Heron Lake Plateau how many people have to pretend to die.

wc:590

Niamh didn’t particularly appreciate how blase Finley was being about yelling at Towhee’s bird. Fortunately for her, though, the nickname she’d been given caused Niamh to snicker and take her sour gaze off Finley long enough to give the bird another glance- which was exactly the moment that her sniggering stopped and her mouth fell open. A cool wash of fear cloaked her as she realized just how close she’d potentially come to really pissing Finley off. She couldn’t believe her luck- Finley persisted that the bird was an asshole and that it’d taken her lunch- and wanted to know if Niamh had something to throw at it, all the while missing the fact that the leggy blonde had realized just how close she could’ve come to being a real asshole to one of the pack’s most respected members.

She shook her head as she approached, but she still left a good distance between herself and Finley, feeling the need to explain first. ”Jeez, I thought it was X for a minute there- sorry I yelled,” She said, realizing that in the end, she really had no place to pick X’s side over Finley’s anyway. ”’Me give this a try,” She said, crouching to the ground for a minute to get her muscles ready. Finley had wanted to throw something at it- and maybe had Cinder shown up, he could have shown her exactly how good he was at throwing rocks (something he’d learned from his new family member) but it looked like Niamh would have to do it herself.

Naturally, the bird was far too high up in the tree for her to reach, but if it truly feared that the wolf might get at it, it might just take off and drop the mouse. She wiggled her hindquarters for a second and then dashed toward the tree with the speed of an Olympian, and only leapt into the air when she came as close to the tree’s base as she dared. For a moment, it might’ve looked like she intended to shake the bird out of the tree by running straight into it. But Niamh had done this a few times before- without success, of course, as wolves weren’t meant to climb trees, but she at least had learned that leaping  at the tree from further back would only make her rebound, whereas leaping closer to the trunk and using downward force wither her feet made her go up.

There was one branch she could grab, which was low enough that she probably could have grabbed it with her mouth, jumping from a standstill. Having launched herself off the tree’s trunk, her midsection came up high enough for her to get her front legs hooked over it, but her momentum had been misjudged. She scrambled with her hind legs, but she couldn’t get a grasp on it as it was too thin. Still clinging with her forelegs, she did a nose-dive, almost in slow motion as she arced over the branch, but got caught by her hind knees just as she thought she was going to fall. Her front end dangled as she looked down at Finley with a huff. So much for climbing the tree. She straightened out her hind legs, grimacing as she more or less slid off the coarse branch and fell swiftly back to the earth with a grunt. ”Garbage,” She huffed as she righted herself ”d’It work?” SHe said, squinting back up into the tree.