Felltree Marsh The Lady of the Lake

With "lucky" once-white paw outstretched mid-step Brou jerked in surprise and nearly fell rather than stepped off the log, yanked out of her endlessly circling self-pitying maudlin train of thought by a voice out of nowhere. A feline voice she was startled and uneasy to find; sheeeeeit, unpleasant as it was she probably should've been paying more attention to the outer world and not so much the inner. Man, if she got her ass handed to her by some cat she hadn't even seen she'd never hear the end of it back home.

Fortunately for her, though, this kitty didn't seem to be all that hungry, and was in fact standing perfectly visible just a little ways beyond where Brou herself had been surveying this gross mess of a swamp. (Well. Okay. As "perfectly visible" as anything could be, in this cold misty weather shrouding everything.) She looked the critter up and down; she'd never seen a cougar this up-close before, though she'd heard how crafty and dangerous they could be. Then again, wasn't that what Mom had said about those terrible dangerous black-bitch-killers that Brou herself had never seen nor scented even the foggiest hint of? The young wolf suppressed a disbelieving snort. If you asked her, it sure looked from here like the puma stories may have been similarly exaggerated. Though obviously those at least, like, y'know, actually existed. So she supposed that at least gave them a point over the invisible murderers in the shadows and all.

Yeah, she said in what she fancied was a tough-as-nails voice that was pitched a few notes lower than her usual. She placed her paw back down in an aggressively outthrust position, raising her chin a few hairs and even more boldly her white-tipped tail a good bit more than that. She weren't scared of no cat, nosiree (though it hadn't escaped her that she'd kinda trapped herself here, to a degree; there wasn't a whole lot obviously solid to step on for some ways out from this log, and it didn't bode well if she had to spin about and try to outrun this kitty through the sloppy muck that was trying to eat her feet already with just the short distance she'd already traversed). But then, she wasn't yet convinced she was really in danger from this thing. It wasn't even as big as the stories had made it sound. And it looked like the swamp mud was clinging to its legs at least as badly as hers, so it wasn't like it was going to be lightning-fast to race and pounce upon her on this turf either, right...? Yeah, I'm scouting. Recon and, uh, stuff; yeah. Yuh-huh. As her eyes drifted briefly half-away to glance at the landscape around the critter rather than the cat itself: I'd thought maybe this place would be more promising, but, well... it's kinda shit.

Fixing her blue eyes more firmly on the cougar, still determinedly burying her wariness down deep internally and trying to let none of it show, Brou came up with what she thought was a relatively clever and subtle way of sussing out this kitty's intentions. Horrible weather for hunting, innit? she asked in a tone that aimed for deceptively casual. Despite the trickles of water that tried to runnel down into them though she kept her ears up-perked for the answer.