The Heartwood Forest of Victims

Everyone's welcome! Just kind of threw this out into the bloodbath of threads competing for attention to see who would join. Planning to use this to get me started on my way to Gamekeeper. ^.^

It had been a week or two since the young wolf had joined Redhawk Caldera. She had done a fair amount of hunting, but winter was closing in on all the wolves of Teekon Wilds, and prey everywhere was becoming scarcer. So Somnia had decided to venture outside of the borders for the first time since joining the caldera wolves. So her first (and only) destination for the day was The Heartwood. Her logic was that a place unoccupied by a pack would have more available prey. Plus, the forested area would provide more food, and shelter from some of the light snow for the rodents Somnia hoped to bring home.

She had got up at the crack of dawn, leaving without telling anyone. Somnia planned to be back before nightfall, so she doubted anyone would notice her absence. Maybe a comrade guarding the borders might notice her scent leading out, but any worries of her leaving Redhawk Caldera would be diminished when she was back before the next day. She would have to leave the Heartwood a bit before evening struck to meet her deadline at a gentle jog, but it didn't worry her.

After a long, uneventful trot to The Heartwood, Somnia got down to business. Scenting the air, she pushed aside the smell of moldy leaves and tried to detect prey. Out of a couple different rodent scents, she singled out the freshest; a rabbit. Somnia stealthily tracked the rabbit, trying not to be louder than the sounds of nature in the forest. Finally, she caught sight of her goal. Her goal caught sight of her. They were off, just like that. A game of chase that was life or death.

Somnia kept her attention on the rabbit, a brown blob bobbing up and down through the debris. An intuitive sense of grace came over her, deftly dodging the trees and other obstacles without even realizing they were there. A mixture of leaves and snow flew by in her wake. It took forever, but happened in a single moment. Somnia had won.

She grabbed her prize by its broken neck. Now she only needed to catch a few more before she had to start her journey home.