Hideaway Strath Dreadful Happenstance

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Inhaled by the solace of shadows, she vanished into the meld of midnight. Even in the mid of sunset, she blended in with so little effort that it would seem he was talking to himself. He almost felt dissuasion from this refusal, his question being unanswered until she had chosen to reveal she was much closer than what he could even imagine. His body went stiff, his surprise undermining his calm demeanor as she materialized behind him, dominating the space of his flank with nothing but her sitting silhouette.

Priest didn’t turn, almost wanting not to spook the specter into vanishing further away, wanting her comfort where she was with her temperamental presence. He didn’t want her to fade...

Auds flipped to catch her words, and though his tone was casual and  seamless, his baritones hid the impending urgency at her bequest. He felt it rose in his chest, his heart growing more pressed in the matter. She accepted! “Of course“, his seal cleft over the challenge. But with the sun drawing to sleep, he was going to need to act fast. They burrowed down in their grass nests for the night. 

With her last words, he turned and sped off. He would need every every ounce of time possible to get as many as possible, and with as wide of a territory hunted. So he began with the most hidden fields on the left- his brisk trot mellowed into a silenced crawl as he began his tracking. He stirred up rabbits on accident, and stepped on a passing squirrel, but all got to live this day.
His mind was centered, focused, and alert on the hunt. Indigo sapphires perused the greenery as he nares struck a trail of small and delicate wafts of feathered fowl. There soon grew to be several of them, as they, like chickens, occasionally grouped together to provide numbers and safety on their endeavors. And without protest, he stayed with the main girth of the pool of pungency until it began to break off, separating into succinct trails that he surmised would lead to dens and burrowed nests. Once the scent go warmer-

and there it was. It lay in the brushes so densely packed into a tuft of grass and branches. Invisible to a regular eye, but with a nose as lupines had, he found it without much hassle. Away to work he went, creeping up as he could, and snatched the two parented birds from their cocoon of warmth and 'safety'. A thrust of a slickly maned dome broke various things in the fowl, and on he went, leaving the motherless and fatherless chicks behind. They were coming to age soon- they would be fine without the parents for now.

Carrying the carcasses to a secluded spot, he ranged another trail and pulled free another hen, then another. Two sisters, perhaps. A little brother lay in there as well, but deciding to avoid those peckings, he took the sisters, broke them, and moved on. Another trail ran cold as the single bird lay inside the den, sick and dying of some degenerative illness. He left it, the raspy inhales echoing behind him and eventually fading before he found a much fresher and more edible bird in a different burrow. Pulling free the single growned chick, he crushed it's chest and added it to the pile. He then stacked them carefully with all heads facing the same direction for easiest transport, then scooped them up by the skulls carefully, and headed back for where Krynn was last seen. He was no expertised killer, but he, in the end, got the job done. He even saved the skulls from being crushed in case she wanted to keep them. Dropping them, he had come to see it was now nightfall- the moon leveled the flat grounds with a rather nice pond of light where he stood, only just dappled by the swaying trees. Flickered the light became before the breeze settled for a minute to allow some constant luminescence. It was almost as romantic as a candlelight dinner, he would think as he waited for her. He was a slight bit late though, and should she have been gone to tryst with the stars and Ancestor communion, he would maybe save them for her. Maybe.