Chapter 9
The human is not afraid. Unlike the previous night.
She moves, and the panther does not like that. Last night, the human threw fire at her after moving. She growls.
She does not want to harm this human. But she will if she attacks again.
She doesn't.
The movements are slow, and the human never tries to get closer to the fire or withdraw a blade.
She speaks in a soft voice, and the panther likes this voice.
She has always liked it, she knows, even when her ears were different. Less sharp.
The human sets food in front of her and moves further away.
The panther does not understand. Why won't she eat her food?
She waits. She remembers vaguely that humans do strange things with their food before eating it sometimes. She used to do it, too.
But the human makes absolutely no movement to claim back her food.
So she takes a step forward and sniffs it.
The smell is different from that of her own kills. It smells of meat, but also of fire and wood. Somehow, it is familiar as well.
Slowly, she eats the meat. The taste is familiar yet foreign. She ate this before, she knows. But she had a different tongue then.
The human is leaning against the wall of the cave. She smells of sweat and blood. Of exhaustion.
The panther is tired, too. She wants to go find a nice tree and sleep.
But something inside her wants to stay close to the human. And it is too frail to harm her, anyway.
She falls asleep with her head between her paws, and only awakens briefly when a sleepy hand caresses her fur and the human's head drops next to hers.
ooooooooooooooooooo
Lexa had no idea why the panther was now following her.
Not that she was complaining, but she feared that at any moment she would get bored and disappear in the forest again.
When she had awaken with her nose barely an inch away from a blue eye, she had frozen, half elated that the panther had allowed her this close and half ashamed of what her body had done while she was asleep.
Then a deep sound had come from the animal, and Lexa had thought the panther was only now realizing the human's position. And that she was about to eat Lexa alive.
Until she realized the panther was purring.
So, she had stayed in this position a little longer, enjoying the sound coming from her furry companion. Hoping that this meant that Clarke was not as angry as she thought. After all, the panther was Clarke, right?
But after a while, she had risen. As much as she liked the quiet moment, she truly wished to share it with Clarke – the human, conscious version of Clarke. The panther's behavior gave her hope that ''Not yet'' might be closer to ''Soon'', but she feared that she was getting her hopes up.
What if she could not convince Clarke to transform again?
What if she did, only to have the blonde hate her and refuse to see her again?
But Lexa was not the only one who wanted to see Clarke again. And she was somewhat responsible for the young leader's current state, so she did not feel like she had the right to give up.
She had left the cave, constantly speaking to the panther in a soft voice and happy to see her following. When she had run out of things to say, the panther had stayed.
She had no idea why, but she was grateful.
Since talking had not brought Clarke back, Lexa had decided to try and bring the panther to places where she had been with Clarke before. She hoped it would trigger memories and that it would be enough to make her change back.
Unfortunately, most of those memories where in TonDC, and she doubted Indra would happily welcome a fully grown panther in her village. In fact, any scout spotting the predator so close to Heda would most likely try to take it down.
So, she had starting walking to the only place she could think of, all the while wondering how stupid she was for doing so.
The place where Clarke and her had made camp just after escaping Pauna.
She hoped the gorilla would not be anywhere close, because there was no way she could fight it with only one good arm. She had seen the state of her shoulder this morning, and knew she should go see a healer. But she did not want to leave Clarke now that she had found her. She had no idea whether or not she would come back again if Lexa left the forest.
Not to mention that Nyko would insist that she rests for a few days, and then it would be time to return to Polis.
It took several hours to reach their destination. Winter had erased all the remains of their small camp, but a patch of greener grass confirmed that a fire had been lit there a few months ago. And she would have recognized this arrangement of logs anywhere.
She settled against the same tree as last time, and observed as the panther sniffed around the place. She could feel her heartbeat quicken in anticipation, but could not read any emotions of the panther's face. Clarke used to be an open book, but the animal's features naturally concealed everything.
Exhausted, she did not even realized she had fallen asleep until she slid against the trunk and the shock of her injured arm hitting the ground woke her suddenly.
Alarmed that she had fallen asleep without the slightest protection – and so near the gorilla Pauna's territory – she looked around frantically.
The panther was gone.
