astara had left the company of her mother and averna, preferring the quieter climes of the birch-studded copse outside of their rendezvous. in her mouth she carried a toad; it was still alive, and frowning, struggled against the soft mouth which carried it. astara held it closely between her tongue and tooth, careful not to puncture its body, yet not so gentle that its transport was pain free.

and in return, her mouth frothed furiously - a numbness crept from tongue to her throat, and her eyes watered. yet still, the girl refused to let go of her toy, and wandered as a drunkard might between dark boughs, aimless and unseeing.

if left to her own devices, astara might have wandered deeper into the thick of the woods, until the trees were neck to neck, and she was wholly lost among their grim faces. instead, her meanderings were cut to a halt as a voice hailed her, and pulled her from her reverie.

for a moment it was as if astara was on some remote plane, beyond the reach of this realm - but that was just astara. she was quiet, reserved, and somewhat spacey - a flaw in her demeanor perhaps, or even more likely, simply a product of her strange environment.

thus the girl held shisu fully in her sights, studying her curiously while the toad languidly protested its abject prison. despite the fear emanating from the strange wolf, astara had none -- and not a shade of malice lingered in her indigo gaze as she looked upon the stranger, curious as to what it was doing here, and wondering if it might be here to play with her?

the stranger fretted. astara watched her, unblinking -- her tongue thumbing the squirming creature while she wondered why the sensation in her tongue was gone. it felt funny and she pressed her tongue against her teeth and the muscular legs of her quarry, waiting for some sort of neural response that never came.

any reasonable child might have proudly offered the toy for inspection, provided they had understood shisu's request; astara, having very little in the way of conversation exchanged in her life, just twitched an ear in response. she didn't understand the noise the wolf was making, so tilted her head dumbly while the toad rattled around in the cage of her little fangs.

it was not hard to decipher shisu's pantomime; astara's tilted head righted itself and she critically narrowed her eyes once she understood. no! her toy!  she clamped down on the toad harder -- an action that was met with kicking protest by the poor wretch trapped between her teeth.

astara shared nothing; not her food, not her sticks, and definitely not the live creature that made her mouth feel funny. lifting her head defiantly, the girl scowled at the very notion of handing over her prized possession.

perhaps it was her possessiveness of the toad, combined with shisu's tenetative mien (which astara certainly picked up on and would promptly take advantage of) that had astara so uncooperative; either way, it was evident from her own body language that the unequivocal answer was no.

giving up her toad-toy, in astara's eyes, was tantamount to treason -- she probably wouldn't even have shared it with averna.. unless her mother intervened, as mothers were often wont to do -- in which case she would have eyed her sister with poisonous loathing, as if saying don't you dare touch my fucking toy you bitch.

yet it was not her sister or her mother that tried to coax the toad from her, but a relative stranger. astara harrumphed loudly to herself as the stranger exclaimed another 'oh my' and gave up -- or at least, astara thought she was giving up (and triumphantly thought, damn straight, this is my flipping toy anyways).

she followed shisu anyway; mostly because she assumed that shisu was going to show her something awesome and cool, and also partially, because astara had nothing better to do than creepily follow on the heels of blackfeather's newest recruit. that was how you made friends, right?

in rare form, the girl followed obediently. she wondered where this adult was taking her; the more she thought about it, the more suspicious she became - what if it was a trick? averna did tricks. sometimes, relmyna did tricks too -- would this wolf try to trick her as well?

her gaze hardened, and resolute, the girl clenched the squirming toad harder. a flutter of dark feathers above caused the adult to lose her composure - heartlessly, astara watched; it was a weird reaction that earned shisu a critical stare.

and then a mean-spirited giggle pressed its way through long toad legs and frothy tongue, its author utterly unrepentant to how it may affect shisu.

she drifted behind the shaken adult, her unfathomable purple eyes resting on the wolf's soft plumage, her surprised features -- astara knew, in many less words then, that this wolf was cut of a different cloth than she, or any of the hardened wolves in blackfeather's gloomy realm.

shisu quickly bade her exit of the scene, her quickly retreating heels issuing a small draft of wind that played the cluster of feathers - black plumes which swirled in tantalizing motions. astara instinctively lunged for them, the toad loosened from her grip as she plunged among the whirling pinions with her tiny white teeth flashing between flickering feathers.

the toad fell; a plummet to earth unhindered by the snap of black jaws. those black jaws were focused on the flutter of many black plumes -- and preoccupied, did not notice the subtle slide of an adult limb towards the stunned denizen until it was too late.

with a mouthful of scattered feathers the nightcub turned to shisu, all play draining from her features as she witnessed the female's treachery. judas! thief!

her jaw slackened and she howled in anguish as she sprung towards her toy -- but it was too late, as the toad was comfortably in the hands of the tricksy adult that had stolen it.

for the first time in the girl's life, a semblance of true ire crept through her blood, its dark will instilled in the angry flash of her deep indigo eyes. she watched, doleful and simmering, as the adult flipped her toad over and prodded with thin claws at its bulbous throat.

astara had never been quiet in terms of her demeanor (though one could argue she was largely silent in comportment) and she struggled at best to contain the bile that rose in her throat; her toy! hers!

she could still the blade of injustice that compelled her no longer, and with a flash gave the feathers (and the adult standing between them) no further heed as the toad darted into the underbrush. no! she could not abide to see the toad slink off, not without her command -- and in a few seconds a cry of victory sounded from the rustling brush as the girl seized her still-living trinket.

she would not turn back -- no -- she had learned adults were not to be trusted that day, and with a sneaky glance slunk off in the hopes her retreat would not be detected. little did she know she was clearly visible in the underbrush, for shisu had the advantage of height and likely, with a simple glance, would have seen her sneaking.

astara had no earthly idea how the toad felt, and if she had heard shisu's internal dialogue (and then understood it) she would have laughed rudely in the she-wolf's face, for she was not concerned with the opinion of toads, or for that matter, strangers who thought she ought not to play with toads.

indeed, relmyna's night-cub was shaping up to be an unruly terror; blackfeather was her realm, and all of the denizens of forest her subjects. or at least, that was how astara believed it, for she had never been told otherwise.

as shisu fished around for her, the shrubs seemed to shake and quiver of their own accord. underneath their shuddering boughs of leaves astara rumbled, a low-pitched growl that filtered through the briarpatch and into the air. the more shisu felt around the more the girl darted from shrub to shrub, a high shriek of delight furling out behind her as she made a game of the adult's consternation.

the little imp had thought she had given that weird adult the slip - oh, she had thought wrong.

she just about slammed to a halt as shisu neatly leapt the brambles astara's small frame struggled to navigate; that feat of athleticism earned shisu a hardened, resentful stare. she kept her muzzle canted away in case the adult tried to snatch her toad again, but astara figured with all the crying the she-wolf was doing, she probably wouldn't be able to see well enough to try.

her tail flicked over her narrow body, haughty and straight -- and then the girl dodged down the briar-path again.