Fang was not lost.

Cats can't get lost. They always arrive exactly where they intend to exactly when they please.

Fang was not lost, he was simply in unknown surroundings, and did not know what his current destination looked like.

This was nothing new, Fang had been lost abruptly stricken by unexpected wanderlust many times, but he always found his way home. Not always the home he started out at, but Fang liked meeting new humans, even if he did have to train them to give proper belly rubs. The problem in this instance was that Fang didn't see any humans at all. There were no broad black roads for him to bask on, no wires overhead for birds to sit on in full view. There were no houses, no front doors to wait at. No garbage bins either, full of their strange smells.

Fang had gone back the way he came, to the great sprawling tree, but after some time crawling around in the roots, he had concluded that his house was not in fact hidden in a hole the size of his head. Equipped with this brilliant revelation, Fang had walked past the immense tree and into the woods opposite the direction he had been running. Fang was not unable to find his home, he had just decided to journey to a location in this direction, and anyone who disagreed was a lying mutt.

Fang walked. And walked. And walked. When the sun set, Fang stopped in the roots of a tree and ate his fill of his prey. It tasted much better than the rats he used to catch, and Fang resolved to catch more of the long-eared hoppers in the future. He pawed a little dirt onto his kill, then continued on his way, alert for new prey now that his mouth was empty.

The twilight was full of animals flitting through the forest, both the nocturnal and diurnal critters coming out to play. Twilight was always Fang's favorite time to hunt. It had been sunset when Fang chased the rabbit, then afternoon, then sunset again, but Fang didn't worry much about it. He had taken plenty of naps where he woke to the sun in a completely different position, so the only notice he took was to be happy for more hunting time.

Fang lowered into his stalking crouch as he spotted a pair of colorful birds on the ground, pecking at something among the leaf litter. He moved toward them, aiming for a tree to hide his approach. Then suddenly he moved and was right behind the tree. He was startled by the abrupt change, and shifted his feet on the different terrain, crackling the fallen leaves and breaking a tiny twig. It was a small sound, but enough to make the birds flutter up to an overhanging branch in a flurry of iridescent green wings and glittering red underbellies.

Fang stood and looked up, meowing plaintively at the unfairness and demanding his prey come back down to be eaten fair and square. The birds, as such irritating and small-minded creatures are wont to do, puffed and preened about their skill in evading such a predator. Fang stared unblinkingly up at them, plotting their bloody demise. He was slightly winded, as though he had sprinted to his current location rather than mysteriously appeared, but not nearly enough to consider mercy. Fang was a good climber, but the birds would easily see or hear him and fly off if he climbed their tree. As he eyed his next meal though, he spotted a branch that crossed over theirs from a different tree, the perfect ambush point. He stalked around the second tree, eyeing the branches he would use to reach his ambush point. He circled around behind the tree, outside of the birds' sight, and eyed the branches he would take to reach his goal, then lined up and jumped at the tree.

Suddenly Fang wasn't in front of the tree, he was in the air, high above the ground, with a branch below him. The shift and sudden exhaustion, much more pronounced than the first time, nearly causing him to miss his footing, but he managed to dig his claws into the wood and catch himself, landing with no more sound than the slight swaying of the branch. This time in addition to the lack of breath and tiredness, Fang noticed something else, something missing. A warmth inside of him like the sun shining on his face, that he had never noticed before, was suddenly weaker, dimmer than it had always been. It was not pleasant, but Fang ignored it for the moment, focused on the glittering plumage of the two birds below.

He silently stalked along the wood until he was in just the right spot, licking his lips. He crouched low, wiggled his butt to make sure his back claws were all set in the branch, then leapt out into the air, claws extended and limbs spread wide as he sailed toward his prey. One of the birds noticed him before he landed and started to take off, but the other was too slow, and it didn't notice a thing until Fang's paws crashed into it with his full weight, cracking its brittle bones against the branch. Fang lunged forward at the other bird, but only got a mouthful of feathers as it dropped off the branch and swooped away. Fang was not so easily dissuaded though, and leapt after it, pushing off its dead companion and flying off the branch, managing to swat the fleeing avian on the way down with his claws. The bird faltered in the air, dropping almost to the ground, but managed to recover at the last moment and flap away. Fang landed on the ground in a perfect four-point landing, watching the fleeing bird as it vanished into the forest. He debated chasing it down, but it was going much too fast and didn't seem like it would stop flying any time soon.

