Alpine Lake i could tell you i was dying, but you wouldn't know for three more years

@Catalina

caiaphas had left the pups under blondine's care, and followed yet another scent out of redhawk's borders. this one belonged to a female bobcat, and she stalked hastily after its winding trail until at last it deposited her at the rim of a wide lake.

she glanced at the dried banks, where tiny fissures snaked through the summer-beaten earth and spread everlong across the crusted bank. along the lapping shore the clear pawprints of many intersected, creatures come and gone for a drink.

she stopped at the water and drank her fill, and then looked around her in discontent.

Catalina watched the fish swimming in the waters mesmerized by them as she thought of maybe catching one. She had never fished before but wanted to try at least. One she noticed was swimming vaguely slowly and with a quick snap of her jaws she catches the creature and ends its misery.

a splatter of water caused caiaphas to lift her dripping muzzle, her shrewd gaze capturing the waterlogged form of a wolf upland. the sun brightly bounced from the water up the she-wolf's sodden pelt, and caiaphas from her vantage could make out the brief struggle of a fish trapped between its jaws.

her muzzle lifted, and she drew in the scents that clung along the waterbank. reeds, the smell of decaying earth, water -- all came flooding through her senses until at last she picked up the scent she had been looking for; damp wolf, with no allegiance.

she didn't move, though wondered briefly if it would be any sport to take the fish from her.

Catalina felt it flop around in her mouth and with a swift clamp of her jaws, the fish ceased and was now dangling in her mouth. A female however caught her eye, curious she laid the fish down and nudged it closer to her, perhaps this wolf needed it more than her.

she studied the stranger openly, though she squinted -- the reflective surface of the water was near blinding. the fish had ceased its struggling, its life spent by fang and bludgeon. from here she could scent its scales, and her stomach growled in hunger.

caiaphas thought the gesture the female did peculiar -- and immediately suspected it was a trap. unwilling to submit herself to the imagined machinations of another wolf, the sylph rose and continued to nose along the reeds for the lost scent of bobcat.

hey kid, i'm archiving - let me know if you want to continue <3

there was no further motion of interest from the neighboring predator. caiaphas kept her form within eyesight, glancing upon her often with a crone's cold scrutiny -- yet no threatening motion came.

at last, she was forced to disperse -- the trail she had followed panned out into a gradually declining valley, and the sylph followed its sunken road until she at last faded from sight.