Continuation to THIS
@mxncub
She'd smelled the boy before she'd seen him, the wind guiding his scent right to her nostrils in what would have been like waving a meal in front of a hungry predator, had she not loved the child. But not all animals in these lands loved the child; the nocturnal ones, for starters, seldom interacted with him directly, and so hadn't gotten to meet him much. So Bagheera tracked him, and reached him before anything else to could.
Bagheera emerged from the shadows, darkness pouring out of darkness, and the mancub ran to her, crashing into her neck and rambling on about noises. She couldn't blame him for being scared, even many adult animals feared the night, the fact he'd been brave enough to wander this far from the pack was impressive, though she wouldn't give him praise, because it was reckless. She pressed her chin against the boy's back, nuzzling him like she would a cub of her own she was attempting to comfort.
"Of course you can, Mowgli," she assured, voice much gentler than the look in her eyes as she scanned the surroundings for these animals the mancub claimed to have seen. There was a juvenile civet watching the scene, and Bagheera couldn't help but be amused. "I believe you're too big for this animal to hurt anyway, look," she told Mowgli, her voice hardened as soon as she was done addressing the boy. "Come on out where he can see you. You're scaring my mancub."
Animals, both nocturnal and diurnal, respected and —perhaps in some occasions— feared her, so the civet didn't question the truth of her word despite the smell of wold clinging to the mancub she'd claimed to be hers. Mowgli was of the wolf pack, but in a way, he's always be Bagheera's. She'd found him that very first day, and the unspoken law of the jungle was always a finders keepers. It didn't risk causing her anger, scurrying out from the shadows and to where the moonlight filtered through the trees. It was a comical animal to look at, a head smaller than the round body it was attached to, with spots all over its body but stripes on its tail; Bagheera knew it was a feline like her, but its face resembled more a Mongoose's than it resembled her own.
"Apologize for scaring him," Bagheera demanded with a scolding tone.
The civel bowed his head at Mowgli. "Apologies, mancub," he said, then scurried off to find a meal.
Bagheera butted her head against the boy's side. "Nocturnal animals aren't much different from those that dwell during the day," she assured.

















