Sleepy Fox Hollow The Animal Antikythera

that was a challenge >O

Everything around the mountains had been getting so interesting lately.

If interesting meant more wolves fighting, that was. Satet sometimes got so bored of this she completely dismissed the incidents she stumbled upon from her memory. It was a very canine thing, she felt, to squabble over pack rankings and prey, and Satet was nothing if not thoroughly dismissive of those she considered to be little more than irritatingly wide-spread pests. At least squirrels and mice had the decency not to bother her when she had much more important things to do.

Important for Satet, however, meant basically anything. She'd been sprawled out on some thankfully snow-free rocks when it had happened; one of the giant silver birds that she'd watched flying over and ignoring her for the past month had smashed its metal wings on the mountain, apparently paying absolutely no attention to just where it was going, and had fallen to the earth screaming all the while. The noise it had made when it met the rocks was astounding, echoing so far up it almost shook the rock under her paws in a roar of orange fire.

She had smelled smoke before, but nothing like this -- a thick black plume of it that had the worst acrid tinge to it she could imagine, that stuck in her throat like partially-chewed meat -- if the meat had been sitting out for months and was so awful that not even a scavenger had bothered to go after it. She grumbled loudly and dramatically as she slid off her dry, warm perch and into the decidedly less dry and less warm snow, which nipped uncomfortably at her poor pawpads, but her winter coat was thick enough that even she would admit she was just complaining for complaining's sake. And she was very good at that.

She did not have to drag herself far down the mountain before she got eyes on the current situation, which was already beginning to crawl with wolves in the same way maggots might crawl over a carcass. A disgusted shudder rippled down her spine, but she kept padding on down, curious enough that she was willing to put up with the two or three there in the hopes that a good show of teeth and a scream might prove enough to scare them away. And if not, wolves couldn't jump, and she could be out of there in flash.

Further near the base the trees parted again, and this time Satet let out an audible, irritated sigh. Now it was crawling. What was that -- ten or eleven of the things? She spat a low, rumbly growl of irritation, and ignored them in favor of looking upon the wreck of the silver bird. Most of it was obscured by pouring smoke, but she did spy a couple of what looked to be its broken wings and bits of gleaming -- bone? Skin? She had no idea. In the midst of this, all but covered in snarling wolves who looked just about ready to pounce on each other over a dead bird-thing that probably tasted as bad as it smelled, was a single two-legged animal Satet did not recognize but which was presumably alive judging by its jerky movements.

Was this what they were fighting over, then? Satet rolled her eyes so hard that they kind of hurt, and refocused just in time to see the first strike actually made. As the group began to descend into eager, ridiculous battle, she turned her head, planning to walk on back up to her rock and maybe come back when the idiots present had finished their little squabble, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a little flash of motion. Sudden, unexpected. Her nose twitched and she peered closer, focusing enough to catch sight of a little white and brown ribbon of a creature watching the melee ensue as it darted through the grass.

It was hard to see very well; it did an admirable job of blending in, small as it was. At least, until it split off and dove into the grass, coming up with a big piece of something equal parts black and shiny that the silver bird had presumably shed upon contact with the ground. It was actually quite big, and Satet cocked her head as she watched the animal tug it free and drag it away from the canines with haste. A slow grin curved across her muzzle. She might not get too close to the wreck, but she was certain she could persuade whatever this was to let her get a look.

She watched as it exited into the trees, and took off at a brisk lope, allowing the sounds of the battle to fade behind her. It was easy to follow the tracks when the tracks were so conspicuous and smelled of horrible burning, and when the musk of fox came to try and cover it up the line pressed through the snow and scraggly branches was more than enough. She kept her movements languid and unhurried as she followed, looking not so much as bothered by the bare branches that whipped at her coat and tangled in her thick fur, and it wasn't long before she ended up in a little clearing, smiling sharply as she caught sight of the object.

The animal snuffling and poking at it was acknowledged and summarily disregarded. Weasels could be prickly, moreso than most of the other tiny things one found around this neck of the woods, but they were also, well, weasels, and while the disgust with which she dismissed wolves did not extend to them that did not mean she considered them much other than brief amusements or a snack. She slid forward, paws crunching in the soft snow, but she could not even hear her own noise over the sudden unnatural shrieking whatever the weasel had taken with it was starting to make.

She scrunched her head back and flattened her ears, a puzzled expression crossing her face; so preoccupied was she that she didn't even laugh at the weasel's leaping reaction. It snuffled forward again, and Satet uncurled and drifted further forward, ears flicking as the thing screamed again. This time she did not react besides a slight flinch of her ears -- it was a truly unpleasant sound, perhaps worse than anything a wolf could make, but only by a hair's breadth -- and drew level with the weasel that had brought it here.

She squinted down at the piece of the bird. It was shiny and silver in some places and matte black in others, and it blinked up at them with a strange flickering green eye. What it was meant to do completely escaped her, but she extended one big paw, with claws sheathed, to prod at it, wondering if it would make another of its odd shrieking sounds.