Jo the cat

With a deep moan Jo yawned a yawn so big that for a moment she thought her jaw might dislocate. It did not, instead she lazily smacked her lips together a couple of times before stretching her shoulders and back. After this brief period of activity, she lay her head back down on her forearm.

Down on the ground, below the branch she was lying on, were two prey animals. Jo had no idea what the species was called as the cat race she had reincarnated into had no formal language. There was no need for it. You knew what an animal was by the smells, the shapes and the noises it made. Your mother taught you what prey was and how to hunt it. She also taught you how to distinguish predators and maintain a safe distance.

The animals were stood grazing next to the tree trunk, both were perceptibly wary that they were in such a small group. Jo could smell the fear and caution streaming off them. Involuntarily she smacked her lips together again.

From up here the striped pattern of the animals, which normally provided such comprehensive camouflage amongst the tall grasses that covered the plains, clashed with the ground making them immediately obvious. Jo remembered a previous life when she had spent some time as a sea eagle of some kind. The first time she flew above the water she was amazed by how visible the fish were when diffraction didn’t obscure them. She was genuinely astonished by it. While the revelation that the prey’s camouflage ceased to work when viewed from above was interesting and presented Jo with a completely new position to view the world from, both figuratively and literally, it was not quite at the same level as the sea eagle moment.

Jo’s tail started swishing back and forwards betraying her nonchalance at the situation. Jo was continuously fascinated by her tail, not just its appearance in the way that the two different fur colours separated into distinct rings but in the way that it seemingly had its own sentience. She suppressed her overwhelming urge to pounce on it.

The prey took Jo’s attention once again, they had stopped grazing and were stood perfectly still staring in one direction. Jo followed their gaze, she saw a large pack of scavengers running perpendicular to their current position. The scavengers were one of the smaller species that inhabited these plains, they posed no real danger to the healthy prey below her. They might have if the prey was injured but in their current seemingly healthy condition, they should be able to easily defend against this pack. It would be reckless for the scavengers to even try anything, it was a simple mass against risk calculation and the prey had whole magnitudes of more mass. The prey must be even more rattled than Jo first thought.

From this height Jo knew that she would be able to get into a crouching position and drop off the branch onto one of the two prey. She was also certain that she could land on its neck. Best case scenario the neck would break, the more likely scenario was that it would knock the prey to the floor and then it would be down to reaction time. Who would win? Would Jo be able to clamp her jaws around the prey’s neck or would it be able to get to its feet and run. What then? Jo could out pace it over a short distance but would lose on endurance.

The scavengers had gone and the prey had finally returned to grazing. This would be the perfect moment to strike.

However, Jo’s belly was full from feeding last night and she was tired from having to defend her kill from several packs of larger more ferocious scavengers than those that had just passed by. The branch she was on was flexing enough that when she dropped from it all the birds in the tree would scatter which in turn would spook the prey below. The sun was at its highest in the sky and finally she was really comfortable where she was.

She hadn’t chosen to reincarnate as a cat to lead a hectic life style. She had done it to be free.

Jo gave a massive yawn and closed her eyes. If the prey was still there when she woke up again, well, that would be a different story.

Stripey prey animals not shown