Copyrighted Kristen Banet All rights reserved.
Reupload from original Facebook post
There’s a line in A Nature of Conflict. “She isn’t ready.” But the question was always who?
Here’s the answer. Obviously- SPOILERS POSSIBLE, and this is a first draft version with no editing.
The foliage crunched up her paw. She needed to hunt. She needed to feed. She stalked through the dark jungle, hoping to find the big rodents she liked.
Then she felt it. A pull that made her pause.
She was a beast with a journey more important that food. The magic-mother told her that. The magic-mother who raised her mother, the jaguar who nursed her. Her mother was always with the hairless magic-mother. Jaguar and… human. That was what they said. A bond between them from something that they couldn’t explain.
Baring her teeth, she knew she was supposed to have someone like that as well. She was supposed to have her own… magic.
And the pull was like it had been before. Faint for a long time, every so often, the pull had wanted her to go north when her magic human needed her. So distant. So far.
But she had grown good at ignoring it. Magic-mother had always told her she couldn’t make the distant journey to her own magic human. She needed to wait. The magic wouldn’t have bonded them if the magic human was never meant to be in the jungle. Magic-mother was certain that magic human would come for her shadow.
For that was what she was. A shadow. Her mother and father were normal jaguars, but not her. She was black as night, with only the faintest hint of her spots. Magic-mother called her Sombra, but she didn’t accept the name. Her magic human would tell her if it was the right name or change it.
And this pull… It was so much stronger than it had ever been. It wasn’t to the north.
She knew.
Her magic human was in the jungle.
She began to run. She would find her magic human. Faster than her mother could ever run, she tore through the jungle.
She ran for days, not bothering to tell her mother or magic-mother where she was roaming.
Closer and closer, she grew to it. This was her magic human. She was certain. It was finally time. She could finally complete a task she didn’t understand. A task she had since she was born. To protect and be companion to this magic human.
And something growled at her as she felt the pull grow intense. So close and now something would block her path.
She stopped and snarled back, spitting and puffing herself up. Two… beasts walked out of the trees and onto her trail.
They stared at each other. She could feel the magic in them the same way she felt it in her mother. She knew they would feel it in her. They were not native to her jungle, either. They belonged to another magic human.
She snapped as their growls stopped and the larger one went to his belly and crept closer. The smaller one cared to roll to his back, exposing his soft belly.
It took her moment to realize they were being submissive. She had to do similar things when her mother was angry with her. She grew up to be bigger than her mother, so it stopped, but once, she had to expose herself and hope her mother didn’t kill her.
She scratched her claws into the earth and tried to step around them. They were both like her. They should feel and know she wanted her magic human.
She needed her magic human. She was tired of her existence without being able to answer the call.
The big one blocked her for a moment until she snapped again. She stepped around them and kept running forward. They would not be so foolish to attack her. These were her jungles and she was the dominant predator. She was one of the biggest of her kind as well. Ever the other magic humans like her magic-mother, didn’t toy with her or want their jaguars fighting her.
As she drew closer to her magic human’s location, she could smell human. So much human. Several. A pack of humans. A herd? She didn’t know the word. She knew some words, but not how to describe a group of humans.
The two beasts were behind her now, but she sensed no threat from them. She spied the humans from a brush, hidden in the night. One of them, with moon bright eyes and long dark hair turned out to the woods, his eyes landing on her. She bared her teeth at the male. The beasts moved around her and went to the male human. She realized this was their magic human and he watched her as he pet his beasts.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked softly.
She huffed. He knew. He was much like her magic-mother, it seemed.
“Are you looking for a shadow?” he asked softly. “Are you?”
No. She was the shadow. Her magic human needed a shadow and she would be it. She wasn’t looking for one.
She backed away slowly as she heard more humans. He kept watching her until one of those humans walked out.
She froze as she saw the human, could feel the new female human. The pull. The magic. She wanted to press against the female human who walked up to the male human.
This was her magic human. She could feel the bond now, the way her mother and magic-mother described. She brushed against it, hoping for her magic human to accept, to recognize her.
And her magic human pushed against it, repelling her.
She could feel fear and confusion.
Her magic-mother had warned her that her magic human might not be able to accept her immediately. She said that the shadow might not be accepted immediately, since she was born a second. She was her magic human’s second. She should have remembered that. The magic was different and her magic human had suffered loss before, like her own mother had when one of her kittens died to a snake. It had been a long time before her mother tried to have other kittens.
But now she could see her magic human. Dark curly hair and skin close to her magic-mother’s skin. Dark eyes. Scarred. Her magic human was scarred which meant her magic human was a fighter, a predator.
She didn’t know why her magic human was in her jungle, but she would stay closer. Her magic human wasn’t ready yet. Not yet.
But she was and she was a patient predator. She would watch and she would wait.