Firefly Ravine i don’t tolerate defeat

The icy muck had been good for one thing, and one​ thing only: trapping prey.

The old she-wolf had been fortunate enough to come across a bird floundering in the mire, so consumed by its struggles that it never noticed the lethal snap of her jaws.  Idiot bird.  Several miles down the road, she'd run across a fat rabbit in the same predicament.  Idiot rabbit.  Though she'd eaten the bird immediately, she held the limp rabbit greedily between her cracked and yellowed canines as she skirted around a ravine and beheld, for the first time, the sea.  Sax wasn't one to leave prey unattended — let's be honest, her appetite was as gnawing and fearsome as her halitosis — but her grip on her meal slackened slightly as she watched the cresting waves in the distance.

So.  That's it, then.

The ocean was nice and all, but she wasn't so sure the journey had been worth it.  It had been one of Much Younger Sax's grand ideas, to see the ocean before she died — but Older and Wiser Sax wished now that her grand idea had been to see, oh, I don't know, somewhere not freezing and full of snow and wet.  Whatever.  She didn't have time for sentiment.  The tawny bitch managed to find a grassy area with ample sunlight and decent shelter from the winter winds and settled down with her meal, rumbling irritably at the stiff brown stalks that stabbed into her flank and hip as she gingerly took her ease.

In nearly comical contrast to the veteran she was presently approaching, Pipit found it difficult to identify any repugnance she might have felt towards nature and some of its more loathsome creations. True to the wiles of a chipper optimist, hatred was an almost nonexistent emotion for her, overridden consistently by a natural and deep-seeded appreciation for all things she could explore with all her senses. Even the old woman was quite admirable to her— she almost could not wait to be so old herself, not knowing the true tribulations of such an age— except her solitude worried the gentle Redleaf, and she cautiously lifted her nose to search for the smell of disease over the scent of cold salt and sand, before venturing any closer.

There was nothing abnormal on the air, nothing except the dried blood of the dead rabbit, which made her stomach turn in an unhelpful reminder that she should find herself something to eat before nightfall. Her tail wagged quickly, when she had at last come close enough to be noticed, and she hung back respectfully, not wanting to give off any impression that she was any sort of trouble. The small she-wolf ducked her head, and offered a testing and sweet: "hello." A child dipping her toe into cold water.

"Hello."

That was all the sylphlike optimist had said, but the grizzled old bitch wasn't having any of it.  She felt a little guilty about the sheepish way the girl ducked her head.  It reminded Sax of her sister Bee, a sweetheart with a penchant of giving things away: her time, her energy, her kills, and eventually, her heart.  "Guard yourself," snapped the crone.  "There're wolves in this world who'll take more'n you care to give them.  You seem to be..."  Piercing amber eyes looked the girl up and down.  "A nice kid," was what she decided on.  "You take this and you eat it.  Don't give it away.  Don't let others take what belongs to you."  She pushed the rabbit toward the girl and harumphed off, muttering to herself.  "You take it from me," she called back over her shoulder.  "You'll live through the winter if you're smart."

Sax, though...well, she'd seen what she'd come to see, and she could afford to be generous.