| abstract
| - Light gleamed across Shima's parietal eyes, blinking as sought to locate her prey through the her physical sensory alone. The environment, her hunting grounds, was a forest on the outskirts of the territory that was home to the Hidden Leaf. Dark and endless, the forest sought to pull all that entered, into the arms of nefarious beasts that called the wilds their own. She had came here for a reason - a beast had been heard of. Not by rumor, not by mission, not a solitary soul had told her why she was here, or to what the creature might be. It was the call to the wild, a beast rivaling her own savage nature. After the events of the Forest of Death, it was all she could dream about. Thrashing in bed, the lizard breathes heavily... her memories playing before her eyes, lost in a drifting dream. Lost in the moment prior to the hunt, relishing in the vision she had been given every night preluding to this very event. A rite of passage that Shima felt was of necessity in order to grow. Her scales fluttered lightly, breathing on their own, raising and lowering in a ripple from her feet to her toes, pluming near her neck and hair. Dangererous, teeth snap, a roar bellows to the dreamer..., there it was, crisp and clear as it was every night. The image of her prey. A hunter as she, and one worthy of challenging even Shima to a battle. The teeth snap again, eyes peer from the darkness of my mind... Shima felt her knuckles clinch in apprehension, claws flexing outward in serrated measure. Her own eyes widen as she peers into the spirit visage of the monster that called her to the deep forest, unafraid. A kindred spirit, an honorable foe. And at last, the memory and dream shifted to reality, and a roar shook the forests awake. "Scraaaooorrr!", and so it begins! Shima launched from her branch, dipping into the speckled light underneath the large canopy from above. Wind whistled past her ears and through her wild hair, unkempt brown dreads fastened down to her body. The whisking of gentle leaves were the only noise as the Gila of the Leaf bounced from limb to limb in a silent hush. Springing off of a flexible branch, Shima darted above the canopy for but a moment, squinting through the bright light. Bathing in it for the brief second she was there, and back under. Her scales gleamed, her tail tucked neatly in tow. Her gear, nonexistent. Only a bare series of leather straps going across her chest and legs, lithe muscles flexing against the slight pressure. A simple hakama atop her legs and a loincloth dipping between her thighs. And as the last bit of light hit her eyes, one saw the distinct markings of tribal paint, arcing into savage branches from the corners of eyelids. Swooping back below, Shima bypassed the branches along the way, catching sight of many birds and animals that lay still from the deadly beast that had roared not long ago. It's roar continued, echoing through the forest. Rustling the branches and limbs around her; upsetting all of nature. It was calling to her. "You have been heard!"
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)