25th of Fall, 518AV
She normally didn’t like to sleep at night, but after the past two days, it seemed fitting. She didn’t like this city, and she didn’t like the people in it. She had nothing, and although she would not have considered the Drykas kind to foreigners, these people were even less so. As soon as she passed the fire heap, Ixzo shrugged out of her shirt, and undid her belt, piling her things inside the cloth and then tying it up. She did not care to stay in this city, but she knew she would need to stay close. Transforming into a lion, she picked up the linen, glanced around to see who saw, and then stalked into the forest.
She could see clearly, and had little issue with the thick undergrowth. She was not stealthy, but she was not hunting at the moment. She needed water and a good tree to lay in, and then the next morning she would make a plan. Unlike the Sea of Grass, the lioness did not fear these wilds, she understood the forest. This was not the jungle that she called home, and the vegetation and animals were vastly different, but neither was it the open plains she had grown to call home. Even now as she let her eyes follow the ground in search of a stream. She found herself skirting around the north of the city, remembering seing broken bridges over a north-south river of substantial size. She knew she wouldn’t want to drink from the stream south of the city, but north of it might be fine.
After making the decision she noticed the signs of water near by. Ground vegetation grew denser the closer she came, but it was light and did not disturb the path of the lioness where she tread. She smelled the tang of many humans in the footpaths that wound through the woods here, but she ignored their tracks, both fresh and old. Yes, her path definitely led to water. Within half a bell she could hear the whispers of Makutsi’s stream on the edges of her senses. The air still reeked of human, but it was growing clearer, being swept away by the river. What few animals decided to drink from here were small enough not to be noticed by or disturbed by the humans. Any prey of substance would be drinking further up the stream, and while she would have liked to do the same, the lioness was too exhausted to.
But she was no idiot. She approached off of a human trail, and paused before breeching the tree line to the bank of the channel of water that fed the city. Perking her ears she listened for sounds of approach by anything. A predator larger or smaller than her, an herbivore, or a human. The sun had only set a few bells ago, and so she didn’t trust that all the humans have disappeared, however it was unlikely there would be predators larger, or even smaller, than her wandering about. Still, she was not too tired to make sure.
Dropping her pack in the leaves below and letting her mouth hang open, she let the scents of her surroundings flow through her glands, reading them. She settled into a crouch and decided to watch for a few chimes, taking in everything that her senses would give her to read the area surrounding. She could hear the splash of a human further down the stream, although she could not entirely tell what it was. This bank was frequented, so she had to spend extra effort telling the stale from fresh human trails. But in the few chimes she waited, nothing approached, and she sensed nothing watching her. Leaving her pack in the bushes, she slowly crawled forward, rolling her paws on the crinkling leaves. She crawled with extreme slowness, not minding the extra time it took to hide the rhythm of her footsteps. When her paws touched shorter grass and then dirt, she relaxed. Wide eyes still looked around her, and she perked her ears as she leaned down to drink from the fresh stream.
