Duck Lake a queen i am, but my throne is made of burned bones

quack quack

Her direct line of sight doesn’t change from the ducks much but when the form of another appears in the surrounding, she offers a fleeting glance. She doesn’t recognize the form but they don’t advance any further, on her or the prey, but now the tension in the air becomes more obvious. She could wait it out, lose the prey—or, worse, lose it to the stranger—or lower her defenses as she pursues a kill. Thuringwethil waits a little while longer, often looking between the two to see who would move first.

The stranger doesn’t advance but the ducks become restless where they’d been sorting through the ground. Her heart beats harder and she hits the ground running. By the time she’s on the ducks, they hadn’t figured it out yet, but work to scramble into the water. Two flew off in the distance and Thuringwethil makes a splash after the ones going water bound. When she sends water all around her, forgetting about the other wolf entirely, she manages to snag a duck by the neck before it takes off.

In a comical splash of water, flailing wings, and her trying to get out of the lake at the same, she stumbles and nearly loses the bird. A hard crunch and a few shakes finally cause the bird to still while she makes it to steady ground, looking around for the stranger and where he’d ended up.