The Sentinels A Shadow in the Moonlight.

He could feel the frustration rolling off of her in waves, colliding with the downpour to be an almost tangeable force about her small, now muddy frame. That was typical. Perhaps if he was wearing a grin and spewing arrogance from his maw he and his moves would be seen as someone simply toying with a child and nothing more, a spiteful creature that wanted to make light of anothers hard efforts. Akai was no such wolf. He was the sort that heard the pup give a sharp yelp and allowed his ears to twich ever so simply, the sound grating against him and that soft heart of his.

There was little time for lamenting, however. That shadow was immediately back upon the attack, galloping headstong right at him with whatever force she could muster in that little body of hers-- and this time he was not still. With the shifting of the wind came the burst of white bounding towards her in response, but there was a fundimental difference in their movements. In the split second before they collided he hit the soft mud, made his limbs rigid and slid beneath her in a manner so smooth it almost felt like time was stopping all around them as her fangs narrowly miss the top of his head. An immediate stand the moment he felt the wind rushing above him saw her back-end tipped suddenly, meaning she was most likely to land face first in the mud behind him while the small male inwardly blessed his stature. A larger wolf wouldn't have been able to make the gap between the child and the ground.

The hare landed against the ground with a soft, wet thud.

"You have let hunger cloud your mind, and thus your actions." Simply spoken, a rumbling deep voice for such a lithe, elegant male. To match the lack of expression in his voice, that face of his was as serious as ever. "A faster wolf is a lighter wolf. You lack the weight to put behind any lunge you throw, and that is why no matter how fast you charge it takes little to throw you off course."

Akai would pluck the rabbit from his feet and toss it in her direction, its lifeless body landing at a soft heap beside her as he nonchalantly shook the rain from his now brown-streaked pelt. It wasn't given in pity. It took bravery through desperation to hunt a hunter, and if he would have been most other males... well, her fate would have been up in the air with the rolling thunder clouds against that blackened sky. The male's head would turn to simply walk away at that point, if it wasn't for the instinctual question that kept hounding his mind--

"Where are your parents; it isn't safe to let young-ones run free in times like this." Not in the storm so close to the coast, where the waters ran high and the ground was so slippery anything could happen-- let alone the fact that packs were so near-by, and they were effectively strays... the smallest furrowing of his eyebrows, keeping that gaze upon her.

Some part of Akai's heart already knew the answer.