Sequoia Coast empty flowers

The pale creature wove her way through the sodden thicket in the sinuous manner of a snake, her pelt heavy and steeped with water and her head and tail tucked below her spine in the manner of a weather-beaten pauper. Under the pounding of rain her progress was inaudible -- each paw placed on the blackened earth left distinguishable and sunken marks in their wake.

She froze then when she thought she scented lynx on the air -- the rain made the scent vague and she whirled around in the small clearing, mud splattering up her underside in the flourish. Sharply she stiffened and struck toward the scent consumed with aggression -- she was much too small to handle a lynx on her own, but if there was one thing cats didn't like, it was instability.

And Caiaphas happened to be very unstable.

She was disappointed when she spotted not a cat but a pup -- who laboriously churned through the downpour in the most dejected manner. She approached him then with her muzzle low and her fierce yellow eyes level with his own -- her voice barely a threaded whisper over the deplorable drizzle. "Poor thing -- poor thing." She cooed, pulling closer as if to wrap an arm around him. "This little one is lost."