Blacktail Deer Plateau kite string tangle

Osprey jerked awake with a soft snort, grunted, rolled from her back to her side, then pushed herself into an upright position. Sticky, drying drool crusted her right cheek; although unable to see it, she felt it and lifted a crooked forepaw to rub at it. She then set her paw down and blinked her eyes (the right a deepening indigo, the left a glimmering aquamarine, each still tinged with bursts of cornflower blue) at her surroundings.

It was sometime between midnight and daybreak and the rendezvous site was dark and quiet. A gentle breath of wind soughed through the treetops, rustling the leaves and making them whisper like distant voices. Somewhere, spring peepers sang in the night. Nearby, crickets chirped. Closer still, her family's snores made Junior's ears twitch and she glanced at their still, shadowy shapes.

Deciding she needed to pee, the pup clambered to her feet and wandered from the clearing's western edge toward its center, moonlight now highlighting her onyx pelt. She found a patch of dirt and squatted to urinate. As she relieved herself, something in the woods made a soft snapping sound, not unlike the noise a bone made when Osprey's teeth cracked it in half. It was followed by another sound, a skittering and whisking that made Junior freeze.

Without even thinking about it, the wolf pup rose from her squat and padded toward the tree line opposite from where her family slept. She hesitated and was about to glance backward when she heard the scurrying noise in the underbrush again. Giving into instinct and impulse, she loped past the trees, away from the rendezvous site, in pursuit of whatever critter she heard frisking about in the dark.