[fancypost borderwidth=0pt; background: #292929; border-top: 4pt #cc9b46 solid; border-bottom: 4pt #cc9b46 solid; width: 370px;][fancypost borderwidth=0px; width: 300px; text-shadow:1px 1px 2px black; color: #cc9b46; font: 30pt new times roman; text-align:center; line-height: 70%;]Harliquine[/fancypost][fancypost borderwidth=0px; float: left; width: 350px; width: 100px; height: 80px; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; height: 130px; border: 2px solid #fff; background-image: url(http://i1159.photobucket.com/a…02_120305_zps93e31237.jpg); background-position: center;][/fancypost][fancypost borderwidth=0px;width: 385px; text-align: justify; font: normal 11px arial; line-height: 95%; margin-left: -23px;]The sun was high and hot, the air unusually dry and still, barely a breath of wind stirring the tall grasses. Harliquine moved like a ghost, slipping through the stalks with a steady gate. The ache in her paws had become such a constant that she now barely paid it any mind, but the weakness of hunger was a thing that she could never grow accustomed to. It was skill, mixed with a healthy dose of luck that had gotten her this far; prey had been hard to come by until she’d reached the edges of this strange land. Only now that she was surrounded by food, she found herself too weary to hunt. Irony was a cruel mistress.
With a sigh, she paused to turn and chew at an itch on her left haunch. Her winter coat was still shedding, falling out in clumps. She hadn’t had time to groom properly in weeks. To sit and give herself a thorough cleaning would leave her open to attack, and she wouldn’t risk making herself a target. As she had made her way down the steep slope, into the sloping meadow she’d caught a familiar scent: clan. It was faint, and old, but it had put an extra touch of urgency into her descent.
Itch cured, she cast about for a place to rest. It was growing altogether too warm out for her liking, and she was tired and thirsty. A stunted, wind twisted tree jutted out of the ground a few hundred feet away, and she made a beeline for it and whatever shade it might offer. Grateful for the respite, she stretched out on her belly, front legs extended forward, and rear legs splayed behind. The grass beneath her smelled sweet, so she nibbled at the stalks, taking in what moisture she could from the plants.
Thirst slaked as much as was possible, she rested her head on her right leg, gazing out over the field. This land was an oddity to her. She had never met such strange cats before. There were creatures here with scales, and wings, and horns, and fins; back in her homeland, such creatures were the stuff of legends, and stories told in the den. There were only felines, that she knew of. It was my decision to explore, she thought, licking a spot of dirt from her paw, and this isn’t my land. I have to do what I must to survive here.
Finally succumbing to exhaustion, she laid her head between her paws, her zombie colored pelt, (read her pelt description typed out in my siggy), coat ruffling as the wind picked up. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she began to doze in the shade, ears cocked to listen for approaching danger.
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