Ikiiri

Ikiiri Chapter 1

Soft, four-toed paw-feet run across the grass underneath them, making soft puffs of sound and moving swiftly through the forest. She hops over a log and dives behind a tree, stopping for a breather, then leans against it and throws her head back, looking up through the forest canopy at thin rays of sunlight pouring down. A fly lands on her large and triangular-shaped ear, riding higher on her head than a humans'. She flicks it off idly by flapping her ear and tries to steady her breathing, while also flicking and then relaxing her tail, which resembles a squirrel's at the moment.

Her whole body's covered with long and silky dark amber fur, streaked in places with a mixture of simple slashes and decorative curls of black stripes. Her long, wavy, and raven black hair flows gracefully down her back, going all the way past her waist, almost but not quite concealing the point where her tail begins...though at the moment some hangs in her face and is covered with twigs and leaves. She brushes it out of her eyes, running her hand over a short series of knobby protrusions to both sides of her forehead; they stretch backwards at angles, beginning at her hairline and above her eyes, revealing small ivory orbs above her skin -- four in all, cutting her hairline into a widow's peak.

She brushes her tail against her feet and shuffles her right foot nervously, then turns her head sideways, thinking that she hears something. She listens for a moment longer and she hears it again: the faint sound of men talking and sneaking through underbrush. In a few minutes, they could be where she is.

Slowly she bends down and goes on all fours, then crawls forwards to a bush where she can hopefully find a hiding place. The men come closer and finally emerge into the open, looking alert and steadying their readied bows. She peers out at them from inside her shallow gully, peeking through a screen of leaves and twigs. One of them -- their leader -- scans the area, sweeping by her spot with his eyes. Her heart skips a beat and she holds her breath, but he goes right over her place and keeps looking. She lets her breath out slowly, relieved, and blinks, but she freezes in place when he looks back over to her and just...stares.

For a moment she can almost just see an arrow fly from his bow and pierce her, but all he does is walk forwards. Her heart doubles its already fast pace and her skin goes cold. She glances from side to side quickly, frantically looking for a way out. Meanwhile all her movement does is raise his suspicion, and he responds by moving faster and raising his weapon. He gets closer and closer to the bush, and when he finally comes upon it he thrusts his bow in and fires a shot, grinning savagely.

All he hits is dirt. Ahead of him, a flash of amber bursts out from the underbrush and breaks straight for a tree, running a curved line to hopefully avoid being shot. Although one of his men's already seen her and sounded an alert, he yells out anyway, "Over here! She's over here!"

He leaps out over the brush and rushes after her, joining his four men in their chase. One by one they all shoot at her...but they all miss, although their leader's arrow comes within centimeters of her neck. She keeps going and flashes by a small tree, knocking its branches on her way by. Behind her, they continue pursuit and ready a second volley as she leaps onto a tree trunk and starts frantically climbing.

"Fire!" He orders, and they all shoot at her...but miraculously, none of the arrows hit. Three glance from the trunk and fall harmlessly to the ground, while two embed in the trunk to each side of her.

"Again!" He grunts, and they all ready a third volley. As soon as they're ready, however, she gets to an upper branch and stands, and then runs across it amidst a hail of arrows. All but one miss, but the fifth -- the leader's, no less -- glances from her shoulder and bounces off to the ground. She taps a hand to her left shoulder quickly, but since there's no apparent damage, she brings it back around to steady herself in her leap across branches.