Elph let out a soft pfft of held-in air, and watched the goings-on by the riverside with a critical eye. He should have known, really; the only river in a five-mile radius would surely attract all nearby loepards for some sort of social gathering. Pulled from his thoughts by the sound of careless, loud talking, he found himself eavesdropping on two different convosations. He would never really mix with others, but found it immensely enjoyable to discover more of the lifes he was missing, while keeping his own, half-starved and scarred. For a minuite then, he had almost found peace with himself, at least for a while, but then an irritatingly loud bout of talking had finished such fantasys. He sighed slowly, lifted himself to his feet and looked around with hooded eyes. He didn't see why this female disbelieved her own beauty, not if she hasn't looked around and seen the state of him and his fellow, famine-riddled bethren from over the river. Elph's flesh had gone beyond the point of looking painfully skinny, and now some seemed to be hanging loose from the bones. It made him feel almost dead, and so he grasped at every oppotunity to leave this world for a second, to imagine some better place with better feeding and more prey. Nevermind - that much is not that far away - and his time of death is approaching, he can tell. He flashed the first set of leopards a dirty look for destroying his peace, then looked at the two siblings with a stabbing sensation of green envy. His own kin lay dead, or travelled far, far away, a long, long time ago. Even in this weakened state, he had cleared the not-so-wide river with a jump, then looked over at the other, healthier of the big cats on the other side. "So lucky..." He whispered to them under his breath. "...And you still worry about petty problems..." He dipped his head to take another lap of the water, velverteen tongue taking huge amounts at each time, so that excess water trailed down his chin and wettened his fur. He had never been the neatest of feeders, and the new desperation made it worse - to attempt to consume as much as he could, and to obtain that precious fat he needed so much.
... i'm sorry this is long, too ><