Mature Content Warning

it had been an early, hot morning when six kills left the swamp panther village with his warriors carefully encircling muskrat. she was a prize, he declared, despite the fact she was a fighter herself. muskrat said nothing and waited.

as the land changed around them, she had grown desperate. evening brought six kills to call for a camp, and she had gone with the warriors to gather brush and sedge. 

muskrat remembered the elation of slipping noiselessly into the trees, racing back the way they had come. it would be at least an hour before she was discovered missing, and six kills would go to grandmother gorseberry first to loudly state his displeasure.

she and cloud singer should have run then. 

muskrat's mind wakened to the rain of nightfall. the day entire she had spent in the verdant basin. closing her mind to the memory of any men who might have visited, she decided not to climb again, and lay heatstricken and consumed by memory, wishing against all of herself that someone might arrive to drive the reminiscing from her, if only for a short time.

as if called, for he was indeed sirened into reach of her, a man arrived.

he was a stranger. her nostrils flared, muzzle lifting to take his scent from the wet air.

the cry of her flesh reverberated inside her head, but there was danger in accepting. the swamp panther wondered if there was more he might offer her, another thing mutual in its pleasure that posed little risk to her goals.

but if not — she watched him, still as stone in the gathering gloom.