Snippet #1798463

It was a dreary midnight at the Cirque. The air was thick and heavy with humidity, with condensed moisture coating every surface. The old wooden beams that were the backbone of many of the tents creaked, and the forest was alive with the haunting sounds of night. Owls hooed out enchanting melodies and crickets sang back-up, with an occasional growl from one of the many caged creatures of the circus. Leaves rustled in a light breeze that made the intense heat bearable. Like the crowning jewel in the sky, an allmost-full moon surveyed the dark world below it.
From behind thick iron bars, two slit-pupil green eyes scanned the shadows, aware of sounds unnatural to the rythm of the darkness. The woman wasn't trapped; her imprisonment was self-induced and the key to the cage dangled from her wrist. Passerby likely wouldn't recognise her emerald gaze as anything more than that of a wary panther. Most wouldn't realize that these watchful eyes belonged to a very humanoid individual.
CRACK! A twig snapping sounded as loud as a tree cracking in a thunderstorm. Immediately the woman's watch shifted to a patch of shadow several yards away.
"Good morning," an Egyptian voice called from the panthers' cage. "What brings you out here so early?"