DONAI
The Leopard

I’m pretty sure this is the place. Calm grassy forests cloaking the foothills with shadows and deceptive friendliness. The colors of burning fire painted the trees with orange, yellows, and reds littering the skies and the ground with a fiery of colors. The colors were vibrant and comforting to me, but they did nothing to dampen the numbing chills that soaked into my skin as the temperature dropped and the irritating moisture from the misty rain coming over the valley on this day. I barely made a sound as the wet grass and leaves flopped to my paws will, none the less it irritated me enough to pick up my feet with each step as if I were walking on hot coal. In my jaws I carried the now badly rotting carcass of the bird I’d killed a while ago, maggots dropped from the inside of the carcass as though the insects were protesting my yearn to keep the thing. Rotting as it were, the pristine blue and green feathers still dazzled in any hint of light and I simply could not leave the bird behind. My attempts are becoming more futile though, as the dead flesh from the bird began to release the feathers one by one over time. Every now and then I would look back to see one more feather has fallen from my prized bird and a sadness would linger.

I was looking for the two stone-feet I’d met up with in the threshold, not easy to do when their scent is dissolved in the rain. But I did stumble on a collection of trails meandering through the trees, the only reason I believed they belonged to the particular stone-feet I’m looking for is the distinguishable crescent shaped tracks my quarry has left behind in the mud. Coming up on the next tree closest to the trail I brushed fiercely against the tree first with my cheek followed by the rest of my body as I passed, leaving a trail of my own, the smell of leopard on the trees of the foothills. My hope was that should Circe or Apollo come across my smell they’d go about looking for me. Not that I truly needed their assistance but they did mention there was food here, and it would be much better if someone such as… me… were introduced to this family of theirs in the company of one of my recruiters.
This walk was becoming increasingly difficult as the cold and rain was beginning to eat at me. I’ve never been so cold in my life, and I didn’t have the thick mane of a lion either, my coat is short and fine as it always has been.
Coming up on a relatively large tree I paced circles around the tree, rubbing myself against the bark of the tree before curling up under the leaning side of the tree to shelter myself from the rain, setting the bird carcass at my feet. I’m going to have to do something about coping with this cold, I could be in trouble if I don’t.