This is just my first work, and I'd like some advice on how I could improve it. It's not a story as such, just an observation of an event. I apologize for the one huge paragraph, I just feel that the story flows better that way.
The leopard flicked her ears as the cry of some large scavenger echoed through the African night, but otherwise she remained still. She crouched lower in the thorny scrub and focussed on the scene before her. In the centre of a woodland clearing, a herd of impala were having a final graze before settling down for the night. The leopard took another tentative step towards her intended target: a young male impala at the edge of the herd, his curving ebony horns glinting in the faint moonlight. The leopard advanced one silent paw step at a time. Suddenly, she tensed as she felt something on her whiskers: a shift in the breeze. Sure enough, the young buck’s head flew up, his eyes wide with alarm and his nose full of the predator’s scent. His warning bark was cut short as the leopard streaked out of the brush and leaped straight onto him, scattering the rest of the herd. The leopard had almost lost the element of surprise, but her attack still managed to knock the impala off his feet and she immediately wrapped her jaws around his neck, plunging her canines deep into his throat. The dying impala continued to flail around, his hooves almost catching the leopard on several occasions, but she didn’t relax her iron grip until her prey’s struggles slowed, and then finally stopped. She then sat up, and scanned the area for a suitable tree to climb and store her kill in, but instead she met the eyes of a lioness sauntering into the clearing. The leopard was on her feet in an instant. Every cell in her body screamed at her to flee up the nearest tree and abandon her kill to the larger predator, to save herself and hunt another day. She fought her instincts however, and stood her ground against the approaching lioness. The leopard was starving; that was evident. Her protruding ribs spoke of her hunger, as did the spark of desperate madness in her amber eyes, madness that drove her to crouch down before her kill, flatten her ears and snarl her fury at the approaching plunderer. The lioness hesitated, surprised. She had never seen a leopard defend its kill against a lion before. Nonetheless, she continued on, confident of her size and strength. As the lioness came closer, the leopard’s snarl steadily increased to a low, continuous growl that would have sent any lesser creature scurrying. Suddenly, with blinding speed, the leopard lashed out at the lioness, her wicked claws slashing across its face. The lioness reacted instantly. With a roar of pain and fury, she pounced onto the leopard, her massive body pinning it to the ground. Still the leopard fought, kicking and scratching at the lioness’s belly with her hind claws, spitting and snarling all the while. With a swift, fluid movement, the lioness grabbed the leopard’s throat in her jaws and bit down with enough strength to instantly break its neck. The leopard’s struggles suddenly ceased and the lioness loosened her grip. She stood up and pawed a while at her scratches, clearing the blood from her eyes. When she had finished, she moved over to the impala carcass, pausing to cast one last glance back at the fallen leopard. It lay there on its deathbed; its snow-white belly fur matted and stained crimson, its once-bright eyes now glazed and unseeing, its teeth bared in a permanent snarl of defiance. The lioness turned back to the impala, grasped it by the neck and dragged it off into the brush. At the opposite end of the clearing, a pointed snout and ears emerged from the undergrowth: a jackal, attracted by the sounds of fighting. It padded over to the dead leopard and glanced around cautiously- for the scent of lion was still heavy in the air- before lowering its head to feed, flicking its ears as the cry of some large scavenger echoed through the African night.
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