The juvenile had gone to scout out that peculiar scent when she spotted the lurching figure. Low, round, hobbling from tiny foot to tiny foot, while dragging it's flat tail.
Bayou watched. She lurked. The wraith was a scribble of ink against the snow; overtaken by instinct, she threw herself at the fat and furry creature -
Her teeth sank in to it's head and with a twist, a shake, a glorious ending of that life, the beaver's life was through.
Bayou sat with the creature for a moment. She dropped it against the snow and spat the warm mixture of blood and saliva in to the white - it steamed softly and melted away a dot of snow.
Like a mother tending to a child, the oddity reached with her tongue and licked at the soaking fur of the rodent. It tasted of the river and of the earth. The old thing must have been lost; unable to hibernate, perhaps, or lost in a state of sedated senility.
It's blood was fresh and putrid. Bayou spat again and sank away - setting herself a few steps from it, to watch it rot. Warm meat did not sit well within her stomach.