Blacktail Deer Plateau somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

✹☾❂

 

The ideas that Umi was impressing upon her were baffling. Did this cat not see what a tiny thing she was, incapable of using her weight and teeth to take the life of anything larger than a raccoon? If Eleuthera could take down a creature like a deer all by herself, there would likely be no need for her ever to shelter in a pack! Perhaps that was why mountain lions lived such sad, solitary lives — as she saw it — and why Eleuthera had tons of friends. She would take teamwork, any day. 

Still, Eleuthera was easily warming up to the strange creature. This was not the type of cougar that she had heard myths and stories about, in her travels. She was friendly, and easy to talk to — and though Eleuthera’s jocularity seemed to pass right over her head, it seemed to come from a place of innocence, and that was something that Eleuthera almost envied. “Easy for you to say,” she began, unable to hide the smile that finally edged across the entirety of her fine-boned maw.

“You are so strong.” Eleuthera upturned an eyebrow at the cat’s body of rippling muscle, accentuated by her field of short, golden furs. “I am weak, I need my pack." it was a universal truth that she now trusted Umi not to take advantage of.