Coming of the Snow
It was well into winter and the city of Givral was experiencing unexpectedly warm weather. Warm for Givral meant it was just above freezing in the winter. For the first time in 30 years it had failed to snow within the first week of winter. Most of the residents were surprised it had yet to so much as rain for the entire month. Many people just dismissed the unusual weather as nothing special and went about their business. When the weather reports indicated that there was a major storm headed their way it just confirmed that things would soon be returning to normal.
Even though it had yet to rain or snow, the city seemed to always be covered by clouds. It gave the city of Givral a perpetual gloomy feel that many of the residents could not shake. Many wished that it would snow despite the problems snow often brought. At least then the city would be covered in the pure white blanket that always seemed to make the city a bit more cheerful. Long time residents were not really bothered much by the snow anyways. They were pretty much used to it after all the years they had lived in Givral.
There were a few people within the city that had a feeling something more was coming to their city than just a snow storm. They could not figure out what was responsible for that feeling and most of them just attributed it to being depressed about the seemingly eternal gray overcast sky. It was not an especially bad feeling so nobody really felt bad ignoring their instincts. If they could say what it felt like, it was as if something powerful was coming. Since the only thing powerful headed their way was a snow storm they thought they would be able to handle the worst case scenario.
On the morning the storm was supposed to hit the clouds actually cleared up. People began to wonder if the weather reports had been wrong. It is not like that would have been something unheard of. A sunny day would not have been unwelcome either. Just about anything was preferable to the perpetual gloom that had descended on the city for the past few weeks. The sunshine did not last for long though. Off in the horizon a dark wall of clouds could be seen rolling in. That wall of clouds was a little strange to the people in Givral.
Those clouds actually did look like exactly like a wall of clouds. It was as if some invisible barrier were preventing the clouds from moving ahead of each other. Some people thought it was kind of eerie, but most people could have cared less about how the clouds decided to move. There were even some people that thought it was kind of neat seeing the clouds just coming in since they were bringing snow with them. It did look like a bad storm though and people started to get in doors in anticipation of what looked like a major blizzard. Others just went about last minute activities to make sure that they were prepared for the storm. Just because they might like looking at the snow did not mean that they liked being out in the snow if they could avoid it. Grocery stores were packed with shoppers stocking up on goods and some people were heading home early from work because they did not feel like getting stuck in blizzard traffic.
People at the very edge of the city nearest the storm could see that the storm was an extremely bad one, probably a blizzard. Visibility inside of the storm was extremely poor, but one person, a young raccoon woman, thought she saw someone actually walking in the blizzard. The figure looked like a feline and it had fur as white as the snow that was falling around it, so she thought she might just be seeing things. The raccoon knew that snow leopards were at home in the snow, but walking around in a storm like that seemed a bit extreme even for one of them. What was really amazing, though, was that the feline seemed to be keeping pace with the storm.
Then the snow leopard seemed to notice the raccoon staring at him and he stopped to look back at her. The entire storm seemed to pause along with the feline and then he winked at her before continuing on. When he started walking the raccoon noticed the storm moving with him. She thought she must be dreaming as she watched him walk off. As he became nothing more than a shadowy figure she could have sworn that he was starting to grow. The raccoon did not bother to try and go outside to follow the snow leopard. Something told her that even if the thing was real she would be best served by staying safe in her home.
The vast majority of the population had no idea what was really approaching their fair city. In the end it probably would not have mattered. Nothing could have prepared them for what was to come. An ancient creature had decided to pay there little city a visit during his summons and no one could have escaped if they wanted. Anything that entered his domain could not leave until he let it leave and he had no intention of letting anything go until he had had his fun. It had been such a long time since he had visited the mortal realm and he knew his time here would be short for now. He did intend to make the most of the time he had and the mortals of Givral were going to be his playmates.
