The cool bravado of twilight broke against a slender snout as the thylacine thundered down a cramped city street. Her striped serpent of a tail whipped behind her to the detriment of windowsills and panes alike as she wound down from her debut on the local news. The surprise appearance had come with a flutter flush of stage anxiety – but after her first upturned squad car she found these sorts of things come naturally. Now she was trying to gauge her size by comparing the length of her feet to the cars parked along the asphalt run way she sauntered down. The ratio was drilled into her memory from university anatomy but her approximation of automotive scale was fuzzy at best. It was annoying to try and compute; but the rhythmic spacing of sidewalk blocks was oddly calming. Like pacing your steps on checkered tiles – she made sure to put her left paw down near the odd numbers and her right on the even. Her breathing steadied to the thump-jump of the mingled vehicles bordering the obsidian walkway – lifting and lowering on their squeaking suspensions at her passage. It was soothing enough that she didn’t even notice when she walked out into an intersection.


The red glare of a traffic light shrieked against her knee as a thigh snapped the cable in twain. There was a rubber yelp of tires struggling with the urgent command of breaks. Her pink-padded paw flashed in front of a windshield moments before it spider webbed into a mosaic of intricate designs, decorated with a bright red splotch and facial imprint from an unbuckled artist in the passenger seat who truly threw themselves into the work. She hissed in pain at the lance of impact stinging along the side of her toes and ankle. Digits reflexively curled in on themselves – crumbling an engine block beneath the ball of her foot as she winced and seethed down. She felt a momentary pang of worry at having literally walked into traffic. Avoid that demanded she feel guilt and berated her stupidity. It normally would have sent her ears flopping down and tail tucking, apologetic for the intrusion in the public eye and causing an attention attracting disruption. But that voice was smothered under the realization that the muffled horn shrieking under her foot was the intruder. This was her intersection. She didn’t have to feel apologetic for someone else’s carelessness. She pushed her foot down slowly – dragging down the pitch of the bleating alarm under her sole until it died completely.


The fiberglass crackle and the steel siren wailing out under her was much more musical. Instruments of destruction singing her praises as she felt a squirming shudder under her heel. Like an insect in a cocoon. Shuffling, shifting, unable to get out – likely due to the failure of the door in the impact. A desperate figure struggled through that fractured portal below. Struggling against the unbroken glass as she mused a moment, on what final note they might make. She repositioned her heel on that voiceless hoof and slowly lowered her foot. The hood flexed a long crumpling crackle like wind chimes and the bursting tires from the pressure were a wonderful percussion accompaniment. A solo sonnet of shrieking sounded beneath her sole as she experimentally pushed down – feeling the entire orchestra bend before her touch. There was a leather shuffle like a symphony page turning and a metallic twing-twang from a snapped suspension. It all crumpled delightedly before she finally lifted back up. It hugged to her a moment before falling loose. The entire display came to a clattering halt as an asphalt kiss embraced the battered vehicle.


A cool expression trickled across her lips. A satisfied semi-smile at her work evaporated as she realized what she had done. Snapping a glance over her shoulder she worried who had seen her insidious experimental inquiry. Who might have judged her moment of indiscriminant indulgence? But there was little else but an appreciative audience of traffic cameras. Their glittering robotic eyes did not judge her. In fact, they seemed to invite an encore with their passive silence.


The pallid reflection of some distant neon glimmer a league away caught her eye. Not the red-blue bruised flutter of police lights or the wailing warning yellow-orange of danger flares. It was a glittering green on her level. At her height. She abandoned the obsidian stage and started toward it, curious at what this merry sort of light could be. It was a delicious contrast to the sodium D line of late night lampposts and the reflective glimmer of road signs. As she drew nearer, she espied figures, shifting and swaying in a wreathe of multicolour orbs. Like a faire ring. Entrancing and amusing, she approached - stepping on tip toe to slow the thud-thoom of her advance. It was a roof-bound celebration of sorts. A thudding thump of bassy speakers whooping into the night, masking her footfalls. Oblivious, inattentive. No one told them the main event was on the way.


She was annoyed in part, that the building was not kneeling at waist height like stores and parking garages she’d crossed on the way over. It was a defiant office block, leering over with its ruddy-muddy brick and sparely lit windows. Like eyes they observed her sauntering over but spoke nary as word of warning. A few steps from the edge of the tarry rooftop a few guests took notice of her – by then her shoulders were on plane with the thin concrete barrier that shielded them from the multi-floor fall down. She leaned down slightly – wordlessly letting her blue eyes flitter across shocked faces as her show-stopping appearance quelled the revelry. A childish sort of delight of all those eyes reflecting her own gaze wriggled along her senses. Like mice whose pointed snouts stuck up toward the face of a cat before the pounce – it whispered a rich, predatory cackle in the back of her mind. Caught. Trapped. A captive audience in every sense of the term.


She leaned down wordless and just grinned. Faces along even those of a carnivorous persuasion blanched in a primal sort of fright. But it wasn’t enough. She pulled a finger along her lip and pulled back her cheek – showing off her jaws. It was a pity there was not mirror big enough for her to admire her appearance. She imagined she looked quite the part of the big bad wolf – accentuating her jaws with a wild glee. A flash-snap of a camera sung out in the black and for once she was glad. Her arrival was a moment worth capturing. Maybe someone was recording. What was about to follow would be to die for.

---

Part Three of the #macromonday Series - a Community Sponsored Commission drawn by  Fauxlacine

Be sure to watch her twitter for future updates each Monday: https://twitter.com/fauxlacine as well as for chances to be entered in various contests or chances to get her vaunted Wing It commissions.

The story will continue with weekly updates here on FA and Tumblr to follow Evelyn Lacine’s non-cannon growth spurt and the havoc it causes.

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The sponsors for this piece were:
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