Predator

Bonnevali's chest heaved as she lay flat on her stomach on cold stone. As she breathed, the equally chill stone above her pressed into her back, and the scratches and bruises she'd undoubtedly gained from shoving herself in this crevice started to sting.

The sound of claws grating against stone came suddenly with a thundering yowl. Bonnevali screamed, jolting in surprise and snapping up uncomfortably in the tight space. "DAMN IT!" She shouted, hurting her own voice. Her eyes stung from pain and frustration. "Just leave me ALONE you DAMN ANIMALS!" 

But that of course didn't do anything. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place with that pack of silver-prints prowling out there. Literally. One of them swatted at her again and growled, but its paw stopped short, it couldn't reach her. Bonnevali thought hard. She couldn't outlast them, silver-prints were known to wait for their prey like this for weeks. She needed another option. Camouflage wouldn't do any good, they could still smell and hear her. Mimicry? No- no not now. ‘Ugh. Think Bonnevali, think!’

Bonnevali began to feel around in the dark. This was a tight space, but she'd grown up wiggling through crevices like this back home. She waited for herself to catch her breath, then began to breathe slower. She wasn't going anywhere, and they couldn't get to her; now was the time to remain calm. So she waited, she searched, and most of all she listened.

Minutes passed, and minutes more, and she listened. A faint breeze, a drip drip drip, an echo. Things that could be from a cave, or from this damn crevice in the cliff. It was tight, but who knows how deep it ran. Bonnevali groaned loudly. She needed to MOVE, she hated laying here. Her joints were getting stiff. So she began to crawl.

Well it wasn't so much of a crawl as a hardly productive wiggle. The silver-prints didn't like her moving. They batted their paws wildly into the crevice at random times, making her jump, and swear. They nearly got her once or twice. But little by little progress was made. And soon she felt a dip in the stone.

Bonnevali gasped, hope welling up in her chest. She stuck her hand into the dip and it broke through into open air. A breeze! She felt a breeze down there! But, there was no way she'd be able to fit into there. The hole felt wide enough to fit her, barely, but the ceiling was too low. She couldn't get to it to begin with. 

"Like hell I'm giving up." Bonnevali growled. She drew her arms back from the hole, and holding them at the best angle she could, she summoned her machete. It wasn't made to chisel stone, but by the gods it was all she had. The sound of the machete against the stone was irritating to say the least, but she soon became numb to it by necessity.

Hours passed of the same, slowly opening up more space for her to wiggle forward. But not enough. Her neck ached and arms were beyond sore. There came a time she was almost certain the silver-prints had left. Cautiously she'd thrown a chunk of the ceiling she'd managed to carve away out into the grass beyond her crevice. And very quickly her little trick proved the continued presence of those thorns in her side. Something told her that trick wouldn't work again.

At some point Bonnevali had fallen asleep. Or some kind of sleep. Really it all felt like one continuous nightmare. She'd bumped her head again, jolting awake. Every muscle protested at being used again, and her stomach groaned, but this hole was her only way forward. At one point she'd dropped a shard of the stone in and listened for the click. It'd fallen about a meter or maybe two she guessed. A tight spot for sure, but it was either dying in there where she could move her neck, or letting this mountain crush her.

Finally, Bonnevali had broken away enough ceiling to squeeze through and into the hole. Eager to just be out of her sandwiched position, she scrambled to crawl into the hole. She maintained just enough caution to awkwardly turn around and lower herself into the hole over diving in head first. But once her feet were in, she didn't go slow.

Hastily she dropped into the pitch black space, landing on both her feet. Immediately shockwaves of pain exploded up her at the force of the impact. It wasn't at all a big drop, but the very sudden liberation and pressure on her already weary body was too much. She gasped and fell to the cave floor in a pile. 

She spent some time lying there without the strength to move. But soon she began massaging out her muscles, slowly twisting about and letting the particular pain in her head throb through her. Sitting there now let her ruminate. There was no light at all in here. Even above while she'd crawled about she'd lost all sense of time. Despite her slim indication of the moon or sunlight, sleep had come and gone with no usual rhythm. Had it been a day? Two? No, surely not that long. Right? What if she died down here? She wondered how long it would take for someone to find her. Would she be a worn out, chewed on pile of usogi bones by then? Pitiful. She hadn't even managed to meta yet.

---

Without realizing, she'd drifted off again. Bonnevali woke on the cold and hard cavern floor, opening her eyes to a pitch black darkness. At first she almost thought she was still asleep, but the hunger said otherwise. Bonnevali groaned and rolled onto her back. She thought about the things she'd gone to sleep reflecting on. Then on the dreams she'd had. Dreams of family. Corsetta had scolded her for stealing a plate of food. Then Argy had been in the crevice with her, and done a much better job of getting out. She'd wiggled out like the stone wasn't there at all and had vanished out of sight and into the trees, no indication of the silver-prints pouncing her at all. Leaving Bonnevali alone.