There was no indication that anything was wrong in the city. Things did not appear any different than in any other snow storm as the city was enveloped in darkness. A few people noticed a large shadow darting about, but it was always on the edge of their vision and no one was able to get a clear look at it, especially with the snow obscuring their vision. They thought the snow was making them see things or that they had just mistaken the large shape for a bird of some sort. The fact that they were being observed, sized up to determine how much fun could be had, never even occurred to them.
It did not take long before an inch or two of snow had fallen and it looked like there was still far more to come. Strange things were starting to happen all over the city though. A car would disappear here or there. Someone would walk into a soft, but solid post only to find it was not there when they stood up. One person slipped into snow that been so tightly compacted that it was like ice. That person did not notice the paw like shape of that depression or that the paw that created that depression would have to be large enough to crush an SUV.
After a couple more inches of snow had fallen things changed once again. It was as if the storm decided to ease up all at once. What had been a near impenetrable snow storm turned into nothing more than a few lazy snowflakes slowly drifting to the ground. The change had been so sudden that it caught people off guard. They wondered if they had just wasted their time in the long grocery store lines stocking up on supplies for a storm that only dropped a few inches of snow. There was a lot of angry muttering in Givral, but in one section of the city a scream pierced the night air.
Those near the person that had screamed looked at what she was looking at. A towering from had seemed to materialize out of the snow itself. Dozens of eyes could not believe they were staring at black spotted, white furred titan. A long tail stretched out a good 80 or 90 feet behind it and it seemed slightly taller than its tail was long. The snow leopard stood staring back at the dumbstruck people before him and those people noticed a mischievous twinkle in its large pale blue eyes. When the snow leopard started to take a step forward the spell that the people seemed to be under was finally broken and everyone in the streets started to scatter. The snow leopard just crossed his arms in front of him and watched as the lesser beings before him ran around in a complete panic all because he had just taken a step. His tail started to twitch excitedly as he thought about what fun he was going to have.
The leopard decided to give the frightened creatures before him some time to collect themselves first. There were a few of those interesting horseless carriages along the streets. He had taken a quick look at a few of them before, but he had not bothered with a serious inspection yet. It had been a long time since he had been among mortals and he had never seen them produce anything like a car. The snow leopard decided that he had been away for far longer than he had thought or the mortals had become more innovative during his last period of absence. Either way, this new mortal world was full of fascinating things for him. The snow leopard was sure cars were not edible; a quick lick was able to tell him that. They felt metallic to the touch and when he tried to step on one he discovered that they were nice and crunchy.
When he set off the car's alarm, he and everybody else in the street was caught off guard. It had been enough to make the snow leopard jump back in surprise. That had nearly been fatal for those that had been behind him and he just smiled down at those people before returning his attention to the car. He had thought the things were not alive, but it sounded like it was screaming in pain to him. The snow leopard got down on all fours and slowly stalked toward the car. When it made no attempt to run the leopard just pawed tentatively at it. The car did not react to his touch and then the snow leopard noticed that the car kept screaming in the same pattern. He then thought that it must have been some new mortal device and he smiled to himself. Then he placed one large hand on the thing and started to press down, slowly compressing the car until the alarm stopped sounding.
He stood back up and walked over to another car. This time he stomped on the car and crushed it in no time. It made no attempts to run and the only noise it made was a satisfying crunch as it was reduced to scrap metal. Then he repeated the same thing except slower with another car. It did not scream at him either. One by one, every car on the block was crushed and only a couple of them made the same noise as the first one had. The snow leopard determined that either it was some type of alarm he had set off or that cars were exceptionally stupid creatures if only a couple of them even realized that they were being crushed.
Inanimate hunks of metal were only but so much fun to the snow leopard and he began to turn his attention to the living. Many of them were hunkered inside of their buildings while a few were fleeing aimlessly through the streets. In an instant the snow leopard seemed to disappear. That went unnoticed by all but a handful of people since most were running without looking back. The handful of people that did note the disappearance of the snow leopard stopped to stare at the empty space where the giant had just been standing. They shared nervous looks with each other and wondered if they had all suffered some sort of mass delusion.
