Gorillas Under Glass [Open to All]
Jan 5, 2022 19:23:19 GMT -5
Post by Sabor on Jan 5, 2022 19:23:19 GMT -5
Thrashing and screeching, Sabor awoke with her claws still scrabbling for a foothold— and her jaws still snapping for Tarzan’s soft throat.
The leopardess snarled and whirled this way and that, but there was no sign of the jungle man. How?! How did he escape yet again?! The queen of the leap shook her head to chase away the drowsiness. She must have fallen asleep— but never before had she fallen asleep in the middle of a fight!
Still baffled, Sabor sat sejant, shaking her head in a desperate attempt to clear her mind. The rage was subsiding now, and she finally realized that she was no longer plummeting down a hole. No, now she found herself in a cool clearing of wood on all side, not unlike a obunegyere-mushroom-shaped version of her treehouse lair.
Suddenly she remembered the prick of that wretched Tarzan’s spear at her chest. Sabor hurriedly ran a scarlet tongue over her cloud-white brisket, but there was no wound. Hah! Clearly she had outsmarted the brute— if only she could have kept the coward from escaping!
Tongue still rasping her fur, Sabor froze. She would surrounded by humans!
An eager sniff of these oddly furred humans smothered her hopes. Compared to these strange-scented beasts, the wretched Greystokes were nondescript as tilapia.
Sabor scoffed. Clearly, if she ever wanted to eat a human (and live to tell the tale), none but Tarzan would do. Worse still, very few of the humans seemed to notice her— normally a stealth hunter’s dream, but right now rather…insulting.
Sabor was scenting the air for that ruffian when she noticed just what held the humans’ attention. Gorillas!
All of them, even the silverback, was pitifully small compared to the mountain gorillas she was used to— mangier too (at least, their fur was shorter and sparser). But, as she reminded herself, gorilla was what she had set out to catch that day, and even a smaller than usual gorilla would do.
Sabor stalked forward, slowly creeping towards the slanted, gleaming structures she recognized as glass. She could still feel the sting of the Greystokes’s cutting glass, but that had shattered easily enough— and was nothing compared to a gorilla entree.
Closer and closer she came, belly to the ground. Not a whisker twitched: she even managed to keep her jaws from chattering in anticipation of the killing bite. Only the tip of her tail she could not control, and that swished furiously. Slowly she shifted her hind legs under her, and sprang.
A loud thump, a painful crash, and Sabor found herself sprawled on the ground. Not ever a web-width crack marred the glass window— nor did the gorillas display anything but mild interest.
She could not understand that glass salvaged from a fiery shipwreck was not at its best strength, nor that over a century of progress had resulted in glass designed to withstand the blows of various zoo animals. But she did understand the old rage.
Screaming, Sabor reared rampant and repeatedly slashed the glass furious frenzy. Not only did her claws fail to make more than the slightest imprint, her flattened black-and-white ears could just pick up the low guttural wheeze of gorilla laughter from behind the glass.
The leopardess snarled and whirled this way and that, but there was no sign of the jungle man. How?! How did he escape yet again?! The queen of the leap shook her head to chase away the drowsiness. She must have fallen asleep— but never before had she fallen asleep in the middle of a fight!
Still baffled, Sabor sat sejant, shaking her head in a desperate attempt to clear her mind. The rage was subsiding now, and she finally realized that she was no longer plummeting down a hole. No, now she found herself in a cool clearing of wood on all side, not unlike a obunegyere-mushroom-shaped version of her treehouse lair.
Suddenly she remembered the prick of that wretched Tarzan’s spear at her chest. Sabor hurriedly ran a scarlet tongue over her cloud-white brisket, but there was no wound. Hah! Clearly she had outsmarted the brute— if only she could have kept the coward from escaping!
Tongue still rasping her fur, Sabor froze. She would surrounded by humans!
An eager sniff of these oddly furred humans smothered her hopes. Compared to these strange-scented beasts, the wretched Greystokes were nondescript as tilapia.
Sabor scoffed. Clearly, if she ever wanted to eat a human (and live to tell the tale), none but Tarzan would do. Worse still, very few of the humans seemed to notice her— normally a stealth hunter’s dream, but right now rather…insulting.
Sabor was scenting the air for that ruffian when she noticed just what held the humans’ attention. Gorillas!
All of them, even the silverback, was pitifully small compared to the mountain gorillas she was used to— mangier too (at least, their fur was shorter and sparser). But, as she reminded herself, gorilla was what she had set out to catch that day, and even a smaller than usual gorilla would do.
Sabor stalked forward, slowly creeping towards the slanted, gleaming structures she recognized as glass. She could still feel the sting of the Greystokes’s cutting glass, but that had shattered easily enough— and was nothing compared to a gorilla entree.
Closer and closer she came, belly to the ground. Not a whisker twitched: she even managed to keep her jaws from chattering in anticipation of the killing bite. Only the tip of her tail she could not control, and that swished furiously. Slowly she shifted her hind legs under her, and sprang.
A loud thump, a painful crash, and Sabor found herself sprawled on the ground. Not ever a web-width crack marred the glass window— nor did the gorillas display anything but mild interest.
She could not understand that glass salvaged from a fiery shipwreck was not at its best strength, nor that over a century of progress had resulted in glass designed to withstand the blows of various zoo animals. But she did understand the old rage.
Screaming, Sabor reared rampant and repeatedly slashed the glass furious frenzy. Not only did her claws fail to make more than the slightest imprint, her flattened black-and-white ears could just pick up the low guttural wheeze of gorilla laughter from behind the glass.