My mate started feeling better last sun-up. It has been two sun-ups-and-downs since I beat the Strange-Rival. My mate is running and jumping as fast and far as she usually does. This is good. When she feels good, we make can go farther toward the sun with every sun-up-and-down. She smells happier, too. A happy-smelling mate is a good-smelling mate, I have decided.
There have been enough warm ones around for this area to be my hunting grounds. There is a problem, though. These hunting grounds have already been claimed. These are a rival's hunting grounds. I have been moving to where the rival's smell is strongest. His smell is weak where I am, and he doesn't know that I am in his grounds yet. I will challenge him, and win these grounds for myself and my mate.
I stop jumping, and my mate stops, too. I go over to her and wrap my arms around her, like she does. She puts her arms around my middle, and gives quiet happy-calls. This is serious, though. I put my face close to her ear and make a quiet danger-call. She quickly lets go of me, and smells scared. She jumps down to the ground, and into a warm one den. There, she is now safe.
I jump for a while longer, deeper into the hunting grounds. The rival must be sleeping, if he doesn't know I'm here. I will have to wake him up.
Deep breath.
Challenge-call.
Deep breath.
Challenge-call.
My calls come back to me, and I call a few more times to know what the area is like. He will come to me soon. I called twice, just to make sure he heard me. Now I wait.
The sun is not as warm when he comes to me. I slept while waiting. He must not have heard me. He challenge-called back to me, and that woke me up. He is in front of me, moving low, and making quiet angry-calls. He moves around me, but always keeps his head toward me. I do the same, making challenge-calls and angry-calls. He moves to me slowly, still low. He hits his head against mine, not hard enough to hurt, but still hard. He backs away quickly. My challenge is accepted.
I pounce at him right away. When I get close, he knocks me away with his arm. I roll when land, back on my feet. He makes an angry call and pounces at me. I try to hit him, like he did to me, but he is too heavy. He lands on my chest, and starts to scratch me with his claws. I dig into his chest with my claws. He jumps away, and is to my side. I roll toward him, and pounce out of the roll. Not expecting this, I land on him. I dig my claws into his arms and hold them down, and I bite at his face. He gives a pain-call, and swings his legs up. This throws me off of him, and I roll so that I am on my feet, behind him. I pounce onto his back, and wrap my arms tightly around his chest. I remember the Strange-Rival. This is how the Strange-Rival almost beat me. This is how I will beat my rival. The rival tries to shake me off. I dig my claws into his chest, and my foot-claws into his legs. He trashes on the ground, trying harder to shake me off. I do not let go. As he tries to shake me off, me claws dig into him deeper. He tries jumping, but I weigh him down too much. He can hardly jump at all. The smell of his flesh-water is now strong. I find his neck, and I bit down hard into it. I rip and tear at the side of his neck. He stops thrashing quickly.
He smells dead-cold. I have beaten him. This is my territory now. I take a deep breath, and give the loudest victory-call that I can. My mate will be with me soon. I am sure that she heard that. I lick the flesh-water from my claws and wipe the flesh-water on my mouth onto my fur. I should be clean for when my mate is all over me. I grab the dead rival by his fur, and drag him off of the high-not-ground I am on. It makes a loud noise when it hits the ground. I almost don't feel my wounds, I am so happy.
Author's Note
So, yeah. I think why I haven't been updating is because of me getting my creative writing fix from a play-by-post roleplay site. Anyway, I was going to have this be a massively long post (by my standards), but I decided to split it in two. Don't worry; I'll have the next chapter up in likely under a week.
Anywho, this is going to be a lot shorter than I first envisioned. Probably four or five chapters after this. This chapter I've had planned for some time, and finally managed to get it in. Jamming the new infected into the story was kind of a chore. I don't know if I'll bother putting the witch in here.
Anyway, enough rambling from me. I need sleep. I was at the gym today, and a bird landed on my bicep while I was doing curls. It went "Awwk!" and flew away.
Later.