BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 9: Cat Attack

Raë slammed the alarm shut. Outside, it was quite and dark. She hurriedly dressed and snuck out of the tent. The lake was cinder-black with a burst of stars mirrored on its opaque front. It was silent except for a distant hoot and the crunching of her quick footsteps.

She made her way to the prescribed spot, and waited. But Neel didn't show.

Impatiently, she scampered towards his tent.

"Neel!" she whispered loudly. "Aren't you coming?"

"I can't get myself to wake up," he grumbled.

"Close the flap!" protested a tent-mate. "It's cold!"

Raë shut the flap and scurried out the back into the shadows of the forest.

Upon finding open ground, Raë broke into a run. Arms slaying the air, her hair galloping like a horse's mane, a chain with a tiger-claw pendant bumped over her chest in steady rhythm. The marsh, like streaks of wilderness zipped past her vision.

She was running in wild abandon.

At the edge of the lake, she slowed her pace. Catching her breath with easy steps, when, one by one, the hair on the nape of her neck prickled.

She looked to her side, and caught the sight of amber eyes. Crouching up ahead was a spotted leopard breathing heavily through its nostrils. She froze. Death was hunkering two tackles away.

Watching from a tree was Æsh. He held his breath and waited. If I call out to Raë will it incite or quell the predator? He stilled when he saw Raë turn her body towards the hunting cat, then outstretch her hands and raise herself up.

Her body large and extended, she remembered: never make eye-contact with a leopard.

Æsh began to descend, but saw the leopard was unresponsive. In a loud whisper he called out her name.

"Raë!"

Raë looked sideways and up.

"Raë! Up here." She located him at a height. He gestured for her to climb up.

She was adept at climbing trees, and when Æsh offered her his assistance, she didn't need it.

She found a comfortable spot and leaned back on the trunk. Æsh sat opposite her, tightening his arm around a branch.

"Never underestimate your opponent ... especially if it's a hunting cat."

"What's more important is to not underestimate oneself."

"Hubris can be one's undoing. What are you basing your estimation on?"

"I'm basing it on the fact that I'm sitting in front of you. Alive."

"You were plain lucky. The leopard's probably full from a kill."

"I've lived in these parts long enough to have an intelligence of the forest. And the rule book says, never make eye contact with a leopard."

"It'd be an entirely different story if the leopard was out on a hunt. You could have been mauled, you could have been killed with a snap of her jaw."

Raë's eyes slid down to his arm. She caught the pulsation inside his elbow and followed a bulging vein to the dash on his wrist. His wristband forgotten, on his naked flesh, she saw a deep scar, displayed.

"Prison lessons?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.

Æsh's silence wavered, but only for a fraction.