The sound of the marsh, not even the most intentionally ignorant could ignore, chorusing croaks and creaky ribbits, and Fluke was high-stepping intently to the occasional plop or splash of frogs throwing themselves into the water at her arrival. While a fair hunter, she always enjoyed a test of mettle, and the test today appeared to be the skittish frogs congealing around her, a real mushy snack or two just waiting for her to lunge—this would be why, of course, the shadow of a wolf hunkered down between some tall, densely packed reeds, allowing her snout to poke out and making a bit of a window for her to view the potential catches that she knew would inevitably cross her path.
Now all she had to do was wait.
The air around the swamp was humid and dense, almost colloidal. The pink blade of his tongue slipped out from time to time as he panted, his eyes narrowed in search of a reprieve from the heat.
His heavy tread carved through the reeds, about as unsubtle as a tractor or a freight train, but it was the awkward locomotion of a human that he evoked as he ran, flailing limbs and all, into the turgid shallows.
The water exploded around him. Frogs were displaced, waterfowl disappeared in a flurry of wings and sharp cries, and Gav... was deeply disappointed. The water, only a few degrees cooler than lukewarm, offered him fleeting relief.
He announced his frustration through a heavy sigh, which manifested in a stream of bubbles around his half-submerged face. In this pose he now resembled an alligator, his lax body cut horizontally by the algae-filmed waterline only just now beginning to calm after his unruly entrance.