Huffing and coughing, your mind calms a bit, your nose greedily sniffing the air as your instincts take over. Without thought, you rise, your four paws automatically working in unison as you start to slink along the corridor.
Keeping to the flickering shadows, your pupils narrow as you approach each sconce with it’s trembling flame, dilating in the darkness between lights. The scent is getting stronger, and your pace picks up into a lope, silent paws skimming over the planks as you feel yourself closing in on your goal. Turning another corner, you pull up short, finding yourself at the end of the road. Before you the floor abruptly ends, the opening looking out into the huge hold of a ship, rough planks, thick beams and torches flickering everywhere! Identical openings line the wall 100 feet across from you, four rows high and stretching two hundred feet in each direction!
Dumbfounded (again) you shake your head, your mouth gaping slightly as you pant nervously. A hundred smells assault your sensitive nose just as an awful racket reaches your ears, which you suddenly feel twitching high on your head. Looking down, you realize the floor is teeming with animals, all shapes and sizes and species represented! As you watch, two tall giraffes find each other in the seething mass, their long necks twining together as their dark tongues flick out. A trumpeting draws your attention, and you spy an enormous elephant emerging from one of the openings on the floor opposite, trunk raised as it bellows it’s call. An answering sound echoes across the throng from below you, and you glance down to see another pushing through the crowd towards it’s mate.
Birds of every feather are flapping through the higher beams, two toucans perched beak-cheek to beak-cheek on the trestle above your corridor. Realizing you are on the fourth level above the floor, you begin to wonder how you’ll get down, and if you even want to enter that tangled assortment, when suddenly a familiar scent reaches you again, accompanied by a faint coughing. Eyes searching the zoo, you think you spy a sleek shadow slipping between stamping legs of every kind, but it disappears before you can be sure. Craning your neck out over the edge, you realize the walls are covered in vines, many thicker than your torso, creating an easy path to the floor for one equipped with gripping claws or nimble cloven hooves. Making a quick descent, gracefully leaping from wide-vine to wider-vine, you draw closer to the tantalizing scent.
Winding your way through the excited menagerie, you are suddenly confronted with your shadow, at least, you think it is your shadow for a split second until tawny greenish eyes blink out at you, your shadow suddenly sitting back on her slightly-smaller haunches. Shaking off the shock, you slowly approach, the mob pulsing around you. The scent from before is strong, overwhelming your senses and settling deep within you a strong sense of “rightness.” Circling around her, your eyes take in her smaller size, more petite head and shimmering, glossy black coat. As you come up alongside her, you can feel your long tails entwining, caressing as she leans into you and rubs her cheek against your neck.
Your mouth falls open once more and your tongue pulls back as you finally emit a full-throated ROAR, this time of complete contentment!