Great Bear Wilderness pale touch

The doe flicked to life suddenly—something had set her off.

A hard line akin to a frown smeared itself onto his features. He didn’t like it, not one bit. Long seconds passed, but the doe did not resume her grazing. She stayed wary, perhaps shifting a step or two in her preferred direction. Was it towards perceived safety? Or was she simply weighing her options much in the way he was, still hunkered down with naught more than a veil of withering weeds and grasses to keep him obscured.

Her ear flickered, but she did not raise an alarm yet. Probably decided it was a useless ploy; she’d no doubt realized the error she had made by going astray, not quite realizing that she was nearly pinched between two wolves who had clearly pushed their luck. He couldn’t see his companion for her, but he knew any hope for a signal had perished the moment she had taken sense that all was not well.

When it came to hunting, Dirge held fast to patience. He could draw out the moments, watch with due diligence for the opportunity to present itself… which in this case was the doe just easing a bit. Not quite relaxing, but definitely not all that aware that he lurked just behind and out of reach of her awareness. Her ears swiveled too much for his liking. But the moment would come, predator and prey collectively sweating it out.

And the moment, when it did come at last, was the precise time that he sprang to spurn her along. Change of plans—he knew he couldn’t spin her around to the direction they needed her to go alone and only hoped that his companion would see the path to do so and take action. Dirge let his jaws snap and click together menacingly at her ankles and her fearful cries broke the tranquility that the scene once held.