Re: Hunt
The tiger did not consider cheerleaders. Perhaps in a world where he was not a tiger at all - perhaps not even he - he would know blond cheerful symbolism. But he was summer heat and dirt, he knew trees and grass and he knew things that died because a tiger killed because he must.
Skippety-hop, thud-thud-thud and the tiger knew heartbeats, he knew rabbity fear and the adrenaline jump-start of prey learning it was meat. She smelled sour and acrid, like stale sweat and fear and pain but the tiger smelled these things with his lip curled up to breathe it in and he thought nothing. Felt nothing. Fear was fear. Blood on the grass, wet and sticky and the tiger swiped again. All that anger, all that anguish, meant nothing to a beast who flattened down to animal. What was in the amber eyes flickered out and died.
Swipe. A cuff from white-padded paw, heavy enough to knock back. Tigers did not argue with their prey.