Aislin was beginning to hate fog with a fiery passion. It was so easy to get lost in, and while she enjoyed the silence and the lack of other people, she didn't like not being able to see anything two feet in front of her. She preferred to know what was around her and where she was going.
Grunting in annoyance, the lioness padded her way through the dense grass and tried to ignore the eerie sounds around her. She also wasn't normally spooked, but this was beginning to take the cake. A light wind - not enough to blow away the mist, damn it - made a strange whistling noise around her, yet there was a lack of any scurrying or scuffling that would suggest the presence of other creatures. You could argue that perhaps her presence had scared them away, but this felt different....
Eyes shifting about nervously, Aislin paused at what she swore sounded like paw steps nearby, but it had been so faint and fleeting... she wasn't sure if she had actually heard it. She didn't like this. It felt as if she was being stalked, a prospect that grated on her nerves. She was the hunter, not the hunted! If this turned out to be a prank, she was going to claw the ears off of whoever had orchestrated it.
A sploosh rang out as one of her paws dipped into something wet. Head snapping down, she grimaced at the sight of muddy water beneath her. Wonderful. She had walked right into a creek. She leaned back to shake off her paw, lip curling up at the mud that was thrown in different directions, and then slid her gaze across the creek.
Or... what she thought had been a creek. It certainly wasn't deep enough to be a river, but... it stretched so far out that she questioned for a moment whether she had stumbled into a lake instead. Alas, she could see the other side. A lake, it was not.
Head tilting to the side, the lioness glanced from one direction to the other. She could either avoid the water entirely and follow along it's path, or cross to the other side. The idea of wet paws wasn't appealing to her, but then she remembered the feeling of being stalked.... Perhaps this was an opportunity to lose whoever it was. The water would give away their position, and they would no longer be able to creep behind her unnoticed. Her eyes narrowed as she looked behind her once more. Whoever they were, she wanted nothing to do with them. Leave her to her own devices. Other lions or cheetahs or whatever - they were nothing more than a burden.
With a nod and a snort, Aislin began her trek across the water. It wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world. Not only was the fur on her legs getting drenched, but mud was getting caked in between her claws. The water was helping to shuffle it about, but she knew that she would be walking out of this with sticky paws regardless. To make matters even worse, it was coming up to her stomach the further she went, though thankfully never more than that. She was right about it not being deep, but it was unnerving to be in something that could swallow her if she wasn't careful.
She kept an ear pulled back to listen, mindful of whoever may be behind her. She was beginning to think that it may have been her imagination, and this had all been for naught, when she heard something splash behind her. Whirling around, she glared with hackles raised towards the noise.
She could just make out the outline of something - someone - standing at the edge of the water. She couldn't... tell who or what they were, but they were huge. Larger than any lion she had ever come across. Squinting, she tried to make out some distinguishing feature, but no, it was too foggy. She could swear it looked like a lion, like a very large male, but there was something on it's back. Something huge.
It made her even more nervous. With a shiver, the lioness continued to back away, making sure to keep her head pointed towards it.
And then her back paw dipped unexpectedly into the mud. With a yelp, she scrambled, unbalanced, in the river - and accidently plunged into it. The mud dragged at her fur and seemed to pull her under, but she struggled as fiercely as she could. Her stalker was forgotten for the moment as she realized that she had inadvertently created a bigger foe to fight, and she felt fear spike through her at the thought of drowning. This was so much worse! She didn't want to die!
She didn't even register the sounds of flapping, the gusts whooshing through the air, until after the claws had hooked into her sides. Yowling, Aislin was pulled out of the mud and the next thing she knew, she was soaring through the air. Lions weren't meant to soar! Suddenly, she realized that those big things she'd seen on it's back? They were wings. She struggled as much as she could, but it was no use.
Panic coursed through her, and she felt herself beginning to hyperventilate. Black dots swam across her vision as terror made her flail until, finally, she couldn't handle it anymore and she blacked out....
-------
When Aislin came to again, it was to the bright sun in her vision. Her first thought was of relief that she wasn't in fog anymore. Her second thought was that she felt disgusting.
And then what had happened rushed back to her. She scrambled up to her paws, stiffly and shakily, but... there was no one here with her. That did nothing to calm her, but it did give her a moment to evaluate her surroundings. She was in the middle of a plain. There was no creek, not even a trickle of water nearby, and the grass was short and soft to the touch. Had... had she imagined the whole thing? It certainly seemed more plausible than running into some winged beast.
But then she noticed her muddy legs and stiff fur. How... how had that happened, if she had not been submerged in mud? Her ears pulled back against her head, and she looked nervously around her.
Maybe... maybe she had almost drowned, and had just had a nightmare about the experience. That was certainly more reasonable.
She didn't want to stick around here regardless though. Aside from feeling spooked at the thought of someone nearby, her fur needed to be washed off. She didn't normally care how she looked, but muddy fur was not the most pleasant of feelings.
So with one last scan around her, Aislin turned and began speed-walking away.
Unbeknownst to her, a figure watched her from high up in the sky, before turning and soaring away.
