Firefly Glen Scattered Arif

wc:466

He scanned the herd from left to right and back again as they approached and as the herd spooked into motion, ignoring their calls of distress and the flash of their white tails. Those deer were generally the ones to avoid- as they were the lookouts, and were likely the strongest (and smartest) deer of the group. They made up the vanguard as the herd moved forward and away from the pursuing carnivores, while a couple of the younger ones straggled near the hind end of the herd, making themselves easily visible. He hadn't expected for their selection process to be this easy- but sometimes, luck was on their side.

And it certainly was, given the fact that one of the juveniles had an injured ankle. As soon as he saw Toad pour speed into her movements, his gaze was drawn toward that deer in particular and it was then that he too noticed that it had an ailment. They could always wait and call for reinforcements- but given the fact that this deer was already injured, if they didn't take it down, another opportunistic predator might just go ahead and do the same. He wouldn't be pleased if they simply let this one slip by, and go to the teeth of some loners who might've been prowling the outskirts of their founding pack.

So he moved with her, knowing that the first move would be cutting the one juvenile from the rest of the herd so that it could not be protected. He figured that by this age, though, they were less likely to have a parent who had any paternal instincts left for their growing juvenile- and by this time of year, they were already thinking ahead to next year's fawns. The one with the injured ankle continued to limp, and as the wolves put pressure on the herd, the majority of the herbivors sped forward- leaving their injured herdmate to fall behind, creating a natural distance that Bronco saw as an opportunity.

He drew near enough to Toad, aligning his strides with hers so that with each bound he took he could expel a word, piecing out a brief proposal. “If you can cut it off,” He puffed, “I'll attack it.” Speed was never his best quality- and while he knew he could put on a burst of speed and outrun the straggling deer, he also knew that that would cost him a good deal of energy- and he wanted to use that energy where it was best, which was slinging his weight around. As long as Toad Amelia could get the juvenile to halt up just a bit, he could slam into it, and potentially take it down with little more than his natural body weight and the momentum he'd built up.