Bonnevali carefully rose to a seated position and wrapped her arms around her legs, aching all the while. Save for the soft trickling of water, it was so quiet. So dark. She had no idea how big this cave was. There could be a hundred foot drop only a few feet away from her, and she wouldn't know. That was a sobering thought. And so were the thoughts of all the things she hadn't done yet. She hadn't seen Overgrowth, she hadn't mastered the Valkiriian language, she had only just met her cousins. Those and a dozen other things.

This pensiveness however soon turned to resolve. ‘With Diaphlyn as a witness,’ Bonnevali thought. ‘I am NOT going to die from all this.’ With renewed enthusiasm Bonnevali felt at her belt. Her pants were scuffed and torn, but her small leather pack was still there, safely secured. She whipped it open, and after some blind groping through the inner fabric folds she withdrew a match. Striking it hard against the stone it burst into flames and dimly lit the den-like cave. 

Bonnevali blinked against the painfully bright light and paced around the small space. It was about 10 feet square, the ceiling leaving her just enough space to stand up straight. It looked to be the home of some absent animal. Her stomach dropped a little, could it be the silver-prints’? Searching the cavity she found a tunnel running uncertainly upward, made by the steady trickling of water over the years. She ducked down and squinted up it, holding the little match up to provide a smidge of light. It was a tighter squeeze. No, a silver-print couldn’t fit through this.

Wanting to capitalize on the limited amount of time she had with the match, Bonnevali scrambled up the slope. Best to map as much space as she could before her light ran out, it would make navigating this again if she needed to easier. The tunnel was steep and small, and sometimes scraped against her sides. Not to mention scaling it was difficult while trying to still hold out her match. It had begun to burn low, tickling at the fur on her fingers. She looked about frantically, but of course there wasn’t anything to light. Only cold, damp, and jagged water worn rocks on every side. 

The fire licked against her fingers, threatening to burn her. But the light went out before the heat could burn its way through her fur. She sighed in frustration, but she didn't have much choice but to continue pressing forward in the dark.

Climbing up a steep, slippery cave wall in the utter darkness was not a glamorous task. But it wasn't a task Bonnevali hadn't accomplished before. Of course, those had been occasions when she knew she would have family looking for her if she failed to return, and that if she yelled enough she'd be found and helped. But yelling would do no good here, quite the opposite in fact. The last thing she wanted was getting trapped in a tight space by a silver-print again. 

Whenever she found a place to rest, she took the opportunity. She was weak. She still had her canteen, but there was practically nothing left in it. She’d had to drink from it sparingly when she was stuck, and it had already been half full to begin with. All that was left now was a few sticky clumps of coagulated blood. Apparently she hadn’t had enough vinegar to properly keep it liquified. That was something that started to worry her, how long could she go without sustenance? Resting on a ledge Bonnevali felt helpless, but she didn't want to cry, that would be wasting water. So she returned to her work and pressed on.

The cave began to get narrower and Bonnevali despaired. But after squeezing herself through a particularly tight point it opened up again, bringing with it a glimmer of light. Nothing so obvious as a direct beam, but she was starting to be able to make out her surroundings. Taking courage at this she climbed faster, and after half an hour at most, Bonnevali saw light.

The pale glimmer of the moons shone through a thick covering of grass at the mouth of the cave. Despite herself, Bonnevali couldn’t help but let out an exclamation of relief at the sight. She scrambled up the slope and stuck her face into the cold damp grass, basking in the moonlight and breathing the fresh air in deeply. Now it was hard to keep the tears from flowing. She flopped over the small patch of cool dirt and grass and cried in relief. She rolled over onto her back and sprawled out on the small ledge. The sky! It was wonderful to see the sky!

Though only one moon was out, compared to the oppressive darkness of the cave it felt incredibly bright under the brilliant array of stars overhead. Bonnevali couldn't do much more than lay there in relief for what may as well have been hours. 

When she opened her eyes again a pink glow could be seen lining the horizon. She rolled over onto her stomach and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. Along with the rest of her body, her insides ached horribly from lack of food. Weakly, she pulled her canteen from her belt. But, save for a single, small, unpleasantly squishy lump of coagulated blood, it was empty. She groaned. She couldn’t starve here.

With food in mind, Bonnevali laboriously and stiffly stood. The ledge was small and standing on it was awkward. The cliff below was steep - far too steep to descend in her current state anyway - and so she looked up and around. There was an even narrower ledge to her left that seemed to lead up the cliff. Craning her neck and looking up the cliff face, it seemed to stretch farther up by another three or four meters. Faced with little other options, Bonnevali sidled along the thin edge, awkwardly gripping at protrusions in the stone to keep her balance. 

