O A S I S

"Hmph, take a right indeed."

Honey-swatched eyes glinted in the early sunrise as they looked out over tall reeds and swaying hedges of grass. The breeze felt nice on the lioness' fur, cooling and refreshing, but her overall temper was slightly heated. She shook her large, feline head in disbelief and sighed with a warm laugh.

The colors were right, if just a tad too green, but the topography, the landscape of it all, was a bit on the foriegn side. Oasis released an "Oof!" as she plopped down on her muscular haunches and mulled the conversation over in her head. She had asked a smaller cat, a ocelot or something related, where she could find a suitable home much like the one she had left in climate and in landscape. He was reluctant to answer her as he heard her belly growling but she smiled her sweet, motherly smile and he felt a little less threatened.

She had followed his directions to a "T" but the foriegn cat must've been confused or totally ignorant to her plight. She had been an inhabitant of the hot, the brutal, the unmerciful country and this place was... lush.

I deserve a vacation anyway, she purred. Yawning widely and stretching out her long forearms she stood back up, her tan tail swishing. The sun had risen a little higher as she had sat and pondered about what to do and the light that hit her dappled fur with her abnormal cub spots was very becoming of her. She had the lethe and agile body of an experienced hunter and the temperment of a true matriarch and here she was. Not a runaway or exiled but seeemingly a deserter.

It was not her true intentions but her story was a sad one.

For now, Oasis loped easily up a hil with a single tree on it and lept up into it's canopy. It bowed loudly under weight as it was a hollower, weaker species than she was used to but she laughed at the thought of her tumbling out the tree during her nap like a clueless cub.

Quilikahm

Most of the vibrant, swaying grass stalks in the prairie were taller than Quil was, though perhaps that wasn't saying so much when many of the grass species here were large enough to conceal wolves and big cats from view too. But for the muntjac hybrid, who stood at a meager eighteen inches to the shoulder, the vegetation all but swallowed her up in their towering height.

Quilikahm didn't mind so much though, because her dark coat of black and deep brown didn't hold much variation on it, and it provided poor camouflage for the tiny, tusked deer. Where her field of vision was restricted, Quil used her large ears and keen sense of smell to guide her through the maze of plants, where she mostly stuck to rabbit trails for the ease of travel.

'Big cat... a lion.' Those thoughts flashed through her mind the second she caught wind of Oasis. The little deer froze and listened intently, until she could hear the oh-so soft sound of a big furry body passing through the grass some ways ahead of her. She could feel the faint thump of big, padded feet against the cold ground. She could feel her own heart thumping heavily in her chest. 'Velvet? No... her scent is foreign.' A rush of noise and a creak of strained branches told Quil that the unknown cat had jumped into tree nearby. She almost wanted to investigate, in the slim chance that she could make a friend out of the predator as she had with Velvet and Tumult, but... common sense prevailed, and Quilikahm began to retreat in the opposite direction of the tree. She knew that the big cat might see her movements through the rustling grass now that she had a vantage point in the tree, but Quil was hoping against hope that Oasis was not looking in her direction...

O A S I S

Her honey colored eyes flecked with the most attractive hints of gold were closed. Lids were heavy, breath was stead and the only limbs to move on Oasis' body were her twitching ears and lashing tail. It seemed to her that you could never escape the pests that loved to thrive on rich, metallic blood. She had traveled Gods-know how many miles to this new land, this new adventure, and still she had remained within reach of pesky blood-suckers.

Story of my life.

The sun felt comforting and warm on her fur. It overlapped the dapples already lying underneath her fur and marked on her flesh. Many in her old pride had found them endearing and suiting, for however maternal and wise Oasis had proven to be, there was a abrasive spark in her eyes every being, fellow predator or prey, came to know. The older lioness' still doted on her, and we're talking the elder os her pride, while the others found her understanding but still comically inclined to tease and hassle. To her old pride, her spots matched her personality and the old saying "young at heart".

What they didn't know, sadly, was Oasis couldn't bear the sight of her spots. Each and every one was a reminder of her condition, of her curse. How was her beautiful and nurturing mother to know when she named her only daughter Oasis that the name would be so fitting? That her daughter, while loved and sought after by any and all, would be fruitless? Desolate? Barren?

They were harsh terms etched into Oasis' mind and yet no one but her had ever voiced anything close to her own thoughts. Her pride had been supportive, encouraging. Her friends and aunts blamed the weather, the food, overpopulation, stress ( Humph! Stress. I was never stressed. Fools.), anything they could think of to soothe the scathing mind of their relative.

Nothing was ever enough. Oasis found herself obsolete.

Now, atop a precariously bending tree, she peeked an eye open and swept them quickly across her body so she couldn't accidentally take a glance at her own skin. Instead, she snapped her eyes up to the sky where she saw a triage of birds circling and diving, weaving. She watched their white and gold and some red feathers press against their bodies as they fove or ruffle up as they slowed their speedy flights. Graceful and quick, not a care in the world. No worldly pests to harrass them. I'd be a feathered fool anyday just to be relieved of these... irritating... BUGS!

"UGH!"

With a small roar she leapt from the branches of thin tree and it snapped back to attention quite fiercly. The lioness could feel her emotions begin to bubble in her chest and the effects rise to start constricting her throat. She coughed roughly, trying to subdue the sobs she could feel coming on. To match her frustration she pushed her legs strenuously, muscles contracting, to push her forward. She'd run farther away. Evidently, this place wasn't far enough to escape her thoughts, her momories or her past.

It was a futile attempt to do so, but before she knew what was happening she had cleared 10 yards faster than she could process the familiar scents burning her nostrils and making her tails whip back and forth. Her eyes shut tightly ,she felt that all of it was just the usual oncoming waves of emotions that always overwhelmed her when she was alone. Instead, when she opened her eyes and took a deep breath, she found herself bound's length away from a small deer. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth hung open as she slammed down on her haunches so she didn't overtake the little animal. Or, to better get a grasp of the situation. Was she so upset she'd turn and run? Yes, turn and run from a deer. Or was she so upset she found herself famished?

Anything is possible with this girl.

Quilikahm

The deer's slender legs moved with the quick, careful-footed grace of her species to spirit her through the tall grass as fast as possible without creating too much noise. Her head was low and her giant ears pressed back so that they would catch on the blades of grass she was passing. Even so, she could hear the distant whoosh of bird wings beating in the air, and... oh Imre! Her heart leaped up into her throat with the gusty roar from Oasis. Quilikahm picked up her pace and pushed onward through the prairie, putting one hoof in front of the other and silently praying that she hadn't been the one to make the big cat roar.

Thud She heard and felt all 375 pounds of muscle and death hit the ground after Oasis sprung down from the tree. Worse yet was the rapid pounding of paws on the ground and the rustling of the feline springing through though the vegetation at speeds that Quili knew she couldn't outrun. And Oasis was heading precisely in her direction.

Fear overtook the normally rational cervid and she burst into an all out dash, pumping her legs as fast as she possibly could. But it seemed that for every bound she took, Oasis gained on her by a leap. When the lioness was almost upon her, Quili gave a sharp, involuntary bark of terror and veered to the side, hoping to outmaneuver the predator. By the time she'd darted behind a small shrub and crouched down in exhaustion, her sides heaving for breath, Quili realized that Oasis had already stopped running. Very, very slowly, the little muntjac edged to the side of the bush to look out past it at Oasis. Her dark, glossy eyes scarcely blinked as they roved over the big cat, and when she dared to speak, her words were shaky thanks to the adrenalin running through her veins, "You d-don't want to ea-eat me. I c-can get you food."