Sun Mote Copse she's been living on the highest shelf

Wraen walked along the northern perimeter of Sun Mote Copse's borders, checking and, where needed, renewing the scent marks left by other guardians, and reading the footprint patterns to see, who had come and gone during the night. She stopped briefly, where a couple of crows had had their fight and feast - there was an indiscriminate piece of bone left, picked clean, and small, black feathers scattered around. A bit of bird shit included - as per usual.

Half a mile later Wraen's interest was drawn to strange scratch marks on the bark of a tree, she sniffed eagerly around the edges of torn bark, then examined the immediate area around the tree. The snow here had thawed during the day and footprints were no longer discernible. The same applied to the smell. Nevertheless she made a mental note to report this to her team of guardians.

Other noteworthy events on her journey were - a pile of smelly droppings left by a fox, typical hoove-prints of small deer and uncovered patches of grass, where the ungulate had had it's meal and she came face to face with the striped muzzle of a badger. The animal seemed to be a little grumpy and somewhat slow. Wraen did not know, if the smaller carnivore hibernated during winter and was annoyed, because something had woken it up.

The Sovereign did not make a move to hunt it down, because she recalled an old story, how coyotes and badgers would sometimes cooperate, while hunting. Therefore she watched it shuffle away and began to follow it, keeping a little distance between them. If she found out, where it's burrow was, she could find out, if there was any truth in the myth.

Badgers and coyotes cooperating - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVO4XIxjIEQ