After many drawn out minutes of straining, close calls, and endlessly staring at the quite unsurvivable drop below her, Bonnevali hauled herself onto a grassy ledge. She sprawled out and caught her breath, before finally pulling herself up to look around. There was a thick underbrush, a few trees, and still not much space. But it was enough.

Some time later Bonnevali sat tearing through some odd tasting little varmint she'd managed to catch. It was a meager meal, and the raw meat would be hard to digest, but it was food. Enough blood to let her use her sanguinities again. That would make catching more food much easier. So then… the next course of action was to figure out how to get out alive. Bonnevali stood up and glanced over the edge at the forest floor far below, looking for any sign of the silver-prints. Nothing. That didn't do anything to ease her fears. 

She spent the rest of the day resting, hunting, and looking for a way down. The jungle was thick up here. She could survive, but more and more the thought of an actual bed and roof over her head sounded irresistible. The thought of wandering too deep into the trees made her wary, she didn't want to get lost. The clifftop she'd found herself on had steep edges that curved inward, making the option of climbing down unaided nearly impossible. Especially in her exhausted condition. Bonnevali sighed in frustration as the sun again began to set. She’d found her way up into a large tree and made herself somewhat comfortable between the trunk and a sturdy wide branch. This wasn’t so bad a place to nap.

Bonnevali’s eyes snapped open in the dark as she felt something thud against the tree. She swung to the left, nearly falling off the branch, as something large climbed up the tree at a breakneck speed. It had sensed her movement and it was closing in. Yowls sounded from beneath her. Bonnevali swore. 

Three panther-like creatures prowled below her, wicked looking antlers protruding from their shoulder blades - meant to mimic the tusks of mamoose. A patchwork of blobby markings ran along their pelts, glistening silver like their large eyes in the moonlight - the very thing they’d been named for. She made eye-contact with one as it rose onto its back legs and dug its claws into the tree. Her stomach dropped. A heavy paw swung near her head and collided with the bark, pinning some of her hair beneath its strong claws. 

Bonnevali screamed and recoiled, her hair yanked free of the silver-print as she fell backwards out of the tree. Flailing helplessly in the air she reached for anything she could hold, and miraculously grasped a sturdy vine. With the sudden tug of her weight it snapped loose of its hold in the canopy above and swung with her. Similarly, she felt her arm pop in its socket in a horribly painful way. The wind whipped through her hair as she fell somewhat laterally with the vine. Blinding pain shot through her as her back hit the trunk of another tree, as solid as the first. She was sure she’d felt a bone or two crack. She hung there, still gripping the vine tight against all odds, and blinked through the pain. 

She still could hardly see a thing. Where she’d been before there had at least been a clear view of the moons, but the canopy was thicker here and she could only faintly see the slinking forms of the silver-prints below. Bonnevali was tired of despair. She’d run from these things for days, and all that work amounted to nothing. They would kill her. This would be it. Now was the time to give up, right...? No. Instead of defeat or fear, she only felt a rising fury. These damn whidturds? THESE sharding pussycats were going to do her in? SHARD NO! She would not be their prey! She would not let these good for nothing animals rip her apart!

Bonnevali grabbed hold of the vine with her other hand as her rage grew. She moved her back to the tree and placed her feet against the trunk. She was not prey. She was the predator, through and through! And these little cats were about to learn that. 

A strange surge of strength flowed through her muscles as she let go of the vine with one hand and stuck the other out to the side, summoning her machete. With a brief bounce against the trunk, she lunged forward off the tree and snarled. Perfectly mimicking the deep yowls of the silver-prints she bellowed as loud as she could. The silver-prints stumbled back in surprise, and one screamed as Bonnevali collided with it, blade on flesh. It was down in a moment, and Bonnevali was on her feet. The power in her surged again as she took a wide stance, hissing at the other shocked silver-prints. A dull pain throbbed in her bones as the power surged again. Bonnevali screamed as her whole body erupted. 

Equal parts fury and exhilaration welled in her as she felt her body change. SHE was the predator! SHE WAS THE PREDATOR! She yowled again and the silver-prints cowered back, eyes wide and ears flattened. Bones lengthened, muscles stretched and flexed, and her shoulder popped back into place. When Bonnevali’s pain blotched vision cleared she could see the creatures clearly. A wicked smile curled across her lips and she exhaled in gleeful relief. She stood now not as a weak, defenseless usogi, but as an usogami. Fully grown and deadly. As an equal- No. As a predator before her prey. With a howl of triumph, she lunged.