All but one person, a young rabbit, went back to investigate what had just happened. While everyone was occupied looking in that direction the nervous rabbit started backing away in the opposite direction. His head bumped into something and he thought that was strange since there was nothing but an empty snow covered street behind him. The rabbit turned around to be confronted with the large muzzle of the snow leopard giving him a toothy smile. He was simply lying down in the snow with his pillar like arms under his chin staring at the little rabbit before him as it gave a high pitched shriek and tried to dart off.
The snow leopard reached out with a hand and playfully grabbed at the bunny. It was nothing serious for the snow leopard, but the rabbit kept getting knocked down by the thick fingers as he tried to run across the slick ground. When the rabbit started to get to the edge of his reach the snow leopard grabbed the rabbit loosely around the waist. The rabbit was too concerned with trying to escape to notice that the giant had to be purposefully holding him so gently that he could escape the feline's grasp. He popped out of one hand just to land in another. The rabbit tried to scramble through a pair of fingers and then found himself in the hand that he had just escaped from. Since the hand was flat he just ran straight forward without looking. The snow leopard just smiled as the rabbit ran out of his hand and head first into a light post at a sprint. He was not killed, but he was knocked out cold in the snow as the snow leopard walked away to find other ways to amuse himself.
Once again the snow leopard disappeared, but this time he appeared in plain sight in front of the crowd that thought they had left him behind. They tried to stop as fast as they could. That was no easy task since there were other people still pushing them forward. By the time they were able to change directions some people were able to feel the fur on his paws brushing against him. Then the snow leopard just disappeared to reappear a moment latter in the new path that the crowd had chosen to flee. The crowd had a hard time changing their direction once again, but they did manage to do it. It did them no good since the snow leopard simply appeared in their path of flight once more. This repeated no less than three times before the crowd just froze in fear. The snow leopard disappeared one more time, but he did not show back up immediately. Just as they thought they might be safe the snow leopard showed up in the middle of the crowd. That caused quite a few screams and the need for the changing of undergarments as the crowd dispersed in every direction. For his part, the snow leopard just stood still as people crawled all around and over his paws as they tried to flee. More people ended up injuring each other in their perceived need to flee than the snow leopard did as he stared down at the scene.
With that done, the snow leopard went in search of other mischief. In a place as large as Givral that was not a difficult thing for him to do. In one building he spotted a man staring at him through the windows of an apartment that was eye level with him. It did not seem like a good idea to just sit around watching a threat approach to the snow leopard, but he was happy because he had found a new playmate. The jackal within the room realized his mistake too late to correct it. By the time he started to retreat further into his room the snow leopard was already reaching for him. Glass was easily shattered and concrete was forced out of place by the large arm. Before the jackal could reach a door that lead even further into the apartment he felt the snow leopard grab him by his tail.
He tried with all his might to get away, but he could feel himself being gradually dragged backwards towards what he thought must be certain doom. The jackal eventually fell to the floor and tried to dig in with his claws. All the succeeded in doing was leaving a long trail of claw marks on his floor. Then the floor ran out and he found himself dangling a few dozen feet in the air. The snow leopard rotated the jackal around so that he was face to face with him. After the snow leopard licked his lips the jackal starting screaming for help at the top of his lungs. A quick lick from the snow leopard did nothing to make him feel better, especially after the warm saliva that coated his body quickly cooled in the freezing air.
The jackal was lifted above the snow leopard before opening his maw as if to admit a tasty little treat. This caused the jackal to struggle mightily to keep the snow leopard from dropping him in that humid cavern. Since the only thing he could grab onto were the thick fingers holding onto his tail he did not think he had much of a chance. Even though he did manage to get a hold of a furry digit it still did not stop the snow leopard from lowering the little jackal into his mouth. All he could manage to do was try to scramble further up the mammoth feline's hand but he could not move that far with his tail pinched in between two fingers. The jackal tried to tug his tail free as he was lowered past vicious looking saber like fangs.
