10-26-2018, 09:12 PM
Pause. Pink leather nose raised to catch the slowly moving air, hoping to catch some trace of deer or rabbit. It's a good season for hunting, when most young are grown enough to venture from their mothers sides, but still stupid enough to be ready prey. Large padded paws step nearly soundless over drifted golden leaves and through muffling piles of pine needles. With a long inhale my jaws creak open, pulling the air over my tongue and tasting every scent.
The different flavors catalog themselves seamlessly. Old deer spore, acrid fox stench, mouse and vole nests too tiny to bother with until winter hunger forced the issue. Over all was the rich, mulchy taste of autumn. Dead and dying plant life, the curious odor of a forest preparing itself for a long winter's sleep. The pink and black corners of my lips twist into a predator grin, enjoying the ambience despite my supper playing hard hide and seek. Another few weeks before the snows arrive, and scarcity truly sets in.
Houghing through my maw, I decide that supper can wait a moment. A light gust has twirled a pawful of amber oak leaves into a mischievous dervish, and one milk white paw darts out to muddle them. A chuckle rumbles up from the depths of my ribcage, simple amusement at the way the leaves crackle and shift as I bat at them. Really getting into the game, I leap into a drift, scattering bits of debris into the air, and try to nab each one as it spins back down to earth.
For some minutes I entertain myself like this. Diving in and leaping out of crispy crunchy leaves, tail whipping to and fro in anticipation of the next blow of wind that will set the game off again. With a playful snarl I attack a fallen twig, tossing it into the air with one paw and rolling over to catch it again in the same motion. It flips end over and back toward me, snagged on a close and clutched to my chest in the next instant. Two crunches, one after the other. The first one is the twig snapping between my teeth, the second is the certain sound of dry leaves beneath a solid hoof.
Quick as a snake I flip from back to belly, pressed as low to the ground as I can get, tail whipping restlessly. Fragments of stick still hang from my jaw as my slit pupiled gaze alights on my voyeur. Equid, not terribly common for these parts, but enough that I can't be all together surprised. The bridge of my nose wrinkles involuntarily at the suddenly strong scent. "Hello there. Don't mind me." The words grunt out in Cat tongue, oblivious to whether or not my intruder can understand it. My dam is the only horse I've spent any real time with, and Equine is a dialect easy enough to forget with disuse.
The different flavors catalog themselves seamlessly. Old deer spore, acrid fox stench, mouse and vole nests too tiny to bother with until winter hunger forced the issue. Over all was the rich, mulchy taste of autumn. Dead and dying plant life, the curious odor of a forest preparing itself for a long winter's sleep. The pink and black corners of my lips twist into a predator grin, enjoying the ambience despite my supper playing hard hide and seek. Another few weeks before the snows arrive, and scarcity truly sets in.
Houghing through my maw, I decide that supper can wait a moment. A light gust has twirled a pawful of amber oak leaves into a mischievous dervish, and one milk white paw darts out to muddle them. A chuckle rumbles up from the depths of my ribcage, simple amusement at the way the leaves crackle and shift as I bat at them. Really getting into the game, I leap into a drift, scattering bits of debris into the air, and try to nab each one as it spins back down to earth.
For some minutes I entertain myself like this. Diving in and leaping out of crispy crunchy leaves, tail whipping to and fro in anticipation of the next blow of wind that will set the game off again. With a playful snarl I attack a fallen twig, tossing it into the air with one paw and rolling over to catch it again in the same motion. It flips end over and back toward me, snagged on a close and clutched to my chest in the next instant. Two crunches, one after the other. The first one is the twig snapping between my teeth, the second is the certain sound of dry leaves beneath a solid hoof.
Quick as a snake I flip from back to belly, pressed as low to the ground as I can get, tail whipping restlessly. Fragments of stick still hang from my jaw as my slit pupiled gaze alights on my voyeur. Equid, not terribly common for these parts, but enough that I can't be all together surprised. The bridge of my nose wrinkles involuntarily at the suddenly strong scent. "Hello there. Don't mind me." The words grunt out in Cat tongue, oblivious to whether or not my intruder can understand it. My dam is the only horse I've spent any real time with, and Equine is a dialect easy enough to forget with disuse.