orange light sullenly grew in the east, but nothing more. Then the wind shifted, still shrieking just as fiercely, and the truth blew in their faces, the scent imbedding itself on their memories. Smoke. The ratels panicked and bolted immediately, fleeing with the wind. Taanisi stayed, nose to the air, ears flicking bafflement. Smoke, at first just a trace, then more and more clear on that never-ending wind. She frowned, trying to figure out why she couldn't see across the plains like she should. Thunder still growled from time to time overhead, but still she stayed, peering across the land with eyes that were beginning to water. The smoke was thicker, but she still did not understand.
Perhaps it was the gods that did it, whether out of spite, out of warning, or out of lazy amusement. One last lightning strike came unexpectedly, striking the ground in the near distance. It had been behind her, so she spun in time to see the bolt fade from sight, though her ears still were ringing from the concussive force. She gasped a breath, but choked on the blowing smoke, sending her into a coughing fit. When she finally stopped, she looked again, and was shocked to see something new.
Fire. Flames licked upwards, just barely visible above the height of the grass. No, wait, it was higher than the grass now. No, it wasn't, it was merely... it was burning away the grass! Swiftly! Eyes wide, whiskers slicked back in fear, every hair on her body at end, she realized the danger at last. Smoke. Fire. The plains! They were on fire!
The wind shifted again, but no fresh air blew. Only more smoke. And now, the newly begun fire came leaping and surging towards her! In a panic, senseless with naivety, she turned from it and fled back the other direction, unwittingly heading straight for the heart of the grassfire.
The mistake was very nearly a deadly one. The smoke blowing from behind her and the smoke from the main fire nearly masked the edge. The heat was what warned her off, but by then, the fire behind her had caught healthily, coming along behind her and cutting off any obvious escape route. Confused, coughing, blinded by tears, she could not find her way free. Finally, out of desperation, as the flames neared her, she climbed up on a small pile of rocks, just big enough for her body, but not very high off the ground. Weeping for the smoke in her eyes and in despair, she huddled on the rocks and waited for her fate to arrive.