He whimpered to himself as the leopard closed his jaws and sealed his lips around him. It was not until then that the snow leopard let go of the jackal and wrapped him up in a velvety tongue to keep him in place while he extracted his fingers from his mouth. The snow leopard could feel the jackal struggling to escape and he let a little extra saliva flow before he started rolling the jackal around on his tongue. It was a rough ride for the jackal as he was bounced around and licked against teeth as well as the roof of the snow leopards mouth. After the jackal was thoroughly soaked the snow leopard opened his mouth and pulled out the shivering exhausted little jackal.
The jackal had no idea what was going on as he was hit by a freezing gust of wind. When he was pulled out of the snow leopard's maw the cold only intensified, but he was still happy to be away from the feline's throat. The snow leopard made a face at him that made him look like he did not enjoy the taste of the jackal. There was also a hint that he may have been joking by the way the gesture looked so exaggerated. It did not matter much to the jackal, though, as the snow leopard just dropped him on a bed in his badly damaged apartment before vanishing into the snow.
A group of flashing lights was the next thing to get the attention of the snow leopard. He could see that those lights were mounted on top of what he could tell were the horseless carriages that the natives seemed to like so much. His sudden appearance was not to the liking of the carriages since they slid to a stop, a few of them colliding with others as they failed to stop on the slick road. People in uniforms started to flood out of those carriages and the snow leopard's eyes lit up as he realized he had stumbled into the authorities of this city. It had been a long time since anyone had attempted to slay him and he was interested to see what the mortals had come up with since he had last visited them.
The metallic objects of varying sizes that were held in the hands of each of the armed individuals before the snow leopard left him puzzled. None of them were pointed and they did not resemble any sort of blunt weapon he had seen before. Then those things started erupting like little volcanoes and he was surprised to feel tiny impacts against his body. The local police were even more surprised to find their bullets doing absolutely no damage to the titan that had invaded their city. To them it did not look like they were able to so much as singe his fur. When the snow leopard started to approach them more than a few officers decided that discretion was called for in a situation like this and ran away. The snow leopard crouched down and swiped one of the weapons out of the hands of a startled police officer, surprisingly without managing to injure the officer. After looking over the strange device it seemed to disappear in the snow like the snow leopard had been doing. He had decided to keep a souvenir from his trip to the mortal realm.
Satisfied with what he had seen, the snow leopard decided to move onto other things. The police officers could not say they were disappointed to see the snow leopard disappear without killing any of them. It was time for him to move onto business. In order for him to be here, someone had to summon him and it was only polite to show up within a few hours of being summoned. He did not want to show up immediately though. It would be undignified for a god and a feline of his status to show up immediately for a mortals summoning. His specific summoners were located in a small house in the residential area of the city. They seemed surprised when their roof disappeared and that their little ceremony had actually worked.
It only took one look into the summoning book for the snow leopard to figure out what had happened. He rolled his eyes at the information he saw in one of those new mass produced books that modern mortals enjoyed. Even though the summoning ceremony itself was correct, the information about him was way out of date. They stated things about him as if his personality was set in stone. No one would have considered him a god of destruction like the book stated in over 3,000 years when he destroyed that one civilization that nobody else liked anyways. The leopard could only shake his head at the mistake. Since he was not the god for the job he just politely flipped the page of the book to the proper god for the job. It was funny seeing that the one they wanted was a fluffy pink bunny that used to be the god of peace. Then the snow leopard departed without a word to them. If that really was a mass produced book then the snow leopard expected to be summoned more frequently from now on.
The clouds that had been covering the city dissipated rapidly. The only evidence that they had ever been there was a foot thick layer of snow that covered the city. People started to come out of hiding while others came out to play. Most of the city had not even been aware of the snow leopard's presence. As crazy stories began to fly around, damage reports started coming in. There was very little actual damage done to the city. Naysayers had a hard time explaining the crushed cars and the apartment building with hole in it. A disappointed group of depressed puzzled teens just hoped that the god they had summoned had just decided to play with his food first.