After midnight.
Out in the moonlight.
Not like they used to do, certainly, save for one time, tawny red-gold shadowing a shadow of an Egyptian.
Now he's prowling the dusty, shadowed streets of Ghost Town alone...
...well, as far as he can tell, anyway, which is pretty far. To date, only one has ever managed to get the drop on him, and she had been a feline at the time.
The sleek, muscular red-gold form slips from shadow to shadow, this restless night caused - as so many have ben, of late - by the call in his soul.
A nebulous thing, to be sure, a nameless, directionless pull that is calling him, bading him come to where it leads.
He's resisted. He knows that to give in will change everything, and he is happy with his life. His home is here in Ghost Town, no influences outside of it since their father had passed beyond and his brother had secluded himself in the library with the witch that had ensnared his heart. His bed, most times empty even of him, but those occasions when he came back to find the black, feline form curled up in it, or the dusky, flowing shape of the Egyptian.
It's the memory that keeps him here, a vision of a future that might have been, had it not been for his own carelessness.
Red-gold laid next to black, entwined, tender, intimate touches that were, at once, feline...and yet oddly human.
Two pairs of golden eyes watching cubs at play, some the color of the mountain lion, others of the panther next to him, their coats revealing flecks of inky blackness within tawny colors, or hints of reddish gold highlighted in ebon fur whenever they strayed into the evening's sunlight as they played and wrestled.
A vision of contentment, of happiness free of foolish human concerns, troubles and pain.
She had forgiven him for dashing the dream, had even thanked him for not allowing her to surrender to that bestial, primal urge.
He had never forgiven himself.
From the shadows ahead comes a movement, small and quick, a nocturnal lagomorph frightened by the approach of the predator.
His reaction is without thought, the instinct of eons of felines before him taking control as muscles tense, coil, and spring with fluid speed, velvet paws suddenly contorting to reveal long, curved ivory scimitars of claws as the leap carries him from shadow to moonlight, arcing through the air with the ease of an arrow from a bow.
The front paws land hard in the middle of the rabbit's back, claws sinking into furred skin even as the spine snaps like a dry twig and the small animal is pinned to the earth. The jaws open and seize the doomed lagomorph's head, the great head twisting with a vicious jerk that ends what little life the rabbit had left.
It's so much simpler as an animal. Life, death. The only worries of life the hunting of the next meal, finding a stream to drink from, a sheltered and secure place to sleep.
No worries of death, not even when it will arrive. Just existing, day to day to day.
The mountain lion picks the limp form up in its jaws, looking around for a moment for anyone that might have seen, anything that may try to rob him of his night's prize.
Out in the moonlight.
Not like they used to do, certainly, save for one time, tawny red-gold shadowing a shadow of an Egyptian.
Now he's prowling the dusty, shadowed streets of Ghost Town alone...
...well, as far as he can tell, anyway, which is pretty far. To date, only one has ever managed to get the drop on him, and she had been a feline at the time.
The sleek, muscular red-gold form slips from shadow to shadow, this restless night caused - as so many have ben, of late - by the call in his soul.
A nebulous thing, to be sure, a nameless, directionless pull that is calling him, bading him come to where it leads.
He's resisted. He knows that to give in will change everything, and he is happy with his life. His home is here in Ghost Town, no influences outside of it since their father had passed beyond and his brother had secluded himself in the library with the witch that had ensnared his heart. His bed, most times empty even of him, but those occasions when he came back to find the black, feline form curled up in it, or the dusky, flowing shape of the Egyptian.
It's the memory that keeps him here, a vision of a future that might have been, had it not been for his own carelessness.
Red-gold laid next to black, entwined, tender, intimate touches that were, at once, feline...and yet oddly human.
Two pairs of golden eyes watching cubs at play, some the color of the mountain lion, others of the panther next to him, their coats revealing flecks of inky blackness within tawny colors, or hints of reddish gold highlighted in ebon fur whenever they strayed into the evening's sunlight as they played and wrestled.
A vision of contentment, of happiness free of foolish human concerns, troubles and pain.
She had forgiven him for dashing the dream, had even thanked him for not allowing her to surrender to that bestial, primal urge.
He had never forgiven himself.
From the shadows ahead comes a movement, small and quick, a nocturnal lagomorph frightened by the approach of the predator.
His reaction is without thought, the instinct of eons of felines before him taking control as muscles tense, coil, and spring with fluid speed, velvet paws suddenly contorting to reveal long, curved ivory scimitars of claws as the leap carries him from shadow to moonlight, arcing through the air with the ease of an arrow from a bow.
The front paws land hard in the middle of the rabbit's back, claws sinking into furred skin even as the spine snaps like a dry twig and the small animal is pinned to the earth. The jaws open and seize the doomed lagomorph's head, the great head twisting with a vicious jerk that ends what little life the rabbit had left.
It's so much simpler as an animal. Life, death. The only worries of life the hunting of the next meal, finding a stream to drink from, a sheltered and secure place to sleep.
No worries of death, not even when it will arrive. Just existing, day to day to day.
The mountain lion picks the limp form up in its jaws, looking around for a moment for anyone that might have seen, anything that may try to rob him of his night's prize.