Fang chewed the glittering feathers he had caught in his mouth as he walked over to his kill, and noticed the warm sunlight inside him getting a bit brighter. Fang continued chewing as he pondered this occurrence. He continued to ponder as he dropped the chewed feathers and tugged off a new mouthful of them from his kill, giving them a few chews before dropping them and grabbing another. The feathers were definitely not food, but they tasted like bird, and they made the warmth inside him grow, so he kept at it until the bird was plucked practically bare, and he felt nice and sunny inside. Fang eyed the plucked bird. He usually didn't bother with eating more than a couple of bites from birds, too many feathers for not enough meat. This one was already plucked though, and it was a fairly big bird, so he dug in.

The bird was unexpectedly delicious, rich and just a little bit spicy. Fang even felt that sunshine inside him brighten as he ate, though not as much as with the feathers. By the time he finished the bird, he thought he might be even sunnier inside than before the hunt, though it was hard to tell since he hadn't even been aware of this warmth before his jump into the trees. Fang resolved to catch any more sparkly birds he saw, licking his chops at the thought of the one that flew away. He walked in the direction it had flown. Probably. It didn't really matter what direction he picked though. After all, cats can't get lost.

Fang walked through most of the night, killing the occasional helpless rodent or unsuspecting avian. He quickly discovered that his internal sunshine got a bit warmer before he blinked across a distance, and he could suppress the warmth with a thought, keeping him from blinking needlessly and wasting the wonderful sunshine. After a short session of playing with a captured vole, he also discovered he could activate the warmth at will, and simply appear where he was thinking of. He didn't use it much though. Fang enjoyed the warmth inside him, and the little critters were easy enough prey anyway.

The only prey that caused him any trouble on his night's journey was a bug. Fang was slinking through the underbrush when a glowing dot buzzed right in front of his nose. Fang was too startled to bite it right away, but he jumped after it, swatting at the dot with his paws and gleefully biting at the air. Eventually, he managed to pin the terrified insect with a paw and grabbed it with his mouth, biting down and enjoying the crunch. Enjoying, that is, until the taste hit him. It tasted like the white bars his humans kept near the sinks, combined with the way Alice's neighbor's dog smelled after it chased that white striped animal. Fang immediately spit out the vile insect, gagging and scampering away from the site of his pain, only for another surprise to startle him.

Level Up!

Cat class has reached level 2! Stat points automatically assigned:

STR +1.5, DEX +3, INT +0.5, CHA +1

The blue rectangle had followed him, and pounced when he was at his weakest! How had it snuck up on him? Fang immediately blinked into a tree, and nearly fell off the branch when he found the box right in front of him, inches from his bristling whiskers. It was fast! Truly a fearsome predator. Fang lashed out with his claws several times, and the blue box vanished after the first. Fang still scratched at the air where it had been a few times to make sure, but it seemed it was gone. Fang was more on edge this time though. Maybe he had killed it, maybe he scared it off, or maybe it could blink around like Fang, and was just waiting for its moment to strike. Fang couldn't see glowing blue anywhere nearby, but the thing had snuck up on him perfectly as well, so he couldn't be certain. And even worse, he still had that horrible taste in his mouth!

Fang decided to travel along the tree branches for a while. They were thick and close enough together that it was almost as easy as traveling along the ground, with its thick underbrush. He eventually found a sleeping bird, which was enough to wash the taste out of his mouth, though it wasn't nearly as tasty as the glittering bird, so he left it on the ground after taking a couple of bites and continued along the forest floor, confidence restored by such a skillful kill.

Late in the night, he climbed back up into the trees to avoid a pack of extremely large dogs loudly roaming through the forest together. They howled at the skies and chased down any prey they saw. Fang most certainly was not scared of some dumb mutts. He had simply decided that these fellow predators deserved to live another day. Hence hiding in a tree, simply to make sure they wouldn't notice him and force him to slaughter them all. He truly was a merciful creature.

Eventually, just as the sun was beginning to peek through the distant trees, Fang came to a clearing. And oh what a clearing. It was a bit less than 100 feet across, the trees giving way to grass just tall enough for him to stalk through without being seen. More importantly though, in the center of the clearing was the most perfect tanning rock Fang had ever seen. It was a raised stone dais, about 30 feet across with eight sides, each corner marked by a vine-covered stone pillar capped with a flat rock. The rocks were all black, and even now with the sun barely peeking over the horizon, the top of one pillar was bathed in sunrays.

Fang eagerly trotted into the clearing, only to be met with an unpleasant sensation. Like someone petting all his fur the wrong direction, or scratching his belly for much too long. He decided to turn around and leave the clearing. Except he didn't want to. He wanted to lay on that rock. He just thought it would be best to leave. But he didn't want to go back into the forest, he wanted to sunbathe! No stupid thoughts were going to stand between Fang and what he wanted. Fang obstinately strode into that clearing, and as he got further from the edge, the thoughts of leaving faded. He smugly trotted onward, eager to inspect his new domain in more detail.