The growl never stopped, though it had stuttered a few times when he tried to take advantage of a pause in her momentum, or a step. When he might throw her off balance or break away while she wasn’t paying attention. It never worked. 

His arms were sore before they’d even made it through the gate. The shackles throwing him off his feet with every rush. As long as she held firm, he was caught. And he didn’t like it. Chained and caged, he had waited. Now he was so close to being free he couldn’t find the patience. But though he circled and snarled and tried to run, he never charged her. Never attacked. She’d used a word he recognised. A word that belonged to his home, to his territory. To the creatures he should not hunt. 

He knew she wasn’t one of them, his nose and eyes said so. His instinct did not think she was safe. But if she knew the language, he couldn’t risk injury to her. At least, not by his claws. She could hurt herself however much she wanted and he’d not stop her there. 

Still snarling, head low and muscles straining, Matiir was watching her as she turned towards the gate, letting him see her distraction. He yowled suddenly and broke from his stubborn, set stance, plunging forward past the human keeping him chained and down the hill, away from the fort and the closed wall where the humans stayed. He didn’t bother following the cart path, but ran for the forested slopes, where he could hide himself away and slip past the trouble that was building, dragging at the air, frightening him worse than he knew how to deal with. Of course, being beyond the fort changed none of the other facts. She still held his chain. 

It snapped taut, his momentum carrying his heels up and over his head in a haphazard cartwheel as hands and feet exchanged direction. Mud wrapped around him for a moment before he raised his face out of the clinging wet, snorting and sneezing to clear his nostrils as he slipped a little farther down the slope. The rain wasn’t forgiving in offering easy purchase, and when he stopped sliding, he struggled to get up off his belly before she could get too close. She seemed more set on moving than threatening him though, and with the breath knocked out of him, the fight had been too. 

Once she was past, he waited, mud-covered and wretched, until the tug came at his wrists, then he hobbled after her. Head hanging. 

He limped. His arms hurt, his shoulders felt bruised. His wrists were strained and red. More than once he lost his footing, and a new cut was bleeding on his chin before they reached flat ground. The cold rain had numbed his skin though. Beyond the brief skull rattling, he hadn’t felt it. 

Enough, however, was enough. 

He wanted to sulk into the shadows and hide. Wait out the rain and the weather. Find somewhere safe and dark where nothing could see him. Where the air didn’t smell like danger. But she still held the chain. He couldn’t escape her on his own. But none of his kin lived here. No siblings or mother. No father. Not even a stranger. He would have caught their scent when he passed through before he found the chickens. If he had, he would not have been caught. Too late. Still, even knowing it was no use, he slumped onto his side, letting his arms stretch as the chain started dragging, and voiced a rumbling groan that didn’t quite match his earlier vocal protests. It didn’t quite match a bloodcat’s timbre either. His chest and throat were too different now. Close enough though, had any been nearby. 

The plaintive sound travelled well, though it was muffled by the weather. And while he let her do all the work of moving him along, Matiir lifted his head to glance about, listening in vain for an answer before letting his head rest on an arm and turning his forlorn attention to his captor. He still didn’t know what she wanted of him, beyond that she obviously wanted [i]him[/i].