Arrow Lake you're just another brick and i'm a sledgehammer

River listened as Thyme's footsteps faded away, and in the resulting silence, her heart started to race. A single question started to echo in her thoughts:

Why did you let him leave?

Paranoia nestled against her like a fifth suckling pup. She could feel it squirming against her belly as she wondered if he'd retreated to fetch his buddies, to ambush her. To steal or kill her children. She nosed them, counting them, her thoughts racing on how best to escape with them all.

But she knew to move them now would surely bring their death. If not her own. Her only chance was to prepare to fight. To claw out any eye she saw and rake down to the bone with her teeth. She stayed awake the entire time he was gone, despite her unfathomable exhaustion, steeling herself for the moment she would need to defend her newborns...

He returned alone, bearing meat. When she was sure he had retreated, River eased forward cautiously, her disembodied head appearing out of the darkness. She eyed Thyme for a moment, a threat in her swordsilver eyes, before angling her muzzle to sniff suspiciously over the hare. It was so fresh, her mouth instantly watered.

River snatched it up and disappeared back into the den faster as a blink. The crunch of bones echoed out, followed soon by a thank you that was muffled by a mouthful of meat.