Jasiri had been hesitant to go to the Crucible. He had hatched upon the Dunes, where the sands burned at his paws and the sheer dryness tore the breath from his lungs. But the hell you knew was better than the hell you didn't, so he had spent a great deal of time hesitating where Dunes turned to mesa, adjusting his weight and looking back over his shoulder.

Finally, though, curiosity caught the cat, and he slunk into the mesas, so tense as to leap clear if prodded and stomach scraping the ground.

There was no water immediately visible--but the distant tang of it brushed his nose, a promise on the cooler (yet still brutally warm) wind that whispered outward through the Crucible. In moments of stillness between the gusts, he could even hear a trickle, far ahead.

Above, however, an old friend was watching. The Eyehook--sickly, thin, with its pale brown, leathery skin and short tail, had shadowed Jasiri through the Dunes, never going far. Sometimes it had lurked, watching motionless from a high and distant rock at the edge of the Dunes. Sometimes it had circled overhead.

But the vulture--smaller than the others--had hesitated to come close after the lion cub had first driven it away with slashing claws and tiny snarls. ...At least, that's how the Eyehook had remembered it. What had actually happened was that Jasiri had scrambled away, of course; but the vulture had remembered the cub's size and the scrabble of claws on rock, and it was hesitant to tangle with them.

It didn't have the patience of an aged predator, either; it wasn't an ominous, dark shadow lurking, certain of Jasiri's death. It was just a sickly bird, bitter and hungry, driven from the Eyehook nest, no doubt, due to its small size. But with Jasiri's attention on the Crucible, now, the weakling took the opportunity to strike.

Even with the lion distracted, it was a clumsy effort; but perhaps that, for a cub, would be all that it required. It slipped away over the edge of the ravine, out of sight, and took flight out over the Dunes and their exit before sweeping back in low from behind the cub, aiming to snag Jasiri's hindquarters in its talons and flip him forward, tumbling. Maybe if it managed to knock him flying, it could then get at those juicy, juicy eyes...

Jasiri must roll to avoid being flung tumbling head-over-heels by the Eyehook Vulture. It is not yet aiming for the eyes.

@Jasiri

The cub shook himself, raising his head and tasting the air. It was... oh, what was the word? Different, different, he settled on, from the Dunes, felt good on his fur, soft? No, not soft. Cool. That was the word, cooler, though if he weren't a denizen of Hydra he'd probably never have thought so.

And something smelled wonderful on the breeze, and he licked his nose to wet it, to smell it stronger, something wonderful on the air, and he wanted it, oh, he did.


And then, of course, there was a noise, and he perked his ears, head snapping up to spot that vulture from before (how far had it followed him?) swooping down towards him, and he growled, though considering how young he was it probably wasn't too terribly fearful a sound, and tried to scurry out of the way.

The vulture pulled up with a screech of alarm and of enraged frustration, frantically-flapping wings peeling it up and away from Jasiri.

It swept overhead, and up along the canyon, wingbeats laboring to take it to safety.

If vulture screeches had translations, this one's might have been something along the lines of, 'DRAT! FOILED AGAIN!' Jasiri was safe, for now...