Tigerlily and the Beast

Travel Guard and storyteller Tigerlily fends off a stalking beast. Written for a contest.

Tigerlily the catgirl paused to take a drink from her waterskin. Tepid water with the taste of leather slid down her dry throat.

"Finish the story." The young Human girl ordered was busy stroking the orange and white tail of the oratrix.

"The Great God Droshenko stood erect in his cart and gathered Living Spirits of the deceased as he passed..."

Tigerlily looked like a young Human woman, but stood only four feet tall, pricked up her orange and white cat ears on the corners of her head and stopped talking as she listened to something behind her. The young girl started to whine, but her travel guard, and storyteller, stood. Her sword whipped from its red leather scabbard, and though it was only two feet long it looked like a long sword against her diminutive frame.

Before the five travelers could react to her sudden move she was gone from the firelight. Dashing into the shadows of the trees her cat's eyes saw the form stalking the group. It was no ordinary beast. Taller than herself and hunched over with a hump of a muscle on its shoulders the creature turned towards the lithe form coming towards it.

No longer did it stalk, it roared and leaped at the young warrior. As the heart's location was presumed, yet still unknown, Tigerlily did the best she could. The lithe and nimble Catgirl dodged the terrible claws, and the terrific fangs, and sunk her slim blade into the creature's throat. A gurgle of terror and pain escaped from the creature. Slumping over it whimpered as it bled to death.

Returning to the fire she fielded the nervous traveler's overlapping questions.

With an oratrix's eloquence she related the ordeal, and then at the unperturbed little girl's urging, finished her story of Droshenko's Cart of Death.